Beyond The Farthest Star Read online

  There was a girl working in the office of the Commissioner for War, whom I had seen and talked to many times. She was always exceedingly pleasant to me and as she seemed a nice sort, intelligent and witty, I finally asked her to have dinner with me.

  We had a mightily pleasant evening together, and after that I saw a great deal of her when I was off duty. She liked to get me to talk about my own world, way off there so far beyond Canapa.

  Once, after we had been going together for some time, Morga Sagra said she couldn't understand why it was I was so loyal to Unis when I hadn't been born there and had no relations, even, on the planet.

  "Suppose you had come down in Kapara," she asked, "instead of in Unis?"

  I shrugged. "I don't like to think of it," I said; "I am sure that I never could have fought for and been loyal to the Kapars."

  "What do you know about them," she asked, "except what we Unisans have told you? and naturally, we are biased. As a matter of fact, I don't think they are a bad sort at all, and their form of government is based upon a much more enduring concept than ours."

  "Just what do you mean?" I asked.

  "It is based on war," said Morga Sagra, "and war is the natural state of the human race. War is their way of life. They are not always thinking of peace as are we."

  "You wouldn't like peace?" I asked.

  "No!" she exclaimed, "I should hate it. Think of having to associate with men who never fought. It would be disgusting. If I were a man, I would join the Kapars, for they are going to win the war eventually."

  "That is a very dangerous thing to say, Morga Sagra," I told her.

  "I'm not afraid to tell you," she said; "you are no Unisan, you owe no more allegiance to Unis than you do to Kapara. Listen, Tangor; don't be stupid. You are an alien here; you have made a good record as a fighter, but what can it get you?-nothing. You will always be an alien, who can do no more than fight for Unis-and probably get killed in the long run."

  "Well, and what do you want me to do, stop fighting?"

  "No," she said, leaning close to me and whispering; "I want you to go to Kapara and take me with you. You and I could go far there with the Unisan military secrets we could take with us."

  I was immeasurably shocked, but I did not let her see it. The little fool was a traitor, and if she had thought that I was greatly shocked by what she had said, she would be afraid that I might turn her in to the authorities. If she would turn against Unis for no reason whatsoever other than a perverted admiration for the Kapars, she certainly wouldn't hesitate to' turn against me if she had reason to fear me. She was right, I am an alien here. Any lie that she could make up might be believed.

  "You take me by surprise, Morga Sagra," I said; "I had never thought of such a thing. I don't believe that it could be done; the Kapars would never accept me."

  After that she evidently thought that I could be won over easily, for she told me that she had long been in touch with Kapar sympathizers in Orvis and knew two Kapar secret agents well.

  "I have discussed this matter with them," she said, "and they have promised me that you and I will be treated like kings of old if we can get to Ergos. That's the capital of Kapara," she added.

  "Yes, I know," I told her; "I have been there."

  "You have!" she exclaimed.

  "Yes, to drop bombs on it. It would be amusing to go there now to live, and have my old comrades in arms dropping bombs on me."

  "Then you'll go?" she asked.

  "Let me think it over, Morga Sagra," I said; "this is not something that a man can do without thought."

  So we left it that way, and the next day I went to the Commissioner for War and told him the whole story, and I didn't have even a single qualm of conscience for betraying Morga Sagra; she was a traitor and she tried to make a traitor of me. While I am on Poloda, Unis will be as dear to me as my own United States of America . I wear the uniform of her fighting force; I have been well treated; my friends are here; they trust me, as do my superiors and my fellow fighters. I could never betray them.

  The Commissioner for War is a crusty old fellow, and he almost blew up like one of his own bombs when he learned that a Kapar agent was employed in his department.

  "She'll be shot tomorrow!" he exploded, and then he thought a moment and calmed down. "Maybe it would be better to let her live," he said; "maybe we can use her. Come with me."

  He took me to the Eljanhai's office and there he had me repeat what I had told him. "It is too bad," said the Eljanhai; "I knew her father well; he was a brave officer. He was killed in battle when she was a little baby. I hate to think of ordering his daughter destroyed, but I suppose there is no other way."

  "I have another way," said the Commissioner for War. "I suggest that if Tangor will accept the mission, we let him accede to Morga Sagra's proposition. As you know, the Kapars are supposed to have perfected a power amplifier which will permit them to fly to great distances from Poloda, possibly to other planets. I have heard you say that you wished that we could get the drawings of this new amplifier." He turned to me. "It would be a very dangerous mission, Tangor, and one in which you might not possibly be able to succeed, but there would be a chance, if you were there. What do you say to it?"

  "I am in the service of Unis," I said; "whatever you wish me to do, I will do to the best of my ability."

  "Excellent," said the Eljanhai, "but do you realize that the chances are about a thousand to one that you will be unsuccessful and that you will never get out of Kapara alive."

  "I realize that, sir," I said, "but I take similar chances almost ever day of my life."

  "Then it is settled," he said, "let us know when you are ready to go, and every arrangement will be made to facilitate your departure; and, by the way, when you get to Kapara, see if you can get any information as to the fate of one of our most valuable secret agents from whom we have not heard for two years; he is an officer named Handon Gar," and then he described the man very minutely to me, as I could not, of course, inquire about him, and furthermore, he had unquestionably changed his name after he reached Kapara.

  The two then gave me certain military information to report to the Kapars, information they were perfectly willing to trade for a chance to get the secret of the amplifier.

  I wondered just why they were so anxious to obtain the secret of this power amplifier and so I made bold to ask.

  "To be perfectly frank," said the Eljanhai, "Unis is tired of war; and we wish to send an expedition to one of the nearer planets, either Tonos or Antos, to see what conditions are there; and if they are better, eventually to transport all Unisans to one of these planets."

  What an amazing and stupendous project, it was staggering even to contemplate-an heroic migration unparalleled in history.

  "But if you get the secret," warned the Eljanhai, "you must destroy all copies of the plans you do not bring away with you, and destroy also all those who could reproduce them, so that the Kapars cannot follow. Our sole desire is to find some world free from war, and no world would be free from war if there were Kapars there."

  I saw Morga Sagra again that evening. "Well," she asked, "have you made up your mind?"

  "Yes," I replied. "I have come to the conclusion that you were right; I owe these people nothing, and if the Kapars are going to win this war, I might as well be on the winning side."

  "You are quite right," she said; "you will never regret it. I have made all the necessary arrangements for our entry into Kapara, but the problem of getting out of Unis is for you to solve."

  "I will take care of everything," I told her, "and in the meantime I think that we should not be seen together too much. Hold yourself in readiness to leave at any moment; I may call for you tomorrow or the next day."

  We parted then and I went out to the Harkases' to bid them good-bye. Yamoda was stronger and had been moved out into the garden, where she lay on a couch in the artificial sunlight which illuminates this underground city. She seemed so genuinely happy to see me that I
hated to tell her that I was going away for an indefinite period. We had become such excellent friends that it saddened us both to realize that we might not see one another again for a considerable time, and her lip trembled when I told her that I had come to say good-bye. She seemed to sense that this was more than an ordinary parting to which the women of Unis are so accustomed.

  "How long will you be gone?" she asked.

  "I have no idea," I replied.

  "Then I suppose that you can't tell me where you are going, either."

  "No, I can't," I replied; "about all I can tell you is that it is a secret mission."

  She nodded and placed her hand on mine. "You will be careful of yourself, won't you, Tangor?" she asked.

  "Yes, Yamoda, I will be careful; and I will try to get back as quickly as possible, for I shall miss you very much."

  "You have been doing very well without me lately," she said, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye; "is she such very good company?"

  "She is better than nobody," I replied, "and I get terribly lonesome when I can't come out here."

  "I don't believe I know her," she said; "she does not go with the same people I do."

  I thought I noticed just a trace of contemptuousness in that speech, something quite unlike Yamoda. "I have never met any of her friends," I said. Just then Yamoda's mother came into the garden, and we talked of other things. They insisted on my staying to dinner.

  When I left, later in the evening, it was very hard for me to say good-bye to them all, for the Harkases are my best friends in Unis, and Don and Yamoda are just like brother and sister to me; in fact their mother calls me her other son.

  Chapter Two

  EARLY THE FOLLOWING MORNING, I called on the Commissioner for War, and told him that I planned on leaving that day. I explained in detail the procedure I wished to follow to get Morga Sagra out of Orvis, and he told me that everything would be arranged in accordance with my plans. He then gave me a sheaf of military documents which I was to turn over to the Kapars as proof of my good faith and of my potential value to them.

  "You will need something to meet expenses while you are there," he said, and he handed me a heavy leather pouch. "As there is no longer any monetary medium of international exchange," he continued, "you will have to do the best you can with the contents of this pouch, which contains gold and precious stones. I shall immediately instruct your squadron commander that you have been ordered to make a reconnaissance flight alone and that the mission is a secret one, he is to see that no one is in the hangar between the third and fourth hours after noon, as it is my wish that no one sees you depart. During that time, you can smuggle in your co-conspirator; and now good-bye, my boy, and good luck. The chances are that I shall never see you again, but I shall remember you as one who died gloriously for the honour and glory of Unis."

  That sounded altogether too much like an obituary, and I went away thinking of the little white cross somewhere in the Rhine valley. If what I had been told about the Kapars were true, I would have no little white cross there, as my body would be shipped off to serve as food for some of their subjugated peoples working in slavery for them.

  I called on Sagra at the third hour after noon. "Everything is arranged," I told her, "and we shall be on our way within the hour."

  She had not smiled as she usually did when we met, and I noticed a certain constraint in her manner. Finally the cause of it came out, as she blurted, "What were you doing in conference with the Commissioner for War this morning?"

  "How did you think I was going to get out of Orvis?" I demanded. "I had to work on the old chap a long time to get him to order me to make a reconnaissance flight alone."

  "I'm sorry," she said, "but this is dangerous business; and when one's life is constantly at stake, suspicion becomes almost an obsession.

  "I can well understand that," I said; "but if our mission is to be successful, we must trust one another fully."

  "I shan't doubt you again," she said, "but right now my nerves are on edge. I am really terrified, for I don't see how you are going to get me out of the city; and if you are caught trying it, we'll both be shot."

  "Don't worry," I said; "just do as I tell you."

  We went out to my car then, and I had her get in the rear compartment, and when I was sure that no one was looking, I told her to lie down on the floor; then I threw an old robe over her.

  I drove directly to the hangar, which I found entirely deserted. I drove as close to my ship as I could and then had Sagra crawl into the gunner's compartment in the belly of the fuselage. A moment later I had taxied up the ramp and taken off.

  "Which way?" I asked Sagra, over the communicating system.

  "Northwest," she replied. "When can I get out of here? I don't like it down here."

  "In just a moment," I replied.

  By mutual agreement, Sagra had kept all of the plans covering our flight to Kapara and our entry into that country to herself. My job had been to simply get the military secrets and get us out of Orvis.

  A small hatchway in the ceiling of the compartment in which Sagra was led to the rear gunner's cockpit, and when I told her to come up with me, she came through this hatchway and climbed over into the forward cockpit.

  "Now," I said, "you can tell me why we are flying northwest if we are going to Kapara, which lies southwest of Unis."

  "It's a long way around, I know," she said, "but it's the only way in which we can eventually enter Kapara in a Kapar plane. In this plane and with that uniform of yours, we'd not get far in Kapara; so we are flying to Gorvas first."

  Gorvas is a city on the continent of Karis, the farthest removed from the continent of Epris on which Kapara is situated. It is a poor barren continent, and the one least affected by the war, for it possesses nothing that the Kapars want.

  After an uneventful flight, we landed at Gorvas. No fighting planes had come up to meet us, and no antiaircraft shells had burst around us, as we had circled above Gorvas before landing; for the people of Karis know they have nothing to fear from Unis, and we received a friendly greeting from some officers at the airport.

  Morga Sagra had obtained forged credentials for us, and she had told me that my name hereafter would be Korvan Don, while she would keep her own name which was favourably known to her connections in Ergos, the capital of Kapara.

  After leaving the airport, Sagra told the driver of the public conveyance we had hired, to drive to a certain house, the address of which had been given her by a Kapar agent in Orvis.

  Gorvas is a poor city, but at least it is not underground, although, as I was told, every building has its bombproof cellar. Occasionally we saw bomb craters, indicating that the Kapars came even here to this far away, barren country, either because the Kerisans were known to be friendly with Unis or just to satisfy their inordinate lust for destruction.

  Our driver took us to a poor part of town and stopped before a mean little one-story stone house where we dismissed him. We stood there until he had driven away; then Sagra led the way along the street to the third house, after which she crossed the street to the house directly opposite. It was all quite mysterious, but it showed the care with which everything had been arranged to avoid leaving a well-marked trail.

  Approaching the door of this house, which was a little more pretentious than the one before which we had first stopped, Sagra knocked three times in rapid succession, and then twice more at intervals; and after a moment the door was opened by a hard-faced, scowling man.

  "What do you want?" he demanded gruffly.

  "I am Morga Sagra," replied my companion, "and this is Korvan Don."

  "Come in," said the man; "I've been expecting you. Let me see your credentials."

  Sagra handed him a perfectly blank piece of paper. I was standing near the man, and when he opened it up, I saw that there was nothing on it.

  "Sit down," said the man, and then he went to a desk; and, seating himself there, took what appeared to be a pocket flashlight from one
of the drawers and shone its light upon the paper.

  The light must have made writing on the paper visible for I could see him passing it back and forth and that his eyes followed it. Presently he got up and handed the paper back to Sagra.

  "You will remain here," he said, "while I go and complete arrangements." Then he left us.

  "Do you know that fellow's name?" I asked Sagra.

  "Yes," she said.

  "What is it? Why didn't you introduce me?"

  "His name is none of your business," said Sagra. "You must learn not to ask questions, Korvan Don; however, just to satisfy your curiosity, I don't mind telling you that his name is Gompth."

  "What a beautiful name," I said, "but as far as I am concerned you needn't have told me what it was. His name doesn't interest me any more than his face."

  "Don't say things like that," snapped Sagra. "He is a very important person, and it is not wise to make unpleasant remarks about important persons. Now be sure not to let him know that you know his name, for that is not the name that he goes by here."

  I was getting my introduction to the fear and suspicion which hangs like a pall over everything Kaparan. I had said that I did not care whether I knew this man's name or not, for how could I know that one day I should be very glad that I did know it.

  In about an hour, Gompth returned. He had brought with him civilian clothing such as is worn by the inhabitants of Karis, and after we had changed into it, he drove us out into the country, where he turned an old Karisan plane over to us.