e _do_
use 'em on defense here, they'll analyze 'em and have everything worked
out in a day or so. The first thing they'll do is beef up their
planetary defenses to match. That way, we'd blow all their ships out of
space, probably easily enough, but Strett itself will be just as safe as
though it were in God's left-hand hip pocket. So what's the answer?"

"It isn't that simple, Jarve," Sawtelle said. "Let's hear from you,
Kedy."

"Thank you, sir. There is an optimum mass, a point of maximum efficiency
of firepower as balanced against loss of maneuverability, for any craft
designed for attack," Kedy thought, in his most professional manner. "We
assume that the Stretts know that as well as we do. No such limitation
applies to strictly defensive structures, but both the Strett craft and
ours must be designed for attack. We have built and are building many
hundreds of thousands of ships of that type. So, undoubtedly, are the
Stretts. Ship for ship, they will be pretty well matched. Therefore one
part of my strategy will be for two of our ships to engage
simultaneously one of theirs. There is a distinct probability that we
will have enough advantage in speed of control to make that tactic
operable."

"But there's another that we won't," Sawtelle objected. "And maybe they
can build more ships than we can."

"Another point is that they may build, in addition to their big stuff, a
lot of small, ultra-fast ones," Hilton put in. "Suicide jobs--crash and
detonate--simply super-missiles. How sure are you that you can stop such
missiles with ordinary beams?"

"Not at all, sir. Some of them would of course reach and destroy some of
our ships. Which brings up the second part of my strategy. For each one
of the heavies, we are building many small ships of the type you just
called 'super-missiles'."

"Superdreadnoughts versus superdreadnoughts, super-missiles versus
super-missiles." Hilton digested that concept for several minutes. "That
could still wind up as a stalemate, except for what you said about
control. That isn't much to depend on, especially since we won't have
the time-lag advantage you Omans had before. They'll see to that. Also,
I don't like to sacrifice a million Omans, either."

* * * * *

"I haven't explained the newest development yet, sir. There will be no
Omans. Each ship and each missile has a built-in Kedy brain, sir."

"_What?_ That makes it infinitely worse. You Kedys, un