"The mobilization has slowed down. The first phase went off beautifully, you know, right on schedule; but lately things have slowed down. That doesn't seem just right, since their plans are all dynamic, not static. Of course general headquarters isn't advertising it to us outlying captains, but I think I can sense an undertone of uneasiness. That's why I am doing this little job of spying, to get the low-down--Ah, I thought so! Look here, Doll! See those gaps on the defense map? Over half of their big ships are not in position--look at those tracer reports--not a battleship that was out in space has come back, and a lot of them are more than a week overdue. I'll say that's something we ought to know about--" "Observation Officer of the _Z12Q_, attention!" snapped from the tight-beam headquarters communicator. "Cut off those spy rays and report yourself under arrest for treason!" "Not to-day," DuQuesne drawled. "Besides, I can't--I am in command here now." "Open your visiplate to full aperture!" The staff officer's voice was choked with fury; never in his long life had he been so grossly insulted by a mere captain of the line. DuQuesne opened the plate, remarking to Loring as he did so; "This is the blow-off, all right. No possible way of stalling him off now, even if I wanted to; and I really want to tell them a few things before we shove off." "Where are the men who should be at stations?" the furious voice demanded. "Dead," DuQuesne replied laconically. "Dead! And you have reported nothing amiss?" He turned from his own microphone, but DuQuesne and Loring could hear his savage commands: "_X1427_--Order the twelfth squadron to bring in the _Z12Q_!" He spoke again to the rebellious and treasonable observer: "And you have made your helmet opaque to the rays of this plate, another violation of the code. Take it off!" The speaker fairly rattled under the bellowing voice of the outraged general. "If you live long enough to get here, you will pay the full penalty for treason, insubordination, and conduct unbecom--" "Oh, shut up, you yapping nincompoop!" snapped DuQuesne. Wrenching off his helmet, he thrust his blackly forbidding face directly before the visiplate; so that the raging officer stared, from a distance of only eighteen inches, not into the cowed and frightened face of a guiltily groveling subordinate, but into the proud and sneering visage of Marc C. DuQuesne, of Earth. And DuQuesne's whole being radiated open and supreme contempt, the most gallingly nauseous dose possible to inflict upon any member of that race of self-styled supermen, the Fenachrone. As he stared at the Earthman the general's tirade broke off in the middle of a word and he fell back speechless--robbed, it seemed, almost of consciousness by the shock.