Henderson's fingers swept over his board, depressing to maximum and locking down key after key. Blast after blast flared from her jets of energies of an intensity almost to pale the brilliance of the madly warring screens, and to Boskone's observers the immense Patrol raider vanished from all ken. * * * * * At that drive, the _Dauntless_ incomprehensible maximum, there was little danger of pursuit: for, as well as being the biggest and the most powerfully armed, she was also the fastest thing in space. Out in open intergalactic space--safe--discipline went by the board as though on signal and all hands joined in a release of pent-up emotion. Kinnison threw off his armor and, seizing the scandalized and highly outraged Cardynge, spun him around in dizzying, though effortless circles. "Didn't lose a man--NOT A MAN!" he yelled, exuberantly. He plucked the now idle Henderson from his board and wrestled with him, only to drift lightly away, ahead of a tremendous slap aimed at his back by Van Buskirk. Inertialessness takes most of the edge off rough housing, but the performance did relieve the tension and soon the ebullient youths quieted down. The enemy base was located well outside the Galaxy. Not, as Kinnison had feared, in the Second Galaxy, but in a star cluster not too far removed from the first. Hence the flight to Prime Base did not take long. Sir Austin Cardynge was more like a self-satisfied tomcat than ever as he gathered up his records, gave a corps of aides minute instructions regarding the packing of his equipment, and set out, figuratively but very evidently licking his chops, rehearsing the scene in which he would confound his allegedly learned fellows, especially that insufferable puppy, that upstart Weingarde. "And that's that," Kinnison concluded his informal report to Haynes. "They're all washed up, there, at least. Before they can rebuild, you can wipe out the whole nest. If there should happen to be one or two more such bases, the boys know now how to handle them. I think I'd better be getting back onto my own job, don't you?" "Probably so," Haynes thought for moments, then continued: "Can you use help, or can you work better alone?" "I've been thinking about that. The higher the tougher, and it might not be a bad idea at all to have Worsel standing by in my speedster; close by and ready all the time. He's pretty much of an army himself, mental and physical. QX?" "Can do," and thus it came about that the good ship _Dauntless_ flew again, this time out Borova way; her sole freight a sleek black speedster and a rusty, battered meteor-tug, her passengers a sinuous Velantian and a husky Tellurian.