There was the hissing sound of doors closing. The peculiarly-muffled silence of a closed compartment fell. The Pretender said quietly, "If this is the Mekinese fleet, everything is solved. But your friends of Talents, Incorporated will have to be wrong. They insist the grand fleet will not come here." Bors rasped, "I wish I were in that control room! But at least we've got missiles they can't intercept!" "Except that they won't be fired, they're a great improvement," the Pretender said mildly. He sat at ease. Time passed. Presently the tiny compartment air-refresher hummed, bringing down the CO{2} content of the air. It cut off. Bors paced up and down, up and down. He pictured what might be happening outside. It could be that the grand fleet of Mekin had appeared and now drove proudly toward Glamis. It could be that the fleet was offering surrender. There would be near-mutiny on many of its ships. There would be monumental frustration. Junior officers, in particular, would have examined the low-power overdrive tables, and would have studied longingly the reports of Bors's use of low-power overdrive against an enemy squadron off Meriden. They would yearn passionately to have their ships equipped with apparatus by which it could vanish from a place where it was a target to reappear elsewhere, unharmed, and make the enemy its target. Two fleets equipped with the new device might checkmate each other. But one fleet.... The speaker said curtly: "_Captain Bors, a single ship has broken out of overdrive. It identifies itself as the ship_ Liberty, _of Cela. It declares that it has come to place itself under your command._" Bors stared. He had forgotten about the two Cela-built ships which the Deccan rebels told him about--the first of which had gone on a trial run with a Mekinese crew and failed to return, and the second of which, with a Celan crew, had gone off to look for Bors and his marauders. Somehow, it had found him. It seemed totally improbable. Bors instantly thought of Talents, Incorporated. The Talents on the ship had spread rebellion on worlds unthinkable distances apart. It was conceivable that in some way they'd brought this ship to Glamis. "Very well," said Bors coldly, in the cabin to which he was confined. "I request to be put on board." "I'll come with you," said his uncle. He smiled at Bors, who noted, but was not surprised at, the genuineness of the smile. "This is the ship you mentioned as hoping to emulate the _Horus_. I don't think you'll surrender it. But I've surrendered once and I don't like it. I'd rather not do it again." Compartment-doors went back to normal, as combat-alert went off. Morgan appeared, agitated and upset. "What's this?" he demanded. "What's happened?" Bors told him curtly as much as he knew, all that he'd been told on Deccan. It was the only ship technically in actual rebellion against Mekin. It had heard rumors of Bors, and it wanted his leadership.