white head quickly. "No, we have only this force field with which to contend. We have nothing to worry about from the Mercurians. We gave them Earth's unconditional surrender only minutes after you were ordered back."

"Huh?" The exclamation, shot through with amazement, exploded from the shadows in the corner where Dead-Eye had buried himself. "Why, you!"

"Quiet, Dead-Eye!" Wing barked. Dead-Eye subsided, grumbling.

Wing's face had drained of color, the sharp planes of his face came into sharper relief, the muscles in his throat were working pulsating as if he could not catch a full breath.

His mind was shrieking. It's gone, Curt Wing! The loveliest world in the galaxy no longer belongs to Earthmen. It is owned by strangers, by Mercurians, by an alien people who will grind its beauty into a molten crucible so that it may support their hell-hot lives.

Gone! Everything worth fighting for, living for, dying for! Earth, who had flung her minions to the stars, first beings in the galaxy to solve space travel, first to probe across eternity in rickety ships, spanning the vast distances with blood and broken lives. Earth, who had struggled to bring her peoples together in peaceful harmony, finally succeeding in it, lifting them toward their destiny. All this--Gone.

Curt Wing looked at the seven governors.
"If that's the case," he said finally. "I can't see any reason why we should worry about the force field. Let the damn Mercurians worry about it. Earth is theirs now."

"Wait, Wing!" Eliel cried out as Wing strode past the long narrow table, Dead-Eye's bulk dogging his heels. "You don't understand!"

Wing spun around. "I don't understand?" he repeated, and his deep voice was harsh.
"Look, you governors. There was only one way Earth could have licked this force field. Someone would have found the way out--the way to chop this blue flower off at its source if you hadn't taken it away.

Scan back through Earth's history. Way back in the 15th century, a sea captain did the impossible. He crossed water as vast to him as space once was to us. He had a way. Earthmen flung their power at a dictator called Schickelgruber or some such name. It had been impossible to stop him. But a way was found."

"Then the moon rocket. That was impossible too. There was no way to break gravity chains without 

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