rt. "From some place out there."

* * * * *

The picture started coming in at oh three hundred. The Captain and Davis
and McCandless clustered about the infra-red screen, watching the
shadowy picture build up.

It wasn't much of a picture, the Captain thought. It was vague and
indistinct and the drone plane was shooting the scene from too far away.
But he could make out the _Dzugashvili_, a gloomy shape that bulked huge
in the water, the planes clustered on its deck like small, black flies.
But that wasn't what interested him. He had seen restricted photographs
and complete descriptions and evaluations of the _Josef_'s fighting
capabilities before. What was of vastly more importance was the huge
structure that hovered above the _Josef_, a mile overhead. A structure
that blocked out the stars over a roughly rectangular area the same size
as the _Josef_ itself.

McCandless and Davis were still straining their eyes for details of the
alien ship by the time the Captain had glanced away and was formulating
policy. The picture was too vague, he thought. There was nothing that
could be seen that would tell you much about the ship. And if they were
correct in thinking it was a ... his mind hesitated at the thought ...
spaceship, then it would be impossible to tell whether certain features
were armament or not. And it would be futile to speculate on the
capabilities of that armament.

McCandless and Davis finished with their inspection of the screen and
turned to the Captain, waiting for orders.

"Recall the plane," the Captain said. "Send it out again at dawn. And
send a message to Radio Washington, giving them complete details. You
may relax GQ but keep the gunners at their posts and the pilots standing
by." The fantastic became far more real when you dealt with it
matter-of-factly, he thought.

He started for the hatch. "I'll expect you down for breakfast," he said
to Davis. "You, too, Lieutenant. You've been in on this from the start,
you know more than the rest of us."

Which was quite enough flattery for a young lieutenant in one day, he
thought. It was far more than he had ever received when he had been a
lieutenant.

Back in his stateroom, the Captain went directly to the small lavatory,
filled the washbowl, and plunged his face into the cold water. He was
getting old, he thought for the hundredth time that morning. Creeping
old age where you still awoke readily enough but found