Baird heard Taine's shrill-voiced acknowledgment--in the form of practically chattered orders to his rocket-tube crews. Baird listened, checking the orders against what the situation was as the radars saw it. Taine's voice was almost unhuman; so filled with frantic rage that it cracked as he spoke. But the problem at hand was the fulfillment of all his psychopathic urges. He commanded the starboard-side rocket-battery to await special orders. Meanwhile the port-side battery would fire two rockets on widely divergent courses, curving to join at the Plumie ship. They'd be seized. They were to be detonated and another port-side rocket fired instantly, followed by a second hidden in the rocket-trail the first would leave behind. Then the starboard side-- "I'm afraid Taine's our only chance," said Baird reluctantly. "If he wins, we'll have time to ... talk as people do who like each other. If it doesn't work--" Diane said quietly: "Anyhow ... I'm glad you ... wanted me to know. I ... wanted you to know, too." She smiled at him, yearningly. * * * * * _There was the crump-crump_ of two rockets going out together. Then the radar told what happened. The Plumie ship was no more than six miles away, dancing somehow deftly in the light of a yellow sun, with all the cosmos spread out as shining pin points of colored light behind it. The radar reported the dash and the death of the two rockets, after their struggle with invisible things that gripped them. They died when they headed reluctantly back to the _Niccola_--and detonated two miles from their parent ship. The skipper's voice came: "_Mr. Taine! After your next salvo I shall head for the Plumie at full drive, to cut down the distance and the time they have to work in. Be ready!_" The rocket tubes went _crump-crump_ again, with a fifth of a second interval. The radar showed two tiny specks speeding through space toward the weaving, shifting speck which was the Plumie. Outside, in emptiness, there was a filmy haze. It was the rocket-fumes and explosive gases spreading with incredible speed. It was thin as gossamer. The Plumie ship undoubtedly spotted the rockets, but it did not try to turn them. It somehow seized them and deflected them, and darted past them toward the _Niccola_. "They see the trick," said Diane, dry-throated. "If they can get in close enough, they can turn it against us!" There were noises inside the _Niccola_, now. Taine fairly howled an order. There were yells of defiance and excitement. There were more of those inadequate noises as rockets went out--every tube on the starboard side emptied itself in a series of savage grunts--and the _Niccola's_ magnetronic drive roared at full flux density.