"That's it!" Alan shouted. He felt like laughing, like pounding the man's back, like dancing a jig. They had found the space-warp. Alan ran to the pilot chair, swinging the small ship around almost ninety degrees. In the rear viewscreen he could see the five other ships wheeling about and following. And something else--in front of them. Specks moving across the firmament in tight formation, growing. Keifer's fleet. * * * * * He counted fifteen ships, each larger and with more firepower than his own, guardians of the space-warp, rocketing down toward them from where Corvus should have been, from the hole in space behind which the constellation Crater hid. Alan flicked his radio toggle to the on position, said into it: "This is Alan Tremaine calling the Outworld fleet. Tremaine calling! Do you hear me?" "_Go back to Earth, Tremaine. We don't want to kill you._" "I'm flying the flags of Earth and the Federation. If you listen to me, it still isn't too late for Equal Union. I denounce Bennett Keifer as a traitor to Earth and the Outworld Federation, as my father would have done." "_Go back to Earth, Tremaine._" Alan shook his head, then scrambled the radio frequency to his small fleet's band. "Flagship calling," he said. "We're heading for the warp. Hold off the Federation fleet at all costs." And, to the pilot: "Take her in, Stan. I'm getting into spacegear." Five obsolete ships against the Federation's bigger fleet. A sixth ship to reach the warp and hover there while Alan explored. The odds against them seemed tremendous, but Alan brushed them from his mind. Swiftly, he climbed into a bulky spacesuit, inflating it while one of the crew secured the glassite helmet over his head. He tested the suit radio, secured a set of personnel jets to his shoulders, then clomped into the airlock with an atomic rifle, slamming the ammo pan into place in the breech. He stood impatiently at the outer door of the airlock, looking through the small viewport into space. Spinning in a great wheel formation, the three-dimensional equivalent of the ancient naval maneuver called crossing the T, the Federation fleet spun toward them. Out to meet it--five ships, darting like silver midges at the giant wheel. All at once, energy erupted searingly before his eyes as the fleets met. Two ships in the Federation wheel darkened and fell, tumbling end over end, out of rank. But one Earth ship was blown to pieces. If the rate of attrition continued.... He didn't think about it. He spun the mechanism which controlled the outer airlock door and pulled himself out on the hull of the ship. The battle formations were drifting behind him now. Ahead--the black tube of the space-warp. Pointing himself toward the blackness, Alan fired his shoulder jets. * * * * *