Jerry Brandt swore thoroughly, and whipped the ship around slightly, cramming on the superdrive but keeping the drivers below the speed of light. He set his switches carefully, and seconds later the alien ship appeared for one brief instant and then was gone. While it was there, eye-visible in the sky, one of the ship's own cutting planes sheared out and sliced the driving tubes from the bottom of the ship.
Then it was gone and Brandt fought the switches, stopping the ship.
"What—was that?"
"We've got a nice way of retaliating," said Barden harshly. "We use the intermittent generator of the superdrive but we stay below the velocity of light. Jerry has calibrated the intermittence and the rep-rate to a nice precision. We appear in true space, slash out, and disappear again to reappear God knows how many miles farther on. Now we'll go back and see whether that bird wants more." He spoke to Jerry: "Take care!"
"Easy she goes," replied Brandt. "Did you see that joker? He tried to ruin us!"
They came up as the inert alien came into view. It stabbed again with that beam but missed. Jerry Brandt swore again and cut the ship from end to end with his cutting plane. This time there was no response save a swirl of smoke from the cleft sides of the ship.
"We've used these to cut asteroids into stove lengths," he told Barden sharply. "I wonder how many of them have been used likewise on some hapless enemy."
"I don't have any way of knowing," said Barden. "And I don't care whether it is a proper weapon to use or not. It worked."
"What are you going to do?" asked Dr. Ward.