e sending an information-beam at something we'd classed as a burned-out
comet. Pulse going out now, sir."

Diane had the distant-information transmitter aimed at what she'd said
might be a dead comet. Baird pressed the button. An extraordinary complex
of information-seeking frequencies and forms sprang into being and leaped
across emptiness. There were microwaves of strictly standard amplitude,
for measurement-standards. There were frequencies of other values, which
would be selectively absorbed by this material and that. There were
laterally and circularly polarized beams. When they bounced back, they
would bring a surprising amount of information.

They returned. They did bring back news. The thing that had registered as
a larger lump in a meteor-swarm was not a meteor at all. It returned four
different frequencies with a relative-intensity pattern which said that
they'd been reflected by bronze--probably silicon bronze. The polarized
beams came back depolarized, of course, but with phase-changes which said
the reflector had a rounded, regular form. There was a smooth hull of
silicon bronze out yonder. There was other data.

"It will be a Plumie ship, sir," said Baird very steadily. "At a guess,
they picked up our mapping beam and shot a single pulse at us to find out
who and what we were. For another guess, by now they've picked up and
analyzed our information-beam and know what we've found out about them."

The skipper scowled.

"_How many of them?_" he demanded. "_Have we run into a fleet?_"

"I'll check, sir," said Baird. "We picked up no tuned radiation from
outer space, sir, but it could be that they picked us up when we came out
of overdrive and stopped all their transmissions until they had us in a
trap."

"_Find out how many there are!_" barked the skipper. "_Make it quick!
Report additional data instantly!_"

His screen clicked off. Diane, more than a little pale, worked swiftly to
plug the radar-room equipment into a highly specialized pattern. The
_Niccola_ was very well equipped, radar-wise. She'd been a type G8 Survey
ship, and on her last stay in port she'd been rebuilt especially to hunt
for and make contact with Plumies. Since the discovery of their
existence, that was the most urgent business of the Space Survey. It
might well be the most important business of the human race--on which its
survival or destruction would depend. Other remodeled ships had gone out
before the _Niccola_, and others