eyeballs
unsquashed back into focus I read it through, then once more, carefully,
from the beginning.

It looked like the one we had been waiting for. There were no witnesses
to the tragedy, but a number of monitor stations had picked up the
discharge static of a large energy weapon being fired. Triangulation had
lead investigators to the spot where they found a freighter, _Ogget's
Dream_, with a hole punched through it as big as a railroad tunnel. The
freighter's cargo of plutonium was gone.

I read _Pepe_ in every line of the message. Since he was flying an
undermanned battleship, he had used it in the most efficient way
possible. If he attempted to negotiate or threaten another ship, the
element of chance would be introduced. So he had simply roared up to the
unsuspecting freighter and blasted her with the monster guns his
battleship packed. All eighteen men aboard had been killed instantly.
The thieves were now murderers.

I was under pressure now to act. And under a greater pressure not to
make any mistakes. Roly-poly Pepe had shown himself to be a ruthless
killer. He knew what he wanted--then reached out and took it. Destroying
anyone who stood in his way. More people would die before this was over,
it was up to me to keep that number as small as possible.

* * * * *

Ideally I should have rushed out the fleet with guns blazing and dragged
him to justice. Very nice, and I wished it could be done that way.
Except where was he? A battleship may be gigantic on some terms of
reference, but in the immensity of the galaxy it is microscopically
infinitesimal. As long as it stayed out of the regular lanes of
commerce, and clear of detector stations and planets, it would never be
found.

Then how _could_ I find it--and having found it, catch it? When the
infernal thing was more than a match for any ship it might meet. That
was my problem. It had kept me awake nights and talking to myself days,
since there was no easy answer.

I had to construct a solution, slowly and carefully. Since I couldn't be
sure where Pepe was going to be next, I had to make him go where I
wanted him to.

There were some things in my favor. The most important was the fact I
had forced him to make his play before he was absolutely ready. It
wasn't chance that he had left the same day I arrived on Cittanuvo. Any
plan as elaborate as his certainly included warning of approaching
danger. The drive on the battle