om the
level to which Tanith had sunk, radio and screen communication in
five years was a little too much of a jump.

"You didn't lose any men, did you?"

That happened frequently--men who took up with local women, men who
had made themselves unpopular with their shipmates, men who just
liked the planet and wanted to stay. They were always welcomed by
the locals for what they could do and teach.

"No, we weren't there long enough for that. Only three hundred and
fifty hours. This we're getting is outside stuff; somebody's there
beside the locals."

Dunnan. He looked again at the battle-stations board; it was still
uniformly red-lighted. Everything was on full combat ready. He
summoned a mess-robot, selected a couple of dishes, and began
to eat. After the first mouthful, he called to Alvyn Karffard:

"Is Paul getting anything new?" he asked.

Karffard checked. A little contragravity-field distortion effect.
It was still too far to be sure. He went back to his lunch. He had
finished it and was lighting a cigarette over his coffee when a red
light flashed and a voice from one of the speakers shouted.

"Detection! Detection from planet! Radar, and microray!"

Karffard began talking rapidly into a hand-phone; Harkaman unhooked
one beside him and listened.

"Coming from a definite point, about twenty-fifth north parallel,"
he said, aside. "Could be from a ship hiding against the planet.
There's nothing at all on the moon."

* * * * *

They seemed to be approaching the planet more and more rapidly.
Actually, they weren't, the ship was decelerating to get into
an orbit, but the decreasing distance created the illusion of
increasing speed. The red lights flashed once more.

"_Ship detected!_ Just outside atmosphere, coming around the planet
from the west."

"Is she the _Enterprise_?"

"Can't tell, yet," Karffard said, and then cried: "There she is,
in the screen! That spark, about thirty degrees north, just off
the west side."

Aboard her, too, voices from speakers would be shouting, "Ship
detected!" and the battle station board would be blazing red.
And Andray Dunnan, at the command-desk--

"She's calling us." That was Paul Koreff's voice, out of the
squawk-box on the desk. "Standard Sword-World impulse-code.
Interrogative: What ship are you? Informative: her screen
combination. Request: Please communicate."

"All right," Harkaman said. "Let's be polite and communicate.
Wh