Birthright

Rojers nodded his acquiescence.

“Fine,” said the reporter. “Can you fill me in on the whole operation right from the start?'’ “Certainly,” said Rojers quietly, walking toward the incubators. “Although there's really not much to tell. The Project was set up nearly four hundred years ago to develop a race of supermen, mental giants who could take some high ground that's beyond our reach just now. We haven't come up with our ideal yet, but we're still working on it, to be sure. In fact, you can tell your readers that we may be on the verge of a major breakthrough. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we synthesized a telepathic allele on a human chromosome by the end of this century...”

Herban remained where he was until they were out of earshot. Then, with a sigh, he lit a cigar and returned to his subsurface office. There was a lot of work yet to do before he could go home for the night to his fat naked women.

15: THE WARLORDS

...Thus, as the Oligarchy paused to consolidate, scores of warlords sprang up on the outskirts of the empire. All but one were either ignored or summarily dealt with... —Man: Twelve Millennia of Achievement ...About Grath (?—5912 G.E.) himself, very little is known, except that, though woefully undermanned and outnumbered, he stood up to the imperialistic empire of his race and came within a hairbreadth of triumph. He was unquestionably possessed of the most brilliant military mind of the Oligarchic era and perhaps ofany era—and most of Grath's historic battles are standard textbook reading to this very day... —Origin and History of the Sentient Races, Vol. 8 By all rights, it should have been as close to utopia as made no difference. The Oligarchy had divided, conquered, and consolidated, and for the first time in his galactic existence Man had run out of enemies. Alienenemies, that is.

But two million worlds constituted a lot of territory to belong to one political entity, and so Man fell to fighting against himself once again. Literally hundreds of warlords began springing up around the periphery of the empire; most were beaten down almost immediately, but a handful—such as Grath—began piling up a number of minor triumphs. He stood now, hands on hips, looking up at the heavens from the surface of an uncharted world half a galaxy away from Deluros VIII. The lights of the stars ran together, becoming a vast white blur that seemed to stretch outward to infinity. But that was a visual illusion, nothing more. Grath knew exactly where Deluros was, knew every possible means of approach, knew the long and bloody path he must hew to be able to stand thus on any world from which Deluros was distinguishable from the massive white curtain that he planned someday to rule. First there would be Altair, then the Spica mining worlds to keep up his flow of supplies. These conquests would be followed up by a quick feint toward Earth. The birthplace of the race served no useful military purpose, but it was cherished with an almost religious intensity by the trillions who had deserted it for more promising worlds. The Navy would respond to his move, and then his main forces would wipe out Sirius V in half a day's time. Next it would be on to Pollux, Canphor, Lodin, and finally Deluros itself. Caliban alone would be left unscathed, for Caliban alone was too valuable to destroy.

It would be accomplished neither quickly nor easily. Deluros was not at the geographic center of the galaxy, but it was the very epicenter of the Oligarchy. No approach could be made without passing at least a quarter of a million worlds of the empire, each under the protection of the Oligarchy's vast naval