treets, had rushed a transmitter to welcome the enemies of Mekin.

Bors had one light cruiser and merely a minimum crew for it. He couldn't
be of much help to insurrectionists. Then he heard artillery-fire over
the communicator, and voices gasped that the Mekinese garrison was
charging out of its highly-fortified encampment. Bors sent down a
missile to break the back of the counter-attack. Then the communicator
gave off the sound of gunfire and men in battle, and presently yells of
triumph.

He took the _Horus_ away. Its arrival and involvement in the revolt was
pure accident. It was no part of any thought-out plan. But he was wryly
relieved when he had convinced himself that Mekin needed the products of
this world too much to exterminate its population with fusion-bombs.

More days of travel in overdrive tedium. Bors was astounded and
appalled. Interference here would only make matters worse. The _Horus_
went on.

There was a cargo-ship aground on Dover, and the _Horus_ threatened
bombs and a space-boat went down and brought it up. That ship also went
away to Glamis where the fleet was accumulating an inconvenient number
of prisoners. The fact that the capture of this ship only added to that
number made Bors realize that King Humphrey would be especially
disturbed about the passengers on the liner sent back from Mekin. Unless
they were murdered, sooner or later they would reveal the facts about
the Fleet. And King Humphrey was a highly conscientious man.

There was dissention even on Dover. The landing-party was cheered from
the edge of the spaceport. Bors could not understand. He tried to guess
what was going on in the Mekinese empire. He could not know whether or
not disaster had yet struck Kandar. He could only hope that there were
ships lurking near it, ready to use the recent technical combat
improvements against any single Mekinese ship that might appear, so no
report would be carried back. But it seemed to him that utter and
complete catastrophe was inevitable.

He reflected unhappily about Tralee, and wondered what the Pretender,
his uncle, really thought about his loosing of chemical-explosive
missiles against puppet government buildings there. He found himself
worrying again about the truck drivers who'd warned his men of
booby-traps in the supplies they delivered. He hoped they hadn't been
caught.

The _Horus_ arrived at Deccan, and called down the savage message of
challenge.

There came a tumultu