The Peacemaker, Page 2

his forward tubes. Hellfirecoruscated over the steel turrets and stone walls of Corfu. It splashedlike a liquid flame over men and metal and twisted the towers andbuttresses into spidery tendrils of glowing thread. Corfu died withoutfiring a shot.

  We put a party from the _Hound_ aground ten hours later. Even then, wehad to wear insulated suits to walk in that still molten inferno.Charred bodies had become one with the stuff of the fortress, andnothing living was left within the keep. We looted Corfu's treasure andlifted into space heavy with gold.

  * * * * *

  Time passed in an orgy of looting for the men of the Compact. We grewrich and arrogant, for in space we were kings. Torn by suspicion of oneanother, America and Russia could do nothing against us. They had builtan Iron Curtain in space, and it kept them divided and weak.

  Endymion felt our blasts, and Clio. Then came Tethys, Rhea, Iapetus. Wecared nothing for the flag these Bases flew. They were the gatheringpoints for all the gold and treasure of space and we of the Compact tookwhat we wished of it, leaving a trail of blood and rapine behind us. Nonation claimed our loyalty; space was our mother and lust our father.

  Thus, the Peacemakers.

  * * * * *

  For five full years--the long years of the Outer Belt--the _Arrow_, the_Starhound_, the _Moonmaid_, the _Lady_ and the _Argonaut_ were thescourges of the spacelanes. No patrol could find us, and no defensecould contain us. I recall how we laughed at the angry sputtering ofEarth's radio. Vast sums were spent in searches and new weapons toprotect the meek and the mutually distrustful from Merril and the men ofthe Compact. Budgets, already strained to the breaking point bygenerations of the cold war, creaked and groaned as Russians andAmericans spent furiously to build up their defenses against ourdepredations. But though we were few and they many--space was large andit hid us well.

  And then one darkling day, Jaq Merril and I stood on the thin methanesnow that carpeted our Base's landing ramp, waiting under our ownblue-black sky for the return of the _Argonaut_. Merril had sent hersunward to strike at the mines of Loki, an asteroid where Russian_komisars_ rolled in mountains of blood-red rubies.

  We waited through the day and into the sable night, but the _Argonaut_did not return. For the first time since the formation of the Compact,we had lost a ship, and something like unease crept into our hearts. Thecarousal that night had no gaiety, and there was the sound of bereavedwomen weeping.

  Merril could learn nothing of the _Argonaut's_ fate. It was as thoughshe had dropped through a hole in the fabric of space itself andvanished from the ken of men. To me he said: "I fear a new weapon." Butto the rest, he kept his peace and let the work of the Compact continue.There was nothing else to be done. Our Wall Decade was waning, and whena man or a Compact outlives the age that gave him or it birth, there isnothing to do but go forward and meet the new day dawning.

  So it was with the Compact. We lived on as we had lived before: lootingand killing and draining the wealth of space into our coffers. But inthe back of our minds a shadow was lurking.

  On the next raid, the _Lady_ was lost. I saw it happen, as did Merril.There was nothing we could do to help her, and she died, spilling meninto the void as she ruptured in her last agony.

  It was off Hyperion, whence we had come to loot the trove built there bythe prospectors of the Saturnian Moons. And it was a trap.

  The _Arrow_, the _Hound_ and the _Lady_ circled the moonlet, swinginginward to the attack. It was the _Lady_ who was to put aground theraiding party, and her valves hung open while men readied theassault-boats. Our radar screens showed nothing of danger. There wasonly the bloated giant in the sky, a ringed monster of yellow goldagainst the starry velvet of space.

  The _Lady_ dropped her boats, the _Hound_ and the _Arrow_ hovering by towatch over their sister. And suddenly, the jagged moonscape belowerupted--belching streaks of fire that sought us like probing fingers. Iknew in one single instant of terror that this was the new weapon thathad killed the _Argonaut_, for it sliced into the _Lady's_ flanks asthough the steelite hull were cheese.

  She bulged, glowing like an ember. There was a sudden nimbus of snowabout her as her air escaped and froze, and then she rolled into herdeath-dance, open from bow to stern, spilling scorched corpses into thevoid.

  The _Arrow_ and the _Hound_ drove off into space like furies leaving thespinning body of their sister ship behind, not waiting to watch hercrash down onto the rocky face of Hyperion. And now the five of theCompact were only three, and again there was the sound of weeping amongour women.

  * * * * *

  Two months after that engagement, a single assault-boat returned toBase. It was the lone survivor of the _Lady's_ landing party. By somemiracle, the three men aboard had escaped the holocaust. They had landedand been captured and then they had fought their way free and into thevoid once more. They were half-dead from starvation and exposure, butthey had brought word to Merril that the wall that had so long protectedus was crumbling.

  Merril sought me out, his lean hard face grim and set.

  "There was a Russian among the Americans on Hyperion," he said.

  "A prisoner?" It was my hope that spoke so, not my sure knowledge ofwhat was to come.

  Merril shook his head slowly. "A technician. They developed the beamthat killed the _Argonaut_ and the _Lady_--together." His voice washarsh and bleak. Then suddenly he laughed. "We've touched them," hesaid, "Touched them on their tender spot--their purses." He bowed low,filled with bitter mockery. "Behold the diplomats, the men who areaccomplishing the impossible!"

  And I knew that his words spelt doom. Doom for the Compact and for theWall Decade that was our life.

  Yet we did not stint. In that year we raided Dione, Io, Ganymede, andeven the American naval Base on Callisto. We gutted six Russian and fourAmerican rockets filled with treasure. And we ventured sunward as far asthe moons of Mars.

  We dared battles with patrol ships and won. We killed the destroyer_Alexei Tolstoi_ off Europa and we shattered an American monitor overSyrtis itself, and watched the wreckage rain down on Yakki, the placewhere the Compact was born.

  And we lost the _Moonmaid_.

  * * * * *

  The radio told us the story. Other new weapons were being developedagainst us, and here and there American and Russian spacecraft were seenin company for the first time in the history of the Age of Space.Convoys were formed from ships of both flags to protect spatial commercefrom the imagined "great fleet" of the Compact. None knew that only the_Arrow_ and the _Starhound_, small ships, weary ships, were left to facethe slowly combining might of Earth.

  And then at last, the pickings--growing slimmer always--diminished tothe vanishing point. Merril stood before us and gave the assembled crewstheir option.

  "The treasure hunt is over," our captain told us, "And those who wishmay withdraw now. Take your women and the space-boats and return toMars. You have your shares, and you can live in comfort wherever youmay choose. If you wish it, go now."

  Some few did go, but most remained. I watched Merril's face, and saw onelast plan maturing there. Then he spoke again and we all understood. Onelast raid ... to take Luna and command the world!

  * * * * *

  "_Still the unity of Mankind was not secure, and Merril, filled with impatience for his great dream, decided on one final stroke. He would descend on Luna Base itself with his fleet, and commanding all Earth, he would drive men together--even though it might mean his own death. With this plan of self-immolation in his heart, the Peacemaker ordered his hosts and sought the pumice soil of the mother planet's moon...._"

  This is the way Quintus Bland, historian and scholar, puts it down forposterity. I, one of "his hosts," would say it another way.

  We had gutted the Solar System of its treasure and at last men wereuniting against us. Our "fleet" was reduced to two small ships and abare handful o
f men and women to fight them. Jaq Merril could see thehandwriting on the wall and he knew that all must be gambled on one lastthrow of the dice. Only with Terra herself under our guns could we hopeto continue sucking the juice of the worlds into our mouths. It was allor nothing, for we had grown used to our life and we could no longerchange it to meet the demands of the dawning age of Soviet-Americanamity.

  * * * * *

  Side by side the _Arrow_ and the _Hound_ slanted sunward. Mars behindus, ahead lay the Earth-Moon system. Ten years had passed since any ofus aboard the Compact ships had seen the home world, and though we nolonger felt a part of it, the sight of the silvery cloud-flecked globetouched our hearts. Touched them as the sapphires of Mimas or the goldof Corfu touched them. We saw the planet that gave us birth and we werefilled with hunger for it. To own it, command it, make it our own.

  Luna's mountains were white and stark under our keels as