They went to work. Ceta, large, low-gravity planet that it was, had huge virgin areas. Its civilized part could be broken down into thirty-eight major cities, and intervening agricultural and residential areas. There were so many military installations, so many police stations, so many armories, so many garrisons of troops—the details fell apart like the parts of a well-engineered mechanism, and were fitted together again with corresponding units of the military force under Donal’s command. It was a masterpiece of combat preplanning.

“Now,” said Donal, when they were done. “Go out and brief your troops.”

He watched them all leave the conference room—all, with the exception of Ian, whom he had detained; and Lee, for whom he had just rung. When the others were gone, he turned to the two still with him.

“Lee,” he said, “in six hours every man in the fleet will know what we intend to do. I want you to go out and find a man—not one of the officers—who doesn’t think it’ll work. Ian”—he looked over at his uncle— “when Lee finds such a man and reports to you, I want you to see that the man is sent up to see me, right away. Is that clear?”

The other two nodded; and went out, to do each his own job in his own fashion. So it was that a disgruntled Groupman from a particular landing force had a surprising meeting and surprisingly cordial chat with his commander in chief, and that they went out together, half an hour later, arm-in-arm, to the control room of the flagship, where Donal requested, and got, a voice-and-picture hookup to all ships.

“All of you,” Donal said, smiling at them out of their screens after he had been connected, “have by this time been informed about the impending action. It’s the result of a number of years of top-level planning and the best intelligence service we have been lucky enough to have. However, one of you has come to me with the natural fear that we may be biting off more than we can chew. Therefore, since this is an entirely new type of operation and because I believe firmly in the rights of the individual professional soldier not to be mishandled, I’m taking the unprecedented step of putting the coming assault on Ceta to a vote. You will vote as ships, and the results will be forwarded by your captain, as for or against, to the Flagship here. Gentlemen”—Donal reached out an arm and brought the man Lee had discovered into the screen area with him— “I want you to meet Groupman Theiss, who had the courage to stand up like a free man and ask questions.”

Caught unawares, and dazzled by the sudden limelight into which he had been thrust, the Groupman licked his lips and grinned a little foolishly.