Numbers being equal, Huston's men had one small advantage. They wanted to hit Hoagland's crew. Hoagland's gang had two objectives. They wanted to destroy the station, and so part of their efforts was directed towards the station itself while only the rest was directed at Huston's flight. The flights passed through one another leaving space strewn with ruin; and circled down on opposite sides of a great circle to cross the ice cap face to face again only a few miles above the relay station perched precisely on the polar axis. The wind whistled and the odd-smelling atmosphere took on another odor as the battle raged briefly above the relay station. The ice was dotted again with divots of flaming hell thrown high by missed bombs and water ran from the hot craters in starred rivulets to freeze later in a curiously beautiful pattern. Again diminished, the flights whirled, stalking and sparring like swordsmen, cautious, angry, hating. And while the embattled fleets of spacecraft circled one another, Paul Grayson was far in space, coming out of superdrive, confident that he had outrun or at least disappeared from instant contact with the enemy. Alpha IV was far, far behind. Latham's Triplets were only stars in a neat equilateral triangle below. Very bright stars, but none the less true stars showing no disc to the naked eye. "Now what?" asked Stacey. "That was damned close, Little Friend." "Do we go back?" asked Nora. "I'd rather not," said Stacey. "I prefer to die in bed at the age of one hundred and seventeen after a long, pleasant, active, and interesting life." "Huston is down there, too, you know," said Paul thoughtfully. "So what?" "He apparently came with quite a gang." Stacey grunted. "Let's wait until we're sure that the unpleasantness has subsided. Someone will be yelling 'Veni Vidi Vici' and I want to be sure that the guy yelling 'Vici' is on my side." Grayson shook his head thoughtfully. "Huston got here," he said. "So?" "Hoagland and his gang must have--" Grayson's voice trailed away as Paul went into another reverie of thought. "Paul, this is what is commonly referred to as patently obvious." Paul snapped out of it again. "Y'know," he said slowly, "Neither Hoagland nor Huston would be a-roaring down here with fire in their eyes if they did not know we'd succeeded." Nora blinked. "They must have overheard us," she said. Paul spread his hands. "Why not? The link was solid between Latham's Triplets and Neoterra. We might have interfered with their Z-wave." "That's fine reasoning. But now take the next step and where are we?" "Huston wanted to know how long before the beam came in," said Paul. "Then he groaned and said that they'd have to defend the station for hours." "After which," said Stacey, "we left somewhat precipitously, if not graciously. I don't blame us, but of course, we are sort of biased by our own feelings." "But why?" asked Nora.