He"d rushed it a little. I hit him across the face with the back of my hand. No one jumped to his a.s.sistance. I drew my 2mm. "If you ever lay a hand on your Commanding Officer again, I"ll burn you where you stand, Kramer."

Then a voice came from behind me. "You"re not killing anybody without a trial, Captain." Joyce stood there with two of the crew chiefs, needler in hand. Fine and Taylor were not in sight.

I pushed Kramer out of my way and walked up to Joyce.

"Hand me that weapon, Junior, b.u.t.t first," I said. I looked him in the eye with all the glare I had. He stepped back a pace.

"Why don"t you jump him," he called to the crowd.

The wall annunciator hummed and spoke.

"Captain Greylorn, please report to the bridge. Unidentified body on main scope."

Every man stopped in his tracks, listening. The annunciator continued.

"Looks like it"s decelerating, Captain."

I holstered my pistol, pushed past Joyce, and trotted for the lift. The mob behind me broke up, talking, as men under long habit ran for action stations.

Clay was operating calmly under pressure. He sat at the main screen, and studied the blip, making tiny crayon marks.

"She"s too far out for a reliable scanner track, Captain," he said, "but I"m pretty sure she"s braking."

If that were true, this might be the break we"d been living for. Only manned or controlled bodies decelerated in deep s.p.a.ce.

"How did you spot it, Clay?" I asked. Picking up a tiny ma.s.s like this was a delicate job, even when you knew its coordinates.

"Just happened to catch my eye, Captain," he said. "I always make a general check every watch of the whole forward quadrant. I noticed a blip where I didn"t remember seeing one before."

"You have quite an eye, Clay," I said. "How about getting this object in the beam."

"We"re trying now, Captain," he said. "That"s a mighty small field, though."

Joyce called from the radar board, "I think I"m getting an echo at 15,000, sir. It"s pretty weak."

Miller, quiet and meticulous, delicately tuned the beam control. "Give me your fix, Joyce," he said. "I can"t find it."

Joyce called out his figures, in seconds of arc to three places.

"You"re right on it, Joyce," Miller called a minute later. "I got it.

Now pray it don"t get away when I boost it."

Clay stepped over behind Miller. "Take it a few mags at a time," he said calmly.

I watched Miller"s screen. A tiny point near the center of the screen swelled to a spec, and jumped nearly off the screen to the left. Miller centered it again, and switched to a higher power. This time it jumped less, and resolved into two tiny dots.

Step by step the magnification was increased as ring after ring of the lens antenna was thrown into play. Each time the centering operation was more delicate. The image grew until it filled a quarter of the screen.

We stared at it in fascination.

It showed up in stark silhouette, in the electronic "light" of the radar scope. Two perfect discs, joined by a fine filament. As we watched, their relative positions slowly shifted, one moving across, half occluding the other.

As the image drifted, Miller worked with infinite care at his console to hold it on center, in sharp focus.

"Wish you"d give me an orbit on this thing, Joyce," he said, "so I could lock onto it."

"It ain"t got no orbit, man," Joyce said. "I"m trackin" it, but I don"t understand it. That rock is on a closing curve with us, and slowin" down fast."

"What"s the velocity, Joyce?" I asked.

"Averagin" about 1,000 relative, Captain, but slowin" fast."

"All right, we"ll hold our course," I said.

I keyed for a general announcement.

"This is the Captain," I said. "General Quarters. Man action stations and prepare for possible contact within one hour."

"Missile Section. Arm No. 1 Battery and stand by."

Then I added, "We don"t know what we"ve got here, but it"s not a natural body. Could be anything from a torpedo on up."

I went back to the Beam screen. The image was clear, but without detail.

The two discs slowly drew apart, then closed again.

"I"d guess that movement is due to rotation of two spheres around a common center," Clay said.

"I agree with you," I said. "Try to get me a reading on the ma.s.s of the object."

I wondered whether Kramer had been locked up as I had ordered, but at this moment it seemed unimportant. If this was, as I hoped, a contact with our colony, all our troubles were over.

The object (I hesitated to call it a ship) approached steadily, still decelerating. Now Clay picked it up on the televideo, as it paralleled our course forty-five hundred miles out.

"Captain, it"s my guess the body will match speeds with us at about 200 miles, at his present rate of deceleration," Clay said.

"Hold everything you"ve got on him, and watch closely for anything that might be a missile," I said.

Clay worked steadily over his chart table. Finally he turned to me.

"Captain, I get a figure of over a hundred million tons ma.s.s; and calibrating the scope images gives us a length of nearly two miles."

I let that sink in. I had a strong and very empty feeling that this ship, if ship it were, was not an envoy from any human colony.

The annunciator hummed and spoke. "Captain, I"m getting a very short wave transmission from a point out on the starboard bow. Does that sound like your torpedo?" It was Mannion.

"That"s it, Mannion," I said. "Can you make anything of it?"

"No, sir," he answered. "I"m taping it, so I can go to work on it."