noon
The hull of the _ Enterprise _ bulked huge in the guidance-screen of the missile and filled it ; the jagged crater that had obliterated the bottom of Dunnan 's blue crescent blazon spread to fill the whole screen . The screen went milky white as the pickup went off . All the other screens blazed briefly , until their filters went on . Even afterward , they glared like the cloud-veiled sun of Gram at high noon . Finally , when the light-intensity had dropped and the filters went off , there was nothing left of the _ Enterprise _ but an orange haze . Somebody -- Paytrik , Baron Morland , he saw -- was pounding him on the back and screaming inarticulately in his ear . A dozen space-armored officers with planet-perched dragons on their breasts were crowding beside Prince Bentrik in the screen from the _ Victrix _ , whooping like drunken bisonoid-herders on payday night .