unning invisible
with its detector screens up but which had had to drop them for an
instant to look out at the cruiser. Not even the Gerns had ever been
able to devise a polarized detector screen.

He changed the course and speed of the cruiser, creating an increase in
gravity which seemed very slight to him but which caused Narth to slew
heavily in his seat. Narth straightened and he said to him:

"Within a few minutes we'll engage the ship you sent for."

Narth's jaw dropped, then came back up. "So you spied on me?"

"One of our Ragnarok allies did--the little animal that was sitting near
the transmitter. They're our means of communication. We learned that you
had arranged for a ship, en route to Athena, to intercept us and capture
us."

"So you know?" Narth asked. He smiled, an unpleasant twisting of his
mouth. "Do you think that knowing will help you any?"

"We expect it to," he answered.

"It's a battleship," Narth said. "It's three times the size of this
cruiser, the newest and most powerful battleship in the Gern fleet. How
does that sound to you?"

"It sounds good," he said. "We'll make it our flagship."

"Your flagship--your _'flagship'_!" The last trace of pretense left
Narth and he let his full and rankling hatred come through. "You got
this cruiser by trickery and learned how to operate it after a fashion
because of an animal-like reflex abnormality. For forty-two days you
accidental mutants have given orders to your superiors and thought you
were our equals. Now, your fool's paradise is going to end."

The red dot came again, closer, and he once more altered the ship's
course. He had turned on the course analyzer and it clicked as the
battleship's position was correlated with that of its previous
appearance. A short yellow line appeared on the screen to forecast its
course for the immediate future.

"And then?" he asked curiously, turning back to Narth.

"And then we'll take all of you left alive back to your village. The
scenes of what we do to you and your village will be televised to all
Gern-held worlds. It will be a valuable reminder for any who have
forgotten the penalty for resisting Gerns."

The red dot came again. He punched the BATTLE STATIONS button and the
board responded with a row of READY lights.

"All the other Gerns are by now in their acceleration couches," he said.
"Strap yourself in for high acceleration maneuvers--we'll make contact
with the battleship within two minute