"_I've been discussing tactics with the high command_," said the king's voice. "_There's some dispute. The classic tactic is to try for englobement._"
"I want to point out, Majesty," Bors interrupted urgently, "that when we cross the north pole again, we're apt to detect the fleet signalling frantically to itself, sorting itself out, trying to get into some sort of order. It'll be stirred up as if with a spoon. But if we come around the planet's pole--and they don't expect us to be out here waiting for them--we'll be in combat-ready formation. We may be able to tear into them as an organized unit before they can begin to co-operate with each other."
A longer pause. Then King Humphrey said grimly;
"_There is one weak point in your proposal, Bors. Only one. It is that Talents, Incorporated may be wrong about the time of breakout. The more I think, the less I believe in what they have done, or even what I saw! But we'll be prepared, however unlikely your idea. We'll be ready._"
He clicked off. Only minutes later, the combat-alert order came through. In the next ten minutes, Bors's ship hummed for five, was quiet for three, and then, two minutes early, all inner compartment doors closed quietly and there was that muffled stillness which meant that everybody was ready for anything that might happen.
In the control room, Bors watched out of a direct-vision port, giving occasional glances to the screens. There were flecks of light from innumerable stars. Then the shining cloud-bank of the gas-giant planet went black. Screens showed all of the fleet--each blip with a nimbus about it which identified it as a friend, not a foe. There was the blip of the leading ship, the "point" of the formation. There were the flanking ships and all the martial array of the fleet.
Then the screens sparkled with seemingly hundreds of blips which seemed to swirl and spin and whirl again in total and disordered confusion.
Gongs clanged. A voice said, "_Co-o-ntact! Enemy fleet ahead. Wide dispersion. They're milling about like gnats on a sunny day!_"
A curt and authoritative and well-recognized voice snapped, "_All ships keep formation on flagship. Course coordinates...._" The voice gave them. "_There's a clump of enemy ships beginning to organize! We hit them!_"
