It too was a long way off, though not anything like as far as Alpha Centauri. Makvern explained that they did not attempt any very close maneuvering in hyper-drive, where you counted your fractional seconds of error in multiples of parsecs. The main task force would approach the system of Alpha Centauri at planetary speeds and deploy according to the master attack plan already decided upon while the fleet had been busy plundering the hapless worlds of the star-system before this one. The scout ship was now on an intersecting course. Wyatt watched this convergence with a mounting awe and an increasing conviction that no matter how many warnings he might bring to Earth it would not do them one bit of good. He had thought the scout tender was huge when he first saw it hanging beyond the dark side of the Moon. The closer he got to the fleet the smaller the tender seemed to him and the smaller he felt himself, until he thought that this must be pretty much like a minnow's-eye view of a school of whales passing in all their majesty, accompanied on the flanks by the swift sinister forms of great sharks. The analogy was obvious but not a bad one, Wyatt thought. The phalanx of huge dark shapes swam in space as in black water, touched with vagrant gleams of light that might have been phosphorescence instead of starshine. The hugest of them--the heavy support craft, the troop transports, the supply ships, and the swag-bellied monstrosities that Brinna said were used to store and carry loot--travelled together in a wedge-shaped formation, with the flagship at the apex. Ahead and on both wings were the smaller, faster destroyer-type craft, heavily armed but maneuverable. These were the spearhead of any attack, and the defenders of the fleet from any hostile action in space. Behind came a shoal of smaller craft like the tender, the inglorious but indispensable work-horses of the fleet. * * * * * Clear across the galaxy these ships had come, built and manned by humans, conceived in their brains and controlled by their hands. It seemed a pity their purpose could not have been more noble. The Task Force swept closer and closer, rolled over the tender like a mighty wave, engulfed it, and carried it along in its resistless rush toward Alpha Centauri. A communicator at the back of the bridge, which had been rattling away in the course of routine technicalities, suddenly changed its tone. "Clear channels," said a brisk important voice. "Clear channels for Number One." The operator at Fleet Control whose image had appeared on the screen promptly pulled the switch on himself. Involuntarily everyone in the bridge room snapped to attention, even Makvern and Brinna. Swiftly, under her breath, Brinna said, "What does he want that couldn't wait for our regular report?"