Thus Boskonia's mighty fleet vanished from the skies.
The all-pervading interference was cut off and Port Admiral Haynes, brushing aside a communications officer, sat down at his board and punched a call. Time after time he punched it. Finally he shoved it in and left it in; and as he stared, minute after minute, into the coldly unresponsive plate his face grew gray and old.
With a long, slightly tremulous sigh he was turning away from the plate when suddenly it lighted up to show the smiling, deeply space-tanned face of the one for whom he had just about given up hope.
"Thank God!" The commander in chief's exclamation was wholly reverent; his strained old face lost twenty years in half that many seconds. "Thank God you are safe. You did it, then?"
"I managed it, Pop, but just by the skin of my teeth—I didn't have half a jet to spare. It was Old Man Boskone himself, in person. And you?"
"Clean-up—one hundred point oh, oh, oh, oh percent."
"Fine business!" Kinnison exulted. "Everything's on the exact center of the green, then—come on!"
And Civilization's Grand Fleet went.
The Z9M9Z flashed up to visibility, inerted, and with furious driving blasts full ablaze, matched her intrinsic velocity to that of the Boskonian flagship—the only Boskonian vessel remaining in that whole vast volume of space. Tractors and pressors were locked on and balanced. Flexible—or, more accurately, not ultimately rigid—connecting tubes were pushed out and sealed. Hundreds, yes—thousands, of men—men in full Thralian uniform—strode through those tubes and into the Thralian ship. The Directrix unhooked and a battleship took her place. Time after time the maneuver was repeated, until it seemed as though Kinnison's vessel, huge as she was, could not possibly carry the numbers of men who marched aboard.