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Under the Autarchy, Lingane increased its wealth and strength. Even the Tyra
Other planets of the Nebular Kingdoms were outright vassals of the Tyra
The Autarch was not fooled by the situation. The chauvinistic of the planet might allow themselves the luxury of considering themselves free, but the Autarch knew that the Tyra
And now it might be moving in quickly for the final, long-delayed bear hug. Certainly, he had given it the opportunity it was waiting for. The organization he had built up, ineffectual though it was, was sufficient grounds for punitive action of any type the Tyra
Was the cruiser the first reaching out for the final bear hug?
The Autarch said, "Has a guard been placed on that ship?"
"I said they were watched. Two of our freighters"-he smiled one-sidedly, "keep in massometer range."
"Well, what do you make of it?"
"I don't know. The only Gillbret I know whose name by itself would mean anything is Gillbret oth Hinriad of Rhodia. Have you had dealings with him?"
The Autarch said, "I saw him on my last visit to Rhodia."
"You told him nothing, of course."
"Of course."
Rizzett's eyes narrowed. "I thought there might have been a certain lack of caution on your part; that the Tyra
"I doubt it. It comes at a queer time, this business. I have been away from Lingane for a year or more. I arrived last week and I shall leave in a matter of days again. A message such as this reaches me just when I am in a position to be reached."
"You don't think it is a coincidence?"
"I don't believe in coincidence. And there is one way in which all this would not be coincidence. I will therefore visit that ship. Alone."
"Impossible, sir." Rizzett was startled. He had a small, uneven scar just above his right temple and it suddenly showed red.
"You forbid me?" asked the Autarch dryly.
And he was Autarch, after all, since Rizzett's face fell, and he said, "As you please, sir."
Aboard the Remorseless, the wait was proving increasingly unpleasant. For two days they hadn't budged from their orbit.
Gillbret watched the controls with relentless concentration. His voice had an edge to it. "Wouldn't you say they were moving?"
Biron looked up briefly. He was shaving, and handling the Tyra
"No," he said, "they're not moving. Why should they? They're watching us, and they'll keep on watching us."
He concentrated upon the difficult area of the upper lip, and frowned impatiently as he felt the slightly sour taste of the spray upon his tongue. A Tyra
However, Biron felt queasy about it. There was the well-known legend, or story, or fact (whatever it was), about the incidence of face cancer being higher among the Tyra
Biron was surveying his face in the mirror, wondering how he would look in sideburns down to the angle of the jaw, when Artemisia said from the doorway, "I thought you were going to sleep."
"I did," he said. "Then I woke up." He looked up at her and smiled.
She patted his cheek, then stroked it gently with her fingers. "It's smooth. You look about eighteen."
He carried her hand to his lips. "Don't let that fool you," he said.,
She said, "They're still watching?"
"Still watching. Isn't it a
"I don't find this interlude dull."
"You're talking about other aspects of it now, Arta."
She said, "Why don't we cross them up and land on Lingane?"
"We've thought of it. I don't think we're ready for that kind of risk. We can afford to wait till the water supply gets a bit lower."
Gillbret said loudly, "I tell you they are moving."
Biron crossed over to the control panel and considered the massometer readings. He looked at Gillbret and said, "You may be right."
He pecked away at the calculator for a moment or two and stared at its dials.
"No, the two ships haven't moved relative to us, Gillbret. What's changed the massometer is that a third ship has joined them. As near as I can tell, it's five thousand miles off, about 46 degrees? and 192 degrees f from the ship-planet line, if I've got the clockwise and counterclockwise conventions straight. If ' I haven't, the figures are, respectively, 314 and 168 degrees."
He paused to take another reading. "I think they're approaching. It's a small ship. Do you think you can get in touch with them, Gillbret?"
"I can try," said Gillbret.
"All right. No vision. Let's leave it at sound, till we get some notion of what's coming."
It was amazing to watch Gillbret at the controls of the etheric radio. He was obviously the possessor of a native talent. Contacting an isolated point in space with a tight radio beam remains, after all, a task in which the ship's control-panel information can participate only slightly. He had a notion of the distance of the ship which might be off by a hundred miles plus or minus. He had two angles, either or both of which might easily be wrong by five or six degrees in any direction.
This left a volume of about ten million cubic miles within which the ship might be. The rest was left to the human operator, and a radio beam which was a probing finger not half a mile in cross section at the widest point of its receivable range. It was said that a skilled operator could tell by the feel of the controls how closely the beam missed the target. Scientifically, that theory was nonsense, of course, but it often seemed that no other explanation was possible.
In less than ten minutes the activity gauge of the radio was jumping and the Remorseless was both sending and receiving.
In another ten minutes Biron was able to lean back and say, "They're going to send a man aboard."
"Ought we to let them?" asked Artemisia.
"Why not? One man? We're armed."
"But if we let their ship get too close?"
"We're a Tyra
Artemisia said, "Do you know how to use the Tyra
Biron hated to turn the admiration off, but he said, "Unfortunately, I don't. At least, not yet. But then, the Linganian ship won't know that, you see."