The Results

: The Highest ... Treason

"I don't understand it," said General Polan Tallis worriedly. "Where

are they coming from? How are they doing it? What's happened?"



MacMaine and the four Kerothi officers were sitting in the small dining

room that doubled as a recreation room between meals. The nervous

strain of the past few months was beginning to tell on all of them.



"Six months ago," Tallis continued jerkily, "we had them beaten. One<
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planet after another was reduced in turn. Then, out of nowhere, comes a

fleet of ships we didn't even know existed, and they've smashed us at

every turn."



"If they are ships," said Loopat, the youngest officer of the

Shudos staff. "Who ever heard of a battleship that was undetectable

at a distance of less than half a million miles? It's impossible!"



"Then we're being torn to pieces by the impossible!" Hokotan snapped.

"Before we even know they are anywhere around, they are blasting us

with everything they've got! Not even the strategic genius of General

MacMaine can help us if we have no time to plot strategy!"



The Kerothi had been avoiding MacMaine's eyes, but now, at the mention

of his name, they all looked at him as if their collective gaze had

been drawn to him by some unknown attractive force.



"It's like fighting ghosts," MacMaine said in a hushed voice. For the

first time, he felt a feeling of awe that was almost akin to fear. What

had he done?



In another sense, that same question was in the mind of the Kerothi.



"Have you any notion at all what they are doing or how they are doing

it?" asked Tallis gently.



"None," MacMaine answered truthfully. "None at all, I swear to you."



"They don't even behave like Earthmen," said the fourth Kerothi, a

thick-necked officer named Ossif. "They not only outfight us, they

outthink us at every turn. Is it possible, General MacMaine, that the

Earthmen have allies of another race, a race of intelligent beings that

we don't know of?" He left unsaid the added implication: "And that

you have neglected to tell us about?"



"Again," said MacMaine, "I swear to you that I know nothing of any

third intelligent race in the galaxy."



"If there were such allies," Tallis said, "isn't it odd that they

should wait so long to aid their friends?"



"No odder than that the Earthmen should suddenly develop superweapons

that we cannot understand, much less fight against," Hokotan said, with

a touch of anger.



"Not 'superweapons'," MacMaine corrected almost absently. "All they

have is a method of making their biggest ships indetectable until

they're so close that it doesn't matter. When they do register on our

detectors, it's too late. But the weapons they strike with are the same

type as they've always used, I believe."



"All right, then," Hokotan said, his voice showing more anger. "One

weapon or whatever you want to call it. Practical invisibility. But

that's enough. An invisible man with a knife is more deadly than a

dozen ordinary men with modern armament. Are you sure you know nothing

of this, General MacMaine?"



Before MacMaine could answer, Tallis said, "Don't be ridiculous,

Hokotan! If he had known that such a weapon existed, would he have been

fool enough to leave his people? With that secret, they stand a good

chance of beating us in less than half the time it took us to wipe out

their fleet--or, rather, to wipe out as much of it as we did."



"They got a new fleet somewhere," said young Loopat, almost to himself.



* * * * *



Tallis ignored him. "If MacMaine deserted his former allegiance,

knowing that they had a method of rendering the action of a space drive

indetectable, then he was and is a blithering idiot. And we know he

isn't."



"All right, all right! I concede that," snapped Hokotan. "He knows

nothing. I don't say that I fully trust him, even now, but I'll admit

that I cannot see how he is to blame for the reversals of the past few

months.



"If the Earthmen had somehow been informed of our activities, or if we

had invented a superweapon and they found out about it, I would be

inclined to put the blame squarely on MacMaine. But----"



"How would he get such information out?" Tallis cut in sharply. "He has

been watched every minute of every day. We know he couldn't send any

information to Earth. How could he?"



"Telepathy, for all I know!" Hokotan retorted. "But that's beside the

point! I don't trust him any farther than I can see him, and not

completely, even then. But I concede that there is no possible

connection between this new menace and anything MacMaine might have

done.



"This is no time to worry about that sort of thing; we've got to find

some way of getting our hands on one of those ghost ships!"



"I do suggest," put in the thick-necked Ossif, "that we keep a closer

watch on General MacMaine. Now that the Earth animals are making a

comeback, he might decide to turn his coat now, even if he has been

innocent of any acts against Keroth so far."



Hokotan's laugh was a short, hard bark. "Oh, we'll watch him, all

right, Ossif. But, as Tallis has pointed out, MacMaine is not a fool,

and he would certainly be a fool to return to Earth if his leaving it

was a genuine act of desertion. The last planet we captured, before

this invisibility thing came up to stop us, was plastered all over with

notices that the Earth fleet was concentrating on the capture of the

arch-traitor MacMaine.



"The price on his head, as a corpse, is enough to allow an Earthman to

retire in luxury for life. The man who brings him back alive gets ten

times that amount.



"Of course, it's possible that the whole thing is a put-up job--a smoke

screen for our benefit. That's why we must and will keep a closer

watch. But only a few of the Earth's higher-up would know that it was a

smoke screen; the rest believe it, whether it is true or not. MacMaine

would have to be very careful not to let the wrong people get their

hands on him if he returned."



"It's no smoke screen," MacMaine said in a matter-of-fact tone. "I

assure you that I have no intention of returning to Earth. If Keroth

loses this war, then I will die--either fighting for the Kerothi or by

execution at the hands of Earthmen if I am captured. Or," he added

musingly, "perhaps even at the hands of the Kerothi, if someone decides

that a scapegoat is needed to atone for the loss of the war."



"If you are guilty of treason," Hokotan barked, "you will die as a

traitor! If you are not, there is no need for your death. The Kerothi

do not need scapegoats!"



"Talk, talk, talk!" Tallis said with a sudden bellow. "We have agreed

that MacMaine has done nothing that could even remotely be regarded as

suspicious! He has fought hard and loyally; he has been more ruthless

than any of us in destroying the enemy. Very well, we will guard him

more closely. We can put him in irons if that's necessary.



"But let's quit yapping and start thinking! We've been acting like

frightened children, not knowing what it is we fear, and venting our

fear-caused anger on the most handy target!



"Let's act like men--not like children!"



After a moment, Hokotan said: "I agree." His voice was firm, but calm.

"Our job will be to get our hands on one of those new Earth ships.

Anyone have any suggestions?"



They had all kinds of suggestions, one after another. The detectors,

however, worked because they detected the distortion of space which was

as necessary for the drive of a ship as the distortion of air was

necessary for the movement of a propeller-driven aircraft. None of them

could see how a ship could avoid making that distortion, and none of

them could figure out how to go about capturing a ship that no one

could even detect until it was too late to set a trap.



The discussion went on for days. And it was continued the next day and

the next. And the days dragged out into weeks.



* * * * *



Communications with Keroth broke down. The Fleet-to-Headquarters

courier ships, small in size, without armament, and practically solidly

packed with drive mechanism, could presumably outrun anything but

another unarmed courier. An armed ship of the same size would have to

use some of the space for her weapons, which meant that the drive would

have to be smaller; if the drive remained the same size, then the

armament would make the ship larger. In either case, the speed would be

cut down. A smaller ship might outrun a standard courier, but if they

got much smaller, there wouldn't be room inside for the pilot.



Nonetheless, courier after courier never arrived at its destination.



And the Kerothi Fleet was being decimated by the hit-and-run tactics of

the Earth's ghost ships. And Earth never lost a ship; by the time the

Kerothi ships knew their enemy was in the vicinity, the enemy had hit

and vanished again. The Kerothi never had a chance to ready their

weapons.



In the long run, they never had a chance at all.



MacMaine waited with almost fatalistic complacence for the inevitable

to happen. When it did happen, he was ready for it.



The Shudos, tiny flagship of what had once been a mighty armada and

was now only a tattered remnant, was floating in orbit, along with the

other remaining ships of the fleet, around a bloated red-giant sun.

With their drives off, there was no way of detecting them at any

distance, and the chance of their being found by accident was

microscopically small. But they could not wait forever. Water could be

recirculated, and energy could be tapped from the nearby sun, but food

was gone once it was eaten.



Hokotan's decision was inevitable, and, under the circumstances, the

only possible one. He simple told them what they had already

known--that he was a Headquarters Staff officer.



"We haven't heard from Headquarters in weeks," he said at last. "The

Earth fleet may already be well inside our periphery. We'll have to go

home." He produced a document which he had obviously been holding in

reserve for another purpose and handed it to Tallis. "Headquarters

Staff Orders, Tallis. It empowers me to take command of the Fleet in

the event of an emergency, and the decision as to what constitutes an

emergency was left up to my discretion. I must admit that this is not

the emergency any of us at Headquarters anticipated."



Tallis read through the document. "I see that it isn't," he said dryly.

"According to this, MacMaine and I are to be placed under immediate

arrest as soon as you find it necessary to act."



"Yes," said Hokotan bitterly. "So you can both consider yourselves

under arrest. Don't bother to lock yourselves up--there's no point in

it. General MacMaine, I see no reason to inform the rest of the Fleet

of this, so we will go on as usual. The orders I have to give are

simple: The Fleet will head for home by the most direct possible

geodesic. Since we cannot fight, we will simply ignore attacks and keep

going as long as we last. We can do nothing else." He paused

thoughtfully.



"And, General MacMaine, in case we do not live through this, I would

like to extend my apologies. I do not like you; I don't think I could

ever learn to like an anim ... to like a non-Kerothi. But I know when

to admit an error in judgment. You have fought bravely and

well--better, I know, than I could have done myself. You have shown

yourself to be loyal to your adopted planet; you are a Kerothi in every

sense of the word except the physical. My apologies for having wronged

you."



He extended his hands and MacMaine took them. A choking sensation

constricted the Earthman's throat for a moment, then he got the words

out--the words he had to say. "Believe me, General Hokotan, there is no

need for an apology. No need whatever."



"Thank you," said Hokotan. Then he turned and left the room.



"All right, Tallis," MacMaine said hurriedly, "let's get moving."



* * * * *



The orders were given to the remnants of the Fleet, and they cut in

their drives to head homeward. And the instant they did, there was

chaos. Earth's fleet of "ghost ships" had been patrolling the area for

weeks, knowing that the Kerothi fleet had last been detected somewhere

in the vicinity. As soon as the spatial distortions of the Kerothi

drives flashed on the Earth ships' detectors, the Earth fleet, widely

scattered over the whole circumambient volume of space, coalesced

toward the center of the spatial disturbance like a cloud of bees all

heading for the same flower.



Where there had been only the dull red light of the giant star, there

suddenly appeared the blinding, blue-white brilliance of disintegrating

matter, blossoming like cruel, deadly, beautiful flowers in the midst

of the Kerothi ships, then fading slowly as each expanding cloud of

plasma cooled.



Sebastian MacMaine might have died with the others except that the

Shudos, as the flagship, was to trail behind the fleet, so her drive

had not yet been activated. The Shudos was still in orbit, moving at

only a few miles per second when the Earth fleet struck.



Her drive never did go on. A bomb, only a short distance away as the

distance from atomic disintegration is measured, sent the Shudos

spinning away, end over end, like a discarded cigar butt flipped toward

a gutter, one side caved in near the rear, as if it had been kicked in

by a giant foot.



There was still air in the ship, MacMaine realized groggily as he awoke

from the unconsciousness that had been thrust upon him. He tried to

stand up, but he found himself staggering toward one crazily-slanted

wall. The stagger was partly due to his grogginess, and partly due to

the Coriolis forces acting within the spinning ship. The artificial

gravity was gone, which meant that the interstellar drive engines had

been smashed. He wondered if the emergency rocket drive was still

working--not that it would take him anywhere worth going to in less

than a few centuries. But, then, Sebastian MacMaine had nowhere to go,

anyhow.



Tallis lay against one wall, looking very limp. MacMaine half staggered

over to him and knelt down. Tallis was still alive.



The centrifugal force caused by the spinning ship gave an effective

pull of less than one Earth gravity, but the weird twists caused by the

Coriolis forces made motion and orientation difficult. Besides, the

ship was spinning slightly on her long axis as well as turning

end-for-end.



MacMaine stood there for a moment, trying to think. He had expected to

die. Death was something he had known was inevitable from the moment he

made his decision to leave Earth. He had not known how or when it would

come, but he had known that it would come soon. He had known that he

would never live to collect the reward he had demanded of the Kerothi

for "faithful service." Traitor he might be, but he was still honest

enough with himself to know that he would never take payment for

services he had not rendered.



Now death was very near, and Sebastian MacMaine almost welcomed it. He

had no desire to fight it. Tallis might want to stand and fight death

to the end, but Tallis was not carrying the monstrous weight of guilt

that would stay with Sebastian MacMaine until his death, no matter how

much he tried to justify his actions.



On the other hand, if he had to go, he might as well do a good job of

it. Since he still had a short time left, he might as well wrap the

whole thing up in a neat package. How?



Again, his intuitive ability to see pattern gave him the answer long

before he could have reasoned it out.



They will know, he thought, but they will never be sure they know. I

will be immortal. And my name will live forever, although no Earthman

will ever again use the surname MacMaine or the given name Sebastian.



He shook his head to clear it. No use thinking like that now. There

were things to be done.



* * * * *



Tallis first. MacMaine made his way over to one of the emergency

medical kits that he knew were kept in every compartment of every ship.

One of the doors of a wall locker hung open, and the blue-green medical

symbol used by the Kerothi showed darkly in the dim light that came

from the three unshattered glow plates in the ceiling. He opened the

kit, hoping that it contained something equivalent to adhesive tape. He

had never inspected a Kerothi medical kit before. Fortunately, he could

read Kerothi. If a military government was good for nothing else, at

least it was capable of enforcing a simplified phonetic orthography so

that words were pronounced as they were spelled. And--



He forced his wandering mind back to his work. The blow on the head,

plus the crazy effect the spinning was having on his inner ears, plus

the cockeyed gravitational orientation that made his eyes feel as

though they were seeing things at two different angles, all combined to

make for more than a little mental confusion.



There was adhesive tape, all right. Wound on its little spool, it

looked almost homey. He spent several minutes winding the sticky

plastic ribbon around Tallis' wrists and ankles.



Then he took the gun from the Kerothi general's sleeve holster--he had

never been allowed one of his own--and, holding it firmly in his right

hand, he went on a tour of the ship.



It was hard to move around. The centrifugal force varied from point to

point throughout the ship, and the corridors were cluttered with debris

that seemed to move with a life of its own as each piece shifted slowly

under the effects of the various forces working on it. And, as the

various masses moved about, the rate of spin of the ship changed as the

law of conservation of angular momentum operated. The ship was full of

sliding, clattering, jangling noises as the stuff tried to find a final

resting place and bring the ship to equilibrium.



He found the door to Ossif's cabin open and the room empty. He found

Ossif in Loopat's cabin, trying to get the younger officer to his feet.



Ossif saw MacMaine at the door and said: "You're alive! Good! Help

me----" Then he saw the gun in MacMaine's hand and stopped. It was the

last thing he saw before MacMaine shot him neatly between the eyes.



Loopat, only half conscious, never even knew he was in danger, and the

blast that drilled through his brain prevented him from ever knowing

anything again in this life.



Like a man in a dream, MacMaine went on to Hokotan's cabin, his weapon



at the ready. He was rather pleased to find that the HQ general was

already quite dead, his neck broken as cleanly as if it had been done

by a hangman. Hardly an hour before, MacMaine would cheerfully have

shot Hokotan where it would hurt the most and watch him die slowly. But

the memory of Hokotan's honest apology made the Earthman very glad that

he did not have to shoot the general at all.



There remained only the five-man crew, the NCO technician and his gang,

who actually ran the ship. They would be at the tail of the ship, in

the engine compartment. To get there, he had to cross the center of

spin of the ship, and the change of gravity from one direction to

another, decreasing toward zero, passing the null point, and rising

again on the other side, made him nauseous. He felt better after his

stomach had emptied itself.



Cautiously, he opened the door to the drive compartment and then

slammed it hard in sudden fear when he saw what had happened. The

shielding had been torn away from one of the energy converters and

exposed the room to high-energy radiation. The crewmen were quite dead.



The fear went away as quickly as it had come. So maybe he'd dosed

himself with a few hundred Roentgens--so what? A little radiation never

hurt a dead man.



But he knew now that there was no possibility of escape. The drive was

wrecked, and the only other means of escape, the one-man courier boat

that every blaster-boat carried, had been sent out weeks ago and had

never returned.



If only the courier boat were still in its cradle--



MacMaine shook his head. No. It was better this way. Much better.



He turned and went back to the dining cabin where Tallis was trussed

up. This time, passing the null-gee point didn't bother him much at

all.



* * * * *



Tallis was moaning a little and his eyelids were fluttering by the time

MacMaine got back. The Earthman opened the medical kit again and looked

for some kind of stimulant. He had no knowledge of medical or chemical

terms in Kerothic, but there was a box of glass ampoules bearing

instructions to "crush and allow patient to inhale fumes." That sounded

right.



The stuff smelled like a mixture of spirits of ammonia and butyl

mercaptan, but it did the job. Tallis coughed convulsively, turned his

head away, coughed again, and opened his eyes. MacMaine tossed the

stinking ampoule out into the corridor as Tallis tried to focus his

eyes.



"How do you feel?" MacMaine asked. His voice sounded oddly thick in his

own ears.



"All right. I'm all right. What happened?" He looked wonderingly

around. "Near miss? Must be. Anyone hurt?"



"They're all dead but you and me," MacMaine said.



"Dead? Then we'd better----" He tried to move and then realized that he

was bound hand and foot. The sudden realization of his position seemed

to clear his brain completely. "Sepastian, what's going on here? Why am

I tied up?"



"I had to tie you," MacMaine explained carefully, as though to a child.

"There are some things I have to do yet, and I wouldn't want you to

stop me. Maybe I should have just shot you while you were unconscious.

That would have been kinder to both of us, I think. But ... but,

Tallis, I had to tell somebody. Someone else has to know. Someone else

has to judge. Or maybe I just want to unload it on someone else,

someone who will carry the burden with me for just a little while. I

don't know."



"Sepastian, what are you talking about?" The Kerothi's face shone dully

orange in the dim light, his bright green eyes looked steadily at the

Earthman, and his voice was oddly gentle.



"I'm talking about treason," said MacMaine. "Do you want to listen?"



"I don't have much choice, do I?" Tallis said. "Tell me one thing

first: Are we going to die?"



"You are, Tallis. But I won't. I'm going to be immortal."



Tallis looked at him for a long moment. Then, "All right, Sepastian.

I'm no psych man, but I know you're not well. I'll listen to whatever

you have to say. But first, untie my hands and feet."



"I can't do that, Tallis. Sorry. But if our positions were reversed, I

know what I would do to you when I heard the story. And I can't let you

kill me, because there's something more that has to be done."



Tallis knew at that moment that he was looking at the face of Death.

And he also knew that there was nothing whatever he could do about it.

Except talk. And listen.



"Very well, Sepastian," he said levelly. "Go ahead. Treason, you say?

How? Against whom?"



"I'm not quite sure," said Sebastian MacMaine. "I thought maybe you

could tell me."



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