constant battle for use and mastery
tormented him? Yes! That was what had made him so miserable. Fool!
It was simply (or merely) a question of knowing which to listen to at a
given moment---exerting supreme effort when called for, and having
enough faith in God, or life, to accept the consequences of what was
beyond human will to affect. Faith and disillusion, professed as
different creeds, were one and the same, either half without the other
like a man trying to stand on one leg.

With that he became calm again, knowing he must save his strength.
Later that night he lit the candle and set it beside the picture of his
wife, and prayed a short, fervent prayer to Whom he did not know. His
own image was no longer important. He vowed to find his wife, however
long it took, and to do what he could in the war, though he detested
violence and a part of his prayer was that it would soon end.

The next day, the second of his confinement, passed without serious
(personal) incident. That night he took one of the lozenges, knowing
he would be unable to sleep without it. For the Morannon system,
code-named Dracus by the Belgians, would be reached the following day,
and they no longer moved in secret. The Alliance, apparently piercing
their detection shields, had detached a fighter-destroyer group to
intercept them. As near as anyone could tell, battle would be joined
somewhere within the system itself.

In the morning he rose, and reported to the bridge, and with a hard
bitter determination that grew out of and suppressed his anxiety,
prepared himself for the fight. Because for all his introspection and
self-doubt, there was another side of him, as yet only half realized.

Not for nothing had Dubcek made him his pupil; and not for nothing was
he second officer to Mandlik. His military and psychological testing
had revealed that whatever other characteristics he might possess, when
cornered and left no option, he responded with a resourcefulness and
tenacity that were almost off the scale. This fact was so striking in
one of his (outwardly) skittish nature, that more than one of the
military leaders who reviewed it (including Dubcek) went back to the
examining psychologist to ask for an explanation.

The psychologist had told them simply, "It's no mistake. In ordinary
circumstances he is much like Hamlet---wavering, indecisive,
introspective to a fault. But when pushed to the final need, somehow
he raises himself