were fired.

"But if that's so, then why didn't the Enlissa ship capture the Killiver?"

It was a good point. Roysland frowned and turned the thing over in his mind. A spaceship is expensive—hellishly expensive; the cost of a fleet of seagoing battleships is nothing in comparison. So you don't waste ships, even the enemy's. The whole object of a space battle is to destroy the enemy crew without destroying the ship. Even a badly-damaged interstellar vessel is worth saving.

The Killiver was in excellent condition. If the Enlissa ship were still in good shape after the battle, why hadn't they taken the Killiver?

"The only thing I can figure," Gowlan said, "is that the Enlissa ship fired their mindjammer just after the aJ's were fired—almost at the same time, you might say." He grinned. "Sure. That's what must have happened."

Roysland nodded. "It looks like the only explanation," he agreed. "That is, except for one thing."

"What's that?" Gowlan wanted to know.

"Why has the same coincidence occurred in three different battles, in widely separated parts of the galaxy?"

Gowlan's face lost its self-satisfied look. "Yeah," he said softly. "Yeah. Why?"

"Kick that around a while," Roysland said, grinning. "If you come up with anything, let me know."

Roysland Dwyn spent the next two days sitting in his office with his feet on his desk, leaning back in a chair that creaked ominously with his weight. The only interruptions were for food and sleep—except when one of his staff called in with new data, which was rare.

He got one call from Milford. The microwave business that the general director suggested had shown some promise of snapping the stricken crews out of their apathy. Some of the men were improving rapidly, and others more slowly; but all of them were showing some positive response to the treatment.

On the afternoon of the second day, he got a call from Eckisster. The old man didn't look particularly jovial. His image solidified with a scowl on it. "What have you got on this microwave business?" he snapped.

Roysland lifted his big boots off the desk and leaned forward leisurely. "Nothing."

"You'd 

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