if we canconvince you, we badly need your help."
"It'll take some convincing from what's happened up to now. But goahead."
"Ever wonder," Pyuf went on, "why the Darzent Empire hasn't attacked?What are they waiting for? They're aggressive. They have the edge inpower, with two inhabited systems to one in the A.S. Their technologymatches ours and their heavily centralized dictatorship allows them tomove faster, at least at the beginning of a war."
"Well?"
"Two reasons. One, they never could be sure that we didn't have thesecond-stage drive. Two, they couldn't be sure of the allegiance ofOnzar."
"Onzar--the whole five systems--is probably more of an armed camp thanany other political entity in the Galaxy. But that isn't the realreason for their overwhelming importance." Pyuf jumped down off thedesk and flipped a switch on the far wall. The galactic map appeared,with the warp-lines superimposed in red.
Pyuf pointed with his cigarette. "Take a look at those warps. All nineof the principal ones, crossing the Galaxy between the Allied Systemsand the Darzent Empire, pass within a parsec of Onzar. Afaster-than-light fleet going either way _has_ to surface at the OnzarConfluence. And Candar, no matter how he sounds to you or me, is nofool. He, you can bet, has taken some long quiet looks at a map likethis and he knows his position. So does Darzent. So do the people whoare presumably running things in the Allied Systems."
Thane stood up. He had been off at the perimeter of the struggle,working in obscure but possibly important systems for the past threeyears. He hadn't been in a position to see all the factors in thestruggle that was shaping up. But now at a glance he saw that Pyuf wasprobably right. "It makes sense," he admitted, "but what about thesecond-stage drive? Isn't that supposed to cut across warp-lines?Wouldn't that reduce to zero the strategic importance of our friend,Candar?"
At this, Manning Reine broke in excitedly, "But that's just the point,Thane! Remember I mentioned there were certain limits to thesecond-stage drive. We can, to a large extent, manufacture our ownlines. But they are never wholly independent of the existing naturallines through space. Our dependence on the galactic lines varies fromalmost zero to almost unitary, depending on our position in space. TheOnzarian Confluence has much the same effect as a whirlpool.Theoretically, we could force our way out of the whirlpool and gothrough the center of the Galaxy by a different route. But the energyrequired approaches infinity."
Thane stepped over to the map. He pointed to the Onzarian Confluence."O.K. There's our bottleneck. But where's the cork? Just how do youfigure on stopping a fleet if it does surface at the OnzarianConfluence for two or three microseconds?"
Pyuf slapped the butt of his cigarette across the tray on Reine'sdesk. "There, Agent Thane, we reach the point of the whole show. Butlet's get the story straight from the source." His eyes went to Reine.
Reine, pouring his second cup of coffee, looked up. "If you mean me,that's not very accurate. It's true that it was developed in mylaboratory but Astrid was the one who saw the hint, originally, anddid all the development. I'm not even familiar with all the details."He smiled apologetically to Thane. "We're talking about the Tracer. Asa by-product of our main job we discovered a new way of plottingwarp-lines. Instead of doing it by mathematics we found a way ofplotting warps directly by instrument. Well, I was on the main line ofresearch, and I had three times as much as I could do already. I justregarded this as a curiosity. But Astrid took it and built theTracer."
Pyuf interrupted. He was not the man, Thane saw, who could abidetechnical explanations when they had a clear political implication."The Tracer," he said, "is the cork for your bottleneck. With thetracer, we know when any ship is operating on second-stage drive. Withtwo tracers, separated on a baseline of a few million kilometers, wecan plot position closely. Three tracers will pin-point them, and fora trip across the center of the Galaxy, we will know when and wherethey'll have to surface."
"That fits all right," Thane said, "but why tie in Onzar? Why not letthe Allied Systems have the tracer?"
Pyuf shrugged impatiently. "Gentlemen, from here on, we need a drink.The explanation is simple, limpid, computable logic. As far as we cansee, it's the only course." He stared pointedly at Thane. "But it alsocould be construed as treason. So we'd better have a drink." Hestepped to the door. "Astrid, will you bring glasses and the bottle?We've got a bit of dialectics to dispense with."
* * * * *
After Astrid had handed the drinks around, Pyuf downed his. Then hewent on. "First of all, Thane, don't get me wrong. Maybe I couldn'tpass a security check with some of the boys in the Department of theOutside. Maybe I could, I don't know. I've never tried. But I like theAllied Systems as well as anything the Galaxy has to offer and I wantto live there. But let's take a hard look at them." He stopped to pouranother glass. "Within the A.S. you have the main federation, and youhave a lot of loosely confederated systems. Space only knows what theconfederations will do. We can only hope. But look at the rest ofthem. Every couple of years, absolute, they rear back and elect anassembly of 13,000 members, a really efficient size for a deliberativebody. So that sterling group elects a senate of 300 or so, and thengoes home. But it reserves a lot of rights, like declaring war. Andthe senate, of course, goes ahead and elects the council. Which doesits best to keep things going."
"I know the system," Thane broke in. "Just what do you want to doabout it?"
"I don't want to do anything about it," Pyuf looked up earnestly. "Iwant to prevent it from being wiped out. And right now the only waythat can be done is to work outside it, rather than through it. Or doyou want to hold a systems election when the Darzent fleet surfaces atOnzar Confluence?"
Manning Reine was on his feet now. "And they will, Thane, they will.We know there have been security leaks in the development of thedrive. It's just a question of time."
Thane calmly reached over and took the bottle from Pyuf. He filled hisglass and looked at the bottle, then at Pyuf, Astrid, and Reine. "Allright. We have our bottleneck. And we have our cork--the Onzarianfleet. Just how do you propose we shove the cork into the bottle?"
Astrid was the first to answer. "We'll take the fleet! The Onzariansare ready for freedom!" After that they were all talking. Theunderground had convinced the people of the truth. They were ready torise up and throw off the yoke of Candar. There was conflict betweenthe government and the religion. The people would not stand anyfurther reduction in their living standards. Two-thirds of the grossproduct went for armaments now, and the amount was steadilyincreasing.
At last Thane banged the desk until they had all stopped talking. Helooked at them a moment in silence. "All right. You've got yourgadgets. You've got your political theory. You've even got yourstrategy. But there hasn't been an atom's worth of tactics in anythingyou've said, any of you. I think you're badly in need of someengineering for your revolution."
Astrid walked over and looked up into his eyes. "That's about the wayit is, Roger. And that's why we need you so badly."
That was when they began going into details. Strength of theunderground, possible allies, weaknesses of Candar.... Thane wasbeginning to see the picture, and the tremendous obstacles to beovercome, when a buzzer sounded and a red light over the door blinkedDANGER ... DANGER ... DANGER....
IV
Pyuf ran over to a cabinet on the wall by the fire. Thane saw therewere several dials and a visiscreen. As Pyuf twisted the dials hespoke rapidly over his shoulder to Thane. "We're quite isolated here.The house belongs to the old boy you met in the lab. He's been checkedfor security by Candar so we figured we were safe here. There's adetection screen about a kilometer hour from the house, and we have aforce screen we can use as a last resort. Of course, we'd have toabandon this place once we did use it. Candar's detectors would pickit up right away."
The visiscreen came into focus and Pyuf turned the perimeter dial tillit lined up with the degree mark on the disturbance indicator. Ninefigures appeared, advancing toward the house. Three were short andsqua
t--not over a meter and a half in height. They walked with thepeculiar slouch of the Darzent entity in its humanoid phase. The othersix were the Darzent robot infantry. Two and a half meters high,impervious to any hand weapon, with built-in blasters and the Darzentversion of the Stoltz gun. Their ship was in the background. It hadthe outlines of an ordinary atmosphere jet of medium size, but therewere alterations which made Thane suspect that it had been refittedfor deep space, with at least the finite drive, and probably FTL.
Thane spun around to the others. "We either put up