Part 3 (1/2)

”All very true,” said Thane, ”but it still doesn't explain a thing to me. About your place in this or Candar's.”

Reine hardly noticed the interruption. He went on, professorially.

”The solution has always seemed clear. In order to travel at will through s.p.a.ce, at faster-than-light speeds all we needed to do was to create our own Field with its own warp-line. If a s.h.i.+p could generate its own electro-gravitic warp it would be able to travel in almost unlimited directions with no time lapse except for pauses at each warp-line crossed. The power factors were such that an entirely new principle of operation was needed. We have found it in the so-called gold catalyst principle, and we now have a practical, economical second-stage drive.”

Thane frowned. ”But that would seem to make Onzar less important. Why do we need to worry about them now?”

Reine was about to answer but the door opened and Pyuf was there. ”How goes it, duellist?”

”It was a great fight,” Thane said, ”until you decided to tear up the rules. You forgot to tell me that you included 'kidnapper' in your list of trades.”

Reine smiled. ”That's just one of many that Pyuf forgot to mention.

Forger, propagandist, and political theorist might also have been added.” He turned to Pyuf. ”I've about covered the technology. Why don't you give our friend the politics?”

”Sure.” Pyuf sat on the desk swinging his short legs. ”First, though, I'm sorry about the duel, Thane. We had to do it.”

”Reine's already a.s.sured me of that once or twice,” Thane said drily.

”I would like to know, though, just how you did it.”

”That's simple enough. For months now we've been using the duelling court on Kadenar as an exchange point in the underground. It's been very helpful because of the ease that duellists have in getting through customs. In your case we were lucky. Or I should say that Astrid was quick and intelligent enough to take advantage of a fortunate situation. A few words from her were enough to instigate the Onzarian officer to challenge you. Remember that Onzarians have a tradition of duelling, and you had insulted him. Furthermore, he was still confused from the stoltz artillery.”

”Clear enough. But may I ask why you bothered to let the duel go on at all? Why not just take me when we got to the court?”

”We wanted to explain your disappearance. At the same time that you were unconscious, your opponent and the other junior officer were also out. With a touch of post-hypnotic suggestion, they were both quite convinced that the Third Officer had won the duel and that you were dead. We had no trouble getting your 'corpse' back through customs and to Onzar.”

”Probably,” Thane said, ”you had a purpose for all this. Before we go any further, let's have it.”

”If you were an agent of Candar we would have eliminated you,” Pyuf said. ”You had already learned too much, and you had shown that you were a dangerous man. If you were a Liaison agent, it was still necessary for you to 'die.' At the moment, it's imperative that no word of our activity gets to the Allied Systems. And, if we can convince you, we badly need your help.”

”It'll take some convincing from what's happened up to now. But go ahead.”

”Ever wonder,” Pyuf went on, ”why the Darzent Empire hasn't attacked?

What are they waiting for? They're aggressive. They have the edge in power, with two inhabited systems to one in the A.S. Their technology matches ours and their heavily centralized dictators.h.i.+p allows them to move faster, at least at the beginning of a war.”

”Well?”

”Two reasons. One, they never could be sure that we didn't have the second-stage drive. Two, they couldn't be sure of the allegiance of Onzar.”

”Onzar--the whole five systems--is probably more of an armed camp than any other political ent.i.ty in the Galaxy. But that isn't the real reason for their overwhelming importance.” Pyuf jumped down off the desk and flipped a switch on the far wall. The galactic map appeared, with the warp-lines superimposed in red.

Pyuf pointed with his cigarette. ”Take a look at those warps. All nine of the princ.i.p.al ones, crossing the Galaxy between the Allied Systems and the Darzent Empire, pa.s.s within a pa.r.s.ec of Onzar. A faster-than-light fleet going either way _has_ to surface at the Onzar Confluence. And Candar, no matter how he sounds to you or me, is no fool. He, you can bet, has taken some long quiet looks at a map like this and he knows his position. So does Darzent. So do the people who are presumably running things in the Allied Systems.”

Thane stood up. He had been off at the perimeter of the struggle, working in obscure but possibly important systems for the past three years. He hadn't been in a position to see all the factors in the struggle that was shaping up. But now at a glance he saw that Pyuf was probably right. ”It makes sense,” he admitted, ”but what about the second-stage drive? Isn't that supposed to cut across warp-lines?

Wouldn't that reduce to zero the strategic importance of our friend, Candar?”

At this, Manning Reine broke in excitedly, ”But that's just the point, Thane! Remember I mentioned there were certain limits to the second-stage drive. We can, to a large extent, manufacture our own lines. But they are never wholly independent of the existing natural lines through s.p.a.ce. Our dependence on the galactic lines varies from almost zero to almost unitary, depending on our position in s.p.a.ce. The Onzarian Confluence has much the same effect as a whirlpool.

Theoretically, we could force our way out of the whirlpool and go through the center of the Galaxy by a different route. But the energy required approaches infinity.”

Thane stepped over to the map. He pointed to the Onzarian Confluence.