When his excitement wore off Lex did his best to catch up on a few weeks of lost sleep and he seemed to be in his bunk constantly until landfall at Dallas City, where the reception was wild and woolly, with Billy Bob and all his friends on hand in addition to the family. He was tossed, pushed, pounded. His hand was squeezed until it hurt. And then he was looking into his father's face and there was a happy, little-boy grin on his face and Murichon, who seemed to have become more gray, cleared his throat and seemed unable to speak. Lex solved the problem of what to say by letting out a whoop and lifting his father off his feet in a bear hug.
"You've filled out, boy," Murichon said.
Lex was looking around for her, for Emily Lancing. There were Texas girls there, but no familiar face, not the face which had helped him through some dark hours out there in the Empire.
Then he was introducing the others and explaining to his father that without them he wouldn't be back on Texas and that the best was none too good for any of them.
"Chief Jakkes is going to be a rancher," Lex said. "And the Captain—" He paused. There still existed a gulf between him and his former commanding officer. He realized that he had not even fully discussed what Wal would do on Texas.
"There's time for that," Murichon said. "First you men rest up, then we'll talk."
On the way to the ranch Murichon talked mostly with Wal, interested in the quiet, proud-faced man. "We'll have to ask you to submit to a little bit of questioning, Captain," Murichon said, after a general discussion of things allied to the Empire fleet. "Then we'll find you something to do."
"You run a fleet," Wal said. "Actually, that's what I'm best trained for, for following orders, for taking a starship into places where others might not want to go."
"There's always room for a good man," Murichon said.
Lex rested by screaming hisZelda low over the hills in chase of Billy Bob'sClean Machine , which had been altered into something unbelievable.Zelda was left panting. Then they taught Jakkes and Form how to ride airorses and the four of them went down south and rode the beach with sudsy white surf splashing on speeding feet and after a night on the sands with plenty of brew they went back home to walk into trouble.
The scene was much like those which preceded Lex's departure for the Empire. The house was filled with stern-faced officials from old Andy Gar on down.
"What's wrong?" Lex asked when he led his crew of dusty, tired playboys into the house.
There weren't a helluva lot of explanations as the four were hustled into arcs and delivered to the hospital in San Ann. There an ovate instrument was removed from within Lex's skull. He awoke with a headache to see his father, President Gar and Admiral Crockett Reds by his bedside.
"It's a thought monitor," Murichon said. "During one of those interrogation sessions you told us about they inserted it and blanked the memory of healing from your mind. Captain Wal had one, too. They've been broadcasting constantly."
"Oh, no," Lex said.
"We've got Wal's hooked back up," Andy Gar said. "When they come we don't want them to know we're expecting them."
"I shouldn't have come home," Lex said. The Empire fleet numbered into the millions. Each unit was more than capable of taking out a planet.
"Well, you did, boy," Gar said. "And you'd every right to. But now I'm afraid you're going to have to fight for that home."
Chapter Seven
The hole in Lex's head kept him in bed for a few days, but caused little pain. What bothered him most was the constant tests he was forced to undergo. The ovate object which had been removed from under his skull was, depending on how you looked at it, both large and small. It was frighteningly large to think of it inside your skull, displacing some brain tissue, replacing some, for actual gray matter had been removed to provide space for the object. The tests were being run to determine what, if any, permanent damage had been done to Lex's mental capacity. However, the human brain being what it is, a study in redundancy, it was finally conceded that the removal of the small—or large—depending on how you looked at it—amount of brain matter was not Hanging in any way. There are large areas of the brain which perform no useful functions. It was in one of those areas that the transmitter-monitor had been mounted.
Both small and large. Small to a frightening degree when the extent of its function was fully understood by Texican technicians. Large to a sickening degree when it had been inside a human skull.
And that one object forced a complete reassessment of Empire technology. Until slight abnormalities had been noted in the encephalogram of Arden Wal the Texican picture of Empire technology had not been a flattering one. It was a fact that Empire blink generators were much the same as the original design, the design which lifted man into interstellar space from the old Earth. Hasty examination of theGrus , bunked to Texas on the locks of the Texican ship which contacted Lex out there in the rim, confirmed the Texican impression that the Empire's techs had stagnated, become bogged down in endless repetition of old themes, spending the time and resources of a million worlds in building quantities, rather than in improving quality. It was true, and had been proven in the field, that a Texican ship, equipped with advanced generators, could fly rings around any Empire ship. Moreover, the technology which had produced the Darlene space rifle was, clearly, far ahead of the Empire, which depended solely on beam and ray weapons. However, the highly compact instrumentation of those objects found under the skulls of both Lex and Wal caused some brow-wrinkling among Texican scientists.
The transmitter mechanism in the brain monitors was a simple one, sending nothing more complicated than a one-tone signal at regular intervals. This, in itself, was not remarkable. What was astounding was the range over which the signal could be picked up. Over a range of something under a quarter of a light-year the monitor could be read by hastily fabricated receivers to obtain an indication of the emotional load of the one being monitored. In a range of a few thousand miles, those who had made a study of the human mind could tell enough from the signals sent out by the monitor almost to read the subject's thoughts. The ovate object in Arden Wal's head made him a unit in the whole. Had he been commanding a ship in a fleet someone, perhaps, it was theorized, aboard the flagship, could read Wal's emotions and stresses just as a good tech read the condition of the various components in a ship's mechanical system.
Wal was deeply shocked. He had no recollection of having been implanted with the instrument, but he did recall various times during his training when he would have to undergo tests and treatments. He requested that the instrument be removed from his skull immediately and was told that it was important that the Empire remain ignorant of the fact that Texas had discovered the implantations.
Lex was not shocked, he was outraged. He felt as if his most secret sanctuary had been invaded. To think of some Empire doctor messing around with his brain was enough to send him into a fury.
One primary implication was drawn from the discovery of the monitoring device in Lex's gray matter. That was the thing which was of most immediate concern to all of Texas, for the most fantastic part of the device was its ability to induce power from the tiny electric currents running through Lex's brain to send a simple tone over distances so vast that it was a certainty that theGrus could have been followed to Texas, followed at such an immense distance that a ship's sensors would not detect the stalker. Such a transmitter would have been installed in Lex for one reason and one reason only, to allow the Empire to follow bun home.
There was one hope. Perhaps the Empire had not maintained constant surveillance on Lex, knowing him to be safely aboard a ship of the line. Perhaps, just perhaps, the instrument had been intended for use when Lex was released from the Empire's service at some future date, after a long enough wait to make it seem as if it were Empire benevolence, rather than an Empire plot to find the location of Texas, to reduce his punishment. However, the signal from Lex's personal bug had reached parsecs into space. There was too much at stake to risk anything less than complete preparedness.
And so a world mobilized.
Messages went out. The most far-flung prospectors were blinking back to Texas to add their hulls to the fleet. For years Texas had been riding a tiger in the contacts with the Empire and now the tiger was threatening to buck.
Ironically, it was good Empire metals which went into the forges at the Blink Space Works to turn out armaments at a pace which had every available worker on overtime. Within a year, every spaceworthy hull under the Texas flag would be armed with a minimum of one Darlene space rifle, but no one was sure that Texas would be allowed a year.
The growing makeshift fleet trained in near space. Scouts ranged into the galaxy, watching for movement of a large Empire fleet toward the rim.
Lex's hole in the head was healing. He was on his feet, still in hospital, given the freedom of the place. He visited Arden Wal, still under observation, and upon walking into the room stopped in mid-stride.
She was dressed in professional whites and she looked even more beautiful than he remembered.
"Hello, Lex."
"Emily."
"I've been meaning to drop in," she said, "but we've been so busy."
The surge of pure joy in him drove out all else. He forgot, for the moment, that it was because of him that Texas was preparing to fight for its life. He forgot the years of loneliness out there in the Empire. She had changed so little, except that she was wearing her hair differently.
He walked toward her, oblivious of the curious look from Wal. His arms went out. She, with complete poise, met him, embraced him in a sisterly way, pushed him back. "My, you're a man now."
It was then, with her hands on his arms, holding him f at arm's length, that he saw the ring. She noted the change of expression. "Yes, I've chosen. He's a doctor. I want you to meet him."
The sun which had begun to glow in his heart died. "Yeah, sure." He swallowed. "Well, sure is nice to see you again, Emily. Hope I didn't break in on anything."
"Oh, no. In fact, I'm glad you stopped by. Captain Wal is very much disturbed. He seems to think that it's his fault Texas is threatened. I've been telling him that the transmitter in your instrument was much more powerful than the one in his, that his seems to be intended for purely local use."
Lex wasn't listening. He stayed a decent interval, said comforting things to Wal, then left to go out of the hospital without permission and get drunk for the first time in his life. Really drunk. Forgetting, falling-down drunk.
When he awoke, back in his room, he had no idea how he had arrived there, but he knew a dead dream when he met one face to face and kicked himself mentally for letting it get to him, because he'd always known that it was nothing more than a dream, that she was older, that the way things were she'd surely choose a man of her own age, probably a man in her own field of interest. But a dream dies hard, especially a dream which had sustained him through the years of Empire service, when he was so much alone.
A visit from Billy Bob, in the uniform of a lower officer of the fleet, helped in a small way, but his release from hospital helped more and then a silent, solitary run into the desert onZelda cleared away the last of the hospital smells from his nostrils. He came home onZelda , flying low and fast, knowing that it was time to stop mooning over girls and start helping Texas. He joined the continuing conference in the big house and was questioned by the Admiral and the Rangers about fleet tactics in the Empire.
He had already dictated all he knew. "I think you'd do better to talk with Captain Wal," he said. "He's spent his life learning fleet tactics."
"I realize that he's your friend," Murichon said, "but he's still Empire."
"Ex-Empire," Lex said. "He came here to escape a sure death sentence and now he's learned that he was never a trusted officer of the Empire, as he'd believed all his life. This thing about the thought monitor has hithim hard. He feels that he was betrayed when it was implanted. He thinks that every officer in the fleet must have such a unit, which makes someone very, very powerful. He was a Fleet Captain, which is a pretty high rank. There are only six active grades above that. I think he's fed up with a system which feels that it has to extend some form of secret control down through the higher ranks to include a man who is capable of direction of the operation of a full fleet He'll fight with us, Dad. I know he will."
"He couldn't go into space with that thing still in his head," Admiral Reds said. "He'd be spotted from a distance, assuming there are monitoring devices on the flagship, or whatever. He'd become a prime target, in addition to endangering others."
"But he can tell you more about Empire tactics than any man on Texas," Lex said. "And I'd also suggest you give both Jakkes and Form an opportunity to serve. Jakkes knows as much about the beam and ray weapons as anyone I know and Form can talk specifics about Empire power plants."