One shipday passed. Another, and another. The rewinding of the overdrive coil went along at a steady pace. Partly as stage-dressing, to be sure, but also with sound reason, Trent kept men watching certain dials every minute of every shipday and night. The Hecla's radar remained unoperated. Its pulses could be recognized for what they were. Her overdrive field detector was definitely not in use. It could be detected at many times a radar's effective range. But he did have radar-frequency listening devices turned up to maximum gain. They should give notice instantly if anybody hit the Hecla with even a single radar pulse, such as Trent had used to find it when a derelict.
Stars and nebulae and galaxies shone all about the interior of a seeming hollow sphere whose center was apparently the spaceship. That slightly over-plump vessel showed no faintest sign of life. She floated in emptiness. That was all. If watched from a fixed position—which could not exist where she lay between the stars—her bow might have been seen to wander vaguely to various headings. But that had no significance at all. There was absolutely nothing about the Hecla which could have told another vessel at a hundred yards' distance that she was alive.
But Trent worried about whether or not he ought to worry. There was no way for him to know. If the pirate survived at all, it was either badly damaged or it was not. If badly damaged, he needn't worry. If not, the damage would either make her head for her base, or not. If the pirate headed for her base, he needn't worry. If not, she'd either hunt for a ship she'd already disabled—the Hecla—or not. If she didn't hunt for the Hecla, he needn't disturb himself. If she did, she'd either find the Hecla or not. And if she did she could lie off at a distance and pound that already-battered ship with solid shot until no possible life or chance for life remained. And she would.
So it was with concern that he heard the spaceman on radar watch say uncertainly, "Cap'n sir, it looked to me like a radar pulse hit us just now. But it was only the one."
Trent took a deep breath.
"That's the way it would be. Watch for another." He spoke into the microphone of the all-hands speaker system. "All hands! All hands! We've got company coming. All hands clean ship. Tidy up. Everything from Sira down in the bilges. Suits on."
There began a stirring everywhere; men moved or labored throughout the ship. Some donned spacesuits immediately and then set about an elaborate tidying process. Some swept floors before donning space armor. Others carried small arms and ammunition out of sight. Men struggled with extra air tanks and with food and water containers brought here in the Yarrow. Police equipment Trent had bought on Dorade many weeks ago was hidden. His new crewmen were thoroughly familiar with it.
Trent went to the engine room where the rewinding of the overdrive coil went on. He estimated the amount remaining to be done.
He said wryly, "If they'd only held off for two more hours!"
The man on radar-watch called from the engine room, "Cap'n, another pulse! Somebody's headin' this way!"
"They would be," said Trent distastefully. To the men in the engine room he added, "Keep on winding, but have your suits ready. Make it as quick as you can. This is nasty!"
He made a circuit of the ship, while men watched him expectantly. One man asked hopefully, "D'you know who's coming, sir?"
"It's the pirate, I hope," said Trent peevishly. "The one who's been sniping ships all through the Pleiads. Maybe there's more than one. If so, this is the one that wrecked the Hecla. And it's coming and we're not ready for it!" Then he said sharply, "Look at that! That doesn't look like an empty ship. Get it out of sight!"
Somebody bundled up blankets that had been spread on the floor for dice to be rolled on. It wouldn't have been in use by the crew of a properly operating ship, so they wouldn't have left it behind when they left.
"Open the port lock door," commanded Trent. "That's the way it was left. Nothing untidy, now! Then get all weapons ready, pick your spots, and use gas if you can."
There were scurryings and more scurryings. Men elatedly completed the completely unusual task of making an occupied, worked-in spaceship look like it had been abandoned a long while back and never reoccupied. Much of the ship didn't need attention. Trent had only put air into the compartments necessary for the repair of the Lawlor drive and the overdrive coil, plus a reasonable living space.
Another call from the control room. "Another radar pulse, sir! Pretty strong!"
"All hands in suits," commanded Trent. He'd ordered it before. To the two men still winding the coil he said irritably, "We're going to bleed out all the air. Work in your spacesuits as long as you can. Then get out of sight!"
He checked each spaceman separately, emphasizing that all suit-microphones must be switched to "off." Reception, though, was desirable. Then he went to the control room. There he could watch through the viewports and see what the approaching ship did. The Hecla, of course, was no better armed than she'd been when first halted. Her overdrive was still inoperable until the winding was finished, and if and when it could be used, the pirate should be able to blow it instantly. Trent released all the air from what parts of the ship were air-filled. The ship became airless, like the derelict it represented itself to be.
Then he waited.
There is only one set of circumstances in which a man in the control room of one ship between the stars ever sees another. Normally, ships in deep space are in overdrive and moving too fast to be sighted even if their overdrive fields allowed it. It is not even possible for two ships to rendezvous more than a few hundred million miles from a marker such as a star. Observations taken down to a second of arc are simply not precise enough to bring them within detection range of one another. The only way in which one spaceship can actually sight another is when by assisted chance one ship detects the overdrive of a second and closes in on it instead of the conventional swerving away. If it can get close enough, guided by the overdrive detector, one of the two overdrive coils will blow. Then the unharmed other ship can break out to normal space and join the first one there by tracking it down by radar. But this process happens to be congenial only to pirates and privateers. Honest merchant ships refrain from using it.
But, Trent, in the Hecla's control room in very deep space, saw another ship.
First it was radar pulses coming from nowhere and with decreasing intervals between. Then it was something which made a single star on a vision screen wink out for the fraction of a second, and then another and another and still others. Then it was a glittering. And then it was a shape moving swiftly closer and growing in size as it did so.
The Hecla's communicator-speaker bellowed and Trent's helmet picked it up by induction. There was no air in the control room to carry sound. There was no air anywhere, except in her reserve tanks.
"What ship's that?"
Trent naturally did not reply. The call was repeated.
"What ship's that?" rasped the voice from the other ship. "Answer or take what you'll get! We'll put some shells into you!"