That derelict warship would be a veritable mine of information about the culture of this system. All warships are gold mines of information concerning the technical abilities, the culture, the beliefs, and the people themselves.
Could he assume the destruction of the crew in the derelict?
The smaller ship had—unless they were out of the battle and forced to withdraw due to lack of fighting contact. That didn't seem right to Thomakein. For the smaller ship to attack the larger ship meant a dogged determination. There would have been a last-try stand on the part of the smaller ship no matter how much faster the larger ship were. At worst, the determination seemed to indicate that ramming the larger ship was not out of order.
But the smaller ship had not rammed the larger. Hadn't even tried. In fact, the smaller ship had turned and started to decelerate as soon as the larger ship had doubled her speed.
Thomakein couldn't read either of the name plates of the two fighting ships. He had no idea as to the origin of the two. As an Ertinian, Thomakein couldn't even recognize the characters let alone read them. He was forced to go once more on deduction.
The course of the larger vessel. It was obviously fleeing from the smaller ship. Thomakein played with his computer for a bit and came to two possibilities, one of which was remote, the other pointing to the fourth planet.
A carefully collected table of masses and other physical constants of the planets of Sol was consulted.
Thomakein retrieved his recording, set it up and added:
"The smaller ship, noticing the increased acceleration of the larger, assumed—probably—that the larger ship's crew was killed by the increased gravity-apparent. Since the larger ship was fleeing, it would in all probability have used every bit of acceleration that the crew could stand. Its course was dead-center for the fourth planet's position if integrated for a course based on the larger ship's velocity and direction and acceleration at and prior to the engagement.
"This fourth planet has a surface gravity of approximately one-eighth of the acceleration of the larger ship. Doubling this means that the crew must withstand sixteen gravities. The chances of any being of intelligent size withstanding sixteen gravities is of course depending upon an infinite number of factors. However, the probable reasoning of the smaller ship is that sixteen gravities will kill the crew of the larger ship. Otherwise they would have continued to try to do battle with the larger ship. Their return indicates that they were satisfied."