“The posthypnotic command will be such that you’ll remember about this oscillator when conditions seem right for using it. Not before. Of course, the human mind is a damned queer thing; it twists and turns and bites its own tail. In order to make an opportunity to strike this blow, your subconscious may lead you down strange paths—may even have you seriously contemplating treason, if treason seems the only way of getting access to what you can wreck. Don’t let that bother you afterward, gentlemen. Your superiors will know what happened.

“Nevertheless, the experience may be painful. And posthypnosis is, at best humiliating to a free man. So this aspect of the program is strictly volunteer. Does anybody want to go for broke?”

* * *

The door flung open. The guards burst in. Diaz was already behind the desk, next to Rostock. He yanked out the general’s sidearm and fired at the soldiers. Free-fall recoil sent him back against the computer panel. He braced himself, fired again, and used his left elbow to smash the nearest meter face.

Rostock clawed at the wires in his head. For a moment Diaz guessed what it must be like to have random oscillations in your brain, amplified by an electronic engine that was part of you. He laid the pistol to the screaming man’s temple and fired once more.

Now to get out! He shoved hard, arrowing past the sentries, who rolled through the air in a crimson galaxy of blood globules. Confusion boiled in the corridor beyond. Someone snatched at him. He knocked the fellow aside and dove along a tubeway. Somewhere hereabouts should be a scooter locker—there, and nobody around!

He didn’t have time to get on a spacesuit, even if a Unasian one would have fitted, but he slipped an air dome over the scooter. That, with the heater unit and oxy reclaim, would serve. He didn’t want to get off anywhere en route; not before he’d steered the machine through an American hatch.

With luck, he’d do that. Their command computer gone, the enemy were going to get smeared. American ships would close in as the slaughter progressed. Eventually one should come within range of the scooter’s little radio.

He set the minilock controls, mounted the saddle, dogged the air dome, and waited for ejection. It came none too soon. Three soldiers had just appeared down the passageway. Diaz applied full thrust and jetted away from the Ho. Its blackness was soon lost among the star clouds.

Battle commenced. The first Unasian ship to be destroyed must have been less than fifty miles distant. Luckily, Diaz was facing the other way when the missile exploded.

Ochlan

Oh, would the stars might mourn for this our comrade,
Weep tears of light across a riven sky,
Or that the rain which falls upon his homeland
Were bidding him a long last goodbye,
Or at the least, a blossom drop to kiss him
From off a tree where springtime breezes blow;
For then we’d not be all alone in grieving.
The world would sorrow too, the world that he loved so.

But silence reigns among the suns and planets.
The leaves are dumb, the weather’s deaf and blind.
We’ve only us to keen for this our comrade
And know that he was bright and strong and kind.
Ochone, ochone! He’s gone like any sunrise.
Ochone, ochone! He laughed while he was here.
Ochone, ochone! He is no more forever.
What’s left for us lies still, yet still is very dear.