But all at once he stopped, and stood perfectly still. His right eyebrow twitched strangely, and the whole face began to work in comic spasms. He collapsed to the floor, where Calder caught him up, and rested the beloved head on his knee. The general's trembling jaw uttered sounds but could not, as it struggled so desperately to do, create intelligible speech. Charles William Hayes had suffered a massive stroke, and lay dying in his soldier's arms. "Get a doctor in here, quickly," ordered Frank, once again his own master. Then turning to the com-man, "Put Robeson on visual, apprise him of our status, and tell him I'll be with him as soon as I can." At that moment the only son of William and Charlotte Hayes gave up his spirit, trying to tell his only friend that he loved him. "You can't....." blubbered Calder. "No, please, no." Their foreheads met, and he wept. Frank approached him, and put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Michael. I truly am. But he would have led us all to ruin." "You!" shocked Calder through his tears. "YOU killed him..... He was going to save us!" And in a sudden fury of determination like that of his dead idol, he seized the pistol and Hayes' hip. And as the other moved away, waving NO with his hands in front of him, shot Frank in the chest and killed him. Calder lowered his master's body gently. Then rising, holding the weapon still, looked about him and brandished it fiercely. His second shot destroyed the motor-drive to the bridge's double doors, sealing them shut. After another threatening wave at the benumbed circle of men, he turned to the astonished face of Robeson on the screen. "Calder, what in God's name?" But the man's senses were gone. All that remained were hatred and death, wrenched forward through bitter tears. "You, NIGGER!" The word was terrible to hear. "You killed him too!" And he shot the screen as well. "Now listen to me, all of you! We're going to fight those red bastards if we have to do it alone. Move the ship forward, battle speed One!" He aimed the pistol at the hesitating officer, who feeling himself cast into Hell, obeyed. * What the Soviet commanders aboard the carriers Lenin and Brezhnev heard, was Robeson telling them that Hayes was dead and the bridge of the Dreadnought in chaos---imploring them not to begin what couldn't later be stopped, and might lead to galactic holocaust. But what they saw was the prow of the behemoth coming towards them and starting to fire. Their instructions had been to eliminate Hayes, and if necessary, the entire Third Fleet. The Dreadnought continued to move forward; it was nearly at the midpoint between two armies. And now the Eisenhower moved forward as well. That this was caused by Robeson putting a tractor beam on his ship's counterpart, and trying unsuccessfully to check its advance they could not know, because they had stopped listening. And so, very naturally, they began to fire back.