Part 8 (2/2)
”Before we even know they are anywhere around, they are blasting us with everything they've got! Not even the strategic genius of General MacMaine can help us if we have no time to plot strategy!”
The Kerothi had been avoiding MacMaine's eyes, but now, at the mention of his name, they all looked at him as if their collective gaze had been drawn to him by some unknown attractive force.
”It's like fighting ghosts,” MacMaine said in a hushed voice. For the first time, he felt a feeling of awe that was almost akin to fear. What had he done?
In another sense, that same question was in the mind of the Kerothi.
”Have you any notion at all what they are doing or how they are doing it?” asked Tallis gently.
”None,” MacMaine answered truthfully. ”None at all, I swear to you.”
”They don't even behave like Earthmen,” said the fourth Kerothi, a thick-necked officer named Ossif. ”They not only outfight us, they outthink us at every turn. Is it possible, General MacMaine, that the Earthmen have allies of another race, a race of intelligent beings that we don't know of?” He left unsaid the added implication: ”_And that you have neglected to tell us about?_”
”Again,” said MacMaine, ”I swear to you that I know nothing of any third intelligent race in the galaxy.”
”If there were such allies,” Tallis said, ”isn't it odd that they should wait so long to aid their friends?”
”No odder than that the Earthmen should suddenly develop superweapons that we cannot understand, much less fight against,” Hokotan said, with a touch of anger.
”Not 'superweapons',” MacMaine corrected almost absently. ”All they have is a method of making their biggest s.h.i.+ps indetectable until they're so close that it doesn't matter. When they do register on our detectors, it's too late. But the weapons they strike with are the same type as they've always used, I believe.”
”All right, then,” Hokotan said, his voice showing more anger. ”One weapon or whatever you want to call it. Practical invisibility. But that's enough. An invisible man with a knife is more deadly than a dozen ordinary men with modern armament. Are you sure you know nothing of this, General MacMaine?”
Before MacMaine could answer, Tallis said, ”Don't be ridiculous, Hokotan! If he had known that such a weapon existed, would he have been fool enough to leave his people? With that secret, they stand a good chance of beating us in less than half the time it took us to wipe out their fleet--or, rather, to wipe out as much of it as we did.”
”They got a new fleet somewhere,” said young Loopat, almost to himself.
Tallis ignored him. ”If MacMaine deserted his former allegiance, knowing that they had a method of rendering the action of a s.p.a.ce drive indetectable, then he was and is a blithering idiot. And we know he isn't.”
”All right, all right! I concede that,” snapped Hokotan. ”He knows nothing. I don't say that I fully trust him, even now, but I'll admit that I cannot see how he is to blame for the reversals of the past few months.
”If the Earthmen had somehow been informed of our activities, or if we had invented a superweapon and they found out about it, I would be inclined to put the blame squarely on MacMaine. But----”
”How would he get such information out?” Tallis cut in sharply. ”He has been watched every minute of every day. We know he couldn't send any information to Earth. How could he?”
”Telepathy, for all I know!” Hokotan retorted. ”But that's beside the point! I don't trust him any farther than I can see him, and not completely, even then. But I concede that there is no possible connection between this new menace and anything MacMaine might have done.
”This is no time to worry about that sort of thing; we've got to find some way of getting our hands on one of those ghost s.h.i.+ps!”
”I do suggest,” put in the thick-necked Ossif, ”that we keep a closer watch on General MacMaine. Now that the Earth animals are making a comeback, he might decide to turn his coat now, even if he has been innocent of any acts against Keroth so far.”
Hokotan's laugh was a short, hard bark. ”Oh, we'll watch him, all right, Ossif. But, as Tallis has pointed out, MacMaine is not a fool, and he would certainly be a fool to return to Earth if his leaving it was a genuine act of desertion. The last planet we captured, before this invisibility thing came up to stop us, was plastered all over with notices that the Earth fleet was concentrating on the capture of the arch-traitor MacMaine.
”The price on his head, as a corpse, is enough to allow an Earthman to retire in luxury for life. The man who brings him back alive gets ten times that amount.
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