stop atomic power with an old-fashioned shell." "My friend Dead-Eye was killed when he proved you can," Wing said quietly.

Jan Eliel's voice was cold. He spoke quite without emotion. "You've been under too heavy a strain, Space Commander Wing. You are not the clear-headed Wing we once knew. Go back to the hospital and rest. Perhaps you will be able to bring back some semblance of sanity and help your world when she needs you most." "Damn you," Wing said. "Can't you see it? We've been throwing atomic power at an atomic shield, so it just bounces back at us. Suppose we threw something it couldn't bounce back right away, leaving us an opening to hurl our own atomic bolts into the heart of it?" Jan Eliel had turned his back on them, once more was watching the telecast.

"What's the use, Curt Wing? Why bother when the ruler of the world won't listen to what a big, blundering guy proved when he got mad and fired an old powder gun at a shadow? He's blinded as you were not so long ago by despair. Follow Dead-Eye's lead, show him the way and he may follow." "Come on," Wing said abruptly. "We have a job to do."

The long low barracks at the Spacers' Training school outside Washington buzzed and growled with the hundreds of blue-uniformed spacers. There at the far end of the hall on the little platform where the sergeants took the roll, Wing stood looking at the hard-bitten, space-burned men who had been land-bound since they turned from victory to answer that fatal six-two. They had come because their commander had offered them a fight; a little different perhaps using old-fashioned projectile weapons, but nevertheless a fight; and they, who had used space guns against the shadow-things, who had been beaten back without a chance to fight, were spoiling for battle.

Some of them were reading the hastily-printed instructions that came with the bright, shining, but outmoded weapons. Some were a little jealous of other comrades who even now were hurling their atomic bolts through the skies over Earth as they harassed the vanguard of Zhan Nekel's Mercurian fleet. But with the pangs of jealousy, they had pride in themselves, too. While their shipmates battled a known enemy, they were going out to fight against an unknown enemy with untried weapons and only the promise of their Space Commander, Curt Wing, that these weapons, three centuries old, could win where atomics had so miserably failed.

Wing raised his hand for attention. "Some of you knew Dead-Eye and his Elizabeth. He's gone now, but he destroyed three of the shadow-things 

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