"He sure could. You'd be surprised no end at what that ape can do."
Then the Dauntless flashed in; not asking but demanding instant right of way.
"Look around, fellows, if you like, but you won't find a damned thing," Kinnison's uncheering conclusion came back as he sprinted toward the dock into which his battleship had settled. "The lug hasn't left a loose end dangling yet."
By the time the great Patrol ship had cleared the stratosphere, Kinnison's CRX, powerful and tenacious as it was, was just barely registering a line. But that was enough. Henry Henderson, master pilot, stuck the Dauntless' needle nose into that line and shoved into the driving projectors every watt of "oof" that those Brobdingnagian creations would take.
They had been following the zwilnik for three days now, Kinnison reflected, and his CRX's were none too strong yet. They were overhauling him mighty slowly; and the Dauntless was supposed to be the fastest thing in space. That can up ahead had plenty of legs—must have been souped up to the limit. This was apt to be a long chase, but he'd get that bozo if he had to chase him on a geodesic line along the hyper-dimensional curvature of space clear back to Tellus where he started from!
They did not have to circumnavigate total space, of course, but they did almost leave the Galaxy before they could get the fugitive upon their plates. The stars were thinning out fast; but still, hazily before them in a vastness of distance, there stretched a milky band of opalescence.
"What's coming up, Hen—a rift?" Kinnison asked.
"Uh-huh, Rift 94," the pilot replied. "And if I remember right, that arm up ahead is Dunstan's Region and it has never been explored. I'll have the chart room check up on it."
"Never mind! I'll go check it myself—I'm curious about this whole thing."