The look of strain on Kurt’s face was enough for the colonel.
“Who’s in command here?” he demanded.
Krogson stepped forward and bowed stiffly. “Commander Conrad Krogson of War Base Three of the Galactic Protectorate.”
“Colonel Marcus Harris, 427th Light Maintenance Battalion of the Imperial Space Marines,” replied the other briskly. “Now that the formalities are out of the way, let’s get to work. Is there some place here where we can talk?”
Krogson gestured toward a small cubicle that opened off the control room. The two men entered and shut the door behind them.
A half hour went by without agreement. “There may be an answer somewhere,” Colonel Harris said finally, “but I can’t find it. We can’t surrender to you, and we can’t afford to have you surrender to us. We haven’t the food, facilities, or anything else to keep fifty thousand men under guard. If we turn you loose, there’s nothing to keep you from coming back to blast us—except your word, that is, and since it would obviously be given under duress, I’m afraid that we couldn’t attach much weight to it. It’s a nice problem. I wish we had more time to spend on it, but unless you can come up with something workable during the next five minutes, I’m going to give Kurt orders to blow the fleet.”
Krogson’s mind was operating at a furious pace. One by one he snatched at possible solutions, and one by one he gave them up as he realized that they would never stand up under the scrutiny of the razor-sharp mind that sat opposite him.
“Look,” he burst out finally, “your empire is dead and our protectorate is about to fall apart. Give us a chance to come down and join you and we’ll chuck the past. We need each other and you know it!”
“I know we do,” said the colonel soberly, “and I rather think you are being honest with me. But we just can’t take the chance. There are too many of you for us to digest and if you should change your mind—” He threw up his hands in a helpless gesture.
“But I wouldn’t,” protested Krogson. “You’ve told me what your life is like down there and you know what kind of a rat race I’ve been caught up in. I’d welcome the chance to get out of it. All of us would!”