"It wasn't hard," he said. "It would have been easier if only Ragnarok men had been on the cruiser. We didn't want to accelerate to any higher gravities than absolutely necessary because of the Gerns on it." "You did it--you captured the battleship," Narth said, his tone like one dazed. He wet his lips, staring, as he contemplated the unpleasant implications of it. "You're freak mutants who can capture a battleship. Maybe you will take Athena and Earth from us. But"--the animation of hatred returned to his face--"What good will it do you? Did you ever think about that?" "Yes," he said. "We've thought about it." "Have you?" Narth leaned forward, his face shining with the malice of his gloating. "You can never escape the consequences of what you have done. The Gern Empire has the resources of dozens of worlds. The Empire will build a fleet of special ships, a force against which your own will be nothing, and send them to Earth and Athena and Ragnarok. The Empire will smash you for what you have done and if there are any survivors of your race left they will cringe before Gerns for a hundred generations to come. "Remember that while you're posturing in your little hour of glory on Athena and Earth." "You insist in thinking we'll do as Gerns would do," he said. "We won't delay to do any posturing. We'll have a large fleet when we leave Earth and we'll go at once to engage the Gern home fleet. I thought you knew we were going to do that. We're going to cripple and capture your fleet and then we're going to destroy your empire." "Destroy the Empire--_now_?" Narth stared again, all the gloating gone as he saw, at last, the quick and inexorable end. "Now--before we can stop you--before we can have a chance?" "When a race has been condemned to die by another race and it fights and struggles and manages somehow to survive, it learns a lesson. It learns it must never again let the other race be in position to destroy it. So this is the harvest you reap from the seeds you sowed on Ragnarok two hundred years ago. "You understand, don't you?" he asked, almost gently. "For two hundred years the Gern Empire has been a menace to our survival as a race. Now, the time has come when we shall remove it." * * * * * He stood in the control room of the battleship and watched Athena's sun in the viewscreen, blazing like a white flame. Sigyn, fully recovered, was stretched out on the floor near him; twitching and snarling a little in her sleep as she fought again the battle with the Gerns. Fenrir was pacing the floor, swinging his black, massive head restlessly, while Tip and Freckles were examining with fascinated curiosity the collection of bright medals that had been cleaned out of the Gern commander's desk. Lake and Craig left their stations, as impatient as Fenrir, and came over to watch the viewscreen with him.