THE UNIVERSAL CONFLICT
NINETEEN ANYTHING—NINETEEN SOMETHING ELSE
By the Rt. Hon. Winsom Stunster Chortill
CHAPTER MXCVII
Golgotha
More criticisms—My “interference” with the Heavenly Twins—Suggested operations against Venus—My memoranda on Venus and Jupiter—Detailed proposals—Our new super-planetary battering-ram—Lord Krusher baffled—Correspondence between us—Lord Krusher’s objections—My reply—His antagonism—Meeting of the Allied Planetary Council—Serious position—The Archangel Gabriel’s shortcomings—My plan for saving the situation—The crisis—My resignation—Reflections.
Scarcely had died away the reverberations of criticism, enhanced by venomous personal attacks upon myself for my so-called “interference” in the operations against the Heavenly Twins, when a new crisis of even more momentous significance was sprung upon the Cabinet. In the previous December, with the fullest concurrence of the First Air Lord and the Board of Aerial Operations, I had planned a lightning raid on the planet of Venus to be carried out by our obsolete comets. The political situation has so important a bearing upon this project that I must here interpolate a memorandum which, as long before as the previous July, I had addressed to the Secretary of State for Extra Planetary Affairs and circulated to my colleagues.
Memorandum.
Mr. Chortill to the Extra Planetary Secretary.
I can no longer preserve silence on the subject of Venus. Venusian hostility may quite well be fatal to the whole grand operation which we and our planetary allies are at present co-ordinating against the Central Planets. The grip of Mars upon Venus is unquestionably tightening; and, if no intervention is undertaken, but, on the contrary, the spirit of laissez-faire is allowed to prevail, we shall not only lose a strong potential adherent, but, which is equally important, also forfeit considerable sympathy amongst our own people. The plan of the Martians is quite plain. Availing themselves of that well-known astronomical phenomenon—the Transit of Venus—they will undoubtedly utilise that period of uncertainty to detach this wavering planet from our cause and bind her irrevocably to themselves. That would be nothing short of a disaster.