The Siege of Eternity

Long before Starlab was in sight the word had come over the LuftBuran's radio that the "missile" was a dud. That did not appear to make Colonel duValier feel any safer. When they came within docking range of Starlab he brought the old rocket to relative rest for half an hour while he studied the exterior of the orbiter centimeter by centimeter. The French female astronaut had unbuckled herself and swum up to confer with him-endlessly; in French, and pitched too low for anyone else to hear.

She was the only one allowed freedom of movement. Everybody else was ordered to remain strapped in their seats in case the colonel decided to get out of there in a hurry. Hilda did her best to be patient, though little twinges in her belly reminded her that a lot of people got spacesick in this kind of microgravity . . . even without the odor of the Doc that filled the vessel.

Then the colonel reached a decision. "Check your weapons, everybody," he ordered. "I am going to dock."

That was a little better, though the odd, slippery-slidey motion of the LuftBuran as duValier twitched it to mate with the Starlab port caused Hilda to swallow nervously. But then he announced the docking secured. Everyone unstrapped and took their places by the door-well, almost everyone. The great pale alien remained lashed to the cradle that had been built for him, of course, and one of the Germans remained by him to release him when Colonel duValier gave the order.

Which the colonel was taking his time about doing. He was obviously mulling something over in his mind-perhaps trying to find the proper historic words to speak before ordering his crew to enter, Hilda thought sourly. But what he said at last was, "You all know your orders. I will be the first person to board Starlab. You will then follow in the order assigned, except for Capitaine des Esseintes. She will remain in the LuftBuran, in constant radio contact with those of us in the boarding party. This will be done as a precaution. If anything goes wrong, she will undock at once, until the problem is cleared up."

And if the problem weren't cleared up? Hilda tried to imagine what it would be like if the Frenchwoman took it into her head to decide they had all been taken over by the Scarecrows, and then pulled the LuftBuran away for a return to Earth. It was not an attractive prospect. If it were a false alarm, they would all be marooned there for an indefinite period. And if it weren't a false alarm.. .. No, Hilda didn't want to think about that at all.

The colonel was speaking to his controllers on Earth, presumably to announce that he was ready for his historic task. But he suddenly frowned and lost his composure. He spat rapid-fire French into the microphone, too fast for Hilda to follow, listened again, then looked up. "There has been a development. There is a message from these Scarecrows, and they warn that we must not enter Starlab. This is-This causes-" Then he shook his head and was silent.

He was the only one silent. Everybody else was shouting at once- "Warning of what? What do they mean?"-everyone but Hilda. She had a different concern. It wasn't so much what the Scarecrows had said as the fact that they had said anything about entering Starlab at all. For that meant that they weren't thousands of light-years away. They were close enough to see what was going on. And that meant—

That was another thing Hilda didn't want to think about.

Another hour went by while everyone jabbered to everyone else, with many more exchanges between Colonel duValier and the ground controllers. Then the colonel shrugged and pulled the lock door open with a crash. "Allons!" he said hollowly; and the troops stormed the citadel.

In Hilda Morrisey's eighteen years with the Bureau she had stormed into enemy territory often enough, guns blazing, people getting killed. This wasn't like that. For one thing, rushing a target when your feet were firmly on the ground and things dropped to the floor when you let go of them was one thing. This microgravity business was something else entirely. They didn't storm the Starlab. They damn well floated in through the lock, one after another, as easy a collection of big, slow targets as ever graced any church-carnival shooting gallery. If there had been actual enemies inside, they would have had no problem picking the invaders off, one at a time, as they floundered and soared.