Battleground

By Lester del Rey
We know that the human race must struggle to survive—and that on the outcome may hang disaster. But just how wide is Armageddon?
Lester del Rey would certainly be acclaimed by any unbiased critic as one of America's ten most gifted science fiction writers. His work has appeared in many magazines, and Hollywood, radio, and TV have all enhanced his ever-growing popularity. In BATTLEGROUND he has found a theme worthy of his rare talents—the doom potential in an alien culture .
Beyond the observation port of the hypercruiser Clarion lay the utter blackness of nothing. The ship was effectively cutting across space without going through it, spanning parsecs for every subjective day of travel.
There were neither stars, space nor time around them, and only the great detectors built into the ship could keep them from being hopelessly lost. These followed a trail of energy laid down on the way out from Earth years before, leading them homeward, solar system by solar system.
Acting Captain Lenk stood with his back to the other three, studying their sullen reflections in the port. It was better than facing them directly, somehow, even though it showed his own bald scalp, tautly hollow face and slump-shouldered body.
All right, he said at last. So we vote again. I'll have to remind you we're under orders to investigate all habitable planets on a line back to Earth. I vote we follow orders. Jeremy?
The xenologist shrugged faintly. His ash-blond coloring, general slimness and refinement of features gave him a look of weakness, but his voice was a heavy, determined bass. I stand pat. We didn't explore the last planet enough. I vote we go back and make a thorough job of it.
Home—at once! The roar came from the squat, black-bearded minerologist, Graves. God never meant man to leave the world on which He put him! Take us back, I say, where....
Aimes? Lenk cut in quickly.
They'd heard Graves' violently fundamentalist arguments endlessly, until the sound of his voice was enough to revive every antagonism and hatred they had ever felt. Graves had been converted to the newest and most rapidly expanding of the extreme evangelical faiths just before they had left. And unfortunately for the others, he had maintained that his covenant to go on the exploration could not be broken, even though venturing into space was a cardinal sin.