"Then what?"
Naylo's eyes widened. He said at last, "I'd run until I got where I
could get armed, then I'd probably go back hunting the beast."
"Exactly. But not too good an analogy, which is my fault. They did
not run in abject terror. They sent scouts to spy us and report our
strength as best they could. Then they retreated. There's a difference.
They _reported_ home, but _retreated_ to their base or bases, because
they knew that they could do no good by hurling themselves on us."
"They want to arm themselves?"
"Precisely."
"And what do we do now?"
"I think we had best question the one we picked up."
Linus Brein shook his head. "Not that one," he said.
"Why not?"
"When we pried open his scoutcraft, he came out a-fighting and he
fought until we had to take him over. He clipped several of our boys,
and I'm afraid we got a little rough. Our fighting men can get hard,
you know."
"Dead?" demanded Viggon.
"No. But he'll be in no condition for an extensive questioning for some
time."
"Damn! Well, the next best thing to do is to collect the lifeship. We
know what we wanted to know about their mass reaction. Now we must
learn about their individual reaction to an awkward and dangerous
situation."
Faren Twill picked up the microphone and ordered a flight of light
destroyers into action....
* * * * *
Wilson sat in the dome room of the detector ship and cursed. The lights
were still flickering across the presentation surface, flecks and
streaks of spurious response. But with space cleared of the horde of
searching spacecraft, the flickings and the streakings had diminished,
although that cluster of spots still held its position.
Wilson said to Allison, "Seems to me we could have volunteered to stay
out here and keep watch."
Allison was shaking his head when the dome went black again. "They
wouldn't believe you," he said.
One of the techs readjusted something and the presentation returned.
"It's a damned funny business, this Space Service," said Wilson. "Any
service, I guess."
"How so?" asked Manning.
"If I give a wrong order and you disobey, to keep from piling up, you
get clipped for it. If you don't refuse to carry out the order and we
pile up, I get busted--if any of us come back whole."
"I wonder if _they_ have that trouble, too," Wainright said musingly,
looking up at the cluster of dots that represented the enemy fleet.
"Probably. I hope so."
Edwards shook his head. "I'd rather fight an enemy that had no
iron-bound discipline. Let 'em run wild, taking their own ideas as they
come. Let 'em argue with the skipper. Let 'em quit if their commander
doesn't play their way. That's the difference between a mob and a
service, Ted."
Wilson grinned. "Call it confusion then!" he said, with a wave at the
dome. "And I hope they have it!"
As they watched, a group of dots moved from the group and started away,
slowly, at an angle. They watched until the dots had progressed a few
feet from the main cluster.