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The sun of that fateful morning arose to find the masters of Earth occupying a shrinking circle in upper Manhattan. With the cool courage of born soldiers, they linked arms and withstood the charging, shrieking millions. Slowly, they backed away; each building a skirmish; each block a desperate battle. They split into isolated groups; defending first a building, and then its upper stories, and finally its roof.
With the noonday sun boiling down, only the Palace itself remained. Its last desperate stand held the Humans at bay. The withering circle of fire about it paved the grounds with blackened bodies. The Viceroy himself from his throneroom directed the defense; his own hand upon the butt of a semiportable.
And then, when the mob had finally come to a pause, Tymball seized his opportunity and took the lead. Heavy guns clanked to the front Atomos and delta-rays, from the rebel stock and from the stores captured the previous night, pointed their death-laden muzzles at the Palace.
Gun answered gun, and the first organized battle of machines flared into desperate fury. Tymball was an omnipresent figure, shouting, directing, leaping from gun-emplacement to gun-emplacement, firing his own band Tonite defiantly at the Palace.
Under a barrage of the heaviest fire, the Humans charged once more and pierced to the walls as the defenders fell back. An Atomo projectile smashed its way into the central tower and there was a sudden inferno of fire.
That blaze was the funeral pyre of the last of the Lhasinu in New York. The blackening walls of the palace crumbled in, in one vast crash; but to the very last, room blazing about him, face horribly cut, the Viceroy stood his ground, aiming into the thick of the besieging force. And when his semi-portable expended the last dregs of its power and expired, he heaved it out the window in a last futile gesture of defiance, and plunged into the burning Hell at his back.
Above the Palace grounds at sunset, with a yet-roaring furnace as the background, there floated the green flag of independent Earth.
New York was once more Human.
Russell Tymball was a sorry figure when he entered the Memorial once more that night. Clothes in tatters, and bloody from head to foot from the undressed cut on his cheek, he surveyed the carnage about him with sated eyes.
Volunteer squads, occupied in removing the dead and tending to the wounded had not yet succeeded in making more than a dent in the deadly work of the rebellion.
The Memorial was an improvised hospital. There were few wounded, for energy weapons deal death; and of these few, almost none slightly. It was a scene of indescribable confusion, and the moans of the hurt and dying mingled horribly with the distant yells of celebrating war-drunk survivors.
Loara Paul Kane pushed through the crowding attendants to Tymball.
“Tell me; is it over?” His face was haggard.
“The begi
“It was horrible! The day has-has-” He shuddered and closed his eyes, “If I had known in advance, I would rather have seen Earth dehumanized and Loarism destroyed.”
“Yes, it was bad. But the results might have been much more dearly bought, and yet have remained cheap at the price. Where’s Sanat?”
“In the courtyard-helping with the wounded. We all are. It-it-” Again his voice failed him.
There was impatience in Tymball’s eyes, and he shrugged weary shoulders, “I’m not a callous monster, but it had to be done, and as yet it is only the begi
He grasped Kane by the shoulders and shook him roughly. “Do you understand? We must have help! Even here in New York the first flush of victory will fade by tomorrow. We must have help!”
“I know,” said Kane tonelessly. “I’ll get Sanat and he can leave today.” He sighed, “If today’s action was any criterion of his power as a catalyst, we may expect great events.”
Sanat climbed into the little two-man cruiser half an hour later and took his seat beside Petri at the controls.
He extended his hand to Kane a last time, “When I come back it will be with a navy behind me.”
Kane grasped the young man’s hand tightly, “We depend upon you, Filip.” He paused and said slowly, “Good luck, Loara Filip Sanat!”
Sanat flushed with pleasure at the title as he resumed his seat once more. Petri waved and Tymball called out, “Watch out for the Solar Guard!”
The airlock clanged shut, and then, with a coughing roar, the pigmy cruiser was off into the heavens.
Tymball followed it to where it dwindled into a speck and less and then turned to Kane. “All is now in the hands of Fate. And, Kane, just how was that Changing of the Flame worked? Don’t tell me the Flame turned red of itself.”
Kane shook his head slowly, “No! That carmine blaze was the result of opening a hidden pocket of strontium salts, originally placed there to impress the Lhasinu in case of need. The rest was chemistry.”
Tymball laughed grimly, “You mean the rest was mob psychology! And the Lhasinu, I think, were impressed-and how! ”
Space itself gave no warning, but the mass-detector buzzed. It buzzed peremptorily and insistently. Petri stiffened in his seat and said, “We’re in none of the meteor zones.”
Filip Sanat held his breath as the other turned the knob that rotated the peri-rotor. The star-field in the ‘visor shifted with slow dignity, and then they saw it.
It glinted in the sun like half a tiny, orange football, and Petri growled, “If they’ve spotted us, we’re sunk.”
“Lhasinuic ship?”
“Ship? That’s no ship! That’s a fifty-thousand ton battle cruiser! What in the Galaxy it’s doing here, I don’t know. Tymball said the Patrol bad made for Earth.”
Sanat’s voice was calm, “That one hasn’t. Can we outrage it?”
“Fat chance!” Petri’s fist clenched white on the G-stick. “They’re coming closer.”
The words might have been a signal. The audiomitter jiggled and the harsh Lhasinuic voice started from a whisper and rose to stridence as the radio beam sharpened, “Fire reverse motors and prepare for boarding!”
Petri released the controls and shot a look at Sanat, “I’m only the chauffeur. What do you want to do? We haven’t the chance of a meteor against the sun-but if you like the gamble-”
“Well,” said Sanat, simply, “we’re not going to surrender, are we?”
The other gri
“I’ve never tried!”
“Well, then, learn how. Grab that little wheel over there and keep your eye on the small ‘visor above. See anything?” Speed was steadily dropping and the enemy ship was approaching.
“Just stars!”
“All right, rotate the wheel-go ahead, further. Try the other direction. Do you see the ship now?”
“Yes! There it is.”
“Good! Now center it. Get it where the hairlines cross, and for the sake of Sol, keep it there. Now I’m going to turn toward the lizard scum,” siderockets blasted as he spoke, “and you keep it centered.”
The Lhasinuic ship was bloating steadily, and Petri’s voice descended to a tense whisper, “I’m dropping our screen and lunging directly at her. It’s a gamble. If they’re sufficiently startled, they may drop their screen and shoot; and if they shoot in a hurry, they may miss.”
Sanat nodded silently.
“Now the second you see the purple flash of the Tonite, pull back on the wheel. Pull back hard ; and pull back fast . If you’re the tiniest trifle late, we’re through.” He shrugged, “It’s a gamble!”
With that, he slammed the G-stick forward hard and shouted, “Keep it centered!”
Acceleration pushed Sanat back gaspingly, and-the wheel in his sweating hands responded reluctantly to pressure. The orange football wobbled at the center of the ‘visor. He could feel his hands trembling, and that didn’t help any. Eyes winced with tension.
The Lhasinuic ship was swelling terribly now, and then, from its prow, a purple sword leaped toward them. Sanat closed his eyes and jerked backwards.
He kept his eyes closed and waited. There was no sound.
He opened them and started to his feet; for Petri, arms akimbo, was laughing down upon him.
“A begi
“I hit it?” gasped Sanat.
“Not on the button, but you did disable it. That’s good enough. And now, just as soon as we get far enough away from the sun, we’re going into hyperspace.”
The tall, purple-clad figure standing by the central portview gazed longingly at the silent globe without. It was Earth, huge, gibbous, glorious.
Perhaps his thoughts were just a trifle bitter as he considered the six-month period that had just passed. It had begun with a nova-blaze. Enthusiasm kindled to white heat and spread, leaping the stellar gulfs from planet to planet as fast as the hyper-atomic beam. Squabbling governments, sudden putty before the outraged clamoring of their peoples, outfitted fleets. Enemies of centuries made sudden peace and flew under the same green flag of Earth.
Perhaps it would have been too much to expect this love-feast to continue. While it did the Humans were irresistible, One fleet was not two parsecs from Vega itself; another had captured Luna and hovered one light-second above the Earth, where Tymball’s ragged revolutionaries still held on doggedly.
Filip Sanat sighed and turned at the sound of a step. White-haired Ion Smitt of the Lactonian contingent entered.
“Your face tells the story,” said Sanat.
Smitt shook his head, “It seems hopeless.”
Sanat turned away again, “Did you know that we’ve gotten word from Tymball today? They’re fighting on what they can filch from the Lhasinu. The lizards have captured Buenos Aires, and all South America seems likely to go under their heel. They’re disheartened-the Tymballists-and disgusted, and I am, too.” He whirled suddenly, “You say that our new needle-ships insure victory. Then, why don’t we attack?”