Then he said heavily: “Mr. Baird, you seem to notice things. Take this Plumie over the ship. Show him our drive melted down, so he’ll realize we can’t possibly tow his ship into an orbit. He knows that we’re armed, and that we can’t handle our war heads at this range! So we can’t fool each other. We might as well be frank. But you will take full note of his reactions, Mr. Baird!”

Baird advanced, and the skipper made a gesture. The Plumie regarded Baird with interested eyes. And Baird led the way for a tour of the Niccola. It was confusing even to him, with right hand converted to up and left hand to down, and sidewise now almost vertical. On the way the Plumie made more clear, flutelike sounds, and more gestures. Baird answered.

“Our gravity pull was that way,” he explained, “and things fell so fast.”

He grasped a handrail and demonstrated the speed with which things fell in normal ship-gravity. He used a pocket communicator for the falling weight. It was singularly easy to say some things, even highly technical ones, because they’d be what the Plumie would want to know. But quite commonplace things would be very difficulty to convey.

Diane’s voice came out of the communicator.

“There are no novelties outside,” she said quietly. “It looks like this is the only Plumie ship anywhere around. It could have been exploring, like us. Maybe it was looking for the people who put up Space-Survey markers.”

“Maybe,” agreed Baird, using the communicator. “Is that stuff about falling into the sun correct?”

“It seems so,” said Diane composedly. “I’m checking again. So far, the best course I can get means we graze the sun’s photosphere in fourteen days six hours, allowing for acceleration by the sun’s gravity.”

“And you and I,” said Baird wryly, “have been acting as professional associates only, when—”

“Don’t say it!” said Diane shakily. “It’s terrible!”

He put the communicator back in his pocket. The Plumie had watched him. He had a peculiarly gallant air, this small figure in golden space armor with its high-crested helmet.

They reached the engine room. And there was the giant drive shaft of the Niccola, once wrapped with yard-thick coils which could induce an incredible density of magnetic flux in the metal. Even the return magnetic field, through the ship’s cobalt-steel hull, was 

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