His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

It wasn't very long before the invaders were in complete control of the sector they had first arrived at, and had won that control without a real fight or even once tipping their hands as to what they had and what they could do if they were hard-pressed.

There had begun a general exodus back to Earth; one would have thought that there was already a major space war on from the scrambling and confusion. Any planet that boasted a graving-dock for minor ships of the line was thrice overloaded with a charge of human beings, for the mere presence of dismantled destroyers was a guarantee of temporary security. After three weeks of the senseless scrambling the Admiral was forced to declare that there would be no more admissions to planets and whole systems having vital bearing on the welfare of the Fleet. He quietly began a program of evacuation so that if there should be a raid on a Fleet base there would be no deaths save those in the service. Things were confused; public temper was generally timid. The prospect of a defensive had scared the living daylights out of them. It was utterly unthinkable that Earth, the great invader, should get a taste of her own medicine.

Where they came from nobody knew, where they were going nobody dared to say. But it was perfectly obvious that the All Earth and Colonies culture stood in their way, and that they were bound to stamp them flat. The invaders must have been awfully foul creatures in their psychological make-up to do what they did, for they gave no hint of their moves, which is the dirtiest trick that you can play on anyone.

They simply moved up slowly and surely from their obscure base on the outermost planets of the Earth culture.

And they kept moving. There were no survivors; that was the most appalling part of their technique. Everybody who could run, ran.

Everybody who was left, died. Communication was cut off simply and efficiently by scrambling techniques which must have meant the expenditure of trillions of kilowatts per hour. Or did the invaders have some unsuspected source of energy? Nobody knew; that was the hell of it.

Bartok was good and ready to blow his brains out. It, was his specialty, as com- mander of the Intelligence Wing, to relay information as to the whereabouts and plans of whatever enemy might be at hand. It was his misfortune that this enemy simply refused to let him know.

He was brilliant, brilliant as a flawless diamond, and just as hard. Give the man a problem in smuggling or in colonial subjugation and he'd have it cracked in jig-time. But this—! It was impossible.

Babe MacNeice, assistant extraordinary, consoled him with: "Barty, you've done all you can—all anybody can to stop them. It isn't your fault that they've got more on the ball than we have or could hope to have." A philosophical shrug of the shoulders. "It's a question of making room for our mysterious friends. They may not even strike at Earth. They may even turn back."

"They may even," said Bartok sourly, "turn into packages of Rinso. But don't count on it. Babe, this is a spot." There were dark circles under his eyes big enough to make barrels with.

"Then how about a joy-ride?" asked the girl. She looked absentmindedly at her fingernails.

Bartok was studying her closely. "Yeah," he said. "How about it?" He dropped into a chair. "Shoot," he said. "I know that mysterious air of yours."

In cloyingly sweet tones she replied: "Barry, darling, don't be an old silly. Aintcha gonna take itsy-bitsy Babesy for a ride?"

He stiffened as if he had been shot. "Sure," he said. "Why didn't you say it that way before?" They shot up to the roof on Bartok's private elevator and got into the commander's very private plane. As they took off he growled: "All right—spill it."

"I'm sorry I had to be sickening before you got the idea through your skull that I wanted absolute and complete privacy," she said, again her own brisk self. "But I have a notion."

"She has a notion," said Bartok expectantly.

"Take it easy. Only a hunch—still—where do you suppose there's enough room for a complete invasion-culture to develop without once coming into contact with the Earth culture till now, when it's at its height?"

"Space is plenty big, Babe. There's room for a thousand colonial systems as big as ours that we'd never even known of."

"Okay. That establishes the very first postulate. Those things are real.

Therefore one doesn't have to be a psychic to investigate them. I am not psychic; ergo I can and will investigate them—in person." The girl avoided Bartok's eyes, and rattled on: "May be that my logic doesn't hold water, but I think I can handle the job. You wouldn't send me out there, and I know you're on the verge of saying that you'll go yourself.