When Luda had given him the entire picture, Cloud saw that it was far from bright. Darjeeb's coup had been planned with surpassing care and been executed brilliantly; his spies and fifth columnists had known exactly what to do and had done it in perfect synchronization with the armed forces striking from without. Drugged, betrayed by her own officers, Luda had been carried off without a struggle. She did not know just how far-reaching the stroke had been, but she feared that most of the fortresses were now held by the enemy. Uhal probably had the advantage in numbers and in power of soldiers and warships then upon Lune--Darjeeb would not have made his bid unless he had been able in some way to get around the treaty of strict equality in armament. Dhil was, however, much the nearer of the two worlds. Therefore, if this initial advantage could be overcome, Dhil's main forces could be brought into action much sooner than could the enemy's. And if, in addition, the vortex could be extinguished before it had done too much irreparable damage, neither side would have any real tactical advantage and the conflict would subside instead of flaring up into another world-girdling holocaust. Cloud would have to do something, but what? That vortex had to be snuffed out--but defended as it was by Uhalians in the air and upon the ground, how could he make the approach? His vortex-bombing flitter was screened only against the frequencies of atomic disintegration; she could not ward off for a minute the beams of even the feeblest ship of war. His cruiser was clothed to stop anything short of a mauler's primary blasts, but there was no possible way of using her as a vehicle from which to bomb the vortex out of existence. He had to analyze the thing first, preferably from a fixed ground-station. Then, too, his special instruments were all in the flitter, and the cruiser had no bomb-tubes. How could he use what he had to clear a station? The cruiser had no offensive beams, no ordinary bombs, no negabombs. "Draw me a map, will you please, Luda?" he asked. She did so. The cratered vortex, where an immense building had once been; the ring of fortresses, two of which were unusually far apart, separated by a parkway and a shallow lagoon. "Shallow? How deep?" Cloud interrupted. She indicated a depth of a couple of feet. "That's enough map then--thanks." The physicist ruminated. "You seem to be quite an engineer. Can you give me details on your power plants, screen generators, and so on?" She could. Complex mathematical equations flashed through his mind, each leaving a residue of fact. "Can be done, maybe--depends." He turned to the Chickladorian. "Are you a pilot, or just an emergency assignment?" "Pilot--master pilot. Rating unlimited, tonnage or space." "Good! Think you're in shape to take three thousand centimeters of acceleration?"