the Kerothi fleet take advantage of
their superior tactical position and tear the Earth fleet to bits. Not
until he saw the remains of the Earth fleet turn tail and run did he
realize that the battle had been won.

The Kerothi fleet consolidated itself. There was no point in pursuing
the fleeting Earth ships; that would only break up the solidity of the
Kerothi deployment. The losers could afford to scatter; the winners
could not. Early in the war, the Kerothi had used that trick against
Earth; the Kerothi had broken and fled, and the Earth fleet had split
up to chase them down. The scattered Earth ships had suddenly found
that they had been led into traps composed of hidden clusters of
Kerothi ships. Naturally, the trick had never worked again for either
side.

"All right," MacMaine said when it was all over, "let's get on to
Houston's World."

The staff men, including Tallis, were already on their feet,
congratulating MacMaine and shaking his hands. Even General Hokotan,
the Headquarters Staff man, who had been transferred temporarily to the
Fleet Force to keep an eye on both MacMaine and Tallis, was
enthusiastically pounding MacMaine's shoulder.

No one aboard was supposed to know that Hokotan was a Headquarters
officer, but MacMaine had spotted the spy rather easily. There was a
difference between the fighters of the Fleet and the politicoes of
Headquarters. The politicoes were no harder, perhaps, nor more
ruthless, than the fighters, but they were of a different breed. Theirs
was the ruthlessness of the bully who steps on those who are weaker
rather than the ruthlessness of the man who kills only to win a battle.
MacMaine had the feeling that the Headquarters Staff preferred to spend
their time browbeating their underlings rather than risk their necks
with someone who could fight back, however weakly.

General Hokotan seemed to have more of the fighting quality than most
HQ men, but he wasn't a Fleet Officer at heart. He couldn't be compared
to Tallis without looking small and mean.

As a matter of cold fact, very few of the officers were in anyway
comparable to Tallis--not even the Fleet men. The more MacMaine learned
of the Kerothi, the more he realized just how lucky he had been that it
had been Tallis, and not some other Kerothi general, who had been
captured by the Earth forces. He was not at all sure that his plan
would have worked at all with any of the other officers he had met.

Tallis, like MacMa