The Sky is Filled With Ships

by Richard C. Meredith

  It was Operations that scheduled the activities of the STC starfleets, that saw to it that the starships did what they were supposed to do, were where they were meant to be when they were meant to be there. And it was through Operations that the orders would have to be withdrawn—though Emmett had as little power in this as he had had in preventing the issuance of those original orders.

  Stated quite simply, the problem was this: to prevent the STC from actually giving aid to the Federation, Emmett, Janas and the others would have to (one) gain control of Altho Franken and his brother Bilthor, (two) get them both to sign an emergency priority corporate policy change which would bypass the Board of Directors, and (three) see that countermanding orders were issued to the Operations computer. It was that simple.

  “Simple,” Janas said to himself with a smile.

  It was almost noon when Janas rose from the desk, wadded his notes and dropped them into the desktop disintegrator. He did not hear the “puff” that indicated that the papers had been consumed, but it did not register at the time. He shaved, slipped into a clean uniform, and went to the canteen.

  The canteen was nearly filled with tourists from the boat he had seen earlier, but he soon found an empty, fairly secluded corner and sat down. Slipping his Taste Preference card into the menu, he waited until the screen lighted and then began scanning the offerings. He noted the absence of Raman fleshflower, which he had intended to order. He attributed this to the war which had restricted the importation of many items and passed on to the classic Terran roast beef.

  An attractive waitress brought him his aperitif only moments after the menu clicked his TP card back into his hand. Thanking her, he sat back in his chair and refused to think about anything more significant than the glass of wine in his hand.

  With gratifying promptness his meal was brought to him. Thanking the pretty waitress again, he dug into the steaming platter before him. He was even hungrier than he had thought.

  So intent was he on his meal that he did not notice the two strangers who approached his table.

  “Captain Janas?” the question was asked.

  Janas looked up to see a dark, handsome young man whose face was somehow vaguely familiar. To the young man’s left stood a tall, nicely built, very pretty young blonde—the name “Rinni” immediately came to his mind.

  “Do you mind if we sit down, captain?” the girl asked.

  After only a moment’s hesitation, Janas replied: “No, please do.”

  “Thank you,” they both answered, drawing chairs away from the table and seating themselves. For a moment no one spoke.

  Up close Rinni and Gray, the so-called Moondog Dancers from Eddie’s in Flagstaff of two nights before, were just as handsome a couple as they had appeared to be on stage, though now, of course, they were fully dressed, if Earth’s costumes could be called dress.

  Rinni wore an open-front blouse, several strands of pearls, a half-meter length skirt and kid boots. Her golden hair was piled high on her head in a conical fashion. Gray was dressed in what Janas had come to accept as normal garb among the Earthmen; a skintight suit of blue and gold, a peaked golden cap and pale blue, pointed boots.

  “You don’t have to introduce yourselves,” Janas said between mouthfuls. “I know who you are.”

  The couple looked at each other briefly.

  “I caught your show in Eddie’s night before last,” he told them.

  “Oh,” Rinni said, her red mouth forming an almost perfect circle.

  “Did you like it?” Gray asked.

  “It was good,” Janas said smiling, “very good in fact, but you aren’t from Odin.”

  “No, we’re not,” Rinni said, her voice reminding Janas of the tinkling bells of Rama, played by the wind in a tiny, tree-protected shrine. “We were both born on Earth but I grew up on Telemachus. My mother was from there.”

  “That’s in the Cluster,” Gray said, “about…”

  “I know,” Janas said. “About eighteen lights from Odin, toward the galactic center.”

  “You’ve spent a lot of time in the Cluster, haven’t you?” Gray asked.

  Janas nodded.

  There was silence again.

  “What do you want?” Janas asked at last, spacing his words carefully. They certainly weren’t the tourists they apparently wished to appear to be. They may have come in on the tour boat, he thought, but that wasn’t their real reason for coming here; I was. Why?

  Rinni briefly opened the purse she carried by a shoulder strap. Inside Janas caught a brief glimpse of a military issue noiser, its pilot light glowing brightly in the shadows of the purse’s interior. He nodded understanding.

  “We’re both registered as Earth natives, licensed entertainers,” Rinni said, her voice suddenly firmer, less that of the merely pretty girl she had seemed to be. “We can come and go pretty much as we please and no one asks questions. We even performed before the Chairman himself last month in Geneva.”

  Gray made an unpleasant face and Janas could guess the reason for it. Jonal Herrera was, among other things, known for his fondness for pretty women.

  “And you’re agents of the Alliance of Independent Worlds,” Janas said slowly, more of a statement than a question.

  “We are,” Rinni replied.

  “What do you want with me?” Janas asked again.

  “We know exactly who you are, Captain,” Rinni said, “and exactly why you are on Earth.”

  “You do,” Janas said flatly, refusing to allow his voice to show his feelings, which were primarily a sense of annoyance at too many people prying into the doings of Robert Janas. This was overlaid with a mild distrust of the two young strangers. They wanted something from him—he thought he knew what it was—and he was not about to align himself with another faction. Settling the STC’s problems was a big enough job.

  “What did Altho Franken say when you told him to keep the STC out of the war?” Rinni asked.

  “Don’t you know that too?”

  Rinni smiled a tight smile, the hard-boiled mask slipping just slightly from her face.

  “We have a pretty good idea,” Gray answered.

  “You’re probably right too,” Janas said.

  “What do you intend to do about it, Captain?” Rinni asked, the mask coming back over her fine features.

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “We want to help you,” Rinni said.

  “Captain Janas,” Gray said with all the feeling of his youth, “General Kantralas doesn’t want to destroy the STC. He is more than willing to accept its neutrality. He knows that the STC is really his friend.”

  “Altho Franken isn’t his friend,” Janas said.

  “Are you?” asked Rinni, her blue eyes flashing.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Janas said. “I agree with him on certain points and I certainly don’t want the STC to join in fighting him.”

  “He who is not against us…” Gray began.

  “Wait a minute,” Janas said, raising his hand. “Exactly what are you getting at?”

  “You and your friends are working for the same things we are,” Rinni told him.

  “And what is that?” Janas demanded.

  “The destruction of the Federation,” Rinni said, a note of puzzlement in her voice. “An end to these terrible decades of war. The freedom of all worlds from the domination of Earth. The establishment of a universal and just peace.” She paused for a moment, looking at Janas. “Mankind can no longer tolerate the brutality and atrocities of Chairman Herrera.”

  “The Federation isn’t the only one who has committed atrocities,” Janas said slowly. “What about Cassandra and Erda? Have you forgotten about them?”

  “Have you forgotten about Antigone and Odin, Captain?” Rinni asked. “Atrocity and genocide are a matter of Federation policy. We didn’t begin it.”

  “But you continued it,” Janas told her.

  “Only in self-defense, Captain.” There was real anger in Rinni’s voice.
“And with us it isn’t a matter of policy. Our leaders did not order it, did not condone it.”

  “Have the men who led the raids on Cassandra and Erda been punished?” Janas asked.

  “No,” Rinni answered, “but that’s no indication that we approve of what they did. We can’t afford to lose any of our leaders. They may have been wrong in the way they accomplished their goals but they were still acting, so they believed, in the best interests of the Alliance.”

  Janas was silent for a moment.

  “That’s minor, sir,” Gray said. “I mean, that’s beside the main point. We both want the end of Herrera’s tyranny and an open, honest alliance of worlds, each one free, equal and sovereign. The whole Spiral Arm’s sick of one man, one planet domination. We’re all working toward that end.”

  Janas shook his head slowly. “You may have misunderstood my aims,” he said. “My aspirations are a little more modest than yours.”

  “And what are your aspirations, Captain?” Rinni asked, her voice as hard and cold as steel, no bell-like sound there.

  “All I want is to see the STC stay clear,” he told her. “I don’t really hope to be able to accomplish anything more than that and there’s some doubt about our being able to do that.”

  Neither Rinni nor Gray spoke for a few moments.

  “We agree on that point, Captain Janas,” Gray said after a while.

  “I suppose we do,” Janas agreed, taking the last bite of his beef. “In fact I agree in principle with your desires. I just don’t think they’re very realistic under the present circumstances.”

  “What do you mean, Captain?” Jinni asked.

  “You seem to think that all you have to do is slay a dragon named the Terran Federation and we can all live happily ever after. I’m afraid it’s not that easy.”

  “Go on,” Rinni said.

  “When it’s over, assuming that you win, what are you going to do with the monsters you’ve created? How are you going to eliminate men like Carman Dubourg from the picture? He’s building his own little empire while he helps you knock Herrera’s apart. He’s not going to join in your ‘free and equal’ alliance.

  “And what are you going to do about planets like Erda and Cassandra? Do you think they’ll ever join your alliance or even come to terms with you people after what you’ve done to them? It’s just not that easy,” he said again.

  “Please continue, Captain,” Rinni said, her voice a hoarse whisper. “I think I’m beginning to understand you.”

  “No, you’re not,” Janas said, shaking his head. “And I won’t say anything more. You believe in what you’re doing and I suppose I admire you for it. I really do hope you can create the kind of world you’re dreaming of.”

  “You don’t think we can win, is that what you mean?” Gray asked.

  “I don’t think anyone can win,” Janas said. “I only hope that the STC can survive.”

  “As I said, Captain, we agree on that point,” Gray said. “We can at least work together to accomplish that.”

  “No,” Janas said, “I won’t join you and I don’t want you joining us. This is a family matter, for the STC only.”

  “Captain,” Rinni said, having held her anger in check, “we could be of great help to you if you’d let us. We have a powerful organization here on Earth, far more powerful than you may realise.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks!” Janas told her.

  “There’s nothing we can do?” Gray asked hopelessly.

  Janas was silent for a moment. “Do you have people in San Francisco?”

  “Yes,” Gray answered.

  “There are two things I’d like for your people to check on,” Janas said. “One of them’s a personal matter, but the other—well, it’s up to you.”

  “Tell us,” Rinni said crisply.

  “There’s an organization called ‘The Sons of Liberty’ or something like that. They’re planning to assassinate Herrera. They’re a bunch of damned fools, but maybe you can use them for something.” He gave them Rod Campbell’s address.

  “We’ll look into it,” Rinni said.

  ‘The other…” Janas said. “There’s a girl I would like someone to keep an eye on. It would be of great help to me. I would be able to devote myself more fully to our mutual goal.”

  The young couple looked at each other.

  “Yes,” Gray answered for them, “I suppose we could do something like that. Who is it?”

  After Janas had quickly told them of Enid he offered to buy them each a drink.

  “No, thank you, Captain,” Rinni replied. “The tour boat will be going back to Flagstaff soon and we’d better be on it. If we stay away any longer our absence may be noticed.”

  “I’m sorry that things didn’t work out as you planned,” Janas said.

  “We understand,” Gray said, though his expression did not seem to indicate it.

  “If you change your mind, captain,” Rinni said as they rose, “you know where to find us.”

  “I know.”

  “Good bye, Captain,” Rinni said for them both.

  Janas watched them walk away, admiring the gentle sway of Rinni’s hips. Quite a girl, he thought, not quite sure of what he meant by it.

  He waited a few minutes, sipping an almost cold cup of coffee, before rising and paying his check. He went directly back toward his suite, stopping only long enough to buy a carton of cigarettes from a machine.

  As he got off the elevator and went down the hallway toward the suite that had been allotted him, he felt a strange, unpleasant sensation, a premonition, he might have said, had it come that close to consciousness. Something nagged at his mind, but he found himself unable to pin it down and say exactly what it was. He shrugged, lit a cigarette, and went toward his suite.

  As he thumbed the door open, a series of apparently disjointed events came to him. The desk disintegrator—it had not consumed the papers. Whoever had been shadowing him since his arrival on Earth was no longer there. At the meeting the night before both he and Emmett had spoken against the Chairman of the Federation, and had, he supposed, openly committed themselves to criminal conspiracy. And, he felt suddenly, the elevator and the hallway were too empty, too quiet.

  He stopped, then snatched his thumb away from the door scanner—but it was too late. The automatics had opened it and he stood looking into the room, at the bulky figures of two Solar Trading Company Pinkers, security men in their harsh, black uniforms.

  “Captain Robert Janas?” asked the senior of the two Pinkers, holding in his hand an official looking piece of paper.

  Janas swallowed the lump in his throat.

  “Yes,” he said hollowly.

  “You are under arrest, sir,” the Pinker said.

  “What for?”

  “You will be notified in due time, sir,” the officer said politely.” “Will you come with us quietly?”

  Chapter XIV

  Sixteen and a half light-years from Sol, lying near the plane of the ecliptic as seen from Earth, is a star called Alpha Aquilae, Altair to the ancients. White-hot, with a surface temperature in the neighborhood of 11,000°C, an A7 star, eleven times brighter than Sol, Altair beamed its heat and light into the planetless void around it.

  In another universe, at a spot that coincided with that of Altair if one were to bridge the gap between universes through the heart of that star, a fleet of starships fled for its life through the grayness.

  It was a complete disaster; a total rout. The mightiest starfleet that Earth could muster had met the enemy and had been defeated. The Salamis had gone down heroically, but when she did go down nearly half the effective strength of the Federation’s armada had gone with her. The ships had inflicted great damage upon the rebels also: it had been a costly victory for those who challenged the Federation’s authority, a cost they could ill afford to pay—but they had won; they had defeated the Federation’s armada, and while that shattered fleet fled toward the doubtful sanctuary of Earth, the rebels pushed on toward
Sol and the heart of the Federation itself.

  Battered, seared, leaking air in a thousand places, her crew bloody but still aware, still fighting, the Federation flagship Shilo limped Earthward. Her captain and Abli Juliene conferred. Before them was a large 3-V projection tank inside which were displayed the stars of the local section of the galaxy and bright points of red and green light—red for the enemy, green for the Federation. Red lights outnumbered green as they fled, red behind green, toward a blinking point of blue light: Earth. The Grand Admiral slowly opened a packet—orders only to be opened in case of defeat. His face was tired and lined and looked old, terribly old.

  For a few moments Grand Admiral Juliene stood reading his orders, then silently handed them over to the Shilo’s captain. He looked into the pseudo-depths of the 3-V tank and shook his graying head sadly. Then he took a small note pad from his blouse pocket and began writing.

  The Shilo’s captain did not speak, waiting for the admiral to say the first word, but the admiral remained quiet. He silently handed the scribbled notes to the captain, sighed, charged and lit an old brier pipe, and began to slowly pace the deck.

  Well you showed me up again, Henri, he thought. Maybe I should have listened to you, maybe I should have pulled out when you did and gone in with the rebels. At least we’d be fighting on the same side. But I thought I knew better then. I thought I’d play the cards as they’d been dealt me and try to make the best of it.

  He looked down at his hands. How does it feel, Henri? How do you get the blood off? You’ve got it on your hands the same as me, the blood of all those innocent people. Mine is from Antigone and Odin and God only knows how many more. It’s mine; I gave the orders; I’ve got to accept it. And the blood of all those boys who died out there today.