"We're being followed," Nadia said. "They've been on our trail ever since we left Venus. The chief astrogator figured their speed. They'll overtake us in five sidereal days. Only, they'll be too late." "Why?" "The little death!" she explained. A premonition of danger made a cold track in his brain. He swung around. Nadia Petrovna stood very straight not four feet from him. Big tears stood like drops of crystal in her long black eyes. She was holding her tiny dart-gun at Gavin's chest. "May God rest your soul." She uttered the words in a choked voice, and pulled the trigger. Gavin was caught completely flatfooted. He glimpsed a flash as the splinter of steel zipped at his chest and knew he was a dead man. The dart struck his breast and stood straight out from his blouse. He stared down at it in panic. But no fire of poison coursed through his veins. He remembered his dart-proof plastic vest with a flood of relief. Another needle stuck through his blouse into the vest as Nadia pulled the trigger a second time. Gavin crumpled slowly forward. Then his knees stiffened. His hand snapped out to close about Nadia's slim wrist, dragging her down with him. Savagely, he wrenched the gun from her fingers. She began to sob. Sitting on the deck, he plucked the two poisoned darts from the front of his plastic vest. "It's good to know who your friends are," he said dryly and got to his feet. "Don't try it again. I won't be so lenient next time." VI By the sixth day, Gavin Murdock was no nearer the solution of the little death than he had been at the start. It was Villanowski's watch below. Gavin sat on the observation deck, watching the three streaks in the void which betrayed their pursuers. They had closed the gap until they were almost on top of them. If the Nova possessed a unique spacedrive, Gavin reflected, she'd better be unlimbering it. The three ships were almost in atomic shell range. His thoughts wrestled for the hundredth time with the little death. Villanowski had become suspicious and clammed up. The officers frankly didn't like to discuss it. They evaded his questions, insisting he must first experience it. Suddenly, Gavin started to his feet, his eyes searching the void. In toward the sun he had glimpsed the hair line of a rocket ship's jets. He thought he could distinguish five separate streaks of light, but they were so faint and far away that they blended into one streak. Five trails! That could only mean a flight of patrol spacers blasting after the three pursuers of the Nova. Gavin heard a step behind him and twisted sideways, his hand rising to his shoulder holster. Nadia Petrovna came out on the observation deck. She caught sight of Gavin and started to withdraw. Then an expression of determination took possession of her features. She flushed and said, "Let's call off the war." "Sure." Gavin's voice was without mockery, but his hand still hovered close to his chest.