Moving out from the asteroid, the lighter described a wide curve. It came upon the supply ship from behind, striking a speed only slightly greater than that of its quarry. Rapidly overhauling the larger spacecraft, it sent no recognition signal and was prepared to answer none.
Already the supply ship had begun tedious deceleration preparatory to sighting the flare beacon and dumping the stores for the prisoners on Asteroid 297. It was a dull, routine maneuver. In the control cabin, pilot-captain and astrogator crouched over chart-screens and fed order tapes into the electronic devices which ran the ship. Men may be careless and overconfident. Machines are not—
Alarms whined and clamored. Red lights blinked on the control panels, reporting intrusion. Instruments went into automatic action to determine the sector and nature of possible menace. Data tapes spewed from the battery of electronic brains. Electric typewriters clattered like machine-guns.
The strange object was man-made, too regular in form to be of meteoric origin. Metallic, but not a meteor. Its mirror-polished skin was analyzed spectroscopically and classified as an industrial alloy. Details of structure were noted and filed. By its speed and the phantom glow in its wake, the stranger was obviously powered by some secondary use of atomics.
But the officers of the supply ship had scant time to digest this array of facts. With a burst of speed, the strange craft angled suddenly toward them. Distance closed rapidly, and collision seemed imminent.
Alarms screamed in mechanical panic. Robot piloting devices operated instantaneously, attempted ticklish maneuvering to avoid contact. It was too late.
The pilot-captain's brain was working almost as rapidly as the relays of his cybernetic helpers. But not as surely. For a desperate moment, he considered the possibility of piracy, but he rejected the thought at once. All known desperadoes had been hunted from the spaceways. And if communications were to be trusted, no other spaceship could be within many days run of his present position. Mentally, the officer reviewed Procedure Regulations, and wondered what space novelty he was encountering this time.
He had little time to wonder, and less for indecision. If he had acted at once, the ponderous meteor repellor tubes could have been shifted from the nose of the ship. Even the token armament of robot-aimed torpedo tubes could have been ordered into action.
In the confusion of the moment, he took no action at all.