"_Find out how many there are!_" barked the skipper. "_Make it quick! Report additional data instantly!_" His screen clicked off. Diane, more than a little pale, worked swiftly to plug the radar-room equipment into a highly specialized pattern. The _Niccola_ was very well equipped, radar-wise. She'd been a type G8 Survey ship, and on her last stay in port she'd been rebuilt especially to hunt for and make contact with Plumies. Since the discovery of their existence, that was the most urgent business of the Space Survey. It might well be the most important business of the human race--on which its survival or destruction would depend. Other remodeled ships had gone out before the _Niccola_, and others would follow until the problem was solved. Meanwhile the _Niccola's_ twenty-four rocket tubes and stepped-up drive and computer-type radar system equipped her for Plumie-hunting as well as any human ship could be. Still, if she'd been lured deep into the home system of the Plumies, the prospects were not good. * * * * * The new setup began its operation, instantly the last contact closed. The three-dimensional map served as a matrix to control it. The information-beam projector swung and flung out its bundle of oscillations. It swung and flashed, and swung and flashed. It had to examine every relatively nearby object for a constitution of silicon bronze and a rounded shape. The nearest objects had to be examined first. Speed was essential. But three-dimensional scanning takes time, even at some hundreds of pulses per minute. Nevertheless, the information came in. No other silicon-bronze object within a quarter-million miles. Within half a million. A million. A million and a half. Two million ... Baird called the navigation room. "Looks like a single Plumie ship, sir," he reported. "At least there's one ship which is nearest by a very long way." "_Hah!_" grunted the skipper. "_Then we'll pay him a visit. Keep an open line, Mr. Baird!_" His voice changed. "_Mr. Taine! Report here at once to plan tactics!_" Baird shook his head, to himself. The _Niccola's_ orders were to make contact without discovery, if such a thing were possible. The ideal would be a Plumie ship or the Plumie civilization itself, located and subject to complete and overwhelming envelopment by human ships--before the Plumies knew they'd been discovered. And this would be the human ideal because humans have always had to consider that a stranger might be hostile, until he'd proven otherwise.