Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition, December 1955 — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

IN CLOUDS OF GLORY 17 Demaris wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have welcomed that added fillip. “At your orders, Tjetlyned,” Sath said. Demaris shot a look past him at the Overchief and saw that he was pointedly ignoring both of them. Ugh. He’d been daydreaming at the wrong time. He nodded quickly to Sath, and they slipped out the door together. “Ah, we are the Agency’s offspring, The brood of a sinful old maid. There isn’t one chance that she'd sell us out— Unless things were such that it paid.” (alternate chorus) V Three months later, Sath laid a fresh set of reports on Demaris’ desk. ‘“Here we are, Koil. Top sheet’s the summary.’’ He dropped down on the bench beside the desk and wearily dug a flask out of his belt. ““Have some?” he offered, holding up the flask. Demaris twitched an ear negatively, and took his own brand out of a drawer. ““Can’t stand that gunk you use.” He tilted the flask and touched his tongue to the wild stimulant. Recapping the flask, he yawned broadly. He looked at the report in disgust. “Same thing?” Sath nodded. “Yep. In the past fifteen days, our demolition teams have immobilized such-and-such a tonnage of Geneiid naval vessels. Our infil- trators have immobilized this-and-that additional tonnage by mis-routing supplies, disrupting communications, altering fleet orders, et cetera, We can | truthfully report that our organization has been doing an excellent job, and that we are performing far above the expectations set down by Staff.” Demaris grimaced. ““And how far behind schedule is the push against Farla?”’ Sath coughed. “‘Well, if you plotted the curve of Staff’s failure against our curve of success, they’d be almost superimposed.” Demaris shook his head. “Still the same trouble?” “Yep. Seems like Genis has just as good an intelligence service as we do. Tit for tat, right down the line.” Demaris clicked his fingertips against the surface of his desk. The situation stank. For every boat that shipped a team of saboteurs into Genis, a Geneiid boat dropped its cargo down on Marak’s planets. Like two giants stabbing pins through each other’s ganglia, Marak and Genis were immobilizing each other. War in space—war in terms of planetary englobements, massive landings, and blockades—was impossible. The problem of supply and reinforcement became insurmountable over interstellar distances. As the attacker’s supply lines lengthened, the defender’s shortened, until eventually the attrition on the attacker became too great. You could only stage a mass attack on a COMME IOOKS. Comm