oxima. Maybe even Sirius. It
wouldn't matter where, since we wouldn't intend to come back. But we
can't make it with our small fuel reserve. If we can shake the ships
behind us, we might be able to hide until we can steal the necessary
fuel and food."

"What'll we do with Doc?" asked Jordan.

"We'd have to raid an unguarded outpost, of course. Probably a small
mining asteroid. We can leave him there."

"Yeah," said Jordan. "A good idea, _if_ we can run away from our
personal escort of bloodhounds. Offhand, that doesn't seem very
likely. They didn't come any closer when I told them we had Doc with
us, but they didn't drop back--"

He stopped and raised his eyes to the telecom. He blinked, not
believing what he saw.

"They're gone!" His voice broke with excitement.

Almost instantly Docchi was beside him. "No," he corrected. "They're
still following, but they're very far behind." Even as he looked, the
pursuing ships visibly lost ground.

"What's our relative speed?" asked Jordon. He looked at the dials
himself, frowned, tapped them as if the needles had gone crazy.

"What did you do to the rockets?" demanded Docchi.

"Nothing! There wasn't a thing I _could_ do. We were already running
at top speed."

"We're above it. Way above it. How?"

There was nothing to explain their astonishing velocity. Cameron,
Anti, and Jordan were in the control compartment. Nona still sat
huddled up, hands pressed tight against her head. There was no
explanation at all, yet power was pouring into the gravital unit, as a
long unused, actually useless dial was indicating.

"The gravital drive is working," Docchi blankly pointed out.

"Nonsense," said Anti. "I don't feel any weight."

"You don't," answered Docchi. "You won't. The gravital unit was
originally installed to drive the ship. When that proved
unsatisfactory, it was converted. The difference is slight but
important. An undirected general field produces weight effects inside
the ship. That's for passenger comfort. A directed field, outside the
ship, will drive it. You can have one or the other, not both."

"But I didn't turn on the gravital drive," said Jordan in flat
bewilderment. "I couldn't if I wanted to. It's disconnected."

"I would agree with you, except for one thing. It's working." Docchi
stared at Nona, whose eyes were closed. "Get her attention," he said.

It was Jordan who gently touched her shoulder. She opened her eyes. On
the instrument board, the nee