“I’m sure they saw us coming,” the Alien Technologies Officer persisted. “Do you see that ring, sir?”

The silvery image of the enemy ship almost filled the viewer. It showed as a broad, wide ring encircling a cylindrical axis, like a mechanical pencil floating inside a platinum bracelet. A finned craft projected from the pointed end of the axial section. Angular letters ran down the axis, totally unlike the dots-and-commas of Kzinti script.

“Of course I see it,” said the Captain.

“It was rotating when we first picked them up. It stopped when we got within two hundred thousand miles, and it hasn’t moved since.”

The Captain flicked his tail back and forth, gently, thoughtfully, like a pink lash. “You worry me,” he commented. “If they know we’re here, why haven’t they tried to get away? Are they so sure they can beat us?” He whirled to face the A-T Officer. “Should we be running?”

“No, sir! I don’t know why they’re still here, but they can’t have anything to be confident about. That’s one of the most primitive spacecraft I’ve ever seen.” He moved his claw about on the screen, pointing as he talked.

“The outer shell is an iron alloy. The rotating ring is a method of imitating gravity by using centripetal force. So they don’t have the gravity planer. In fact they’re probably using a reaction drive.”

The Captain’s catlike ears went up. “But we’re lightyears from the nearest star!”

“They must have a better reaction drive than we ever developed. We had the gravity planer before we needed one that good.”

There was a buzzing sound from the big control board. “Enter,” said the Captain.

The Weapons Officer fell up through the entrance hatch and came to attention, “Sir, we have all weapons trained on the enemy.”

“Good.” The Captain swung around. “A-T, how sure are you that they aren’t a threat to us?”