incapable of suffering pain and as a result are cruel beyond imagining. They hardly know fear and are terrible fighters. Because they lack a faculty for caution we can trick them, and often we pick up their thoughts and know their plans in advance. Those are the things that have enabled us to survive, for they seem to number as the stars."

"Where did they come from?"

"Andromeda, originally. We know that they spread through the Milky Way millions of years ago. They wiped out life in their paths and colonized. There is evidence to indicate they struck the Solar System at that time. There are things to show they denuded Mars and attenuated its atmosphere. Earth may not have been sufficiently developed then to interest them. We don't know. We know that when Earth began colonizing the planets of other suns in our own galaxy the Andromedians didn't take much notice at first. But as our strength grew they decided we were a threat. More than a quarter of a century ago they struck suddenly and wiped out hundreds of colonies.

"We were weak at first and our expeditionary forces were annihilated. But we were fast building strength and when they turned toward the Solar System we met them well out. They had not expected so much strength and were turned back.

"Then the race began to build up, and the struggle has been going on since. The tide has turned first one way and then the other, but the populace of Earth has slaved and starved itself to produce ships and man them, and to make better weapons, and the time is drawing near—Sue, I'm not supposed to talk to you like this."

"But, Al, I've heard all those things before: that all we need is just more time, more work and sacrifices."

"Sue, there are forces at work—"

"I know. You've told me that, too, that there are forces at work I don't know about."

The lines of pain showed in his features. Suddenly she realized she was on the verge of tears. She put her arms around him and murmured, "Al, I'll never say anything like that again. I promise."

"No, Sue, don't promise that. Just promise you'll never volunteer to go out, and try not to think of the Zeehites."

"I promise."

When his orders came and she moved back to the dormitory and went back to the twenty-hour shift, she cried again. It was the 

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