Enthusiastic shouts of joy echoed from the cabin walls at the realization that there were new recruits to the banner of the anti-Lortonoi forces. And what recruits! Fighting men like Troceps here, as well as incredible space battleships such as the ones they had seen locked in combat.
"Locked in combat," John thought. "Just a second, Troceps, old parrot. Glad to have you on our side and all that, but who were the guys you were fighting out there? Not to run down your space armada or anything, but you seemed to be pretty well matched with the nasties. Would you care to fill us in?"
"Happy to. But first – do you have a bowl of water?"
"We have a bowl of anything you want, including hundred-year-old brandy."
"The water will do fine. It is not for me; we Fligigleh have rugged constitutions and can fight for weeks on a handful of birdseed. The water is for my little pet, Pishky."
As he said this, he held up his blaster and unscrewed the base of the butt which proved to be hollow, and from its interior there dropped a little green turtle that scrabbled about in the palm of his hand.
"Looks just like a little green turtle from Earth," Jerry said, speaking for all of them.
"Very possibly. But as I see in your minds, you Earthlings keep birds for pets, and that is just the way we Fligigleh keep turtles. They are considered good luck charms, and whenever I go into battle, little Pishky rides along happy in my gun butt-"
"Look, not to interrupt," John interrupted, "but can't we do the turtle thing later? We would rather hear about that other fleet and stuff."
"But of course, I will explain." But he didn't until the water appeared, and little Pishky was paddling about with turtle eyes staring up stupidly at the happy face of its aquiline master. Troceps stroked its shell with his forefinger before turning his attention back to his hosts. "It is a story that goes back a long way, but the entire story must be told for you to grasp any single part of it. My race is an ancient one, so ancient that by any of your standards of measurement you cannot measure the amount of time we have been around. Since earliest time we were bothered with production problems and population problems. There are two things we really like to do, and they are build bigger and better machines and lay plenty of eggs. Ahh, the sight of those eggs! But I digress. Any male Fligigleh considers himself a failure and blows his brains out if he doesn't have at least twenty chicks and a personal car at least thirty meters long. Well, I see that you begin to get the problem. We invented a space drive, moved on and occupied all the nearest worlds and so forth, but we aren't really the space-conquering types. All we want to do is stay home and lay eggs and drive around in our fortymeter-long cars. So some unsung genius cooked up this idea of mashing together all the planets in a star system until they melted, then stretching them out into a belt and sending the whole thing spinning around. This was done, and we left all our occupied worlds and settled on this new world, which is named Cotorra after the inventor of the technique, so maybe he is not so unsung either. Ahh, look at little Pishky scratch his weensie claws against the glass, scrabbling with wide-eyed stupidity!"
"Nice turtle, sure," Chuck said, smiling falsely. "But could you sort of tell us what happened next after you all settled down on Cotorra?"
"Be patient, I said it would be long in the telling. We settled down and enjoyed our way of life. Uncontrolled breeding and car building, and there was no end in sight for millions of years. More space was available for nests and roads as we expanded out from the original site of settlement. And this did go on for millions of years, pure bliss I assure you, a period in our history we always refer to as the Golden Egg Years, but it was to come to an end. The Lortonoi arrived!"
Troceps squawked the name out with great irritation, lashing out his foot unconsciously at the same time so that his great claws ripped a seat to pieces and tore gaping rents in the carpet and the dural floor beneath.
"Oh, those evil Lortonoi! Although we have excellent powers of the mind, some genealogical change had occurred in our race as it spread in both directions out from the original site. By this time we had occupied almost three-quarters of the hoop that is our world, and in a few million more years the expanding frontiers would have met and we would have to think about maybe making another world like this or perhaps patching in an extra piece or something. But this was fated never to occur. The Lortonoi discovered that a crunched gene or something had so weakened the mental strength of the Fligigleh at the left end of the expansion that their minds could be entered and controlled by the Lortonoi. We on the right still maintained our traditional mental health and expelled their slimy thoughts the second they touched our pristine brains. I am sure that you see the setup now. The leftists began arming, and we armed too in self-defense. At first a ground war occupied the opposing forces and the space between the expanding population fronts became a noman's-land. However, as weapons became more powerful, this proved impractical since our hoop isn't that thick and it could have been blown right through, which wouldn't help anybody. So air war began, then space war as both sides sought to protect their populations, and the whole thing expanded farther and farther into space along this front. So, for millennia now, we have been locked in this endless war, which serves to keep our population down and our factories humming. We both draw supplies and soldiers from our rear and build bigger and better war machines until the result, as you would have seen if you watched the battle during which my ship was destroyed, is space war on a scale never considered before. I must add, in closing, that the recent engagement was only the most minor clash between very weak scout ship patrols and of no importance. You should see what happens when the really big battleships mix it up."
A shudder ran through the room at this news, and John had to swallow heavily before he could speak.
"Well, I guess it is good for you that we are here to throw our armed might into the conflict on your side, tip the balance that will win the war for liberty."
"I don't mean to scoff," Troceps said in a very superior manner. "But I have examined the size of your fleet through your memories and, not meaning to be insulting, old primate, your forces wouldn't stand the chance of a snowball in hell up against the enemy. Zap! They would be cinders in microseconds."
"Well, I'm not sure of that," John said defensively.
"And it is not only the fleet which is so great, but we have the cheddite projector which can whisk their battleships into the sun before they get close enough to fire." He picked up the cheddite projector, which still looked like a five-cell flashlight, and waved it proudly as all the others cheered.
"Oh, that," Troceps said, and of course his beak showed no expression, but if it could have showed expression, it certainly would have shown a sneer. "We know all about that already. It seems the Lortonoi appeared with one of those things awhile back, and they did manage to pick off a battleship or two before our scientists developed a kappa radiation screen that completely stops the radiation from the thing, and that is that. But it is nice of you to offer, and we do appreciate it, but my suggestion is that you all split before you get squashed by the big boys. Maybe we can't lick the Lortonoi, but we sure have them stopped – and have had them stopped for a long time. The only thing we have not been able to do is crack the mind screen that covers their headquarters, so we have no idea of what they look like. Other than that we have things under control and will hold the forefront of this battle against the common enemy. You can go home."
"No we can't," Jerry pouted, sulking for all of them.
"The Galaxy Rangers were organized to wipe out the Lortonoi, and we cannot stop until that is done. Nothing else is possible."
"One thing is," Jerry said, in a strange voice. "The Galaxy Rangers could be wiped out instead."
"Bite your tongue!" Chuck shouted. "What's got into you that you should be talking like that?" Jerry chuckled evilly, and his tongue flashed in and out like a serpent's, and his voice dripped venom when he spoke. "That's just about the size of it. What's got into me. . . ."
"He is possessed by a Lortonoi!" Lord Prrsi shouted. "I can detect the alien presence stronger than I have ever detected it before."
"Yes, the Lortonoi are here, and it is the end of the ballgame for you libertarian, religious swine. We are taking over. We have won!"
"What do you mean?" Chuck gasped, inadvertently stepping back from his occupied friend.
"I mean that this is the moment we set the stage for. We wanted all the forces opposed to us to be gathered together at the same time so we could destroy them. They are here now and will be destroyed by the Fligigleh forces we command."
"You forget about the Fligigleh forces you don't command," crowed Troceps, striding forward. "I hope you people won't mind, but I am afraid I will have to open up your friend like a sausage with one blow of my clawed heel. This Lortonoi must go."
"Stop!" Lortonoi-Jerry commanded, and very much to his own surprise, Troceps stopped. "Now, at last, the truth can be revealed. We can control any Fligigieh mind. We just said we couldn't in order to get this great big war going. We arranged that both sides would be so evenly matched that they couldn't destroy each other so that they would have to build bigger and better fleets. They have done this and put together these two fleets. Supplied by the unlimited resources of Cotorra, they are unstoppable and unbeatable. And now the fleets will be combined. Everything has been planned from the beginning. There was one little hitch there when the Earthling appeared with the cheddite projector, but we took care of that as you see. We stole a projector and used it in battle so that the Fligigleh scientist could come up with a defense. We've done it, we've got it made, the galaxy is ours, we cannot be stopped and . . . STOP!"
He bellowed this last at John who had taken the golden sphere out of his shirt pocket and was about to press the button.
"I was waiting for that," Jerry-Lortonoi sneered. "This was the one weapon we were afraid of. Krakar. Now we know all about it, ha-ha. So, go ahead and press the button!"
But, strain as he might, John could not. His finger was only a fraction of an inch above the 'press me' button – but it would not descend. His body shook with the effort as he strained with every fiber of his being to push that finger down – but it would not! The Lortonoi brain was the stronger, and that evil creature was just toying with him, for it had absolute control. Struggle was useless. Chuck jumped to help him, but long before that help could arrive John watched, horrified, as his hand opened and the golden sphere dropped to the floor.
Where the heel of his boot slowly ground it into gleaming fragments.
Grinding all their hopes along with it.
"I said it was our ball game!" Jerry sneered victoriously. "So, at last, in this moment of supreme triumph, we can at last reveal our presence and our real identity. I am here, among you, the Lortonoi you have been seeking. Do you not see me?"
There was a shuffle throughout the ship as Ranger drew back from Ranger, eyeing each other with suspicion, fingering their weapons. Lord Prrsi eyed along with the others, and he used his immense mental powers as well.
"It is here," he muttered. "I can sense that, but my mind is clouded by its presence, for the Lortonoi mental powers are beyond all others. Yet I swear I cannot find the enemy although I have scanned the minds of all here."
"All?" Jerry asked. "Not quite all."
"Yoo-hoo!" A powerful thought blasted through every mind at once. "I see you!"
Now their eyes were drawn across the room and down. Down toward the table. Down toward the bowl of water. Down to the little green turtle that was waving its tiny claws at them.
"Pishky . . . you!" Troceps gasped.
"Lord Pishky, if you don't mind. Member of the Lortonoi Council of ten, now rulers of the galaxy. How we fooled you – and how we hate you! You, you great lumbering creatures with fingers and hands and tentacles and that kind of thing. While we, with the greatest brains the galaxy had ever seen, are trapped in these tiny worthless bodies. How we loathe you! We have tried to breed for size and such, but whenever we do, like the turtles we planted on Earth, size brings with it mindless stupidity, so that experiment has stopped. We decided instead to use our powers to enslave and destroy you all, and at last, after millennia of effort, the day of conquest is at hand. The Lortonoi have won!"
After the first numbed surprise every creature in the ship surged forward, each fighting for the chance to get the Lortonoi under his heel. But their efforts were doomed. For, still laughing, the tiny green turtle gripped their minds and threw them back. It was defeat indeed.
"I don't want to die! I'm getting out of here!" John gasped, and turning the cheddite projector on himself, he vanished.
"The first rat leaves the sinking spaceship," Lord Pishky sneered, which is very hard to do if you are a turtle. "He has gone back to the fleet, but since the fleet is due to be destroyed in a few microseconds, it will do him no good. Already we Lortonoi are taking over the opposing Fligigleh space fleets and making them one. How we have laughed at you from our security as your pets! We controlled your thoughts so that you liked us and kept us around, preparing yourselves for the moment of your destruction. Now the end is at hand, the fleet approaches, so if any of you want to have a last prayer – I won't allow it! Ha-ha! How we hate you God freaks. Prepare yourself, for the end is at hand."
"Oh, no, it's not," John said, appearing suddenly in the middle of the cabin. He was dressed in a spacesuit and was carrying a sack over one shoulder. "You'll never get away with this conquest, not while I have this!"
He reached into the sack and withdrew a long, red, succulent shape and waved it over his head.
It was a kosher garlic salami!