"Have you lost your mind, man? I'd sooner make a pact with the Devil. You just do your job and hold 'em off until we get there, or I'll replace you with someone of stouter fiber and longer memory. Help from the English, indeed!" And that was the end of it. New Belfast fell to the enemy, and could not be retaken. Here, at least, was a clear moral for anyone to read. By facing the darkness alone and stubbornly, refusing all help, by not using unsparingly all the resources at their disposal, and by placing beliefs in constraining patterns upon a world where no such narrow order existed, the frontier Irish were swept away. And all their heart, courage and past, all their faith in life and beauty of soul were rendered meaningless, and in the end amounted to naught, because of it. But for one disturbing question. What was Blackwood really after? Part, the Second The wind, she blows extreme My mind would scream But for the discipline That empty years have taught it. Richard Dark, a denaturalized American citizen, had risen swiftly through the ranks of the (People's Republic of) Chinese Army, and because of his technical understanding and combat experience, along with the marked favor of vice-Chairman Tam, had been put in charge of the Outer Fences of the two settled planets of the Tsingtao system, now under attack by Soviet-backed Cuban forces. Viewed mockingly by some, since they were not accompanied by a powerful Space Navy, these unique defenses were nonetheless a highly effective form of planetary cover. Invented by Dark himself, in conjunction with the exiled physicist Tolstoy (both men had chosen not to reveal the full discovery to their native governments, and were therefore outcast), they were based on a combined series of shields and orbiting Artillery Stations, similar to, but more highly integrated than those of the East Germans, in that the shields themselves were wrapped about the great mace-shapes of the Stations like nets of energy strung between harbor mines. But what made them effective was the source of their power. Not only did they feed off the sun, but also used the very energy of assaulting blasts to strengthen the fields, and channel the drawn-off power into a reverse stroke by the corresponding station---like an aimed mirror of aggression. The harder an opponent struck, the harder was the blow returned.