SOMEWHERE FAR below the dark side of the planet Earth glowed dimly up in the ashen light from the moon. Hardly breathing, Ben Trefon watched the great gray disc loom steadily larger in the view screen of his scout ship. For the hundredth time he checked the approach pattern of lights on the control panel before him; each tiny fleck of light represented one of his companion ships. He adjusted the controls, felt the little ship veer slightly as he brought it back into proper alignment with the others. There was no sign of the other ships in his view screen. The flat-black paint on their hulls reflected no light, and the ships were darkened, moving toward their target like shadows out of the blackness of space.
From the perimeter of the dark planet below a tiny fleck of light appeared, turning in a slow curve, then blinking out again as it moved into Earth’s shadow. It was an early warning satellite, moving in a low, watchful orbit around Earth. Ben smiled grimly to himself. That would mean that Earth now knew the raiders were coming. Long since, the great radar screens on the planet’s surface must have picked out the pattern of the raiding ships: over three hundred reflecting fragments of metal, moving in close formation straight down toward the planet’s surface from their rendezvous with the orbit ship hiding behind the moon. The Earthmen knew the raid was coming, all right, and Ben could imagine the furious preparations going on below to greet the raiders at the expected target site.
But now the time for patience and planning was over. From this point on speed, striking power, certainty of purpose and skill were the raiders’ weapons as they converged like a swarm of bees on a target too late discovered to be properly protected. Each of the raiding ships, each of the men now piloting a ship through Earth’s atmosphere and gravitational field had his own individual assignment. The raid had been rehearsed; the advance planning had been perfected, reviewed, revised and re-perfected. It was this planning that had always, invariably, made the raids on Earth so successful. The Spacers had no equals when it came to navigational skill. They had learned through the centuries to strike hard and fast, to get their work done and to get out, always leaving behind them a wave of confusion and terror.
Such raids were dangerous, of course, but Ben Trefon had had no time to consider the possible dangers. He never gave thought to the fact that he might not leave the surface of this planet alive. As always, the goal of the raid was simple and explicit: five million tons of wheat stored in the granaries south of the metropolis called Chicago in the center of the northern hemisphere continent; fifteen thousand tons of dressed beef stored in the vast cold storage lockers of the packing plants a little farther north in the great city; and last but not least, thirty women, not younger than fifteen years, not older than twenty-five, to fulfill the quota required by the Spacer Council at the time of its last census.
Already the groundwork for the raid was finished. Spies on the planet’s surface, their hair dyed to conceal the telltale whiteness, had worked for many nights excavating the grain storage units at target site and placing the antigravity rods beneath them, so that the raiders had only to connect the rods to their ships’ generators to raise the bins up through Earth’s atmosphere to a place where each orbit ship could scoop them into its hold. A quick landing of a few dozen ships in the right places was all it would take; fifteen minutes of swift work by the ships’ crews, while a covering crew fought rear-guard action with any defending troops that arrived in time, a few swift moves, and the Spacers would have replenished their dwindling supplies of staple foods once again.
The maukis were a different matter. There it was a matter of swift movement, resourcefulness and imagination on the part of the raiders assigned to kidnap them. Each of the thirty ships assigned was responsible for one woman, and each pilot was responsible for his own escape with his booty. Even though it was seldom discussed, every man in the raiding party knew instinctively that these women were really the most critical prize of all, as far as ultimate survival of the Spacer culture was concerned.
Like all the others, this raid was to follow a rigid pattern. Preparations had been made months in advance: first the drawings to select the crew of the raiding ships; then the assignment of jobs and the selection of squad leaders; then the weeks of drilling and planning, with each anticipated move carefully co-ordinated with all the rest; the checking and double checking with the Spacer contact men stationed on Earth to prepare the ground. There were the mock raids on any one of a dozen specially prepared asteroids in the vicinity of Asteroid Central, and the intensive training of all the men who would pilot ships, to be sure they were fresh in their knowledge of Earth meteorology, atmospheric conditions, geography and the latest figures on defense entrenchments.
It was not unusual for a raid to be six or eight months in preparation. This particular raid had taken five months of intensive hard work before the Raid Commander was satisfied. At last the orbit ship, one of the great spherical interplanetary cargo ships of the Spacer fleet, was commissioned for the raid and thrown into orbit toward the sun. And once again, as in so many raids before, the orbit ship and all the rest of the raiding fleet, from the tiny S-80’s to the twenty-man cruisers that handled the big null-gravity generators, began to take their places in a wide orbit around Earth, using the hidden side of Earth’s moon for a rendezvous point before the raid began.
In the final gathering at rendezvous the ships maintained strict radio and radar silence, converging on the orbit ship for their last briefing. Up to that point the raid could be cancelled at any moment, either on order from the Spacer Council or on advice of the contact men on Earth. But once zero hour had arrived and the ships had begun their final drive down to the surface of the planet, there was no stopping. The raiders knew that from that point on they were on their own, that the success or failure of the raid was in their hands.
Ben Trefon had seen many pictures of the verdant planet that lay in his view screen now. He had seen picture tapes of the rolling farm lands, carefully operated to provide the biggest possible food yields for the teeming millions of people living there. He had seen films of the huge steel caves, the great tiered cities that spread over the largest part of the planet’s surface, the hive-like homes of the Earthmen. He had seen pictures of the rolling roads that criss-crossed the planet to carry food and supplies from continent to continent, and of the undersea farms that grew algae and sea food, the staples of the Earthmen’s diet. From time to time he knew that Spacer raids had struck at the huge floating harvest rafts, many square miles across, which floated on the major oceans of the planet and tended the undersea crops.
But try as he would, as he watched the planet approaching, Ben Trefon could not imagine what life on a planet such as Earth could be like. Earthmen were planet-bound; not only were their skills in space crude and feeble, they were bound by a fear of space as real as it was incredible to the Spacers. More than once Ben had tried to imagine what it would be like to have been born in one of the steel cities on Earth, to grow up in the underground nurseries and recreation halls, rarely seeing the brightness of the sun at the surface, or breathing the unprocessed air outside, living from birth until death bound to the surface of a single planet without a breath of hope of ever leaving it. More than once he had tried to imagine how Earthmen must feel, living in constant terror of invasion from the skies, with every movement of their lives dictated by a rigid martial law that barely left them freedom to breathe.
But try as he would, he could not imagine it. Of course, he had never actually set foot on Earth before. He had never actually seen an Earthman, and he certainly had never talked to one. But he knew about them, he thought. He knew a good deal indeed. He had heard of their cruelty and viciousness, he knew of their world of cold steel and humming machines, of the clatter of firearms and the test-firing of their great anti-aircraft batteries. He knew of the Earthmen’s fear of space, even though he had never been able to understand it, and he had heard of the cruel retaliatory raids and disciplinary parties Earth had sent out into space from time to time in an effort to beat back the harassment of the Spacers. He had heard that the greatest bravery, the ultimate courage that an Earthman could exhibit was to shoot down a Spacer during a raid. He had heard other stories, too, stories that were hard to believe of civilized people, yet stories which fitted into the rest of the picture of Earthmen in his mind: stories of Spacers captured alive during raids, imprisoned in steel cages and hauled through the corridors and passageways of Earth’s cities like animals before they were finally burned in public executions.
There had always been such stories, and the war between Earthmen and the men of space had dragged on as long as he could remember, with endless series of blows and counterblows, endless successions of casualty lists following the raids, and the mournful singing of the maukis in memory of the men who never came back. Every Spacer knew that attempts had been made repeatedly to make peace with the men of Earth, to do away with the raids and to permit peaceful commerce and intercommunication between those who lived beyond the atmosphere of the mother planet and those who lived on the surface. Yet every attempt had failed, and the war continued.
Static burst from the radio at his elbow, and Ben awoke from his thoughts. The planet nearly filled his view screen now, growing larger by the minute, and the raider ships were falling into an orbital pattern as the Raid Commander in the flagship broke radio silence. “All right, men,” his voice came through sharply. “They’re aware of us now. All hands stand by your tracer rockets. They’ll throw up a barrage as soon as they have us tracked. Now stand by for a final checkout.”
Ben corrected his controls for drift in the squadron formation and turned his ear to the loudspeaker as the commander began running down the list of squads for the final makeready check.
“Cruiser squadrons, stand ready. Number one sound off.”
“First squad ready, sir.”
“Duties?”
“Antigravity generators are fully functional, sir. We are warming up the gyros.”
“Then check those couplings again. You won’t have time to fiddle with them when we reach the strike point. Next?”
“Second squad ready, sir.”
Ben listened as the fleet of ships sounded off in turn. They were entering a braking pattern now, nosing down into the thicker layers of the planet’s atmosphere. One by one the squad leaders answered muster, making no attempt at secrecy now. Ben heard his own squad leader, commanding about thirty ships, sound off in response to the muster.
“Seventh squad ready, sir.”
“Do your men have their target in mind?”
“Yes, sir. Top level recreation hall near the south city margin. Five red flares to guide us in.”
“Then good hunting,” the commander said. “And remember: no more violence than necessary. Use your tangle-guns. Those girls aren’t maukis yet. Don’t make it tough on the indoctrination crews.”
Suddenly, down below, four flares of light appeared against the black disk of the planet, and a warning signal began to buzz on Ben’s control panel. The commander’s checkout was interrupted by a burst of static as another voice broke in sharply. “Now hear this, all ships! Stand by for missile barrage. Ready your homing shells. Those are big ones, and they’ll have warheads.”
The flares on the surface of the planet seemed to grow larger, moving in a curving trajectory up toward the orbit of the Spacer ships. Then, one by one, the main boosters of the ground-to-air missiles burned out and the smaller guidance jets were flaring on and off as the missiles’ sensitive “noses” began searching out their targets in the onrushing fleet. Ben gripped his crash bar tightly, watching for some sign of Spacer counterfire. The missile flares were lost from view behind him now, but he knew they were still coming, moving up swiftly toward the carefully pre-calculated interception point, each carrying a cargo of death for any invading ship it contacted. There was another salvo of the great missiles from below, and then another, and still Ben watched and waited for the Spacer cruisers’ answering fire.
And then it came: a dozen sparks of light appearing in the blackness around him as the dark Spacer ships let go their defensive barrage. A swarm of interceptor missiles carrying tracers zoomed down in a great arc toward the oncoming warheads. In his rear view screen Ben watched the silent panorama of red lights moving against the blackness. The Spacer barrage was late; already the warheads were within pickup distance of the lead ships. And if a warhead missile got close enough to enter the invading fleet’s approach pattern….
Somewhere below there was a violent flare of yellow light, and then another. Two great fireballs appeared like apparitions in the blackness as Spacer rockets at last reached the attacking missiles and detonated their hydrogen warheads harmlessly in space. Moments later came a third burst below them, too close for comfort, and a few seconds before interception point the fourth exploded. Against the enormous orange flash Ben could see the Spacer ships silhouetted as they moved relentlessly down into their landing orbit.
Safe from the first four! But this was only the beginning. Missile flares were visible across the whole surface of the planet now, and on a sharp command five of the Spacer cruisers dropped out of formation, moving down to a rear-guard position twenty miles below and fifty miles behind the rest of the fleet. Every Spacer ship carried a variety of defensive and offensive missiles, both air-to-air and air-to-ground, but the cruisers were the defensive work horses of the Spacer fleet, prepared to stand off the most vicious ground-to-air attacks. Now Ben could see salvo after salvo of air-to-air missiles bursting from the bellies of the cruisers and zooming down to intercept the clumsy Earth weapons. Fleetingly, Ben thought of his father’s warning about some new defense plan the Earthmen had, and he smiled to himself. There was nothing new about this. The same slow, awkward missiles, the same laborious attempts at interception that the Earthmen always tried, with equipment so far outclassed by the swift, sensitive Spacer defensive weapons that it was almost laughable. Not quite laughable, because a few always got through, and a few Spacer ships always exploded in blazing flares of orange light, before the fleet got down below the tactical range of the great missiles. Even so, the defensive attempt was feeble and essentially fruitless, and that was fine, Ben thought. If they want to throw away their hardware this way, that’s up to them.
Throughout the barrage, orders came for tactical maneuvering as the Raid Commander led his fleet deftly downward. Below a certain level they would be safe from the hydrogen warheads. As Ben moved his own controls to conform to the changing attack pattern, he saw a mighty flare up ahead — one of the lead Spacer ships was struck. The Earth missile hurled its tons of explosive violence into the very spearhead of the Spacer approach pattern, closely followed by a second. “All right, men,” the commander’s voice said. “They’ve spotted our pattern. Now take battle formation. Drop down and rejoin over the strike point.”
Ben threw his control levers forward, veering his ship out of the vortex of destruction up ahead, and nosing it down deeper into the thickening atmospheric blanket of the planet. The little ship’s skin temperature began to rise, and he navigated on his own, trying to gauge his speed by the approach to critical skin temp. Speed and agility were essential now, but unwary ships had literally burned themselves to cinders by trying to move down too swiftly. This was the danger area, the missile belt where every Spacer ship had to rely on its own protective devices. In order to make as poor targets as possible, it was routine for raiding fleets to spread themselves over millions of square miles, each pilot taking a course with but one goal in mind: to drop down to the surface, decelerate as swiftly as atmospheric friction would allow, and somehow stay alive in the process.
For all the great distances to be covered, the Spacer ships were coming in fast. The dark planet’s surface gave way to a twilight zone, and then full daylight as they moved around into the sun. Ben could see the fleecy white cloud layers clinging to the planet’s skin like a great fur coat. There was a rift in the clouds, and the shattering glare of water reflecting the sun struck his eyes. He was over ocean now. Moments later he was skimming into thicker atmosphere, one hand on radio control as he sent out feelers to locate the other ships in his squad.
One responded; then another. Presently he could see the other ships, moving in with him to gather for their landing pattern, and the squad leader was calling signals. Now they were back across twilight to the dark side of Earth; the clouds opened up and they could see below them the pattern of surface lights outlining first the coastal cities of the western hemisphere northern continent, and then the vast blanket of light from the interior metropolis they were seeking, extending north and south for three hundred miles and east and west for two hundred: the city of Chicago with its seventy million people and the food storage warehouses designed to keep them fed.
Ben smiled in satisfaction. They had moved in so fast that blackout had not even yet been accomplished. A slower operation and they would have had to search their way with flares and follow directional signals from their contact men below. Now Ben was following the signals of his squad leader almost automatically, obeying landing instructions as the anti-aircraft flack burst on all sides of him. One of his companion ships was struck and burst apart in air, but Ben did not falter at the controls. He worked his null-gravity controls now, leading the ship down in a descending spiral. Somewhere below bright red ground flares appeared in a pattern of a five-pointed star; moments later, with his null-grav engines whining Ben set his little ship slowly down in the center of the area marked by the flares, felt the ship jar as it gently settled to a stop.
He was on target zero.
• • •
Whatever Ben Trefon had expected to see when he landed his S-80 at the strike point designated for him, he was unprepared for the nightmarish scene that greeted him as he checked the tangle-gun at his belt and threw open the lock to step down on the surface of the planet Earth for the first time.
Their approach had been so swift, and the landing flares set off so shortly before their ships touched down that blackout in the target area had been incomplete and, on the concourse outside, the raiding ships were faced by a panic-stricken and hysterical mob. Ben’s ship had settled down on a broad steel thoroughfare lined with shops and gardens, with a great brightly lighted hall just across the strip from his ship. A dozen other S-80’s had landed in the vicinity, all but encircling the hall, and as Ben stepped down on the metal surface of the concourse, the frantic scurrying of people, obviously interrupted without warning in the midst of their evening business on the concourse, reminded him of a pack of space mice scurrying for cover in a cargo ship’s hold when the lights suddenly went on. Sirens were screaming in his ears as he jumped down, signalling his companions from the other ships, and somewhere in the distance he heard a rattle of gunfire and a series of explosions that seemed to shake the metal roadway.
They had landed on a promenade, located at the surface level of the great steel Earth city, a metal strip that seemed to extend for miles in either direction, with open air shops, restaurants, recreation halls and solariums. Ben knew something of the ways of city life on this crowded planet; he knew that these surface promenades in the open air were largely the domain of the wealthy and influential on Earth, for there simply was not enough surface room on the planet to allow all members of society to have free access to the top levels of the city areas. Even so, the promenades were usually crowded with pleasure seekers in the evenings, and it was only the arrival of unexpected company that had created the pandemonium that greeted his eyes now.
People were fighting and screaming to gain entrance to the buildings, to get under cover somehow from the attackers. Lights along the promenade were going out in rapid succession, and surface cars were scurrying up and down the thoroughfare and ducking off into secondary alleys like frightened beetles scurrying under rocks. Inside the recreation hall nearest to Ben’s ship there were shrieks and shouts as someone bellowed at the top of his lungs for order. Crowds of young people, who had been enjoying the freedom of the open air just a few moments before, were now rushing for the escalators and elevators leading down into the heart of the city, and people were trampling and fighting their way toward light switches in an effort to black out the hall and surrounding area.
Ben snapped on the powerful searchlights on his S-80, flooding the entrance to the recreation hall with light. Two other raider craft had landed close to him: now searchlight beams appeared on the far side of the hall, and Ben knew that Spacer ships had encircled the place in landing. The pilot of the nearest ship waved at Ben, tangle-gun in hand, and ran across to meet him, panting.
“Let’s get in there and stop those elevators,” he cried. “They’re going down the escalators like rats down a chute!”
“Where are the others?” Ben said.
“Coming in from the other side. But we’d better move. The place will be empty in a few minutes.”
Ben nodded, and they moved toward the recreation hall entrance as two other raiders joined them. Ben held his tangle-gun at ready, fingering the grenades at his belt with the other hand. Two young men with terror-filled faces were blocking the entrance, unarmed, and Ben and his cohorts bore down on them. Ben caught the first man a full body block, shoving him aside with sheer momentum; the Spacers behind him followed close as he crashed through the entranceway. Once inside the raiders scattered to take up pre-planned stations about the room.
The escalators were their first concern. Already they were carrying loads of people down, a tangle of struggling arms and legs, but moving down inexorably. As they saw the Spacers crowd through the entranceway, some dove headfirst down the escalator chutes. Ben threatened the crowd at the escalator entrance with his tangle-gun, motioning them back until the moving staircase had carried its load down and stood empty. Then he tossed a grenade down the chute, and the escalator gears ground to a halt. There was another explosion as a grenade smashed the elevator doors and another as the cables were wrecked. In less than two minutes the hall was sealed up, with no exit unguarded. Two large men rushed Ben with angry shouts; he waited coolly until they were close enough, then triggered the tangle-gun, aiming at their feet. The egg-shaped gray pellet smashed on the floor beneath them, sending up twisting black tendrils of tangle web that stopped them as though they had been poleaxed. Both tumbled to the floor, struggling against the powerful adhesive of the tangle web, bound tighter and tighter as its molecular structure tightened the more they fought to extricate themselves. Nobody ever died from an encounter with a tangle web, but anybody caught in one would be held for hours in its tenacious tendrils, able to breath but not much more, until the molecular activation gradually seeped away and allowed the victim to release himself.
For the first time, Ben had a moment to look around. He was in a hall such as he had never seen before. One of the walls was lined with crowded bookshelves; there were chairs and tables scattered around for lounging, and against the far wall was a big stone box set into the wall with a roaring fire of wood — precious wood! — burning inside. In another large room off to the right were handball courts and a basketball floor, and off to the left — Ben stopped and peered in amazement, hardly believing his eyes. He was looking into another room, with a huge tank of water sunk into the floor. Even now people in skin-tight clothes were struggling to get out of the water and up onto the dry floor. At first Ben thought that the tank was occupied only by men. Suddenly, he realized that some were wearing tight rubber caps and decidedly were not men.
He shouted to his companions:
“Here we go, boys! Over here!”
A dozen Spacers were now in the hall, guarding the exits with tangle-guns. Half a dozen joined him at the entrance to the pool, and began roaring with laughter at the wet, dripping Earth people crowding against the wall. “All right,” Ben said sharply. “You men peel off to the right here. No funny business and nobody will be hurt.”
The men stood frozen, looking first at the girls huddled at the side of the pool, then at the advancing Spacers. “Come on, mover! Ben said. Reluctantly the men began to move.
Ben and two others crossed the room while the rest of the Spacers covered them from the doorway. The girls crowded back against the wall. Some were sobbing; others just looked angry or indignant.
“Volunteers first,” Ben said.
Nobody budged. In the main hall a renewed clamor was arising, and Ben heard a rattle of gunfire from somewhere outside. “Come on, we can’t wait all night.” He motioned the first girl with his tangle-gun. “You, now. Get moving.”
“Moving where?” the girl snapped angrily.
“Out of here,” Ben said. “You’re going for a ride.”
“You can’t do this,” the girl returned. “You can’t just walk in and kidnap — ”
“Ma’am, you’d be surprised,” Ben said. “You can argue later. Right now you can either walk out or be carried out. Which is it to be?”
Furious, the girl stalked past him. Another followed as he motioned to her, and another. At the same moment three of the Earthmen rushed one of the guards. All three were stopped by tangle webs, and one, struggling helplessly, tumbled headfirst into the pool.
“Haul him out,” Ben shouted to the guard. “The idiot will drown. But the next one that interferes gets tossed in.”
By now almost a dozen girls had been taken into custody by waiting Spacers, and they started across the main hall toward the door. Now the Earthmen, goaded to ill judgment, tried to move in in a body; tangle-guns popped, and the men shouted and strained at the sticky webs. Ben’s gun recoiled in his hand as he placed a shell under the feet of an onrushing man; the attacker twisted to get free of the entangling strands and tumbled to the floor, roaring with anger and shaking his fist at Ben in helpless rage.
But Ben was busy helping his companions single out the girls who gave some outward appearance of spirit and fight There was no way to guess from a casual glance what kind of mauki a girl might become, but experience had proven that the cringing ones would be more burden than blessing in the long days of re-education and indoctrination that lay ahead of them. In a few moments the full quota of girls was filled except for one; Ben’s eye caught a small, attractive girl who had been edging through the group toward the far side of the room.
Ben pointed a finger at her. “You,” he said. “Come along.”
The girl’s bathing cap had come off, revealing a crop of sandy-colored hair. There were large freckles across her nose and cheeks, and a dangerous light in her blue eyes as she stopped and turned toward Ben.
“You don’t want me,” she said. “I’m pretty ugly.” As if to demonstrate her undesirability, she looked cross-eyed and stuck her tongue out at him in a horrible grimace.
Ben grinned. “You’ll do,” he said. “Come on, hop!”
“But I like it here.” The girl was waving her hands frantically, as if trying to signal. Ben thought for a moment he glimpsed a light-haired youth flip his hand in an answering signal.
The hubbub outside was increasing. One of the guards at the door shouted at Ben. “Let’s go, boy. We’ve got a goon squad coming up on us outside.”
“All right,” Ben said to the sandy-haired girl. “Move on, or I’ll carry you.”
The girl gave him a long, angry look and, then started past him toward the door. As she came near she jumped at him, quick as a cat, brushing his tangle-gun aside with one hand and hitting him full in the chest with her knees. Ben crashed to the floor, the girl still on his chest, kicking with one foot at the hand that held the tangle-gun. Fighting off nails and teeth, Ben twisted his body out from under the girl, jerking her ankle and toppling her over on her back. She kicked him in the shin, and jumped to her feet again with a cry, once more rushing him. But this time he was ready. He stepped aside swiftly, shooting out his leg to trip her. Seconds later a tangle-gun charge popped on the floor, and the girl was busy trying to fight off the twisting adhesive strands that wrapped around her arms and legs. Without ceremony Ben took one arm and the opposite leg, hoisted her to his shoulders like a sack of meal, and headed for the door at a dead run.
In the main hall there was a confusion of noise and moving figures, and out on the promenade there was gunfire. Some of the searchlights had already gone out on the waiting ships, and Ben found himself tripping over people in the dim light. Then a giant flare burst outside the recreation hall, and a dozen Earthmen, gathering their wits, started converging on him and his wriggling burden. He still gripped his tangle-gun, and cleared a path, but people were grabbing at his arms and legs as he twisted across the room. Two men blocked his way at the door; he headed straight for them, saw one of them dive for his legs, deftly side-stepped and shoved the man’s hulk into the path of the other as he burst out onto the promenade.
Once outside, he paused to make sense out of the confusion. A squad of Earth police had arrived and were trying to deploy themselves to prevent the Spacers from regaining their ships, but with the girls as hostages the raiders were safe from gunfire. A shout went up from the onlookers as Ben came out the door, and three uniformed men headed in his direction. Somebody shouted, “There he goes! Get him!” And then, “Hold it — he’s got a girl!”
Across the way there was a mighty explosion, and the Spacer ship next to Ben’s blossomed into a ball of yellow flame. Some of his companions were making dashes for their ships with girls on their shoulders; two had already been relieved of their booty and were struggling in the arms of police. Ben heard the whine of bullets as they ricocheted off the metal promenade.
For a moment it looked hopeless. Then Ben heard the whir of antigravity generators, and one of the raiding ships lifted suddenly from the ground, followed by another and another. At least some of them are getting away, he thought grimly. He measured the distance to his own ship, then rolled the girl off his shoulder and held her like a shield against his chest as he faced the spotlights of a converging circle of guards. He ducked around the folding chairs and tables strewn in his path as an attempt was made to barricade him. Then he concentrated on careful use of his tangle-gun charges to hamper his assailants. Six or seven more ships lifted as he made his way across the promenade, and then the open hatch of his own ship loomed nearby. With the last of his strength he hoisted the girl up into the hatchway and fell into the ship behind her, slamming the hatch shut with a clang.
It was only then that he saw the blond-haired youth inside the ship, aiming an automatic pistol at his chest from across the cabin.
Ben Trefon was never certain exactly what happened next, nor exactly how it happened. There had been times before when he had moved almost by instinct, assessing a situation and acting upon it in the same split second; sometimes Spacers’ lives depended upon that kind of instinctive action. He knew that with the girl on the floor he had nothing to shield him, and he knew the youth’s pistol could kill him. In a matter of minutes, the police outside would have the hatch pried open. The answer was clear in the same split second. His only possible safety was in space.
Without hesitation Ben slammed his hand down on the control bar, fully activating the null-grav units. In the same movement he dove across the cabin at the intruder. He heard the gun go off, a million miles away, and felt searing pain in his shoulder. Then he and the youth were rolling on the cabin floor, fighting for control of the hand that held the gun. Ben grabbed the young man’s wrist, slammed the gun hand on the deck, and heard the weapon clatter across the room. The youth caught Ben in the chest with his feet, hurling him across the cabin and diving for the lost gun. Through it all the girl puffed and struggled in the tangle web, shouting encouragement to her would-be rescuer and hurling imprecations at Ben.
Suddenly, it was over. Ben’s hand closed on the pistol, and he twisted to his feet, holding off his attacker with a warning gesture. The Earthman looked at him, and started for the hatchway. Ben shook his head. “Better take a look outside first,” he panted.
The Earthman followed Ben’s eyes to the view screen, and stared in horror. Throughout the fight the ship had been rising on its null-gravs; now Earth was a huge disc in the sky, dwindling visibly as the atomic engines took hold and hurled the ship away from the planet. The intruder shook his head helplessly as he watched his home planet receding before his eyes. “We’re — in space,” he said weakly. “You got away.”
Ben frowned at him and, a little confused, peered at the girl. There was a similar nasal twang in their voices, and now Ben could see a similarity in their faces too. Both of his captives had the same stubby noses, the same sandy hair and the same crop of freckles. Both were watching him with angry blue eyes. For a moment Ben didn’t comprehend. Then he burst into helpless laughter.
His part of the raid had gone according to plan — almost. His orders had been to kidnap a girl, and by the moons of Jupiter he had kidnaped one.
The trouble was, he had also kidnaped her brother. And that, unfortunately, was not part of the plan.