Leaving the elevator, he rushed into the big headquarters room just as contact was established with the _Procyon_, on station over the north-western corner of Takkad Sea, between Kankad's Town and Keegark. The Aldebaran, he knew, was west of Keegark; the _Northern Lights_, now fitted with a pair of 155-mm guns, in addition to her 90's, had just arrived at Kankad's. He had the _Aldebaran_ sent north along the crest of the mountain-range between the Hoork and Konk river-valleys, where she could cover both with her own radar and other detection-devices and exchange information with the _Sky-Spy_, and the _Gaucho_ sent in what looked like the right course to intercept the Boer-class freighter from Keegark. The _Northern Lights_, also with screens tuned to the _Sky-Spy_, was sent to take over the Aldebaran's regular station. Finally, he called Skilk and had the _Northern Star_ sent south down the Hoork Valley. After that, there was nothing to do but wait, and watch the screens. Paula Quinton put in an appearance shortly after he had finished calling Skilk, pushing a cocktail-wagon on which their interrupted dinners had been placed. They finished eating, and drank coffee, and smoked. Most of the rest of his staff who were not busy on the bomb-project or at the shipyards or with the occupation of Konkrook drifted in; they all sat and stared from one to another of the screens, which told, in radar-patterns and direct vision and telescopic vision and heat and radiation detection, the story of what was going on to the north-east of them. Keegark was dark, on the vision-screen; evidently King Orgzild had invented the blackout, too. Not that it did him any good; the radar-screen showed the city clearly, and it was just as clear on the radiation and heat screens. The Keegarkan ship was completely blacked out, but the radiations from her engines and the distinctive radiation-pattern of her contragravity-field showed clearly, and there was a speck that marked her position on the radar-screen. The same position was marked with a pin-point of light on the vision screen--some device on _Sky-Spy_, synchronized with the detectors, kept it focused there. The Company ships and contragravity vehicles all were carrying topside lights, visible only from above, which flashed alternate red and blue to identify them.