“Anyhow,” the prince continued, “they didn’t. I asked them what was the idea of arresting a poor farmer in the middle of the night, and they replied that it was this middle-of-the-night part of it that made my actions suspicious. Where was I going, and what was I doing? I cooked up some sort of a yarn about being out of a job and out of tickets, and they appeared to believe me. However, they said that the orders of Queen Formis were to make a census of all male Cupians, for the purpose of either impressing them into service or killing them, as soon as the army of King Yuri should come along on its triumphal march northward. “Of course, I did not want to be listed and quartered on any of these villages, where my identity would probably be recognized, so with mock eagerness I asserted my loyalty to my brother—naturally not referring to him as such—and inquired as to whether there were any openings for mechanics in the air service, thanking my luck the while, that we Cupians do not have registration numbers painted on our backs like the Formians. “As a result of my apparent eagerness to serve in the army, which seemed perfectly plausible in view of my being out of a job, only a few perfunctory questions were asked as to my identity, and I was taken along to an encampment of the ants. I had picked the air service, because that would undoubtedly be manned almost entirely by Formians, who would not be so likely to recognize me as would my own countrymen, unless I happened to run across some of my former instructors at the University of Mooni. I had to take a chance on that. “To make a long story short, the motley army of the yellow and black allies came along a few days later bound northward, and I was assigned to one of the kerkools which carried repair parts and machine tools for the airplanes. We then proceeded north without event until the entire army went into action south of Lake Luno. And, just in time for this battle, there arrived a large force of fliers gathered from all over the two kingdoms for the final drive that was to end the war. “According to word brought back to the air base where I was stationed, the army of my baby cousin had only one plane and one antiaircraft gun, but these accounted for quite a number of ant fliers, and soon we were busily at work making repairs.” “Just a moment,” Myles Cabot interrupted. “Didn’t it give you a guilty feeling to be repairing the airships that were to fly against your own people?” “Not at all,” Prince Toron replied with a smile, “for most of my efforts were directed toward filing stay-wires almost to the breaking point, drilling small holes in fuel tanks and plugging them with loose wooden pegs, adding grit to the lubricating oil, and performing other similar acts of sabotage. I really believe that I brought down fully as many Formian planes as did the opposing army.