"Hey, Walt," came the voice of Chuck Thomas. "The intensity of Don's beam has been cut to about one-quarter and is now continuous. Does that mean anything?" "Might mean trouble for them. Either they're running out of soup and mean for us to hurry up, or they assume we're close enough to obviate the need for high power. We'd better assume they want haste and act accordingly. How're the boys on the radio detectors coming along?" "Fine. They've taken over the direction finding and claim that we are right on their tail." "Anything in the sights, Jimmy?" "Not yet. But the electroscope boys claim that quarter power or not, the input is terrific." "Take a rest, Jimmy. We won't be there for a while yet. No use burning your eyes out trying to see 'em. There'll be time enough for you to do your share after we get 'em close enough to see with the naked eye. What do the beam-scanners say?" "Shucks," answered the man on the scanners, "they're still radiating. How are we going to fix 'em on a reflected wave when they're more powerful on their own hook? The whole plate is glaring white. And, incidentally, so is the celestial globe in the meteor spotter. I've had to cut that or we'd never be able to hold this course. Anything like a meteor that comes in our way now will not register, and--" The _Relay Girl_ lurched sickeningly. All over the ship, things rattled and fell to the floors. Men grabbed at the closest solid object, and then the _Relay Girl_ straightened out once more. "_Whoosh!_" said Franks. "That was a big one!" "Big one?" called Jimmy. "That, my friend, was none other than the _Ariadne_!" "Can you prove that?" "Sure," chuckled Jimmy. "I saw 'em. I can still see 'em!" "Franklen, hang on about seven G and follow Jimmy's orders. Chuck, see if you can get anything cogent out of your gadget. Holy Green Fire, with a cubic million million million megaparsecs in which to run, we have to be so good that we run right into our quarry. Who says that radio direction finding is not a precise science? Who says that we couldn't catch--" "Walt, they're losing fast." "O.K., Jimmy, can you give me any idea as to their velocity with respect to ours?" "How long is she?" "Six hundred feet." Jimmy was silent for some seconds, "They're out of sight again, but I make it about four to seven hundred miles per second." "At seven G we should match that seven hundred in about four hours." "And then go on decelerating so that they'll catch up?" "No," said Walt. "I used the max figure and we can assume they aren't going that fast, quite. At the end of four hours, we'll turnover and wait until they heave in sight again and then we'll do some more oscillating. We can match their velocity inside of ten hours, or Franklen will get fired." "If I don't," promised Franklen, "I'll quit. You can't fire me!" "We should be able to contact them by radio," said Walt. "We are!" called the radio man. "It's Channing. He says: 'Fancy meeting you here.' Any answer?"