“I’d guess that movement is due to rotation of two spheres around a common center,” Clay said.
“I agree with you,” I said. “Try to get me a reading on the mass of the object.”
I wondered whether Kramer had been locked up as I had ordered, but at this moment it seemed unimportant. If this was, as I hoped, a contact with our colony, all our troubles were over.
The object (I hesitated to call it a ship) approached steadily, still decelerating. Now Clay picked it up on the televideo, as it paralleled our course forty-five hundred miles out.
“Captain, it’s my guess the body will match speeds with us at about 200 miles, at his present rate of deceleration,” Clay said.
“Hold everything you’ve got on him, and watch closely for anything that might be a missile,” I said.
Clay worked steadily over his chart table. Finally he turned to me. “Captain, I get a figure of over a hundred million tons mass; and calibrating the scope images gives us a length of nearly two miles.”
I let that sink in. I had a strong and very empty feeling that this ship, if ship it were, was not an envoy from any human colony.
The annunciator hummed and spoke. “Captain, I’m getting a very short wave transmission from a point out on the starboard bow. Does that sound like your torpedo?” It was Mannion.