"Well, that certainly tears it! That's a ... I...." Stevens' ready vocabulary failed him and he turned to Brandon, who was still staring narrow-eyed into the plate, watching the destruction of the hexan city.
"They've got something, all right—you've got to hand it to them," Brandon replied. "And we thought we knew something about forces and physical phenomena in general. Those birds have forgotten more than we ever will know. Just one of those things could take the whole I-P fleet, armed as we are now, any morning before breakfast, just for setting-up exercises. We've got to do something about it—but what?"
"It's okay—whatever you say. There may be an out somewhere, but I don't see it," and Stevens' gloomy tone matched his words.
Highly trained scientists both, they had been watching that which transcended all the science of the inner planets and knew themselves outclassed immeasurably.
"Only one thing to do, as I see it," Brandon cogitated. "That's to keep on going straight out, the way we're headed now. We'd better call a council of war, to dope out a line of action."
2 ([return])
In order to avoid all unnecessary strain upon the memory of the reader, all titles, etc., have been given in the closest possible English equivalent, instead of in an attempted transliteration of the foreign word. This particular officer has no counterpart upon Tellurian vessels. He is the second in command of a Vorkulian fortress, his function being to supervise all expenditure of power.—E. E. S.