lready. We beamed them for data."

There was silence, with only the very faint humming sound which was
natural in the ship in motion. It would be deadly to the nerves if there
were absolute silence. The skipper grumbled:

"_Requests and advice! Dammit! Mr. Baird, you might wait for orders! But
I was about to ask you to try to make contact through signals. Do so._"

His speaker clicked off. Baird said:

"It's in our laps. Diane. And yet we have to follow orders. Send the
first roll."

Diane had a tape threaded into a transmitter. It began to unroll through
a pickup head. She put on headphones. The tape began to transmit toward
the Plumie. Back at base it had been reasoned that a pattern of
clickings, plainly artificial and plainly stating facts known to both
races, would be the most reasonable way to attempt to open contact. The
tape sent a series of cardinal numbers--one to five. Then an addition
table, from one plus one to five plus five. Then a multiplication table
up to five times five. It was not startlingly intellectual information to
be sent out in tiny clicks ranging up and down the radio spectrum. But it
was orders.

Baird sat with compressed lips. Diane listened for a repetition of any of
the transmitted signals, sent back by the Plumie. The speakers about the
radar room murmured the orders given through all the ship. Radar had to
be informed of all orders and activity, so it could check their results
outside the ship. So Baird heard the orders for the engine room to be
sealed up and the duty-force to get into pressure suits, in case the
_Niccola_ fought and was hulled. Damage-control parties reported
themselves on post, in suits, with equipment ready. Then Taine's voice
snapped: "_Rocket crews, arm even-numbered rockets with chemical
explosive warheads. Leave odd-numbered rockets armed with atomics. Report
back!_"

Diane strained her ears for possible re-transmission of the _Niccola's_
signals, which would indicate the Plumie's willingness to try
conversation. But she suddenly raised her hand and pointed to the
radar-graph instrument. It repeated the positioning of dots which were
stray meteoric matter in the space between worlds in this system. What
had been a spot--the Plumie ship--was now a line of dots. Baird pressed
the button.

"Radar reporting!" he said curtly. "The Plumie ship is heading for us.
I'll have relative velocity in ten seconds."

He heard the skipper swear. Ten seconds later the D