He thinks the Basilisk must be using some application of the same achronic forces the visiwave does—the same sort of warp in the geodesic lines that brought Kay Nymidee out of the comet.
You’ll find his whole report in the envelope, but he admits that his idea is too vague to be of any practical use.
With our data from the cometary expedition, we might have worked out something —but that’s gone.”
“Then,” Jay Kalam demanded, “have you anything on the location of this star?”
“It’s in the envelope, Jay,” Hal Samdu continued desperately.
“The astrophysicists did another remarkable piece of work.
They listed all the K9e stars hi telescopic range—they are not very luminous, you know, with a surface temperature just above three thousand, and therefore the number known is relatively small.
“They checked off nearly half which are binaries, and hence could have no planets.
Most of the rest were eliminated because spec-trographic studies revealed no trace whatever of absorption by free atmospheric chlorine.
When they were done, Jay, only one star was left.”
The Commander rose abruptly.
“What star is that?”
“They showed it to me in the telescope—and showed me the faint dark lines of free chlorine in the spectrograms.
It’s a faint red star in the constellation Draco, known as Ulnar XIV.
Its distance is eighty light-years.”
“Eighty light-years!”
Jay Kalam’s thin lips pursed.
“No man has been so far—none except the Basilisk!
It would take us two years to reach it, at the full power of the Inflexible—and we should arrive without any fuel left for action or return.”
His dark head shook slowly.
Thin, unconscious fingers combed the one white lock back from his forehead.
His dark eyes stared at Hal Samdu, with a fixed intensity.
“Hal—” he whispered suddenly, hoarsely.
“Hal—I see but one thing to do.
It’s a terrible thing—it is terrible for life, the child of a star, to destroy a star.
And we’ve no certainty that even that would end the Basilisk—we may have spun our assumptions out too far.” He caught his breath, as if with an effort.
“However, I’m going to order the destruction of the star Ulnar XIV.” His dark eyes closed for a moment, as if against some dreadful sight. “Another time, I waited too long—to urge the keeper to annihilate the green comet.
Great as a star may be, the life of the System matters somewhat more to us.”
“Aye,” Hal Samdu rumbled solemnly.
“Strike!”
The Commander of the Legion found the small black disk of his communicator.
His thin, trembling fingers turned the tiny dials, and tapped out a code signal.
His thin lips whispered into it.
Hal Samdu sat watching, his face rigid as a statue’s.
At last Jay Kalam lowered the instrument.
“It is unfortunate that no visiwave equipment has yet been installed on Phobos,” he said.
“I am communicating direct, by ultra-wave.
But Mars is now more than a hundred million miles away.
It will take nine minutes for the message to reach the keeper.
In ten, the star Ulnar XIV should have ceased to exist in the material universe—although terrestrial astronomers will naturally not be able to detect its disappearance for another eighty years!”
He paced a nervous turn across the end of the big silent room, beyond the desk.
“Twenty minutes,” he muttered. “Before we can get any reply—”
“What was that?”
Hal Samdu was suddenly peering about the empty room, blaster level in his big gnarled hand.
“Didn’t you hear it, Jay?” he demanded.
“A muffled purr!
Or feel a breath of bitter cold?”
“I heard nothing, Hal.” Jay Kalam sighed, wearily.
“We’ve been under too much strain.
I’ll order you something to drink.