"I go aground now. Thank you, Captain. I have to help the Hecla's crew report her loss and the circumstances. But you'll need to make a report too, won't you?"
He nodded. She didn't withdraw her hand.
"One thing more. Could you talk to our business agent for a few moments this afternoon before you lift off?"
"I'll try," said Trent.
He shook her hand formally, and she withdrew it. Again smiling, she went out of the control room and to ground. Trent, frowning, saw her walk to the spaceport offices. It was midday, here. It took thought to keep days and nights straight after a long time in space. Marian would rate as a very important person on Sira. Trent could bask briefly in the radiance of her importance if he chose. But he didn't.
He said briskly to the mate, "I'll have to talk about the Hecla at the spaceport office. Then I'll talk to some brokers, about our cargo. Then I'll take a look around the spaceport dives to see what kind of men are grounded here because of the pirates."
"Any ground leave for our men?" asked the mate.
"Hmm," said Trent. He considered. "Spaceport hands will take care of any cargo unloading I may arrange. But I'll lose time talking about the Hecla. Give them eight hours. We ought to be ready to lift off then."
"They'll just have time to get drunk," said the mate dourly, "and not enough to sober up again."
"I'm going to ship some extra hands if I can," Trent told him.
He turned to leave the control room. The mate said, "Captain?"
"What?"
"That lady," said the mate stolidly, "got to talk to me yesterday. She wanted to find out something. I didn't know whether to tell her or not."
"What did she want to know?"
"If you was married. I told her no. Right?"
"Yes," said Trent. "It's true. I'm not."
He went off the ship and to the very tedious business of answering questions about the Hecla, and then talking business to brokers and merchants gathered at the airport since news of a trading ship's arrival spread. They were very hungry for goods to sell. He parted with as much of his cargo as he thought wise. It was close to sundown before he went to investigate the places of business just outside the spaceport gates.
He applied for clearance to lift off at once. He had ten new hard-bitten characters to add to the Yarrow's crew, and the ship was set to sail.
"All hands prepare for lift," said Trent's voice from dozens of speakers, making a choral effect of the words. "Lift starts in ten seconds. All hands to duty stations. Five seconds… Lift starts."
The Yarrow rose toward the star-filled night sky, and the lattice girders of the landing-grip slid past and vanished below. The planet Sira appeared as merely a vast blackness in which infinitesimal specks of light—street lamps—grew more and more minute until they disappeared. Then there was merely blackness against an inconceivable mass of stars.
But presently the sunlit part of Sira came into view and everything was changed.
The trading ship Yarrow went into overdrive after leaving Sira, and Trent had a sound night's sleep, and next ship-morning he was a good many million, billion, and trillion miles from it.
He went over the ship and found everything to his liking. Even McHinny showed him his pirate-discourager approaching re-completion. It was three-quarters of the way back into operating condition. Trent, feeling kindly to all the cosmos, praised him enough for McHinny to look almost contented. The new members of the crew had been put to work—the mate saw to that—and they regarded Trent with satisfying respect and confidence.
Trent himself worked painstakingly in the control room on a problem in mathematics. It was tricky. He wanted to re-locate the Hecla. The Yarrow's taped log had a record of all courses, drive strengths, and durations of drive since her departure from her home port. She could get back approximately to where she'd left the Hecla. But the Hecla wasn't there now.
She'd been sent off on her Lawlor drive on a course Trent had noted down. But real accuracy of position in space was out of the question. And nobody could tell what was accurate, anyhow. An attempt at it involved the local sun's proper motion—the sun from whose system one had started out-one's individual velocity in three dimensions due to the motion of the spaceport one left, a highly corrected account of drive efficiency, the total mass of ship and cargo, and a few score other factors.
And, starting from that, there was the problem of finding the Hecla. In the end Trent calculated a cone of probability. The Hecla should be within that imaginary geometrical shape in space. Her most probable position would be somewhere along its axis. As one went out from it the probability would grow less. And the Hecla would be still accelerating.
He did the best he could and went to see how the combat instructions went on. They went well. He added some details.
One of the new hands made a suggestion. It was a good one. He incorporated it into the course of instruction. It looked more and more as if he were preparing for a piratical career. On the second day out of port he suspended the weapons exercises to shift cargo. He had masses of relatively low-value cargo packed in the Yarrow's bow. The reason was, of course, that the pirate had carried and used a gun. Trent had seen one of the projectiles, spent, in the Hecla's engine room. It had penetrated the Hecla's inner and outer hulls, but had done little damage inside. He shifted cargo so that a shell from dead ahead would have to pierce not only the Yarrow's two hulls but various bales of merchandise before it could do much damage. The understanding was, naturally, that the Yarrow would be driving toward any cannon-carrying antagonist in any action that took place.
The mate nodded stolidly when Trent explained it.
"If I'm not aboard," said Trent, "it may be a good trick."
The mate nodded again, but he didn't really grasp the idea that Trent might be missing from the Yarrow and himself in command. He didn't even grasp it when, entering the handwritten items in the control room log—quite separate from the engine room taped record—he found a memo in Trent's handwriting:
"11-4-65 8 bells dog. According to agreement owners Yarrow now engaged salvage at charter rate until return commercial port."
It was very conscientious of Trent.
Four days passed. Five. Six. Trent brought the Yarrow out of overdrive. The stars were a very welcome sight. He sent out an emergency radar pulse. One. He waited half an hour. Nothing came back. In overdrive, he shifted the Yarrow's position. Again he sent out a radar pulse.
It was unpleasant. Everybody on the Yarrow experienced the sensations accompanying a switch into or out of overdrive twice every half-hour. Presently everybody's belly-muscles ached from the knotted cramps that came with the nausea every time.
On some ships, under some skippers, there would have been protests right away. On the Yarrow under Trent there were no protests, but there were pained questions about how long it would be kept up.
"I'm looking for something," said Trent pleasantly. "When I find it, this will stop."
The inquiring crewman was satisfied, if unhappy. He spread the word among the rest. There were guesses at what Trent might be looking for. There was general agreement that it must be a ship, of whose course and probable position Trent had information. But granting that, the guesses ranged from a space liner chartered to carry colonists, including women, to their new homes, down to a mere bank ship carrying rare metals to balance financial accounts between star clusters. But nobody guessed at the Hecla.