"She's in trouble." That was Paul Koreff's voice. "She's leaking air and water vapor like crazy."
"Well, is she a good guy or a bad guy?" Morland was yelling back, as though Koreff's spectroscopes could distinguish. Koreff ignored that.
"Another ship making signal," he said. "She's the one coming up over the equator. Sword-World impulse code; her communication-screen combination, and an identify-yourself."
Karffard punched out the combination as Koreff furnished it. While Trask was desperately willing his face into immobility, the screen lighted. It wasn't Andray Dunnan; that was a disappointment. It was almost as good, though. His henchman, Sir Nevil Ormm.
"Well, Sir Nevil! A pleasant surprise," he heard himself saying. "We last met on the terrace at Karvall House, did we not?"
For once, the paper-white face of Andray Dunnan's âme damnée showed expression, but whether it was fear, surprise, shock, hatred, anger, or what combination of them, Trask could no more than guess.
"Trask! Satan curse you ...!"
Then the screen went blank. In the telescopic screen, the other ship came on unfalteringly. Paul Koreff, who had gotten more data on mass, engine energy-output and dimensions, was identifying her as the Enterprise.
"Well, go for her! Give her everything!"