The planet grew steadily larger; Karffard was taking him at his word about continuous acceleration. There'd be a Gehenna of a bill to pay when they started decelerating. On the planet, more bombs were going off just outside atmosphere beyond the sunset line. "Ship observed. Altitude about a hundred to five hundred miles--hundreds, not thousands--35 deg. North Latitude, 15 deg. west of the sunset line. Ship is under fire, bomb explosions near her," a voice whooped. Somebody else was yelling that the city lights were really burning cities, or burning forests. The first voice, having stopped, broke in again: "Ship is visible in telescopic screen, just at the sunset line. And there's another ship detected but not visible, somewhere around the equator, and a third one somewhere out of sight, we can just get the fringe of her contragravity field around the planet." That meant there were two sides, and a fight. Unless Dunnan had picked up a third ship, somewhere. The telescopic view shifted; for a moment the planet was completely off-screen, and then its curvature came into the screen against a star-scattered background. They were almost in to two thousand miles now; Karffard was yelling to stop acceleration and trying to put the ship into a spiral orbit. Suddenly they caught a glimpse of one of the ships. "She's in trouble." That was Paul Koreff's voice. "She's leaking air and water vapor like crazy." "Well, is she a good guy or a bad guy?" Morland was yelling back, as though Koreff's spectroscopes could distinguish. Koreff ignored that. "Another ship making signal," he said. "She's the one coming up over the equator. Sword-World impulse code; her communication-screen combination, and an identify-yourself." Karffard punched out the combination as Koreff furnished it. While Trask was desperately willing his face into immobility, the screen lighted. It wasn't Andray Dunnan; that was a disappointment. It was almost as good, though. His henchman, Sir Nevil Ormm. "Well, Sir Nevil! A pleasant surprise," he heard himself saying. "We last met on the terrace at Karvall House, did we not?" For once, the paper-white face of Andray Dunnan's _ame damnee_ showed expression, but whether it was fear, surprise, shock, hatred, anger, or what combination of them, Trask could no more than guess. "Trask! Satan curse you...!" Then the screen went blank. In the telescopic screen, the other ship came on unfalteringly. Paul Koreff, who had gotten more data on mass, engine energy-output and dimensions, was identifying her as the _Enterprise_. "Well, go for her! Give her everything!" * * * * *