"Tartov! Call Phoebe and say that there are three ships past Uranus, all en route to Neptune, all moving at approx the same speed. I want ETAs for each of them."
"I hear you, Lew."
The fleet of five ships looked like a small swarm of fireflies. They were only thousands of miles apart; they stayed that close to avoid irritating message delays. The distance would still have hidden them from each other if they had been using chemical fuels or ion jets, but the searing light of the fusion drives showed brighter than any of the surrounding stars.
"Here."
"I'm sure one of them is a honeymoon special. It's got a strong oxygen line in its spectrum."
"Yeah? The Arms are thorough, you've got to give them credit."
Tartov said, "They must be after something big. Something tremendous."
None of the others spoke. Perhaps they were reserving judgment. Behind the swarm, falling further behind with each second, a lone firefly struggled in pursuit.
Something went by like a falling comet, if there were such a thing. "There goes Greenberg," said Anderson, grinning. The blue-white light faded slowly into the background of stars.
"The Golden Circle should be by in a few minutes," he added. "Greenberg's ship is just a touch faster."
Garner didn't answer.
Anderson turned to look at him. "Something bugging you?" he asked kindly.
Garner nodded. "I've been thinking about it for days. I just now realized that there isn't any good answer. It's like trying to keep a teleport in jail."
"What is?"
"Trying to keep either of those birds from picking up the amplifier."
He slapped his chair absently for the cigarette button, caught himself and scowled. "Look. We can't get to it first. We don't know how they plan to find it themselves. Probably they just remember where they put it. We don't even know how big it is! We can't arrest them; at least we can't arrest the ET because he'd just turn us into spare butlers, and we'll have trouble with Greenberg because he's got an armed ship and Masney can use the guns. He may be better than you, son." Garner looked horribly like a Greek tragic mask, but his voice was the voice of a very worried man. "It seems to me that the only thing we can do is shoot on sight."
"You can't do that!" Anderson protested. "You'll kill Greenberg and Masney both!"
"I don't want to kill anyone. Give me another choice!"
"Well, give me a chance to! I haven't even thought about it yet!" He screwed his young face into a smooth semblance of Garner's. "Hey!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Yeah, I've got something. You don't have to shoot on sight. You can wait to find out if what they're looking for is really on Neptune."
"What good will that do?"
"They could have left something on one of the moons, or in orbit. But if it's on Neptune, they can't get at it! Neither of their ships develops more than one gee. Neptune's pull is higher than that. They can't land."
"No good. The ET has a winged ship. But that's good thinking anyway, son;" -
"You bet it is," Anderson said angrily. "How- the hell is he going to get back up?"
Luke Garner looked like he'd seen a vision. After a moment he asked, "Son, have you ever thought of joining the Arms?"
"Why-" Anderson began modestly.
Who are you?
The two stared at one another.
WHO ARE YOU???????
"Lucas Launcelot Garner. Arm."
"Leroy. George Anderson's boy. The astronaut."
I DON'T WANT YOU FOLLOWING ME. The Mind was blasting, angry. Even when merely "thinking aloud," it held Garner and Anderson physically and mentally paralyzed. Then it came to a decision. Anderson reached toward the control panel. His fingernails rapped against plastic. He began fumbling at the catches on the guard panel.
Garner pushed him back with one hand.
It lashed him. Garner felt it stop his heart, and he gasped, horribly. Right now? he wondered. His sight turned red and went out.
He came back to life with a singing in his head. Anderson was looking terribly haggard. He had a spray hypo in his hand. "Thank God," he blurted. "I thought you were gone."
"Heart stopped," Garner wheezed. (Not this time.) "First time it's ever happened. What did you use?"
"Adrenalin in the heart. Are you all right?"
"Sure. Considering."
The young pilot was still pale. "You know what he told me to do? I was going to turn off the fusion shield! They'd have seen it on Earth." He shuddered. "In daylight they'd have seen it! Very lucky thing you stopped me. But how did you know?"
"I knew what he wanted for a result. Never mind. How did you know it was my heart?"
"I felt him do it. Well, we don't have to worry about him until we get to Neptune. He went out of range right after he stopped your heart."
"We'll have to shoot first with that bird."
"It'll be a pleasure," Anderson said furiously.
Kzanol strained to hang onto the enemy minds, but it was no use. Not only was distance against him; the difference in velocities was even more of a barrier. A slight relativistic difference in time rates could make communication impossible, even between two thrints.
He turned his attention back to the cards. The pilot, who was English, called this game Patience. It was well named. Kzanol was learning patience the hard way. The floor of the lounge was littered with scraps of torn plastic; but this one deck had already survived ten lost games. It was the last deck on board.
Growling deep in his throat, like the carnivore he was, Kzanol scraped the cards together and shuffled them. He was learning coordination, too. And he had learned something about himself: he would not let a slave see him cheating at cards. He had cheated once, and the pilot had somehow guessed. He would not cheat again.
Kzanol jumped. Another one! This one was too far to the side to control, but easily dose enough to sense. And yet… the image had a fuzziness that had nothing to do with distance. As if the slave were asleep. But… different.
For half an hour it stayed within reach. In that time Kzanol satisfied himself that there was no other slave on board. He did not think of another thrint. He would have recognized the taste of a thrint command.
At six hundred hours the next morning, Greenberg's ship turned around. Three minutes later the Golden Circle did the same. Anderson found the prints in the scope camera when he woke up: two lights which stretched slowly into bright lines, then contracted with equal deliberation into somewhat brighter points.
The time passed slowly. Garner and Anderson were already deep in a tournament which they played on the viewer screen: a rectangular array of dots to be connected by lines, with victory going to the player who completed the most squares.