Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction December 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Remember the Alamo! By R. R. FEHRENBACH THIS IS, I THINK, ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL COMMENTS ON THE MODERN SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY I HAVE SEEN--A REALLY BLOOD-CHILLING LITTLE TALE.... ILLUSTRATED BY SCHOENHERR * * * * * Toward sundown, in the murky drizzle, the man who called himself Ord brought Lieutenant colonel William Barrett Travis word that the Mexican light cavalry had completely invested Bexar, and that some light guns were being set up across the San Antonio River. Even as he spoke, there was a flash and bang from the west, and a shell screamed over the old mission walls. Travis looked worried. [Illustration:] "What kind of guns?" he asked. "Nothing to worry about, sir," Ord said. "Only a few one-pounders, nothing of respectable siege caliber. General Santa Anna has had to move too fast for any big stuff to keep up." Ord spoke in his odd accent. After all, he was a Britainer, or some other kind of foreigner. But he spoke good Spanish, and he seemed to know everything. In the four or five days since he had appeared he had become very useful to Travis. Frowning, Travis asked, "How many Mexicans, do you think, Ord?" "Not more than a thousand, now," the dark-haired, blue-eyed young man said confidently. "But when the main body arrives, there'll be four, five thousand." Travis shook his head. "How do you get all this information, Ord? You recite it like you had read it all some place--like it were history." Ord merely smiled. "Oh, I don't know _everything_, colonel. That is why I had to come here. There is so much we don't know about what happened.... I mean, sir, what will happen--in the Alamo." His sharp eyes grew puzzled for an instant. "And some things don't seem to match up, somehow--" Travis looked at him sympathetically. Ord talked queerly at times, and Travis suspected he was a bit deranged. This was understandable, for the man was undoubtedly a Britainer aristocrat, a refugee from Napoleon's thousand-year Empire. Travis had heard about the detention camps and the charcoal ovens ... but once, when he had mentioned the _Empereur's_ sack of London in '06, Ord had gotten a very queer look in his eyes, as if he had forgotten completely.