"Shucks," answered the man on the scanners, "they're still radiating. How are we going to fix 'em on a reflected wave when they're more powerful on their own hook? The whole plate is glaring white. And, incidentally, so is the celestial globe in the meteor-spotter. I've had the threshold cut to the devil on that or we'd never be able to hold this course. Anything like a meteor that comes in our way now will not register until we're right on top of it and--" * * * * * The _Relay Girl_ lurched sickeningly. All over the ship, things rattled and fell to the floors. Men grabbed at the closest solid object, and then the _Relay Girl_ straightened out once more. "_Woosh_," said Franks. "That was a big one." "Big one?" called Charley Bren. "That, my friend, was none other than the _Solar Queen_!" "Can you prove that?" "Sure. Our electroscopes now indicate a positive charge; they crossed over just as we lurched." "Jimmy, get your scope a-top and get looking. Franklen, hang on about 7-G and follow Jimmy's orders. Charley, see if you can get anything cogent out of your gadget. Holy Green Fire, with all of a cubic million million million megaparsecs in which to run, we have to be so good that we run right into our quarry. Who says that radio direction finding is not a precise science? Who says that we couldn't catch--" "Walt, they're in sight, but losing fast." "O.K., Jimmy, can you give me any idea as to their velocity with respect to ours?" "How long is she?" "Six hundred feet." Jimmy was silent for some seconds. "They're out of sight again, but I make it about four to seven hundred miles per second." "At 7-G we should match that seven hundred in about four hours." "And then go on decelerating so that they'll catch up?" "No," said Walt. "I used the max figure and we can assume that they aren't going that fast, quite. At the end of four hours, we'll turnover and wait until they heave in sight again and then we'll do some more oscillating. We can match their velocity inside of ten hours, or Franklen will get fired." "If I don't," promised Franklen, "I'll quit. You can't fire me!" "We should be able to contact them by radio," said Walt. "Their beam is off," said Bren. "And they are using the landing set," called the radio man, "It's Channing. He says: 'Fancy meeting you here.' Any answer?" "Just say, 'Dr. Channing, I presume?'" Channing's voice came out of the ship's announcer system as the radio man made the necessary connections. It said: "Right--but what kept you so long?" "Our boss was away," said Walt. "And we can't do a thing without him." "Some boss. Some crew of wild men. Can't go off on a fishing trip without having my bunch chasing all over the Solar System." "What's wrong with a little sightseeing tour? We didn't mean any harm. And speaking of harm, how are you and the rest of that bunch getting along?"