Lanza looked tired, and his officers noticed in him a lack of firmness, an indecision, to which they were not accustomed in a Leader.
"Say, those babies never had a chance, Leader. We picked up their roboplanes somewhere over Kansas, and we shot them out of the air like ducks. They didn't even fire back. They just crashed, burned, disintegrated. They won't give you any more trouble. Why, we even picked up the remains of Doc Wong's wristwatch and that old beat-up pencil case of his." He flung them on the desk.
Lanza fingered the charred and molten relics.
"That will do, Magnun. I'll call you when I need you."
"Say, ain't you feeling well, Leader? You look kind of green."
"That will be all, Magnun!"
"As you say, Leader."
Lanza shoved aside the charred remnants and spread out the papers waiting for him, the unimportant, miscellaneous notes accumulated over the years by Hudson, Fauré, and Haslam. And the unreadable notebook of David Wong. He sighed and looked up as his secretary entered.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, Leader. You look tired."
"The funeral this morning was quite an ordeal, and so much has happened the last three days!"