"That sounds like it," said Greg. "We spun all over the map to throw Craven off and looped several times so he'd lose all sense of direction. Naturally he would be lost."
"But he's evidently got something," Russ pointed out. "We left him marooned ... dead center, out where he didn't have too much radiation and couldn't get leverage on any single body. Yet he's moving—and getting farther away all the time."
"He solved our gravitation concentration screen," said Greg. "He tricked us into giving him power to build it."
The two men looked at one another for a long minute.
"Well," said Russ, "that's that. Craven and Chambers and Stutsman. The three villains. All lost in space. Heading for the wrong star. Hopelessly lost. Maybe they'll never find their way back."
He stopped and relit his pipe. An aching silence fell in the room.
"Poetic justice," said Russ. "Hail and farewell."
Greg rubbed his fist indecisively along the desk. "I can't do it, Russ. We took them out there. We marooned them. We have to get them back or I couldn't sleep nights."
Russ laughed quietly, watching the bleak face that stared at him. "I knew that's what you'd say."
He knocked out the pipe, crushed a fleck of burning tobacco with his boot. Pocketing the pipe, he walked to the control panel, sat down and reached for the lever. The engines hummed louder and louder. The Invincible darted spaceward.