gang designed and built them from the ground up; I know more about them than you do. I want to see them—and the rest of the ship. I haven't got time to go gallivanting all over this base getting signatures on a blasted pass."

The inspector started to say something, but Roysland cut him off. "You can check with Eckisster, if you want; but hurry it up."

Gowlan looked up into Roysland's eyes, hesitated, then spoke into his wrist phone.

Less than two minutes later, Roysland was inside the ship.

The Killiver was in almost perfect shape. The aJ guns appeared to be in perfect operating condition, and the meters showed that three of them had tracked and fired at something that had passed the upper starboard quadrant of the vessel.

Roysland checked the recordings, then looked up at Gowlan, who had elected to follow him. "Any sign of the ship they were firing at?"

Gowlan shrugged. "The Space-fleet men didn't find anything. If the Killiver holed it, they would still probably be light-years away from where the ship was found."

"What made them skitter off like that?"

Gowlan looked at him. "I don't get it. What do you mean?"

Roysland waved his hand to indicate their surroundings. The corridors and rooms of the great ship were swarming with inspectors, who were photographing and checking every square centimeter of the ship.

"What happened? Why have we got this ship?" Roysland asked.

Gowlan thought for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I see what you're getting at. Let's see—

"The Killiver is cruising in ultradrive. They pick up a blip on the detector; it's an enemy ship. They're too far away to torpedo, but they're well within range of the aJ projectors. That gets us up to the moment of firing." He stopped and his frown deepened. "Wait a second; that doesn't make sense."

Roysland raised an eyebrow. "What doesn't?"

"Well, look here: The gunners would have had to be awake when the aJ's were fired. All right; that means they tracked the Enlissa ship, then cut in the automatics to fire the aJ's. They must have missed, because the Enlissa used the mindjammer after the aJ's 

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