ommander
of the battleship that further resistance was futile.

This he did with a simple ultimatum to the commander:

"This cruiser is firmly attached to your ship, its acceleration
limitator disconnected. Its drives are of sufficient power to thrust
both ships forward at a much higher degree of acceleration than persons
from one-gravity worlds can endure. You will surrender at once or we
shall be forced to put these two ships into a curve of such short radius
and at an acceleration so great that all of you will be killed."

Then he added, "If you surrender we'll do somewhat better by you than
you did with the humans two hundred years ago--we'll take all of you on
to Athena."

The commander, already sick from an acceleration that would have been
negligible to Ragnarok men, had no choice.

His reply came, choked with acceleration sickness and the greater
sickness of defeat:

"We will surrender."

* * * * *

Narth regained consciousness. He saw Humbolt sitting beside him as
before, with no Gern rescuers crowding into the control room with
shouted commands and drawn blasters.

"Where are they?" he asked. "Where is the battleship?"

"We captured it," he said.

"You captured--a Gern battleship?"

"It wasn't hard," he said. "It would have been easier if only Ragnarok
men had been on the cruiser. We didn't want to accelerate to any higher
gravities than absolutely necessary because of the Gerns on it."

"You did it--you captured the battleship," Narth said, his tone like one
dazed.

He wet his lips, staring, as he contemplated the unpleasant implications
of it.

"You're freak mutants who can capture a battleship. Maybe you will take
Athena and Earth from us. But"--the animation of hatred returned to his
face--"What good will it do you? Did you ever think about that?"

"Yes," he said. "We've thought about it."

"Have you?" Narth leaned forward, his face shining with the malice of
his gloating. "You can never escape the consequences of what you have
done. The Gern Empire has the resources of dozens of worlds. The Empire
will build a fleet of special ships, a force against which your own will
be nothing, and send them to Earth and Athena and Ragnarok. The Empire
will smash you for what you have done and if there are any survivors of
your race left they will cringe before Gerns for a hundred generations
to come.

"Remember that while you're posturing in your little hour of gl