"These roaches sure know a thing or two about microminiaturization," John said, slipping the sphere into his pocket. "Now how do we get out of here?"
"Maximum power, I would say," Chuck said. "We can make it almost back to Haggis in a single jump. In that way the warring thousands around this sphere will have no idea that we were ever inside."
"I'll buy that," John said. "Maximum power, lady and gents, so hold onto your hats." Jerry twisted the dials to their stops, made careful alignment, then pressed the actuator button. This was the biggest jump they had ever made, and they really felt it. As if their guts were made of spaghetti and were being wound up on a big fork.
"Yukh," Sally eructated when they had emerged lightyears away, speaking for them all, then staggered and sat down heavily in a seat.
It took them awhile to recover from the shock of the jump – the Napoleon brandy helped a good deal – and when they finally landed at the Galaxy Ranger base on Planet X, they were feeling better, as well as being half crocked, so Sally brewed some black coffee and they all drank a good deal of this before they emerged and marched grimly to the control room.
"Report!" John said, seating himself at the massive control console and flipping switches quickly. Most of the switches didn't work, since they were still building the place, but he finally got through to the OD.
"Glad you are back, sir," the alien said. "That spy team you sent to track the Lortonoi is back and, boy, do they have a story to tell!"
"All right, don't ruin the punch line, just send the commander in here on the double."
The commander turned out to be Pipa, his green skin now taut and smooth since he was eating better, his familiar grin splitting his wide head from earslit to earslit.
"Hi, Jerry," he croaked. "Long time no see, not since the dustup in the DnDrf mine. Those were the good old days-"
"Look!" John ordered. "Report first, reminisce later if you don't mind. You tracked the fleeing Lortonoi?"
"That we did, sir, like the hound of hell, tracking them as they fled down through the light-years. Their track ended in a star cluster out on the galactic rim, or rather at one star in particular that is called Diesun. This star has a rather unusual planet or satellite or whatever the hell you want to call it. Sorry, chief, but my powers of description fail me. Let me flash a slide on the screen, and then I'll fill in the details. You're not going to believe this, I know we didn't. Could I have the first slide, please?"
A solidograph picture instantly appeared in midair before them, and they gasped in unison.
"I don't believe it," John said. "What kind of funny games you up to, you miserable toad?"
"Please, have patience, I beg! I can get the rest of the crew in, and we'll swear loyalty and truth on bended knee and take a polygraph test, the works. This is what we found out there."
This was a thing like a hula hoop in space. It could have been a discarded hunk of machinery or something like that until you looked at the scale. For that sphere of light floating in its center was a sun. Or rather a 'sun'. This whatchmacallit in space was floating, rotating, around the sun like an immense wheel without spokes.
"I know what they've done," Jerry said, snapping his fingers loudly. "It was in the astronomical literature a couple of years back, a real mad idea. But this proves that no idea is so mad that there isn't someone – or something somewhere just mad enough to try it."
"Would you kindly tell us just what the hell you are talking about?" John snapped.
"Happily. Here is what you do if you have unlimited energy and plenty of time. Say you got a solar system like our own solar system. You've been mining the habitable planets, namely, Earth, for a long time, drilling wells and that kind of thing. So what happens? You know what happens. You start nmning out. The wells run dry, the minerals are all used up, and things begin to look poorly. Of course you can send spaceships to other planets to open mines, but there is a problem in logistics and getting the stuff back and so forth. So what you do, if you are set up for it, and somebody really was if we can believe this slide, you rearrange the whole solar system. You bash all the planets and moons together, which melts them up, and then you extrude this molten gunk through a large orifice until you get a long tube of the stuff, and then you flatten the tube so you have like a long plank or maybe a ribbon in space. After that, all you have to do is join the ends of the ribbon together so they stick and you got a big hoop which rotates around the sun."
"What have you been drinking – or smoking?" John asked suspiciously.
"Come on! You asked for the theory, so I'm giving it to you. I'm not telling you how to do it, just what to do. So, you have this hula hoop floating around the sun, and after a while it cools down so you can land on it and plant trees and bring the people and the animals and such back and you have a real nifty world. You build the thing at the correct distance from the sun so the temperature is just right, and all the time the same since there is no night and day since the thing doesn't rotate but spins instead. You've also arranged so that all the minerals are easily available and can be dug up by strip mining. What resources you have! A planet like Jupiter has maybe a million times as much minerals as poor old Earth. So with plenty of raw materials, sunshine, peace, and prosperity you can throw away the birth control pills and just let the population grow. This hula hoop world will have like a billion times the surface available for population, so it will be a long time before you fill it up. All in all it may sound like a nutty idea, but if you can get it to work, you have a good deal going."
"Or the Lortonoi have a good deal going," John mused, looking at the slide, and a sudden chill passed over them all.
What mischief those monsters could create if they controlled a hoop world like this one! The same black thought, possessed them all at the same time, and an aura of gloom obsessed the room. It was John who finally broke the dark silence, and there was a cheery note to his words.
"Cheer up, guys! It's always darkest before the dawn!"
"Piss off, you pollyannaish sod," Jerry muttered, wishing they had thought to bring the brandy with them.
"I mean it. Aren't we forgetting this?" He took the tiny golden sphere from his shirt pocket and tossed it, glinting, into the air. "Things have to get worse before they can get better. So let us hope that the Lortonoi are really up to some loathsome piece of nastiness out there, something so awful that we can report to the Chachkas and get Krakar to polish them off once and for all. I hate to sound like a warmonger, but the worse things get now, the better they will be in the long run."
Jerry laughed aloud. "You're right, you know. So let's fire up our entire fleet of battle cruisers and space battleships and go out there and see if we can cause some real trouble!"
18
THE MIGHTIEST ARMADA – LAUNCHED!
It was a mighty armada of space the likes of which had never been seen before in the lenticular galaxy, or in the nearby spiral galaxy, or in any galaxy for that matter. Representatives of a thousand races were here, sentient creatures who were physically different in every way; rocklike Felsenig from the ten gravity world of Felsen, fairylike Guntzel-pogue from the tenth gravity world of the same name, snakelike Slangeorm, vegetablelike Karotene, sluglike Caracoller – and thousands more. If you were to put them in the same room together – it would have to be a rather large, air-conditioned room – it really would be a kind of loathsome sight. But what is beauty except in the eye of the beholder, and some of these things, aliens rather, didn't even have eyes. But they had loved ones and mates, sometimes up to sixteen when there were that many sexes, as with the Jigajig, who did almost nothing except that because it was so complicated. They knew the heights of elation, the depths of despair. They were free. Well, most of them were. And the despots were usually kind despots. But what mattered was that each one of these free races were living their lives in the way they wanted and were not being ruled by outsiders. They had joined together under the banner of freedom to fight against the loathsome Lortonoi, wh
o would have ruled and crushed them all.
At the heart of the immense fleet was the former space armada of the Hagg-Loos, donated by the Hagg-Inder, who had won the final battle and instantly stripped their insane relatives of all capacity to wage further war. Stretching out on both sides, and back into the distance as far as the eye could see, were the spacers of all the other races. Here they were, the volunteers from worlds who had known the terror of the Lortonoi and would do anything to fight that galactic menace, spaceships from free worlds that knew you could not subdivide liberty and were willing to fight for that cause, great thundering spacers from other free worlds who wanted to stay free and "voluntarily" donated a few spacers to the fleet when it hovered above their planets. They were all here – and what a heterogeneous sight it was! Mile-long gray metal battleships, fast, needlepointed scouts, great lumbering gunships made of small planetoids on which giant space cannon had been mounted.
While, there, up front, leading this tremendous fleet, was the silver form of the Pleasantville Eagle! Old Glory had been painted proudly on both sides of her immense tail, with the United Nations flag much smaller down below. Wings spread like the eagle she was, she stayed there in the van. Beware, Lortonoi, because the Galaxy Rangers are on the prowl. Shake with fear in your dank dens though you may, justice is coming closer, light-year by light-year, with every passing moment.
A banquet had been spread in the lounge of the old Eagle. Whiter than white tablecloths and sparkling silver drew the eye, while the nose twitched with appreciation at the succulent smells emerging from the kitchen. The top echelon of the Galaxy Rangers gathered for a last celebration before the space armada reached the star Diesun and its strange satellite. John, as Ranger Number One was at the head of the table, with the other Earthmen on each side of him. Sally would, they hoped, join them later; meanwhile, she was sweating it out in the galley with her assistants. The other Rangers crowded the tables, shoulder to shoulder, drinking and laughing together irrespective of the color of their skins; black, red, white, green, polkadot, all mingled and drank. Except, of course, for Lord Prrsi and the other red-hot races who had a heated corner to themselves. Loud laughter rose, hearty shouts, and an occasional belch. This was comradeship indeed, the likes of which had never been seen before. After they had dined and Sally had showered and joined them, John tapped on his wineglass for attention, and an expectant hush fell.
"Rangers, our moment of destiny is upon us. Our agents throughout the lenticular galaxy report no activity by the Lortonoi. We have driven them from refuge to refuge until now they have reached the end of their rope and have holed up upon the strange construction circling the nearby sun, Diesun. They are trapped! And we are upon them. There will be a battle, and there will be bloodshed, but it will all be in a noble cause. To destroy the Lortonoi is worth any sacrifice. . . ."
"Ooooooonnnnh. . . ."
This ghastly sound broke through his words and silenced him, a keening wail of agony from the centermost table. A chair fell over, and a plump green figure writhed on the rug.
"Aid for that Ranger!" John ordered. "He has been taken ill."
"Don't touch him!" another green alien, not unlike the first, cried out, jumping to his feet. "Pipa and I are of the same race, from the planet Bachtria, and I recognize the symptoms. Our race is an ancient one, and we are possessed of psionic abilities like no other. Normally these psi powers lie dormant, but occasionally, in periods of immense stress, when something strange looms in the future and coming events cast their shadows before them, why, then those sensitives of our race manage to break through the temporal barrier. This is happening at this moment to my colleague, Pipa, now writhing there upon your rug. His body is now only a shell while his ego moves into the future. Soon it will return with a message, and you must all be silent and listen. I know not what that message will be, but I do know that it will be a matter of grave importance, of life and death, for at no other times is the psi-ego torn from the body in this manner. Hark! He begins to speak."
"Korax . . . korax . . ." Pipa croaked, then mumbled more words incoherently. The tension strained and tightened, and there was scarcely a breath drawn as the words became clearer, comprehensible to them all.
"Woe! Oh, woe! What ghastliness lies ahead. . . all things are not as they seem. . . victory is defeat and winners shall lose . . . woe, woe. Take heed, for a trap is being set and the end of the galaxy as we know it is at hand. . . many gathered here today will never meet again. Now mark me . . . and mark me well. . . say your good-byes, for the end is near!".
After this the voice became incoherent again and degenerated to a mumble, and the mumble turned into a snore as Pipa slept soundly upon the floor.
"And exactly what does all that mean?" John asked the other Bachtrian, who shrugged his green shoulders in despair.
"Beats me, Number One. These ego trips tend to speak in riddles and that kind of thing, so it is anybody's guess. But he did seem to be sort of clear there toward the end, and if you don't mind, let me say good-bye to you now and shake your hand. It sure has been great up to now to be a Ranger, and if you have to die, it is best to die in a worthy cause. I think. Though of course I would really prefer not to die at all."
With these words he hopped over to John and pumped his hand. After this there was a lot of solemn good-bye saying and hand shaking, and the party broke up under a cloud of gloom.
"Well, I must say," Sally declared. "After all that cooking and trouble, it certainly appears that it really wasn't worth it."
"That was great friend Ormoloo," John told her, attempting to insert a note of cheer, but it did no good. In a minute the Earthlings were alone again, surrounded by the debris of the deserted banquet.
"I'll wash if you'll dry," Chuck said.
"Not now," Jerry snapped. "There are more important things to consider. Just shovel everything into a big box, and we'll worry about it later. In just a matter of hours we will be popping out of the space warp near this damn hula hoop in space, and from what our green friend predicted it is not going to be a pushover. Anyone got any ideas?"
"We'll have to go in first," Chuck said. "We have the only cheddite projector mounted on this ship, so we can get into and out of trouble faster than anything else in the fleet. Why don't we have them hold just one space warp away so they can come arunnin' when we blow the whistle? Meanwhile, we go in quick, get the lay of the land, and split if it gets too hot."
"I agree," John agreed. "It's dangerous, but it's the only chance we have of finding out a thing before the entire fleet is committed. I vote let's go."
"I'm with you," Jerry said.
"Vou're all insane!" Sally cried. "It is suicide. Let someone else do it."
They smiled wry smiles at her, and John spoke for them all.
"Sorry, Sally, old girl, but we can't oblige. The chip is on the Lortonoi shoulder, and we are just going to have to knock it off. Why do men fight bulls? Race high-speed cars? Go to the Moon? Climb Mount Everest? Because they are there-"
"Nuts! You do it for the old machismo, bragging about who has the biggest cojones. Well, I'll have nothing to do with it. I'm going to clean up this mess and then go to bed with a sleeping pill and a murder mystery and hope that I wake up alive, not dead."
They laughed when she left, knowing she was just a simple hysterical woman, then turned themselves to men's destructive work. Orders were issued to the fleet, which slowly ground to a halt, with a few fatal crashes, of course, which is to be expected when you try to stop a fleet of thousands of giant spaceships. The Rangers who manned the battle stations aboard the Pleasantville Eagle were all in position, and Lord Prrsi poked his head up from the hatch to the insulated hold to see the action. One by one the green lights blinked on on the ready board, signifying that every position was manned and ready, until the entire board was green, except for the red light from Sally's compartment, where she was zonked out by two Seconals washed down with twenty cc. of Noctec.
"Are you ready, Rang
ers?" John called out, and from every compartment, except one of course, came back the echoing shout. "Then here we go!"
In a single slithering jump the great airplane-spaceship plunged through into the lambda dimension and popped out again not far from the bright star Diesun. Every alarm went off and they stared at the visiplates at a great battle in space going on not too far from them. Fantastically powerful battleships – the smallest of them would dwarf the largest they had in their fleet – were locked in dogged conflict. They used energy weapons with great prolificacy, and all space was filled with the shock and shimmer of the ravening forces that tore at the very fabric of space itself. Ravening rays worried at the force screens that shielded other ships, while force fields of highly charged ions, no more than a few feet in diameter but having the power of a hundred hydrogen bombs, floated about ready to explode at the slightest touch. John touched the controls and pulled the ship back a few thousand miles, and they all nodded agreement.
"Easier to watch on the long-distance scope," Jerry said offhandedly. "We don't want to really mix with them until we learn the score."
"We don't want to mix with them at all," John said, speaking aloud what they all were thinking. "I've got a feeling we are kind of playing out of our league with these babies."
"Cheer up," Jerry said, pointing at the screen. "Don't forget there are two sides there, and they seem pretty even. One of them has to be on our side – I hope – so it's not as bad as it looks. I think."
"ATTENTION!" Alarms buzzed again, and the radar operator's voice cut in above them. "Object approaching on collision course from the direction of space battle. Estimated ETA, fourteen seconds."
Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers Page 16
