She was being optimistic only by wanting to be.

"Maybe we'll make it!" Ron Leiccsen answered doubtfully. "If our luck is right, and if we work out a good enough plan!"

"Why, what do you mean?" she snapped back at him, angry again because of his usual dark thinking, which seemed to laugh at hope.

"Just what I say," he returned brutally, feeling that he might have tried to keep the grim facts from her, if she'd been less reckless by nature. But she was no fragile clinging vine. Bleak, skeletal truth might help to balance her judgment of what was wise and what was not.

"I guess you're right," Anna Charles murmured at last, her sagging shoulders showing suddenly how very tired she was, and how little. "Those Callistan ships are almost certain to spot us, as we approach Titan. They can recognize a black Earth-craft from millions of miles off, through their telescopes. They'll try to get us, of course, and unless we find some way to trick them, we'll never win through the blockade alive!"

Ron patted Anna's arm, and grinned reassuringly. She was not reckless now, though she betrayed no hint of real fear.

Suddenly Ron wanted very much to kiss Anna Charles; but he didn't do it. "We'll think hard, pal," he said quietly, almost apologetically, "and maybe we'll find a way to reach Titan, yet!"

Thinking—with the sharp, steady stars gleaming ahead. Thinking—with Saturn and his beady moors growing, getting closer, out of the distance of space. Danger, coming nearer and nearer. Ron Leiccsen's head ached with fatigue, with mental strain, with somber doubts. There was no way to hide this huge, black Earth-freighter from keen Callistan eyes. No way at all! And yet he had to keep trying. Struggling to build a scheme to run the blockade and elude the mathematical accuracy of the long-range atom guns which the Callistans used in space fighting. The Barbarian was unarmed, and against such guns, within any range less than two hundred miles, it wouldn't have a chance.

There was still no time to investigate the freighter's unknown cargo. To do so would have involved the unbolting of massive doors, hasped and sealed for the voyage, so that there would be no danger that the load would shift, throwing the ship off balance, and disturbing its flight. A couple of hours' work would be required to unscrew those bolts, and replace them again, for safety. And there might be other unknown dangers, too.

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