"Thank God, you're here!” he repeated. “It's been days since I sent out that call to you on the secret audio-wave. I was beginning to fear something had happened to you."
"We were almost picked up by the Earth Police tonight, sir,” John Thorn said quietly. “I was recognized."
The Chairman hastily closed the metal shutter of the window. There was a look of deep anxiety in his haggard eyes.
"Thorn, I knew I was summoning you three into danger when I called you here. But I had to do it, for I've something to tell you which I dared not trust even to the secret wave. Something upon which the fate of the whole Inner Alliance may depend!
"But first, what can you report?” the Chairman asked tensely. “The League is still preparing to attack us?"
Thorn nodded tightly. “Yes, sir. Every dock and arsenal from Jupiter to Neptune is humming with activity. The League will have at least ten thousand cruisers ready in a few weeks, the story goes. They're working their mining bases out on Pluto at full capacity, digging fuel ores. And there's a rumor that they've planned some new and terrible agent of destruction with which they will blast our worlds into submission, after they've smashed our fleet!
"Furthermore,” Thorn added, “the League dictator, Haskell Trask, is constantly broadcasting inflammatory speeches to his four worlds. He's stirring up their war fever to frenzy, telling them that since the worlds of the Inner Alliance refuse to cede any territory, it must be taken from them by force."
Chairman Hoskins nodded somberly. “I've heard Trask's broadcast speeches. It's that cursed power-lusting dictator who's driving the system toward war. If we'd only recognized sooner what a menace he is, we wouldn't have let the League get so far ahead of us in armaments. As it is, when their attack comes, they'll outnumber our combined navies by two to one. They'll overwhelm our fleet, unless—"
"Unless what, sir?” Thorn asked tensely.
"Unless we can use a new weapon we have,” the Chairman finished. “A weapon such as the system never heard of before."