"Yes-s-s.... We were unwise to survive the battle. We can hide our unwisdom. Captain Bors, I will give you orders presently. As of now, I will accept reports on battle-damage given and received." As Bors saluted and turned to the door, the king added, "I will be with the Pretender presently."

It was an order and Bors obeyed it. He went to find his uncle. He found the former monarch in the king's cabin of this, the largest ship of the fleet. The Pretender greeted Bors unhappily.

"A very bad business," he observed.

"Bad," agreed Bors. "But for the two of us, a defeat for Mekin is not bad news."

"For us and Tralee," the old man said reprovingly, "there is some pleasure. But it is still bad. Every ship we destroyed must be replaced.

Like every other subject planet, Tralee will be required to build--how many ships? Ten? Twenty? We have increased the burden Mekin lays on Tralee. And worse--much worse--"

"There's such a thing," protested Bors, "as using a microscope on troubles! We did something we badly wanted to! If we can keep it up--"

The Pretender said, "How is the food-supply on your ship? How long can you feed your crew without supplies from some base?"

Bors swore. The question had the impact of a blow. His _Isis_, like the rest of the fleet, had taken off from Kandar to fight and be destroyed.

There were emergency rations on board, of course. But the food-storage compartments hadn't been filled. The fleet did not expect to go on living, so it did not prepare to go on eating. It would have been absurd to carry stores for months when they expected to live only hours. It simply hadn't occurred to anyone to load provisions for a long operation away from base.

"That's what the king is worrying about," said the Pretender. "We've some thousands of men who will be hungry presently. If we reveal that we survived the battle, Mekin's tributaries will begin to think. They might even hope--which Mekin would have to stop immediately. If we do not reveal that we still exist, what can be done about starving ship-crews?

It is a bad business. It would have been much better if the fleet had been destroyed, as we expected, in a gesture of pure fury over its own helplessness."

Bors said sardonically, "We can all commit suicide, of course!"

The Pretender did not answer. His nephew sank into a chair and glowered at the wall. The situation was contrary to all the illusions cherished by the human race. To act decently and with honor is somehow fitting to a man and consistent with the nature of the universe, so that decency and honor may prosper. But recent events denied it. Men who were willing to die for their countrymen only injured them by the attempt. And now the conduct which honor would approve turned upon them to bring the consequences of treason and villainy.

A long time pa.s.sed. Bors sat with clenched hands. It was the barbaric insistence of Mekin upon conquest that was at fault, of course. But this happens everywhere, as it has throughout all history. There are, really, three kinds of people in every community, as there have always been.

There are the barbarians, and there are the tribesmen, and there are the civilized. This was true when men lived on only one planet, and doubtless was true when the first village was built. There were civilized men even then. If there was progress, they brought it about.

And in every village there were, and are, tribesmen, men who placidly accept the circ.u.mstances into which they are born, and who wish no change at all. And everywhere and at all times there are barbarians.

They seek personal triumphs. They thrive on high emotional victories.

And at no time will barbarians ever leave either civilized men or tribesmen alone. They crave triumphs over them and each other, and they create disaster everywhere, until they are crushed.

Bors said evenly, "If the king's planning to surrender the fleet to Mekin as ransom for Kandar, it won't work."

"He's considering it," said his uncle. "It will be a way of giving them the victory we cheated them of, though we didn't intend to win."

"It won't work," repeated Bors. "It won't do a bit of good. They'll want to punish Kandar because it wasn't beaten. They feed on destruction and brutality. They're barbarians. The economic interpretation of history doesn't apply here! The Mekinese who run things _want_ to be evil. They will be until they're crushed."

"Crushed?" asked the Pretender bitterly. "Is there a chance of that?"

Bors considered gravely. Then he said, "I think so."

The door opened and the king came in. Bors rose and the king nodded. He spoke to the Pretender.

"Somebody raised the question of food," he said. "There isn't any to speak of, of course. You'd think grown men would face facts! There's not a man willing to accept what is, and work from that! Lunatics!"

He flung himself into a chair.

"Suggested," he continued, "that a part of the fleet go to Norden to buy food and bring it back. Of course Mekin wouldn't hear about it, wouldn't guess at the survival of the fleet because food was bought in such quant.i.ties! Suggested, that a part of the fleet go to some uncolonized planet and hunt meat. Try to imagine success in that venture! Suggested, that we travel a long distance, pick out a relatively small world, land and seize its s.p.a.ceport and facilities and equip ourselves to bomb Mekin to extinction. And do it in a surprise attack! Suggested--"

The king shook his head angrily. He did not look royal. He did not look confident. He looked embittered and even helpless. But he still looked like a very honest man trying to make up for his admitted deficiencies.

"Majesty," said Bors.

The king turned his eyes.

"You're going to send me off for news," said Bors. "I suggested earlier that my ship pretend to be the sole survivor of the fleet. I suggest now that the ship add the wild and desperate boast that since there's no longer a world which will sponsor it, it's turned pirate. It will take vengeance on its own. It defies the might of Mekin and it dares the Mekinese fleet to do something about it."

"Why?" asked the king.

"Pirates," Bors answered, controlling his enthusiasm, "have to be hunted down. It takes many ships to hunt down a pirate. I should be able to keep a good-sized slice of the Mekinese navy busy simply lying in wait for me here and there."

"And?"

"There are tribute-ships which carry food from the subject worlds to Mekin. Hating Mekin as befits the sole survivor of this fleet, Majesty, it would be natural for me to capture such ships, even if I could do nothing better with them than send them out to s.p.a.ce to be wasted. They wouldn't be wasted, naturally. They'd come here."

The king said, "But you couldn't supply the fleet indefinitely!"

Bors nodded agreement. But he waited.

"You may try," said the king querulously. "Have you something else up your sleeve?"

Bors nodded in his turn.

"Don't tell me what it is," said the king. "So long as the fleet gets some food and its existence isn't known.... If I knew what you're up to, I might feel I had to object."

"I think not, Majesty," Bors said, showing a rare smile. "I'll need some extra men. If I do capture food-ships, they'll be useful."

"I can't imagine that anything would be useful," said the king bitterly.

"Tell the admiral to give them to you."

Bors saluted and left the room. He went directly to the admiral who in theory was second in command only while the king was aboard. He explained his mission and some of his intentions. The admiral listened stonily.

"I'll give you fifty men," he said. "I think you'll be killed, of course. But if you live long enough to convince them that the fleet's been destroyed, you'll be of service."

"What," Bors asked, with a trace of humor, "can possibly be done about the fact that we wiped out a Mekinese fleet instead of letting it exterminate us?"

"The matter," the admiral answered seriously, "is under consideration."

Bors shrugged and went to his own ship, the _Isis_. He was excessively uncomfortable. He'd said to his uncle, and implied to the king, that he had some plan in mind. He did, but it angered him to know that he counted on a.s.sistance; that, in theory, he could not possibly accomplish it alone. It was irritating to realize that he expected Gwenlyn and her father to turn up, with their Talents, when absolutely n.o.body outside of the fleet could possibly imagine where the fleet had gone. On Kandar it must be a.s.sumed, by now, that it was dead.

His ship's boat clanked into position in the lifeboat blister. The valves closed on it. A moment later there was a whistling murmur, and the boat's vision-ports clouded over outside and then cleared. He stepped out into the ship's atmosphere. His second-in-command greeted him in the control-room.

"I was trying to reach you at the flagship, sir," he said. "The yacht _Sylva_ is lying a few miles off. Her owner has forwarded news reports to the flagship. He asks that you receive him when you can, sir."

Bors's apparent lack of surprise was real. He wasn't surprised. But he was annoyed with himself for expecting something so impossible as the _Sylva_ tracing the fleet through an overdrive voyage of days to a most unlikely destination like Glamis.

"Tell him to come aboard," he commanded.

He went to talk to the mess officer, reflecting that he would ask the Morgans how the _Sylva_ had known where to come, and they'd tell him, and it would be extremely unlikely, and he would accept the explanation.