"I think so," he said coldly. "There are a couple of gaps yet which you can fill in."
Carolyn shook her head in a superior manner. "You didn't just discover this thing, you know," she said calmly. "You were shown most of it deliberately."
"Indeed?" His voice was sarcastic.
"We knew that someone high up and undercover had furnished you with a spacecraft and a forged license, hoping that your reputation would establish you as a racketeer. He used you efficiently, and so we merely used you more efficiently. There are two ends to a fishline, Charles, and we caught Howard Clevis on the wrong end of the line, so to speak. We also—"
"You caught Clevis?"
"As soon as we knew who your contact was we pulled him in. So if you're expecting a flight of military spacecraft to come racing up in time to intercept the rendezvous ship out there, forget it. The military is still on the landing blocks at the spaceport."
Farradyne whirled and peered into the radar. The single pip was close and closing the range swiftly, but there was nothing else on the 'scope. It was a huge ship, if the size of the radar response meant anything, and Farradyne peered into the coupled telescope.
Nothing like it could ever have been built in secret anywhere among the habitable planets of the solar system. The size of it was such that the purchase of the metal alone would have created some notice, and the rest of the project would require the resources of a planet to feed it and the men that built it.
Farradyne turned away from the telescope.