followed orders, and did not smile when he appeared any more.

Engagement Four: Darel Sea. (Oh, the Darel Sea!) They were closing at glider range when a lucky Grimnal had sneaked in and managed to fire bomb a first-liner. Without that ship they were greatly out-gunned and, leaving a frigate to take off the crew, they slipped off downwind. It was a near rebellion, but Tahn had held them. Then the wind came up, bringing the Grimnal force with it. And both the frigate and the burning first went down fighting. The Kali had cried, probably, Ward thought, more in admiration than in sadness.

And now, as a result of a vote of ships' captains, they were headed straight for the Grimnal's heart; and Ward wondered if he was anything more than a passenger. He knew he had been tactically right in each case, but the Kali knew he was morally wrong. So who had it, the head or the heart?

And what about this thing of being afraid? That hurt. He didn't believe he was afraid. Honestly, he really couldn't say. He had, as a fact, never fought a battle in his life.

He used to play a game in the scouts. What did they call it? Capture the Flag, or something like that. Each side had a hidden flag and the other tried to get it. He was always the planner. How'll we do it, John? And he would tell them, and keep away from the rough stuff, and they nearly always won.

But violence fascinated him as a spectator. Later his reading took him in that direction, and later still his studies. In the middle of his life he found he was one of the leading historical naval tacticians in the world. He started writing historical novels, under a pseudonym, of course, and soon became the world's authority.

Then someone blundered into Aqua.

For a couple hundred years the Terran Confederation and the United Peace Worlds had been at war. Not an open, honest, stand-up-and-get-it war; but an undercover, half ignored, let's-get-the-kids-to-fight war. A galaxywide game, played for planets, using local cultures. And always according to the rules. No new technologies. No new weapons. Use what you have at hand. Play it fair. Because if you do not, neither will we—and together we will eliminate the universe.

Aqua was a natural. It had a war already underway. Deep in the secretmost catacombs of Confederation Central a voice said: "Find a man who knows ancient naval tactics. Find a man who knows sailing. Find a man who knows 

 Prev. P 7/19 next