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328 Nergal was consumed by personal hatred: "I shall annihilate the son, and let the father bury him; then I shall kill the father, let no one bury him!" he shouted. Employing diplomacy, pointing out the injustice of indiscriminate destruction—and the strategic merits of selective targeting—the words of Ninurta finally swayed Nergal. "He heard the words spoken by Ishum [Ninurta]: the words ap- pealed to him as fine oil." Agreeing to leave alone the seas, to leave Mesopotamia out of the attack, he formulated a modified plan: the destruction will be selective: the tactical aim will be to de- stroy the cities where Nabu might be hiding: the strategic aim will be to deny to Marduk his greatest prize—the Spaceport, "the place from where the Great Ones ascend": From city to city an emissary I will send; The son, seed of his father, shall not escape; His mother shall cease her laughter . . . To the place of the gods, access he shall not have: The place from where the Great Ones ascend I shall upheaval. When Nergal finished presenting this latest plan, involving as it did the destruction of the Spaceport, Ninurta was speechless. But, as other texts assert, Enlil approved the plan when it was brought to his decision; so also, apparently, did Anu. Wasting no more time, Nergal then urged Ninurta that the two of them go at once into ac- tion: Then did the hero Erra go ahead of Ishum, remembering his words; Ishum too went forth, in accordance with the word given, a squeezing in his heart. Their first target was the Spaceport, its command complex hid- den in the "Mount Most Supreme," its landing fields spread in the Ishum to Mount Most Supreme set his course; The Awesome Seven, [weapons] without parallel, wot aut trailed behind him. At the Mount Most Supreme the hero arrived; He raised his hand— the mount was smashed; THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN adjoining great plain: