Under the expert tutelage of the designers and builders of the Brittania Vice Commander Kinnison drove her hither and thither through the trackless wastes of the galaxy[2]. Inert and "free," under every possible degree of power he maneuvered her; attacking imaginary foes and actual meteorites with equal zeal. Maneuvered and attacked until he and his ship were one; until he reacted automatically to her slightest demand; until he and every man of his eager and highly trained crew knew to the final volt and to the ultimate ampere her Gargantuan capacity both to give it and to take it.
Then and only then did he return to base, unload the engineers, and set out upon the quest. Trail after trail he followed, but all were cold. Alarm after alarm he answered, but always he arrived too late; arrived to find gutted merchantmen and riddled enforcement vessel, with no life in either and with nothing to indicate in which direction the marauders might have gone.
Finally, however: "QBT! Calling QBT!" The Brittania's code call blared from the sealed-band speaker, and a string of numbers followed—the spatial coördinates of the luckless vessel's position.
Chief Pilot Henry Henderson punched the figures upon his locator, and in the "tank"—the enormous, minutely cubed model of the galaxy—there appeared a redly brilliant point of light. Kinnison rocketed out of his narrow bunk, digging the sleep out of his eyes, and shot himself into his place beside the pilot.
"Right in our laps!" he exulted. "Scarcely ten light years away! Start scrambling the ether!" And as the vengeful cruiser darted toward the scene of depredation all space became filled with blast after blast of static interference through which, it was hoped, the pirate could not summon the help he was so soon to need.
But that howling static gave the pirate commander pause. Surely this was something new? Before him lay a richly laden freighter, its two convoying enforcement ships already practically hors de combat. A few more minutes and the prize would be his. Nevertheless, he darted away, swept the ether with his detectors, saw the Brittania, and turned in headlong flight. For if this streamlined freighter was sufficiently convinced of its prowess to try to blanket the ether against him, that information was something that Boskone would value far above one shipload of material wealth.
But the pirate craft was now upon the visiplates of the Brittania, and, entirely ignoring the crippled space ships, Henderson flung his vessel after the other. Manipulating his incredibly complex controls purely by touch, the while staring into his plate not only with his eyes, but with every fiber of his being as well, he hurled his huge mount hither and thither in frantic leaps. After what seemed an age he snapped down a toggle switch and relaxed long enough to grin at Kinnison.
"Holding 'em?" the young commander demanded.