He snapped on the wide-band communicator and began to dictate orders to his ships.

  “Wing 26? Wing 26? Do you read me?”

  “We read you,” came the voice of the radio operator aboard one of the three J-type destroyers that constituted Fighting Wing 26.

  “Here are your orders: attack Starlord base on Nellerang Seven.”

  Quickly, he reeled off the coordinates of that planet and directed the three destroyers to the point of attack.

  He watched as they peeled off from formation and swung down to Nellerang. Then he summoned another group. This would be a pinpoint job, a series of lightning swoops that would immobilize the Starlords’ bases before they were aware of what was going on.

  The Starlords had one great weapon in their armory—the hsrorn stolen from Nita. But that was a question-mark; Hammill did not know if Kleyne would dare to use the gem after seeing what it had done to the late Lord Brannis. And Earth had one great weapon on its side—the sensitive, powerful mind of Laird Hammill.

  Frowning in concentration, he continued the job of planning the destruction of the Starlords.

  * * * *

  The reports began coming in shortly.

  “Wing 38, Commander Hammill. Do you read us?” “Come in, Wing 38. Over.”

  “We report mission accomplished. We’ve blasted the port on Quinbak VII and destroyed nine spaceships sitting on the field waiting to blast off.”

  “Good work, Wing 38. Move to Trantol IX now, and operate as follows—”

  Hammill carried the entire gigantic pattern in his mind. Nita, at his side, stared white-faced at the screen, saying nothing, simply lending the strength of her own mind to Hammill. For that moment, he was two people, and the whole was definitely greater than the sum of its parts. His mind ranged through the Shanador system, finding weak points, dispatching ships to blast them immediately.

  As the reports flooded in, a sense of exultation rose within him. Earth was winning! Earth was raking the Starlord bases with deadly fury, was gutting and burning and pillaging before the Starlords could react.

  The exultation immediately died at a colder realization—there were still thousands of unharmed Starlord bases. Even the swiftest surprise attack could not possibly crush all of them at once. And soon, perhaps this very minute, the massed might of Shanador would be assembling to repulse the invader.

  It happened almost instantly. A Class F light cruiser was reporting from Kradang, the moon of Denerix, when suddenly—

  “The ship’s getting warm, sir! It feels like we’re burning up! And there are no enemy ships in firing range!”

  “Let’s have that again!” Hammill ordered. “Check it. Sure you are not under direct fire?”

  “Positive—we—” And the signal crackled off into a trail of static. Hammill remained frozen for just a moment. On the screen, a tiny

  dot of fire told him what had happened to the cruiser.

  The Starlords were beginning to fight back, then. They had recovered from the surprise blow.

  But there was only one weapon that could have struck down the cruiser that way—

  The hsrorn was in use!

  Lord Kleyne was hurling beams of mental sun-force at the Terran ships!

  * * * *

  “What now?” Nita asked, as the reports began coming in. “Someone

  is using tremendous mental energies, that’s for certain.”

  Hammill nodded. “Yeah. And they’re hiding behind that damnable thought screen, too. Your Observers might be able to pierce it, but I can’t.” He pointed at the astroplate. “There they are, squatting on Denerix like a sniper in a tree, picking off the crews of our ships as fast as they can spot them!”

  It had taken him several minutes to locate the Starlord after the first few ships had failed to report. By expanding his mental perception over an ever-increasing volume of space, he had finally found the source of the energies that were killing his men. The men themselves felt as though they were being burned alive as they died, although no actual physical force was being used against them.

  Hidden invulnerably behind a gigantic thought screen on Denerix, Lord Kleyne was using the hsrorn to detect and kill the Earthship crews.

  Meanwhile, the physical battle was still going on. Some of the Starlords’ ships were getting into space; more and more of them poured into the skies from bases that had not yet been bombed out of existence.

  In the Eighth Decant, thirty thousand light years from Denerix, a tremendous battle had been engaged; the main part of the fleet, under Fleet Admiral Bronson, was fighting a force of Starlord ships which had assembled there, presumably intending to head for Earth.

  Hammill was still in contact with the Admiral’s mind; he focussed sharply on it and watched the battle through the Admiral’s eyes.

  Searing bolts of energy leaped through space, splashing against the force shields of cruisers and battleships. Occasionally, those ravening bursts of energy would cut through the force shields, and the ships would dissolve in a coruscating flash of fire.

  The Earth fleet was still holding its own, but that state of affairs wouldn’t last for long if the Starlords started blasting the minds of the crews. There was only one answer to the problem: The Starlords had to be smashed. And the only man who could do that was Hammill himself.

  Withdrawing from the Fleet Admiral’s mind, Hammill turned to

  Nita. “I’m taking a scout ship to Denerix.”

  The girl nodded in agreement. It was highly probable that Hammill would die—but he had to take that chance.

  Minutes later, he was in a tiny, one-man spaceship, spearing through space toward Denerix. Mentally he kept watch for the huge thought screen the Starlord was using. Hammill had learned to detect the thought screen; he couldn’t send or receive thoughts through it, but he could see where it was.

  And, as he headed toward Denerix, it moved!

  Instantly, Hammill knew what had happened. The thought screen generator was aboard a spaceship, and the ship had taken off. It was quite obviously headed toward the battle in the Eighth Decant.

  Hammill shoved on acceleration, trying to catch up with it before it did any harm. If it reached the scene of the battle—

  There was only one way to beat the thought screen. He had to get inside it physically. That meant he had to invade the Starlords’ spaceship personally!

  Slowly, slowly, the little ship gained on the Starlord’s cruiser. Hammill still could hardly believe that Lord Kleyne had managed to learn to control the hsrorn jewel without help. Lord Brannis had tried it and died. Even Hammill himself had been aided by Nita when he had first used the gem.

  But there was no doubt that the hsrorn was being used; nothing else would account for the destruction of the minds of several hundred Earthmen.

  Five hundred million miles from the fringes of the great battle that was taking place between the stars, the space cruiser of the Starlords slowed and stopped.

  Hammill formed his plan in an instant. Donning his spacesuit, he set the automatic pilot of the ship to continue on in the trajectory already established, and dropped through the airlock.

  He dangled in the bottomless gulf for a moment, wheeling to orientate himself. He caught sight of the Starlord’s cruiser far off down in the star-jeweled distance, and narrowed his eyes as he estimated the push he’d need.

  His mind groped backward until he felt Nita’s thought-radiations.

  Nita?

  Laird?

  Stay with me, he told her. Then he pushed, propelling himself forward to the Starlords’ great cruiser with his mind.

  * * * *

  He reached the skin of the ship and clung there for a moment. The thought-shield was still wrapped around the vessel; inside, Lord Kleyne dealt destruction to the battered Terran fleets.

  His mind thrust at the thought-shield and rebounded. The ship was tight as a nut.

  Summoning all his hsrorn-awakened powers, Hammill shaped a thought and drove it against the thought-shield, hurling it again and again. The wave-barrier yielded, strained, finally gave. The thought broke through.

  Hammill’s mind made contact with that of one Dovrak Lemorn, a jetman aboard the cruiser. Hammill transmitted an image to him—that of Lord Kleyne, ordering the jetman to open the secondary airlock.

  Hammill smiled as he heard the jetman say, “At once, lord,” to the empty jetroom, and move toward the lever that operated the airlock.

  Hurry, Dovrak! Hammill ordered.

  The airlock slid open and Hammill leaped in.

  “Who are you?” the jetman asked, just before Hammill struck him down with a bolt of mental energy. He turned and ran down the corridor. Now that he was within the thought-shield, he could detect the pulsing vibrance of the hsrorn, focussing the hatred of the Starlords against the Terran fleet.

  It was Hammill and Nita against Kleyne plus the hsrorn. Hammill had no time to see if the odds were with him. He burst into the controlroom—and reeled back as a bolt from the hsrorn sent him staggering.

  “Hammill! Inside the thought screen!”

  It was Kleyne—only Kleyne had not dared to use the hsrorn alone after all. He stood in the control-room with six other men in the ornamented robes of Starlords; their hands were joined in a ring. The seven of them, together, could handle the mighty voltage of the hsrorn, where one man—as Brannis—would be burned out instantly.

  Hammill recovered and thrust up mental defenses. Sweat poured down his body. He wasn’t sure if he could handle only Kleyne—and now there were seven Starlords!

  They turned their attention away from the battle and on Hammill. He felt the blazing power of the hsrorn driving him back, back, relentlessly.

  Seven against one—and they had the hsrorn. Feebly he repulsed their assault, batted away the impulses radiating from them, but slowly they forced him to his knees.

  Hammill reeled dizzily. Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard Nita urging him on, urging him to rally and drive the Starlords back—but he could not. Another few steps and they would reach him, and then he would be vulnerable to orthodox weapons—such as the blaster in Kleyne’s hands.

  There was one defense.

  He would have to create a hsrorn of his own.

  With part of his mind, Hammill unleashed a blast of mental power that rocked the Starlords momentarily and gave him the instant of freedom he needed.

  His mind reached out, questing toward the nearest star. He plunged into its heart, dove deep into the blazing fire—and plucked out a flaming mass of light!

  The Starlords pressed him relentlessly as he drew the light from the heart of the star, drew it toward him, compressed it, crystallized it, infused it with life and purpose and power.

  ‘‘We’ve got him now!” he heard Kleyne cry jubilantly. The Starlords rushed forward, bursting through Hammill’s temporarily-weakened defenses, drove in for the kill—

  Hammill looked up and saw Kleyne’s hate-contorted face hovering over him.

  “Sorry, Kleyne,” he said almost regretfully. With a final gigantic wrench, he pulled the newly-created hsrorn to him. It hovered in the air just above his eyes, glowing and filling the cabin with its light.

  Hammill focussed his mind through it—and hurled Kleyne and his six cohorts back against the far wall of the cabin!

  The other six Starlords remained where they had fallen, knocked unconscious by the tremendous power of Hammill’s mental thrust. But Lord Kleyne was on his feet in an instant with the hsrorn grasped tightly in his hand! The practice in using it with the other Starlords had enabled Kleyne to use it by himself! Kleyne, by himself, could now control the mental energies of the hsrorn!

  With a look of hate on his thin, handsome face, the Starlord of Starlords hurled a bolt of mental force calculated to slay any living thing. Instantly, Hammill erected a mental barrier against it, and the spear of hate splashed harmlessly aside. At the same time, Hammill blasted back at Kleyne.

  But Kleyne, too, warded off the blow. Mind to mind, both powered by the tremendous forces of the hsrorn, the two men faced each other.

  The battle between them was silent. Neither man moved. But the titanic energies unleashed between them became a roaring holocaust in the infraspace of the mind.

  No unprotected mind could withstand even a small percentage of that gigantic torrent of power. Within a few milliseconds, every crewman on the ship and the six unconscious Starlords had died, their minds burned out by the flare of silent energy from the battle in the control room.

  It was a stalemate. Powered as they both were by the forces of the

  hsrorn, neither could gain an advantage over the other.

  Meanwhile, the Earth Fleet, disastrously weakened by the directed mental blasts of the Starlords, was fighting a losing battle. And the reinforcements were still over two days away!

  Slowly, Lord Kleyne moved his right hand. It was difficult for him to concentrate on moving his hand and to concentrate on the Earthman at the same time, but the hand moved, nonetheless.

  Hammill saw what Kleyne was doing; he was reaching for the blaster at his hip. And Hammill was unarmed!

  Carefully, slowly, Hammill took a step toward the Starlord. It was difficult; in order to move his foot, he had to think about it. And if he took any attention whatever from the screen that was holding off the mental bolts of Lord Kleyne, if that screen were to weaken in the slightest—Hammill would die. And with him would die Earth’s fleet and Earth itself.

  But he had to move forward. If Kleyne managed to draw the ray pistol at his side, he could kill Hammill where he stood.

  And then a thought came into Hammill’s mind.

  Hold on, Earthman! We are coming! Hold on!

  It was the voice of the Council of Rhodanas! Had they, then, changed their minds? Hammill didn’t know. He took another step forward.

  Lord Kleyne’s hand was only inches from the butt of his pistol now. There was only one chance for Hammill. Gathering every ounce of mental and physical strength he could muster, he hurled one tremendous bolt of mind-shattering force against the Starlord, and simultaneously

  launched his body across the control room in a great leap.

  His shoulder slammed into the Starlord’s solar plexus, and the pain of the blow momentarily distracted Lord Kleyne’s mind. Just for an instant, he dropped his screen. And in that instant, he died, his mind seared into death by the vastly greater power of Hammill’s mind.

  * * * *

  With the mental pressure so suddenly removed, Hammill felt his senses reel for a moment. He shook his head dizzily, trying to get the fog out of his brain. When his head cleared, he looked up at the astroplate. The Battle of the Eighth Decant was still going on.

  But there was one difference. The Earth fleet was winning! Somehow, the reinforcements had arrived. Then Hammill realized what had happened. The Council must have brought them. The full power of the people of Rhodanas, backed by the unthinkable energies of the hsrorn, had pulled Earth’s reinforcement fleet to the battle in a matter of seconds.

  That is correct, Hammill, said the resonant mental voice of the

  Council.

  “Why did you change your minds?” Hammill asked telepathically. We did not, the Council said. We had intended to aid you from the start. But we couldn’t tell you so openly. You would never have developed your present mental power if you had depended on us. You had to learn by fighting your own battles.

  “I see,” Hammill said. “But why? Why did you want me to develop such powers?”

  The Starlords are dead. The peoples of this galaxy have been enslaved by them for so long that they are no longer capable of governing themselves. A strong mind was needed for the job. We chose you—and Nita. This galaxy is yours, now, Hammill; yours and Nita’s. Rule it well.

  And then came Nita’s voice. I’m coming, Laird Hammill!

  And, again projected by the might of the Council’s mind, Nita appeared suddenly in the control room beside him.

  “We’ve won, darling,” she said as he took her in his arms.

 

 

  Robert Silverberg, The Ultimate Weapon

 

 

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