Control. I've something to tell you. Suppose you listen. But not on spacephone. Have your best grid technician come outside and then I shall tell him by speaker."

He snapped off the spacephone and watched. The control building fairly erupted indignant youths. After a moment he saw the gangling one who'd grinned so proudly when the Med ship was landed with absolute perfection. The others shouted and scowled at the ship.

Calhoun threw on the outside speaker—normally used for communication with a ground crew before lifting.

"I'm set," said Calhoun coldly, "for overdrive travel. My Duhanne cells are charged to the limit. If you try to form a force-field around this ship, I'll dump half a dozen overdrive charges into it in one jolt that will blow every coil you've got! And then how'll you fight the ships from Phaedra? I'm going to talk to them on spacephone. Listen in if you like. Monitor it. But don't try to bother me!"

He threw on the spacephone again and patiently resumed his calling:

"Med ship Esclipus Twenty calling fleet from Phaedra! Med ship calling fleet from Phaedra—"

He saw violent argument outside the grid's control building. Some of the young figures raged. But the youth who'd handled the grid so professionally raged at them. Calhoun hadn't made an idle threat. A grid-field could be blown out. A grid could be made useless by one of the ships it handled. When a ship like Calhoun's went into overdrive, it put out something like four ounces of pure energy to form a field in which it could travel past the speed of light. In terms of horsepower or kilowatt hours, so much force would be meaningless. It was too big. It was a quantity of energy whose mass was close to four ounces. When the ship broke out of overdrive, that power was largely returned to storage. The loss was negligible, compared to the total. But, turned loose into a grid's force-field, even three or four such charges would work havoc with the grid's equipment.

Calhoun got an answer from emptiness just as the members of the group by the control building shouted each other down and went inside to listen with bitter unease and suspicion to his talk with the enemy.

"Phaedra fleet calling," said a growling voice in the spacephone speaker. "What do you want?"

"To exercise my authority as a Med Service officer," said Calhoun heavily. "I warn you that I now 

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