Crag weighed the question. Despite the tight beam, any communication could be a dead giveaway. On the other hand, Bandit either had the capacity to destroy them or it didn't. If it did, well, there wasn't much they could do about it. He reached a decision and nodded to Prochaska, then began coding his thoughts. He had trouble getting through on the communicator. Finally he got a weak return signal, then sent a brief report. Alpine acknowledged and cut off the air. "What now?" Prochaska asked, when Crag had finished. He shrugged and turned to the side port without answering. Bandit loomed large, a long thick rocket with an oddly blunted nose. A monster that was as deadly as it looked. "Big," he surmised. "Much bigger than this chunk of hardware." "Yeah, a regular battleship," Prochaska assented. He grinned crookedly. "In more ways than one." Crag sensed movement at his shoulder and turned his head. Nagel was studying the radarscope over his shoulder. Surprise lit his narrow face. "The drone?" "Destroyed," Crag said bruskly. "Bandit had a warhead." Nagel looked startled, then retreated to his seat without a word. Crag returned his attention to the enemy rocket. "What do you think?" he asked Prochaska. His answer was solemn. "It spells trouble." CHAPTER 8 At a precise point in space spelled out by the Alpine computers Crag applied the first braking rockets. He realized that the act had been an immediate tip-off to the occupants of the other rocket. No matter, he thought. Sooner or later they had to discover it was the drone they had destroyed. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, their headlong flight was slowed. He nursed the rockets with care. There was no fuel to spare, no energy to waste, no room for error. Everything had been worked out long beforehand; he was merely the agent of execution. The sensation of weight gradually increased. He ordered Larkwell and Nagel into their seats in strapdown position. He and Prochaska shortly followed, but he left his shoulder harnessing loose to give his arms the vital freedom he needed for the intricate maneuvers ahead. The moon rushed toward them at an appalling rate. Its surface was a harsh grille work of black and white, a nightmarish scape of pocks and twisted mountains of rock rimming the flat lunar plains. It was, he thought, the geometry of a maniac. There was no softness, no blend of light and shadow, only terrible cleavages between black and white. Yet there was a beauty that gripped his imagination; the raw, stark beauty of a nature undefiled by life. No eye had ever seen the canopy of the heavens from the bleak surface below; no flower had ever wafted in a lunar breeze. Prochaska nudged his arm and indicated the scope. Bandit was almost abreast them. Crag nodded understandingly. "No more warheads." "Guess we're just loaded with luck," Prochaska agreed wryly.