The Pretender scratched his ear thoughtfully. He regarded the radar screen with regret.
"We ask life for the people of our planet," he said steadily. He was annoyed that he had to speak for the tardy King of Kandar. "We ask that they not be punished for our resistance."
The young men in the control room looked astonished. Then they saw Bors's expression, and grinned.
A long pause. The boiling, shifting specks on the radar-screen began to have a definite order. The Mekinese voice, when it came, was triumphant and overbearing.
"_We will spare your planet_," it said contemptuously, "_but not you. You have dared to fight us. Stand and be destroyed, and there will be no punishment for your world. There are no other terms._"
The Pretender looked at Bors. He shrugged.
"_Now_ what would the king do?" He looked puzzled.
"What can our dummy fleet do?" asked Bors.
The Pretender nodded. "We will offer no resistance," he said into the transmitter.
There was a long silence. Bors looked at the radar-screen. The mass of bright specks at the edge of the screen seemed to have sent a shining wave before it. It was actually a swarm of missiles. They were so far away that they could not be picked up as individuals on the screen. They were a glow, a shine, a wave of pale luminosity.
"We shift to low-power overdrive readiness," said Bors. "That is an order."
A ship-voice murmured, "_Low-power overdrive in circuit, sir._"
He watched the screen. The Mekinese missiles accelerated at a terrific rate. They left their parent ships far behind. They were a third of the way to the drone-fleet and the _Liberty_ before Bors spoke again.
"Launch and inflate another target-globe," he ordered drily. "We could speak for the king since he was late. But we won't stay here to be killed as his proxy! Not without fighting first!"
A voice, crisp: "_Target globe launched, sir._"
"Low-power overdrive toward the gas-giant planet. One-twentieth second. Five, four, three, two, one!"
There was the unbearable double sensation of going into, and breakout from, overdrive simultaneously. The _Liberty_ vanished from its place in the formation of the dummy fleet, but left a metal-foil dummy where it had been. It reappeared a full five thousand miles away.