The SP-15 looked brand new, and Cragin had little more than buttoned her up when flight control beamed him. He kept the Griffin ship tracked for a full minute, let it cut the edge of the Mars ecliptic before he cut in his own drive. She was giving Pluto her starboard when he decided on a comfortable watch dog position, and she was headed for the nearest Barrier co-ordinate within an hour afterward. Just as though, Cragin thought, somebody had written the whole script out for both of them, and all they had to do was say their lines and pretty soon the whole thing would be over. He checked the gun circuits, tried the detectors for a track, jacked in the comptometer bank. One began to hum a little and it took him off guard; he hadn't expected it this soon. She had picked up speed and was going like hell even for a Barrier-bust. But he was certain she hadn't spotted him, and he was flying in her blind spot to keep out of her electroscopes. Sooner or later she'd check in her radar proximity beams and when they didn't work--If she were as smart as she looked she'd be swinging her electroscope lenses all over the sky. Her Starwasp took the Barrier-bust as though it were just so much Space between Earth and Moon, and Cragin straightened a little in his cushioned acceleration seat. He threw a track of his own on her, got an echo measure on it and entered it as a constant into the comp bank, knocking out the variable that had represented his own control-error margin. It was the only way he'd be sure to keep her. But if she made a mistake or her own comps broke down, they'd both fall off the tight rope. Three cut in and began whining. Cragin tried a speed check; they'd passed light-speed, and there was no more danger of her catching him in her electroscopes. The velocity needle began wider oscillations, and the hum from Four verified it ... the critical speed changes were getting trickier. Twenty minutes ticked off, and Cragin knew they were further out than when he'd picked her up two weeks ago. Light-speed trebled. Back to double. Now times twelve. Six was screaming. Seven started humming, and Cragin felt his clothes beginning to stick to his back. By himself, he'd never had more than seven comps to fly on, and had never taken the risk of flying past breakdown. That was suicide. The SP-15 had been fitted with ten as he had ordered. According to the books, if you tried to use more than that, the circuits in One would burn up. Nobody, except Fowler Griffin and his daughter, had ever tried past seven except himself. The risk wasn't worth what you got out of it, and listening to a bunch of comps getting ready to blow themselves to hell didn't net you anything but a bad heart. Eight came on. One began to glow. Cragin knew he either had to break communications silence or kick himself clear into eternity. His thumb slipped on the mike switch. His fingers felt like wet sticks, and the mike was cold and greasy to his touch.