"I don't know what--unless we splashed them with a bucket of paint. We have a gallon of bright red, wire-impregnating varnish. Executive to Pilot, Astrogator, Technician, and Observer: Get the course of the _Orionad_ to the last millimeter. Both the intrinsic course and the course with respect to the _Asterite_. Then plot a free flight across their path to intercept within a thousand feet at thirty degrees angle. You know the standard attack problem as we have designed it; this is an applied problem, fellows. We're going to label the _Orionad_! And when they land, they're going to bear the _Asterite_'s trademark, and they'll not know it until we make Terra. Like?" "We're on it now," said Stan. "And working in nine decimals," added Astrogator Cummins. * * * * * Technician Norman stretched his back, and started to gather his tools. "So far," he told Maynard, "every instrument we need has been checked and corrected to the last micron. Turretman Hastings and Machinist Trenton have converted one of the mounts to a spring-loaded gadget to propel a gallon-sized cannister of plastic material. Adkins has just cemented such a cylinder together and filled it with the wire gluck. I hope we hit the main personnel lock; it'll stay glucky until they land, and that wire-impregnating googoo ranks high among the things I wouldn't care to bathe in." "It ranks top with me," said Maynard. "To me, it is outranked only by chewing gum and rubber cement. But anyway, we're ready, all of us." "That correct?" asked Maynard of the crew. A series of "Check" shouts came in ragged confusion. "O.K. Start going!" With the instruments under personal supervision, the _Asterite_ accelerated in a wide circle, and then corrected the side-vector component of her course. Then for an hour solid, the _Asterite_ accelerated on a die-true course. The components of the intersection were complex because the _Orionad_ was in deceleration all the time, while the _Asterite_ was in acceleration, and would be picking up speed until the barrier established; then the little destroyer would coast free, crossing the _Orionad_'s course at the precise instant that the super ship came to the course of the free-flying _Asterite_. The last driving moments of the _Asterite_'s maneuver passed. The barrier went on, and the tiny ship went free. Time passed, and eventually the _Orionad_, long beyond detector range, came into the scope of the _Asterite_'s souped-up finder. Furious and extensive checking on the part of the crew resulted in the information that everything was going according to plan. More time passed, and now within sight, the two ships were converging. They became tense, a single moment of failure would be death for all. But the barrier held, as they expected it to, and with lightning velocity, the two ships crossed at thirty degrees angle. "Fire!" called the technician.