"Worsel says to cut your drive to zero," the Velantian transmitted. "He's coming up. He's close. He's going to go inert and start driving. We're to stay free until we see what his intrinsic velocity is. Watch for his flare." It was a weird sensation, this of knowing that a speedster--quite a sizable chunk of boat, really--was almost in their midst, and yet having all their instruments, even the electros, register empty space. There it was! The flare of the driving blast, a brilliant streamer of fierce white light, sprang into being and drifted rapidly away to one side of their course. When it had attained a safe distance: "All ships of the flotilla except the _Dauntless_ go inert," Haynes directed. Then, to his own pilot, "Back us off a bit, Henderson, and do the same," and the new flagship also went inert. "How can I get onto the _Pasteur_ the quickest, Haynes?" Lacy demanded. "Take a gig," the admiral grunted. "Strapped down, you can use as much acceleration as you like. Three G's is all we can use without warning and preparation." * * * * * There followed a curious and fascinating spectacle, for the hospital ship had an intrinsic velocity entirely different from that of either Kinnison's speedster or Lacy's powerful gig. The _Pasteur_, gravity pads cut to zero, was braking down by means of her under jets at a conservative one point four gravities, since hospital ships were not allowed to use the brutal inert accelerations employed as a matter of course by ships of war. The gig was on her brakes at five gravities, all that Lacy wanted to take--but the speedster! Worsel had put his patient into a pressure pack and had hung him on suspension, and was "balancing her down on her tail" at everything he could stand--a full eleven gravities! But even at that, the gig first matched the velocity of the hospital ship. The intrinsics of those two were at least of the same order of magnitude, since both had come from the same galaxy. Therefore, Lacy boarded the Red Cross vessel and was escorted to the office of the chief nurse while Worsel was still blasting at eleven G's--fifty thousand miles distant then and getting farther away by the second--to kill the speedster's Lundmarkian intrinsic velocity. Nor could the tractors of the warships be of any assistance--the speedster's own vicious jets were fully capable of supplying more acceleration than even unhuman Worsel could endure!