To The Stars

Thurgood-Smythe squinted into the glare then opaqued his window. He was going through the notes of the emergency meeting that had been hurriedly called at the UN and had no eyes either for the glories of the sunset or the massed technology of Spaceconcent opening up before him. His attache case rested on his knees with the flat VDU screen pulled out of its slot. The figures, names, dates marched steadily across the screen, stopping only when he touched the keyboard to correct any transcription errors made by the speech recorder. It had been programmed for his voice, but still substituted one for von a good deal of the time. He made the corrections automatically, still taken aback by the momentous changes and the immense gravity of the situation. What had happened was unbelievable, impossible. But happened it had.

There was a jar as they touched down, then he was thrust forward against the safety harness as the engines reversed. The screen and keyboard disappeared at the touch of a button; the dark window cleared and he looked out at the white towers of the space center, now washed with glowing ochre by the sun. He was the first passenger off the plane.

Two uniformed guards were waiting for him; he nodded at their snappy salutes. Nothing was said, nor did they ask for identification. They knew who he was, knew also that this was an unscheduled flight arranged for his benefit. Thurgood-Smythe’s beaklike nose and lean, hard features had been made familiar by the news reports. His short-cropped white hair appeared severely military compared to the longer-haired styles currently in fashion. He looked exactly what he was; someone in charge.

Auguste Blanc was standing at the ceiling-high window, his back turned, when Thurgood-Smythe came in. As Director of Spaceconcent his office was naturally on the top floor of the tallest administration building. The view was impressive; the sunset incomparable. The mountains on the horizon were purple-black, outlined against the red of the sky. All of the buildings and the towering spaceships were washed by the same fiery color. The color of blood; prophetic perhaps. Nonsense! A cough cut through Auguste Blanc’s thoughts and he turned to face Thurgood-Smythe.

“A good flight, I sincerely hope,” he said, extending his hand. A thin, delicate hand, as finally drawn as his features. He had a title, a very good French one, but he rarely used it. The people he needed to impress, such as Thurgood-Smythe, took no heed of such things. Thurgood-Smythe nodded sharply, impatient for the formalities to be out of the way.

“But tiring nevertheless. A restorative, then? Something to drink, to relax?”

“No thank you, Auguste. No, wait, a Perrier. If you please.”

“The dry air of the airship. Not humidified as we of course do in the spacers. Here you are.” He passed over the tall glass, then poured an Armagnac for himself. Without turning about, as though ashamed of what he was saying, he spoke into the bottles of the cocktail cabinet. “Is it bad? As bad as I have heard?”

“I don’t know what you have heard.” Thurgood-Smythe took a long drink from his glass. “But I can tell you this, in all secrecy…”

“This room is secure.”

“… it is far worse than any of us thought. A debacle.” He dropped into an armchair and stared sightlessly into his glass. “We’ve lost. Everywhere. Not a single planet remains within our control—”

“That cannot be!” The sophistication was gone and there was an edge of animal fear in Auguste Blanc’s voice. “Our deepspace bases, how could they be taken?”

“I’m not talking about those. They’re unimportant. All of them on low-gravity, airless moons. They aren’t self-sufficient, they must be supplied regularly. More of a handicap than an asset. They can’t be attacked — but they can be starved out. We’re evacuating them all.”

“You cannot! They are our foothold, the cutting edge of the blade for conquest..

“They are our Achilles’ heel, if you wish to continue this stupid simile.” There was no trace of politeness, no touch of warmth in Thurgood-Smythe’s voice now. “We need the transport and we need the men. Here is an order. See that it goes out on the Foscolo net at once.” He took a single sheet of paper from his case and passed it over to the trembling director. “The debate is done. Two days of it. This is the combined decision.”

Auguste Blanc’s hands were shaking in the most craven manner so that he had difficulty reading the paper he grasped. But the director was needed. He was good at his job. For this reason, and none other, Thurgood-Smythe spoke quietly, considerately.

“These decisions are sometimes harder to make than to implement. I’m sorry, Auguste. They left us no choice. The planets are theirs. All of them. They planned well. Our people captured or dead. We have most of our space fleet intact, there was no way they could get at them, though a few were sabotaged, a few deserted. We’re pulling back. A strategic withdrawal. A regrouping.”

“Retreat.” Spoken bitterly. “Then we have lost already.”