"Dad," he said flatly, into the intercom, "swing the turret!"
Peter Wadley, up in the instrument room, had already seen the strange ship, and the heavy twin barrels of the automatic rifles were depressing to cover. Jeff leaned forward to the communicator.
"Identify yourself!" The tight beam in Common Code snapped across the little stretch of open sand to the cliff against which the other seemed to nestle. "We are the mining ship Emerald Girl, Earth license, five hundred and eighty-two days out of Arcturus Station. Identify yourself!"
There were steps behind Jeff, and Peter Wadley came to stand behind his son's tense back.
"Do they answer, Jeff?"
"No."
"Identify yourself. Identify yourself! Identify yourself!"
The angry demand crackled and arced invisibly across the space between both vessels. And there was no answer.
Jeff sat back from the communicator. The palms of his hands were wet and he wiped them on the cloth of his breeches.