casion arose. If the king
could not make acceptable terms for surrender, the junior officers were
prepared to make a victory by Mekin a very costly matter.

Stretched out on his bunk, Bors thought of all these things. Finally he
slept--and--dreamed. It was odd that anyone so weary should dream. It
was more strange that he did not dream of the matters in the forefront
of his mind. He dreamed of Gwenlyn. She was crying, in the dream, and it
was because she thought he was killed. And Bors was astonished at her
grief, and then unbelievably elated. And he moved toward her and she
raised her head at some sound he made. The expression of incredulous joy
on her face made him put his arms around her with an enormous and
unbelieving satisfaction. And he kissed her and the sensation was
remarkable.

Half-awake, he blinked at the ceiling of the control room of the
_Liberty_. His uncle was saying amiably to the young man at the
control-board, "That's a very pretty fleet-formation, if we do say so
ourselves!"

Bors stood up, one-half of his mind still startled by his dream, but the
other half reverting instantly to business.

But all matters of business had been attended to. Out the viewports he
could see the dummy fleet in an apparently defensive formation. Its
ships were only miles apart, and if they had been fighting ships, every
one could have launched missiles at any point of attack from the pattern
they constituted. At a hundred miles they could be seen only as specks
of reflected sunlight. At greater distances a radar would identify them
only as dots which must be enemy ships because the radar-blips they made
lacked the nimbus of friendly craft.

"Hm," said Bors. He looked at the clock. "The Mekinese should have
broken out five minutes ago."

"They did," said his uncle. "They're yonder. They're heading straight
for this fleet."

He pointed, not out a port but at a screen where a boiling mass of
bright specks showed the Mekinese fleet just out of overdrive and
speeding toward the dummy formation, sorting itself into attack
formation as it moved.

"The king's not here on time," observed Bors grimly. "We have to play
his hand for him, Uncle. We haven't the right to commit Kandar by
beginning to fight ourselves. Offer surrender, as he'd wish it to be
done. If they accept, he can carry out his part when he arrives. He'll
be here!"

The former monarch spoke gently into a beam transmitter.

"Calling Mekinese fleet," he