Hour after hour, day after day, the _Dauntless_ hurtled through space, swinging almost imperceptibly this way and that to avoid the dense ether in the neighborhood of suns through which the designated course would have led; but never leaving far or for long the direct line, almost exactly in the equatorial plane of the Galaxy, between Tellus and the place of meeting. Behind her the Milky Way clotted, condensed, gathered itself together; before her and around her the stars began rapidly to thin out. Finally there were no more stars in front of her. She had reached the "arbitrary rim" of the Galaxy, and the second navigator plugged into Communications. "Please get me Flotilla ZDK, Flagship Navigations," he requested; and, as a clean-cut young face appeared upon his plate: "Hi, Harvey, old spacehound! Fancy meeting you out here! It's a small Universe, ain't it? Say, did that crumb back there at Base tell you, too, to be sure and start checking course before you overran the rendezvous? If he was singling me out to make that pass at, I'm going to take steps, and not through channels, either." "Yeah, he told me the same. I thought it was funny, too--an oiler's boy would know enough to do that without being told. We figured maybe he was jittery on account of us meeting the admiral or something. What's burned out all the jets, Paul, to get the big brass hats 'way out here and all dithered up, and to pull us offa the cruise this way? Must be a hell of an important flit! You're computing the Old Man himself; you oughta know something. What's all this about a speedster that we're going to escort? Spill it--give us the dope!" "I don't know a thing, Harvey, honest, any more than you do. They didn't put out a word. Well, we'd better be getting onto the course--'to compensate unavoidably erroneous assumptions in computation,'" he mimicked caustically. "What do you read on my lambda? Fourteen--three--oh point six--decrement--" The conversation became a technical jargon; because of which, however, the courses of the flying spaceships changed subtly. The flotilla swung around, through a small arc of a circle of prodigious radius, decreasing by a tenth its driving force. Up to it the _Dauntless_ crept; through it and into the van. Then again in cone formation, but with fifty-five units instead of fifty-four, the flotilla screamed forward at maximum blast. Well before the calculated time of meeting the speedster a Velantian Lensman who knew Worsel well put himself en rapport with him and sent a thought out far ahead of the flying squadron. It found its goal--Lensmen of that race, as has been brought out, have always been extraordinarily capable communicators--and once more the course was altered slightly. In due time Worsel reported that he could detect the fleet, and shortly thereafter: