Thig's space ship moved almost silently through the water offshore. The design of the ship that permitted no air to escape now permitted no water to enter. For many of the planets that Ortha claimed for her own possessed gaseous envelopes that were denser than water, and the Horde's ships were equipped to meet those conditions. Softly the bow of the little craft nosed up on the beach inside the harbor, and from its single lock stepped Thig. Naked he was now, as were all Hordemen, and from the harness of flexible plastic about his body there depended a decomposition blaster and an old butcher knife that he had whetted to razor sharpness. "You hear something?" asked one of the two guards. "It was the waves," his comrade said, listening for a moment. "In the darkness I can see nothing," grumbled the first Jap. "Perhaps the Marines are landing." "Ho," laughed the other guard, "the Marines are thousands of miles away. They cannot stand against the power of our Emperor." "It has been more than a year," said the fearful one, "and we have not yet conquered all of California. I have heard that a few Marines are still hiding in the Solomons." "The radio does not tell you that," scoffed the guard. "We have sunk every American boat. There are no more American airplanes in the Pacific. Soon we will all move to America and have the white barbarians to wait upon us." "Was that a Japanese bomber yesterday?" The man's rifle thunked lightly against wood. "There were circles on its wings." "There may be a few left," was the excuse of the other guard. "Now we must cease talking and walk our posts." Now Thig could make out the shapes of the guards as they went their way. One of them, the short, thick yellow man was coming slowly toward the tree that sheltered Thig. Perhaps he was dreaming of the fertile valleys of America, where the white-skinned men and women would be his servants, as he walked along. Abruptly great fingers clamped around his throat, and he felt the sting of something that slammed against his chest. His feet scuffed at the soil, and then a great roaring filled his ears. Thig eased the limp body to the earth. The other slim guard had halted, his nervously acute ears picking up some vague sound. "What--what was that?" he called to his comrade. Thig eased his blaster from its holster. In a moment the guard would arouse the other members of the garrison. The distance was too great for the knife--the man would be able to fire his rifle before he reached him. The weapon's invisible rays slammed the Jap's body backward. Even as he fell the flesh was falling, rotted by the blaster's swift decomposing action, from the man's bones. A moment later only the crumbling bones of a skeleton remained of what had been a soldier.