Common Denominator

DAVID LEWIS

Battle is at once terrifying and exhilarating—a time of killing fever and death fear. The fight against the enemy out there is only half of the story; though; there's also the fight against the enemy within!

Lot—a plain enough word to roll from your tongue, but like most words it's only a symbol and stands for something more. In this case that something is a world, a single, fragile sphere of life in orbit around an unprepossessing star, though that still misses the point. What Lot stood for then was a colony, planted by the other side, and this the staff officers noted with a clucking of tongues, and on this they consulted long and hard, and in response to this the avenging angels of our high command coldly decreed invasion. Thus the plans were made that would ravage the world, and the forces were gathered to seize what was left. And over a million men were committed, while the forecast that summer was blood.

All of which, of course, I had seen before.

But of all these things the last is the most important, for this is not Lot's story, but mine, and after Lot I could never again say "of course" to a season of slow-running red. That much I owe to Richards, a man to whom I wished never to owe a thing, and a man for whom my saying this would be cause enough for renewing our vendetta. He may try it if he likes. For me that feud was undone in the final, climactic moments of the end, and never again will it stir or raise its hideous head. I am above it now.

To seize a planet is an awesome task: logic can tell you as much. The area to capture, the numbers required, the logistics to support those numbers, all are astronomical. Lot held a slight advantage there, for nine-tenths of her surface is swimming with ocean; to credit her with a million people would be absurd. The semiofficial figure was twenty-four thousand, plus the soldiers, ground crews, cooks, and supply sergeants that give a place its strategic importance. Against this the Federation had spaced its inconceivable sea of soldiers and the hundreds of ships it would take to carry them. Of all this I was aware, for I was part of that general build-up, and yet, somehow, I didn't know it, merely sensed it and let it rest at that. I was a one-man fighter pilot—which took up more than enough of my time—and had no real desire to know the magnitude and the cataclysmic effect of the tide with which I ran.

And so, while the August sun boiled hot over the northern hemisphere of Earth, we massed our forces on and around Garr VII, sapping our strength from Lord knows how many navies. Space overflowed with the greatest shipping concentration in the skies as Garr grew rich on the lust-based institutions of war, preying on hordes of uniformed men. I arrived late in the process, received my posting to Twenty-third Squadron, and boarded battle cruiser Polar Star to join the rest of my unit.

None of us knew our eventual destination; the command levels had pleaded security and declared it a secret. We met in bull sessions and wrangled the problem out with pure supposition, but still, after six years in the service, you begin to pick out patterns, and sometimes those patterns seem to push guessing close to fact.

"Gonna be bombardment!" declared Richards, lounging in the recreation complex with glass in hand. "Old Twenty-third'll ride in and whip the hell outta some Tar world. Only stands to reason," he added loudly, before dissenting voices overwhelmed him.

"Right on, Richards," someone scoffed. "What about the transports, then?"

He had a point, this nameless one. I stopped listening with one ear and paid full attention, curious to see how my wingman handled the challenge.

"Hell," he observed soggily, "didn't say only bombardment, did I? Hell, no. Just said old Twenty-third'd be bombarding. Transports, soldier boys, they can tag along if they like, but it only stands to reason. We gonna bombard, we gonna soften up, and then them soldier boys, they's gonna invade!"

Someone laughed softly while the dissenter withdrew, stung but trying to hide it. I decided to bridge the gap.

"O.K., Richards. Before you're under the table, tell us how you know. That's what he's asking."

Richards pouted at me, soddenly sour-faced.

"Old Mr. Cavalry," he muttered, "over the hill in the nick of time."

He drained the glass, swayed a little, and grinned, relishing the attention.

"Only stands to reason," he proclaimed again. "They strip half the shuttles off this ship, don't they? Fine. Maybe they're giving it landing boats, so it can carry troops too, maybe? But they don't give landing boats; 'stead they bring us in, and stick us where the shuttles were. And what're we, I ask you, but the best damned anti-interceptor unit in the fleet? Nobody flies fighters like we do! But why'd they want great anti-interceptors 'cept we're going near a Tar world where the interceptors'll buzz like flies? And why we ever go near a Tar world, 'cept to have the good old Twenty-third whip the hell outta the Tars on it!"

He settled back, smirking into his empty glass, while the rest of us laughed a little, except for the dissenter who was well and truly put down, and me. I don't laugh at suppositions I agree with, and Richards had one now.

There was no reason for gathering forces such as we had except to launch an invasion, and from helping in the capture of Hifendel III had come to know the signs. The modern battle cruisers of Twenty-third Squadron were the only ships in the fleet that could consistently slug it out with planet-based batteries and win. It was a situation not unlike the ship-of-the-line-versus-fortress problems, back in the 1800's on Earth. It was a rare square-rigger that could make solid masonry fly a white flag, but as long as that flag refused to wave the transports could not get through. No, there were few flaws in Richards' simple logic; the only questions remaining were when and where.

So we hung in the Garr system, getting impatient, getting bored, getting clues as to what was going on. My wingman still pushed the bombardment theory, but with modifications. He probably hadn't considered the troops before the scoffer brought them up, but once they appeared it was the forecast that had to change. His hopes of shattering a Satarii home-system planet faded, and instead he searched the battle cruiser's tape-banks for worlds small enough to be captured. He surfaced again with Sandarnia, where the Tars had been crushed in a fleet action; Greater Stinna, main planet of a binary system; and Lot. I mentioned patterns. Both Lot and Hifendel II were nearly all-water worlds, and Richards had been with me at the latter. He drew an analogy and labeled Lot as our goal. I'll never know how the security officers reacted when the rumor started spreading, but they must have gone quietly. To hold the pilot as a Satarii informer would have admitted that he was right.

Their quandary would have pleased Richards, for he was that kind of person. I half loathed him, but at the same time he and I had operated together longer than any comparable team in the fleet. He was my wingman, and if I was the best one-man fighter pilot in the fleet—and I was—then he was the second best. As a unit in space we were virtually indestructible, and we occasionally proved that way planetside too. Shipside, without the glue of shared danger, we were like a double novel, the kind where you get two books under one cover, so that when you've finished with one story you find yourself up against the upside-down, last page of the second. Opposites. And usually one of the novels is bigger and better than the other one. Try working that into the metaphor.

"Friend," he would laugh as we stretched on our bunks, "friend, you are just too saintly for words. Why the hell should I stop knocking the Army? They hate our guts so I hate theirs. Fair enough? Fair enough. You're a hypocrite, Smithy. If you're gonna be so damned forgiving you gotta go all the way. Forgive the Tars, why don't you? Hell, they're only doing what they think's right, for them."

"You've got your premise wrong," I retorted. "I'm not forgiving; I just haven't condemned. Like the Tars. Why should I condemn them, Richards? Because they're doing what's right for them? That's all our side's up to. Why should I hate the Satarii, or is it just your say so?"

His light flickered on, breaking regulations, and then his fingers were tight on my arm, yanking me over to stare at his face.

"Friend," he spat, "the Tars are going to hell, and I won't have none, not none, of your peace-pipe talk!"

He shook me; I let him, then jerked my arm forward, flinging him off balance and breaking his grip. We glared at each other across the gap between our bunks.

"I've two dead brothers say 'No!' to your talk, Smithy! And I won't hear any more of it!"

Then his light went out, leaving me alone with the dark and the ugly look set deep in his eyes.

Maybe we needed each other for that glare, a focal point closer than the Satarii could ever be, save in the heat of battle. Maybe that was why we'd stuck together so long. Me, to have something close at hand to master; he, to try to smash my composure and drop me to his plane. "Hate and be hated!" he'd say. "Get off the fence, you hypocrite! Get outta your tower, Smithy, so I don't have to tear you out! Sooner or later, friend, I say I will."

II

Garr VII had become, with the coming of the fleet, a filthy place, aswarm with those jerry-built institutions that thrive on men and plunder self-respect. It had also become a dangerous place, crawling with soldiers, sailors, and antagonisms. The handful of law-enforcement teams were totally inadequate for controlling such a jungle, and I hesitated to go planetside. Yet, when Richards declared his intention to do so, I had no choice. Someone had to look out for him.

Headquarters had stripped Polar Star, the battle cruiser to which we were assigned, of half her lifeboats and half her shuttle craft. In the berths where these craft were usually stored, the powers-that-be had inserted our one-man fighters, wicked, fifty-foot tangles of engines, avionics, and missiles. That meant that the normal load of eight ferries was being handled by four. We were crushed on board for the ship-toshore ride, sweating it out with heads in our faces and elbows through our sides. We stumbled out at the port, half-nauseated, able only to walk into town. The buses were no less crowded and smelled infernally.

Garr VII is a strange world, with little ocean, few plains, no mountains. Save for salt-marshes near the sea, it is all woodland, a tight dense woodland, an afghan of dripping, black-leaved forest. What cultivated land there is has been hacked from the jungle, and it is only through constant skirmishes with encroaching vegetation that any is maintained at all. Likewise the roads. The one we followed was a virtual canyon, a narrow white strip between walls of darkness that swayed and groaned with the breeze. Richards and I tramped along it for over a mile while dark-bellied clouds drizzled rain against our heads and olive-drab buses, filled with Army rowdies, careened around corners like madmen. By the time we reached the settlement we were in desperate need of stimulus, and the first order of business was to seek it out.

Beyond the boarded-up storefronts of those who had always lived here were the ramshackle, transient structures of the carrion crows, riding the wings of storm for easy profit. Crude or not, they offered us heat, food, and drink, and I was not so fastidious as to complain.

But I did note with sudden suspicion that the bar Richards steered for was thronged with Army-gray.

"Richards," I said, "that place's not for us."

"Sure it is," he grinned. "Army's not gonna stop us, are they? The two best pilots in the fleet? Hell no!"

"Friend," I said, sensing a trap, "that we may be, but we're not the two best in-fighters. I didn't come down to brawl."

He stopped then.

"Course not," he sneered. "You came to keep an eye on Richards! Well, Smithy, to hell with you! I'm thirsty, and that's the closest place around."

He strolled on—or swaggered, rather—toward the galvanized-steel front. Some of the Army men watched him, grinned, and unfolded their clump out into a wall, arms locked, blocking the door. One or 'two thoughtful ones lifted bottles.

"Richards, you damned fool!" I shouted, and the battle joined.

Richards was tough, but at times the Army proved tougher. It took five minutes and one gray-clad tough recovering in the street, but eventually my wingman stumbled back, cursing but undeniably beaten. The Army crowd swore cheerfully back, and someone lobbed a bottle. It shattered against the wire-mat roadway, scattering shards of glass. I escorted my battered companion to a less conspicuously Army bar, situated him at a table, and got us both drinks. We sipped them silently.

"Smithy," he said after a long while, "if you'd of come in, we'd of left those goons all over the drive."

One of his eyes was swelling shut, but other than that he seemed unscathed. The service kept his hair so short that it couldn't get tangled, and he had straightened his uniform before coming in. I glanced at him and nodded in response to his statement, but that was all.

"Smithy," he demanded, "why in hell didn't you come in?"

That definitely called for an answer. I leaned back and took another drink, letting it clear my mouth before I spoke.

"You pulled a dirty trick, friend," I told him. "I don't care how you feel about the Army. I don't care how the Army feels about me. Your venom is your affair, Richards, not mine. You tried to get me into a street fight. That's real nice. Don't try it again!" He returned my glare with a half-formed smile, uncertain how to take my response, emptied his glass and stood up.

"So much for wine," he said, deciding to ignore my anger. "I'm off for the rest. And Smithy, no need to follow, eh? Old Richards can handle himself, you hear?"

"I hear," I returned curtly, and he left. I watched him go, swaying out the door and heading for the farthest fringes of the carrion-crow zone, then I also got up and followed him out.

Night, already looming near when our shuttle had grounded, had now closed in with impressive finality. Some twenty yards away a hanging arc lamp gave light to the roadway, shining off puddles where the wire matting had sunk into potholes and mud. Everything seemed slimy with rain; it tasted of fungus, humid and choking. A singularly filthy night.

Having nothing to do, and being reasonably sure that my wingman would take it easy for a while, I decided to explore the settlement. It had appeared safely antiseptic when we passed through, but that was not necessarily a fault. Besides which I had an abiding curiosity about these far-flung outposts of our species. I had seen maybe twelve of them, each unique in small, surprising ways. Perhaps Garr VII would prove the same.

I quickly found that the established town was boarded up. The people seemed to know what the fighting eagles, the clean-cut heroes of the news and adventure films, were really like, and they had taken precautions accordingly. The screens and barriers weren't ramshackle, either. The fleet may have been prepared to leave the next day or stay for eternity; it made no difference to the natives. The heritage left them from colonization, from not having time to waste repairing sloppy work, needing protection against a vicious unknown, had left its mark. Well, they knew what they were up against this time, but it hadn't changed their traditions. There were no cracks large enough to let light through, and it was only when I was despairing of finding anything that I stumbled upon an open building.

It was a store, the one farthest from the port and temporary slums as possible. Perhaps the locals had held a council meeting in the secrecy of their town hall and had decided that this store, because of its distance from the corruption and because its services were so essential, this store would have to be kept open and operating despite the two-legged locusts that had descended like clouds from the sky. Or perhaps the owner was a gambler, willing to run high risks for his own small share of war profit. But regardless, it was open, and I went in.

A number of local inhabitants, distinctly so in their workman-like garments, were present. They glanced in my direction and drifted to the far end of the counter, presenting their backs in a uniform front. The hint was taken and I avoided them. That left two people, the storekeeper and a customer, who were dickering over a basket of fruit, long, curved and yellow. I drifted closer, to be able to catch them once the deal was completed.

When it was, it was plainly in the storekeeper's favor, for he stepped back grinning, then caught sight of my uniform and scuttled for shelter at the end of the counter. The other man didn't move, though. He simply stood over the basket of fruit, and swore softly to himself. I moved up beside him and leaned against a stack of feed sacks, while looking with excessive interest at the fruit.

"What are they?" I asked. "They seem familiar, but I can't place them."

It was the first time he realized I was there, and before my military status registered it was too late for withdrawal. I could see that realization slowly fill his eyes. They were interesting eyes, darkish brown but not deep. There seemed to be a shield behind them, to hide whatever gears were working deeper in his mind.

"Bananas," he said curtly.

I puzzled over that for a moment, feeling the sense of familiarity more strongly than before, but still unable to grasp what stood behind it."Grow them here?" I asked him.

"Yeah."

He hesitated, then reluctantly added more. "Not native, though, not hardly. Come from Terra."

The key snapped into place.

"Hey," I laughed, "thought I'd seen them. My brother Benjamin once, a long time ago, brought some back from a trip he made. Thought I knew them! Haven't seen Benj for five, six years, and it's been a good ten since I tasted bananas."

Throughout all this his face registered only suspicion, and now his voice held the same.

"Trying to set me up?"

The gulf between military and civilian opened at my feet. I looked way down it, trying to see the bottom, then raised my eyes and looked across at the farmer, for so he seemed to be. I wondered briefly if I should shout to make him hear me, but volume rarely puts one's point across. He waited for my response, belligerently defensive.

"No," I said. "Trying to break you down. I've spent an hour down here looking for someone alive who won't hide under a counter, and I didn't do it for bananas. If I wanted to set someone up there are enough drunks in the bars down here to make a fortune."

He still didn't loosen.

"And you're not a drunk, maybe? And maybe you're something worse."

"Maybe. But I'd argue the point. It's possible, isn't it, that some servicemen are human too? And your storekeeper here looks pretty civil, but your face looks like he cheated you bad as anyone. How much did he charge for that fruit, eh? Tell me and I'll buy one from you. Parasiting's not my way."

He held fast for a moment longer, but something I had said had hit home, and gradually a smile formed on his face, weak but plainly there.

"O.K.," he said. "Sorry, but I'm suspicious; you would be too." Which seemed to break the ice firmly and finally, since I still was suspicious, even after seven long years in the service. It's instinctive. Like Pavlov's dog, your mind learns to link danger to environment, scaldings to boiling water, death to war, and parasites to the military and the dusky world it moves through. Sure, he was suspicious, but I was suspicious too, and that link-up gave common ground and yet another reaction which is still best described as friendship. We had broken the barriers, and the vistas that opened were worth what pain and trouble it took. For an hour we talked of the microcosm of Garr and the greater cosmos that lay beyond, and when we parted to go our separate ways again, the wall between us might never have been.

The sky was starless as I set out to rendezvous as best I could with Richards; heavy clouds, straining at their seams, sped west on a soaking breeze. The temperature had been dropping steadily, and the humid claws of night tore against my clothing, cunningly poked its talons through every chink. Though there was no mist or rain the visibility was poor; light simply failed to penetrate the gloom, and beyond their limited spheres the streets were even darker than before. I pushed myself harder, breaking into a dogtrot as I struck out for the farthest edges of the parasite quarters.

I could find no sign of Richards. Turning back into the face of the wind, I strode briskly back toward the bar we had stopped at earlier, assuming my wingman would return there before too long. There were two shuttles back to Polar Star. I would have opted for the early one, but unless he showed up sooner than I expected we would have to take the last boat back to the battle cruiser. It was going to be a later night than I would have liked.

I was making my way down the alley that ran alongside the establishment when I heard a half-intoxicated clamor break out ahead and a little farther down the main street.

"'Lo, starchy!" someone was shouting. "Big civvy bastard runnin' from the Army?"

My attention perked higher, but no identifying answer came back. Nonetheless, I moved faster.

"Oooh, big man! Your chest as fuzzy as yer head, civvy?"

The taunts were coming from just beyond the mouth of the alley, from the direction of the Army bar Richards had tried to crash. The voices sounded familiar, but that meant nothing; all thugs sound alike: a mark of the species. I came out of the alley entrance and looked sharply around.

A cluster of men, soldiers from the cut of their uniforms, were leaning off the shaky porch of a building twenty feet away. I edged toward them, keeping myself hidden in the shadows. A string of arc lamps lighted the street like a stage.

"Gawd, lookit the stride he got! Big little bastard, ain't he!"

Silhouetted by the street lights, the thugs cut an intriguing picture. Several slumped against each other, drunk and dead to the world. Three or four others were near that point, but then maybe five were tensely alert, savage and eager for trouble.

And then I saw the civvy, and he was my farmer from the store.

I tell you, I was proud of that man. Civilian, untrained, unversed in the cold realities of military hatred, threatened by drunks and worse, he hadn't broken. Instead he was walking with deliberate slowness, ignoring them for what little they were worth. My mind went out to him, sensed his stomach knotted tight but that misplaced sense of pride saying over and over, "Keep those legs moving slow, boy, don't you panic none cause that's exactly what they want you to do and you're head and shoulders above these scum, boy, cause you're a man and scum is all they are." And all the while his feet moving slow and steady and his stomach tied up like Alexander's Gordian knot.

And one of the Army men, grinning like a circus ape, reached down beside him, hefted a bottle, and sent it flying.

Clean and smooth, the cold glass lump and the cool, lanky civilian converged, directly beneath a hanging arc lamp, and the cold glass lump smashed full against his head. He stopped in his tracks, straightened, and then, like a landslide almost, collapsed upon himself and sprawled face down in the wind-licked mud. "Chrissake!" someone shouted and I hit them.

Two steps to get there, one to lay the ape-face against the wall, another to smash him onto the porch, and then hell came swirling in from all corners. Whirling, smashing, bloodied faces, grating hate and alcohol and the battle cry of Richards swinging in and playing wingman while we nearly toppled that porch to the ground and emptied its contents out into the street before two M.P.'s ran panting up to slap us into chains.

Richards grinned, his other eye closing like an egg. "Just stay in your God-damned tower, Smithy? Hell, was that God-danged good!" and the wagon arrived. I made it onto the early shuttle, but the farmer only made it to sick bay.

III

"For God's sake, you two! Do I have to confine you to quarters?"

Captain Stephens was perturbed. Small, dark, but strong by any definition of the word, he was not one to cross, and obviously we had.

"I knew! I heard it. Richards going planetside. God Almighty, I thought!"

He was pacing while we stood rigidly upright, hands still manacled, so rigid a ramrod could slide down our backs. The cabin was small, and in it Stephens was a tiger caged.

"Richards!" He wheeled on us. "You damned fool! Another brawl and you're discharged! Regulations. I can't help it. No ruptured duck either, man! Out on your face! For God's sake, Richards, you're half the best fighter team in the fleet! Speak! Justify, before I take my fist to you!"

My wingman pouted sourly. The lines at the fringe institutions had been too long, and he had settled for a quart more beer, which left him none too steady. Besides, M.P.'s don't like drunks, and they aren't afraid to show it. Richards carried bruises that weren't from Army fists.

"No excuse," he muttered.

"Just damnable interservice antagonisms," growled Stephens. He glared at me. "And you too, of all people! The one man I thought I could trust. Get out, both of you!"

We started for the door, but he stopped us with a wave of his hand.

"Get the guards to unchain you. I trust you're still able to function, still able to see? Richards?" My companion turned sullenly. "Get a doctor to fix your eyes. Of all the times to get smashed. Go on, now!"

We left the room to run up against the M.P.'s who had brought us in. Grinning, the younger one snapped a key into our manacles and removed them. He left, followed by Richards, followed by the other M.P. I started also, but stopped short and returned cautiously to the captain's door. I rapped softly.

"Who?" he snapped.

"Smith," I answered.

He snorted; the room made no pretensions to soundproofing. "Enter, blast you."

I did.

"O.K., Smith," he sighed, leaning back in his desk chair, "what is it? I won't apologize for my nerves; that's what you met, not temper. But for God's sake, you two! What is it, Smith?"

"The Garr farmer," I said. "The one who caught the bottle."

Stephens' frown took a different turn.

"Concussion and minor fracture. I've been told, of course. I'm responsible, damn it. Remember that next time, why don't you?" He looked up. "So that's it. I wondered, Smith, what it took to fire you. Prejudice, I thought? No, not him. Drunk? Maybe, but still. An affair like this? I heard it all; M.P. saw the guy get it, just didn't react in time. Fine. This sort of thing's your trigger? Let's disconnect this one too, eh? Don't go!"

I stopped halfway to the door and noted with surprise his intensely worried face.

"Listen," he said, "you two are really all right? Nothing a rest won't fix?"

I nodded.

"Good. Then for God's sake, rest! And sometime, like later today, check over your ships. You picked a devil of a time! We're moving out tomorrow."

"What?" I started. Stephens' frown stretched deeper.

"Twenty-third Squadron, plus Lord knows what else, jumps tomorrow. Bombardment of Lot—you know the planet—then the troops follow. We need you both to fly anti-interceptor screen. So check out your fighters. I understand you won down there. That's great. Let's make sure you do off Lot. I don't want mechanical failures to kill you. For God's sake, Smith. You, alone, are the best fighter team we have. Richards is just lucky enough to be wingman. Not that he's bad; he just lets himself get out of hand. But damn it, Smith, we need you! Let's not pull this stunt again."

"I won't," I said. "Thanks. I'll check the ship."

Then I left for my quarters. With a fleet jump coming the next day, I would need all the rest I could get.

From Bunk Complex C it is a matter of a few quick steps to reach the aft flight zone, and that evening I made the journey with Richards in tow, to check out our dormant fighters. Like Captain Stephens, I didn't want death through mechanical breakdown. If the Tars couldn't kill me, nothing would.

My ship proved to be in excellent shape. The interior check revealed no problems within, and then, while the suit's life-support system muttered in my ears, I made a minute external inspection. The hull was intact, unpitted, gleaming as though freshly varnished. I patted the green dragon, hand painted, that crouched below the cockpit glass, and made my way back to the air lock. Night Killer II. Night Killer I had been crippled off Hifendel by a salvo that came too close, but I had equal faith in the second. She had already racked up an impressive score, destroying five space-black Satarii fighters. As far as I knew, that was the highest score in the fleet for a single interceptor, discounting only her direct predecessor. Night Killer was unique in other ways, too. She was the only interceptor in the fleet to sport a name as well as a code number, and she was the only one to be painted.

That's not strictly true; what I'm referring to is the dragon. Actually all our fighters are painted a slick and unbroken white, save for the code numbers laid on in heavy bands of black. The factory does it, and there is a purpose. The brilliant color stands out well in space and eases recovery. The Satarii, on the other hand, use black, since it leaves their ships virtually invisible. That doesn't hamper their recovery operations. If a Tar fighter is unable to return under its own power it never returns at all.

I ask you, though, how one can hate a nation like that? Before you can love and before you can hate, you must at least have some things in common, some level, however elemental, where you can finally come to grips. A race that leaves its pilots to die, even when there's some chance of rescue, is too alien to merit emotion. My success in the war had not been born of hate, but of a constant, never flagging effort to stay alive. Had I ever diverted my mind to hating, the time that called on all skill for survival might come and find me, wanting. That I could never allow.

All these thoughts drifted to me while I clung like a spider to Night Killer's hull, as they had come to me many times before and have come to me many times since. I stayed out a little longer, pursuing them further, then left the fighter and went back inside, gratefully climbing out of the suit. Richards entered a moment later.

"Need help," he said by way of explanation. "Got some tricky corrosion. Come on."

"Outside?" I said, standing amidst the discarded carnage of oxygen packs and fabric. He laughed. "Sorry as all hell," he said, "but no, it's inside. Don't even need respirators. Hurry up; I'm gonna want my sleep tonight."

"I'm coming," I said, pleased by the change. "Glad to have you sober."

For all practical purposes, Richards' ship was identical to mine, but a deadly difference showed beneath her skin. The firing connection to his port missiles had rusted through.

"Water-based fluid, dripping through here, from the hydraulic system," he explained, indicating the area with his flashlight. "Patched the leak all right, but I only got two hands. Need three for fixin' this rusty mess."

"Use mine," I said, and we got to work.

Timewise it was no great task. I held the wiring in place while he worked the solder gun, and within minutes the connection was restored. Rust remover cleaned up the corrosion, and then we backed out of the ship and into Polar Star. Richards grinned and shook the soldering gun.

"Say," he said, "sure nice of Stephy to make me check the old tub out. Would've been dead, sometime or t'other."

"Would have been dead tomorrow," I told him. "Twenty-third Squadron's jumping, and you were right. We're bombarding Lot."

"You don't say," he grinned. "How'd you find out?"

I recounted my brief meeting with Stephens. Richards listened without comment, still grinning, but something in his face took a darker turn.

"And how's this greeny friend of yours making out, then? That bottle knock some sense in, maybe? Hell, he should've fought the bastards! I wouldn't take that guff."

"You," I pointed out defensively, "are a five-year veteran. He's a civ. First time I messed with the Army they laid me out for dead, and that was after Basic."

He raised his light eyebrows.

"All right. Don't ruffle your feathers, Smithy. But now, who got laid out this time, Army or you? I thought setting up that first fight might do it, but hell, it took some greeny civ—'scuse me, some Federation citizen—to get you down. What's it like to live some, Smithy? You like?"

He finished stowing the gear and we started toward the R&R lounge. It was another bull-session night, but suddenly I wasn't at all sure I wanted to go. The thought touched me that I had had enough of Richards for the day, too much, and I stopped as we passed through Bunk Complex C.

"I'm not going to the session," I said. "Give my regards to the aft crew."

Richards' eternal, cockily challenging grin slid onto his face again, but he couldn't manage a wink with his blacked-out eyes.

"Sure thing," he said. "Just gonna tell 'em how you pounded the Army."

He sauntered off, and I made myway to our quarters. It was still early, as far as shiptime went, and I wasn't feeling tired, only frazzled, fed up with the war, with people, with the universe. I tried to write a letter home, but could put down nothing that the censors would approve. A return to the conflict tomorrow, as if I hadn't had conflict enough already. Finally, still wakeful but at the end of my endurance, I went to bed, an hour before the official Lights Out.

IV

On August 21, 0400 hours Terran Greenwich, while civilians across the Federation muddled drowsily toward dawn, the Twenty-third Squadron jumped. With us were two lesser elements of the armada: the Third Flotilla—eight destroyers, two light cruisers—and the distinguished Seventeenth Squadron—six heavy cruisers. We jumped in penetration formation, Third Flotilla strung out in a loose screen around the core, Seventeenth Squadron posted as second defense line, and the Twenty-third tight-packed in the center. I never said this is easy to picture, especially when accommodating a third dimension, but if this is any help you can go back several centuries to the last global war on Terra and stand on a bunker looking up into the skies over Germany. Way up among the dense black clouds left by flak is a tight wad of B-17 heavy bombers in box formation, flying in such a way that their brisding guns cover and re-cover one another's soft spots, forming murderous cross fires in every direction. And just above and below that flying fortress box you have a flock of lighters ready to fall on any Luftwaffe interceptor that tries to slice its way into the bomber pack. And way out ahead and on the sides some daring pilots are whipping their pathfinder aircraft through the storm fronts of antiaircraft fire, while a scattering of other fighters range far from the flock to give warning of closing Messerschmits. And when you have that in mind you also have our battle formation, jumping en masse from positions off Garr. The B-17's are battle cruisers, the standby fighters make Seventeenth Squadron, and those far-flung scouts and pathfinders are the destroyers, and light cruisers of third Flotilla.

So this is the way we jumped: one blink and Garr's great, swollen sun hangs heavy some thirty million kilometers off our stern; another, and the dwarfish star feeding life to Lot stares blankly into space nearby. Slowly the on-board sensors click to life, and slowly we orient ourselves, and slowly but with increasing speed we're swooping toward our prey. Weapons unlimber, train on drones for last-chance practice, technicians check sky-to-plant missiles, generators scream, send vibrations shaking down Polar Star as reserves are built in the power cells, and far out, a hundred thousand kilometers out, the destroyers search for Satarii prey.

We expected no major opposition beyond the plant-based defenses, since Intelligence placed only four small ships in the system. Of course, we had no doubt that these Tars would attack—the enemy has never bowed to superior numbers—but we had more than enough strength at our disposal to deal with anything short of a fleet wing. It was possible that the Satarii might stage a mass jump-in, but precedent and logistical practicality nearly ruled this out on a spur-of-the-moment basis. Our penetration wouldn't warrant it. Later, perhaps, when the rest of the Navy followed us in, but certainly no sooner than that. We assumed that the Tars would trust to planetary defense and whatever they had close at hand, and we were proved out.

An hour after arriving in the Lot system, destroyer Anzio reported a deep-space contact and began falling back toward our core. Seventeenth Squadron dispatched two cruisers, two additional destroyers shifted into an encirclement maneuver, and the fighting ended before it began, leaving the Satarii vessels peppered across a thousand cubic kilometers of space. There had been a small patrol boat, a lightly-armed courier, and a naval transport. The alienness of our foes struck home with a vengeance. A value system that could see an unarmed transport crew attack a major task force was beyond our comprehension. Perhaps they had hoped to ram.

But the greatest danger as far as we were concerned was yet to come, and when it did it would be from Lot herself.

Picture your bombers now, arriving over Germany with minimal losses. Black flak clouds pockmark the sky, but the aircraft continue, serenely oblivious, bombs primed and crew confident. The country below knows death is coming and huddles helpless in shelters and subway tubes. The bomb-bay doors yawn open. The target is very near.

And on a ring of airfields around Berlin, the harried mechanics role out their final weapon, a rocket plane, the Messerschmit 163 Komet. Speed and performance: extremely high. Rate of climb: extremely fast. Armament: extremely heavy. Pilots: only one. Komet alone cannot stop the bombers, but it outclasses the protecting American fighters. Komet will get through the screens, be able to damage, or perhaps destroy, a plane or two. Berlin will be bombed—there is no helping that—but the price to be paid is blood.

And on Lot, as the Twenty-third sped serenely on in box formation, its defensive batteries primed and ready, its laser weapons covering soft spots, as we, reactors throbbing, cleared our decks for action, the Satarii ground crews dragged their "Komets" out. Near-space interceptors, set on boosters in hardened silos, their lethal sixty-foot arrow shapes enclosed in clamshell nose cones, in these the Satarii pilots waited for battle to begin. On Hifendel I had the good fortune to examine an unused Tar interceptor and the launch complex it came from. Since they are planet-based, the pilots operate at a distinct disadvantage for the first few minutes of battle. The little ships cannot space on their own, and are carried through the atmosphere on old-style chemical launch vehicles. During this crushing ascent, a single missile from our fleet could knock out pilot, ship, and all in one low-yield nuclear blast. Thus it is the common practice for the interceptors to be launched while the target is still several thousand kilometers off, well beyond gunnery range.

Once the fighter is released, though, the advantage is all Satarii. A destroyer is so awkward in comparison that the interceptor can literally fly rings around it. They dash in like German Komets, spry enough to dodge our missiles, pulling maneuvers that would wrench a larger ship apart. To fight these mosquitoes you need a craft that can match them and more. That is where I come in. Fire of necessity fights fire, and the anti-interceptor groups are Federation flint.

At 0700, four hours from bombardment orbit, we filed into the ready room, tensed and seeking blood. I retreated into a corner, outwardly sulking, inwardly steeling myself to the task ahead. Coldly I crushed my finer feelings, covered up my sensibilities, blanketed the notional surges of my mind. In the all sessions I had earned a certain cavalry image by riding to the aid of beleaguered debators, but before and during battle I was Buddha, as a passive to the eye as the serene bronze statues tarnishing green in Terra's Orient. I was more than Buddha; I was Machine, my computer banks programmed to a single word: survival. And if the optimum surival operation entailed clearing the sky of potential dangers, then I would accept the killing to stay alive.

In this manner of preparation I happened to be alone. The others spent their last dragging minutes inflaming their hatreds, submerging their fear of Tars and vacuum in bitter, acid passion. Many had real reason to hate the Satarii, reasons transcending the gamble of life and death, but still I counted it a fool's reaction. In my first combat sorties I had followed the same course, until once, while hotly pursuing one fleeing Tar, I had been blind to the second coming in on my tail. That time I had been lucky and survived, but luck will obey no master and I could never count on it again. Instead I did without.

"Oh, God, gonna get me a Tar this time 'round."

Richards ran through an elaborate parody of prayer.

"Oh, my Father who art in Heaven, give me this day my daily Tar, and forgive him his trespasses since God Almighty, I don't intend to!"

Sanderson of N73 shouted the amen. The rest of the ready room joined in.

There were more than just the four aft pilots present at the time; each ship had two handlers to help it space, and the very words "fighter pilot" exude a glamor strange to war in space. Crew members stuck with duller tasks drifted in to stare, like peasants pausing in their fields to watch the knights go by. Stephens humored them; I repelled them, scowling with my eyes half-closed. And yet, I felt nothing in particular within me. Random thoughts ran through my mind, connected vaguely with the raucous activity on all sides. "Richards," I thought, "Buddha-Smithy blesses you not. Not at all, Richards, not you at all . . ."

"Pilots!"

The intercom burst awake.

"Pilots, board your ships. Be prepared for immediate scramble orders. We are within range of Lot-based interceptors; attacks are considered imminent."

I got to my feet. My wingman was whistling the Federation battle song while gathering up his gear. He was also clowning for the onlookers. I walked over to the knot of people and pressed my way through. Richards was on the floor, groping for a tube of food concentrates. He surveyed my feet, then carefully ran his gaze up toward my face, pumping each moment for comic effect.

"Richards," I said, "speed it up." "Well, Smithy," he drawled in reply, "what are you so all-fired excited about?"

There was general laughter, which I refused to acknowledge.

"I could always have Johnson for wingman," I said instead. "I don't need you, Richards. I hope you don't think I particularly care."

I made my way to the door and left without checking reactions, but he was on board his ship almost as quickly as I.

V

Night Killer II was not a beautiful vessel. Satarii fighters are sleek, polished for planetary re-entry, but a space-based interceptor need not be aesthetic. Had I attempted to land on Lot I would have reached the surface in ashes. Night Killer carried her missiles outside the hull in two cylindrical bundles. Radar sweeps and communication aerials were all exposed. Her drive was set on unstreamlined pylons spaced about her stern while the cockpit glass bulged beyond the curvature of her skin, ostensibly for wider vision with less distortion; the effect on the casual observer was that of a mutated hornet's head. And added to this were bundles of thrusters placed strategically about the hull to aid maneuvering. But regardless of her ungainliness, she remained an effective fighting unit, equal and in some ways more than equal to the darting black war craft of the Satarii. I made a quick run-through of emergency procedures, then hooked my suit into the ship's life-support system. After a moment's hesitation I stretched out one gloved hand and seized an inconspicuous switch. Another pause, interminably dragging, and I forced myself to flip the toggle. Night Killer hummed softly, jerked momentarily, and lay still. The air lock had closed. I was divorced from Polar Star.

For the first time since boarding I looked beyond the cockpit glass. Lot was assuming impressive size and hung virtually free of clouds. The continental outlines were as sharp as our meteorologists had predicted. Bombardment conditions were close to perfect.

"N70, report."

"Smith, N70, reporting."

"Smith, you read us loud and clear?"

"Excessively loud and clear, Battle Command. Assuming the same at your end."

"We read you, N70. Systems check through central bank gives you go, N70, green all systems. Assume all go at your end?"

"All go my end, Battle Command."

"Fine, Smith. Ready for com-link with N71?"

N71 was Richards' ship.

"No, B.C."

"Grin and bear it, Smith. He's your wingman."

They plugged me in.

"'Lo, Smithy," came Richards' voice. "I'm coming through over there? Loud and clear, Smithy?"

"Yes," I answered curtly.

"O.K.," he returned lightly. "I won't talk much. But friend, if I get in trouble, boy, I'm gonna shout loud as hell, you hear? And if you're stuck, why, you just call old Richards, you hear?"

"I hear, Richards. Just get yourself out of this alive. A dead Tar for a dead pilot's a loss, not a gain. Do you hear, Richards?"

He laughed.

"Yes'm, mother, I'll do just that. Just don't you worry your little head about it, O.K.? Only stands to reason, me being such a good boy, you know?"

He laughed louder; I sat, slightly amused by my lack of amusement, while Night Killer clicked softly to herself and the minutes crept by. When I glanced at Lot she seemed perceptibly nearer.

It was a fluke that I looked up when I did, a piece of purest chance. For as I did so five sharp, yellow flares blossomed against the dark green background and stretched out into brilliant pen strokes, quickly rising from the planet's surface and reaching out for space. I had no doubt of their nature.

Battle Command broke into our com-link.

"All fighters. Five bogies leaving Lot. Speed thirty thousand kilometers per hour and accelerating. Distance eighty thousand, six hundred and fifty kilometers. Fighters N64, N65, N66, N67 scramble."

I sat back in my seat. The forward group from Polar Star would handle this first sortie. Plainly, Battle Command expected more to come. There was no other reason for holding our elite aft unit back.

Far ahead of me along the jumbled length of Polar Star's hull, sunlight flashed from moving metal. The magnetic fields holding fighters to battle cruiser had been reversed, and our anti-interceptors were being repulsed, shoved sideways into space. There was a second flash, brighter than reflected light, as the drive of one of the little ships caught hold, and moments later N64, as I assumed it to be from its position, had dwindled out of sight. In under an hour her pilot would be feverishly fighting for life.

"Shucks now," observed Richards. "They get all the fun."

For the next twenty minutes or so I watched the swelling planet, hoping to catch a second Satarii spacing, while occasional caustic remarks from our own distant pilots were funneled in via Battle Command. Both groups were still accelerating—the combined battle speed would be fantastic—and the speed of our entire formation had been increasing likewise. Lot had her gravity latched onto us and was hauling us in at over fifty thousand kilometers per hour. Sometime we would need to start braking, soon if we wanted a stable orbit.

"Missile-guidance radar contact," snapped a voice.

"Visual sighting, top magnification." That was N64.

"Roger. Pick your targets and watch the fifth Tar."

"Will do, B.C. Over and out for duration."

Silence then. I shut my eyes and tried to place myself in one of the closing vessels. Nine flyspeck warships were charging down each other's throats, hell-bent on destruction. The Federation pilots were placing the battle into the hands of fantastically skilled computers, linked to guidance radar and, finally, to the missiles clutched in bundles beyond the hull. The Satarii, their mission complicated by planetary reentry, were activating the gear that would extend their own rockets beyond the polished, night-black skin, and would essentially match our moves thereafter. Perhaps one or two of the Federation fighters were braking, to get a chance at pursuing however many Tars escaped, but the more usual practice at the speed they were traveling would be to continue on to parking orbit around Lot, where the task force could recover them later. There were still forty-four anti-interceptors in reserve, for only Polar Star out of the six battle cruisers had unleashed part of her brood.

"All pilots! Four bogies leaving Lot. Speed, thirty thousand kilometers and accelerating. Distance forty-four thousand. N54, N55, N56, N57 scramble!"

"N64 reporting. Bogie destroyed! No damage."

"N67 reporting. A-O.K., B.C., will proceed. Ditto, N66, B.C."

"N62 report! Report N62!"

"All pilots! Two bogies closing, range twenty thousand, speed forty-three thousand. N58, N59 scramble! Repeat—" They overrode themselves. "All pilots! Four bogies leaving Lot, speed twenty-five thousand and accelerating, distance forty-two thousand, five hundred. N40, N41, N42, N43 scramble!"

The reports piled out, too fast to follow. I ignored them as best I could, waiting. If any directives were issued to me, Battle Command's computer would isolate it and feed it into Night Killer without interference. Only then would I have cause for worry.

"Scramble N84, N85! Bogie five thousand kilometers, bearing on Dog Star. N84, N85 scramble!"

A penetration! Dog Star was below in formation, the second nearest battle cruiser, and that Tar fighter had her nailed. Fighters couldn't stop him at five thousand. It would fall to ship defenses.

A defensive-battery pod, held off the hull on a fragile pylon, rotated forty-five degrees as identical motion along the length of the ship sent reflections flashing ahead of me. Laser weapons trained on the oncoming fighter as missile launchers uncovered themselves and tracking radar swung ponderously around and downward.

"Bogie, twenty-three hundred!"

Instantly Polar Star was alight, from stem to stern an elongated sun, spewing fire into space. Just in time, I snapped my suit visor into place as four missiles were launched directly ahead, their exhaust splashing over the blast shields. I imagined the Satarii pilot, gyrating his craft to throw our gunners off. More flashes came from below, from North Star, from above, from Dog Star. Fearsome cross fire! The Tar was bucking our broadside. Searing dazzle at tremendous distance!

"Bogie destroyed."

Lasers lashed out to catch his missiles, launched at the moment of immolation. More starbursts, closer still! , "Battle damage ship-to-ship missiles, contact Dog Star. Hull penetration aft, minor. Defense pod A3 inactive. Able to continue."

And abruptly the communications snapped off, leaving me in a foreboding vacuum. I tensed; this should be it, but to my surprise it was Captain Stephens who used our channel instead.

"Fighters N70, N71, N72, N73. This is your ship commander. It is without hesitation that I inform you that you four men are considered the finest fighter pilots in the Combined Fleet. This is a fact, to be accepted as such, as is the following. Intelligence intercepts indicate that the Satarii

Empire has instituted a new point-defense policy involving the movement of crack interceptor teams from home-world defense to frontier planets considered especially vulnerable to attack. Lot is one such world. These teams are expected to weaken our task force defenses to such a degree that lesser-skilled pilots will stand an improved chance of penetrating to attack range. With such a mission assigned, it is obvious that the defense system they are to weaken is that of our anti-interceptor cordon. That is you, gentlemen, you and your fellows. However, your missions will not be task force protection. You are to be the hunters, not the hunted. If and when Satarii interceptors of an unusual nature are encountered, you will be dispatched to handle them. So far all enemy craft have displayed normal attack procedures. Destroyer Agincourt, however, has radar contact on a large object following a high-altitude elliptical orbit. There is as yet no reason other than prudence to view this as other than a spent booster, but a possibility exists that several enemy fighters have locked together to form an inconspicuous piece of `debris.' Until further confirmation, you will be held back, but should you be released, bear in mind that those you engage will be among the finest the Satarii Empire can muster. Best luck and good hunting, gentlemen, when and if. Over and out."

The connection broke. Richards whistled.

"God damn, Smithy," he said. "You hear that?"

I mumbled an affirmative, and suddenly he really was praying, harshly, insistently. I tried to shut it from my ears, revolted.

There is a certain aspect of terror in space itself; add to it battle, unexpected decompression, the searing, death of a direct hit, the loss of communication gear, the hit on the drive that kills one's power, add all these, and balance them only with a heavy, quick, and painless gun, sum it up and total the score, and what you have left is the greatest nemesis a pilot can meet. Fear. Fear of space, fear of battle, fear of Satarii, fear of death. A discreet but acknowledged struggle was fought for the right to, become my wingman, for never, not so long as my own ship could fight, had I allowed a partner to die. Men built hatreds to cover their fear, and I overrode it by being Machine, and which is better I leave to you. What matters most is the end, for uncontrollable fear means inevitable death, and in space the means are of little consequence.

"Smithy! You watch out for me, you hear? You hear!"

"Richards," I said coldly, "you know me better than that."

He was silent, then Battle Command filled the gap.

"N70, N71 prepare to scramble; coupled bogies, polar orbit, altitude nine hundred and fifty-three kilometers. Speed eight thousand kilometers per hour. All other fighters remain clear. Repeat, all other fighters ' remain clear. N70, N71 prepare to scramble."

Stephens came back on.

"Smith, Richards, take care. We want you back again."

"I want me back again," I said.

"Smithy'll make sure," muttered Richards, then lapsed into semi-incoherence. "Tar bastards!" he cried suddenly. "God, Stephens, let us go!"

"Stifle it," I snapped. He stopped. At this moment I was commanding, and only I.

"N70, N71," continued Stephens, "language is pardoned. Good luck, gentlemen. Cast off."

For a moment I felt a surge of horror come sweeping up my throat, carrying all before it, and with cold fury I clutched it, wadded it, flung it from me into space. Emotions now were Eden's apples. I had no wish to fall.

I punched a control on the panel before me, and the electromagnetic coil along Night Killer's belly abruptly reversed polarity. The same forces that had held us together through battle and hyperspace rejected us now, flung me and my ship away from Polar Star. I slid sideways, still matching the warship's forward velocity, as the curvature of her hull became more apparent and the sheer massiveness of it diminished. I looked to port and saw Richards falling away also. I lifted the mike.

"Richards? Smith here. Give a side burn and close on me."

His port thrusters flared briefly and his ship moved rapidly closer. With a small burn of my own, I rolled Night Killer ninety degrees, aiming her belly at N71.

"Fine. Now brake to three yards' station-keeping, roll your coil toward me, and we'll couple on magnetics."

Carefully we narrowed the gap between us, then our magnets drew us together, clamped us tight.

"Fine," I repeated. "Let's go."

Matching accelerations, we eased the drive up a notch at a time, beginning to run forward along the length of Polar Star's hull, now a good kilometer distant. Sunlight blazed and dripped off her multifaceted reflecting surfaces. From astrodomes on the  weapon-pods tiny figures watched us go, waving. A light blinked near the control center: "Good hunting." To humor them, I maneuvered us through a barrel-roll, then began to pick up speed in earnest. A twenty-second burn on the beam thrusters angled us off our path, starting us on a roundabout route toward the Tars' orbital path. Looking back as we turned, I could see the six ungainly capital ships in their box formation, braking rockets firing now to slip the flying fortress into bombardment positions off Lot. Battle Command was silent; apparently all the interceptors had been dealt with, excepting only our prey.

I aimed a tight transmission back at the squadron, hoping the Satarii would not pick it up.

"Battle Command, this is N70. Give me a radar bearing on the bogie."

The answer shot back immediately. I translated their figures into my shipboard computer and passed them on to Richards. That done, I hooked my tracking radar into the banks and instantly had the enemy on my screens. They were a good eight thousand kilometers away. However, we were moving at close to fifty-six thousand kilometers per hour ourselves, and, had we driven directly in, there could have been contact within eight minutes.

Perhaps that was the course we should have followed, but I think not. The difficulty with such a maneuver is that, once the initial firing run is completed, the time wasted in stopping, reversing direction, and building up speed again is prodigious. Before we could catch up with any Tar fighters that escaped, they would be pressing home attacks against our battle cruisers. I personally felt that, intended as dogfighters or no, if we left our squadron wide open they would not hesitate to plunge in. And besides, there was a point to put across:

If Intelligence was correct and we were up against the enemy's varsity squad, then it was almost imperative that we make an object lesson of them, assuming, of course, that we could.

I guided us through a tremendous parabola that would bring us, with more maneuvering, into position behind the target ships. They were apparently still joined together, just as Richards and I were, but it was obvious from the radar screen that destroyer Agincourt, one of the most extensively outfitted ships in the fleet for intelligence-gathering operations, had closed enough to make a visual confirmation. I wondered briefly that the warship had not launched a long-range attack; perhaps Battle Command was seeking an object lesson, too.

"Smithy," demanded Richards, "when are we gonna break up?"

"Last possible moment," I told him. "Maybe they'll think we're a patrol boat sent to check them out. Then, when we get too close and they have to fight, we separate and they'll find they've got more than they counted on."

"Real sweet," said Richards. The fear was gone from his voice, routed by bitter hatred. "Long as we're coupled the bastards just got one big blip on their screens, eh? That's devious, friend. Kinda fitting for them."

I grunted in reply. Hot emotions can be contagious, and I wanted none of my wingman's virulence.

We completed the parabola and started to close. I had braked our speed to sixteen thousand, giving us an effective closing speed of eight thousand kilometers per hour. The Tars were only some four thousand ahead of us as we slid into their orbital track. Half an hour to contact, then. A thought occurred to me.

"A new idea, Richards. Be ready to separate whenever I say so, whether they've made a move or not. If we jump them as two separate fighters while they're still coupled, it's our advantage all the way."

"Right," he said, with surprising economy. It sounded as though his teeth were clenched.

At about two thousand kilometers' distance the Tars, considering their small size, would be within range of our standard visual equipment at top magnification. This they undoubtedly knew, having seized our equipment before, and were probably waiting until the Federation "patrol boat" had almost reached that range before they revealed their true nature and jumped their pursuer. What they couldn't know was that destroyer Agincourt, picket and long-range penetration ship, carried far more than the standard optical gear, and that the "patrol boat" was not a scout, but a hunter. Thus we could probably get quite close—maybe twenty-three hundred kilometers would be about right—then release our bondings to become a pair of highly maneuverable anti-interceptors before our foes could do the same. If so, we would catch them while they were still separating, and probably handle both in a single run. Richards seemed to follow my reasoning, singing and cursing with easy confidence.

The distance narrowed. On the radar, screen the fluorescent blue dot that was Us closed on the sharp white dot that was Them, while right on the edge our task-force cluster was fading out of the picture. The Tars had better be dogfighters, since they'd never catch Twenty-third Squadron now.

"Richards," I said, "be ready to separate on a count of five with immediate acceleration."

The gap shrank further. Considering the enormity of space, the distance between us was minuscule. I checked the screen a final time and made myself as comfortable as possible.

"Five," I said, "four, three, two, one, now!"

I thumbed the coil control and Night Killer II leaped sideways. Through the single port in the cockpit floor I saw N71 doing the same, sunlight flashing from her missile bundles. I pulled steadily on the drive control while correcting sideslip with a port thruster burn and acceleration crushed me through the seat.

By the time my visual screen had snapped on I needed only low power. The two Tar fighters, night black, were still jerking apart, their engines flaring in unison. I punched in the missile-guidance computer, slid my hand to the firing control, and pressed it, once, twice. Four missiles shot forward, two to a side. My tinted faceplate swallowed the glare as Night Killer angled from her orbital path, riding a starboard thruster burn. A Satarii war craft loomed in my visuals, spinning to throw off the first salvo, and I pressed the controls again. This time there was no escape. A nova blotted out the stars as my belly thrusters fired and shoved me over my enemy. I continued to accelerate, outrunning fragments, but rolled as I did so for a better look back. I was in time to see a second star burst apart and caught the fleeting silhouette of a ship passing between me and the explosion. "God damn!" thundered in my earphones; Richards' triumphant battle cry.

As quickly as was safely possible we rendezvoused again, flying formation with two kilometers' separation. Radar registered only a single object anywhere near us, though fragments were radiating with frightening speed. One Tar fighter had disintegrated, the other only partially.

"Let's check the bastard out!" howled Richards, and we burned thrusters to close.

VI

The wreck was unimpressive. Without engines running it proved impossible to locate with visuals alone and we had to creep in on radar, unable to see a thing until a hundred yards away. That is why the Satarii use black; our own white ships stand out against the sky like beacons in comparison. We stayed just long enough for Richards to slake his appetite somewhat, then climbed back toward the orbital track.

"N70, N71, report!"

The cryptic call yanked us back to our senses.

"Smith! Richards! Report!" Captain Stephens himself, I noticed, then flipped on my own transmitter.

"N70 acknowledges. Ditto N71. Bogies destroyed. No damage. What next, Stephens?"

"You wait, damn it! We're so far ahead of you that we're having to relay through N54. We'll pick you up in one and a half orbits."

He gave us new orbital coordinates. If we slid into these new tracks and braked to ten thousand kilometers per hour, they would reach us in about ninety minutes. That done, he cursed us for failing to report immediately and broke communications with a parting epithet. We were on our own, with the fleet half a world away.

"Smithy."

Richards intruded on the com-link.

"Smithy, your screens working O.K.? Cause I've got two blips on polar orbit, friend, and I sure hope to hell I'm wrong."

I checked my own radar quickly, berating myself for letting my attention lapse, and found that Richards was right. Two large objects registered on my tracking radar, cold white, riding southern polar orbits. They were too large to be single Tar fighters, but then again, they seemed a good match in size for pairs of coupled bogies.

"Sorry, Richards. I have them, too."

He remained silent for several moments while the two blips drew almost imperceptibly nearer. One was nearly at our own altitude, proceeding at close to sixteen thousand kilometers per hour. The second was no more than three hundred up and moving at about twenty-three thousand. The shipboard computer gave me the answer I expected. If the three of us maintained our speeds there would be a general rendezvous in forty minutes. That seemed to be stretching coincidence a bit too far.

"God Almighty, Smith! The fleet's gone and left us!"

"Not quite," I returned. "We rendezvous in ninety minutes."

"The Tars get us in forty, Smithy!"

"Correct that, Richards. We get them in forty minutes. We have the initiative and we're keeping it."

He had no immediate answer for that, but I took his silence for something less than agreement.

In all honesty, the odds did not look good. I was reasonably sure our companions were four Tar fighters, perhaps trying the debris subterfuge again. If that was so, their dead compatriots had tipped the hand. The minutes dragged slowly and ceaselessly by while the stars hung overhead and Lot's moon set behind us, infuriatingly unconcerned. The planet below was a gray mass, undistinguished by any lights. We were over the night side, and probably over the ocean side as well, but that merely explained, did not temper the emptiness. Far on the horizon a brighter band showed we were overhauling the day. By the time we reached it, though, we would have other things on our minds. We continued to wait, helpless before the cold laws of physics and fate.

This was the deadly time, the crucial time, that more than once had decided the course of battle. War in space is a war of skips and jumps, of short, savage hops and long, nerve-racking parachute drops with the hard earth swirling up to crush and swallow one's fragile form and a thin, fabric sack in a canvas roll giving all one's margin of safety while the sky driver watches his harsh, mistress planet waiting hungrily to reclaim her own and wonders whether that white canopy will bang open above his head in time or whether the seams will rip apart, the cording twist, the gods guffaw with pleasure and send him to his death. We were jumping now. In twenty minutes, a little more, we would see action, for a short, savage minute, perhaps two or three, perhaps a little less, and then we would wait again, drifting in limbo while fear and doubt clawed at the bulwarks of our minds and tested the strengths of our walls of hate, of duty-to-country, of machinelike efficiency. All the wait, while the mind pulls taut and the body knots in anticipation of the short burst of action that will make or break our lives. Here is where the battle is fought, the true battle to which combat is but the aftermath, the ending happy or sad.

Once, when man first took to the air, the waiting was short, the combat long. The biplanes and triplanes, with turning circles half the length of Polar Star, could stay in contact till fuel ran out, with never more than five minutes between firing runs. Then came World War II, and combat sprawling over countries and states while speeds lunged toward a thousand kilometers per hour and time between action doubled, tripled as the pilots, fighting to turn their planes around, swept miles beyond the field of battle before inertia could be bucked enough for return. And then man broke the sound barrier. The MacDonald Phantom closing on the Mig, radar contact at sixty miles, the pilot inactive, his plane fighting for him as minutes drag, then contact, a shock of missiles, a blaze of fire, and he's fighting the rudder and ailerons, trying to make it around one hundred and eighty degrees of a turn before sliding into Chinese airspace a hundred miles away. A fistful of seconds for an armload of time. And then into space. Forty minutes' wait while we watch those two fluorescent blue blotches converging across a quarter of the sky, our computers tracking, our nerves tensing, waiting for the five-second explosion, the reflexive punch at the missile control, and then empty sky ahead again, the enemy fading five hundred kilometers back and losing fast, your forward thrusters blazing to slow you down, to allow you to turn at a dead stop, to overcome inertia and rebuild the G-force to send you screaming back to the fray, the time between contact ten, twenty incredible minutes. And every moment of waiting, while the heat of battle subsides around you, gives you time to think of the dangers you are in, of the dangers just survived, of the dangers you are plunging toward once again. For just a minute between battles, or less! For something to keep the mind a blank till it's needed to handle the stick! But it can't be done, and for ten minutes, twenty minutes, forty minutes, eyes riveted to the screens, you stagger beneath your load of fear. This is where battles are lost and won; this is where our battle was being fought, as the distance between us and the Tars narrowed and the minutes made their slow way by. I checked my screens again.

"Our friends are getting close."

"They hit us in twelve minutes, Smith! What the hell are you doing?"

"Clam it, Richards. They want us to think they're debris. Fine. We let them think we do, right up to when we kill them."

"Sweet and simple," he sneered, with a voice that left no doubts about his feelings. Sudden death in an empty sky must have been weighing heavily on his mind. I had some doubts myself, but I wasn't about to let him know.

Yet, in point of fact, I wasn't frightened. That was the goal of my emotional conditioning, and that was a goal I had achieved: to be able to judge objectively and clearly in a stress situation. My mind was doing exactly that, even as our spate of conversation ran its course. We were probably outnumbered by enemy fighters, yet, as far as the Satan could know, we had fallen for their trap. They might suspect otherwise, but their subterfuge had tied their hands, putting them in a position of having to carry it through on the chance that we were well and truly deceived. That meant they would probably stay coupled together until we closed to visual range. Furthermore, Richards and I were already separated, would not have to waste time disengaging when the moment to strike arrived. Two of the Tars should he put away with ease.

The trouble lay in the remaining pair. Pulling off from our first firing run would put them on our backs.

"Richards. Roll planetside as soon as you fire and slow to three thousand, fast."

"You're crazy, Smith! Damned if I drop speed for Tars!"

"Richards, you slow down! They won't expect it and they'll overshoot. And the slower we go, the tighter we maneuver. So follow!"

Again he made no answer and I expected none, but I also expected him to follow. I was his flight leader, and I had never lost a wingman.

The bogies sped closer, verging on visual range at two thousand. The time could never be riper.

"Go!"

I jammed the stick forward and G-pressure crushed my face to an African mask, stretched and distorted.

The firing computer locked onto target; I fired, and slammed Night Killer toward Lot as sudden light: ping blazed about the canopy. My forward thrusters were burning fiercely, jolting my speed to a comparative crawl; the G's released me .as the rockets cut off and inertia took over, speed thirty-eight hundred kilometers per hour. I checked the screens and confirmed that Richards had followed.

Then I stared at the screen again. One of the bogies was still in the air! No ship flying should have dodged our strike, not unless some superman rode the stick.

"Smith! Act, damn it!"

I came to my senses, swearing. The range on the second fighter group was streaking toward one thousand, and to my dismay they had split, not into two, but three attacking units.

"Richards, hit right flank, then brake like mad and go for the one behind us. Keep your speed down; you'll want to maneuver."

And they were upon us, or rather we were upon them. They had not expected such an insane attack. Night Killer gyrated to dodge Tar missiles, slammed sideways as a ship shattered nova-like just ahead, and then we were braking and spinning on our axis to hurtle back into the fray. Two of three bogies were down, Richards was charging his prey with all advantages cornered and the last ship of the second group was still trying to brake, his control hampered by excessive speed. I closed and fired carefully, conserving ammunition.

That pilot was good! He jumped one spread, sidestepped the second, and only as he swam back into my sights a final time did a proximity fuse detonate the third. He dashed on, momentarily wreathed in freezing mist as air fled his punctured hull. I fired regardless; the pilot was probably suited.

He was. Streaking out from the sudden debris came the fighter's full load of missiles, too close! I shoved my ship planetside, while the warheads, bereft of computer guidance, streaked narrowly past my stern. Several fuses went off, but I was accelerating again and left the fragments behind.

"Smithy! God help me, Smith!"

I swung to the screen and caught a chilling sight. Richards' fluorescent blue blip was nearly a thousand kilometers off. So close as to nearly merge with him was a single white dot, matching every maneuver my wingman pulled.

Night Killer screamed angry protest as I jammed the stick forward and caught every G that I could stand. Equally hard, I braked her down toward infighting speed. The gap had narrowed to seconds' worth of travel, and Richards had somehow kept alive. Without pausing for breath I plunged ahead.

Port bow thrusters flared to angle me onto the Tar's wide tail and I had him in naked-eye range. I punched the firing control, sending two missiles streaking.

"Richards, roll and climb!"

He broke and tumbled heavenward; the coast was clear for my salvo, but too clear as the enemy rolled also and plunged planetside. I followed, but diverted half my attention to Richards.

"N7I, damage report."

The Satarii was accelerating. I matched him and more, trying to close.

"Hull punctures, Smithy. Cabin decompression, but my suit's okay. He bracketed me twice; half my thrusters out; firing connections to missiles cut."

I was closer now, but not close enough for a sure kill.

"Get back in orbit, Richards. The fleet'll pick you up."

And the sudden realization of danger flooded my mind as my fingers, virtually of their own accord, braked Night Killer to her maximum, at the same time spinning the ship on her axis so that her powerful main drive faced toward Lot to shove me out and away. The Tar plunged on, retracting his missile rack and slicing deep into the atmosphere soup, now terrifyingly close at hand. I rode my main engines space-ward again, shaken. Another two minutes and I would have burned, reaching the planet below as ash.

I quickly plotted a rendezvousing course with Richards. The figures stubbornly refused to match. I wrestled with them a bit longer, then checked the radar to confirm my wingman's position. In such brief time remaining, I saved my life.

The first salvo exploded overhead, shatteringly close, causing me to dive even faster than planned. I ran an agonizing burn on the bow thrusters to brake my forward motion, all the while accelerating planetward again as multiple, conflicting G's strove to tear me apart. Another barrage and a wave of red lights sparkled across the panels. A sequence of ragged rolls, followed close by slowing descent and backward motion from the bow thrusters, and the danger was momentarily past. My attacker overshot, himself decelerating to spin about and finish the task. I began putting on forward speed again, pitifully slow as the ship fought against inertia. But with a little luck I could turn the tables.

That incredible devil! He had only dipped into the atmosphere to throw me off, then had shot back out to catch me unaware. The temperatures must have been fantastic; the skill to pull it off seemed preternatural.

But then, my own escape had not been commonplace.

I made a check across the board and found no less than six thrusters out. No wonder the shaky barrel rolls! My main communication link was broken, though Richards' tie-in remained unharmed. Lastly, the cabin pressure was dropping. I slid the helmet visor shut and immediately went on suit support. Sudden movement across the radar screen caught my attention as the Tar fighter split off his course and skidded toward Lot. I increased my speed and followed, running a burst on the port bow thrusters to jolt me onto his path. Then he was braking, sliding sharply down the speed scale. I matched him and didn't overshoot; he sidestepped and I followed; he rolled, yawed, leaped, and I fired.

It was a four-missile spread followed by wicked braking. That way he would speed to dodge the salvo, and I would stay remorselessly on his tail, to catch him on his recovery. Just then, though, a blinding brightness swallowed the sky; we had passed from the planet's shadow and were now bathed in a dazzle of light.

Far ahead of me, almost lost against the glare, thrusters flared, and before I saw what he was doing the Satarii sliced his speed by half. My barrage overshot, I braked sharply to avoid overshooting myself, and of a sudden we were cruising side by side, no more than five kilometers apart, our speeds a perfect match.

The situation was ludicrous, likewise deadly. My survival depended on catching and matching any decrease in his speed. If I reacted sluggishly, his ship would fall behind and onto my tail. On the other hand, he could not accelerate out of the situation, since placing his unprotected stern in my sights would bring a quick and final end.

I looked at the screen to get coordinates, and set my visuals on the Tar. The picture tube presented a drab and featureless gray; a near miss had shattered the lenses. I was riding semi-blind beside a foe who had done the inconceivable—nearly destroyed me in single combat—and I felt a sudden and surprising hunger. Unable to resist it, I fired the remaining starboard thrusters and slid sideways toward my enemy.

I wondered how he would react. I Would he think this some unusual tactic, some devilish new snare, or would his alien mind grasp a fragment of my thoughts? If the former, he would probably sidestep away, maintaining our distance and the uneasy status quo. And if not? I received my answer. The Satarii did sidestep, but toward me.

Tense seconds passed. To my left an orange fleck appeared. I stared at that. An orange Tar? It took a certain easy conceit, a confidence in self and ability, to defy traditions that way, orange over black, or green dragons painted on one's hull. I waited impatiently for the gap to close.

We neared until the cockpit glass of the other was sharply defined. Slowly we neared one another, until the scorches from his atmospheric dip appeared, until his nearly empty missile rack stood out with wintery sharpness. I had no doubt that he saw my own punctured hull and depleted ammunition. We drew still closer in a heavily somber air of mutual regard. Somehow we sensed in each other more than our different worlds and dissimilar minds, more than our incompatible values and clashing cultures. Looming above and beyond these was our common ground, our equal flying skill, so far above that of our peers and comrades that there could scarcely be comparisons. Ours was a third world, distinct from Satarii and Federation, the transcending world of masters of an art. As Steinmetz and Einstein met one somber, grimy day on Earth, in the grinding, impersonal canyons of New York City, as the two giants drew together, suddenly alone in the roar of the crowd, in an age when space flight was a dream and nuclear power the faint flicker of lightning lashing out at a far horizon, as for a moment they spoke, softly and quickly, whispering so that none but they could hear, so we came together now in the strife-torn heavens of Lot. Carefully I unstrapped myself and inched forward until the bulging sweep of Night Killer's canopy left me exposed to view. I waited.

Across the twenty-meter gap, there was a trace of movement; then a suited figure eased into sight, taller and thinner than a man had any right to be, the helmet broader, flatter. His visor was shut, making me aware of the slightest mist of air escaping about his stern. Across the gap our faces were hidden; to expose them would have meant decompression and death, and yet, there was no real need. We understood without seeing, without the meeting of eyes.

The action came spontaneously. I grasped the firing controls and launched four missiles straight ahead, wasting their warheads in empty space. Again I waited. A sudden blaze from beneath my opponent's belly marked his answer. He, too, emptied weaponry into space.

It was the ultimate safeguard, tantamount to peace itself. We rode, disarmed, for stretching minutes, regarding each other through tinted masks. And finally, when all the time allowed was spent, we parted, he to spiral down toward Lot, I to ascend toward the stars and Richards and command ship Polar Star.

I realized then what was needed to end the war: five, ten, ten thousand meetings such as ours, ten thousand contacts between Satarii and Human, a few shared moments of contemplation and other-world companionship. And once one knew his enemy as a being, an entity distinct and separate from the shadowy shape behind a gun, one would find it hard to hate and fear. And without either one to feed the other, the fleets might then go home.

I wove a strange hypocrisy, perhaps. I returned to Polar Star with four more kills than when I had sortied; Richards returned plus two. Yet I had spared the most dangerous pilot of all—or he had spared me—because we could muster no hatred. But I had no feelings for his four dead compatriots, and these are facts not easy to reconcile. What, then, can I say, except that he and I were different from the rest, each ultimate pilots, each ostracized from his peers by his talent and joined with his enemy by the same. When Night Killer berthed on Polar Star and I made my weary way to quarters, Richards was farther from me than the Tar. I avoided my wingman's incredulous stares. He sensed what it was that I had done, and that private reconciliation, of any act committed or yet to come, was beyond his least forgiveness. A sweeping statement, but it was true, though there was very much more indeed to come.

VII

Our sortie was the last one of the bombardment. Thereafter the Twenty-third ranged alone off Lot, while the counterbarrages decreased in fury and our own thundered down as unadulterated as ever. The enemy was pumped dry; the last stubborn defender surrendered himself to fate; the inhabitants, turtle-like, pulled in upon themselves and waited for hell to pass. We slashed their world unmercifully, gouging the red earth deep about their colonies, sending our destroyers in lethal, atmosphere-skimming sweeps. Delicate feathers of smoke, or so they seemed to us above, rose miles into the air. Low-yield atomics reformed the planet; heavy lasers set forests ablaze and swamped hidden bases inflame. Mars ran roughshod over Lot, and finally, when the once-clear day was turned to dust, we reformed our fleet, broke our orbit, and plunged back into space.

Who knows what the Tars felt? Relief, probably, that the raid had finally come. It must have been expected, for the system was on the fringe of the empire and planets further in had been hit before. They would wait patiently for us to jump back to Garr, and then the messages would flow out for supplies, the black-hulled ships would return, and peace would hold sway once more. All just as soon as we left.

But the Twenty-third stayed.

A hundred thousand kilometers out we found a solar orbit and rode it, waiting, and at 2200 hours the Combined Fleet followed us in.

This is the way the jump looked. One moment infinite, star-spotted blackness, then three hundred sharp white flecks, above, below, in front, behind our ships. The fleet had come to stay.

And this is how it looked on Lot. The tracking-screens barren fields of green save for a clump of electric-bright specks hanging far, far, and safely away, then, of a sudden, a vast and all-encompassing cloud of dust motes, filling the empty corners of the sky. How, I've often wondered since, did the Satarii feel then?

I personally met with a great and pleasant surprise. Shortly after the fleet jump I was summoned forward to receive a communication. It took a moment for the source to register: HS Jonas Salk. And then it sank in like a rock, sank with a shock, turned me over with delight. Hospital ship Jonas Salk, commanded by Captain Benjamin Smith. I hadn't seen my brother for almost five years.

Benjamin, the only member of the family who had opposed my enlistment. "Immoral!" he had cried, "you crazy, immoral fool! Do you know what it is you've signed up for? Killing people! Killing, maiming, butchering people! That's what you've signed up for, you fool, and I know damned well you know it. Why!"

There isn't any answer for that, you know. Why should a man stand up and say: "Yes, I shall do murder as thou see fit?" I did it; that was all. And Benj had exploded. But we were brothers still, and good ones. In the end he'd followed, too. A good and experienced pilot like Benj could not be left rotting on the vine, and the war department had "requisitioned" him. But on his own terms. No combat. Command of the HS Jonas Salk, angel of mercy to the fleet.

"Tom, you old war horse," read the message, "it's been a long time. Can't operate in the war zone without hearing about you. You know I don't approve, but congratulations on surviving. Maybe we can get together, sometime or other. Benj."

I consumed it, read it a second time, and headed aft in high spirits, which was something that hadn't come often to me of late. Before leaving, though, I sent a communication back, expressing my hope for a good talk. I could undoubtedly wrangle one out, too; Stephens had not been at all displeased with me lately.

Richards looked up as I passed through the Section C lounge.

"Well, Smithy," he demanded, "what're you so all-fired cheery about? Push a deal with that Tar bastard, maybe?"

We were not friends in any sense of the word. If the issue had once been in doubt, it was no longer. "Friend," he had said, many weeks past, "the Tars are gonna go to hell, and I won't have none of your peace-pipe talk!" and now, in an unwritten pact off Lot, I had made that forbidden peace with his almost-killer. Richards was not merciful; he had assaulted my proverbial tower, and I had repulsed him. The next time around there would be no quarter.

"Well?" he demanded.

"No deals," I told him dryly, but even my wingman could not depress me now. "My brother came in with the fleet. Benjamin, on Jonas Salk."

There was a brief silence; I'd told him of my brother's views, and he was sharp.

"Well," he said slowly, "that's real fine. Now we've got two Tar-loving bastards in the fleet. How many Fed patients he killed for the Tars, Smithy? Hell, just make sure the medicine—"

Then I hauled him from his chair and sent him spinning against the wall. The few others present turned and stared.

"Richards, you spit any more venom and I'll kill you! I can take your tongue, friend," I spat the word in his face, "but you're not going to slander the only man in this butchering Navy!"

I calmed myself, still keeping him pinned to the paneling with my arm.

"Don't forget, Richards. You've gotten me hating one person now, and by God you deserve it!"

I left, not for my quarters, but for Stephens' command post. When I returned I was no longer Richards' bunkmate. He would learn that tonight. He wouldn't learn until later that he was no longer my wingman.

VIII

The enemy responded to our assault with surprising force and speed. Two days after the general jump-in, the third wing of the Satarii Main Fleet arrived en masse to do battle. Twenty-third Squadron, with its six modern battle cruisers, was still replenishing from depot ships and could take no part, critically weakening the Federation forces when they could least afford it. Battle raged hot and bitter for nearly twenty-four hours before the Tars conceded the field. They had been overwhelmed, but merely by force of numbers, and ship for ship we had taken the worst of the beatings.

But despite our losses and the unexpected speed of the counterblow, tactical victory was ours. The defenders withdrew, licking their wounds, and the invasion got under way. Behind a screen of destroyers and light cruisers the fleet closed in on Lot.

First a line of light craft to render pinpoint fire support. Then the assault transports, nearly warships in their own right, armed and armored  and laden with coveys of landing boats. In a ponderous shell beyond this first wave hung the Twenty-third Squadron, partly for heavy gunnery, partly as flying airfields for our one-man interceptors. Next level out were the back-up transports, interspersed with warships there to handle any intruders, and also located in this level was the white-painted, cross-marked ex-liner Jonas Salk, ready to treat the wounded sure to come. Here was the invasion fleet, in synchronous orbit above the most battered land mass on Lot. A cordon of war craft was flung around the rest of the planet to restrict any flow of Satarii supplies, and the bulk of the Combined Fleet rode shotgun nearby, in case the Tar Navy tried again. The stage was set; the pieces were placed; the waiting war was about to end.

At 2130, four days after leaving Garr, Polar Star and her five sisters laid a final, blistering fire on Lot, and all across the planet fires burgeoned anew. Smoke began to swallow the sky as hundreds of pinstreak flashes sparkled momentarily in the high reaches of the ionosphere, the glowing atmospheric entry of twenty thousand shock troops.

Riding in the cockpit of a refurbished, rearmed Night Killer II, I held a ringside seat for the biggest show in space. A few batteries, incredibly still intact, strove ineffectually to stem the tide, but our close-in destroyers ended the threat. The emptied assault transports began shifting back to the outer levels and the second-wave ships fell in to take their place. Communications crackled from the set: such and such a unit landing, such and such a boat destroyed. Two Satarii warships jumped in, to be caught by the battle fleet deployed for such a chance. The occupation had become irrevocable; at the very worst it could be made only costly, and no one had harbored any illusions about that.

"All fighters. Two bogies, range fourteen thousand, three hundred kilometers and closing. Speed twelve thousand, five hundred kilometers per hour. North polar orbit. Scramble N70, N71, N72, N73. Repeat. N70, N71, N72, N73."

I came to full attention with surprise and a strange feeling in my stomach. Two bogies? Risking an attack in a sky filled to overflowing with enemy ships? Beyond a doubt my orange opponent, and who else? Another perfectionist, most likely.

With these thoughts occupying my mind, I coldly reversed the coil polarity and let opposing magnetic fields fling me from Polar Star. I lifted the microphone.

"O.K., Johnson. Burn port thrusters and rendezvous two o'clock off the main batteries."

"Roger, Smith."

I eased on a bit of power and slid forward along the cluttered hull. A slight application of the forward thrusters braked me back down to the battle cruiser's speed. The mass of midship battery three hung below my feet, a steel-plated dirigible, its smooth skin marred by the missile launchers, all of which were exposed for action. A minute later, Johnson drew up alongside me in N72. I mentally shook my head. A new wing-man and a new working relationship to build. Richards and I had been a team of three years' experience, but a house divided cannot stand. If not agreement, there can at least be no antagonisms.

"O.K., friend. Let's go."

Together we accelerated and sidled away from the ship. We began to angle out of the great cloud of Federation vessels, still keeping in the congested sky. Then we were free and closing on the bogies, taking a low-altitude approach while Richards, now a flight leader, took the high. Four to two; it wasn't fair, except, of course, that one of the two before us was decked in orange.

"Fighters, this is Battle Command. Bogies' probable target area back-up transports and fleet-train vessels." "Roger, B.C. What are you leading up to?"

"Patience, Smith. The Hifendel precedent. An attempt to knock out loaded transports and hospital ships, maximizing casualties. Don't you remember, N70? You were there."

Johnson chuckled. Richards probably sneered, but I no longer had a tie-in with him. Yes, I remembered. That drive to hit our medical centers had been another mark of enemy alienness. Only a people who could abandon crippled yet living pilots, only a people who would attack a task force with an unarmed transport, only a people with so little regard for the individual life as the Satarii could have brought themselves to attack the repositories of the wounded and maimed. To them it was not an infamous act. To them the wastage of Federation effort in recovering and healing the injured was an infamous act, for they themselves would have employed that effort in furthering the cause of the corporate mass of the species. Destroying hospital ships was perfectly acceptable to the Tars, and no doubt had been common practice long before they took to the stars. It was also a tactically sound practice, and we of the Federation had later followed suit, if not on our morals at least on their precedent. We were, after all, at war.

"Will perform accordingly, B.C., unless you say otherwise."

"Roger, N70. You'll be first contact. Try to stop them as far out as possible. Richards take inner defense. Go to it, and good hunting."

And that was all. We shifted course and ladled on the power.

On the screen, the Tars closed quickly. They were heading straight in—no deceptions this time—and so were that much less hampered. It would be tough.

"Johnson. If one Tar is painted orange, leave him to me. That fellow's hell on wheels."

"Roger, Smith," his voice sounded strained, "will do."

It was shaping up into a classic attack, straight from the textbooks. The two forces were approaching head on, our combined speed in excess of thirty thousand kilometers per hour. There would be time for one salvo, then the point of contact would be passed, with the enemy dwindling in the distance while we jammed the brakes and tried to turn around. I wasn't fond of textbook battles, but this time there was little choice. I would have rather sat stationary and let them charge us, which would have allowed more sustained and accurate firing, or even better, to move in the same direction they were traveling, using bow thrusters for my prime propulsion, which would have allowed continuous salvos until my missiles were expended, but such maneuvers would also expose me for a longer time, and I didn't think Johnson had the experience to carry it through. No, it would he a down-the-throat charge, a colossal jousting match, and none of us carried shields.

"Johnson, forget everything they told you about conserving ammunition. Dump fifty percent of your load when the time comes, even more if you want to. There won't be a second chance. And as soon as you fire, apply maximum braking forward and full acceleration down toward Lot. And put yourself on suit support now, while you have time."

"Roger, Smith. How about erratic acceleration and deceleration once I'm heading planetside, to throw them off some more?"

I smiled tightly. He was a sharp thinker, with initiative. Other pilots would have been too cowed by Smith of Night Killer II to dream of speaking up.

"Fine, Johnson. Whatever keeps you alive. Over and out for the duration."

And then we were on the arrow's course, plunging straight to the dragon's mouth. The dots on the screen swam closer. I opened my repaired visual channels to save time when we closed to that range, and slid a finger onto the firing button. Two kilometers to port, Johnson hunched over his panel, straightened again, and in a fractional sweep of the second hand we were upon them.

A sudden glimpse of black and orange spaceships, the realization that I was locked on the wrong Tar fighter, and fire! A ring of flames shot past my cockpit canopy as my braking rockets thundered into space. I fell, top thrusters shoving me down toward the threatening atmosphere, a move the foe should not expect. More lightning split the stars overhead. Night Killer strained to slow and turn as the screens filled silently with ominous, spreading fragments. My ship lurched, not performing the way she should have but handling well enough to ease me into a far too wide and time-wasting parabola; already a Tar interceptor was dashing toward the fleet. My visual caught him: orange!

"Johnson! N72 come in!"

"Here, Smith."

I let out my breath.

"Damage report, N72, and keep turning while you send it."

"Sorry, Smith, half the thrusters out, cabin decompression, main engine dead; I don't quite believe I'm alive. Afraid half the stern's gone, Smith. Make do without me. My suit's intact."

I was nearly pointed back toward the fleet.

"Roger, Johnson. Sit tight and deploy your rescue beacon. You'll get back all right."

I didn't find out if he had locked onto the same ship I had attacked or onto the orange Tar. It didn't really matter, now.

"Battle Command! Fill me in."

"Will do, N70. One bogie still penetrating; N71, N73 attacking. N73 on standard firing run. N71 is swinging in from the rear."

I nearly laughed. Richards, that clever devil! The Tar would have to dodge N73's barrage, and Richards would catch him when he did. A good, sound plan. I admired it despite myself.

Night Killer vibrated, but silently. Only then did I discover that the air had left my cabin. Thank God for the pressure suit! I checked further, to find four thrusters out of action, and worse, the firing connection to my port missiles cut. But that shouldn't matter. In no great hurry to get back, I slid the power down a notch and watched the stars slide by.

"Mayday!"

I froze.

"Mayday, HS Jonas Salk! Fifteen hits. Decompression. Main power out. Damage control inoperative. Officers unaccounted for. Mayday!"

I may have shouted; I may have gasped; I'll never know.

"ALL FIGHTERS. BOGIE PROCEEDING PLANETSIDE EIGHTEEN HUNDRED KILOMETERS PER HOUR. SCRAMBLE N80's. SCRAMBLE ALL N80's! JONAS SALK COME IN. REPORT JONAS SALK!"

A benumbed portion of my mind was calmly telling me that there would be no answer, that Jonas Salk would never speak again, while what was left flung me into a screaming parabola toward Lot as radar picked out a single, fleeing white dot against a sea of fluorescent blue and stamped it indelibly on my screens. Disregarding shipping, my speed stabbed up the scale.

"Butcher!"

A destroyer flashed a heated warning: Shipping Zone! I ignored it and swooped past, streaking toward Lot. Night Killer's acceleration was on my side; the butcher ship drew nearer.

Two minutes from the Salk's report, I struck.

A single missile split off and raced ahead, clawing out for the orange speck. I cursed the broken firing connection, and remembered that left me eight missiles. There were none to waste.

The Satarii burned his thrusters and veered off on a new tangent, my first warhead exploding behind him. I followed, pleased he was running, diverted from making a straight plunge home. It was just a matter of time.

We were well beyond the invasion fleet now, heading out into open space. There was a brilliant flare ahead as he used his, brakes; I matched him, wrenching my stomach and half blacking out but keeping on his tail. Our speed shuddered down toward three thousand, incredible strain, deadly speed. I closed still.

He slammed sideways and started spinning on his axis, even as his forward speed went unabated, matched every move save one, plunging in to fire again, this time a two-rocket spread. He dodged it, sidestepping with sickening ease, and I saw red. I thought of Benjamin, the war hater, and of a butchering, orange Satarii who had torn apart the mercy ship. Injustice, irony, anger, hate! I cursed him, filling my ears with epithets.

Friend orange was cool, playing for keeps. He ran a series of tricky maneuvers and ended by darting back toward Lot. I sliced after him, locked on his tail, wrenched through a dozen, a hundred fantastic twists, still shouting, still cursing with every ounce of mindless thought. I flung two more missiles, shot forward, seeing red and knowing I'd missed and crying with rage at the knife-edged fact. And friend orange slowed, sidestepped, and latched himself onto my tail.

I was well and truly trapped. The thought took a moment to sink in, and then I flung Night Killer violently heavenward as explosions ripped where I had been. Sidestep, slam up, down, fast, slow, over, roll and up, over, nose around and scream for the stars! He followed every maneuver, flinging single missiles with awesome skill. And gradually, under the stress, I began to calm down. The red retreated from the edge of my vision, and I started to viciously stamp at my feelings. I was crawling with hate for a candied-orange, arrowhead fighter, but I had hated and nearly been killed. Now I would go cold as a frozen skull and rip him from the sky.

Over, under, thrust, roll! As I calmed, the maneuvers came out smoother, faster, with a more professional sheen. I was holding my own, but couldn't shake him. I needed aid. I needed assistance to take that Satarii bastard off my tail.

"God damn it, B.C.! Help!"

"Coming, Smith. N71's coming. Repeat, N71 is coming to aid."

Oh, Richards baby, so help me God, let me kill this devil and I'll kill the rest for you. Sidestep, up, accelerate, brake, but he matches me. Damn! You were right and I was wrong; you' can't back a bastard who hits a hospital. Just take him off for a moment, Richards, and let me do the rest!

"N71," the Battle Command link was open, and snatches of conversation crackled through. "N71, put on some speed!"

It was Stephens' voice.

"By God and thunder, Richards, accelerate! Save Smith and I drop all charges!"

What was that? I looped up, braked to fall planetside. He followed, no closer but not letting go. This was tough. You had to hand it, plaudits and honor, to this orange flyboy who works like the devil, works like there's grapples hooked onto your stern. Battle Command broke on again.

"Clam it, Richards! What charges? You had that bastard nailed and you broke off, you damnable fool! You let him hit Jonas Salk, God damn you! What are you waiting for? Drive in there!"

Roll and roll not thinking really; the orange bastard follows. I stared at the speaker, my active mind-frozen, catching the words. Let him through! Richards? And he's gonna tear you outta your tower, Smithy, you hear, Smithy, you hear! Whatever it takes to rip you down, you hear! And he let Jonas Salk get nailed, YOU HEAR!

I heard.

The Tar didn't expect it. I braked my speed sharply and so did he, but then I locked myself directly in front of him and braked again. His missiles streaked by, and a scorched orange belly went soaring over my ship, jumping Night Killer to barely avoid a collision. He had no choice and I leaped after him, as fragments cut into Night Killer's belly to wipe out any thrusters left below. I could do no more jumping, but he didn't know it, and I was onto his tail now.

He veered toward Lot, his turn to be desperate, and my last two missiles went off directly broadside. His engines cut out, were knifed out. The orange arrowhead speared on, but this time from inertia. His maneuver had not been carried through, and now he was sliding out into space. I followed him, triumphant.

Mist clouded and blurred the Satarii outlines momentarily as air fled the punctured hull. I put on a little more power, and drew up alongside the wreck.

The Tar was in shambles. I stared at the canopy. Half of it was gone.

But what was left gave me a mirror image of my own ship, and that was shock enough.

Night Killer II was nearly severed. Between me and the rear engines was a gaping wound, filled with hanging scrap like the entrails of a sword-sliced dragon. How she had continued to function was beyond me.

I looked across at the Satarii’s wreck and at the reflection of mine. Instantly hate, long pressurized, drained out to be lost in the vacuum. Admiration filled every inch of my mind, admiration and kinship. The third world, the transcending world. The master pilots, stripped to the very bones of experience. I thought then that Benj would never forgive me for killing this alien. For this alien, to his other-world eye, had literally done nothing wrong, and at the same time had done something fine and miraculous. How could I condemn this pilot for an act that our own side was guilty of, and an act that to him was not so much foul as commonplace? Were he a human, yes, then there could be doubt. But he was not a human; he did not see from human eyes or think from the vale of human misery, and that left more than a shade of difference.

Another ship drew up alongside my foe, on the other side. Black letters stood out on its gleaming white hide: N71. My suit radio crackled.

"Hey, Smithy, thanks for the Tar. Thanks for the God-damn bastard, Smithy!"

I could see him beyond the orange scrap heap, grinning, his visor up. N71 was not depressurized. N71 was unscathed. It was unscathed because Jonas Salk was dead, and N71 had not made a move to save her.

"Hello, Richards," I said. Something in my voice must have hit him, for he didn't speak. We rode, silent, in a ragged formation, speed fourteen thousand kilometers per hour. Minutes dragged by as Lot shrank noticeably behind us. Richards coughed uncomfortably.

"Hey, Smithy, we better get back; we better get back! You all right, Smithy?"

"Go on back, Richards," I said, cold as the sweep of Night Killer's hull. "All my thrusters are out. I haven't any control. But you can go back, Richards. Yeah, Richards, you better hurry. You might be late for dinner."

But my former wingman would not lose his conquest so easily. He had beaten me; he still needed time to grind it in.

"Hell, Smithy, if that's all, I'll tow you back."

I didn't answer. In his unscathed ship, Richards grinned and stuck his thumb in the air. He fired a belly thruster to step over the wreckage between us, but then burned a top one and stopped. I could see his face working, his decision being made. He put on more forward speed, crawled past the shattered Tar, then sidestepped neatly across its nose.

He had a point to make, and he was sharp.

I averted my eyes from the gesture, feeling a dull ache of hatred wash over me that I didn't bother to fight. Thus I never saw the Tar launch his last missiles and lacerate Richards' hull.

I did see the results. A sudden flash blotted out the stars, and subsided. Fragments leapt past as I flung myself behind a bulkhead for protection. Night Killer jerked, but nothing penetrated. I raised myself again.

The sparkling hull that had been N71 was two-fifths gone and smeared a sooty black. It was pockmarked, like a miniature moon. Over my suit radio came a high, whining moan, the shriek of a steer in the slaughterhouse. It was a sound I had often heard before, but never from someone I knew. I turned the volume down, feeling nothing, and looked back across at the orange hulk.

The Satarii pilot was visible again. We looked at one another for long moments. Perhaps he was wondering what I would do. I had not told the full truth to Richards. I still had a few thrusters working and, miraculously, my main drive. And my hull, though fractured, was not fractured enough to let the Tar see that my port missiles had their firing connection cut. It would not take much, to his eyes, for me to fall just a little behind and end the game.

"Oh God, Smithy," the voice, tinged with indescribable horror, whispered from my turned-down speaker. "Cabin air's gone and my suit's been punctured!"

"How badly?"

The response came automatically, the result of years of training. I told myself I didn't care, not for Richards, not ever again.

"Both legs, Smithy. I got em sealed off, but God!"

"Sorry to hear that, N71," I said. "You have your gun, of course."

Or I tried to say it. Somewhere between "have" and "gun," my voice ran out, the tongue of Buddha Smithy clove to his mouth. I hated Richards, God, how I hated Richards! But he was beside me still, and he was the tapir torn by piranhas, that heaves from the boiling water and the swirling surge of a million teeth to somehow make the trampled bank, shrilling its horror at the wreck of its body, knowing, not the red of hate, but the searing red of pain. And I was the jaguar, that finds there easy prey. And he was the man who fell among thieves, while I was the first priest, righteous as hell and knowing it, too, but somehow I couldn't pass by. No, not even now, though the man before me had killed my brother as surely as the Tar. Richards was powerless over me; I had passed so far beyond him that him I could pity, not fear. I suppose I had feared him, once. Feared that he would shake me from my monastic tower; feared that when tribulation came I wouldn't meet the test. But I feared him no longer. Richards the tempter, Richards the tester lay before me, and I had overcome him, here, in the star-strewn field of the gods. The words caught on my teeth, and by the time my throat was cleared to say them, I found there was no need.

"Richards," I said instead, "I'm on my way."

But there was one thing remaining before I went to him. I turned in my seat and looked at my alien companion, wondering what to do.

What should I do? No doubt if he had an ounce of engine power left, he would ram. But I was not a Satarii. I thought differently. I used different standards. When I returned to Polar Star, I would be going to Captain Stephens to get myself discharged. That much I owed to Benj. That much I owed to myself. But first there was something I owed to my foe, to the man in orange, that incomparable master of the air.

I stood up in my seat, gestured at the wreckage sprawled between us, and then, with that involuntary twist of the lips, that rare and fleeting smile so patently impossible to resist, I saluted. And across the savage place of battle, my enemy did the same.