Energy-release. Contragravity distortion effects. Infra-red output. A
welter of indecipherable radio and communication-screen signals. Radar
and scanner-ray beams from the planet.

Trask's fist began hurting; he found that he had been pounding
the desk in front of him with it. He stopped it.

"We caught him, we caught him!" he was yelling hoarsely. "Full speed
in, continuous acceleration, as much as we can stand. We'll worry
about decelerating when we're in shooting distance."

The planet grew steadily larger; Karffard was taking him at his word
about continuous acceleration. There'd be a Gehenna of a bill to pay
when they started decelerating. On the planet, more bombs were going
off just outside atmosphere beyond the sunset line.

"Ship observed. Altitude about a hundred to five hundred
miles--hundreds, not thousands--35 deg. North Latitude, 15 deg. west of
the sunset line. Ship is under fire, bomb explosions near her,"
a voice whooped.

Somebody else was yelling that the city lights were really burning
cities, or burning forests. The first voice, having stopped, broke
in again:

"Ship is visible in telescopic screen, just at the sunset line. And
there's another ship detected but not visible, somewhere around the
equator, and a third one somewhere out of sight, we can just get the
fringe of her contragravity field around the planet."

That meant there were two sides, and a fight. Unless Dunnan had
picked up a third ship, somewhere. The telescopic view shifted;
for a moment the planet was completely off-screen, and then its
curvature came into the screen against a star-scattered background.
They were almost in to two thousand miles now; Karffard was yelling
to stop acceleration and trying to put the ship into a spiral orbit.
Suddenly they caught a glimpse of one of the ships.

"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. H