Trent fumed about it, though it was strictly none of his business. Yet he couldn't help but consider it his business as regarded Marian. The ship she'd sailed on was statistically in less danger than the Hecla had been, but the improvement was in the probability of being captured, not the consequences. The disaster to any ship captured was as' final as before. More, if the pirates were deliberately taking ships to get prisoners.
He couldn't sit quietly in the pilot's chair and envision such things. He got up and jerked a thumb for the man on control room watch to take over.
The man said, "Cap'n."
"What?"
"We got extra hands on board."
Trent stopped.
"Those fellows we carried out to the Hecla, sir. They come to say howdo to us. Pretty well lit, they were. We were over at the Hecla getting small arms when they come. They set down to wait for us. They passed out. They ain't waked up yet."
Trent frowned. He scowled. But after all, it made little or no difference. They might even come in handy.
"When they wake up, I'll put them to work," he said curtly.
There was nothing else to do about stowaways, especially these. Trent was not so concerned about rations or air that he considered them to matter. And they were trained in combat tactics. They made the Yarrow as heavily manned, but not armed, as any pirate ship would be. But this didn't happen to be an idea Trent found comforting. Marian Hale had gone to space for Loren. Just about now she'd be lifting off from Midway—if she'd arrived there—and would next be reported as landing on Loren—if she got there.
He went to the engine room. McHinny nodded portentously at him.
"I got my gadget built up again," he reported proudly, "and it's better than it ever was before! It'll take care of any pirate ship that ever was!"
"You're sure of it?" asked Trent.
"I know my gadget," said McHinny confidently. "Yes, sir! Nobody's going to have to worry about pirates any more!"
Trent said, "It'll be too bad if we have to depend on it and it doesn't work."
"I know what I'm doing!" insisted McHinny. "I know what you're doing, too! You want to make it look like it's no good! You handle it wrong on purpose! But you can't do that any more! Not now!"
Trent grunted and turned to the engine room door. McHinny said suspiciously, "I know what you think! You got an extra overdrive unit in the hold because you think my gadget might blow your overdrive next time you try to use it! You're all set for it! But you wait! You see what happens!"
Trent went out. McHinny angered him, but it was good to have something to be angry about which wasn't connected with Marian. He was in a state of acute, irritated anxiety about her. He could make no plans for action, of course. There was no proven need for it, and if it should be needed he'd have no idea where to act, or how. He was driving for Loren because he couldn't endure indefinite uncertainty. If the Cytheria came into port on Loren with Marian aboard, he would be sure of her safety. He would also have made a fool of himself, because he had no really valid reason for going to Loren except to ease his mind. But if the Cytheria didn't come into port with her aboard…
It wouldn't be his fault. He'd told her he didn't think it safe for her to put out to space. But it would be his fault because it was his doing that merchantmen throughout the Pleiads were taking to space under the delusion that danger from pirates was now ended. And that had happened because he'd snatched her from deadly danger. Which he couldn't be criticized for. But if he'd simply thrust his pirate prisoners out an airlock the present situation wouldn't exist. So he blamed himself for not doing that.
The Yarrow had been in overdrive for eight ship-days and a little over when the alert signal went through the ship.
"Overdrive detector registers, sir," said the man on control room watch. "Captain, sir! Our overdrive detector's registering!"
Trent made his way quickly to the control room. There was a red light calling attention to the overdrive detector dial. There was another ship in detector-range, and it was in overdrive, too.
Trent took his seat at the control board. He gave crisp orders. All hands ready for spacesuits. Small arms to be passed out. He called McHinny and told him that his gadget might undergo an actual combat test. Then he watched, tensely, but somehow relieved that some sort of action might be substituted for mere frustrated waiting.
Some centuries earlier, a Captain Trent had lured a privateer out of a harbor where she was amply protected by the guns of a fort. He towed an improvised sea-anchor of canvas behind his ship. Because of the drag, his ship appeared both slow and unhandy. So the privateer came out to make a capture. In the forgotten fight that followed on one of Earth's oceans, at the proper critical moment Trent had the towline cut, and simultaneously uncovered guns of heavier weight and longer range than the privateer had suspected. He also revealed that the formerly logy and slow-sailing ship could not only out-fight but outrun the quasi-piratical ship that had attacked it. In consequence, the privateer's flag presently came fluttering down. And that Captain Trent put the privateer's crew into her boats with food and water, and he and his prize sailed away over the horizon while the left-behind privateers cursed him heartily.
But Captain Trent of the Yarrow could not look for such a happy termination of this affair. At the moment, the situation was simply a deflection of a needle from its proper place on an instrument-dial. He hadn't heavier guns than the other ship. He had no guns at all. Further, he hadn't the legs of the other ship. The Yarrow wasn't built for fighting or running away. And her overdrive unit hadn't the power per ton of ship-and-cargo mass the piratical ship would be sure of. In overdrive, the pirate ship could undoubtedly blow the Yarrow's field-generating equipment without any trouble at all.
But this was nevertheless action, after two hundred odd hours of inactivity. Any kind of happening was welcome.
Trent watched the detector-dial. The other ship might sheer off. If so, it was an honest merchantman experiencing the jumping jitters because its detector would be giving a positive reading too. If it didn't sheer off…
It didn't. The strength of the signal picked up increased steadily on the dial. The other ship was moving to close in on the Yarrow. To all appearances, the prospects were for a matter-of-fact approach to fatal nearness, despite such dodgings and twistings as the Yarrow might attempt. The dial-reading grew stronger still. Trent changed course. The reading continued to show a steady, closer approach of the invisible other vessel. It had changed course in pursuit. The dial-needle neared that red band which meant a dangerous proximity of two ships. When the needle touched the edge of the red area, either one of two evenly matched overdrives might blow out. But there was a black mark somewhere in the red. If the needle reached that mark, the Yarrow's drive would blow. It would have to.
Trent spoke curtly into the microphone before him.
"Engine room," he snapped. "I'm going to charge your gadget. Right?"
McHinny's voice, shrill and unreasonably pettish, snapped back, "Go ahead! Dammit, she's ready!"
Trent had his finger on the charge-button which should draw some thousands of kilowatts into the pirate-frustrator capacitors, to be stored up and stored up until it could be released in a surge of multi-megawatt violence lasting for the forty-thousandth of a second. Nothing could withstand it.
Nothing! Any drive phased into it would blow with insensate violence.