So with the small laboratory ship, Lavoisier, as flagship, the ravaged and reorganized fleet turned once again toward Earth. As the long days in space passed while they sped Earthward at incredible velocities, the physicists and engineers turned the Lavoisier into a deadly warship, the equal of any in their fleet. New and more powerful Atom Stream projectors were installed, and massive disruptor units were built into previous areas of more peaceful uses.
And while they hurled through the vault of space, Underwood moved from ship to ship by means of his abasic senses, testing, examining and filtering out the men of the battle crews.
If he could have afforded pity, all he possessed would have been expended upon them, for they were a pitiable lot. He knew that their standards of values had been scattered again by their defeat at his hands. If their belief in the invincibility of Demarzule, and themselves because they were the Disciples of Demarzule, had not been so great, their defeat would have been less easy. Underwood was thankful for the conceit that rendered them vulnerable when defeat hove in sight.
Their allegiance to him was no stable thing, he knew. But most of them were willing to throw their loyalties with the scientists because they hungered for leadership with a neurotic longing, and the power that could silently and unseen wipe out two of the Great One's warships was surely a power to command their respect. So they reasoned in their bewildered minds.
Underwood removed from the key places those who were doubtful and rebellious, and he spoke to them daily throughout the long voyage, sometimes reasoning, sometimes commanding, but always with a display of power that they had to respect. In the end he felt he had a set of crews as trustworthy as Earthmen could be made in this culture of doubt and universal disregard of trust and honesty.
He practised constantly in perfecting the powers of the abasa, and as his facility grew, so did his regard for the little offshoot of Dragboran culture that had flourished upon the barren little moon. Such powers as he possessed would have meant suicide to his own race. Sometimes he wondered if he could himself endure their temptations long enough to accomplish his goal. Certainly, with that completed, he would have the organs removed. Their call to power, wealth, and the misappropriation were almost more than any human mind in this stage of evolution could endure.
Almost in Earth's own front yard, at the orbit of Mars, the first signs of the coming struggle appeared. The lookout called his warning. A score of fast interceptors were leaving Earth, headed in their direction.
Underwood wished that he'd paid more attention to the military arts. He dared trust none of the warriors who were his by conquest, for he could not appear to be less than they in any respect. But neither he nor any of the other scientists were competent to lead a complex military unit, such as his fleet represented, into the vortex of battle.
Yet he must do what had to be done. He formed the fleet into a massive tactical cylinder with the Lavoisier at the center and the remainder of the ships at the periphery. There would be no fancy maneuvering, only blunt, smashing force, every erg of it that could be generated within the hulls of those warships.