The _Friar Bacon_ rolled and wallowed as the message was flashed to the engine room. Larry braced himself against the forward lurch of his body. The ship owner stood with legs spread wide, fists on hips, watching the _Martian_ shoot ahead, seemingly, until it was nearly even with them. Its stern jets, firing pale columns of flame, did not slacken. "Send up a flare," ordered Carlyle. "I'm going to the air-lock. And by the way, tell Murphy to cut his ship loose right now." "Yes, sir." The bridge door clanged shut and Larry sprang to his round of duties, sending up a purple flare--"we wish to speak you" signal--relaying the message to Murphy to drop away in the scout ship with his two-man crew, swinging the ship over until the _Martian_ was so close they could see the faces at the ports. The purple answering flare went up, and Larry moved to maneuver the ship alongside, so that air-lock was to air-lock. The other pilot was an expert, handling his ship like a toy in the hands of a giant. The shock was almost imperceptible. Larry left the bridge just after he saw Murphy, Stoller, and Cass silently pull away, keeping the tiny scout in the umbra of the _Friar Bacon_, hidden from Brand Haggard's eyes. He found Carlyle waiting for him. Together they closed themselves into the tube. The outer end was now locked firmly against the glass door of the _Martian's_ air-lock. Forms shifted eerily behind the double-thickness glass. At a tap on the glass, Carlyle swung his own window back. The other ship's master did the same. Then, suddenly, they were standing face to face, Haggard and Thaddeus Carlyle, Larry and the captain of the other craft. Carlyle was not one to spar for openings. "Let's have an understanding right now, Haggard," he snapped. "You've cut yourself in on this deal but you'll play it according to the rules. Make one misstep and it's war to the last man. Is that clear?" Haggard chuckled. "I think I get it," he said. "Well, it's okay by me, mister. I'll work this section and you work the other side of the field." "You will like hell," barked Carlyle. "I've got a ship in the field already. That, according to the Universal Salvage Code, gives me prior rights. Find yourself another playground." Larry watched the other ship-man's eyes dwindle to steely pin-points, but still he kept a grin on his wide mouth. Haggard was a powerfully built Swede, one of those laughing, blond-headed men who seem a throwback to the days when giants fought with seventy-pound broadswords and wore chain mail. His savagery belonged to another era, too. Men who had shipped with him never did so again, and thanked their stars they were still alive and more or less sane. "All right, Carlyle," he chuckled, at last. "Round one is yours. You keep your boys toeing the mark and I'll try to do the same." His eyes dropped to Larry's face. "Got your course mapped out?"