"The best. She won our war." "I hated to kill her, Oley." "I know that too. But you had to do it." Fiske sighed as he took the ship up through the Cth components. It handled smoothly enough, but not as smoothly as the "Dauntless." The two men sat silently with the control board between them. Fiske spoke finally. "You know, Oley," he said. "I thought it was a calamity when Bordoni broke his recordings." Pedersen looked at him soberly. "You might still be right," he said. "We're going to win this war now. We're going to win it completely. They can't stop us now we know their weakness." "And that's a calamity?" "Possibly. After all--what are we going to do when we win? What sort of conquerors will _we_ be? How will we treat them and the races they have conquered? We have no precedents. We've bypassed other intelligent races in our sphere. We've left them alone because we didn't know how to handle them, and we knew we didn't know. But we can't leave the Eglani alone. They're going to be our responsibility--and we've never learned to rule." Fiske stared, shrugged, and grinned. "Could be that the Eglani will win after all--even though we defeat them in battle. They have the administrative experience." Pedersen chuckled without humor. "You see what I mean? It still may be a calamity."... THE END