"What in the world?" Jon's eyes snapped open and immediately began scanning the various telltales on the panel, while from the other three came a chorused, "What's wrong?" "Something out here using atomic energy." Jon's surprised voice made them raise their seats quickly to upright, so they could better see for themselves. Mr. Carver hastily adjusted his visiplate to maximum magnification, and began searching the heavens surrounding them. "A ship, you think?" "Yes, and quite close." And a moment later, aided more surely by his more complex instruments, Jon cried, "There it is! RA 11; square 17 on the plate." His father's flying fingers found the object, then narrowed his focus of vision and stepped up the magnification. His eyes grew large, then hard and tense, as he studied the close-up image. "Slik Bogin's ship--I'd know that anywhere!" he exclaimed, and the boys looked at him in puzzled concern. "Then I must have been right, that day I thought I heard a ship," Mrs. Carver declared. "You must have been," Jak agreed. "But what's Bogin doing out here?" Jon asked with a touch of fear in his voice. "Nothing good, you can bet." His father's voice was grimmer than any of them had ever heard it before. "Any time you run across that pirate, you can lay mighty big odds there's skullduggery afoot." "Great catfish! He's trying to beat us out of this system." "I'll lay a thousand to one he is, if he thinks he can get away with it." "What can we do about it, Father?" There was now a trace of a tremor in Jak's voice. "Jon and I have worked so hard to map these planets--how can Bogin possibly do the same and still beat us?" "No telling. He's a slippery cuss, and if he really wants to try claim-jumping, he'll figure out some dirty scheme." "Can't we get back to Earth ahead of him, Mr. C., and report to the Colonial Board first?" Mrs. Carver was almost in tears. Her husband gave her a tight-lipped smile. "We'll sure try, Honey." His forehead creased with a frown of concentration for some minutes, then he faced Jon, who was watching him from the pilot's seat. "Bogin's headed in the opposite direction, so no use chasing him to see what he's doing. Besides, I've heard his ship is armed, and we aren't, except for our rifles, which are absolutely no good in space. I say, continue our course, checking our signals, then beat it for home. After all, we don't _know_ for sure that Bogin's trying anything--and our best bet is to finish our job as though nothing had happened, but not waste any time doing it ... just in case." "Right, Pop. As near as I could tell, we have twice his speed, and we don't need to worry. We have all the data and pictures to prove we're the Prime Discoverers, and we didn't hear any signals to show he's put out any senders." But there was an uneasy and unhappy silence as the little space-yacht continued to eat up the millions of miles.