aying quietly.

"Hey, skipper!" There was a sudden urgency in Cain's voice, and the
equally sudden racket of an MPD alarm going off. Cain was gesturing at
the scanner, stubby finger tracing a slewing pip of light. The alarm
stopped, and Judith's cool voice was relaying information. "About a
thousand miles," she was saying, "mass, approximately three hundred
tons. Speed--"

* * * * *

But Mason wasn't listening. He was watching the pip of light as Cain
got the scanner's directional going, tracked it. Suddenly there were
others coming as though to meet it, and it swerved violently,
obviously in flight. And now there were more yet, this time from the
starboard quadrant of the screen.

"Radiation reading, Sergeant!" Mason clipped out.

While the two men watched, Judith read back the cryptic information
interpolated by the ship's mass-proximity detector.

"That's not all engine junk!" Cain exclaimed as she finished.

"We don't know what drive they've got," Mason answered. "Could be
anything--"

"Nuts! You wouldn't get that much from an old-fashioned ion-blast,
skipper! That's a shooting war, that's what it is!" There was a
glitter in Cain's narrowed brown eyes; a new edge on his heavy voice.
"Which side do we take, boss-man?"

"No side at all," Mason said, hardly moving his lips. "We're getting
the hell out of here."

"Look, Lance. We've got a crew of ten--we've got a couple of m-guns
aboard because we're a Scout. No telling how one of those outfits may
show their gratitude if we pitch in, help their side out. That's what
we're out here for, isn't it? Dig up new stuff for the double-domes to
sink their slide-rules into? Think of the bonus, skipper! Hell, this
is made to order--"

Mason turned a quick glance to the girl, but her face told him
nothing. It never did when things like this came up between himself
and Cain. And it was something he knew he had no right to expect. But
he was tired ... too damn much Space, and there was nothing else he
knew how to do.

But this time Cain had a point. Aliens--extra-galactic, even if almost
neighbors--and his help one way or the other could mean an engraved
invitation, a key to the city.

He turned back to the screen, watched as the careening pips massed,
mixed, whirled in an insensate jumble. He didn't want any more
mistakes. They'd ground him for good, tell him he'd had his limit of
Space, and park him on one of the rest-planets with a