It must be a trap. It was possible that there'd been revolt on Deccan; he'd found proof of rebellion elsewhere. There'd been claims of revolt on Cassis, but he hadn't been suspicious then. He'd sent down a missile to help the self-proclaimed rebels there. Now he wondered desperately if he'd been tricked there as, it was all too likely, he would be here. There'd been reported fighting on Avino. There was cheering for his men on Dover, and he might have landed there. But there were too many coincidences, far too many. He waited, fifty thousand miles high, with the ship at combat-alert. He felt cold all over. Somehow, news had preceded him. It was garbled truth, but there was enough to make his spine feel like ice. He spoke over the all-speaker hook-up, in a voice he could not keep steady by any effort of will. "All hands attention," he said heavily. "I just called ground. We have had a reply calling me by name. You will see the implication. It looks like somehow the Mekinese have managed to send word ahead of us. They've found out that no one can stand against us. They know we have new and deadly weapons. Probably there have been orders given to lure us to ground by the pretense of a successful revolt. It would be hoped that we can be fooled to the point where we will land and our ship can be captured _undestroyed_.--That's the way it looks." He swallowed, with difficulty. "If that's so," he said after an instant, "you can guess what's been done about Kandar. The grand fleet was assembled on Mekin. It could have gone to Kandar...." He swallowed again. Then he said savagely, "Well make sure first. If the worst has happened we'll take our fleet and head for Mekin and pour down every ounce of atomic explosive we've got. We may not be able to turn its air to poison, but if there are survivors, they won't celebrate what they did to Kandar!" He clicked off. His fists clenched. He paced back and forth in the control room. He almost did not wait to make sure. Almost. But he had never seen a Mekinese fighting man face to face. He'd gone into exile with his uncle when that unhappily reasonable man let Tralee surrender rather than be bombed to depopulation. He'd served in the Kandarian navy without ever managing to be in any port when a Mekinese ship was in. He'd fought in the battle off Kandar, he'd destroyed a Mekinese cruiser off Tralee, another in the Mekinese system itself and a squadron off Meriden. But he had never seen a Mekinese fighting-man face to face. Filled with such hatred as he felt, he meant to do so now. A space-boat came up from the ground. The _Horus_ trained weapons on it. Bors painstakingly arranged for its occupants to board the _Horus_ in space-suits, which could not conceal bombs.