Inside the long ship, a pilot-machine ordered the destruction of a vastly greater collection of matter. The atoms of the ship and the sailors—fixed in relationship, each to each—imploded into nothingness.
And the long ship and the men aboard it were born again at a low-density area a million light years away—halfway to Earth. Born and were destroyed again, in the blink of an eye.
Beyond the ship now lay Sol, pulsing in its own warmth and warming its children embedded in the cold and distant texture of the universe. The sailors were ghosts come home.
Miracastle was alone with her conquerors.
General Max Shorter, a few weeks later, began writing a diary.
"I have been Destroyed thirty-seven times during forty years' service with the long ships," he wrote. He wrote with a pen, using a metal straight edge as a line rule.
"I have served faithfully and I believe as well as any man the Corps, the planet and mankind. It is perhaps appropriate at this time, as I approach the end of my long service, to record a few observations which have occurred to me during the course of it as well as to record the day-to-day details of my present command."
The general wrote: "A man is given a job to do. And when all is said and done, that is the most important thing in his life: to do his job."
It took perhaps ten seconds for the soft knock to penetrate his concentration. He adjusted himself to the moment and closed the diary softly. He deposited it in the upper right-hand drawer of the writing desk and locked the drawer.