Another dot had sprung into being on the screen. But this moved with a purpose. It was on the track of the first, a hunter on the trail. Kartr pushed down beside Smitt on the bench. His heart was thumping so that he could feel the sullen beat of blood in his temples. It was very important — that flight and pursuit — somewhere within him he knew that — so important he feared to watch.
The first dot was moving in a series of zigzags now.
"Evasive action." Smitt mouthed the words. He had served on a battle cruiser, Kartr knew.
"What kind of ships are they?"
"If I understood this" — Smitt swept his hand over the controls before him — "maybe I could answer that. Wait — !"
The first dot engaged in a complicated maneuver which had no meaning as far as the sergeant could see but which flipped it back on a level with its pursuer.
"That's a Patrol ship! It's offered battle — but why — "
They were even, those two dots. And then — a third appeared on the board! It was slightly larger and moved more slowly, avoiding the two which would shortly be locked in combat. And, in making the arc to avoid the fight, it headed straight toward Sol's system.
"Covering action," Smitt translated. "The Patrol is covering for this other ship! A suicide mission, I think. Look — their battle screens are up now!"
A faint, very faint orange haze encircled the two dots near the outer verge of Sol's system. Kartr had never been in space action, but he had heard enough tales, seen enough visigraphs, to be able to create in his mind a picture of the struggle now beginning. The larger dot had no part in the struggle. Instead it crept at its snail's pace on and on, away from the dead-locked fighters.
Pressure — pressure of screen against screen. And when one of those screens failed — flaming and instant death! That was a Patrol ship out there holding the enemy at bay while a defenseless prey escaped.
"If I could only read this!" Smitt smashed his fists against the edge of the table.
On the board a tiny bubble of light blazed suddenly to light.
"Set off by the ship coming this way?"
Smitt nodded. "Could be." He leaned forward with quick decision and pressed his finger on the button set under that pinprick of light. There followed sound — a vast roar as of rushing winds. They stared at the map almost deafened. And then through the roar came the chatter of something else, a sharp clicking which formed a pattern. Smitt jumped to his feet.
"Patrol summons, Patrol summons — TARZ — TARZ — "
Kartr's hand reached for a blaster he was not wearing. The old call to action for the Service! He heard amazed cries behind him. The others were up, crowding around the partition to see and hear what was happening.
The beat of the summons echoed hollowly through the building. It might go on until the end of that battle or until there was some answer. But no answer came. The haze about the dots thickened until they were completely hidden in it and each spot was a stationary fire.
"Top pitch — !" that was Dalgre breathing the words down Kartr's back. "Reaching overload fast. They can't take that much longer — they can't!"
"Tar — "
One spot swept from orange to yellow — to incandescent white. It was an instant of splendor and then it was gone. They blinked blinded eyes and looked again. But there was nothing — nothing at all of the two fiery spots. The dark glass of the screen where they had been was as bare and cold as the wastes of outer space it represented.
"Both — out!" Dalgre was the first to speak. "Overload and it blasted them both. One ship took the other with it."
"But the third — it is still intact — " Zicti pointed out.
That was true. The battle had wiped out two ships, but the third dot still moved — the one which the Patrol ship had died to save. It was on course — toward Sol and Terra!
The clicking sound changed, made another series of coded calls. Smitt listened and read them aloud for his companions.
"Patrol — auxiliary — personnel ship — 2210 — calling nearest Patrol ship or station. Come in, please — come in. Survivors of Patrol Base CC4 — calling nearest Patrol ship or station — off known courses — need guide call — come in please — "
"Survivors of Patrol Base CC4," Rolth repeated. "But that was a Ranger Station! What in the name of Space — !"
"Pirate raid, maybe — " suggested Zinga.
"Pirates don't tangle with the Patrol — " began Dalgre.
"You mean — pirates didn't! We've been out of circulation and off the maps for some time. A coalition of pirate forces can do a lot of damage," Zinga observed.
"Note also," Zicti added to that, "this ship now flies from the more populated sections of the galaxy. It heads out toward the unknown which it would not do if there were not some barrier between it and more familiar routes."
"Personnel survivor ship — families of Patrolmen." Dalgre was visibly shaken. "Why, the base must be utterly gone!"
The clicking of the code still filled the musty air of the hall. And on the map the dot moved, on the board before Smitt the tiny bulb still blazed. Then, as suddenly, it snapped off and a second went on in turn in the block next to it. Kartr glanced from that new light to the screen. Yes, the dot was appreciably closer to the system of Sol.
Smitt's fingers hovered over the board. He licked his lips as if his mouth was dry.
"Is there any chance of guiding her in here?" Kartr asked the question he knew was tormenting the other.
"I don't know — " Smitt snarled like a tortured animal.
His finger went down and pressed the button below the second light. And then he jumped back, as did Kartr, for out of the edge of the table sprang a thin black stalk ending in a round bulb. The com-techneer laughed almost wildly and clutched at the thing.
Then he began to speak into it, not in code but in the common tongue of Central Control.
"Terra calling! Terra calling! Terra calling!"
They were frozen, silent, listening to the chatter of the code filling the air. Kartr sagged. It hadn't worked after all. And then came a break in the ship's broadcast. He had forgotten about the time lag.
"Terra calling." Smitt was cool, calm again. To that statement he began to add a series of code words and clicks. Three times he repeated the message and then leaned back to await reply.
Again the wait seemed too long — tearing at their ragged nerves. But at last an answer came. Smitt translated it for them all.
"Do not entirely understand. But think can ride in on message beam — keep talking if you have no signal. What — where is Terra?"
So they talked. First Smitt, until his voice was but a husky whisper issuing from a raw throat, and then Kartr, using ordinary speech and the old formula, Terra calling — then Dalgre and Rolth —
There was sunshine lighting the space around them and then it grew dark again and still they crouched in turn on the bench before the sky map and talked. And the red dot crept on, now on a straight course for Terra. It was when it had drawn almost even with the outermost planet of Sol's system that Zor pointed out to the half-dazed Kartr on duty, the newcomer. Another dot — already past the point where the battle had been fought — and on a line after the personnel ship! Enemy or friend?
Kartr shook Zor's shoulder and pushed him toward the outer hall with the message to bring Smitt. The com-techneer, rubbing sleep-heavy eyes, half reeled in. But when Kartr showed him the dot he was thoroughly awake. He shoved the sergeant away from the microphone and took over with a sharp question in code.
After lagging minutes it was answered:
"Undoubtedly enemy ship. Pirate signals have been picked up during last quarter hour — "
To Kartr's sick eyes the enemy ship was darting across space. It was now a race, a race in which the Patrol ship might already be the loser. And, even as he thought that, there was a flash of light on the control board. The enemy was now within hailing distance. Smitt turned a grim face to him.