g-suits roved about as individuals, seeking what they might loot.

There were armed and alerted landing-parties around the grid itself,
of course, but the capital city of Dara lay open. Men coming back with
loot found their ships already lifted off to make room for others.
They were pushed into re-embarking-parties of other ships. There were
more and more men to be found on ships where they did not belong, and
more and more not to be found where they did.

By the time half the fleet had been aground, there was no longer any
pretense of holding a ship down until all its crew returned. There
were too many other ships' companies clamoring for their turn to loot.
The rosters of many ships, indeed, bore no particular relationship to
the men actually on board.

There were less than fifteen ships whose to-be-fumigated holds were
still emptied, when the watchful government of Dara broadcast a new
message to the invaders. It requested that the looting stop. No matter
what payment Weald claimed, it had taken payment five times over. Now
was time to stop.

It was amusing. The space admiral of Weald ordered his ships alerted
for action. The message ship, ordering the Darian fleet away from
Weald, had been sent off long since. No other ship could get away now!
The Darians could take their choice: accept the consequences of
surrender, or the fleet would rise to throw down bombs.

Calhoun was asking politely to be taken to the Wealdian admiral when
the trouble began. It wasn't on the ground, at all. Everything was
under splendid control where a landing force occupied the grid and all
the ground immediately about it. The space admiral had headquarters in
the landing-grid office. Reports came in, orders were issued,
admirably crisp salutes were exchanged among sag-suited men.
Everything was in perfect shape there.

But there was panic among the ships in space. Communicators gave off
horrified, panic-stricken yells. There were screamings. Intelligible
communications ceased. Ships plunged crazily this way and that. Some
vanished in overdrive. At least one plunged at full power into a
Darian ocean.

The space admiral found himself in command of fifteen ships only out
of all his former force. The rest of the fleet went through a period
of hysterical madness. In some ships it lasted for minutes only. In
others it went on for half an hour or more. Then they hung overhead,
but did not reply to calls.

Calhoun arrived at the spaceport