I can-"

Barton picked his words. "You don't need to be so

close, now?"

Her bushy hair swung with the headshake. "Not as much. no. And what I do need-" She laughed. "You do give a nice hug, Barton. I like you. But the fact that you're the only game in town is a lousy excuse for going to bed with you. Even though I liked it, when we did."

Barton swallowed a lump of ego, and said, "So did I- but I think you're right about the rest of it."

She smiled, showing the large white teeth. "I've learned to need less in the way of emotional support, and to get what I do need in other ways. In fact, it's time I broke the habit of sulking at Abdul." Shrug. "Not his

fault."

Well, now. Barton tried to keep his sigh of relief under

wraps. "That's good; I know it's bothered him some. One other thing, though-and this is not a pass at you. Alene, it's all right to need people a littte more, sometimes. We

all do."

"Sure; I know. And I-" A knock interrupted her.

Barton got the door; Myra was there. "You weren't anywhere else, so you had to be here." She handed him a readout strip- "These are Chindra's figures for turnover, arrival at Sisshain, and our chances of catching Hishtoo first. I ran a set, too, and there's not enough difference

to matter."

"Rough it out, will you, Myra? I'll read this later."

"Sure." Accepting a beer from Alene, the tali woman

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sat. "Figure turnover in about forty-nine hours, toward the middle of day-33. From then, thirty-one days to Sisshain at max decel, and nearly thirty to the most op- timistic guess at catching Hishtoo."

'That long?" Barton had hoped for better.

"We've been close to max all along, you know. Now, then-we're starting to lose signal with the other ships.

Anything you want to say, or ask, before we do?"

He thought. "Well, if you haven't already, and you probably have, get me their arrival guesstimates for Sisshain."

Myra grinned at him. "I don't have them yet, but I did ask. Any minute now ..."

"Good on you. Well, give them the usual best wishes, and all."

"I will." She stood. "Back to work. Alene, thanks for the beer."

"Pleasure. Come again." Behind Myra Hake the door closed, leaving silence.

Barton broke it. "Anybody around here hungry, besides me?" ^

Grover stood to face him. "I am. Soon as you try me with that hug again, once." He did; then the meeting adjourned for lunch.

Cheng and Eeshta had the watch; appetites satisfied, the other five stayed talking in the galley. The question at hand was Limila's: Now that they had Hishloo spotted, could the Demu detect Ship One, also?

Barton knew the answers, so he didn't listen too closely to Abdui's explanation. First, Hishtoo couldn't "see"

anything through the turmoil of his own drive wake.

Second, on accel a ship's wake-the gravitic ripples, ionization, magnetic turbulence, unstable particles-all of it propagated rearward. And at light speed, at that, so that even on decel, with Ship One's wake shooting out ahead, Hishtoo couldn't spot it until he dropped below "c."

Myra frowned. "Then could one ship sneak up through another's wake and pull a surprise attack?"

And when Abdul told her that above light-speed, the wake itself would destroy the attacking ship, she wanted to know how, on decel, they could pass through their own wake.

"Our drive fields are more intense than their product,"

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Abdul said, "so they deflect it to the sides. But-" His raised hand anticipated the next question. " . . . not the wake of another ship, because it cannot be of exactly^the same pattern."

But why didn't the Shield protect at any speed, Limila asked, and this time Cheng fielded the question. "The Shield's built to work in normai space, not in a drive wake. There, the Shield's own collapse would destroy the ship within it."

"Then the drive itself is a weapon!"

"It could be," said Barton. "Except, in practice it'd be damned hard to get into position to use it."

"But, Barton-if we overtake Hishtoo in decelera- tion?"

He thought, nodded. "Yes; approach on a parallel path to keep our own view clear, then swing over. But-it's a killing weapon, Limifa. No other way."

Hand to mouth, she gasped. "Oh! livajj and Gerain- I had forgotten them." She stood and fled, but failed to reach the door before her tears flowed.

Barton's vocabulary, then, did him little credit. Alene Grover patted his hand. "That makes two of us."

The gathering broke up. In Control, Barton "ran a number of simulations based on Chindra's tapes- Hishtoo's choices of turnover points, the Demu's conse- quent decel rates. It still came out a tossup. ,

He prowled the ship. Eeshta was in Six, door closed.

Barton wanted to talk to the youngster-but not in his present mood. He took a test kit from Three and ran a full series of maintenance checks that weren't due for another week. Only when he had pooped himself thor- oughly did he return the kit and approach Compart- ment One.

At least it wasn't locked; he entered quietly. Limila was asleep. Barton tiptoed across the room; as quietly as possible-the bourbon only gurgled, but the ice rattled- he made a drink. Then he sat in the half-dark, thinking.

When he made a second drink, the tinkle of ice was answered. "Barton?"

"None other. You feeling better?"

"I am, yes. And a little hungry."

So-she will be all right now.

As the days passed, tension grew. Turnover came on schedule; Ship One, on max decel toward Sisshain, still

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