full into their mass. The tens of thousands of bright specks that seemed so close gave no comfort. His eyes told him space was full, crammed to bursting with stars, and his mind told him it was as empty as death.

Pointed out into loneliness, riding the two graceful arrows, Cressey heard the Communicator rasp, "Gentlemen, you are on an intercept to an Outspace ship. The safety of your world rides with you. Do your job well." The hypocritical son-of-a-bitch, thought Cressey angrily, sitting in his snug control room telling us to do our job! Well, maybe it made an impression on the first-timers, he couldn't remember. This was his third, and he could no longer remember any farther back than when he climbed into the cockpit. It was better not to remember his other missions, much better.

The roar seemed to come a split second before the pressure, and then Cressey was slammed into his acceleration cradle by the sudden impact. His body suddenly weighed over a thousand pounds, and his blood sloshed wearily in his veins as a straining heart refused to pump such a load.

"Captain Mackley," said Cressey, "I've heard it said that Earth is the aggressor in this war."

"Have you ever seen the London Crater?" asked the Information Officer.

"Pictures, yes, but what I want to know is, who attacked first?"

"It doesn't really matter, does it Cressey? There is a war, and we've got to fight it, no matter how it started."

"Yes sir," said Cressey, "but I wanted to know."

"All right, I'll tell you then. The Outspacers contacted this system roughly six years ago. The first eighteen months they spent on the outer planets. During the second year they came in as far as Mars, and established a base there. Six months later, one of their ships left on an obvious course toward Earth. It was destroyed by a missile launched from Satellite II." Mackley shrugged. "You know the rest. They retaliated. Satellite II was vaporized."

"But Earth fired first?"

"I told you, it doesn't make any difference now. One Outspacer later got through the defense rings, and now there's nothing from London to Cambridge but glass. Whatever the hell they use for weapons, they're effective."

"So we don't know whether or not they were originally hostile."

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