"Communications here. Message from Luna Base, Captain."

"Here it is," Strykalski told Cob. "Right on time."

"Speak of the devil," muttered the Executive.

"From the Admiral, sir," the voice in the interphone said, "Shall I read it?"

"Just give me the dope," ordered Strike.

"The Admiral orders us to quote make a diversionary attack on the planet of 40 Eridani C II unquote," said the squawk-box flatly.

"Acknowledge," ordered Strykalski.

"Wilco. Communications out."

Strike made an I-told-you-so gesture to his Executive. Then he turned toward the enlisted man at the helm. "Quarter-master?"

The man looked up from his auto-pilot check. "Sir."

"Steady as she goes."

"Yes, sir."

"And that," shrugged Ivy Hendricks, "Is that."

Three weeks passed in the timeless limbo of second-order flight. Blast tubes silent, the Cleopatra rode the curvature of space toward Eridanus. At eight and a half light years from Sol, the second-order was cut so that Bayne could get a star sight. As the lights of the celestial globe slowly retreated from their unnatural grouping ahead and astern, brilliant Sirius and its dwarf companion showed definite disks in the starboard ports. At a distance of 90,000,000 miles from the Dog Star, its fourteen heavy-gravity planets were plainly visible through the electron telescope.

Strykalski and Ivy Hendricks stood beside Bayne in the dorsal blister while the astrogator sighted Altair through his polytant. His long, horse face bore a look of complete self-approbation when he had completed his last shot.

"A perfect check with the plotted course! How's that for fancy dead reckoning?" he exclaimed.

He was destined never to know the accolade, for at that moment the communicator began to flash angrily over the chart table. 

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