s of brown Neens.

From the north and from the south slim, long vehicles that moved with
uncanny swiftness were rushing up reserve forces for both sides. There
were far more monocars serving the Libars, but each car brought but a
pitifully few men. And every car shot back loaded with wounded.

"I thought you said your people weren't fighters, Artur?" I said.
"They're fighting now, like trained soldiers."

"Surely. They are well trained, but they have no fighting spirit, like
the enemy. Their training, it is no more than a form of amusement, a
recreation, the following of custom. He taught it, and my people drill,
knowing not for what they train. See! Their beautiful ranks crumple and
go down before the formless rush of the Neens!"

"The disintegrator beams, sir?" asked Correy insidiously.

"No. That would be needless slaughter. Those brown hordes are witless
savages. An atomic bomb, Mr. Correy. Perhaps two of them, one on either
flank of the enemy. Will you give the order?"

* * * * *

Correy rapped out the order, and the ship darted to the desired
position for the first bomb--darted so violently that Artur was almost
thrown off his feet.

"Watch!" I said, motioning to Artur to share a port with me.

The bomb fled downward, a swift black speck. It struck perhaps a half
mile to the west (to adopt Earth measures and directions) of the
enemy's flank.

As it struck, a circle of white shot out from the point of impact, a
circle that barely touched that seething west flank. The circle paled
to gray, and settled to earth. Where there had been green, rank growth,
there was now no more than a dirty red crater, and the whole west flank
of the enemy was fleeing wildly.

I said the whole west flank; that was not true. There were some that
did not flee: that would never move again. But there was not one
hundredth part of the number that would not have dissolved into dust
with one sweep of the disintegrator ray through that pack of striving
humanity.

"The other flank, Mr. Correy," I said quietly. "And just a shade
further away from the enemy. A little object lesson, as it were!"

* * * * *

The battle was at a momentary standstill. The Neens and the Libars
seemed, for the moment, to forget the issue; every face was turned
upward. Even the faces of the runners who fled from a disaster they did
not understand.

"I think one more will b