"The flitterboats are ready to go, captain."

  "Send them out in fifteen minutes. Relay to left wing, all ships carrying flitters."

  "Check."

  For a while there was silence. A booming explosion brought Scott to instant alertness. He glanced up at the screens.

  A new face appeared. "Helldivers opening up. Testing for range. They must have gliders overhead. We can't spot 'em."

  "Get the men under cover. Send up a test barrage. Prepare to return fire. Contact our pilots over the Helldivers."

  It was beginning now—the incessant, racking thunder that would continue till the last shot was fired. Scott cut in to Cinc Rhys as the latter signaled.

  "Reporting, sir."

  "Harry the enemy. We can't do much yet. Change to r-8 formation."

  Cinc Mendez said, "We've got three enemy subs. Our detectors are tuned up to high pitch.

  "Limit the range so our subs will be outside the sphere of influence."

  "Already did that. The enemy's using magnetic depth charges, laying an undersea barrage as they advance."

  "I'll talk to the sub command." Rhys cut off. Scott listened to the increasing fury of explosions. He could not yet hear the distinctive clap-clap of heat rays, but the quarters were not yet close enough for those undependable, though powerful, weapons. It took time for a heat ray to warm up, and during that period a well-aimed bullet could smash the projector lens.

  "Casualty, sir. Direct hit aboard destroyer Bayonet."

  "Extent of damage?"

  "Not disabled. Complete report later."

  After a while a glider pilot came in on the beam.

  "Shell landed on the Polaris, sir."

  "Use the scanner."

  It showed the Helldivers' battlewagon, part of the superstructure carried away, but obviously still in fighting trim. Scott nodded. Both sides were getting the range now. The hazy clouds still hid each fleet from the other, but they were nearing.

  -

  The sound of artillery increased. Problems of trajectory were increased by the violent winds of Venus, but accurate aiming was possible. Scott nodded grimly as a crash shook the Flintlock.

  They were getting it now. Here, in the brain of the ship, he was as close to the battle as any member of a firing crew. The screens were his eyes.

  They had the advantage of being able to use infrared, so that Scott, buried here, could see more than he could have on deck, with his naked eye. Something loomed out of the murk and Scott's breath stopped before he recognized the lines of the Doone battlewagon Misericordia. She was off course. The captain used his hush-mike to snap a quick reprimand.

  Flitterboats were going out now, speedy hornets that would harry the enemy fleet. In one of them, Scott remembered, was Norman Kane. He thought of Ilene and thrust the thought back, out of his mind. No time for that now.

  Battle stations allowed no time for wool gathering.

  The distant vanguard of the Helldivers came into sight on the screens. Cinc Mendez called.

  "Eleven more subs. One got through. Seems to be near the Flintlock. Drop depth bombs."

  Scott nodded and obeyed. Shuddering concussions shook the ship. Presently a report came in: fuel slick to starboard.

  Good. A few well-placed torpedoes could do a lot of damage.

  The Flintlock heeled incessantly under the action of the heavy guns. Heat rays were lancing out. The big ships could not easily avoid the searing blasts that could melt solid metal, but the flitterboats, dancing around like angry insects, sent a rain of bullets at the projectors. But even that took integration. The rays themselves were invisible, and could only be traced from their targets. The camera crews were working overtime, snapping shots of the enemy ships, tracing the rays' points of origin, and telaudioing the information to the flitterboats.

  "Helldivers' Rigel out of action."

  On the screen the big destroyer swung around, bow pointing forward. She was going to ram. Scott snapped orders. The Flintlock went hard over, guns pouring death into the doomed Rigel.

  The ships passed, so close that men on the Flintlock's decks could see the destroyer lurching through the haze. Scott judged her course and tried desperately to get Mendez. There was a delay.

  "QM—QM—emergency! Get the Zuni!"

  "Here she answers, sir."

  Scott snapped, "Change course. QM. Destroyer Rigel bearing down on you."

  "Check." The screen blanked. Scott used a scanner. He groaned at the sight. The Zuni was swinging fast, but the Rigel was too close—too damned close.

  She rammed.

  Scott said, "Hell." That put the Zuni out of action. He reported to Cinc Rhys.

  "All right, captain. Continue R-8 formation."

  Mendez appeared on a screen. "Captain Scott. We're disabled. I'm coming aboard. Have to direct sub-strafing operations. Can you give me a control board?"

  "Yes, sir. Land at Port Sector 7."

  -

  Hidden in the mist, the fleets swept on in parallel courses, the big battlewagons keeping steady formation, pouring heat rays and shells across the gap. The lighter ships strayed out of line at times, but the flitterboats swarmed like midges, dog-fighting when they were not harrying the larger craft. Gliders were useless now, at such close quarters.

  The thunder crashed and boomed. Shudders rocked the Flintlock.

  "Hit on Helldivers' Orion. Hit on Sirius."

  "Hit on Mob ship Apache."

  "Four more enemy subs destroyed."

  "Doone sub X-16 fails to report."

  "Helldivers' Polaris seems disabled."

  "Send out auxiliary flitterboats, units nine and twenty."

  Cinc Mendez came in, breathing hard. Scott waved him to an auxiliary control unit seat.

  "Hit on Lance. Wait a minute. Cinc Rhys a casualty, sir."

  Scott froze. "Details."

  "One moment—Dead, sir."

  "Very well," Scott said after a moment. "I'm assuming command. Pass it along."

  He caught a sidelong glance from Mendez. When a Company's cinc was killed, one of two things happened—promotion of a new cinc, or a merger with another Company. In this case Scott was required, by his rank, to assume temporarily the fleet's command. Later, at the Doone fort, there would be a meeting and a final decision.

  He scarcely thought of that now. Rhys dead! Tough, unemotional old Rhys, killed in action. Rhys had a free-wife in some Keep, Scott remembered. The Company would pension her. Scott had never seen the woman. Oddly, he wondered what she was like. The question had never occurred to him before.

  The screens were flashing. Double duty now—or triple. Scott forgot everything else in directing the battle.

  It was like first-stage anesthesia—it was difficult to judge time. It might have been an hour or six since the battle had started. Or less than an hour for that matter.

  "Destroyer disabled. Cruiser disabled. Three enemy subs out of action—"

  It went on, endlessly. At the auxiliaries Mendez was directing sub-strafing operations. Where in hell's the Armageddon, Scott thought? The fight would be over before that overgrown tortoise arrived.

  Abruptly a screen flashed QM. The lean, beak-nosed face of Cinc Flynn of the Helldivers showed.

  "Calling Doone command."

  "Acknowledging," Scott said. "Captain Scott, emergency command."

  Why was Flynn calling? Enemy fleets in action never communicated, except to surrender.

  Flynn said curtly, "You're using atomic power, captain. Explanation, please."

  Mendez jerked around. Scott felt a tight band around his stomach.

  "Done without my knowledge or approval, of course, Cinc Flynn. My apologies. Details?"

  "One of your flitterboats fired an atomic-powered pistol at the Orion. One seven-unit gun disabled."

  "One of ours, of the same caliber, will be taken out of action immediately. Further details, sir?"

  "Use your scanner, captain, on Sector Mobile 18 south Orion. Your apology is accepted. The incident will be erased from our records."

  Flynn clicked off. Scott used the scanner, catching a Doone flitterboat in its focus. He used the enlarger.

  The little boat was fleeing from enemy fire, racing back toward the Doone fleet, heading directly toward the Flintlock, Scott saw. Through the transparent shell he saw the bombardier slumped motionless, his head blown half off. The pilot, still gripping an atomic-fire pistol in one hand, was Norman Kane. Blood streaked his boyish, strained face.

  So Starling's outfit did have atomic power, then. Kane must have smuggled the weapon out with him when he left. And, in the excitement of battle, he had used it against the enemy.

  Scott said coldly, "Gun crews starboard. Flitterboat Z-19-4. Blast it."

  Almost immediately a shell burst near the little craft. On the screen Kane looked up, startled by his own side firing upon him. Comprehension showed on his face. He swung the flitterboat off course, zigzagging, trying desperately to dodge the barrage.

  Scott watched, his lips grimly tight. The flitterboat exploded in a rain of spray and debris.

  Automatic court martial.

  After the battle, the Companies would band together and smash Starling's outfit.

  Meantime this was action. Scott returned to his screens, erasing the incident from his mind.

  -

  Very gradually the balance of power was increasing with the Helldivers. Both sides were losing ships, put out of action rather than sunk, and Scott thought more and more often of the monitor Armageddon. She could turn the battle now. But she was still far astern.

  Scott never felt the explosion that wrecked the control room. His senses blacked out without warning.

  He could not have been unconscious for long. When he opened his eyes, he stared up at a shambles. He seemed to be the only man left alive. But it could not have been a direct hit, or he would not have survived either.

  He was lying on his back, pinned down by a heavy crossbeam. But no bones were broken. Blind, incredible luck had helped him there. The brunt of the damage had been borne by the operators. They were dead, Scott saw at a glance.

  He tried to crawl out from under the beam, but that was impossible. In the thunder of battle his voice could not be heard.

  There was a movement across the room, halfway to the door. Cinc Mendez stumbled up and stared around, blinking. Red smeared his plump cheeks.

  He saw Scott and stood, rocking back and forth, staring.

  Then he put his hand on the butt of his pistol.

  Scott could very easily read the other's mind. If the Doone captain died now, the chances were that Mendez could merge with the Doones and assume control. The politico-military balance lay that way.

  If Scott lived, it was probable that he would be elected cinc.

  It was, therefore, decidedly to Mendez's advantage to kill the trapped man.

  A shadow crossed the doorway. Mendez, his back to the newcomer, did not see Commander Bienne halt on the threshold, scowling at the tableau. Scott knew that Bienne understood the situation as well as he himself did. The commander realized that in a very few moments Mendez would draw his gun and fire.

  Scott waited. The cinc's fingers tightened on his gun butt.

  Bienne, grinning crookedly, said, "I thought that shell had finished you, sir. Guess it's hard to kill a Dooneman."

  Mendez took his hand off the gun, instantly regaining his poise. He turned to Bienne.

  "I'm glad you're here, commander. It'll probably take both of us to move that beam."

  "Shall we try, sir?"

  Between the two of them, they managed to shift the weight off Scott's torso. Briefly the latter's eyes met Bienne's. There was still no friendliness in them, but there was a look of wry self-mockery.

  Bienne hadn't saved Scott's life, exactly. It was, rather, a question of being a Dooneman. For Bienne was, first of all, a soldier, and a member of the Free Company.

  Scott tested his limbs; they worked.

  "How long was I out, commander?"

  "Ten minutes, sir. The Armageddon's in sight."

  "Good. Are the Helldivers veering off?"

  Bienne shook his head. "So far they're not suspicious."

  Scott grunted and made his way to the door, the others at his heels. Mendez said, "We'll need another control ship."

  "All right. The Arquebus. Commander, take over here. Cinc Mendez—"

  -

  A flitterboat took them to the Arquebus, which was still in good fighting trim. The monitor Armageddon, Scott saw, was rolling helplessly in the trough of the waves. In accordance with the battle plan, the Doone ships were leading the Helldivers toward the apparently capsized giant. The technicians had done a good job; the false keel looked shockingly convincing.

  Aboard the Arquebus, Scott took over, giving Mendez the auxiliary control for his substrafers. The cinc beamed at Scott over his shoulder.

  "Wait till that monitor opens up, captain."

  "Yeah ... we're in bad shape, though."

  Neither man mentioned the incident that was in both their minds. It was tacitly forgotten—the only thing to do now.

  Guns were still bellowing. The Helldivers were pouring their fire into the Doone formation, and they were winning. Scott scowled at the screens. If he waited too long, it would be just too bad.

  Presently he put a beam on the Armageddon. She was in a beautiful position now, midway between two of the Helldivers' largest battleships.

  "Unmask. Open fire."

  Firing ports opened on the monitor. The sea titan's huge guns snouted into view. Almost simultaneously they blasted, the thunder drowning out the noise of the lighter guns.

  "All Doone ships attack," Scott said. "Plan r-7."

  This was it. This was it!

  The Doones raced into the kill. Blasting, bellowing, shouting, the guns tried to make themselves heard above the roaring of the monitor. They could not succeed, but that savage, invincible onslaught won the battle.

  It was nearly impossible to maneuver a monitor into battle formation, but, once that was accomplished, the only thing that could stop the monster was atomic power.

  But the Helldivers fought on, trying strategic formation. They could not succeed. The big battlewagons could not get out of range of the Armageddon's guns. And that meant—

  Cinc Flynn's face showed on the screen.

  "Capitulation, sir. Cease firing."

  Scott gave orders. The roar of the guns died into humming, incredible silence.

  "You gave us a great battle, cinc."

  "Thanks. So did you. Your strategy with the monitor was excellent."

  So—that was that. Scott felt something go limp inside of him. Flynn's routine words were meaningless; Scott was drained of the vital excitement that had kept him going till now.

  The rest was pure formula.

  -

  Token depth charges would be dropped over Virginia Keep. They would not harm the Dome, but they were the rule. There would be the ransom, paid always by the Keep which backed the losing side. A supply of korium, or its negotiable equivalent. The Doone treasury would be swelled. Part of the money would go into replacements and new keels. The life of the forts would go on.

  Alone at the rail of the Arquebus, heading for Virginia Keep, Scott watched slow darkness change the clouds from pearl to gray, and then to invisibility. He was alone in the night. The wash of waves came up to him softly as the Arquebus rushed to her destination, three hundred miles away.

  Warm yellow lights gleamed from ports behind him, but he did not turn. This, he thought, was like the cloud-wrapped Olympus in Montana Keep, where he had promised Ilene—many things.

  Yet there was a difference. In an Olympus a man was like a god, shut away completely from the living world. Here, in the unbroken dark, there was no sense of alienage. Nothing could be seen—Venus had no moon, and the clouds hid the stars. And the seas are not phosphorescent.

  Beneath these waters stand the Keeps, Scott thought. They hold the future. Such battles as were fought today are fought so that the Keeps may not be destroyed.

  And men will sacrifice. Men have always sacrificed, for a social organization or a military unit. Man must create his own ideal. "If there had been no God, man would have created Him."