ething that simply _is not
there_. All they've got is the prehistoric Whitworth system and that's
_all_ it is. Nothing else. Detectors--_hell_! I tell you I can see
better by moonlight than the very best they can do. With everything
they've got you couldn't detect a woman in your own bed!"

"And this has been going on all night," Fenway (Astrogation) said. "So
the rest of us thought we'd ask you in to help us pound some sense into
Sam's thick, hard head."

Hilton frowned in thought while taking a couple of sips of his drink.
Then, suddenly, his face cleared. "Sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen,
but--at any odds you care to name and in anything from split peas to
C-notes--Sam's right."

* * * * *

Commander Samuel and the six other officers exploded as one. When the
clamor had subsided enough for him to be heard, Hilton went on: "I'm
very glad to get that datum, Sam. It ties in perfectly with everything
else I know about them."

"How do you figure that kind of twaddle ties in with anything?" Sawtelle
demanded.

"Strict maintenance of the _status quo_," Hilton explained, flatly.
"That's all they're interested in. You said yourself, Skipper, that it
was a hell of a place to have a space-battle, practically in atmosphere.
They never attack. They never scout. They simply don't care whether
they're attacked or not. If and when attacked, they put up just enough
ships to handle whatever force has arrived. When the attacker has been
repulsed, they don't chase him a foot. They build as many ships and
Omans as were lost in the battle--no more and no less--and then go on
about their regular business. The Masters owned that half of the fuel
bin, so the Omans are keeping that half. They will keep on keeping it
for ever and ever. Amen."

"But _that's_ no way to fight a war!" Three or four men said this, or
its equivalent, at once.

"Don't judge them by human standards. They aren't even approximately
human. Our personnel is not expendable. Theirs is--just as expendable as
their materiel."

While the Navy men were not convinced, all were silenced except
Sawtelle. "But suppose the Stretts had sent in a thousand more skeletons
than they did?" he argued.

"According to the concept you fellows just helped me develop, it
wouldn't have made any difference how many they sent," Hilton replied,
thoughtfully. "One or a thousand or a million, the Omans have--_must_
have--enough ships and inactivated Oma