"They'll say I resigned to stay out of the fight!"
"No," said his uncle mildly. "They'll say you resigned to avoid surrender. I'm being evicted with you. I'm to be dumped on the hospitality of your friend, Morgan, too. Humphrey is a very kindly man. Abominably so. But I am tired of being an exile. I'd really rather stay with the fleet. But he stands on his dignity to preserve our lives. I'm not sure what for, in a universe where such things as Mekin can happen."
"They happen," growled Bors, "because we value peace and quiet as much as the Mekinese do power, and much less than freedom. We compromise."
He paced up and down.
"Up to now," he said harshly, "every effort made against Mekin has been defensive. Twenty-two worlds, in turn, have fallen because they only wanted to stop Mekin. It's time for some world to resolve very solidly to smash Mekin, to act with honest anger against a thing that should be hated. It's got to be done!"
"The time for such a resolution," said his uncle, gently, "went by long ago."
There was sudden voice from the compartment speaker.
"Co-o-o-ntact!"
There was the hissing sound of doors closing. The peculiarly-muffled silence of a closed compartment fell. The Pretender said quietly, "If this is the Mekinese fleet, everything is solved. But your friends of Talents, Incorporated will have to be wrong. They insist the grand fleet will not come here."
Bors rasped, "I wish I were in that control room! But at least we've got missiles they can't intercept!"