"They happen," growled Bors, "because we value peace and quiet as much as the Mekinese do power, and much less than freedom. We compromise."
"Up to now," he said harshly, "every effort made against Mekin has been defensive. Twenty-two worlds, in turn, have fallen because they only wanted to _stop_ Mekin. It's time for some world to resolve very solidly to _smash_ Mekin, to act with honest anger against a thing that should be hated. It's got to be done!"
"The time for such a resolution," said his uncle, gently, "went by long ago."
There was sudden voice from the compartment speaker.
There was the hissing sound of doors closing. The peculiarly-muffled silence of a closed compartment fell. The Pretender said quietly, "If this is the Mekinese fleet, everything is solved. But your friends of Talents, Incorporated will have to be wrong. They insist the grand fleet will not come here."
Bors rasped, "I wish I were in that control room! But at least we've got missiles they can't intercept!"
"Except that they won't be fired, they're a great improvement," the Pretender said mildly.
He sat at ease. Time passed. Presently the tiny compartment air-refresher hummed, bringing down the CO{ 2} content of the air. It cut off. Bors paced up and down, up and down. He pictured what might be happening outside. It could be that the grand fleet of Mekin had appeared and now drove proudly toward Glamis. It could be that the fleet was offering surrender. There would be near-mutiny on many of its ships. There would be monumental frustration. Junior officers, in particular, would have examined the low-power overdrive tables, and would have studied longingly the reports of Bors's use of low-power overdrive against an enemy squadron off Meriden. They would yearn passionately to have their ships equipped with apparatus by which it could vanish from a place where it was a target to reappear elsewhere, unharmed, and make the enemy its target. Two fleets equipped with the new device might checkmate each other. But one fleet....
"_Captain Bors, a single ship has broken out of overdrive. It identifies itself as the ship_ Liberty, _of Cela. It declares that it has come to place itself under your command._"
Bors stared. He had forgotten about the two Cela-built ships which the Deccan rebels told him about--the first of which had gone on a trial run with a Mekinese crew and failed to return, and the second of which, with a Celan crew, had gone off to look for Bors and his marauders.