could be at that age.

Yesterday the Hunyas had challenged.

It was sudden, but not unexpected. There was no reason for delay. At six o'clock tonight the two hemispheres would match force, and by eight o'clock it would be over.

Jeffrey Wadsworth moved. One instant he was before them with a towel around the middle of his bronze body, the next instant he was standing there dressed in light plastic slippers, red trunks and a sleeveless blue shirt. If Hoshawk hadn't been so old, he would have been envious of the President's physique.

"Gentlemen," Jeffrey said, "I am ready to go to the Chamber." He rubbed his bare midriff in the region of his stomach.

"Are you ill?" Hoshawk asked quickly.

"No," Jeffrey watched the forty statesmen file out.

"Sire," said Hoshawk, and his manner was respectful, for this boy of sixteen was his commander-in-chief, "I still wish we had trained a few thousand men in the use of weapons. I don't see how we can fight a war with electronic tubes."

Jeffrey looked at him gravely. "War with men is primitive. Lives can't be replaced."

Hoshawk sputtered. "There's never been any civilized war."

"This time there will be," Jeffrey said confidently.

"But—"

"We'll win," Jeffrey repeated. "We must win." And Hoshawk caught a flash of something deep in his eyes. Hoshawk could not quite identify it, and yet he knew it spoke of the inner wisdom and conviction of the young. And in that direction, Hoshawk reasoned, lay their weakness.

"There'll be trickery from Forgacs," Hoshawk predicted.

"Quite possible," said Wadsworth. "I don't trust him, myself. He challenged on a technicality."

Hoshawk was gratified to hear a worried note in the President's voice. "He claimed we violated the Agreement of 2118," he said, probing, "by keeping scientific discoveries to ourselves."

Wadsworth answered quietly, "Then he challenged because he himself had secrets that he believed more potent."

"Nevertheless," said Hoshawk, "a few hundred men trained in 

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