FOR many the production of Ardan and had been upward.
Half a range of solid had been into super-steel and armament. Superdreadnoughts Were into at the of hundreds minute. Missiles were off the ends of lines like half-pint out of can-making machines.
The Strett warcraft, and missiles, would into normal space a miles of Ardvor. The Ardan were for an of one hundred gravities. That much the Kedy brains, into teflon-lined, spheres, just withstand.
To be of the Strett screens, an impact of about six miles second was necessary. The time to this was about ten seconds, and the something over thirty miles.
Since the Stretts themselves in less than one second after emergence, this tight packing of missiles—only sixty miles the entire of space—would still give the Stretts the by a time-ratio of more than ten to one.
Such tight packing was of impossible. It called for many of of the millions it was possible for the Omans to produce in the time they had. In fact, the was well over ten thousand miles when the of Strett and struck.
How they struck!
There was nothing of about that attack; nothing of skill or of tactics: nothing but the of of numbers and of over-matching power. One all space was empty. The next it was full of missiles—a superb of and timing.
And the Kedy control, upon which the had so heavily, proved useless. For each Strett missile, a of a second of emergence, toward the nearest Oman with an that the one-hundred-gravity to be still.
One to one, into and detonated. There were no solid or liquid end-products. Each of those so many megatons-equivalent of that all space out into hundreds of times more than the of lithium-hydride bombs.
For a moment Hilton was stunned; but only for a moment.
"Kedy!" he barked. "Get your big out there! Use the boosters!" He started for the door at a full run. "That it—that it! Scrap the plan. I'll the Sirius and take the task-force to Strett. Bring your along, Skipper, as soon as you're ready."
ARDAN in their thousands out through Ardvor's one-way screen. Each to work. Now the Kedy system, doing what it was designed to do, proved its full worth. For the of the big battle-wagons did not upon acceleration, but were at the speed of light; and Grand Fleet Operations were planned and were out at the almost of itself.
Or, rather, they were not planned at all. They were out, and without confusion.
For all the Kedys were one. Each Kedy element, without any of time for with any other, where every other was; what each was doing; and what he himself should do to make maximum to the common cause.
Nor was any time in orders to the ship. There were no crewmen. Each Kedy was the of, and was with, his vessel. Nor were there any or to and slow communication. Operational instructions, too, were and were upon with thought's speed. Thus, if and were not simultaneous, they were by a period of time so small as to be of separation.
Wherever a Strett was, or a Strett skeleton-ship appeared, an Oman it, in much less than one second. Beam to screen—caressingly, hungrily—absorbing its total energy and the first-stage booster. Then, three later, that off into a incandescent, of so hellishly, so that less than a thousandth of its total of energy was the very top of the visible spectrum!
If the previous of had been so and of such as to or description, what of this? When hundreds of thousands of Kedys, each world-wrecking powers as and as and as as thought, and millions of those powerful war-fabrications of the Stretts? The only answer is that all space might very well have been out of the most of S-Doradus itself.
HILTON the hundred yards from office door to in just over twelve seconds. Larry was waiting. The car a in the as it its way to Ardane Field.
It with a thump. Heavy black of marked the as it came to a screeching, stop at the flagship's main lock. And, in the of that lock's portal, all twenty-thousand-plus of the took off as one at ten gravities. Took off, and in less than one minute into overdrive.
All personal was now over. Hilton up into what he still of as the "control room," though he that there were no controls, any instruments, aboard. He what he would there. Fast as he had acted, Temple had not had as to go and she had got there first.
He not have said, for the life of him, how he actually about this direct of his direct orders. He walked into the room, sat her and took her hand.
"I told you to home, Temple," he said.
"I know you did. But I'm not only the of your Psychology Department. I'm your wife, remember? 'Until death do us part.' And if there's any way in the I can manage it, death isn't going to part us—at least, this one isn't. If this is it, we'll go together."
"I know, sweetheart." He put his arm around her, her close. "As a I wouldn't give a whoop. You'd be expendable. But as my wife, now that you're pregnant, you aren't. You're a more to the of our than I am."
She in the circle of his arm. "What's that to mean? Think I'd accept a of you for my husband and go on with it just as though nothing had happened?"
Hilton started to say something, but Temple on: "Drat the race! No how many children we have you were and you'll first, and if you have to go I'll go, too, so there! Besides, you know well that they can't it is that makes you Jarvis Hilton."
"Now wait a minute, Tempy. The ..."
"Yes, the conversion," she interrupted, triumphantly. "The thing I'm talking about is immaterial—untouchable—they didn't—couldn't—do any thing about it at all. Kedy, will you tell this big that though you have got Jarvis Hilton's brain you aren't Jarvis Hilton and can be?"
THE of the room in the of a laugh. "You are trying to a position, friend Hilton. Any attempt to a mind of power that is truth is illogical. My is for you to surrender."
That word Temple hard. "Not surrender, sweetheart. I'm not you. I will." She of his hands; into her eyes. "It's just that I couldn't it to go on without you!"
"I know, darling." He got up and her to her feet, so that she come properly into his arms. They there, and motionless, for minutes.
Temple herself and, after for a she did not have, her with a and then the on her leg. She and to the Omans. "Prince, will you and Dark Lady us up a steak-and-mushrooms supper? They should be in the ... since this Sirius was designed for us."
After supper the two sat on a davenport. "One thing about this isn't clear," Temple said. "Why all this rush? They haven't got the or anything like it, or they'd have used it. Surely it'll take them a long time to go from the analysis of the and we used clear through to the production and of to stop this whole fleet?"
"It surely won't. They've had the for ages. Remember that first, that all the power of our and in nothing flat? From there it isn't too big a jump. And as for producing stuff; uh-uh! If there's any limit to what they can do, I don't know what it is. If we don't 'em they it, it's curtains."
"I see.... I'm afraid. We're almost there, darling."
He at the chronometer. "About eleven minutes. And of I don't need to ask you to out of the way."
"Of not. I won't interfere, no what happens. All I'm going to do is your hand and for you with all my might."
"That'll help, me. I'm you're along, sweetheart. Even though of us know you shouldn't be."
THE emerged. Each ship toward its pre-assigned place in a exact around the Strett.
Hilton sat on a and still. His were closed and every tense. Left hand the arm-rest so that were in the leather-covered padding.
The Stretts that any such attack as this was futile. No or any of such possibly power to screens by such as theirs.
Hilton, however, that there was a chance. Not with the first-stage boosters, which were and of lightning, but with those boosters' culminations, the Vangs; which were to the power and which only the of the into being.
But, with twenty-thousand-plus Vangs—or any larger number—success upon a of approached and impossible. Not only to of a microsecond, but to a small of one such thousandth: roughly, the time it takes light to travel three-sixteenths of an inch.
It would take to to the point of to those Strett generators. They were the in the Galaxy.
That was why Hilton himself had to be there. He not possibly have done the job from Ardvor. In fact, there was no that, at the of and a miles, he do it from his present position one unit of the fleet. Theoretically, with his speed-up, he could. But that had yet to be to practice.
Tense and strained, Hilton his countdown.
Temple sat him. Both hands pressed his right against her breast. Her eyes, too, were closed; she was as and as still as was he. She was not interfering, but giving; supporting him, him, to him in full of that that had Temple Bells what she so was.
On the exact center of the needle-sharp zero every Kedy struck. Gripped and as they all were by Hilton's keyed-up-and-stretched-out mind, they in what was very close to unison.
Absorbing beams, each one having had the same number of to travel, the screen at the same instant. They and sucked. Immeasurable of energy from the Strett into those to twenty thousand-plus first-stage boosters.
BUT this time the did not detonate.
Instead, as to in at a rate, they into something else. Things no Terran science has imagined; at the of which all space actually warped, and in that and and shuddered. The very sub-ether and in as it, too, in fashions to that stress.
How those silicon-fluorine it, not one of them knew.
Microsecond by slow the Vangs and and grew. They were not only the full power of the Ardan warships, but also the power of the Strettsian themselves. The and sub-ethereal and and and worse; and to bear.
Imagine, if you can, a and of plutonium—a already thousands of times than critical, but not allowed to react! That a and very picture of what was then.
Finally, at a hundred thousand times mass, and still in perfect sync, the Vangs all off.
The Strett a nova.
"We won! We won!" Temple shrieked, her through the that was all space.
"Not yet, sweet, but we're over the biggest hump," and the two an impromptu, but satisfactory, celebration.
Perhaps it would be to say that the Strett a junior-grade nova, since the stage was purely and did not last very long. In a of hours had so that the heavily-screened approach the and up their part of the job.
Much of Strett's land surface was lava. Much of its water was gone. There were some pockets of left, of course, but they did not last long. Equally of the Stretts themselves, twenty-five miles underground, had not been at all.
But that, too, was according to plan.
LEAVING the on guard, to any move the Stretts might be able to make, Hilton the Sirius out to the planet's moon. There Sawtelle and his staff and of thousands of Omans and were starting to work. No part of this was Hilton's job; so all he and Temple did was look on.
Correction, please. That was not all they did. But while and and and sleeping and each other's company, Operation Moon closely to be as to that on.
Immense, to solid bedrock. To that were to move a world. Driving were installed—drives of such of power as to test to the full the of the Galaxy. Mountains of fuel-concentrate of concrete. Each was to a drive by fifty-inch high-speed conveyors.
Sawtelle a and those super-drives to blast.
As they blasted, Strett's to move out of its orbit. Very slowly at first, but and faster. They to blast, with all their might and in carefully-computed order, until the was attained—an which in a line through the center of the Stretts' retreat.
The Strett had a of seven times ten to the twenty-first tons. Its moon, little more than a hundredth as massive, still in at about eight times ten to the nineteenth—that is, the eight by zeroes.
And moon on planet, in direct impact, after having from a of over a of a miles under the full of and the full of those drives.
The energy of such a can be computed. It can be expressed. It is, however, of such as to be meaningless to the mind.
Simply, the two worlds and splashed. Droplets, up to millions of each, out into space; only to return, in or hours or or months, to add their to the of the already wrought.
No of any Strett or of any thing, small, to the Stretts.
Epilogue
AS had a daily custom, most of the Ardans were at the natatorium. Hilton and Temple were in the water—she was trying to him and he was hard put to it to keep her from doing it. The platinum-haired were—oh, so and indetectably!—studying the other girls.
Captain Sawtelle—he had to accept any higher title—and his wife were teaching two of their to swim.
In short, was normal.
Beverly Bell Poynter, from the top platform, the as hard as she it; and, perfectly with it, herself upward. Up and up and up she went. Up to her top of two hundred ten feet. Then, out into a and without again moving a muscle, she downward, making two and a and the water with a slurping, chug! Coming easily to the surface, she the water out of her eyes.
Temple, up her to near-drown her husband, rolled over and him.
"You know, this is fun," he said.
"Uh-huh," she enthusiastically.
"I'm you and Sandy the hatchet. Two of the top who lived. Or should I have said the claws? Or have you, really?"
"Pretty much ... I guess." Temple didn't sure of the point. "Oh-oh. Now what?"
A had come to ground. Dark Lady, who delivered a message if she possibly away with it in person, was full across the toward them. Her long black was out her; she was a length of tape as though it were a pennon.
"Oh, no. Not again?" Temple wailed. "Don't tell us it's Terra again, Dark Lady, please."
"But it is!" Dark Lady cried, excitedly. "And it says 'From Five-Jet Admiral Gordon, Commanding.'"
"Omit flowers, please," Hilton directed. "Boil it down."
"The Perseus is in with the whole Advisory Board. They want to a top-level with Director Hilton and Five-Jet Admiral Sawtelle." Dark Lady her voice to be sure Sawtelle the title, and him a as she it. "They to all on a satisfactory and basis."
"Okay, Lady, thanks. Tell 'em we'll call 'em shortly."
Dark Lady away and Hilton and Temple slowly toward a ladder.
"Drat Terra and and on it," Temple said, vigorously. "And His Royal Fatness Five-Jet Admiral Gordon. How much longer will it take, do you think, to some into their pointed little heads?"
"Oh, we're not doing too bad," Hilton his bride. "Two or three more sessions ought to do it."
Everything was normal....
