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.“Shoot me, Klein.Go on, shoot me.Then I’ll be free, floating in Blue Space forever.”I levelled the gun.Suddenly his face twisted wryly.“Becmath’s hatchet-man!”The blast sounded incongruously loud.The slug made a neat hole in his face and blew a chunk out of the back of his skull.He jerked back on to the couch, dead before he even knew it.Quickly and efficiently I went through the other rooms to make sure there was no one else and then rejoined the squad.I wondered if Bec, watching in his tower two hundred miles away, had picked up Tone’s last remark.TwelveThe planet Earth spins in a space filled with brilliant light.The atmosphere glows with the brightness of it.On that planet, the country of Rheatt is like one vast jewel glowing with colours, a big bowl of green grass and heady scents from the drooping trees.Sometimes, from within my tower, I would peep at the spectacle of the setting or rising sun throwing vivid colours across the sky.Alien though it was, I could see the beauty of it.Nine years had passed since we had first broken through the gateway from Killibol.Nine years in which we, the masters of Rheatt, had lurked invisibly in our sealed towers, rarely seen by the natives or by each other.Rheatt answered to our commands because we had organised it that way.Millions of Rheattites worked on Merame in Rotrox workshops or as household slaves.Down on Earth they manned the factories that, slowly but surely, had been turning out the weapons to equip an army.The muscles and nerves of the new order in Rheatt were supplied by a military-style élite that had never known Blue Space.They had been trained by us personally.They had their own kind of toughness, even of brutality, and they were in awe of the white men who had achieved all this.There were still Rotrox in Rheatt, too, stalking about with their habitual arrogance, sometimes with the traditional molten metal-spewing lances, but more often with the repeaters and handguns that we had given them.They were respected by the Rheattic élite, but not admired.Mine was the face that was most known in Rheatt.The organisation was largely my direct handiwork, and I still put in a personal appearance from time to time.But lately, like the others, I had grown taciturn and had withdrawn into a self-created environment.Becmath had not stepped outside his tower for years.I myself had not seen him in the flesh since I had killed Tone; but he had been there, the constant shadow that followed and instructed me by television.So it was something of an event when Bec called us together.When I entered his apartment Reeth, Grale and Hassmann were already there, sitting around waiting for me.Bec was sitting in the same chair that I had seen him in five years before, still surrounded by flickering television screens.Of us all, Bec had aged the most.His white face had become slightly puffy and his eyes were tired.The others were simply ten years older, but fit and alert.At that, though, Bec was the only one who hadn’t put on weight through eating so much rich food.He wasted no time in getting down to business.“I guess you boys didn’t believe me, that time when we were on the outside and running, that one day we’d be back to get even with all those klugs who crossed us,” he said, “but that day has come.Now’s the time for the push on Klittmann.”Reeth shrugged.“I’m happy as things are.But anything you say, boss.”Grale grinned.His face had become more swarthy in the years we’d lived in Rheatt.“It can’t be too soon for me.We’ve been too long in this damned sun-drenched, green-skinned place.”“That’s the idea,” Bec said approvingly.“You think we’re doing all right here? So we are.But we’re living on the wrong planet.Wait till we’ve finished on Killibol: Klittmann’s only the beginning, we’re going to move all over.I’ll give you a city apiece all for your own.Ten cities apiece.Nobody knows just how many cities there are on Killibol.”“What about the Rotrox, Bec?” Hassmann rumbled, “Where do they fit in?”Bec snorted, making a vague gesture with his hand.“They’ll expect it to be their empire, like Rheatt.But don’t worry: I don’t intend to be their hireling for very long.In the cities of Killibol we’ll be in a world they don’t understand at all.Furthermore we’ll have gigantic industries and the energies of trained populations all at our disposal.It’ll make our effort here look like protein peanuts.”Grale gave a delighted laugh.“You mean we’re gonna push those klugs out of it, boss? I like that!”“That’s right.We’ll play along with them for a short while, but we’ll soon push them off Killibol; and then we’ll push them right off Rheatt and back up on to Merame.They can have Merame, I don’t want it.”Reeth made a face.“What do we want with Rheatt, if it comes to that? Let them have it.We can guard the gateway and they’d never get through.We could even destroy it again.”“We’ll need Rheatt for a while,” Bec said without explanation.I presumed he meant we’d need it for the sake of the Rheattite troops who would be on the campaign.He wouldn’t want to throw away all the work we’d done here.At that, it would be some months, at least, before we were sufficiently consolidated in Klittmann to consider turning against our blood brothers, the Rotrox tribe.I had kept silent so far because I already knew Bec’s mind on these matters.Now he turned to me.“We have to straighten out the position with the Rotrox, Klein.I want you to make a trip to Merame and talk to the Council.”A slight chill went up my spine at the thought of appearing before those cold, cruel men on their own ground.“What do I tell them?”“Formally it’s a request from me for them to order the campaign and contribute their own forces.I’ll give you a recorded message in my own voice.Besides that, we have to cover our rear.I don’t want any funny business going on while we’re all away in Klittmann settling scores.So make it look like we have a common accord and play the good servant.”Hassmann, Grale and Reeth were all grinning.Grale clapped his hands together.“I’ve waited nine years to get my hands on some white women!”I travelled in one of the cylinders that regularly dropped out of the sky and ascended again to Merame.This was my first time off-planet — the first time for any of us.The cylinders worked by acting on the Earth’s magnetic field in some way, and they gave off a loud humming when they moved that reverberated through the crude, cavernous interior.Crossing between Earth and Merame was as much as they could manage: they were helpless deeper in interplanetary space.I would have liked to take a look at a deep space, but there weren’t any windows.The crossing lasted about a day; then a heavy jolt told me we had landed on Merame
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