"Hand me that weapon, Junior, butt first," I said. I looked him in the
eye with all the glare I had. He stepped back a pace.
"Why don't you jump him," he called to the crowd.
The wall annunciator hummed and spoke.
"Captain Greylorn, please report to the bridge. Unidentified body on
main scope."
Every man stopped in his tracks, listening. The annunciator continued.
"Looks like it's decelerating, Captain."
I holstered my pistol, pushed past Joyce, and trotted for the lift. The
mob behind me broke up, talking, as men under long habit ran for action
stations.
Clay was operating calmly under pressure. He sat at the main screen, and
studied the blip, making tiny crayon marks.
"She's too far out for a reliable scanner track, Captain," he said, "but
I'm pretty sure she's braking."
If that were true, this might be the break we'd been living for. Only
manned or controlled bodies decelerated in deep space.
"How did you spot it, Clay?" I asked. Picking up a tiny mass like this
was a delicate job, even when you knew its coordinates.
"Just happened to catch my eye, Captain," he said. "I always make a
general check every watch of the whole forward quadrant. I noticed a
blip where I didn't remember seeing one before."
"You have quite an eye, Clay," I said. "How about getting this object in
the beam."
"We're trying now, Captain," he said. "That's a mighty small field,
though."
Joyce called from the radar board, "I think I'm getting an echo at
15,000, sir. It's pretty weak."
Miller, quiet and meticulous, delicately tuned the beam control. "Give
me your fix, Joyce," he said. "I can't find it."
Joyce called out his figures, in seconds of arc to three places.
"You're right on it, Joyce," Miller called a minute later. "I got it.
Now pray it don't get away when I boost it."
Clay stepped over behind Miller. "Take it a few mags at a time," he said
calmly.
I watched Miller's screen. A tiny point near the center of the screen
swelled to a spec, and jumped nearly off the screen to the left. Miller
centered it again, and switched to a higher power. This time it jumped
less, and resolved into two tiny dots.
* * * * *
Step by step the magnification was increased as ring after ring of the
lens antenna was thrown into play. Each time the centering operation was
more delicate. The image grew until it filled a quarter of the screen.
We stared at it in fascination.
It showed up in stark silhouette, in the electronic "light" of the radar
scope. Two perfect discs, joined by a fine filament. As we watched,
their relative positions slowly shifted, one moving across, half
occluding the other.
As the image drifted, Miller worked with infinite care at his console to
hold it on center, in sharp focus.
"Wish you'd give me an orbit on this thing, Joyce," he said, "so I could
lock onto it."
"It ain't got no orbit, man," Joyce said. "I'm trackin' it, but I don't
understand it. That rock is on a closing curve with us, and slowin' down
fast."
"What's the velocity, Joyce?" I asked.
"Averagin' about 1,000 relative, Captain, but slowin' fast."
"All right, we'll hold our course," I said.