big enough that they’ve put out the Fleet to blast anyone who tries to sneak off without being identified.”
The lieutenant tried to look as if that explained it, but failed. Then he brightened and announced briskly: “The guy’s barrier just went off!”
“All right. Give him the tractor!”
“It’s—”
Up from the dock area then, clearly audible through their instruments, there rose a sound: a soft but tremendous WHOOSH! The cradle in which the slow-looking ship had rested appeared to quiver violently. Nothing else changed. But the ship was no longer there.
In white-faced surprise, the lieutenant goggled at the captain. “Did . . . did it blow up?” he whispered.
The captain did not answer. The captain had turned purple, and seemed to be having the worst kind of trouble getting his breath.
“Took off—under space-drive!” he gasped suddenly. “How’d he do that without wrecking— With a tractor on him!”
He whirled belatedly, and flung himself at the communicators. Gone was his aplomb, gone every trace of worldly-wise weariness.
“Station 1222 calling Fleet!” he yelped. “Station 1222 calling—”
While Lycanno’s suns shrank away in the general-view tank before him, Iliff rapidly sorted the contents of his brief case into a small multiple-recorder. It had been a busy night—to those equipped to read the signs the Fourth Planet must have seemed boiling like a hive of furious bees before it was over! But he’d done most of what had seemed necessary, and the pursuit never really got within minutes of catching up with him again.
When the excitement died down, Lycanno would presently discover it had become w