voice. "They are down there right now. We will not run and disgrace them! We will stand here. We will put a wall of sails and guns around this spot, and if we die it will be in honor. We will run no more. We will run no more!"

He was trembling when he finished, and Ward expected a knife to make one final arc. It was impossible to try to explain. It was broken....

That thought crashed through as a knife never could.

It's over. The Grimnal will surround this pitiful fleet like a storm. It's over; we've lost the fight, the war and the planet. And I've done it. It's my baby.

The thing seared him, roared through him, shook him—and touched a secret place. A deep place where he stored his anger. All his past angers, big and little; covered stifled, caught and hidden. Old hurts, old dreams, old reproaches screamed and gibbered through him like a thousand ghosts and devils. They swamped the gentle man. They dragged him down and gagged him. And something else took his place—something that had never been allowed to stand before.

"You stupid bastards!" he roared, wheeling to face them all. "You God-forsaken fools! A Grimnal baby is a greater fighter than your bravest man. Look what he has done to you. Look! Like blind animals you have been led into a trap. You have been put in a cage of your own ignorance. You call me polasti! I am the only one who can show you how to win. The only thing you know is to bunch together and be killed like animals at slaughter. You stand together in one tight group to make it easy for him. You know how it will be? Look!"

He sprang to the glass globe that held the magnetized needle, seized it and hurled it to the deck. It exploded like a small bomb. The Kali moved back.

"That is what the Grimnal will do to you. Your bravery will be as that glass, nice to see—but look at it now!"

Water from the globe trickled slowly through the shattered glass. The chips winked red in the dying sun. Only the cry of the wind sounded through the ship. Ward forced his choking breath to an even rhythm.

"Now go die like the fools you are."

He left the quiet bridge and threaded his way to his cabin. Night was coming softly to the Grimnal Sea.

It was dark in the cabin when the knock sounded. There was no answer, and it came again.

 Prev. P 12/19 next