XIV.
Lindoo strode into the presence of Vorgan, Lord of All, and handed an aide a scroll for the record. The Lord of All nodded and said nothing. Nor was there anything to say that had not been said previously. Any further discussion would be merely re-contemplation of ideas. The proof was four months off.
It would take four long months between this day—when Lindoo handed Vorgan's aide the scroll, giving the official date and time of I-second, when the invasion spearhead of the Loard-vogh blasted upward from the locus and headed for Sol—to the time when the first of the advance flight reached the Solar Sector.
Four months of just sheer waiting. Four months which the gadget-mad Terrans would use in preparation after the grand fleet of the Loard-vogh was a-space, and growing flight-weary.
Four months, full of intership bickerings and man-to-man fights because the quarters were too confined.
For the Loard-vogh were a quarrelsome race, and their fighting men trained to viciousness. It is not strange that with four months, cooped up in shells of steel, they should take to fighting among themselves. It was strictly against the regulations, of course, because the Lord of All wanted his fighting men to kill the enemy. Yet a fighting man will fight if he has nothing else to do, and for four long months there would be absolutely nothing to do. The Loard-vogh fighting man knew little else but battle. Trained from youth to be hard, vicious, and ruthless, he knew nothing of the art of killing time. Confinement made him more vicious when released, and the officers overlooked a given percentage of fights among the men. It was better that the ultimate viciousness be great than to have their men soft with other arts.
A goodly supply of other arts among the Loard-vogh would cause less casualties. Had they been mentally and physically trained to carve ivory, play chess, tie knots, or build spacecraft in bottles, their lives would have been less violent, including the madness with which they drove forward their attack.
Forward went the grand fleet. In the lead were the fleet fighter ships, and following them were the second wave craft. Third came the heavy supercraft, the backbone of the grand fleet of the Loard-vogh. A day behind came the mop-up transports, crammed to the space cocks with fighting men, their nerves already on edge after a short day or two of flight.
And bringing up the rear were the myriad upon myriad of supply ships, replacement carriers, machine-shop craft, and even space-going foundries. Heavy ships laden with munitions and generating equipment; craft that could anchor to the sunward side of an inner planet and hurl megawatt after megawatt of power to the fighting ships for their power-coffers. Huge—frameworks—with the equipment exposed to space. Planet docks for the repair of ships damaged in fight.
Forward drove this horde; forward into the Solar Sector. An all-conquering mass.