The first motion was to send an ultrawave message to call you back, but I pointed out the probability that the Cometeers might intercept and decode the order.
I could see an actual danger there—because I can feel the weight of your arguments, John, even though I favor moderation.
You had been gone only two hours, and I thought we could overtake you with the Invincible.
It seems we were nearly too late.”
“You’ll wish you had been too late.”
John Star’s face looked pale and rigid, and his voice sounded hoarse and stern and terrible.
“And the System will!”
He nodded bleakly at the document Jay Kalam had brought.
“That paper is the death-warrant for mankind.”
An ominous quiet hung in the Jade Room.
Silently, at last, Aladoree walked back to the scarletwood table and stooped to take apart her harmless-seeming weapon.
“I hope you’re wrong, John,” Jay Kalam said.
“But I’m not,” John Star answered flatly.
“I’ve no desire to be needlessly ruthless.
But my duty is to guard the keeper of the peace, and I can’t afford to let mistaken emotions stand hi the way.
I know this, Jay: by saving the comet you are murdering the System.”
4 The Man Called Merrin
A terrible taut stillness reigned for a little while in the Jade Room.
John Star stood motionless and alone on the vast red floor, his pale face set like a mask of death.
Something made the others shrink back from him.
Bob Star heard the sudden catch in his father’s breath, and saw the wet glitter in his eyes. The guardian of the keeper was suddenly also a man defending his wife.
He strode to Aladoree and turned, with his arm around her waist, to look almost defiantly at the commander of the Legion.
“Well, Jay?”
His voice was flat and hard and dry.
“If we can’t destroy the comet, what are we going to do?”
“The Green Hall voted to leave that in my hands,” Jay Kalam said.
“I considered the situation carefully, while we came out from Earth.
I’ve worked out a plan that I think is safe.”
“Yes?”
John Star waited, grimly intent.
“There are three things we must do,” the lean commander said deliberately.
“We must protect the keeper.
We must guard the prisoner known as Merrin.
We must find out as soon as possible whether the existence of the comet is any actual danger to the System.
“The first task is your duty, John.”
John Star nodded silently, his arm drawing tighter around Aladoree.
“But I doubt that she’s safe any longer, here in the Purple Hall,” Jay Kalam added.
“Phobos is well defended—but so was that vault in the Green Hall, which the Cometeers raided.
With their invisibility, they would probably be able to land and enter the building, undetected.
What was left of the men guarding that vault shows that they have strange and terrible weapons.”
“I’m quite aware of that!”
“Then I suggest that you take Aladoree away from here, on the Phantom Star, at once.
I don’t want to know where.
You may select your own destination.
Keep it secret.
You can send some member of the Council the necessary information about how to communicate with you, if it does become necessary to use AKKA—a simple set of code signals, for ultrawave broadcast, ought to be sufficient.”
“Yes, sir.”
John Star gave him a brisk salute.
“The defenses of the man called Merrin,” he continued deliberately, “are already as good as the Legion can make them—except in one particular.
I’m going to call upon your son, to make them complete.”