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the shield of the northern fleet, it was not improbable that the ships of the southern fleet were proceeding unimpeded between the pylons. The chain had held long enough, however, to permit us to draw southward along the chain and group. Too, of course, it held, still, protecting our left flank, in our immediate area.
    "We have little hope," said a man.
    "They are forming the wedge," said another.
    "Where are the ships of Callisthenes?" asked someone.
    "'They will be here," said another man.
    "Captain," said one of the officers to Callimachus.
    "Yes," said he.
    "Shall I order that the ships be chained together?"
    These signals could be conveyed by flags and horns.
    "No," said Callimachus.
    "How else can we withstand the weight of such a wedge?" inquired the officer.
    "We will not impair our mobility," said Callimachus. "We will not render our rams and shearing blades useless."
    "We must be a floating fortress of wood," said the officer. "At such a citadel the wedge must pound in vain."
    "The ships of our interior line would be prevented from engaging," said Callimachus. "We would be then nothing but a tethered, placid target, one impossible to miss. If our flank were turned, too, we could no longer protect ourselves. Only our undefended strakes could be presented to the rams of the enemy. In an Ahn your floating fortress of wood could be a wreckage, awash, of timbers and chains."
    "Then let us withdraw," said the officer.
    "It is too late for that," said Callimachus.
    The officer, white-faced, looked over the rail of the stem castle. "The fleet is moving," he said.
    "Yes," said Callimachus.
    "What can we do!" cried the officer.
    "We must hold the line until the arrival of Callisthenes," said Callimachus.
    "We can never withstand the strike of the wedge," said the officer.
    "Here are my orders," said Callimachus.
    It was a galley, heavy class, fit for the open sea. It was the point of the wedge. I had never seen a galley move with such speed. There were two men to each oar. Our bow was aligned, as though to take its ram on the ram shield. The strike, should it occur, I feared would snap our keel.
    To our port side, gunnels almost touching, lay the Mica, our sister ship, from Victoria.
    I saw, some hundred yards away, on the stem castle of the

speeding galley, her captain move his arm. Almost instantaneously the galley, responsive at that speed to the slightest rudder pressure, veered a point to her starboard. It was her intention not to be stopped at the Tina but to shatter between us and the Mira, opening the line. At her stern quarters, like running, heeling sleen, were two other galleys, to exploit the opening the point must make. Fanning out, too, behind the supporting galleys, were others. And, in the wake of the first galley, plowed several others. Our line, it seemed, must be cut. Our communications, it seemed, must be disrupted Enemies would be among us. Flanks to be defended would be multiplied. We would be divided, handicapped in our attempts to reinforce and support one another. Divided, hunted, we could be herded, and surrounded. We might then make good sport for the pirates. The Voskjard had been held at the chain in the south. I did not think that this would have pleased him. I did not expect that prisoners would be taken.
    "Now!" cried Callimachus.
    There are three poles which, customarily, with Gorean ships are used in casting off, in thrusting away from the wharves. There were, of course, three such poles on the Tina and on the Mira. Our oars were inboard.
    Suddenly, as the enemy galley veered to knife between us, and the Mira men with poles, and, too, with oars, on our ship, and on the Mira, thrust the ships apart. There was a shattering and a scraping but the enemy galley, which had thought with force to press us apart, meeting little resistance was, by her momentum, almost immediately astern of us. Almost simultaneously other men, on the Tina and Mira, with ropes and grappling irons, drew the ships more