Destination: Saturn

EPILOGUE

The Royal and Independent Kingdom of Ajaxia hurtled through space. Saturn had fallen behind, and ahead of the planetoid-ship, mighty Jupiter bulked, its swollen face banded with brown, and orange. The technique had worked well: utilizing the ancient Asteroidal’s mirage-maker, Ajax and his faithful crew had rendered the Kingdom invisible, and sent its image zipping off in the general direction of Neptune, closely followed by half the Imperial Saturnian space-navy in frenzied and furious pursuit.

In about an hour, Ajaxia, the asteroid, would be able to take her rightful position among the planetary bodies, and Ajaxia, the Kingdom, her proud place among the sovereign states that made up the international scene. All charges against Ajax Calkins and Emily Hackenschmidt were dropped—or would be as soon as Vice Admiral Milton A. Kreplach recovered from his attack. Peacefully, EMSA ships would take on the horde of frozen Amoeba-Men… and another entangled crisis would have been smoothed, another impending outbreak of interplanetary war averted, another glorious victory for civilization won… by Ajax Calkins.

It certainly had a nice, fulsome ring to it—“Ajax Calkins, Savior of Solar Civilization”…

When Emily Hackenschmidt entered the planetoid-ship’s bridge together with the Third Least Wuj, she found Ajax sprawled out comfortably in one of the swivel chairs, dreamily gazing into space and abruptly breaking out of his reverie from time to time to scribble something on a clipboard held on his lap.

“All secure in the frozen jellyfish department,” Emily announced cheerfully. “Nary a twitch from pseudopod nor eye-stalk. They’re safe in cold storage until EMSA thaws them out for questioning.”

“Um,” Ajax said absently.

“Um? What’s with you, anyway?”

“Sorry. I’ve just been jotting something down, you know, a bit of verse… little session with the old Muse, as it were…” he said dreamily.

“What’s with this Muse news—are you turning poetaster or something?” Emily demanded.

“No, nothing like that. But, after all, you know, I’ve been thinking… once EMSA has drained the Amoeba-Men of war information and traded them off to Saturn for a peace treaty, there’ll probably be all sorts of ceremonies and celebrations in my honor, you know.”

“Oh? Your honor, eh?” Emily said. If Ajax had not been so Muse-smitten, he might have noted a dangerous tone in the voice of his bride-to-be.

“Well, yes,” he said modestly. “After all, you know… Savior of Civilization and all that sort of rot. Well… I imagine the President of the Solar Council will want to hang the old Croix de Pax around my neck, and there’ll be an infernal round of banquets and speeches and cheering millions in torchlit processions, chanting my name. All that sort of thing. Well, I’ve been thinking…”

“I’d like to hang something on you, myself,” Emily said sweetly, “and it’s not the Croix de Pax. But go ahead, get it off what you laughingly refer to as your mind. What’s the big idea this time?”

He cleared his throat. “Nothing, really. But when I enter the Council Hall—crash of trumpets, guidons dipped, arch of swords you know—wearing my dress uniform of gold and purple, with a big crimson cape trimmed (I thought, maybe) with snowy ermine—I think it would be nice if the assembled thousands would-well burst into song, perhaps, you know… a bit of an anthem?”

“Go on, Ajax…”

He cleared his throat self-consciously.

“Well, then, here goes—just a rough draft, you understand, very rough. Kind of along this line… to the tune of ‘Rule Britannia’… always been fond of that song.”

Emily snorted.

“Come on, Ajax, stop stalling. Let’s hear it!”

“Right-oh… Here goes, then… very rough you understand… hum de dum de dum dum DUM…

“Rule, Ajaxia!”

“Ajaxia—rule the Void!

“Of your Beloved Sovereign, the Ajaxians never, never will be devoid! (last line needs a little work; doesn’t quite scan, you know—have to see about getting a Poet Laureate for the Royal Court to handle this kind of thing) Rule Ajaxia! Hum hum tee tum tee tum…”

Ajax’s voice rose in a wavering baritone and Emily and the Wuj exchanged a long, mutually commiserating glance. Then Emily’s expression softened. She regarded Ajax fondly. She began to sing along softly.

The Wuj watched, listened, winced, then shrugged with all eight shoulders. His reedy, piping voice joined them, and the three citizens of the Royal and Independent Kingdom of Ajaxia sang, as the planetoid-ship hurtled on through interplanetary space, their song beating out against the blazing stars: