At six o'clock the next morning the Friar Bacon rested in its deep starting-tube in the center of the field. At seven o'clock it had proceeded so far on its journey that Earth was but a silver quarter hanging in the sky behind it.
Larry Wolfe was on the bridge. His engineer's eyes sparkled as he regarded the instruments. Fuel—brimming over; speed—one-quarter; retarding gravity quotient—three percent. Ideal conditions, and an ideal ship. He had faith in the Friar Bacon, and in its owner. He knew about Brand Haggard, but it didn't worry him particularly, with the best of materials and men to work with.
Larry was on the point of inching the speed up a trifle when a bell began to tinkle. Swiftly he twisted in his seat. Immediately he saw what had aroused the alarm. A ship was coming up fast, behind them. Haggard already! he thought. He stabbed at the buzzer to Carlyle's quarters.
The hard, brown features of the ship's owner snapped into view on the televis. "Yes?" was the metallic query.
"Ship approaching, sir!" Larry clipped. "I think it's Haggard's Martian. Shall I give her the gun?"
"No, let him come up with us. No use racing yet. We'd just strain the seams before they've heated properly."
"But if he beats us to the fields, sir!"
Thaddeus Carlyle's eyes crinkled. "He won't, Wolfe. I registered a false location with the Commission! He'll either go hell-for-leather out toward Uranus or he'll pace us. Either way, I'm not worrying."
"Very good, sir." Larry Wolfe turned from the instrument to his controls. "Hard as nails!" he chuckled to himself. "He wouldn't hurry for the devil himself. You'd think he'd lived five hundred years, the way he thinks of all the angles and beats hell out of every other ship in the fleet. He's too smart for one man."