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Before Williamson could reply the Chief Communications officer reported both
helicopter crews back in the ship, also all personnel who had been within
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earshot of the siren, which meant everyone in town. The remainder could not
make it back to Vespasian for several hours at least and had been ordered to
go under
cover until a scout ship sneaked in later to pick them up. Almost before the
officer had finished speaking the Captain snapped "Lift ship" and Conway felt
a moment's dizziness as the ship's anti-gravity grids compensated for full
emergency thrust. Vespasian climbed frantically for space, with the courier
vessel only ten seconds behind her.
"You must have thought me pretty stupid back there.. ." Williamson began, then
was interrupted by reports from the returned crew-men. One of the helicopters
had been fired on and the men from town had been ordered to stay there by the
local police. These orders had come directly from the Imperial
Representative, with instructions to kill anyone who tried to escape. But the
local police and Corpsmen had come to know each other very well, and the
Etlans had aimed well above their heads...
"This is getting dirtier by the minute," said Stillman suddenly. "You know, I
think we are going to be blamed for what happened around Lonvellin's ship, for
all the casualties in the area. Everything we have done here is going to be
twisted so that we will be the villains. And I bet a lot of new diseases will
be introduced immediately we leave, for which we will be blamed!"
Stillman swore, then went on, "You know how the people of the Empire think of
this planet. Etla is their poor, weak, crippled sister, and we are going to be
the dirty aliens who cold-bloodedly assaulted her..
As the Major had been talking Conway had begun to sweat again. His deductions
regarding the Empire's treatment of Etla had been from medical evidence, and
it had been the medical aspect which had most concerned him, so that the
larger implications of it all had not yet occurred to him. Suddenly he burst
out, "But this could mean a war!"
"Yes indeed," said Stillman savagely, "and that is probably just what the
Imperial government wants. It has grown too big and fat and rotten at the
core, judging by what has been happening here. Within a few decades it would
probably fall apart of its own accord, and a good thing, too. But there is
nothing like a good war, a Cause that everybody can feel strongly about, to
pull a crumbling
Empire together again. If they play it right this war could make it stand for
another hundred years."
Conway shook his head numbly. "I should have seen what was happening sooner,"
he said. "If we'd had time to tell the Etlans the truth-"
"You saw it sooner than anyone else," the Captain broke in sharply, "and
telling the natives would not have helped them or us if the ordinary people of
the Empire could not have been told also. You have no reason to blame yourself
for-"
"Ordinance Officer," said a voice from one of the twenty-odd speaker grills in
the room. "We have a trace at Green Twelve Thirty-one which I'm putting on
your repeater screen Five. Trace is putting out patterned interference against
missile attack and considerable radar window, suggesting that it has a guilty
conscience and is smaller than we are. Instructions, sir?"
Williamson glanced at the repeater screen. "Do nothing unless it does," he
said, then turned to Stillman and Conway again. When he spoke it was with the
calming, confidence-inspiring tone of the senior officer who bears, and
accepts, full responsibility, a tone which insisted that they were not to
worry because he was there to do it for them.
He said, "Don't look so distressed, gentlemen. This situation, this threat of
interstellar war, was bound to come about sometime and plans have been devised
for dealing with it. Luckily we have plenty of time to put these plans into
effect.
"Spatially the Empire is a small, dense association of worlds," he went on
reassuringly, "otherwise we could not have made contact with them so soon. The
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