Part 2

"Double duty now," Kennett pronounced grimly. "It may be only a matter of hours until Prather sights us--but I want to be sure of sighting him first!"

"Okay!" Marnay said.

From then on, one of the men stayed always by the visipanel, manipulating the dial which magnified space for a thousand mile radius. But all remained a vast swimming blackness. An occasional meteor flashed across, but no sign of any spaceship.

Once Marnay, at the controls, gave a few experimental blasts with the rocket speeds. The _Vera_ jerked a little. At once Kennett was leaping to his side, spinning him around in the seat.

"What the hell!" he yelled, his face a little pale. "Do you want to--"

He didn't finish, but turned away, as the rockets purred smoothly again. Marnay smiled to himself. Had Kennett been about to say, "blow us up?" Was _that_ the secret of the _Vera_?

Maybe. Marnay grew serious as he pondered on it--the rest of the ship back there which Kennett had shut off. Suppose the ship was full of _Tynyte_ space-bombs? Marnay remembered the Patrol's encounters with Prather. They'd tried atom-blasts at first, but before they could take effect the tough pirate ship slid from beneath them like an eel in oil. Then they had tried _Tynyte_ bombs. But the pirate ship was reputedly so fast that not one of the bombs could reach its mark with any effectiveness.

How could Kennett, then, in the plodding _Vera_, hope to succeed with _Tynyte_ bombs?

A sudden fantastic thought flooded Marnay's brain--something about super speed--but he immediately dispensed with _that_ idea. He was no spaceman, but he knew enough about Spacer construction to know that Kennett had no hidden speed here in the _Vera_. No, it was something else he must have up his sleeve....

Kennett went back into the middle of the ship a few more times, as though on trips of inspection, but didn't stay long.

At last Marnay said, in his impatience: "We'll be meeting up with Prather any minute now! Hadn't you better give me my orders?"

"No orders," Kennett replied with amazing calmness.

"But--damn it, man! At least I want to know what to expect!"

"I'm sorry, Marnay. Bear with me just a little longer now. If I told you any more you might become panicky at the last second and ruin everything. That absolutely mustn't happen. I _will_ tell you just this much: there's never been a Spacer like this before, it's something utterly revolutionary in Spacer construction. I worked on it three years, building it almost single-handed, just for the sole moment when I'd meet up with Prather. It worked all right on a tiny model--but if the real thing doesn't work we won't be alive to know it. If only Prather would hurry!"

* * * * *

Kennett turned the visipanel dial nervously, watching the swimming, empty blackness. "Maybe he hasn't swallowed the bait!" he exclaimed. "Maybe those weren't even his men that left Mars, and he doesn't know we're out here at all! Say, if that dirty V'Norghi has double-crossed me...." Kennett stopped, laughed shortly. "Well, nothing we can do now. I feel it only fair to tell you, Marnay: we haven't enough fuel to take us on to Callisto, or back to Mars either. I was depending on Prather for our return fuel."

Marnay looked up with a wry grimace. "D'you know, Kennett, that's one thing I like about you. You're always telling me such comforting things at the most unexpected moments!"

But Prather showed up. It was hours later, and startlingly sudden. Kennett called from the visipanel:

"There he is, I almost missed him! I told you he's clever, he's got his ship painted solid black! Now listen, Marnay. I'm going to keep him in the panel, you stay at the controls and obey my instructions."

"Okay, but how close is he?" Marnay asked nervously.

"Dial shows a thousand miles--off the starboard bow, and he's approaching fast. Maintain your present speed."

Marnay did, but wished he was at the panel instead of Kennett.

"Click on the radio," Kennett called a minute later. "But don't answer if he sends a message through. He doesn't seem to be suspicious of anything yet, but I know he's sighted us."

Kennett continued to watch. He called: "Cut speed to one quarter. One quarter, damn it!" as Marnay fumbled with the tube control. "There, that's it, good. That'll show him we've sighted him, but he mustn't suspect we're too anxious to meet up with him."

"_I'm_ not anxious to," Marnay replied. And then he jumped as a cold, strange voice came through the open radio.

"The _Vera_? Hello! This is Prather. You will please go into a drift while I board you. You have a cargo I should like to inspect." The voice was mocking, but at the same time anticipatory.

So the bait had worked! Marnay reached automatically for the shut-off control, but Kennett's voice stabbed at him: "Leave 'em alone! You will maintain one-quarter speed. And leave our sender off, don't answer; let him think we've got no radio at all, so he'll ram us."

So he'll ram us! That was a nice pleasant thought, Marnay thought, wiping sweat from his brow. But he obeyed Kennett's orders.

Again came Prather's voice: "Attention _Vera_! You will go into a drift immediately or take the consequences. Last warning."

Marnay had an overwhelming desire to shut off the tubes, but he didn't. He maintained their one-quarter speed. Then through the speaker the two men heard:

"They have no radio. We'll ram. It's just as well." Marnay could almost imagine Prather's shrug.

* * * * *

From the panel Kennett said "Okay! Fine! He's still coming at us. You can lock the controls now, and come over here."

Marnay did that willingly. He peered into the panel. Then he gasped. The huge, black pirate ship was looming up terrifyingly large, filling half of space, speeding straight at them. It couldn't have been a hundred miles away, Marnay thought, and in another minute it would smash through the _Vera_ like an eggshell!

Marnay waited for Kennett to make some move. He made none.

Then, in a sudden flood of horror, Marnay realized the other's purpose. Revenge, of course, he had known that! But he was going to sacrifice both their lives for it!

Kennett shook him away angrily. "Keep cool! You'll see something in a minute--get ready!"

Still they watched and waited. The detector dial registered the swiftly diminishing distance--fifty miles, twenty miles, ten....

Then Kennett was on his feet, moving with swift surety to the wall, opening a small iron locker. There Marnay glimpsed a complete set of odd looking controls. Swiftly Kennett plugged in a bank of connections, electric cables. He grasped a heavy lever. He stood there, looking over at the detector dial. It showed three miles.

"All right," Kennett yelled, "hold tight!... Now!"

His hand came down on the lever.

* * * * *

For a moment Marnay thought the pirate ship had rammed them, or that they had exploded, or both. He and Kennett were suddenly hurtling outward ... at terrific speed ... their tiny compartment away from the rest of the ship!

He looked in the panel and his heart leaped. They had indeed exploded--very systematically! He saw fully a score of miniature _Veras_ speeding away from each other in a perfect, ever widening circle! Each was a tiny spacer with its own motivating blast. He recalled the puzzling construction of the _Vera_ as he'd first seen it, and now suddenly he understood; it had been _segmented_!

Where the huge original _Vera_ had been was now only a huge steel framework, from which the score of miniature _Veras_ were speeding away in their widening circle. The pirate ship was blasting violently with its forward rockets, but it was too late. It crashed into the framework, crumpling and tangling it and carrying it forward on the momentum.

"Now watch!" Kennett was yelling unnecessarily in Marnay's ear. "Space-bombs such as you never saw before--each of those _Veras_, ten tons of _Tynyte_!"

"But--they're going away...."

"They're equipped with magniplates! And only barely enough rocket power to hurl them away from each other. Just watch!"

The mile-wide circle of miniature _Veras_ was slowing, as each of their feeble rocket-blasts ceased. And then they came heading swiftly back to their original source, the magniplates pulling them back.

As though endowed with some uncanny intelligence, they came; as though aware of the revenge entrusted to them, and the significance of their name.

The first one struck near the pirate ship's prow, letting loose its death. The ship lifted like a proud black stallion rearing in the air. The tough metal hull held--but only for a second. Another _Vera_ struck. The blast hurled the ship directly into a host of others which exploded in a holocaust that ripped the black hull open like a sardine can. The rest of the _Veras_ came speeding into the mass to let loose their death, complete and final.

As Marnay turned from that scene in the panel he felt sick and a little weak; Kennett was pale, but the grim little lines were gone from around his mouth and a bitter look was no longer in his eyes.

"Well, it's all over," he said with startling calmness. "I've done what I swore three years ago I'd do. I think I named my ship well."

He stared long and wistfully into space. "Yes, they're gone now--all the _Veras_ are gone. Except one. _This_ one's left to take us back, so we'd better start sifting through all that mess out there for enough fuel."

Slowly they drifted in, to begin the grim task.