eived from a far-off sun.

That had been before the First Solar War, when Teyr (the race of Aum had
originated there) ruled. That awful struggle had bludgeoned the home
planet back to savagery, and left Coar and Sennech little better off.

With recovery, Coar had taken over and prospered immensely. Teyr stayed
wild except for small colonies planted there by the other two planets,
and Sennech lagged for a while.

Within Tulan's lifetime his world had found itself ready to rise against
the lax but profit-taking rule of Coar, and that rebellion had grown
into the present situation.

Sennech's wounds were plainly visible in the viewscreen; great man-made
craters spewing incandescent destruction blindly over farm, city, or
virgin ice. The planet was in three-quarters phase from here, and Tulan
could see the flecks of fire in the darkness beyond the twilight zone.
Near the edge of that darkness he made out the dimmer, diffused glow of
Capitol City, where Anatu would be giving two small boys their supper.

He checked altitude, found they were free of the atmosphere, and ordered
an acceleration that would take them halfway to the sun in fifty hours.
It was uncomfortable now, with Sennech's gravity added, but that would
fall off fast.

Jezef hauled himself in and dropped to a pad. "I wish I had your build,"
he said. "Do you really think we can pull this off?"

Tulan, in a good mood, grinned at him. "Have I ever led you into defeat
yet, pessimist?"

"No; and more than once I'd have bet ten to one against us. That's why
the Fleet fights so well for you; we have the feeling we're following a
half-god. Gods, however, achieve defeats as terrible as their
victories."

Tulan laughed and sat down beside Jezef with some charts. "I think I'll
appoint you Fleet Poet. Here's the plan. No one knows what I intend; we
could be on our way around the sun to overtake Coar and either fight or
surrender, or we might be diving into the sun in a mass suicide. That's
why I broke off the siege and pulled all units away from Coar; the fact
that they're coming back around to meet us will suggest something like
that."

"Are they going to join up?"

"No; I want them on this side of the sun but behind us. I have a use for
them later that depends on their staying hidden. Incidentally, I'm
designating them Group Three.

"In a few hours we're going to turn hard, this side of the sun, and
intercept Teyr. I want to evacuate our forces from the moo