An hour later, they forced the door of the cargo hold and the ship took up operations again. But Black Morgan was no longer in sight. The detector recorder indicated a receding target that must have been the leaving pirate craft, but that was all. Despite all arguments, Black Morgan had come up, pirated the craft at two-thousand, three hundred miles per second, under 3-Gs' deceleration from turnover, one hour and twelve minutes previous.
Yes, it was impossible and everybody knew that matching such constants in space could not be done, but Black Morgan had done it.
There was no merriment for the rest of the trip.
Back on Terra again, Lieutenant Jeffries found that he was in disgrace. His landing was followed almost immediately by an official order, and with sheer discouragement, Jeffries went to see Captain Edwards.
"That was a fine display," snapped his superior.
"But—"
"Look, Jeffries. You were sent forth to do a job. Anything you wanted we'd furnish. But you went out with a brass band and a challenge, and you were taken up and beaten. Not only that, but we lost a small fortune in radiosodium."
"I'd hoped to—"
"Look, Jeffries, a mistake is a mistake. You laid a trap, and you also got some sort of evidence, I presume. That's fine. But you also laid yourself wide open to criticism. It's the people who are howling—the people and the officials of the space lines."