“I believe it—now get that rest.”

  Most of the military and all of the State Department wanted to be in on the initial meeting with the alien representatives. Rob had to pull all the strings he could to make it into the very last row in the small auditorium. It was good enough; he wanted to see and not necessarily be seen.

  There was a murmur of anticipation from the audience as the three aliens filed onto the platform. They had almost identical lengths of what appeared to be dark cloth folded about their bodies, unlike Hes’bu who had been naked. Stripped by his captors? Another question looking for an answer. Even more interesting was the fact that they had legs, not metal legs like Hes’bu. But one of them had a metal hand, another an entire prosthetic metal arm. Only their spokesman seemed to lack any deformities. More questions.

  The Secretary of State made a brief speech of welcome—he must have talked with them in the drive from the airport—then introduced the leader of the delegation, Ozer’o, whose rank was understood to be equivalent to that of an admiral. There was a brief spattering of applause as the alien rose to face them. His English was better than Hes’bu’s, almost perfect.

  “Men of Earth, I greet you. I regret only that this first meeting between our races is such an unhappy one. For many years we have been aware of your existence. We have learned your languages from your radio broadcasts and have stood in awe and admiration in appreciation of your vitality and diversity. Ours is an ancient race and a uniform one. It was not by chance that we never contacted you, but rather because of our code of honor. In our ancient battle with the forces of the Blettr we have come to realize that any attempt, for good motives or bad, to enforce one culture’s will upon another’s is basically evil. We have observed you but have not contacted you, wishing you only good will and hesitating to enforce ourselves upon you.

  “Now everything has changed. The endless galactic war has moved in this direction. Our timeless enemy, the Blettr, in their eternal hatred, have detached some portion of their armed forces to come here to destroy you. It is my painful duty to inform you that we cannot alter their course or force them to change their plans. We can only warn you about the future. And offer you military aid and advice if you so wish it.”

  Ozer’o hesitated, looking about the crowded chamber. He uttered a small sound, almost like a human sigh. “It is now my most painful duty to reveal our latest intelligence reports. The enemy is approaching in force. One of their largest warcraft, a fortress the size of a small planetoid, is on course towards your planet. We know from past experience what their plan undoubtedly is. Land and destroy. Your race. They do not wish a devastated planet. Just the complete death of the enemy.”

  He waited, head lowered, until the shocked voices had died away and there was silence once again. When he spoke his voice was hushed.

  “The attackers are now about three weeks travel distant. That is they will arrive in approximately twenty-one of your days. If nothing is done to prevent their arrival it is the end of your civilization. Once they land you are destroyed.”

  7. The Battle of Earth

  Angry shouts filled the auditorium. Anger that i perhaps concealed fear? Rob listened to the voices, looked intensely at the alien envoy standing with lowered head, but was cold and silent himself. Was Ozer’o speaking the truth—trying to save them? Or I was there some complex plot concealed behind the ’ histrionic speech? There was no way of telling. Yet. I Rob could only wait and watch. Now he looked at the shrieking men and women and wondered at his own reserve. Were he and Nadia the only ones who doubted? Then could they be wrong? Ozer’o raised his hands, palm outwards, and continued to speak when the shouting had died away.

  “My friends of Earth. It causes me great pain to tell you this. I can only add that we offer you all the aid we can. It may be possible to destroy this fortress when it enters the planetary atmosphere and attempts to land. We have succeeded in the past in doing this. Not every time, but we learn with each failure. I will explain in detail to your technicians and physicists but I wish to tell you now the countermeasures that it is possible for us to take. We have a specie of energy projector that must be planetary based. These are immense generators that emit radiation capable of affecting even an object as massive as the enemy fortress. These generators must be placed only at one of the poles of a planet where the configuration of the surrounding magnetic fields, what you call the Van Allen Belt, is such that radiation may penetrate. It is good that your planetary poles are uninhabited since the radiation I am referring to is very deleterious to animal life. Your North Polar ice cap is too thin to support the weight of these weapons, but it is my understanding that there is a solid land mass at your South Pole. If you are in agreement we will mount the weapons there. The decision is completely yours. Our wish is but to help a comradely life form in its battle for survival.” Rob turned off his pocket recorder and left the hall, battered by the shouts of enthusiasm from the people around him. He found Nadia, alone in her windowless office.

  “Where’s Hes’bu?” he asked.

  “Sleeping. Fatigue he said. I think it’s just an excuse to get away from me. We talk in his language now and I tend to ask him questions that he is not too wildly enthusiastic about answering.”

  “Does he give you any answers at all?”

  “Some. I asked about his metal legs and he told me that his people are fighting such an all-out war that none are excused the battle. When warriors are maimed they are fitted with prosthetic devices and sent back to fight again.”

  “Sounds reasonable. Two of his associates upstairs also have metal parts. It must be a hard war.”

  “How did the meeting go?”

  “I was afraid you would ask. It appears that we are about to be invaded and destroyed. At least according to their speaker, Ozer’o. Here, I recorded his speech for you to hear.”

  They listened in silence, Rob even more depressed as he heard the speech a second time. He turned it off when the audience roared its approval once again.

  “Would you buy snake oil from that man, that creature?” Nadia asked.

  “No, nor a used car either. Perhaps we are being too suspicious, reading meanings into his words where none exist.”

  “No, Rob. Our basic logic is still correct. We have only words so far—and no firm evidence whether these words are truth or lie.”

  “Then what can we do?”

  “Nothing—except go along with everyone else. And think of possible ways of contacting the ’enemy’ when they appear.”

  “You’re right, of course. And there will certainly be enough work to do.”

  There was. Rob lost track of Nadia and her language studies in the rush to get the radiation weapons in place before the Blettr attackers arrived. He was on the liaison team working with the Oinn. Not that there was much they could do to help; the alien technology was beyond them. There were the antarctic scientific bases that had to be evacuated, but this was quickly done. After that the liaison team had little to do other than look on in awe as the defenses were established.

  The Oinn seemed to have conquered gravity completely, although they were so busy they could not spare the time to explain the theory of operation to the physicists on the team. Great spaceships, larger than ocean liners, drifted slowly down to the frozen antarctic plain. From them the massive weapons were eased into position and anchored to the solid rock. Cables, each more than two yards thick, ran from the projectors to an underground generating station, housed in a cavern in the rock that had been excavated in a single day. It was all believable, it was happening, yet unbelievable in the immensity of the task and the speed with which it was accomplished.

  And none too soon. Terrestrial observatories searched the coordinates that the Oinn had supplied—and soon located a number of objects moving towards Earth. The biggest of them, despite the distance, was so large that it was easily seen as a disc by the satellite telescope located in orbit above the earth’s atmosphere.

  “The firing will begin within a few hours,” Ozer’o explained to the human observers gathered at one end of the giant control center. A fuzzy holographic image floated in the air before them, and Ozer’o pointed out the salient features. “It is a matter of the law of inverse squares in the dissipation of energy that controls this. I am sure you are familiar with the phenomena. Since all of the weapons we are using in this encounter are radiation weapons we must take the distance into account at all times. But the target distance is lessening constantly. And you will note that the target appears to be only a swarm of rocks in space—which it is. They wish us to dissipate our energies on this rock debris that they have caused to float before our main target. And of course we must. Penetrate the shield and then attack the main mass. Their fortress has been constructed upon a small planetoid, chambered out and armed with powerful weapons. But upon the far side only.

  When we get through the shield of debris we must attack the solid rock that faces us. They will of course be attempting to attack us, but we have a good deal of power in our force shield to protect us. They will also attempt to bomb from space, but a cordon of our defense fleet lies in the way. Ahh—the battle is joined.”

  As he spoke the words an immense force passed through them, vibrating from the solid rock, washing them with static electricity so that their hair stood on end. There was no visible emanation from the projectors, yet they could all sense the gigantic discharge of invisible energies.

  Then the sky went mad. The aurora australis, the Southern Lights, never as dramatic as the aurora borealis at the opposite pole, now outdid anything ever seen before. From horizon to horizon the night sky exploded with flame. Sheets of silver fire that fell and streamed from the heavens as the energy of the weapons energized the upper atmosphere. And colors, rainbows of wavering light that lit the ice fields as bright as day.

  Yet the attackers from space were neither slowed nor harmed. In the display bright points of light now could be seen, but Ozer’o dismissed these as unimportant. “Small rocks, pebbles being destroyed. We have not begun to hurt them yet.”

  The silent battle continued for hours, with no apparent victory or defeat for either side.

  “It will soon reach the climax,” Ozer’o said. “They will have to alter their course soon, refine it. When they do that our computers will be able to determine their probable landing site. We will then marshal our forces for defense. The battle will quicken. So far the engagement has gone their way. We have lost two of our ships, scouts, but we now know the extent of the forces they have committed. You must excuse me.

  Rob felt frustrated, impotent. He held tight to the arms of his chair and for a single, fleeting moment regretted that he had given up smoking. And he wished that Nadia were here to eavesdrop on the aliens. They were calling to each other in their own language now, with no pretense of giving any explanations in English, and there was certainly a growing tension in their tones. One of the operators screamed with rage—it could only have been that—and pounded on his console. Then jabbed his hand, paired fingers snapping together wildly, at the holographic display.

  It was changing. The stone base of the fortress was slowly moving out from behind its screen of protecting rock. Now the explosions ceased—then began again upon the bottom of the fortress itself. The intensity of fire increased as well until the entire surface was dotted with twinkling explosions. The Oinn operators screeched even louder now—and the sound was not at all that of victory. Rob understood why when a great arc of glowing white appeared to one side of the projection area, growing quickly in size. Pocked and cratered and cut with mountain ridges.

  “That’s the Moon!” someone cried out.

  It was indeed. And while they watched, frozen in their seats, the fortress in space, despite the explosions of fire that rained upon it, slowly moved towards the disc of the Moon. Then vanished behind it. Ozer’o left his position and slowly approached the human observers, his mouth opening and closing with some strong emotion.

  “Looks like it got away from you,” Rob said, his words empty of all emotion. Ozer’o flashed him a gaze that could only have been one of absolute malice, before nodding.

  “This was most unfortunate. A variation of their normal plan of invasion. The computer projection did not allow for it. Your Earth-Moon system is an unusual one and they took advantage of this singularity to affect a landing.”

  “On the other side of the Moon?” an Admiral said. “What good will that do them?”

  “A great deal,” Ozer’o said. “They now have a strongly defended base in close proximity to your planet. They can launch attacks from there, provide fire cover for other ships which wish to land. This is not a victory for them, yet—but neither is it a disaster. We must rethink our defense plans…”

  He turned as one of the technicians shouted out to him, then called back over his shoulder as he hurriedly returned to his position. “They have changed from defense to attack with their own fleet now that this part of the plan is finished. This can be dangerous.”

  This final conflict appeared to be a brief one, over within a few minutes. The projectors in the snow outside shut down one by one and the electrical charges drained from the air around the observers. Some of the operators shut their boards down or turned away from them. None of them looked at the human observers as they talked to each other in low voices. Something was very wrong, Rob could feel it, even before Ozer’o moved away from the group he had been talking to and slowly approached the human team. He did not appear eager to speak, but in the end he did.

  “A very unsatisfactory outcome. They had this operation well planned. Their attack was but a feint to divert our attention. One of their heavy bombers evaded our ships and succeeded in orbiting close to your atmosphere before retreating with the others. We scored hits upon it, surely hurt it, but it did get away in the end…”

  He grew silent as the phone on the Air Force general’s desk pealed out a steady, uninterrupted ring. The general seized it up, jammed it to his ear and listened. The watchers saw the color drain from his face. The phone dropped from his suddenly limp fingers and smashed to the floor. It was the only sound in the suddenly silent room.

  “Gone…” he said. “The entire city, Denver. All of them dead. A half million, more, all dead. A single bomb…”

  The battle of Earth had begun in earnest.

  8. To the Moon

  Because of the sudden war status of the country, it took Rob four days to set up an appointment with Bonnington, the head of the CIA. It was just as well. He had to prepare his report in such well-documented detail that his arguments would be unshakable. He also had to allow time for Nadia to make a round trip to Moscow. It was a close run thing; her supersonic jet touched down at Dulles Airport just two hours before they were due in at the CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia. Rob had pulled rank to obtain the official Cadillac and two motorcycle outriders which enabled them to make the appointment on time.

  It took almost as long to penetrate the guards and security around Bonnington’s office as it had to drive from the airport. His office door closed behind them exactly on the stroke of two.

  “Miss Andrianova, I never thought I would see you in this office.” He had old-world politeness and a slight English accent; product of a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford and service in Europe under Donovan in the old OSS. “I wonder if Colonel Hayward would be as welcome in the Kremlin?”

  Both a question—and a subtle hint that he knew full well where she had just come from.

  “He would be most welcome, I assure you,” Nadia said. “The report I gave them was prepared with the colonel’s assistance. I in turn collaborated on his.”

  “Strange times make strange bedfellows,” Bonnington mused, weighing the thick report in both hands when Rob handed it over to him. “Weighty stuff, Rob. Can you give me a summary?”

  “Yes, sir. Basically, there is no physical evidence that the Oinn have not been lying to us since they first landed on this planet. We know nothing about what they call our mutual enemy, the Blettr, except what they have chosen to tell us. We are taking sides in a galactic war without being sure exactly who is fighting whom.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting Denver?” Bonnington said. “You’ve seen what happened there, that hellish radiation device. Raised the temperature in the cells of every living creature by a hundred degrees in less than a second. People boiled in their own blood, exploding…”

  “I know, sir. The perfect weapon. No radiation afterward and no property destroyed. But how do we know that the Blettr did this? Once again we have only the word of the Oinn. For all we know they could have dropped the radiation bomb themselves.”

  “Do you realize the seriousness of these charges?”

  “We do, sir. But the evidence supports our suspicions.”

  Bonnington frowned deeply—then tossed the report onto the desk before him, rose and crossed the room. “You’re not the only one with suspicions. This report is the clincher as far as I’m concerned.” He touched the bookcase which rolled smoothly aside to reveal a well stocked bar. “You’ll have a drink. Miss Andrianova…? Or should I call you Nadia?”

  “Nadia, please. A bourbon on the rocks.”

  “And a vodka for you, Rob? Hands across the sea and all that.”

  “No thank you, sir. I’ll join Nadia.”

  “As will I.” He poured the drinks. “Here’s to your report. A fine piece of work…”

  “But you haven’t read it yet…” Rob’s voice died away as Bonnington smiled and nodded.

  “Son, it was on my desk as soon as you finished the first draft. You used your office computer, didn’t you? I’m forced to admit that we have a few computer taps inside the Pentagon. With the permission of the Secretary of Defense, of course. Alien invasion or no, this department is still very interested when Air Force Intelligence collaborates with the Soviets. A damn fine job. Pulls together a lot of reports and suspicions that we have been getting from a number of sources.”