he _Gaucho_
rushed toward her. The gun fired again and again, flooding the screen
with momentary yellow light and disturbing the image as the recoil
shook the gun-cutter. The enemy ship began firing in reply, the shots
were all wide misses. Apparently the geek guncrew didn't know how to
synchronize the radar sights, and were ignorant of the correct setting
for the proximity-fuses. The _Gaucho_'s searchlights came on, bathing
her quarry in light. It was the _Jan Smuts_; the name and the
figurehead-bust of the old soldier-philosopher were plainly visible.
Her forward gun had been knocked out, and she was trying to swing
about to get a field of fire for her stern-gun.

"We're going to give her a rocket-salvo," the voice said. "Watch this,
now!"

The rockets leaped forward, from the topside racks, four and four and
four and four, at half-second intervals. The first four hit the
_Smuts_ amidships and low, exploding with a flare that grew before it
could die away as the second four landed. Nobody ever saw the third
and fourth four land. The _Jan Smuts_ vanished in a blaze of light
that blinded everybody in the room; when they could see again, after
some thirty seconds, the screen was dark.

In the direct-vision screen from the _Sky-Spy_, the whole countryside
of the Konk Valley, five hundred miles north of Konkrook, was lighted.
The heat and radiation detectors were going insane. And in the
shifting confusion on the radar-screen, there was no trace either of
the _Jan Smuts_ or the _Gaucho_.

"Well, the geeks did have an A-bomb," Themistocles M'zangwe said, at
length. "I'd been trying to kid myself that we were just preparing
against a million-to-one chance. I wonder how many more they have."

"Paula, find out who was in command of the _Gaucho_; he'd be a
junior-grade lieutenant. Fix up orders promoting him to navy captain,
as of now. It's probably the only thing we can do for him, anymore.
And promotions of the same order for everybody else aboard that
cutter. Authority Carlos von Schlichten, acting Governor-General." He
picked up a phone. "Get me Commander Prinsloo, on _Aldebaran_...."

He ordered Prinsloo to launch airboats and make a search; cautioned
him to be careful of radiation, but to take no chances on any of the
_Gaucho_'s complement being still alive and in need of help. While
that was going on, the _Sky-Spy_ reported another ship coming over her
horizon to the east, from the direction of Bwork. That would b