y apparently didn't have anything to compare
with you Technos.

"But all hell seems to be busting loose, all over the world. Our east
and west coasts are both being attacked, they say; but are holding.
Operation Daisy and Operation Fairfield are clicking, just like we did.
Europe, they say, is going to hell--everybody is taking pot-shots at
everybody else. One report says that the South American nations are
bombing each other ... Asia, too ... nothing definite; as straight dope
comes in I'll relay it to you.

"We came through in very good shape, considering ... losses less than
anticipated, only seven percent. The First Line--as you know
already--took a God-awful shellacking; in fact, the Churchill-Belcher
section was practically wiped out, which was what lost us about all of
our Observation.... We are now just about over the southern end of
Hudson Bay, heading down and south to join in making a vertical Fleet
Formation ... no more waves coming, but they say to expect attacks from
low-flying combat rockets--there goes the alert! On your toes,
fellows--but there isn't a thing on Sector A's screen...."

There wasn't. Since the CR10685 was diving downward and southward, there
wouldn't be. Nevertheless, some observer aboard that rocket saw that
atomic missile coming. Some Fire Control Officer yelled orders; some
Technos did their best--and failed.

And such is the violence of nuclear fission; so utterly incomprehensible
is its speed, that Theodore K. Kinnison died without realizing that
anything whatever was happening to his ship or to him.

* * * * *

_Gharlane of Eddore looked upon ruined Earth, his handiwork, and found
it good. Knowing that it would be many of hundreds of Tellurian years
before that planet would again require his personal attention, he went
elsewhere; to Rigel Four, to Palain Seven, and to the solar system of
Velantia, where he found that his creatures the Overlords were not
progressing according to schedule. He spent quite a little time there,
then searched minutely and fruitlessly for evidence of inimical activity
within the Innermost Circle._

_And upon far Arisia a momentous decision was made: the time had come to
curb sharply the hitherto unhampered Eddorians._

"_We are ready, then, to war openly upon them?" Eukonidor asked,
somewhat doubtfully. "Again to cleanse the planet Tellus of dangerous
radioactives and of too-noxious forms of life is of course a simpl