The Invaders Plan

I knew this ship. Ordinarily it was hidden in the underground hangar near Spiteos. It was Lombar's own ship. He had illegally and secretly modified a Fleet version long ago. This one, unlike the standard model, was armored so well that no ground defenses and not even a battleship could knock it down. It made it slower, it reduced its interplanetary range, but it made it the most dangerous weapon in the Voltarian Confederacy. I had heard that from time to time he took it out and flew it, usually at night, baffling normal surveillance with a perversion of return responses.

The guards simply gave me a boost up into the underbelly entrance lock and I climbed in the dark to find myself, still in the dark, in the two-man control deck. I groped to the copilot seat I knew must be there but before I could even buckle myself in, the engines throbbed and the ship took off. For all I knew, anybody could have been at the controls, even a Manco Devil!

"I am going to let you in on a secret. I am taking you to where you can hear something that will convince you." It was Lombar's voice from the pilot seat. At least it wasn't a Manco Devil. But, on the other hand, a Manco Devil might be more trustworthy.

We were gaining in altitude. One of the twin moons of Voltar was just rising, spreading a greenish hued and long-shadowed light across the ground below. As we turned, the beams struck through the heavy armored windscreen and eerily lit the control deck. Yes, it was Lombar. He was wearing no helmet so we must not be going far.

He seemed in a friendly if somewhat covert mood. "I found the leak, you know. The one to the press the night Heller was seized. I had a man being followed. He didn't suspect it. It took a lot of work but we finally saw him and a reporter bump into each other on the street. They didn't pass anything but it was enough.

"The reporter was Blat Mortif. He wasn't the one who wrote the article but of course reporters have friends. You'll never guess who leaked it. The Knife Section man that acted the part of the Fleet orderly, the one that was so clumsy he let Heller break his wrist. Of course he denied it. But you can't trust anybody these days. They're all against us, plotting, plotting, plotting.

"So last night we had Blat Mortif picked up and he denied everything so we had to pick up his wife. He finally broke down. So the Knife Section man, the reporter and his wife were all executed. I knew you were concerned about it so I thought I had better tell you. One has to get rid of traitors and people who talk too much. They're riffraff anyway." I not only had not been concerned, I had completely forgotten about it. Further, I knew of many ways the press could have learned of Heller's mission: even Fleet Intelligence knew. And also, the press had never mentioned any kidnapping. I wondered why Lombar was telling me. But then Lombar lives in a secret world of his own.

We were not flying very fast. We were not very high. He had not even turned on internal air. The green, long-shadowed moonlight turned the world below into a weird panorama.

Abruptly, Lombar, a sort of greenish shadow close by, began a sort of singsong lecture, like an Academy professor. "Any successful revolution or successful coup d'etat requires that the revolutionaries possess an operating or supply base beyond the reach of the forces they seek to overthrow. Without such a base, one ca

"You," said Lombar, dropping his professorial role and becoming harsh, "are now in full control of that base and its supplies. You must not fail in your duty to me." I was a little heartened. I thought I knew now what this eerie and secret night ride was all about: a briefing to me as a mission handler that could not be overheard. I knew already that Blito-P3 was the unwitting and secret base outside the control of Voltar. I had always thought it an amusing role for a stupid and primitive planet. It had always been a source of private amusement to me. The dumb twits.

Lombar's hands darted to the automatic position switches and there was a series of clicks which cut in the complex navigational systems of "the gun" so that she would go to and hold on exact coordinates. Freed of flying, he leaned back.

The gun steadied down, the engines dropped to an inaudible pitch. I knew where we were now.

Only a few miles away and a few thousand feet below lay Palace City. Visibly, it is simply a hole in the landscape. The mountain behind it and the vast array of palaces are enwrapped in the effects of a gigantic space warp. The black hole in the mountain makes it invisible and this in turn causes Palace City to be invisible. Shielded against unwanted radiation, the whole area is thirteen minutes in the future.

It is utterly impregnable. Nobody can attack it. It simply isn't there. For nearly a hundred and twenty-five thousand years, it had defied all assaults. You can't shoot up a not-there-in-now.

Many stellar empires hide their central government on asteroids to put them out of reach of enemy and popular attack. It has its points but you can trace ships to it. Voltar's Emperor could not be touched by any combat means ever evolved. It made the Voltarian Confederacy one of the strongest governments in any galactic history.

There lay the nothingness, surrounded all about by a moonlit landscape. It always made me nervous. It wasn't wholly that that mountain could blow up some day when its mass imbalanced too far, it was that it represented such awesome might within its secret glove.

Lombar was fiddling with the gun's fire controls.

Even a weapon as heavy as this ship carried was of no avail here. But his twitching fingers increased my unease.

"See that?" said Lombar. And I was thankful when he took his hand off the weapon triggers and gestured. Of course there was nothing to see. "The Lords there in their fine robes are plotting against me." I could agree with that. The Apparatus must make them quite nervous at times even though they thought of it as their own tool.

Lombar swept his hand in a wider gesture. "The people of this and every other Voltarian planet are just lying in wait to rise up and kill me." Oh, I could surely agree with that. The way the Apparatus hated them and abducted them and slaughtered them, they undoubtedly were lying in wait.

Lombar sighed, an executive with many burdens. "So, I know you will agree, Soltan, that the only possible solution is to seize control of Palace City and the power of the throne. And then, with that, properly use the authority to slaughter the people." I knew these were his plans. I had always thought them a bit drastic.

He must have sensed my reservations. "I am the only one brilliant enough and strong-willed enough to take over. The Lords are weak. The people are riffraff. It is my duty." He nodded, firmly agreeing with himself. Then, "So the problem is, to take over Palace City." Nobody had ever done it. It was considered impossible.

Lombar was fishing in his tunic pocket. "But we have our supply base on Blito-P3. And we have our weapons." He took out a bottle of pills and dropped it on the gun control ledge in front of him. I knew the bottle. Its label said: I. G. Barben, Pharmaceutical New York The eerie Voltar moonlight glinted on the label so far from home. Methedrine, a powerful amphetamine.

He took out a cellophane package of white powder. Turkish heroin. By its number, part of the last Blixoshipment, now safely stored in Spiteos. The moonlight made it greenish, like dried venom.

He gestured to them with his hand. "These are our artillery." He smiled. "And violent ammunition it is. The higher nervous systems of Voltar populations react to it five times over and above the Earth reaction." He turned to me, his face very serious. "So that is why you must keep Blito-P3 under control. You must keep the ammunition coming. These weapons take a while to work. Months, years. We can keep firing and we can wait.