“We should be able to get some kind of picture,” said Ariel.

“It’s still too far off, I think, for a visual image,” Derec said. He blinked his eyes to bring his vision back to a single focus. “I wish we had neutrino detectors.”

All nuclear power plants gave off neutrinos, and nobody bothers to shield them off. A neutrino reading would give them an estimate of power generating capacity, and thus of ship size. Of course, a battleship and a medium freighter would have similar-sized power plants, but some information would be better than none.

“Heat?”

“It isn’t burning at the moment,” she told him, consulting the bolometer. “It must have spotted us days ago and burned to intercept.”

“Go ahead and enter our Jump in the computer,” he said. It was all he could think of, and it wasn’t much. “How long will that take?”

“Too long,” she said gloomily. “You are right, though. It’s the best bet, especially if that’s an Earth Patrol ship. Derec, it might follow.”

He opened his mouth to say that it didn’t matter, then closed it. “Frost!”

They intended to maneuver at Procyon-they might be in the system a week, during which the bigger ship could hunt them down. Nor would there be any hope of help there.

He grasped at a straw. “Bigger ships need more fuel. If he can’t match our maneuvers-”

“And you call me reckless. Let’s not bet on it, okay?”

“Frost.”

The other pilot wasn’t maneuvering: he was swooping in to intercept their course from behind and to one side. He’d cross their course at a very sharp angle, pull ahead, and brake down, to let them drift into his arms. He was moving quite rapidly relative to them, far faster than the rock he was coming up behind, and would have to burn soon or swoop helplessly by them.

Their options were limited: they could fire their rockets to speed up, they could roll the ship and burn to slow down, or they could Jump. It would take time to set up the computer for that; Jumping blind might not mean certain death, it might merely mean being permanently lost in the vastness of the galaxy -or the galaxies! In hyper, all parts of the normal universe were equidistant.

Or they could roll the ship ninety degrees and turn aside.

Ariel didn’t consider it, and Derec didn’t even think of it. They had spent twenty percent of their fuel to acquire their current velocity. They would retain it no matter how much they pushed “sideways” on their course. It would therefore take another twenty percent of their fuel to turn the ship aside at an angle of a mere forty-five degrees-a negligible turn.

“Call for help?” Ariel asked dubiously.

“He’ll be on us in twenty minutes or less,” said Derec glumly. No help could possibly reach them. “Unless he burns toward us. “

“Unlikely.”

“True.” His head wasn’t working right. The rapidly closing ship wouldn’t want more velocity toward them; it would have to brake down enough as it was, when it passed.

“I think we can assume that no Earth Patrol will fire on us without sufficient reason,” Ariel said. “So I propose that we talk to them as politely as possible, but maintain course and speed. We can burn if necessary, but-”

“You think it’s Earth Patrol?” Derec said, then nodded. “A Spacer wouldn’t shoot, either-”

“A Spacer would be calling us. Face it. Whoever this is, it’s an enemy,” Ariel said.

“We should have a good idea of our course and speed relative to Sol before he reaches near point,” Derec said, nodding in agreement. “We can Jump any time after that now that you have the prob input.”

The enemy spaceship wasn’t going to ram, of course; its point of nearest approach was its “near point” with their course, but the two ships would be farther apart-it would then be ahead of them.

“And we won’t provoke them,” Ariel finished.

“What with?” Derec asked, feeling lightheaded.

“You know what I mean.”

Then Derec had it: “We do have a weapon-”

“Comm!” she cried, at the breaking-crystal sound of the chime.

“I hope it’s not a Spacer ship,” she said, worried, as she opened the channel.

Both of them gasped at the face that appeared in trimensional projection above their board.

Chapter 15. Aranimas Again

Oh no, Ariel thought. Aranimas!

The alien pirate’s cold visage regarded them.

His face was vaguely human, but had definite overtones of lizard. The eyes, for instance, were widely set, almost on the sides of his face. They were barely close enough together to give him binocular vision-but, unnervingly, Aranimas didn’t much bother with binocular vision. Most of the time one eye focused on whatever he was looking at while the other roved, apparently supplying peripheral vision.

At the moment he was focusing on Derec with both eyes. “Derrrrec,” he said. High-pitched, trilling, his voice was the most hateful thing Ariel had ever heard. “Arrriel.”

Glaring at them, he altered the focus of his comm and shrank to distance without moving, his humanoid figure coming into view from the waist up. In this view much of his alienness wasn’t obvious, but they both had seen him in person. He was as tall seated as Derec was standing, and his disproportionately long arms had three times the span of a tall human’s. Thin body, thin neck, domed, thinly haired head, pale skin. Dark eyes, angry now.

“Wherrre is the Key to Perihelion? You escaped with it instead of leading me to robots.”

After a heart-stopping moment-Derec gulped, temporarily shocked out of his sickness-Ariel said, with only a faint tremor in her voice, “We lost it in the wreck. W-we’ve been in hospital on Earth-”

“You lie. I detected three bursts of Key static about this planet. The firrrst, weeks ago, began elsewhere. The last two began and ended here. Only the Key broadcasts in this manner!”

They looked at each other sickly. Before they could speak, the pirate pulled a small, gleaming, gold pencil out of a pocket. Ariel choked, and she heard a gulp from Derec, too. A pain stimulator! It was, she knew, something like a human neuronic whip, but even more intense. Or perhaps Aranimas was just more violent with its use. It did no damage if not overused, like a neuronic whip, but no one was tough enough to take more than one “treatment” before deciding to cooperate.

“You will tell all, and tell trrrue, or I kill you slow with this.”

They did not doubt his sincerity. Nor would he listen to anything until he had taken the ship apart. They couldn’t just give him the Key, even if it could have been of use to him -it was initialized only for humans. He wanted robots, among other things-power most of all.

Derec reached over and cut the channel.

“We have another option,” he said, turning to her. “\\fe could use the Key, call agent Donovan, and put the whole problem in the laps of the TBI and whatever Spacer authorities are on Earth. Or we can try to deal with Aranimas ourselves.”

“Deal with him-how?” she said skeptically.

“I don’t mean bargain. Ariel, you should use the Key.” His plans were clearly hardening as he spoke. “I think I can ram that clumsy ship when he closes with us.”

Ariel felt herself pale. “No, Derec!”

“It’s the only way! We can’t let him live. He’s too dangerous-”

“But-” Her face cleared. “We can use the Key at the last instant.”

Derec looked at her. The burst of adrenaline that had washed away his illness was fading. She determined that she would not use the Key unless he did, and he seemed to realize that.

“Okay, that’s what we’ll do. We’ll pretend to surrender-”

He reached for the comm, but she grabbed his wrist. “No, Derec, it won’t work! He’ll never leave this ship maneuverable while he closes!”

“It’s the only chance we’ve got,” he said. “Our only weapon is the jet-and the nose of the ship! I’d like to fire the rocket at him, but he’d never pass in front of it.”