ived again.
Subspace reappeared.

"Guess you were right!" the Commissioner said. He idled the engines and
scratched his chin. "But what were they?"

* * * * *

"Everything about it was wrong!" Lyad was saying presently, her face
still white. "Their faces, in particular, were deformed!" She looked at
Trigger. "You saw it?"

Trigger nodded. She suspected she was on the white-faced side herself.
"The captain," she said. "I didn't look at the others. It looked as if
his cheeks and forehead were pushed out of shape!"

There was a short silence. "Well," said the Commissioner, "seems like
that plasmoid has been doing some more experimenting. Question is, how
did it get to them?"

They didn't find any answers to that. Lyad insisted the Aurora had been
given specific orders to avoid the immediate vicinity of the substation.
Its only purpose there was to observe and report on anything that seemed
to be going on in the area. She couldn't imagine her crew disobeying the
orders.

"That mind-level control business," Trigger said finally. "Maybe _it_
found a way of going out to _them_."

She could see by their faces that the idea had occurred, and that they
didn't like it. Well, neither did she.

They pitched a few more ideas around. None of them seemed helpful.

"Unless we just want to hightail it," the Commissioner said finally,
"about the only thing we can do is go back and slug it out with the
frigate first. We can't risk snooping around the station while she's
there and likely to start pounding on our backs any second."

Mantelish looked startled. "Holati," he cautioned, "That's a warship!"

"Mantelish," the Commissioner said, a trifle coldly, "what you've been
riding in isn't a canoe." He glanced at Lyad. "I suppose you'd feel
happier if you weren't locked up in your cabin during the ruckus?"

Lyad gave him a strained smile. "Commissioner," she said, "You're so
right!"

"Then keep your seat," he said. "We'll start prowling."

They prowled. It took an hour to recontact the Aurora, presumably
because the Aurora was also prowling for them. Suddenly the detectors
came alive.

The ship's guns went off at once. Then subspace went careening crazily
past in the screens. Trigger looked at the screens for a few seconds,
gulped and started studying the floor.

Whatever the plasmoid had done to the frigate's crew, they appeared to
have lost none of their ability to give battle. It was a v