Page:Stirring Science Stories, March 1942.djvu/4



EAVENS!" said Bartok mildly. "And Oh, my Lord!" His face wore a curiously complex look, as though he were half stunned with shock and otherwise doubting what he saw. Said Bartok: "They can't do this to us." He turned decidedly from the transceiver and began to pace his office. Into his personal mike he snapped: "Send in the number one houri."

Babe MacNeice entered on cue. "What," she asked, "is the matter with our overlord and preceptor?" She studied his face and dropped the smile. "Barty," she said worriedly, "what's wrong?"

"Sit down," he growled, shoving a chair at her. Looking fixedly at the ceiling he said: "I just got a report from somewhere in the neighborhood of a punky little star named Arided in Cygnus. Babe, we're being invaded. The world is being invaded."

The girl laughed briefly. "Don't be an ass," she said.

"It's true," said Bartok.

She rose and began to pace beside him. Finally she exploded: "They can't do this to us! They simply can't—why, we're the invaders; we always have been!"

Bartok looked sidewise at her. "That's the way I felt," he observed sagely. "I know what you mean. Question is, what do we do now?"

"I don't know. Let's hear the transcript from the communications outfit." Silently he turned on the rewind and replay. It said mechanically: "Office of Commander Bartok, Intelligence Wing, Fleet Command. Go ahead." That was a sort of letterhead.

Immediately there was the agitated voice of some man or other: "Barty? This is Hogan, of the Aries Hogans. I jammed this through to you—personal report. It's going to panic them if it gets out. Be very careful."

Bartok's voice: "I remember you—patrol duty for the Arided section. Give me the facts in a hurry, son."

Hogan's voice: "Ships coming at us from everywhere, it seems. A big lineship was blown to pieces before it could report. I'm the only intelligence man in the district, I guess. I don't know whose the ships are—I don't know how they work. I'm speaking from the fourth planet of Arided—polyp-like natives, oxygenous atmosphere. They're systematically bombing the cities."

Bartok's voice: "Stop beating yourself over the head, Hogan. You're crazy!"

Hogan's voice: "If that's the way you feel. They're laying a line barrage along the planet, letting it rotate under their fire. We can't get a thing into the air—it's jammed up bad. I don't know, Barty, honest I don't know—" What Hogan didn't know remained a mystery, for the transcript ended right there with a strangled wail and a deafening report.

"Oho," said Babe MacNeice in a long exhalation. "He wasn't kidding."

Bartok was at the phone: "Get me Fitzjames," he said. "Yes—the all-highest Admiral of the Fleet, the slave-minded ol' windjammer in person." In a rapid aside to Babe he snapped: "I can't handle this. I'll leave it to the navy—it's their baby."

Again at the phone. "Admiral? Shoot some patrollers out to Cygnus Arided. Don't be surprised if they don't come back. Invasion, admiral. I wouldn't kid you." He hung up sharply.

"That," he said absent-mindedly, "is that. Whether their tactics are capable of defensive war remains to be seen. There is room for doubt."

HE PATROLLERS did not come back. However, one managed to keep unbroken contact with the flag-ship until it was blown out of the ether, and the story it told was plenty nasty. No description of the invading ships was given except what the patroller got over in the customary strangled