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Updated: June 27, 2025
The young men in the control room looked astonished. Then they saw Bors's expression, and grinned. A long pause. The boiling, shifting specks on the radar-screen began to have a definite order. The Mekinese voice, when it came, was triumphant and overbearing. "We will spare your planet," it said contemptuously, "but not you. You have dared to fight us.
If convincing and, unfortunately, truthful rumors ran about Mekin, as elsewhere, concerning the fleet and Bors's attempts to hide it, then their dictator need only give a single order and the grand fleet would lift off. When it found Kandar unoccupied it would leave Kandar dead.
Bors's radar detected the cruiser and instantly cut itself off. The cry of "Co-o-ntact!" went through the ship and all inner doors closed, sealing the ship into sections. Bors was already at the board in the control room. He did not accept the predictions of Talents, Incorporated as absolute truth. It bothered him that such irrational means of securing information should be so accurate.
Bors's hands clenched. "They'll say I resigned to stay out of the fight!" "No," said his uncle mildly. "They'll say you resigned to avoid surrender. I'm being evicted with you. I'm to be dumped on the hospitality of your friend, Morgan, too. Humphrey is a very kindly man. Abominably so. But I am tired of being an exile. I'd really rather stay with the fleet.
Theory said, in fact, that the cosmos could explode and a ship in overdrive would be unaware of the fact so long as it stayed in overdrive. But Bors's light cruiser came out where the sun of Tralee was a disk of intolerable brilliance, and all the stars in every direction looked exactly as usual.
King Humphrey's voice came from the speaker by Bors's side. "Bors? What?" "Majesty," said Bors. "Talents, Incorporated says the enemy fleet will break out of overdrive in just about ten minutes. We're out here waiting for it, instead of aground as they'll expect. They'll break out in complete confusion. Even with great luck, they'll lose time assembling into combat formation.
He waved his hand with the grand air of someone assuring a grammar-grade pupil that multiplication tables were quite reliable and could be used with confidence. But his eyes fixed themselves on Bors's face. As the Captain realized the implications of his statement, the eyes of the Mathematical Talent of Talents, Incorporated shone with gratified vanity.
The Mekinese will be here two days later." King Humphrey and Captain Bors's uncle stared at him. "And," said Bors, "the same source of information says there's a Mekinese cruiser waiting underwater off Cape Farnell to lob a fusion bomb at the fleet as it's ready to lift." King Humphrey said, "But nobody can possibly know that two liners will come tomorrow! One hopes so, of course.
But we'll be prepared, however unlikely your idea. We'll be ready." He clicked off. Only minutes later, the combat-alert order came through. In the next ten minutes, Bors's ship hummed for five, was quiet for three, and then, two minutes early, all inner compartment doors closed quietly and there was that muffled stillness which meant that everybody was ready for anything that might happen.
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