“Captain Greylorn, please report to the bridge. Unidentified body on main scope.”
Every man stopped in his tracks, listening. The annunciator continued. “Looks like it’s decelerating, Captain.”
I holstered my pistol, pushed past Joyce, and trotted for the lift. The mob behind me broke up, talking, as men under long habit ran for action stations.
Clay was operating calmly under pressure. He sat at the main screen, and studied the blip, making tiny crayon marks.
“She’s too far out for a reliable scanner track, Captain,” he said, “but I’m pretty sure she’s braking.”
If that were true, this might be the break we’d been living for. Only manned or controlled bodies decelerated in deep space.
“How did you spot it, Clay?” I asked. Picking up a tiny mass like this was a delicate job, even when you knew its coordinates.
“Just happened to catch my eye, Captain,” he said. “I always make a general check every watch of the whole forward quadrant. I noticed a blip where I didn’t remember seeing one before.”
“You have quite an eye, Clay,” I said. “How about getting this object in the beam.”
“We’re trying now, Captain,” he said. “That’s a mighty small field, though.”