oppler measurement
became possible. It said the Plumie plunged toward the _Niccola_ at miles
per second. In half a minute it was tens of miles per second. There was
no re-transmission of signals. The Plumie ship had found itself
discovered. Apparently it considered itself attacked. It flung itself
into a headlong dash for the _Niccola_.

* * * * *

Time passed--interminable time. The sun flared and flamed and writhed in
emptiness. The great gas-giant planet rolled through space in splendid
state, its moonlets spinning gracefully about its bulk. The
oxygen-atmosphere planet to sunward was visible only as a crescent, but
the mottlings on its lighted part changed as it revolved--seas and
islands and continents receiving the sunlight as it turned. Meteor
swarms, so dense in appearance on a radar screen, yet so tenuous in
reality, floated in their appointed orbits with a seeming vast leisure.

The feel of slowness was actually the result of distance. Men have always
acted upon things close by. Battles have always been fought within
eye-range, anyhow. But it was actually 06 hours 35 minutes ship time
before the two spacecraft sighted each other--more than two hours after
they plunged toward a rendezvous.

The Plumie ship was a bright golden dot, at first. It decelerated
swiftly. In minutes it was a rounded, end-on disk. Then it swerved
lightly and presented an elliptical broadside to the _Niccola_. The
_Niccola_ was in full deceleration too, by then. The two ships came very
nearly to a stop with relation to each other when they were hardly twenty
miles apart--which meant great daring on both sides.

Baird heard the skipper grumbling:

"_Damned cocky!_" He roared suddenly: "_Mr. Baird! How've you made out in
communicating with them?_"

"Not at all, sir," said Baird grimly. "They don't reply."

He knew from Diane's expression that there was no sound in the headphones
except the frying noise all main-sequence stars give out, and the
infrequent thumping noises that come from gas-giant planets' lower
atmospheres, and the Jansky-radiation hiss which comes from everywhere.

The skipper swore. The Plumie ship lay broadside to, less than a score of
miles away. It shone in the sunlight. It acted with extraordinary
confidence. It was as if it dared the _Niccola_ to open fire.

Taine's voice came out of a speaker, harsh and angry:

"_Even-numbered tubes prepare to fire on command._"

Nothing h