"Let them in, sergeant." The white-haired New United Nations World Space Force chief spoke the words as though he had been forced into the most humiliating surrender in history. And he had been.

What could he tell them? They were not fools, after all, and he was so impossibly exhausted.... Uniform was a mess. All day and all night, words, words, ... and nothing. Too many useless, powerless words, all adding up to nothing. Foreign space admirals, ground-force field marshals, defense secretaries from a dozen capitals.

Where were the ion-field cannon that had been promised for the last twenty years? Where were the new main-drives? The new alloys? Promises, always promises--but where in God's name _were_ they?

And now--now it didn't matter any more.

He let his massive frame slump tiredly for a moment, elbows flattening some of the official litter strewn across the broad desk-top, head in his big hands.

"General Taylor, sir--"

He forced the thoughts from his brain with almost the same physical force with which he shoved his tired body erect.

"Yes, yes, thank you, sergeant. Good morning, gentlemen. Sorry to have kept you waiting."

There were perhaps thirty of them, all civilians, all crowding for a spot nearest the huge desk, all with stub pencils and sheafs of rumpled newsprint in their hands. A couple of flash-bulbs went off.

"General, can you tell us what the aliens' intentions are?"

And it had begun.

"I'm authorized to tell you that the alien space ship is hostile. But, under the circumstances we are convinced with reasonable certainty that their hostility may be ... mollified to an appreciable degree."

He watched them as they got the official double-talk down word for word. And then, "In other words, General--we are counter-attacking?"

"Sorry. That information is classified."

"About how high is the alien, sir?"

"He is circling Earth in an orbit about two thousand miles out, passing our own stations about once every forty-eight hours."

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