Rod took a moment to answer Sally's call. "Make it fast, Sally. If you please. We're under battle conditions."

"Yes, Rod, I know. May I come to the bridge?"

"Afraid not. All seats occupied."

"I'm not surprised. Rod, I just wanted to remind you of something, don't expect them to be simple."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Just because they don't use Alderson Drive, you'll expect them to be primitive. Don't. And even if they were primitive, primitive doesn't mean simple. Their techniques and ways of thought may be very complex."

"I'll keep it in mind. Anything else? OK, hang on, Sally. Whitbread, when you've got no other duties, let Miss Fowler know what's going on," He closed the intercom from his mind and looked at the stern screen even as Staley shouted.

The intruder's light sail was rippling. Reflected light ran across it in great, ponderous, wavy lines. Rod blinked but it didn't help; it is very difficult to see the shape of a distorted mirror. "That could be our signal," Rod said. "They're using the mirror to flash-"

The glare became blinding, and all the screens on that side went dead.

The forward scanners were operative and recording. They showed a wide white disc, the star New Caledonia, very close, and approaching very fast, 6 percent of the velocity of light; and they showed it with most of the light filtered away.

For a moment they also showed several odd black silhouettes against that white background. Nobody noticed, in that terrible moment when MacArthur was burned blind; and in the next moment the images were gone.

Kevin Renner spoke into the stunned silence: "They didn't have to shout," he complained.

"Thank you, Mr. Renner," Rod said icily. "Have you other, perhaps more concrete suggestions?"

MacArthur was moving in erratic jolts, but the light sail followed her perfectly. "Yes, sir," Renner said. "We'd do well to leave focus of that mirror."

"Damage control, Captain," Cargill reported from his station aft. "We're getting a lot of energy into the Field. Too much and damned fast, with none of it going anywhere. If it were concentrated it would burn holes in us, but the way it washes across, we can hold maybe ten minutes."

"Captain, I'll steer around behind the sail," Renner said. "At least we've got sun-side scanners, and I can remember where the pod was-"

"Never mind that. Take us through the sail," Rod ordered.

"But we don't know-"

"That was an order, Mr. Renner. And you're in a Navy ship."

"Aye aye, sir." - -

The Field was brick red and growing brighter; but red wasn't dangerous. Not for a while.

As Renner worked the ship, Rod said casually, "You may be assuming the aliens are using unreasonably strong materials. Are you?"

"It's a possibility, sir." MacArthur jolted; she was committed now. Renner seemed to be bracing himself for a shock.

"But the stronger the materials are, Mr. Renner, the thinner they will spread them, so as to pick up the maximum amount of sunlight for the weight. If they have very strong thread they will weave it thin to get more square kilometers per kilo, right? Even if meteors later get a few square km of sail, well, they still made a profit, didn't they? So they'll make it just strong enough."

"Yes, sir," Renner sang. He was driving at four gees, keeping Cal directly astern; he was grinning like a thief, and he was no longer bracing himself for the crash.

Well, I convinced him, Rod thought; and braced himself for the crash.

The Langston Field was yellow with heat.

Then, suddenly, the sunward scanners showed black except for the green-hot edge of MacArthur's own Field, and a ragged blazing silhouette of white where MacArthur had ripped through the intruder's sail.

"Hell, we never felt it!" Rod laughed. "Mr. Renner. How long before we impact the sun?"

"Forty-five minutes, sir. Unless we do something about it."

"First things first, Mr. Renner. You keep us matched up with the sail, and right here." Rod activated another circuit to reach the Gunnery Officer. "Crawford! Put some light on that sail and see if you can find the shroud connections. I want you to cut the pod off that parachute before they fire on us again!"

"Aye aye, sir." Crawford seemed happy at the prospect. There were thirty-two shrouds in all: twenty-four around the edge of the circular fabric mirror and a ring of eight nearer the center. Conical distortions in the fabric told where they were. The back of the sail was black; it flashed to vapor under the pinpoint attack of the forward laser batteries.

Then - the sail was loose, billowing and rippling as it floated toward MacArthur. Again the ship swept through, as if the light sail were so many square kilometers of tissue paper.

And the intruder's pod was falling loose toward an F8 sun.

"Thirty-five minutes to impact," Renner said without being asked.

"Thank you, Mr. Renner. Commander Cargill, take the con. You will take that pod in tow."

And Rod felt a wild internal glee at Renner's astonishment.

7 The Crazy Eddie Probe

"But-" said Renner and pointed at Cal's growing image on the bridge screens. Before he could say anything else MacArthur leaped ahead at six gees, no smooth transition this time. Jolt meters swung wildly as the ship hurtled straight toward the looming sun.

"Captain?" Through the roaring blood in his ears Blaine heard his exec call from the after bridge. "Captain, how much damage can we sustain?"

It was an effort to speak. "Anything that'll get us home," Rod gasped. - -

"Roger." Cargill's orders sounded through the intercom. "Mr. Potter! Is hangar deck clear to vacuum? All shuttles stowed?"

"Yes, sir." The question was irrelevant under battle conditions, but Cargill was a careful man.

"Open the hangar doors," Cargill ordered. "Captain, we might lose the hangar deck hatches."

"Rape ‘em."

"I'm bringing the pod aboard fast, no time to match velocities. We'll take damage-"

"You have the con, Commander. Carry out your orders." There was a red haze on the bridge. Rod blinked, but it was still there, not in the air but in his retinas. Six gravities was too much for sustained effort. If anyone fainted-well, they'd miss all the excitement.

"Kelley!" Rod barked. "When we turn ship, take the Marines aft and stand by to intercept anything coming out of that pod! And you'd better move fast. Cargill won't hold acceleration."

"Aye aye, sir." Six gravities and Kelley's gravel rasp was the same as ever.

The pod was three thousand kilometers ahead, invisible even to the clearest vision, but growing steadily on the bridge screens, steadily but slowly, much too slowly, even as Cal seemed to grow too fast.

Four minutes at six gravities. Four minutes of agony, then the alarms hooted. There was a moment of blessed relief. Kelley's Marines clattered through the ship, diving in the low, shifting gravity as MacArthur turned end for end. There wouldn't be acceleration couches back there where the Marines would cover hangar deck. Webbing straps to suspend the men in corridors, others in the hangar space itself hung like flies in a spider web, weapons ready- ready for what?

The alarms sounded, and jolt meters swung again as MacArthur braked toward the pod. Rod turned his screen controls with an effort. There was hangar deck, cold and dark, the fuzzy outline of the inner surface of the ship's defensive field an impossible black. Good, he thought. No significant heat storage. Plenty of capacity to take up the rotational energy of the pod if it had any, slow down the impact to something that MacArthur might be able to handle.

Eight minutes at six gees, the maximum the crew would be able to stand. Then the intruder was no longer ahead as MacArthur turned and fell toward it sidewise. The crushing acceleration ended, then there was low side thrust as Cargill fired the port batteries to slow their headlong rush to the pod.