Wherewith Dewitt Charleston peered through the forward port at the onrushing, cloud-veiled sphere which was Venus and grinned very happily. And then, from the corner of a flesh-surmounted eye he glimpsed the red flaring of rocket exhausts on the port side, and not more than ten miles away. "Somebody crowding in on us," Charleston said. "Release the broadcast antenna while I get the transmitter going. Let's see, what's Patrol frequency? Sixty Megacycles." Below the spaceyacht a long length of antenna dropped, trailing some ten feet below the length of the four hundred foot hull. Jimmie nodded an okay to his employer. The fat one absorbed the microphone in a fleshy hand. "Calling unknown ship on port side. Sy 2700 calling." There was no answer. "Rats," said Dewitt Charleston. "What do they mean, coming in on our trajectory?" "But, sir," Jimmie protested, "our trajectory isn't listed with the Authority; they probably have this other ship scheduled to come in now." "They shouldn't do things like that," Charleston protested peevishly with a sublime disregard for the necessarily intricate workings of the Authority. "No right at all. Might think we were ordinary spacebats or something." Which is when the receiver, attuned to the Patrol frequency, caught Traffic Control's command to contact the unidentified destroyer. Forthwith a third ship made itself present in the extra-Venusian heavens; a red-lighted ship bearing the AAP of the Authority Patrol. It came blasting from Venus' east and over its transmitter came: "Patrol V-11 calling destroyer. What is your mission?" Silence. It is a ruling in the interplanetary code that all ships use the same wavelength when contacting ships of the Authority or ships under the guidance of the AA's facilities; since silence reigned, it was quite obvious that the unknown destroyer had not answered. The patrol ship shot a warning flare across the destroyer's bow. It burned bluely in the darkness of the outer atmosphere, lighting up that entire quadrant of space, revealing the baleful circle-in-a-square insignia of Mars on the destroyer's hull! The receiver burst again into life. "Patrol V-11 calling base. Destroyer is of Martian origin. Advise." But before an answer was forthcoming, a luridly flaring object leaped from the dark ship, speeding across the obscurity of interplanetary space like a leaping bolt of lightning. "Patrol V-11 to base. Destroyer launched torpedo. Trying to escape. Blast jet bank seven. Blast nine. Nine! Nine!" The voice went dead. A lurid red sundered the black abyss of space. It was a void of baleful crimson in which two ships sped: Charleston's spaceyacht and the destroyer out of Mars. Where V-11 had been was only a glowing scattering of wreckage which faded into nothingness in the eternal night of the void. "Pali-Vanyi base calling V-11. Calling--" But V-11 did not answer. V-11 could not answer. V-11 was but debris dropping down into the everlasting clouds.