keep our honor."

"I deny," said Bors savagely, "that any man keeps his honor who enslaves
his fellows, as you will do in surrendering. I resign my commission in
your service, Majesty."

King Humphrey nodded wearily.

"Very well. You have served us admirably, Bors. I wish I thought you
were right in this matter. I would rather follow your advice than my
convictions. Your resignation is accepted."

An hour later, fuming, Bors paced back and forth across the floor of a
cabin in the flagship. The Pretender of Tralee entered. The older man
looked wryly amused.

"It was a most improper thing to do. You resigned your commission and
then ordered the low-power fields built on all ships."

"To the contrary," said Bors, "I spread the news that I had resigned my
commission _because_ the low-power fields were _not_ to be installed to
give us a fighting chance!"

The Pretender sat down and regarded his nephew quizzically.

"But is it so important? To use tables of calculations instead of
computers?"

"Yes," said Bors. "It is important. I should know. I've used the
low-power fields in combat. Nobody else has."

The old man said without reproof, "The First Admiral is indignant. The
fields were not ordered on the ground that they're an untested device
and that at least once such a field blew out, leaving your ship, the
_Isis_, so helpless that it had to be abandoned."

"True," agreed Bors. He made no defense. The attitude of the First
Admiral would have been perfectly logical in ordinary times. Anything
like the new intermediate, low-power overdrive field should have been
proposed through channels, examined by a duly-appointed commission of
officers, reported on, the report evaluated, and then painstaking and
lengthy tests made and the report on the tests evaluated. Then it should
have been submitted to another commission of officers of higher rank,
who would estimate the kind and amount of modification of standard
equipment the new device required, its susceptibility to accident and/or
obsolescence, the ease of repair, the cost of installation and the
length of time in-port required to install it. Somewhere along the line
there should also have been a report on the ease with which it could be
integrated into other apparatus and standard operational procedures, and
there should have been reports on its possible tactical value, the
probable number of times it would be useful, the degree of its utility
and whether the exces