Evidently the detector-system thought otherwise, or a red light would be flashing instead of a yellow one, an all-quarters alarm-bell would be sounding instead of a buzzer, and the controls would have operated automatically to deflect the ship by a safe margin--or to the limit of its occupants' capacity to absorb shock. Fortunately, such instances were vanishingly rare: space is incredibly roomy. Beneath the yellow blinker, a set of clicking meters recorded the flight components of the foreign object. Its direction cosines were changing slowly in a characteristically orbital manner; the object was probably a ship approaching the planet, although its velocity was a bit high for this proximity. But that was another pilot's worry. The ring was moving faster now, approaching the edge of the field. Just as it touched, it disappeared, and the screen flashed to first position. The ring reappeared at far left, shifted to the right with gathering speed. It swung past the center with a rush, slowed down again, and reached the far edge as the screen reoriented to third position. Very slowly now, the ring moved out from the left side of the field. The nearest distance of the respective courses had been about 45 miles; of the ships themselves, about 70. The ring drifted on toward the center of the screen and seemed to hover there. Will Archer looked back at the meters and shook his head. Too fast by far. And the negative acceleration was only a fraction of a G--_wait a minute!_ He stared at the meter in question. Its reading was positive! * * * * * That meant the other ship, or whatever it might be, was approaching the planet in something resembling a free fall. A crash was not inevitable--there was plenty of time to apply sufficient lateral thrust to insure a miss--but _why_? Time and fuel would be wasted before a landing would become possible. The meters stopped clicking, the buzzer became silent, and the ring disappeared from the screen, which changed back to first position. The object had passed beyond accurate range. Will Archer frowned and pressed a key to his left. After a moment, the face of the radio operator appeared on a small video plate: "Yes?" "Any calls from outside in the last few minutes?" The radio operator looked surprised. "No. Why?" "Stay on audio." The pilot pressed another key, and the buzzer began droning again. This time, it would be heard in all parts of the ship. Captain's call. After perhaps ten seconds, the broad, placid face of Captain Rogan appeared on the screen: "Will? What's the trouble?" The captain rested his claim to respect on an amazing percentage of sound decisions, and held formality very lightly. "Cap, a ship just crossed our course in what looked like a free fall to the planet--too fast for a landing. No signals of any kind."