Throughout the ship, people laughed nervously. A waiter replaced a glass of water that had been set too close to the edge of the table and a manly-looking fellow dived into the swimming pool to haul a good-looking blonde to the edge again. She'd been in the middle of a swan dive when the swerve came and the ship had swerved without her. The resounding smack of feminine stomach against the water was of greater importance than the meteor, now so many hundred miles behind. The flash of light returned and the ship swerved again. Upon the third swerve, the First Officer was watching the celestial globe with suspicion. He went white. It was conceivable that the _Empress of Kolain_ was about to encounter a meteor shower. And that was bad. He marked the place and set his observation telescope in synchronism with the celestial globe. He searched the sky. There was nothing but the ultimate starry curtain in the background. He snapped a switch and the voice of the pilot came out of a speaker in the wall. "You called, Mr. Hendall?" "Tony, take the levers, will you please? Something is rotten in the State of Denmark." "O.K., sir. I'm riding personal." "Kick out the meteor-spotter coupling circuits and forget the alarm." "Right, Mr. Hendall, but will you confirm that in writing?" Hendall scribbled on the telautograph and then abandoned the small 'scope. The flashing in the celestial globe continued, but the ship no longer danced in its path. Hendall went up into the big dome. The big twenty-inch Cassegrain showed nothing at all, and Hendall returned to the bridge scratching his head. Nothing on the spotting 'scope and nothing on the big instrument. That intermittent spot was large enough to mean a huge meteor. But wait. At the speed of the _Empress_, it should have retrogressed in the celestial globe unless it was so huge and so far away--but Sol didn't appear on the globe and it was big and far away, bigger by far. Nothing short of a planet at less-than-planetary distances would do this. Not even a visible change in the position of the spot. "Therefore," thought Hendall, "this is no astral body that makes this spot!" Hendall went to a cabinet and withdrew a cable with a plug on either end. He plugged one end into the test plug on the meteor spotter and the opposite end into the speaker. A low humming emanated from the speaker in synchronism with the flashing of the celestial globe. It hit a responsive chord. Hendall went to the main communication microphone and spoke. His voice went all over the _Empress of Kolain_ from pilot room and cargo spaces to swimming pool and infirmary. "Attention!" he said in a formal voice. "Attention to official orders!" Dancers stopped in midstep. Swimmers paused and then made their way to the edges of the pool and sat with their feet dangling in the warm water. Diners sat with their forks poised foolishly. "Official orders!" meant an emergency.