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“And you think there is fighting in progress now?” I asked. “How did the word come?”

“By phone or radio, I presume,” said Artur. “We are in communication with the frontier by both methods, and the signal of the lights has been arranged for generations. In the day, all lights were to flash on three times; at night, they were to be darkened three times.”

* * * * *

So they had telephones and radios! It was most amazing, but my questions could wait. They would have to wait. Correy was shuffling his feet with anxiety for orders to start action.

“All right, Mr. Correy,” I said. “Close the ports and ascend to a height that will enable you to navigate visually. You are sufficiently familiar with the country to understand our objective?”

“Yes, sir! Studied it coming down. It’s that neck of land that separates the two continents.” He picked up the microphone, and started punching buttons and snapping orders. In twenty seconds we were rushing, at maximum atmospheric speed, toward the scene of what, Artur had told us, was already a battle.

Artur proved to be correct. As we settled down over the narrow neck of land, we could see the two forces locked in frenzied combat; the Libars fighting with fine military precision, in regular companies, but outnumbered at least five to one by the mob-like masses 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!”

* * * * *