THE DARK DIMENSIONS 
By A Bertram Chandler 
A Commodore Grimes Novel 
Copyright 1971 – A Bertram Chandler 
Published by Ace Books 
Cover art by Frank Kelly Freas 
With the author's sincere thanks to Poul Anderson for his loan of Captain Sir 
Dominic Flandry. 
I
"I've another job for you, Grimes," said Admiral 
Kravitz. 
"Mphm," grunted Commodore Grimes, Rim Worlds Naval Reserve, "sir." He 
regarded the portly flag officer with something less than enthusiasm. 
There 
had been a time, not so very long ago, when he had welcomed being dragged 
away from his rather boring civilian duties as Rim Runners' 
astronautical 
superintendent, but increasingly 
of late he had come to appreciate a relatively 
quiet, uneventful life. Younger men than he could fare the starways, he was 
happy to remain a desk-sitting space commodore. 
"Rim Runners are granting you indefinite leave of absence," went on Kravitz. 
"They would," grumbled Grimes. 
"On full pay." 
Grimes' manner brightened slightly. "And I'll be drawing my commodore's 
pay and allowances from the Admiralty, of course?" 
"Of course. You are back on the active list as and from 00:00 hours this very 
day." 
"We can always use the extra money . . ." murmured Grimes. 
Kravitz looked shocked. "I never knew that you were so mercenary, Grimes." 
"You do now, sir." The Commodore grinned briefly, then once again looked 
rather apprehensive. 
"But it's not Kinsolving's Planet again, is it?" The 
Admiral laughed. "I can understand your being more than somewhat allergic 
to that peculiar world." 
Grimes chuckled grimly. "I think it's allergic to me, sir. Three times I've 
landed there, and each time was unlucky; the third time unluckiest of all." "I've 
read your reports. But set your mind at rest. It's not Kinsolving." 
"Then where?" 
"The Outsider." 
"The Outsider..." repeated Grimes slowly. How many times since the 
discovery of that alien construction out beyond the Galactic Rim had he urged 
that he be allowed to take Faraway Quest to make his own investigation? He 
had lost count. Always his proposals had been turned down. Always 
he could 
not be spared or was required more urgently elsewhere. Too, it was obvious

that the Confederacy was scared of the thing, even though it swam in space 
that came under Rim Worlds' jurisdiction. The Federation was scared of it, too. 
"Let well enough alone," was the attitude of both governments. 
"The Outsider..." said Grimes again. "I was beginning to think that it 
occupied top place on the list of untouchables. Why the sudden revival of 
interest?" 
"We have learned," Kravitz told him, "from reliable sources, that the 
Waldegren destroyer Adler is on her way out to the... thing. I needn't tell you 
that the Duchy of Waldegren is making a comeback, or that Federation policy 
is that Waldegren 
will never be allowed to build its fleet up to the old level. 
But sophisticated weaponry can give a small navy superiority over a large one." 
"The Outsiders' Ship, as we all know, is a storehouse of science and 
technology thousands—millions, perhaps—of years in advance 
of our own. 
Your Captain Calver got his paws on to some of it, but passed nothing of 
interest 
on to us before he flew the coop. Since then we, and the Federation, 
and the Shaara Empire, and probably quite a few more, have sent expeditions. 
Every one has ended disastrously. It is possible, probable, even, that this 
Waldegren effort will end disastrously. But we can't be sure." 
"It should not take long to recommission your Faraway Quest. She's only 
just back from the Fleet Maneuvers, at which she was present as an auxiliary 
cruiser...." 
"I know," said Grimes. "I should have been in command of her." 
"But you weren't. For all your early life in the Federation's Survey Service, 
for all your rank in our Naval Reserve, you don't make a good naval officer. 
You're too damned independent. You like to be left alone to play in your own 
little corner. But—I grant you this—whatever sort of mess you fall into you 
always come up smelling of roses." 
"Thank you, sir," said Grimes stiffly. 
Kravitz chuckled. "It's true, isn't it? Anyhow, you should be on the spot, 
showing the flag, before Adler blows in. You'll be minding the shop. Play it by 
ear, as you always do. And while you're about it, you might try to find out 
something useful about The Outsider." 
"Is that all?" asked Grimes. 
"For the time being, yes. Oh, personnel for Faraway Quest.... You've a free 
hand. Make up the crew you think you'll need from whatever officers are 
available, Regulars or Reservists. The Federation has intimated that it'd like an 
observer along. I think I'm right in saying that Commodore Verrill still holds a 
reserve commission in the Intelligence 
Branch of their Survey Service...." 
"She does, sir. And she'd be very annoyed if she wasn't allowed to come 
along for the ride." 
"I cap well imagine. And now we'll browse through The Outsider files and try 
to put you in the picture." 
He pressed a button under his desk, and a smartly uniformed W.R.W.N. 
officer came in, carrying 
a half dozen bulky folders that she put on the 
Admiral's desk. She was followed by two male petty officers who set up screen, 
projector and tape recorders. 
Kravitz opened the first folder. "It all started," he said, "with Commander 
Maudsley of the Federation 
Survey Service's Intelligence Branch...."

II 
"It all started," said Grimes, "with Commander 
Maudsley of the Federation 
Survey Service's Intelligence Branch...." 
As soon as he had spoken the words he regretted them. Sonya, his wife, had 
known Maudsley well. They had been more, much more, than merely fellow 
officers in the same service. Grimes looked at her anxiously, the reddening of 
his prominent ears betraying his embarrassment. But her strong, fine-featured 
face under the high-piled, glossy, auburn 
hair was expressionless. All that she 
said, coldly, was, "Why bring that up, John?" 
He told her, "You know the story. Mayhew knows the story. I know the story. 
But Clarisse doesn't. And as she's to be one of my key officers on this 
expedition it's essential that she be put in the picture." 
"I can get it all from Ken," said Clarisse Mayhew. 
"Not in such detail," stated Sonya. "We have to admit that my ever-loving 
husband has always been up to the eyebrows in whatever's happened on the 
Rim." 
"You haven't done so badly yourself," Grimes told her, breaking the 
tension, returning the smile that flickered briefly over her face. 
"One thing that I like about the Rim Worlds," murmured Clarisse, "is that 
the oddest things always 
seem to be happening. Life was never like this on 
Francisco. But go on, please, John." 
"Mphm," grunted Grimes. "Talking is thirsty work." 
He raised a hand, and on silent wheels a robot servitor rolled into the 
comfortable lounge room. Most people who could afford such luxuries 
preferred 
humanoid automatons and called them by human names, but not 
Grimes. He always said, and always would say, that it was essential that 
machines be kept in their proper place. The thing that had answered his 
summons was obviously just a machine, no more than a cylindrical tank on a 
tricycle carriage with two cranelike arms. It stood there impassively waiting for 
their orders, and then from a hatch in its body produced a tankard of cold beer 
for Grimes, Waverley Scotch and soda for Mayhew, iced Rigellian dragon's milk 
for the ladies. 
"Here's to all of us," said Grimes, sipping appreciatively. 
He looked over the 
rim of his glass at his guests—at Mayhew, tall, gangling, deceptively youthful 
and fragile in appearance, at Clarisse, attractively plump in face and figure, her 
rich brown hair hanging down to waist level. On Francisco, 
the world of her 
birth, she had been one of the so-called Blossom People, and still looked the 
part. 
"Get on with it, John," said Sonya after sampling 
her own drink. 
"Very well. It all started, as I've already said, with Commander Maudsley. As 
well as being a fully qualified astronaut, he was an Intelligence Officer...." 
"It didn't start with Maudsley," said Sonya sharply. "No one knows when it 
started." 
"Oh, all right. I'll go back a few more years in time. It was suspected for quite 
a long while that there was something out there. Many years ago, long before

the Rim Worlds seceded from the Federation, 
Faraway was a penal colony of 
sorts. The Survey Service actually manned a ship with the sweepings of the 
jails and sent her out to find that ... something. What happened to her is not 
known to this day. After we'd established our own Confederacy, 
the 
Federation's Survey Service was still snooping around the Rim—and Maudsley, 
passing himself off as the master of a star tramp called Polar Queen, did quite a 
lot of work out there. So far as we know he was the first human spaceman to 
set eyes on the Outsiders' Ship. Shortly thereafter he crashed his own vessel 
coming in to a landing at Port Farewell on Faraway. He was the only survivor. 
After that he stayed out there. He served in a few of our Rim Runners' ships, 
but he was practically unemployable. We didn't know then that he was a 
Survey Service Commander, Intelligence Branch at that, but it wouldn't have 
made any difference. He finished up as mate of a ship called, funnily enough, 
The Outsider. Her master, Captain 
Calver, had been master in our employ, but 
he and his officers made a pile of money out of the salvage of the T.G. Clipper 
Thermopylae and invested it in an obsolescent Epsilon Class tramp, going into 
business as shipowners. To comply with regulations, Calver had to ship a chief 
officer with at least a Chief Pilot's Certificate—and Maudsley was the only one 
that he could find on Nova Caledon." 
"Maudsley was hitting the bottle, almost drinking 
himself to death. (Forgive 
me, Sonya, but that's the way that it was.) He talked in his drunken delirium. 
He talked about the Outsiders' Ship, the finding of which had somehow 
wrecked his life. Then he committed suicide...." 
Grimes paused, looking at his wife. Her face was expressionless. He went on, 
"For quite a while after that Calver got by in his Outsider. Toward the finish, 
Sonya was his chief officer—she holds her Master Astronaut's papers, as you 
know. Trade on the Rim was expanding faster than Rim Runners' fleet and 
there was plenty of cargo for an independent operator. But, eventually, times 
got bad for Calver. Rim Runners had sufficient 
tonnage for all requirements, 
and a small, one ship company just couldn't compete. It was then that he and 
his co-owners remembered Maudsley's story, and decided to find the Ship 
From Outside for themselves. They knew that there was something out beyond 
the Rim that could make them impossibly rich. They had Maudsley's sailing 
directions, such as they were. The Confederacy evinced some slight interest in 
the matter, and I was able to help out with the loan of a Mass Proximity 
Indicator—which, in those days, was a very expensive hunk of equipment. Even 
the Federation chipped in. As you know, my dear. 
"Calver found the Outsiders' Ship. He and his people boarded... her?... it? A 
ship? A robot intelligence? A quarantine station? Who knows? But they found 
the thing. They boarded it. But I'll let Calver speak for himself. This is a 
recording of the report he made to me." 
Grimes switched on the small recorder that was standing ready on the 
coffee table. He hated himself 
for raising so many ghosts from Sonya's 
past—she and Calver had been lovers, he knew—but these ghosts were bound 
to have been raised during the expedition. Her face was stony, expressionless, 
as the once familiar voice issued from the little machine. 
"Did you ever read a twentieth century Terran author called Wells? He's 
recommended reading in the 'Fathers of the Future' course they have at most

schools. Anyhow, there's one of his stories, a fantasy, called A Vision Of 
Judgment. Wells imagined 
a Judgment Day, with all living and all who have 
ever lived called by the Last Trump to face their Maker, to be tried and 
punished for their sins or, perhaps, to be rewarded for their good deeds. 
Everyone has his session of Hell as his naked soul stands in full view of the 
multitude while the Recording 
Angel recites the long, long catalog of petty 
acts of meanness and spite.... All the trivial (but not so trivial) shabby things, 
all the things in which even the most perverted nature could never take pride, 
and even the spectacular wrongdoings made to look shabby and trivial.... 
"It was left there, the Outsiders' Ship, out beyond 
the Rim, in the hope that 
with the development 
of interstellar flight techniques it would be discovered. It 
was left there, in the far outer reaches of this galaxy, to test the fitness of its 
discoverers to use the treasures of science and technology that it contains, to 
build ships capable of making the Big Crossing. We passed the test without 
cracking.... quite. Had we cracked there is little doubt that we should have 
been bundled off the premises as unceremoniously as Maudsley must have 
been, bundled outside with memories of fear and of horror, and of loss, and 
with some sort of posthypnotic inhibition to stop us from ever talking about it. 
It's possible, of course, that some of Maudsley's crew did pass the test—but 
they died with Polar Queen. 
"The test.... yes, it's ingenious, and amazingly simple. It's... it's a mirror 
that's held up to you in which you see... everything. Yes, everything. Things 
that you've forgotten, and things that you've wished for years that you could 
forget. After all, a man can meet any alien monster without 
fear, without hate, 
after he has met and faced and accepted the most horrible monster of all.... 
"Himself." 
Grimes switched off, then busied himself refueling 
and lighting his pipe. He 
said, through the acrid smoke cloud, "Calver came back, as you've gathered, 
and then he and his engineers did a few odd things to his ship's Mannschenn 
Drive, and then they all pushed off to...? Your guess is as good as mine. To the 
next galaxy but three? The general impression was that they had some sort of 
intergalactic drive. Calver was decent enough to leave me a pile of 
things—notes and diagrams and calculations. Unfortunately I'm no 
engineer...." 
"You can say that again!" interjected Sonya. 
Grimes ignored this. "Our own bright boys tried to make something of them. 
They actually rebuilt a Mannschenn Drive unit as allegedly specified, but it 
just won't work. Literally. Every moving part has absolute freedom to move on 
bearings that are practically frictionless, but...." He grinned. "Mayhew reckons 
that the thing won't work unless 
its operator is approved by it. Frankly, I can't 
approve of a machine that thinks it has the right to approve or disapprove of 
me!" 
"That's only my theory, John," put in Mayhew. 
"But you believe it, don't you? Where was I? Oh, yes. After the Calver affair 
there was quite a flurry of interest in the Outsiders' Ship. The Federation, 
with our permission, sent Starfinder to nose around. She located quite a few 
derelicts in the vicinity—a Shaara ship, an odd vessel that must have belonged 
to some incredibly ancient culture, a Dring cruiser. Then she became a

derelict 
herself. When her Carlotti transmissions suddenly stopped we sent 
Rim Culverin to investigate. The Culverin's captain reported that he had 
boarded Starfinder and found all hands very dead; a few had been shot and the 
rest wiped out by a lethal gas in the air circulation system. Whether or not any 
of Starfinder's people boarded the Outsiders' 
Ship we don't know. Probably 
some, at least, did. Rim Culverin was ordered not to investigate The Outsider 
but to tow Starfinder in to Lorn. She did just that. Then our big brothers of the 
Federation 
tried again, this time with a Constellation Class cruiser, Orion. 
Orion blew up with no survivors. 
Rim Carronade was with her and saw it 
happen. Orion had put quite a large boarding party onto—or into—the 
Outsiders' Ship, and it was after their return to their own vessel that the big 
bang happened. Rim Carronade was damaged herself, with quite a few 
casualties, and returned to Lorn." 
"All of you here know me. I'm not one of those people who say, in a 
revoltingly pious voice, that there are some things that we are not meant to 
know. For years I've been wanting to take my own expedition out to investigate 
that hunk of alien ironmongery. I've got my chance at last—and I'm just a little 
scared." 
"And I'm damn glad that I shall have all of you with me. 
III 
She was an old ship, was Faraway Quest, but in first class condition. She 
had started life as an Epsilon Class tramp, one of those sturdy workhorses 
of 
the Federation's Interstellar Transport Commission. Sold to Rim Runners 
during the days when practically all of the tonnage out on the Rim was at best 
secondhand, she had been converted into a survey ship. In her, Grimes had 
discovered and explored the worlds of the Eastern Circuit: Tharn, Mellise, 
Grollor and Stree. In her he had made the first contact with the antimatter 
systems to the galactic west. 
After secession, the setting up of the Rim Worlds Confederacy, she had 
been subject to further conversion, this time being fitted out as an auxiliary 
cruiser. Even though the Rim Worlds Navy now possessed a sizable fleet built 
to its own specifications, this was still her official status. Nonetheless, 
Commodore Grimes regarded her as his ship. 
As Admiral Kravitz had told him, she was practically 
ready to lift off at once 
to where The Outsider 
drifted in the intergalactic nothingness. She was 
almost fully stored. Her "farm" was in a flourishing state; her tissue culture, 
yeast and algae tanks were well stocked and healthy. Main and auxiliary 
machinery were almost fresh from thorough overhaul. Sundry weaponry had 
been mounted so that she could play her part in the fleet maneuvers, and this 
Grimes decided to retain. He liked to think of himself as a man of peace these 
days but was willing to admit that it is much easier to be peaceful behind laser 
projections and rocket batteries than in an unarmed ship. 
The selection of personnel for the expedition posed no great problems. Billy 
Williams, normally skipper of the deep space tug Rim Mamelute, was available. 
On more than one occasion he had served as Grimes' second-in-command.

James Carnaby, second officer with Rim Runners and an outstandingly 
competent navigator, had just come off leave and was awaiting reappointment. 
Like Williams, he held a commission in the Reserve, as did Hendrikson, 
another Rim Runners' second officer, just paid off from Rim Griffon. There was 
Davis, an engineer whom Grimes knew quite well and liked, and who was 
qualified in all three Drives: Mannschenn, inertial and reaction. There was 
Sparky Daniels, currently officer in charge of the Port Forlorn Carlotti Station 
but who frequently 
pined for a deep space appointment. And there was Major 
Dalzell of the Rim Worlds Marines. Grimes had heard good reports of this 
young space soldier and, on being introduced to him, had liked him at once. 
There was what Grimes described as a brain trust of buffoons from the 
University of Lorn. There was a team of technicians. 
There was an officer of the Intelligence Branch of the Federation's Survey 
Service—just along, as she said, "to see how the poor live." This, of course, was 
Commander Sonya Verrill, otherwise Mrs. Grimes, who, in spite of her 
marriage to a Rim Worlder, had retained both her Federation citizenship and 
her Survey Service commission. There were the psionicists—Ken Mayhew, one 
of the last of the psionic communications officers, and Clarisse, his wife. He 
was a highly trained and qualified telepath. She, born on Francisco, was a 
descendant of that caveman artist from the remote past who, somehow, on 
Kinsolving's Planet, had been dragged through time to what was, to him, the 
far future. Like her ancestor, Clarisse was an artist. Like him, she was a 
specialist. Inborn in her was the talent to lure victims to the hunter's snare. 
Twice, on Kinsolving itself, she had exercised this talent—and on each occasion 
the hunters had become 
the victims. 
The work of preparing the ship for her voyage went well and swiftly. There 
was little to be done, actually, save for the rearranging of her accommodations 
for the personnel that she was to carry, the conversion of a few of her 
compartments into laboratories for the scientists. Toward the end of the refit 
Grimes was wishing that on that long ago day when the Rim Worlds had 
decided that they should have their own survey ship somebody had put up a 
convincing case for the purchase of an obsolescent Alpha Class liner! Not that 
there was anything wrong with Faraway Quest—save for her relative 
smallness. And it was not only the civilians who demanded space and yet 
more space. Officer Hendrikson—who, as a Reserve officer had specialized in 
gunnery—sulked hard when he was told that he could not have the 
recreation 
rooms as magazines for his missiles. (Dr. Druthen, leader of the 
scientists, was already sulking 
because he had not been allowed to take 
them over as workshops.) 
Grimes knew that he could not hasten matters, but he chafed at every delay. 
As long as the Quest was sitting on her pad in Port Forlorn far too many people 
were getting into every act. Once she was up and outward bound he would be 
king of his own little spaceborne castle, an absolute monarch. Admiral Kravitz 
had made it clear to him that he would be on his own, that he was to act as he 
saw fit. It was a game in which he was to make up the rules as he went along. 
It was a game that Grimes had always enjoyed playing.

IV 
Faraway quest lifted from Port Forlorn without 
ceremony; it could have 
been no more than the routine departure of a Rim Runners' freighter. Grimes 
had the controls; he loved ship handling and knew, without false modesty, that 
he was a better than average practitioner of this art. In the control room with 
him were Sonya, Billy Williams, 
Carnaby, Hendrikson and Sparky Daniels. 
Also there, as a guest, was Dr. Druthen. Grimes already did not like Druthen. 
The physicist was a fat slug of a man, always with an oily sheen of perspiration 
over his hairless skin, always with an annoyingly supercilious manner. He sat 
there, a silent sneer embodied. Had he been a crew member he would have 
faced a charge of dumb insolence. 
Daniels was at the NST transceiver, a little man who looked as though he 
had been assembled from odds and ends of wire, highly charged wire at that. 
Williams—bulky, blue-jowled, with shaggy black hair—lounged in the co-pilot's 
seat. He slumped there at ease, but his big hands were ready to slam down on 
his controls at a microsecond's notice. Slim, yellow-haired, a little too 
conventionally handsome, Carnaby was stationed at the radar with 
Hendrikson, also blond but bearded and burly, looking as though he should 
have been wearing a horned helmet, ready to take over if necessary. He 
managed to convey the impression that fire control was his real job, not 
navigation. 
And Sonya conveyed the impression that she was just along as an observer. 
She was slim and beautiful in her Survey Service uniform, with the micro-skirt 
that would have been frowned upon by the rather frumpish senior female 
officers of the Confederacy's Navy. She was a distracting influence, 
decided 
Grimes. Luckily he knew her well; even so he would find it hard to keep his 
attention on the controls. 
"Mphm," he grunted. Then, "Commander Williams?" 
"All stations secured for lift-off, Skipper. All drives on Stand By." 
"Mr. Daniels, request clearance, please." 
"Faraway Quest to Tower. Faraway Quest to tower. Request clearance for 
departure. Over." 
The voice of the Aerospace Control officer came in reply. "Tower to Faraway 
Quest. You have clearance." Then, in far less impersonal accents, "Good 
questing!" 
Grimes grunted, keeping his face expressionless. 
He said into his intercom 
microphone, "Count down for lift-off. Over to you, Commander 
Williams." 
"Ten..." intoned Williams. "Nine... Eight... 
"A touching ritual," muttered Dr. Druthen. Grimes glared at him but said 
nothing. 
"Five... Four..." 
The Commodore's glance swept the control room, missing nothing. His eyes 
lingered longer than they should have done on Sonya's knees and exposed 
thighs. 
"Zero!" 
At the touch of Grimes' finger on the button the inertial drive grumbled into

life. The ship quivered, 
but seemed reluctant to leave the pad. I should have 
been expecting this, he thought. The last time I took this little bitch out I wasn't 
inflicted with this excess tonnage of personnel... He applied more pressure, 
feeling and hearing the faint clicks as the next two stages were brought into 
operation. The irregular beat of the drive was suddenly louder. 
"Negative contact, sir," stated Carnaby. "Lifting... 
lifting..." 
Grimes did not need to look at the instruments. He was flying by the seat 
of his pants. He could feel the additional weight on his buttocks as 
acceleration, 
gentle though it was, augmented gravity. He did not bother to 
correct lateral drift when the wind caught Faraway Quest as soon as she was 
out of the lee of the spaceport buildings. It did not really matter at which 
point she emerged from the upper atmosphere of the planet. 
Up she climbed, and up, and the drab, gray landscape with the drab, gray 
city was spread beneath 
her, and the drab, gray cloud ceiling was heavy over 
the transparent dome of the control room. Up she climbed and up and 
beyond the dome; outside the viewports there was only the formless, swirling 
fog of the overcast. 
Up she climbed—and suddenly, the steely Lorn sun broke through, and the 
dome darkened in compensation to near opacity. Up she climbed.... 
"Commodore," asked Druthen in his unpleasantly 
high-pitched voice, "isn't 
it time that you set course or trajectory or whatever you call it?" 
"No," snapped Grimes. Then, trying to make his voice pleasant or, at least, 
less unpleasant, "I usually wait until I'm clear of the Van Allen." 
"Oh. Surely in this day and age that would not be necessary." 
"It's the way that I was brought up," grunted Grimes. He scowled at Sonya, 
who had assumed her maddeningly superior expression. He snapped at 
Carnaby, "Let me know as soon as we're clear of the radiation belt, will you?" 
The sun, dimmed by polarization, was still directly 
ahead, directly overhead 
from the viewpoint 
of those in the control room, in the very nose of the ship. 
To either side now there was almost unrelieved blackness, the ultimate night 
in which swam the few, faint, far nebulosities of the Rim sky; the distant, 
unreachable island universes. Below, 
huge in the after vision screen, was the 
pearly gray sphere that was Lorn. Below, too, was the misty Galactic Lens. 
"All clear, sir," said Carnaby quietly. 
"Good. Commander Williams, make the usual announcements.'' 
"Attention, please," Williams said. "Attention, 
please. Stand by for free fall. 
Stand by for free fall. Stand by for centrifugal effects." 
Grimes cut the drive. He was amused to note that, in spite of the ample 
warning, Druthen had not secured his seat belt. He remarked mildly, "I 
thought that you'd have been ready for free fall, Doctor." 
The physicist snarled wordlessly, managed to clip the strap about his flabby 
corpulence. Grimes returned his full attention to the controls. Directional 
gyroscopes rumbled, hummed and whined as the ship was turned about her 
short axis. The Lorn sun drifted from its directly ahead position 
to a point 
well abaft the Quest's beam. The cartwheel sight set in the ship's stem was 
centered on ... nothingness. Broad on the bow was the Lens, with a very few 
bright stars, the suns of the Rim Worlds, lonely in the blackness beyond its

edge. 
Williams looked toward Grimes inquiringly. The Commodore nodded. 
"Attention, please," Williams said. "Stand by for resumption of acceleration. 
Stand by for initiation 
of Mannschenn Drive." 
Grimes watched the accelerometer as he restarted 
the engines. He let 
acceleration build up to a steady one G, no more, no less. He switched on the 
Mannshenn Drive. Deep in the bowels of the ship the gleaming complexity of 
gyroscopes began to move, to turn, to precess, building up speed. Faster spun 
the rotors and faster and their song was a thin, high keening on the very 
verge of audibility. And as they spun they precessed, tumbling out of the 
frame of the continuum, falling down and through the dark dimensions, 
pulling the vessel and all aboard her with them. 
The Commodore visualized the working of the uncanny machines—as he 
always did. It helped to take his mind off the initial effects: the sagging of all 
colors down the spectrum, the wavering insubstantiality of the forms, the 
outlines of everything and everybody, the distortion of all the senses, the 
frightening feeling of deja vu. He said, making a rather feeble joke of it, "This 
is where we came in." 
The others might be paid to laugh at their commanding 
officer's witticisms, 
but Dr. Druthen made it plain that he was not. He looked at Grimes, all 
irritated and irritating inquiry. "Came in where?" he demanded. 
Sonya laughed without being paid for it. 
Grimes glared at his wife, then said patiently to the scientist, "Just a figure 
of speech, Doctor." 
"Oh. I would have thought that 'this is where we are going out' would have 
been more apt." Druthen stared out through the viewport, to the distorted 
Galactic Lens. Grimes, seeing what he was looking at, thought of making his 
usual remark about a Klein flask blown by a drunken glassblower, then 
thought better of it. He found it hard to cope with people who had too literal 
minds. 
"And talking of going out," went on Druthen, "why aren't we going out?" 
"What do you mean, Doctor?" 
"Correct me if I'm wrong, Commodore, but I always understood that the 
Outsiders' Ship lay some fifty light years out beyond the outermost Rim sun. 
I'm not a spaceman, but even I can see that we are, at the moment, just 
circumnavigating the fringe of the galaxy." 
Grimes sighed. He said, "Finding The Outsider is like trying to find a tiny 
needle in one helluva big haystack. At the moment we are, as you have said, 
circumnavigating the Lens. When we have run the correct distance we shall 
have the Lead Stars in line or almost in line. I shall bring the Leads astern, 
and run out on them for fifty light years. Then I shall run a search pattern...." 
Druthen snorted. What he said next revealed that he must have acquainted 
himself very well with Grimes' history, his past record. He said sardonically, 
"What a seamanlike like way of doing it, Commodore. But, of course, you're an 
honorary admiral of the surface Navy on Tharn, and your Master Mariner's 
Certificate is valid for the oceans of Aquarius. I would have thought, in my

layman's innocence, that somebody would have laid a marker buoy, complete 
with Carlotti beacon, off The Outsider years ago." 
"Somebody did," Grimes told him tersely. "No less than three somebodies 
did. According to last reports those buoys are still there, but none of them is 
functioning as a Carlotti transmitter. None of them ever did function for 
longer than three days, Galactic Standard." 
"Steady on trajectory, Skipper," announced Williams. 
"Thank you, Commander. Set normal deep space watches," replied Grimes. 
Slowly he unbuckled 
himself from his chair. It was customary for the captain 
of a ship, at this juncture, to invite any important passengers to his quarters 
for an ice-breaking drink or two. He supposed that Druthen was a passenger of 
sorts—he had signed no Articles of Agreement—and, as leader of the scientific 
team he was important enough. Too important. 
"Will you join me in a quiet drink before dinner, Doctor?" Grimes asked. 
"Too right," replied Druthen, licking his thick lips. 
Sonya's eyebrows lifted, although her fine-featured face showed no 
expression. 
V
Druthen drank gin, straight, from a large glass. Sonya sipped a weak Scotch 
and soda. Grimes drank gin, but with plenty of ice and a touch of bitters. 
Druthen managed to convey the impression 
of being more at home in the 
Commodore's day cabin than its rightful occupants. He talked down at Grimes 
and Sonya. It was obvious that he considered himself to be the real leader of 
the expedition, with the astronautical personnel along only as coach drivers. 
Patronizingly he said, "Your trouble, Grimes, is that you're too old 
fashioned. You don't move with the times. I really believe that you'd have been 
happy in the days of wooden ships and iron men." 
"You can say that again," agreed Grimes. He was pleased to note that Sonya 
was not taking sides against him, as she usually did when the conversation got 
on to these lines. He went on, "Then, the shipmaster wasn't at the mercy of his 
technicians to the extent that he is now." 
"And you really believe that...." Druthen's pale eyebrows were almost 
invisible against the unhealthy pallor of his skin, but it was obvious that they 
had been raised. "But why, my dear Grimes, must you persist in this passion 
for the archaic? To take just one glaring example—the invention and 
subsequent development of the Carlotti deep space communications system 
should have put every over glamorized but unreliable psionic communications 
officer out of a job. And yet I was amazed to discover that you carry a 
representative of that peculiar breed aboard this very vessel." 
"Ken Mayhew—Commander Mayhew—is an old friend and shipmate...." 
"Sentiment, Grimes. Sentiment." 
"Let me finish, Druthen." Grimes was childishly 
pleased to note that the 
physicist had been offended by the omission of his title. "Let me finish. 
Commander Mayhew is outstanding in his own field. As long as I have him on 
board, as well as the Carlotti gadgetry, I shall never be at the mercy of a single

fuse. Throughout this voyage he will be in continuous touch, waking and 
sleeping, with his juniors at the PC Station at Port Forlorn. Too...." But Grimes 
suddenly decided not to come out with what he had been going to say. 
"Go on, Commodore." 
I always like to keep at least one ace up my sleeve thought Grimes. He said 
nothing further about Mayhew's abilities, but went on, "Too, it's just possible 
that we shall be able to make use of his wife's talents." 
Druthen laughed sneeringly. "What sort of outfit is this? A telepath and a 
ghost raiser considered 
essential to the success of a scientific expedition." 
He 
raised a pudgy hand. "Hear me out. I've done my homework Grimes. I've read 
the reports written by you and about you. I know that you experienced some 
odd hallucinations on Kinsolving's Planet—but surely you can distinguish 
between the objective and the subjective. Or can't you?" 
"He can," put in Sonya. "And I can. I was there too, one of the times." 
"And on the second occasion," said Grimes nastily, "we had a scad of 
scientists along." 
"Agreed," remarked Druthen smugly. "But second-raters, all of them. On 
the first occasion—correct me if I'm wrong—it was an expedition organized by 
a group of religious fanatics. 
On the third occasion there was, with the 
Commodore and you, Mrs. Grimes, a shipload of fellow spacemen 
and—women. So...." 
Grimes managed to keep his temper. "So it all never happened, Doctor?" 
"That is my opinion, Commodore." He refilled his glass without invitation. 
"Frankly, I maintain that this expedition should have been under the 
command of a hardheaded scientist rather than a spaceman who has shown 
himself to be as superstitious as the old-time seamen regarding whom he is 
such an expert." 
Grimes grinned mirthlessly. "But I am in command, 
Doctor." 
"That is quite obvious. For example, this wasting 
of time by running to 
bring your famous Lead Stars in line rather than steering directly for the last 
reported position of The Outsider." 
Grimes laughed. "As long as I'm in command, Dr. Druthen, things will be 
done my way. But I will tell you why I'm doing things this way. The Outsider... 
wobbles. Unpredictably. Sometimes it is this side of the Leads, sometimes the 
other. Sometimes 
it is further in, toward the Rim, sometimes it is further out. 
In the unlikely event of its being in the vicinity of the position at which I shall 
bring the Lead Stars in line it will be within the detection range of several 
planet-based observatories. It just might be there, but the chances are that it 
will not be. So I stand out, and out, until I've run my distance, and then if I've 
picked up nothing on the mass proximity indicator I just cruise around in 
circles, through an ever expanding volume of space. Quite simple, really." 
"Simple!" snorted Druthen. He muttered something about people who must 
have learned their navigation in Noah's Ark. He splashed more gin into his 
glass. Grimes was pleased to see that the bottle was empty. 
Sonya made a major production of consulting her wristwatch. She said, "It's 
time that we got dressed for dinner." 
Surlily, Druthen took the hint. He finished his drink, got up clumsily.

"Thank you, Commodore. Thank you, Mrs. Grimes. I suppose I'd better freshen 
up myself. No, you needn't come with me. I can find my own way down." 
When the door had shut behind him Grimes looked at Sonya, and she 
looked at him. Grimes demanded, of nobody in particular, "What have I done to 
deserve this?" 
"Plenty," she told him. Then, "Pour me a drink, a stiff one. I just didn't want 
to be accused of setting that bastard a bad example." 
He complied. "I don't think that anybody could possibly." 
She laughed. "You're right." Then, "But don't underestimate him, John. He 
wasn't the only one doing his homework before we lifted off. I did, too, while 
you were getting the ship ready. I was able to get my paws on his dossier. To 
begin with, he's brilliant. Not quite a genius—although he likes to think that 
he is—but not far from it. He is also notorious for being completely lacking in 
the social 
graces." 
"You can say that again!" 
"But,.. and it's an interesting 'but'. But this he turns to his advantage. 
When he wants to pick anybody's brains he goes out of his way to annoy 
them—and, as like as not, they spill far more beans than they would do 
normally." 
"Mphm," grunted Grimes, feeling smugly pleased with himself. "Mphm." 
"He resents all authority...." 
"Doesn't he just!" 
"He feels that he has not received his just due." 
"Who doesn't? But since when was this a just universe?" 
"In short, he's dangerous." 
"Aren't we all in this rustbucket? Aren't we all?" he refilled his glass from the 
whiskey bottle. "Here's tae us. What's like us? De'il a yin!" 
"And thank all the odd gods of the galaxy for that," she riposted. 
VI 
The run out to the departure position was uneventful 
and reasonably 
pleasant. It could have been more pleasant; spacemen welcome company 
aboard their ships whom they can impress with their shop talk. But the 
scientists and technicians each had their own mess and, obedient to Druthen, 
kept themselves to themselves. It could have been unpleasant, Grimes 
conceded, if Druthen had forced his company upon Sonya and himself. He was 
content to let well enough alone. 
Meanwhile, he could and did enjoy the society of Mayhew and Clarisse, of 
Billy Williams, of young Major Dalzell, of the other officers. But during the 
drink and talk sessions it was hard to keep the conversation away from the 
purpose of their expedition, from the findings and the fates of earlier 
expeditions. 
Why had Calver been successful (if he had been successful)? Why had those

before him and after him met disaster? "There's only one way to find out, 
Skipper," Williams had said cheerfully. "We'll just have to see what happens 
to us! And if you're around, the fat always gets pulled out of the fire somehow!" 
"There has to be a first time for everything," Grimes told his second in 
command with grim humor. "There'll be a first time when the fat won't be 
pulled out of the fire." 
"She'll be right," Williams told him. "Mark my words, Skipper. She'll be 
right." 
And all of them studied the sailing directions, such as they were, until they 
knew them by heart. "Put Macbeth and Kinsolving's sun in line," the long 
dead Maudsley had told somebody. "Put Macbeth and Kinsolving's sun in line, 
and keep them so. That's the way that we came back. Fifty light years, and all 
hands choking on the stink of frying lubricating oil from the Mannschenn 
Drive...." And for fifty light years Calver had run, but with the Lead Stars in 
line astern. He had logged the distance, but found nothing. He had initiated a 
search pattern, and at last he had been successful. Those following him had 
not experienced 
the same difficulties—but each successive ship had been 
fitted with an improved model of the mass proximity indicator. Calver's 
instrument had been no more than a prototype, capable of detection 
at only 
short ranges. 
On the ship sped, running the Rim, and Carnaby checked and rechecked 
the fixes that he got from the Carlotti beacons set along the very edge of the 
galaxy. They were not very accurate fixes; the navigational aids had been 
positioned to assist vessels running under Mannschenn Drive from known 
world to known world, not a ship out where no ship, normally, had any 
business to be. But Carnaby was a good navigator, possessing the valuable 
quality of intuition. He could look at a spider's web of intersecting lines and 
mutter, "That can't be right." He could look at another one and say, "That 
could be right." Now and again he would state, "This is right." 
He said firmly, "This is right." 
Grimes and Williams were with him in the control 
room. The Commodore 
did not hesitate. "All right, Commander Williams," he ordered. "You know the 
drill." 
Williams spoke into the most convenient intercom 
microphone. "Attention, 
attention. All bridge officers to Control. All hands stand by for shutdown of 
Mannschenn Drive, free fall and centrifugal 
effects." Throughout the ship the 
alarm bells that he had actuated were ringing. 
Sonya came in, followed by Hendrikson and Daniels. Each of them went to a 
chair, strapped himself securely. Druthen came in, bobbing up through the 
hatch like some pantomime monster. His normally pale face was flushed. He 
sputtered, "What is the meaning of this, Commodore? We were in the middle 
of a most important experiment." 
"And we, Doctor, are in the middle of a most important piece of navigation." 
"There should have been warning." 
"There was warning. Three hours ago the announcement 
was made that the 
adjustment of trajectory would be at about this time." 
"Sir, we shall overrun...." warned Carnaby. 
"Get into a chair, Druthen!" snapped Grimes.

The scientist, moving surprisingly fast for one of his build, complied, sat 
there glowering. 
"Inertial drive—off!" Grimes ordered. 
"Inertial drive—off!" repeated Williams. 
The irregular throbbing slowed, ceased. There were weightlessness and loss 
of spacial orientation. 
"Mannschenn Drive—off!" 
Down in the Mannschenn Drive room the spinning, 
processing gyroscopes 
slowed to a halt, their thin, high whine dropped to a low humming, a rumble, 
then was silenced. Sight and hearing were distorted; the time sense was 
twisted. Grimes heard Sonya whisper, "Odd, very odd. This is the first time I've 
seen double. Is it me, or is something wrong with the Drive?" 
"Did you see double?" asked Carnaby, with professional interest. "I didn't, 
Commander Verrill." 
She laughed shakily. "It must have been a manifestation 
of wishful 
thinking, or something. It was only my husband, the Commodore, that I saw 
two of...." She was recovering fast." And did you see two of me, John?" 
"One is ample," he replied. 
But he had not seen even one of her. The woman who, briefly, had occupied 
Sonya's seat had not been Sonya, although it was somebody who once had 
been as familiar to him as Sonya was now. 
"I would have thought," commented Druthen, "that you people would have 
been accustomed by now to the psychological effects of changing rates of 
temporal precession." 
"It's just that we haven't lost our sense of wonder, 
Doctor," Grimes told him. 
He looked out through the viewport. The Lens was there, looking as it 
should look when viewed in the normal continuum, a glowing ellipsoid against 
the absolute blackness. Visible against the pearly mistiness were the Rim 
Suns, sparks upon the face of the haze. Carnaby was busy with his 
instruments. "Yes," he muttered, "that's Kinsolving all right. Its spectral type 
can't be confused with anything else... Macbeth must be obscured, directly in 
line with it... yes...." 
"Set trajectory, Mr. Carnaby?" asked Grimes. 
"Yes, sir. You may set trajectory." 
"Good." Grimes gave the orders decisively. Faraway Quest turned on her 
directional gyroscopes 
until the Kinsolving sun was directly astern. Inertial 
and Mannschenn Drives were restarted. She was on her way. 
"I saw two of you again, John," said Sonya in a peculiarly flat voice. 
Druthen laughed sneeringly. 
And Grimes asked himself silently, Why did I see her? 
VII 
Ever since the first ships, captains have had their confidants. Usually this 
role is played by a senior officer, but very rarely is it the second-in-command. 
Ship's doctors, with their almost priestly status, have enjoyed—and still do so

enjoy—the status of privileged listeners. But it was not Faraway Quest's doctor 
whose company Grimes sought when he wished to talk things out. It was 
Mayhew. 
Grimes sat with the psionic communications officer in the cabin that had 
been put to use as the ship's Psionic Communications Station. As a general 
rule PCOs used their own living quarters for this purpose, but PCOs did not 
often carry their wives with them. On this voyage Mayhew was accompanied by 
Clarisse. Clarisse did not think that the psionic amplifier—the so-called "dog's 
brain in aspic"—was a pleasant thing to have in plain view all the time, to live 
with and to sleep with. So Lassie—the name by which Mayhew called his 
disembodied pet—was banished to a spare cabin that was little more than a 
dogbox anyhow. 
Those wrinkled masses of cerebral tissue suspended 
in their transparent 
tanks of nutrient solution 
gave most people the horrors, and the Commodore 
was no exception. As he talked with Mayhew he was careful not to look at 
Lassie. It was hard, in these cramped quarters, to avoid doing so. 
"We're on the last leg, Ken," he remarked. 
"Yes, John." 
"Have you picked anything up from anybody—or anything?" 
"I've told Lassie to keep her telepathic ears skinned for any indication that 
the Waldegren destroyer 
is in the vicinity. So far—nothing." 
"Mphm. Of course, she mightn't have any telepaths on board. Let's face it, 
Ken, you're one of the last of a dying breed." 
"We aren't quite extinct, John, as well you know. Too, everybody transmits 
telepathically, to a greater or lesser extent. People like myself and Clarisse are, 
essentially, trained, selective receivers." 
"I know." Grimes cleared his throat. "You must have been receiving quite a 
few things from the personnel of this vessel...." 
Mayhew laughed. "I can guess what's coming next. But, as I've told you on 
quite a few past occasions, I'm bound by my oath of secrecy. We just don't pry, 
John. If we did pry—and if it became 
known, as it certainly would—we'd find 
ourselves the most popular guests at a lynching party. And, in any case, it's 
not done." 
"Not even when the safety of the ship is involved?" 
"The old, old argument. All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts 
absolutely. I'll not be a party to your corruption." 
But Grimes was persistent. "Even when you're not actually prying you must 
pick a few things up, without trying to, without meaning to...." 
"Well, yes. But it's just—how shall I put it?— background noise. Here's a 
good analogy for you, and one that you'll understand. After all, you're the Rim 
Worlds' own authority on Terran sea transport from Noah's Ark to the dawn of 
the Space Age. Think of the early days of radio—or wireless telegraphy as it 
was then called. Telegraphy, not telephony. Messages tapped out in Morse 
code, with dots and dashes. There'd be one of the old time Sparkses on watch, 
his earphones clamped over his head, listening. He'd hear the crash and 
crackle of static; he'd hear relatively close stations booming in, and thin, 
mosquito voices of distant ones. But—the only one that he'd actually hear 
would be the one that he wanted to hear."

"Go on." 
"It's like that with Clarisse and myself. We hear a horrid jumble of thoughts 
all the time but ignore them. But if there were the faintest whisper from the 
Waldegren ship or from The Outsider we'd do our damnedest to read it loud 
and clear." 
"Yes, I see, But...." 
"Something's worrying you, John." 
"You don't have to be a telepath to realize that." 
Mayhew scowled. "Unless you can convince me that the ship—or anybody 
aboard her—is in danger I'll not pry." 
"Not even on me?" 
"With your permission I might. But what seems to be the trouble? Tell me 
out loud. I'll not put on my thoughtreading act unless I have to." 
"It was during the alteration of trajectory. You know as well as any of us that 
there are all kinds of odd psychological effects when the Mannschenn Drive is 
stopped or restarted." 
"Too right." 
"This time they were odder than usual. To two of us, at least. To Sonya and 
myself." 
"Go on." 
"Sonya... saw two of me. No, she wasn't seeing double. There was only one of 
anybody and anything else in the control room." 
"Interesting. I'd have thought that one of you would be ample. And what did 
you see?" 
"Whom did I see, you should have said. I was looking at Sonya. But it was 
not Sonya whom I saw. Years ago I knew a woman called Maggie Lazenby. She 
was a specialist officer in the Survey Service, an ethologist, with a doctorate in 
that science, and commander's rank. Very similar to Sonya in appearance. She 
married a bloke called Mike Carshalton. He's an admiral now, I believe." 
"Local girl makes good. If she'd married you she'd only be Mrs. 
Commodore—and a commodore 
of the Reserve at that." 
"I like being a commodore of the Reserve. I don't think I'd like being an 
admiral. But—it was all rather oddish...." 
Mayhew laughed. "You, of all people, should be used to the odd things that 
happen out on the Rim. Don't tell me that you've forgotten the Wild Ghost 
Chase, in this very ship!" 
"Hardly. It was during that when Sonya and I decided to get hitched. But I 
just don't like these odd things happening at this time." 
"Getting choosy in your old age." 
"Who's old? But what I'm driving at is this. There's some sort of tie-in with 
the Outsiders' Ship and Kinsolving's Planet. After all, this business of the Lead 
Stars—Macbeth and Kinsolving in line. Kinsolving—and Macbeth. Years ago, 
long before our time, there was that odd business on one of the Macbeth 
planets. A ship from nowhere, old, derelict. 
A gift horse for the colonists, who 
didn't look the gift horse in the mouth carefully enough. It came from nowhere 
and it went back to nowhere—with a few hundred men and women aboard." 
"Yes. I've read the story." 
"So...." murmured Grimes softly.

"So what?" 
"I was hoping you'd have some sort of a clue." 
"I only work here, John." 
"But you're a sensitive." 
"A selective sensitive. Do you think it would help if I... pried?" 
"Go ahead. It's my mind." 
"Then... relax. Just relax. Don't think of anything in particular...." 
Grimes tried to relax. He found that he was looking at that obscenely named 
animal brain in the transparent container. He tried to look elsewhere, but 
couldn't. And it was aware of him. A dim, wavering image formed in his 
mind—that of a large, furry dog of indeterminate breed, a friendly dog, but a 
timid one. What was in his mind's eye was far better than what was in his 
physical eye, and he was grateful for it. He saw his hand go out and down to 
pat, to stroke the visionary 
dog. He saw the plumed tail waving. 
Maggie had liked dogs with a sentimentality rare in one qualified in her 
science. Maggie would like this dog—if she were here. But she was not. She 
was who knew how many light years distant, and probably very happy as an 
admiral's lady. But what of all the other Maggies? What of the Maggie whom he 
had met again, briefly, in that other universe, 
the doorway into which he had 
stumbled through on Kinsolving's Planet? How many universes 
were 
there—and how many Maggies? 
He was jerked back to reality with a start. 
Mayhew's voice was coldly censorious. He said, "I wish that you hadn't asked 
me to do this, John. It's time you realized how bloody lucky you are." 
"Eh, what?" 
"Lucky I said—and mean. Lucky being married 
to Sonya. Her temporal 
precession hallucination 
was just you, in duplicate. Yours was an old flame. 
You're still hankering after her." 
Some men are naturally monogamous, Ken...." 
"And some, like you, are not." He laughed. "Oh, well, it takes all sorts to 
make a universe. Forgive me if I sounded shocked, but I'd always thought of 
you and Sonya as being as close as it's possible for two nontelepaths to be. 
Even a mind reader can be wrong." 
"Why shouldn't a man have bread and cake?" asked Grimes reasonably. "But 
the odd part is that Sonya and Maggie are as alike as two slices from the same 
loaf. They'd pass for sisters. Almost as twin sisters." 
Mayhew allowed himself to smile. "I suppose you're in love with a type, John, 
rather than a person. Oh, well." 
Grimes changed the subject. "And how do you find our scientific 
passengers? Dr. Druthen, I'm sure, regards you and Clarisse as sort of 
commissioned 
teacup readers." 
"He would. But that's one mind, John, that I wouldn't care to pry into. The 
man just oozes bigotry. He's a second-rater, and although he'd hate to admit it, 
he knows it. That accounts for his attitude toward the universe in general. He 
has this driving ambition to be on top, no matter what the cost to other 
people." 
"And you haven't pried?" 
"No. I have not pried. But every trained telepath is something of a

psychologist—not that one needs to be one to figure out what makes a man 
like Druthen tick." 
"Mphm." Slowly Grimes filled and lit his pipe. "Well, thanks, Ken. There're 
one or two things I'd like to check in Control. I'll see you later." 
He let himself out of the little cabin and then, by way of the axial shaft, 
made his way to the control room. He chatted there for a while with Billy 
Williams, 
then went to his own quarters to join Sonya for a drink or two before 
dinner. 
"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked him. 
"There are times," he told her, "when I realize how lucky I am." 
VIII 
There were times—rather more frequent than he cared to admit—when 
Grimes was lucky. This was one of them. Part of his luck, perhaps, was in 
having a really outstanding navigator aboard his ship. Carnaby's last captain 
had said of him, "He could find a black cat in a coal mine at midnight in three 
seconds flat." This was not far from the truth. 
There had been no need whatsoever for Faraway 
Quest to run a wearisome 
search pattern after the fifty light year plunge outward from the Lead Stars. 
Carnaby had applied this course correction and that course correction, each 
time a matter of seconds rather than of minutes or degrees, had played a 
complicated game of three dimensional—or four dimensional, even—noughts 
and crosses in the plotting tank, had overworked the ship's computer to such 
an extent that Williams had said to Grimes, "If the bloody thing had a real 
brain it would go on strike!" 
And then the mass proximity indicator had picked up a target just inside its 
one light year maximum range. Almost directly ahead it was, a tiny spark, a 
minute bead on the thin, glowing filament that was the extrapolated trajectory. 
It was time to slow down, although there was no danger of collision. Two solid 
bodies cannot occupy 
the same space at the same time—but when one of 
those solid bodies is proceeding under Mannschenn Drive it is in a time of its 
own. 
Grimes took over personally as the range closed. The tiny spark in the 
screen slowly expanded 
to a globe, luminescent, with other tiny sparks in 
orbit about it. There could be no doubt as to what it was. 
The Mannschenn Drive was shut down and Faraway Quest proceeded 
cautiously under inertial drive only, a run of about twelve hours at one G 
acceleration. The Commodore stayed in Control, smoking, drinking coffee, 
nibbling an occasional sandwich. His officers, their control room watches 
completed, stayed on with him. Sonya was there, of course, and so were 
Mayhew and Clarisse. Major Dalzell was there for most of the time, and even 
Druthen, uninvited, came up. 
The Outsiders' Ship was within radar range now, it and the derelicts circling 
it. It was within radar range and it could be seen visually at last, a tiny, not 
very bright star in the blackness where no star had any right to be. The 
powerful telescope was trained on it, adjusted, and its picture glowed on the

forward vision screen. It was.... There was only one word for it. It was fantastic. 
It shone with a light of its own, a cold luminosity, bright but not harsh. It was 
not a ship so much as a castle out of some old fairy tale, with towers and 
turrets, cupolas and minarets and gables and buttresses. It should have looked 
absurd, but it did not. It should have looked grotesque, and it did, but for all 
the grotesquerie it was somehow... right. Its proportions 
were the only 
possible proportions. 
Grimes stared at the picture, the somehow frightening picture, as did the 
others. He felt Sonya's hand tighten on his shoulder. The very humanness of 
the gesture helped him, brought him back to the prosaic reality of the control 
room of his own ship. There were things to be done. 
"Mr. Carnaby," he snapped, "let me have the elements of a stable orbit about 
this... thing. Mr. Hendrikson, see if you can ascertain how many derelicts there 
are in this vicinity. Plot their orbits." 
"And have the weaponry in a state of readiness, sir?" asked Hendrikson 
hopefully. 
"Use your tracking system for plotting those orbits," Grimes told him coldly. 
"It can be used for other things besides gunnery, you know." 
Daniels, the radio officer, had not waited for specific orders. He was dividing 
his attention between 
the normal space time equipment and the Carlotti 
transceiver. He reported to Grimes: "I think there's the faintest whisper on the 
Carlotti, sir. I have it on broad band, but I'll try to get a bearing." 
Grimes looked at the pilot antenna, at the elipsoid Mobius strip rotating 
about its long axis and quivering, hunting, on its universal mount. There was 
something there, something, but it didn't know quite where. He was about to 
get up from his chair to join Daniels at the communications equipment when, 
to his annoyance, Druthen remarked, 
"So you got us here, Commodore." The 
tone of his voice implied more than mild surprise. 
"Yes. I got us here. Excuse me, I'm busy...." 
"Sir...." It was the navigator. 
"Yes, Mr. Carnaby?" 
"All ready, sir. But we'd better not bring her in closer than a couple of miles. 
That thing has the mass of a planetoid." 
"Mphm." Carnaby was exaggerating, of course. It was one of his failings. Even 
so... an artificial gravitational field? A distortion of the framework of space 
itself? 
"Sir, I think I have something..." broke in Daniels. 
"Commander Williams, take over the pilotage, please. Be careful not to run 
into any of the derelicts 
that Mr. Hendrikson is using for his make-believe 
target practice!" 
"Good-oh, Skipper." 
Grimes unsnapped his seat belt, strode swiftly to the vacant chair beside 
Daniels, buckled himself in just as the inertial drive was stopped and the ship 
went into free fall. He saw that the pilot antenna had stopped hunting, was 
now steady on a relative bearing almost dead astern of Faraway Quest, a 
bearing that slowly changed as Williams began to put the ship into her orbit. 
Yes, he could hear a whisper, no more than a faint, faraway muttering, even 
though the volume control was turned full on. He could not distinguish 
the

words. He did not think that the speaker was using Standard English. He 
regretted, as he had done before, that he was and always had been so 
distressingly monolingual. 
"New German, I think..." Daniels said slowly. 
"Sonya," called Grimes, "see if you can get the drift of this!" 
But when she joined her husband and Daniels the set was silent again. 
Perhaps, thought Grimes, Mayhew might be able to pick something up. It was 
not necessary for him to say it aloud. 
"Yes, sir," the telepath almost whispered, "there is something, somebody. No, 
it's not the Waldegren warship you're expecting.... It's... it's...." 
"Damn it all, Commander, who the hell is it?" demanded Grimes. 
Mayhew's voice, as he replied, held reproof. "You've broken the very tenuous 
contact that I'd just begun to make." 
"Sorry. But do your best, Commander Mayhew." 
"I'm... trying...." 
"Orbit established, Skipper," reported Williams. 
"No dangerous approach to any of the other orbits, sir," reported Carnaby 
and Hendrikson, speaking as one. 
"Yes, yes. Commander Mayhew?" 
"I'm trying... to try." Mayhew's expression was both very faraway and more 
than a little pained. "But... so much interference. There's somebody we know... 
and there are strangers...." 
"Are they in these derelicts? Aboard The Outsider?" 
"No, sir. If they were close, I should know. But they are distant still. But 
please, please try not to interrupt any more...." 
"Let him go into his trance and get on with the clairvoyance," sneered 
Druthen. 
"Shut up, Doctor! Do you want to be ordered out of Control?" snarled 
Grimes. 
The scientist subsided. 
"Please..." pleaded Mayhew. 
Then there was silence in the control room, broken only by the sibilant 
whisperings of such machines as, with the ship now in free falling orbit, were 
still in operation. The soughing of fans, the whining of generators, the very 
occasional sharp click of a relay.... 
"Metzenther..." muttered Mayhew. 
Grimes and Sonya exchanged glances. They were the only two, apart from 
the psionic communications 
officer, to whom the name meant anything. 
"Trialanne..." He was vocalizing his thoughts for Grimes' benefit. 
"Metzenther, Trialanne.... Where are you bound?" He seemed to find the 
answer amusing. "No, we haven't any company yet, apart from a half dozen or 
so derelict ships.... Be seeing you... Or shall we...? I wouldn't know. I'm not a 
physicist or a mathematician.... And can you pick up anybody else...? We think 
we heard a Waldegren ship on our Carlotti.... And I got the faintest mutter from 
somebody else.... No, not a telepath, just unconscious broadcasting.... A 
servant of some empire or other.... Not yours, by any chance...? No...?" 
"And are we to have the pleasure of meeting that big, blonde cow again?" 
demanded Sonya coldly.

"She was quite attractive, in a hefty sort of way," Grimes told her. 
"You would think so." 
Mayhew grinned. "I rather think, Commander Verrill, that we shall shortly 
experience the pleasure 
of renewing our acquaintance with the ex-Empress 
Irene, and Captain Trafford, and all the rest of Wanderer's people." 
"But they're on a different time track," said Sonya. "And thank all the odd 
gods of the galaxy for that!" 
"Mphm," grunted Grimes. "Mphm." He gestured 
toward the viewport 
through which the Outsiders' 
Ship was clearly visible. "But here, I think, is 
where all the time tracks converge." 
"I hope you're wrong," said Sonya. "I hope you're wrong. But I'm rather 
afraid that you're not." 
"He's not," confirmed Mayhew. 
IX 
"Mphm." Grimes made a major production of filling and lighting his foul 
pipe. "How long before your odd friends get here, Commander Mayhew?" 
"My friends, sir?" 
"Yes. Your friends. Metzenther and his ever-loving. You telepaths always 
seem to stick together." 
Grimes grinned. "Frankly, I regarded that ex-Empress 
woman and her bunch of Imperial Navy throwouts as a pain in the arse...." 
Mayhew grinned back. "They thought about you and Commander Verrill in 
rather the same way." 
"Good. But when do they get here?" 
The psionic communications officer shut his eyes, concentrated. He said 
slowly, "In about three hours fifteen minutes Standard." 
"That gives us time.... Commander Williams, I think you'll find one or two 
Confederate ensigns in the flag locker. You'll want one with wire stiffening, 
and a pole with a magnetic base. We'll plant our colors on the... The Outsider. I 
doubt if the legality of the claim will be recognized in a court of interstellar law, 
but it will give us some sort of talking point. 
"Meanwhile, probably quite a few of you are wondering what this is all 
about. You know, Commander 
Williams, and Mayhew knows, but none of the 
rest of you will have heard the full story. It'll be as well if I put you in the 
picture." He turned to Williams. "You'd better get your flag planting under way, 
Commander, just in case Mayhew's ETA is out. And could you lend 
Commander Williams 
a couple or three hands for the job, Major Dalzell? And 
Mr. Daniels, I shall want everything I say put through on the intercom. Thank 
you." Williams and Dalzell left the control room. Grimes cleared his throat. He 
said into the microphone 
that Daniels handed him, "Attention, all hands. 
Attention, all hands. This is important. You will all have seen, in the public 
information screens, our objective, the Outsiders' Ship. Most of you will have 
realized that we are now in orbit about it. Shortly you will see a landing party 
jetting off from this vessel toward The Outsider. They will be planting a flag on 
it. The reason for this is that we shall soon be having company. This will not be

the Waldegren warship that we have been expecting—although she, probably, 
will be along before very long. 
"A few years ago," Grimes continued, "I was instructed to take Faraway 
Quest out to investigate 
some strange, drifting wreckage—wreckage that, 
obviously, had not originated in this universe. 
It was the remains of a lifeboat 
that had belonged to a ship called Star Scout, and this Star Scout had been a 
unit of the Imperial Navy. The only empire that we know is the Empire of 
Waverley, and its navy is officially called the Imperial Jacobean Navy. So.... 
"So we were stooging around, trying to find a few further clues, when this 
ship, quite literally, appeared from nowhere. Her name was Wanderer. She was 
quite heavily armed, the equivalent to one of our destroyers, but she was 
privately owned. She had been the yacht of the Empress Irene. She was still 
owned by the ex-Empress Irene, who was married to her Captain. She carried 
only a small crew—this Irene woman was mate, as well as owner; a Mr. 
Tallentire, who had been a gunnery officer in the Imperial Navy was second 
mate, and his wife, Susanna, had been lady-in-waiting to the Empress, and 
was now radio-officer-cum-purser. The psionic communications officer 
was—and still is—a Mr. Metzenther, almost the double of our Commander 
Mayhew. This Metzenther had—has—an Iralian wife called Trialanne. We don't 
have any Iralians on this time track. They were all wiped out by a plague. 
Bronheim was the engineer. He, too, had an Iralian wife—Denelleen...." 
"Not now he doesn't," Mayhew said soberly. "I've been catching up on past 
history with Metzenther. 
Do you mind if I take over, sir?" 
"Go ahead, Commander." 
"Mayhew speaking. As you all will, by this time, have gathered, I am in 
psionic touch with the yacht Wanderer. She was thrown, somehow, onto this 
time track when she attempted the passage of the Horsehead Nebula. She was 
pursued by two New Iralian cruisers—the New Iralians being insurgents. 
She 
was carrying Iralian passengers, some of whom were in sympathy with the 
rebels. With our help she shook off pursuit, and then tried to get back into her 
own universe by running back through the Nebula. She was overtaken, but 
came out on top in the running fight. But the rebels among the passengers 
tried to take over the ship. Denelleen was one of them.... Anyhow, the 
mutineers were defeated. And that's about all." 
"That was then," said Grimes. "What are these people doing here now?" 
"You may remember, sir," Mayhew told him, "that when we last met them 
they were on charter to an organization called GLASS—Galactic League 
Against Supression and Slavery. They're still on charter to GLASS. GLASS has 
the idea that the science and technology in the Outsiders' Ship will be useful 
to them in their work." 
"So they; the ex-Empress, GLASS and all the rest of 'em have an Outsiders' 
Ship in their universe. 
So—as I've already guessed—it's not a different 
one, 
but the same one as we have. So the time tracks meet and mingle right here." 
The Commodore laughed. "Who else shall we meet, I wonder...." 
Sony a said flatly, "Williams has planted the flag." 
"And so we, more or less legally, own it," said Grimes. He added softly, 
"Unless it owns us." 
"Rubbish!" sneered Druthen.

Grimes ignored the man. 
X
"I just might," suggested Daniels diffidently, "be able to establish Carlotti 
contact with Wanderer. 
I think that the time tracks will almost have converged 
by now." 
"Mphm," grunted Grimes, giving thought to the possibility. Technologically 
his universe and the universe of the ex-Empress Irene were almost twins. At 
the time of his previous encounter with the so-called yacht she had possessed 
Carlotti equipment almost identical to his own. "Mphm." Then, "No, Mr. 
Daniels. Concentrate on that Waldegren destroyer. She's our main worry." He 
looked out through the view port and was relieved to see that Williams and the 
two marines, silvery figures trailing luminous blue exhausts, were almost 
back 
to the ship. 
"Looks like being quite a party," commented Sonya. "The big, fat blonde, 
Irene, with her playmates, and our dear friends from Waldegren...." 
"No friends of mine," growled Grimes. "I was at the Battle of Dartura... 
Remember?" 
"Long before my time, dearie," she commented. 
"Commodore! Sir!" broke in Carnaby. "A target, on the radar!" 
"Not one of the derelicts, Mr. Carnaby?" 
"No. It just appeared out of nothingness. It's closing on us, fast." 
"Mr. Hendrikson—all weapons to bear. Do not open fire without orders. Mr. 
Daniels, try to establish 
contact. Commander Mayhew—is it Wa-derer?" 
"No, sir." 
"Then who the hell... or what the hell...?" 
"Locked on, sir," reported Hendrikson. 
"Good." 
"Range still closing, but less rapidly. We should have her visually in a few 
seconds." said Carnaby. 
"Thank you. Commander Williams, the telescope." 
"Aye, aye, Skipper!" 
"No contact, sir," murmured Daniels. "But I can hear the Waldegren ship 
again. She's still distant." 
"I've got her in the telescope," drawled Williams. 
"Odd looking bitch... she's 
on the screen now, if you care to take a butcher's." 
Grimes took a "butcher's hook," reflecting that life was already sufficiently 
complicated without his second-in-command's rhyming slang. The strange ship 
was there, exactly in the center of the circle of blackness, a silver moth pinned 
against the backdrop of the night. As she approached, her image expanded 
rapidly. She was a gleaming disc—but, Grimes realized, he was looking at her 
head on—from which sprouted a complexity of antennae. And then, slowly, she 
turned, presenting 
her profile. Apart from that veritable forest of metallic rods 
she was not unlike the Survey Service 
courier that had been Grimes' first 
command long ago, so very long ago, one of the so-called "flying darning 
needles." As yet she had made no hostile move. But, assuming that she was

alien, captained by a nonhuman or, even, by a nonhumanoid, would a 
hostile move be recognized 
as such before it was too late? 
Grimes flashed a glance at Hendrikson, hushed intently over his console. 
He was ready; possibly rather too ready. He looked back at the screen. He 
thought, he was almost sure, that the lines of the strange vessel showed a 
human sense of proportion. 
He snapped at Daniels, "Haven't you raised her 
yet?" 
"I'm... I'm trying sir. I've tried every frequency 
known to civilized Man, and 
a few that aren't... Ah! Got it!" 
There was a babble of sound from the speaker of the NST transceiver. Alien 
gibberings? No.... It sounded more like human speech, but horridly distorted, 
garbled. 
Daniels spoke very slowly and distinctly into his microphone. "Rim Worlds 
Confederacy's cruiser Faraway Quest to unknown vessel. Faraway Quest to 
unknown vessel. Come in, please. Come in, please. Over." 
In reply came the meaningless gabble. 
Daniels was patient, carefully adjusting his tuning. 
"Faraway Quest to 
unknown vessel. Please identify yourself. Please identify yourself. Over." 
"A shi? A shi?" 
What ship? What ship? It could be, thought Grimes. 
"A shi? A shi? Dringle na puss. Gleeble." 
Tickle my puss? Hardly. 
"We'll try visual," said Grimes. "Pass me the key, will you? I don't think that 
my Morse is too rusty." 
Williams passed him the Morse key on its long lead. Grimes took it in his 
right hand, his thumb on the button. He sent a series of "A"s, the general 
calling sign. He assumed that somebody, by this time, would have the Quest's 
big searchlight trained on the stranger. He kept his attention on the image in 
the telescope screen. 
Yes, he, whoever (or whatever) he was seemed to know Morse. The 
acknowledgment, the long flash, the Morse "T," was almost blindingly obvious. 
"What ship?" sent Grimes. "What ship?" 
From the other came a succession of "A"s. Grimes replied with "T". Then, 
"What ship?" he read. "What ship?" 
So... so was the stranger repeating parrot fashion, or was he being cagey? 
"What ship?" sent Grimes again. "What ship?" 
"What ship?" he received. 
He sent, not too slowly but carefully, making sure that each word was 
acknowledged, "Identify yourself, or I open fire." 
He grinned when the reply came, "You'd better not." 
He said aloud, "Not only human, but our sort of people." He flashed, "This is 
the Rim Worlds Confederacy's cruiser Faraway Quest. You are intruding 
into 
our sector of space. Please identify yourself." 
"Imperial Navy's armed scout Vindictive. Rim Worlds Confederacy's Navy not 
listed in Jane's. Never heard of Rim Worlds Confederacy. Who the hell are 
you?"

"Commander Williams," said Grimes, "Jane's Fighting Ships is in the 
computer's library bank. Check Vindictive, will you? And the Imperial Navy." 
"Will do, Skipper. But the only Imperial Navy we have is the Waverley one." 
"I know. But check it, anyhow." Again his thumb worked rhythmically on 
the key. "This is Faraway Quest. This is Rim Worlds space. You are intruding." 
"You are intruding." 
Grimes grinned again, sent, "Can't we talk this over?" 
For long seconds there was no reply. Carnaby reported that the stranger 
was no longer closing the range, was maintaining her distance. Hendrikson 
announced, unnecessarily, that his weaponry was still in a state of readiness. 
Daniels asked, "Can I have the key, sir? If I have a yarn with her radio officer 
I shall be able to find out what frequencies to use...." 
And then Vindictive started flashing again. "Request permission to board." 
"One man only," Grimes replied. 
More time passed. Then, "Please prepare to receive my boat." 
Oh, no, thought Grimes. Oh, no. The dividing line between a boat and a 
torpedo is a very narrow one. He was satisfied by now that Vindictive's people 
were humans; but the human race has a long record of viciousness and 
treachery, far too often actuated by the very highest motives. 
"One man in a suit," he sent, "will meet one man in a suit, midway between 
our two vessels. They will return to Faraway Quest together. You may close the 
range between ships to ten miles. Do not forget that all my weapons are 
trained on you, and that my gunnery officer has a very itchy trigger finger." He 
said aloud, "And I have a very sore thumb." 
"Agreed," sent Vindictive at last. "Closing. Please remember that you are a 
big target." 
"Commander Mayhew," asked the Commodore, 
"can you pick up anything, 
anything at all, from those people?" 
"Faintly..." replied the telepath slowly. "Very faintly. I sense suspicion, 
distrust. They will fire if they think that they are about to be fired upon." 
"And so will we. And now—who's for the space walk? Don't all answer at 
once." 
There was no shortage of volunteers, but "Mayhew's rather high voice was 
distinctly heard above the others. "There's only one possible choice, sir. Me. 
When I get close to whoever they send I should be able to read his thoughts 
more easily. And Clarisse can look after the shop in my absence." 
"Mphm. Very well, Ken. Get suited up. And—look 
after yourself." 
"I always have done, John, all the years that you've known me." He said 
nothing to Clarisse, but it was not necessary. Accompanied by Williams 
he left 
the control room. 
"Please let me know when you are ready," flashed Vindictive. 
"Willco," replied Grimes. 
XI 
"I suppose that it has occurred to you," said Sonya, "that this Vindictive, of

which no mention is made in our version of Jane's Fighting Ships, could be 
from that Irene woman's universe. After all, she is supposed to be a unit of the 
Imperial Navy." 
"The thought had flickered across my mind," admitted Grimes, "even though 
I'm not, and never have been, an intelligence officer." In spite of the absence of 
gravity he contrived to lay back in his chair. "We rather gathered, the last—and 
the only, so far—time that we met the ex-Empress that her employers, these 
GLASS people, were regarded by the Imperial Government as more than 
somewhat of a nuisance. Shit stirrers, if you'll pardon the expression." 
"I've heard worse. Continue." 
"So it is reasonable to suppose that if GLASS want to get their paws on The 
Outsider and The Outsider's secrets, the Imperial Navy could be sent out to 
make sure that they didn't. But...." 
"What is your 'but'?" 
"But I don't think that Vindictive was built by the same technology as 
Irene's Wanderer. Wanderer, 
like Faraway Quest, had all sorts of odd lumps 
and bumps on her hull, but she didn't look like a deep space hedgehog. Too, 
neither Wanderer nor ourselves experienced any trouble in initiating either 
Carlotti or NST radio telephone hookups." 
"H'm. I suppose we could get Clarisse to ask that man Metzenther, aboard 
Wanderer, if they're being followed. Not that you can call it being followed 
when the pursuer gets there hours before the pursued." 
"That, my dear, is very sound tactics, when you can manage it." 
Williams' voice came over the intercom. "Commander Mayhew suited up an' 
in the after airlock." 
Then, over the transceiver that was operating on the suit frequencies, 
Mayhew reported, "All ready, sir." 
Grimes flashed the signal to Vindictive, read the reply, "The Captain is on his 
way." 
"A do-it-yourself-trust-nobody type," commented 
the Commodore. "Tell 
Commander Mayhew to shove off." 
He felt a slight twinge of anxiety—but, after all, Mayhew was a spaceman as 
well as a telepath, and Williams would have given him a thorough briefing. 
It 
would be simple enough; just switch on the suit's reaction unit and steer 
straight for the other ship, keeping eyes skinned for the blinker that would be 
flashing from Vindictive's captain's helmet. 
But did this peculiar Empire in 
some peculiar universe observe the same rules of spacemanship as were 
observed in Grimes' continuum? 
Obviously it did. All the lights of Vindictive went out, as had all the lights 
showing from Faraway 
Quest. This would make it easier for the space walkers; 
each of them now would see only the little, but bright beacon toward which he 
was steering. 
Carnaby had the radar on short range, was tracking both space suited men. 
He was speaking into the microphone of the transceiver. "That's fine, 
Commander. Steady... Steady as you go... Better shut off your propulsion.... 
Be ready for a retro-blast...." 
Grimes, staring through the viewport, could see the two blinking lights 
almost as one, so nearly in line were they. Surely Mayhew hadn't much

further to go.... 
"Brake, Commander," came Carnaby's voice. "Brake! Yes, he's braking too. 
Now... just a nudge ahead... that's it!" 
And from the transceiver's speaker came Mayhew's whisper. "Contact. 
Contact established. 
He's tough, Commodore. Hard to get inside.... 
But... I 
can assure you that he intends no treachery." 
Grimes took the microphone. "Does he know that you're... prying?" 
"I don't think so." 
"Can he hear you? Me?" 
"No, sir. I'm careful that our helmets don't come into contact." 
"Good. Go through the motions of searching him for any weapons that he 
may have outside his suit. Then you can touch helmets and talk to him." 
"Very good, sir." 
There was a silence that seemed to drag on and on. At last Mayhew said, "Be 
ready to receive us on board, Commodore." 
Williams called up from the after airlock to say that Mayhew and the man 
from Vindictive were aboard, and that he was bringing them up to Control. 
Grimes found himself wondering what his visitor would be like. He was an 
officer in the armed forces of an empire—and Empire sounded far more 
glamorous than Federation or Confederacy. 
He's probably got a title, thought 
Grimes idly, and a string of letters after his name half a light year long. He 
glanced around his control room, missing nothing. All of his officers were in 
correct uniform, although some of them were more than a little untidy in 
appearance. Druthen, of course, was his usual slovenly self—but he was a 
mere civilian, a passenger. 
Williams came up through the hatch. "Commander 
Mayhew, Skipper," he 
announced cheerfully. 
Mayhew, still suited up but carrying his helmet 
under 
his left arm, followed Williams. "And Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, of the 
Imperial Navy. Sir Dominic, may I present Commodore John Grimes, of the 
Rim Worlds Naval Reserve?" Commander Williams was plainly enjoying 
himself. 
Grimes looked at Flandry. He was not at all sure if he liked what he saw. The 
Captain of Vindictive was a tall man, and conveyed the impression of slimness 
even in his bulky spacesuit. The suit itself was gleaming black with gold 
trimmings. The helmet 
that Flandry carried tucked under his arm was also 
black, with a wreath of golden oak leaves on its visor, with, as an ornate badge, 
a golden eagle with outspread wings gripping a conventionalized planetary 
globe in its talons. His face was harsh, with a fierce beak of a nose, and the 
pencil line black moustache over the sensual mouth should have looked 
foppish—but somehow didn't. The glossy black hair was touched with gray at 
the temples. The eyes were a pale blue, and very bleak. 
"Your servant, Commodore," said Flandry stiffly. 
That'll be the sunny Friday when you're any man's servant, thought Grimes. 
He said, "Good to have you aboard, Captain. Or should I say, 'Sir Dominic'?" 
"Either will do, Commodore." Flandry's sharp eyes were flickering around 
the control room, missing nothing, missing nobody. They lingered for a few 
seconds on Clarisse—and for longer on Sonya. Of course, thought Grimes, she

would be wearing that indecent micro-skirted Federation uniform. Flandry said, 
"You carry a mixed crew, Commodore." 
"Mphm. Yes. Although the ladies are specialist officers. Mrs. Mayhew...." 
Clarisse unbuckled herself from her chair, came forward. "This is Captain 
Flandry, of Vindictive. Captain Flandry, this is Mrs. Mayhew, our assistant 
psionic communications 
officer...." 
"Psionic communications? A telepath.... and I take it that Commander 
Mayhew, whom you sent out to meet me, is your chief psionic 
communications 
officer...." 
He looked at Clarisse again, and suddenly she flushed. Flandry laughed. 
"Sorry," he said. "Sorry, my dear. I should have had the sense to keep my 
thoughts under proper control." But he did not sound sorry, and Clarisse, 
although embarrassed, 
did not look at all resentful. 
"And this is Commander Verrill, of the Federation's 
Survey Service. She is 
acting as the Federation's 
observer on this expedition." 
"And not a telepath, I take it," murmured Flandry. 
He looked as though he 
were undressing Sonya with his eyes—not that she needed much undressing, 
thought Grimes, in that apology for a uniform. And he did not like the way that 
she was looking back at the Imperial captain. 
Grimes introduced his other officers, and then Druthen. He said, "And now, 
Sir Dominic, I suggest that we withdraw to my quarters for discussion. 
Commander Williams, please accompany us. Commander Mayhew, Mr. 
Daniels—please let me know at once if either of you hear anything further 
from Wanderer or Adler." 
"Wanderer?" asked Flandry, with a lift of one eyebrow. 
"One of yours, possibly. She's the private yacht of the ex-Empress Irene." 
"Then not one of ours," laughed the other. "We don't have an empress. We 
never have had an empress. I, sir, have the honor..." and he made it sound a 
dubious honor... "of serving His Imperial 
Majesty Edouard XIV. And this Adler? 
" 
"A destroyer sailing under the flag of the Duchy of Waldegren." 
"The Duchy of Waldegren? Never heard of it." 
The officers were looking at Grimes and his visitor curiously. The 
Commodore decided that they had better continue their discussion in greater 
privacy. He said, "This way, please, Sir Dominic." 
On the way to his suite he noticed that Flandry did not handle himself very 
well in free fall. So, probably, Vindictive ran to some sort of artificial gravity, 
and when in orbit her officers did not have to cope with the problems of 
weightlessness. He decided to get one of his engineers aboard the armed scout 
if it were at all possible. There must be quite a few technologies aboard her 
well worth copying. 
The sliding door opened as Grimes approached it. He stood to one side, 
waving the others into his day cabin ahead of him. Flandry moved clumsily, 
shuffling his feet, in their magnetically soled boots, on the deck. 
Grimes said, "This is Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat and call the cat a 
bastard." 
Sonya looked at him coldly. "This is the first time I've heard you say that for

quite some time, John. I'd hoped you'd forgotten it." 
Flandry flashed her a smile. "It is a vivid figure of speech, Commander 
Verrill. Have you known the Commodore for a long time?" 
"Yes. I'm married to him." 
"Commodore Grimes, have you any unmarried ladies among your crew as 
attractive as the two ladies I have already met?" 
"No, I haven't." Then, in a less surly tone of voice, "Sit down, Captain. And 
perhaps you will take a drink with us...." 
"I'll be glad of the drink—but this suit's not made for sitting in. And when in 
a strange ship, quite possibly a hostile ship, I prefer to keep it on." 
"As you please, Captain Flandry. And you'll have to take my word for it that 
the drinks aren't drugged or poisoned." Grimes pulled himself into his own 
chair, strapped himself in. Sonya followed suit. Williams was about to do 
likewise when Grimes told him to look after the refreshments. Efficiently the 
Commander produced bulbs of the drink required. Flandry asked for Scotch. 
"Your health, Captain Sir Dominic!" 
"Your health, Commodore Grimes." Again there was that sardonic smile. 
"But should I, as a loyal servant of His Imperial Majesty, be drinking your 
health?" 
"And why the hell shouldn't you be?" demanded 
Grimes crustily. 
"And why should I, Commodore—if you are a commodore. Oh, I'll let you 
have your rank. Even pirates must have officers." 
"Pirates? What the hell are you getting at?" 
"Pirates." Flandry's voice was harsh. "Pirates, setting themselves up as petty 
kings on the fringes of a disintegrating Empire. Laying their grubby paws on 
Imperial property, even planting their absurd flag on it. Tell me, Commodore 
Grimes, what genius thought up that black banner with a golden wheel on it? 
What does it signify?" 
Grimes didn't answer the question directly. He snapped. "Imperial property? 
I suppose you're referring to that heap of alien ironmongery that somebody left 
in our back yard. The Outsiders' Ship, as we call it, lies within Rim Worlds' 
territorial 
space." 
"Does it? And who, or what, are the Rim Worlds? The Outsider, as we call it, 
was first discovered 
by Admiral Lord Wolverhelm, who commanded 
the Fringe 
Sweep." 
Grimes eyed Flandry cautiously. He thought, The bastard's enjoying himself. 
He's trying to make us lose our tempers. He said, "Neither the Federation nor 
the Confederacy runs to 'sirs' and 'lords.' The Empire of Waverley does, of 
course—but it would never dream of sending an expedition out here without 
our permission." 
"Odd name for a ship—the Fringe Sweep..." commented Williams. 
"That, sir, was the designation of the mission," Flandry told him coldly. 
"In any case," put in Sonya, who had been silent for too long, "the 
Outsiders' Ship was first discovered by Commander Maudsley of the 
Federation's 
Survey Service. But the Federation recognizes 
the territorial 
rights of the Confederacy." 
"Somebody," grinned Flandry, "is going to have a good laugh over this 
conversation." He lifted a gloved hand to tap the collar of his suit, just below

the throat. Grimes thought with no surprise, A concealed microphone. "In the 
unlikely event of my not getting back to my ship, all that's being said is being 
recorded aboard Vindictive. It is also being relayed to our nearest base. My 
masters will already have come to the conclusion that I have blundered into a 
nest of pirates...." 
"Watch it, mate," growled Williams. "Watch it!" 
In a blur of motion Flandry snapped on his helmet. 
His voice, only slightly 
distorted, issued from a diaphragm. He said, "This suit, gentlemen—and 
Commander Verrill—is proof against anything that you can throw at me. 
Probably I should not survive a nuclear blast—but neither would you. And now, 
if you will excuse me, I must return to my own vessel. I strongly advise that 
nobody try to stop me." 
Grimes said dryly, "As I recollect it, Captain, the main purpose of this 
meeting was that we should talk things over. I suppose that you can hear what 
I'm saying inside that gaudy carapace of yours." 
"Of course. Say what you must say." 
"Well, Captain Flandry, we haven't talked things over. You've jumped to 
conclusions, assumed 
that I'm a pirate king or some such. If I were, I'd not be 
content with the rank of commodore! 
It's a wonder that you didn't see that 
wheel of ours on the black flag as a skull and crossbones! Just try to 
understand this. As far as we are concerned, you are the intruder." 
"And how can that be, Commodore?" 
"Been out on the Rim before, Captain Flandry? Or the Fringe, as you people 
call it?" 
"Nobody comes out here but outlaws." 
"And yourself, of course. And that Admiral Lord what's-his-name before you. 
But we live on the Rim. We know that here, at the very edge of the expanding 
universe, the walls between the alternate 
time tracks are very thin indeed, at 
times nonexistent. We have good reason to believe that the Outsiders' Ship has 
warped the continuum about itself so that this small volume of space is 
common ground for ships—and people—from all the universes...." 
"You tell a good fairy story, Commodore." 
The intercom buzzed sharply; then Carnaby's voice came through the 
speaker. "Commodore, sir. Wanderer has just broken through! And Mr. 
Daniels thinks that Adler is very close. She is reporting back to her base in 
some sort of code." 
"Reinforcements, Commodore Grimes?" asked Flandry coldly. 
Briefly Grimes was tempted to say yes. But that could have been 
dangerous. This Flandry, feeling himself to be outnumbered, would be quite 
capable 
of ordering his ship to lash out with all weapons like a vicious 
cornered animal. "No," he said slowly. "No. Just old friends—or acquaintances, 
rather—and old enemies." 
"Commodore, sir!" It was Carnaby again. "Mr. Daniels says there's another 
ship using a Carlotti transmitter!" 
"Cor stone me Aunt Fanny up a gum tree!" marveled Williams. "How many 
more are goin' to turn up at the Vicar's flamin' afternoon tea party?" 
"So," said Flandry, "we seem to have met at the crossroads of the universe. If

you are to be believed, that is.... But I think you will agree that I should return 
to my own vessel." 
"If I were in your shoes I should be saying the same," agreed Grimes. 
"Commander Williams, escort Captain Flandry to the airlock." 
"And how shall I keep in touch—assuming, of course, that I wish to do so? 
By flashing lamp?" 
"Get your radio officer to talk to mine on the blinker. Perhaps, between the 
pair of them, they'll be able to cook something up." 
"I'll tell him now." Grimes could see, through the frontal transparency of 
Flandry's helmet, the man's lips moving, but he could hear nothing. Then: 
"Before I go, just one more question. These people in Wanderer.... are they 
friendly or hostile?" 
"They could be either. And, to save you the trouble of asking another 
question, I haven't a clue as to who or what this other strange ship is." 
"If this is the Rim," said Flandry, "you're welcome 
to it." He bowed stiffly to 
Sonya. "Although life out here seems to have its compensations." 
Then he followed Williams out to the axial shaft. 
XII 
Grimes and sonya hurried back to the control room. 
As Carnaby had told him, Wanderer had arrived. She was hanging there in 
the blackness, slim, sleek and deadly looking, no more than a couple of cables 
from Faraway Quest. Typical, thought Grimes, of Irene Trafford or the 
ex-Empress Irene or whatever she called herself these days. But the 
Commodore, over the years, had become more of a merchant officer than a 
naval officer in his outlook 
and just could not see the point of exposing a 
vessel, any vessel, to unnecessary hazard. 
Anyhow, there she was, and close, too close. Grimes thought of actuating 
his inertial drive to put more distance between himself and the armed 
yacht—but, damn it all, he was here first. Why should he shift? 
The screen of the NST transceiver glowed into life. Colors swirled, coalesced; 
and then Grimes was looking into the control room of the other ship. Yes, 
there was Irene, big and brassy as ever, with the careful touch of nonuniform 
color, the crimson cravat with the white polka dots, added to her otherwise 
correct attire. Before she became empress, she had been a tough mate in the 
Dog Star Line, and this outfit, in Grimes' universe as well as in hers, was 
notorious for its rough and ready star tramps. She had been mate in the Dog 
Star Line, and was determined that nobody should ever be allowed to forget it. 
Beside her sat Benjamin 
Trafford, officially master of Wanderer. The little, 
wiry, sandy-haired man was as neat and correct as he would have been had he 
still been serving in the Imperial Navy. And behind them Grimes saw the dark, 
dapper Tallentire, alert at his fire control console; and with him was Susanna: 
tall, slender and with high-piled and glossy auburn hair. There was 
Metzenther who, if he shaved off his beard, would be almost the double of 
Grimes' Mayhew. There was Trialanne, the Iralian woman: frail, willowy, 
beautiful, looking as though she had been blown from translucent glass by a

master craftsman who was also a superb artist. 
And there was a stranger, a most undistinguished 
looking man of medium 
height, dressed in a drab, gray coverall suit. Normally one would not look at 
him twice. But in Wanderer's control room he was a sparrow among hawks and 
drew attention. 
Grimes decided suddenly, He's hard and dangerous, whoever 
he is.... 
"Commodore Grimes," said Irene in the voice that was almost a baritone. 
"Your servant, ma'am," replied Grimes politely—after all, she had been an 
empress—while, behind him, Sonya snorted inelegantly. 
"Come off it, Commodore. Nature never intended 
you to be a courtier." 
"You can say that again," remarked Sonya quietly. 
"Commodore Grimes, may I ask what the hell you and your spaceborne junk 
heap are doing in our universe?" 
"I might ask the same question of you, Mrs. Trafford." 
"Just because I jumped time tracks once—and that accidentally—you 
needn't think that I make a habit of it." 
"Neither do I," said Grimes flatly. This was not quite true, but Irene and her 
people would not know this. 
"And what's that odd looking ship like a tin sea urchin? You must know. We 
saw a man in a spacesuit jetting off from your vessel to her." 
"One of yours, isn't she? Her captain says that she's the Imperial Navy's 
armed scout Vindictive." 
"Not one of ours," said Trafford firmly. "We do have a Vindictive, 
Commodore, but she's a light cruiser. I should know. I've served in her." 
"Irene," asked that drab, too ordinary man in a voice that matched his 
appearance, "would you mind putting me in the picture? Who are these 
people?" 
"Mr. Smith," said the big blonde, "allow me to present Commodore Grimes, 
of the Rim Worlds Naval Reserve. In his cockeyed continuum the Rim Worlds 
are self-governing. And Commander Sonya Verrill, who is also Mrs. Grimes, of 
the Federation's Survey Service. Their Federation is roughly analogous to our 
Empire. The only other person I know is Mr. Mayhew, who is Faraway 
Quest's psionic communications officer. 
"And this gentleman, Commodore, is Mr. Smith, managing director of 
GLASS. We have been chartered by him to lay claim to and to investigate 
the 
Outsiders' Ship." 
"The Outsiders' Ship," Grimes told her firmly, "is in the territorial space of 
the Rim Worlds Confederacy. 
Furthermore, we have planted our flag on it." 
"According to Space Law," stated Irene, "the mere planting of a flag is not 
sufficient for laying claim to any planet, planetoid, satellite or whatever. 
For a 
claim to be valid a self-sustaining colony must be established. I doubt very 
much if you have gone so far as that. In any case, the Outsiders' Ship is within 
Imperial territorial space." 
"And which Empire, madam?" demanded a sardonic voice. 
Daniels whispered, "I've managed a hookup with Vindictive, sir. That was 
Captain Flandry." 
"Who the hell was that?" demanded Irene.

"The captain of Vindictive," Grimes replied. "But let us continue our 
discussion of the finer points of Space Law. As I see it, that thing is neither a 
planet, a planetoid nor a satellite. It is a derelict...." 
"It could be held to be a satellite," insisted Irene. "An artificial satellite...." 
"A satellite must have a primary." 
"Oh, all right, you bloody space lawyer. It's a derelict. But have you put a 
prize crew on board? Have you got a towline fast to it?" 
"My flag...." 
"You know what you can do with that!" 
In the little screen Trafford looked both shocked and embarrassed. 
Tallentire tried to hide a grin. Smith did not try to hide his. 
"Mphm," grunted Grimes disapprovingly; and, "What charming friends you 
have, Commodore," commented Flandry. 
"Acquaintances, Captain," Grimes told him. 
"As you wish. But might I suggest, sir, that all three parties convene to 
discuss matters in a civilized fashion?" 
"That could be worth considering," admitted Grimes reluctantly. 
"And might I urge that we do it as soon as possible, if not before? As yet our 
three ships haven't opened fire on each other—but who knows what might 
happen when the other two vessels in the vicinity put in an appearance?" 
"He's talking sense," said Sonya. 
"What other two vessels?" demanded Irene. "We only know of the 
Waldegren destroyer, Adler. Who is the other one?" 
"I wish I knew," sighed Grimes. 
"Well, Commodore?" snapped Flandry. Grimes was sorry that Daniels had 
not been able to arrange a visual as well as an audio hookup. He would have 
liked to have been able to read the other's expression. 
"Well, Commodore?" echoed Irene. 
"Your place or mine?" asked Grimes, with an attempt at humor. 
"Neutral territory," said Flandry. "While all the nattering was going on my 
first lieutenant sent a boarding party to that odd, dome-shaped derelict about 
10 kilometers beyond Vindictive from your viewpoint. Its late owners were 
oxygen breathers, although not human. All its life-support systems were intact, 
and are now functioning...." 
"A Shaara ship," stated Grimes. 
"The Shaara?" asked Irene and Flandry simultaneously. 
And then Flandry 
demanded, "And who the hell are they when they're up and dressed?" 
"Never mind," said Grimes. "The Shaara ship will do very nicely." 
XIII 
The shaara derelict was a good place for a meeting. The ship was in good 
order and condition; 
her interior lighting glowed brightly; her humming fans 
kept the clean, untainted air in circulation. 
How long had they been doing so? 
Not for too long. The mosslike growth in the hydroponics 
tanks that the 
Shaara used for atmospheric 
regeneration was neither running wild nor

withering for lack of the organic wastes that were its food. But of her crew: of 
the Queen-Captain, the Princess-Officers, the Drones, the Workers, there was 
no sign—not even so much as a dry exoskeleton. The logbook was still on its 
ledge in the control room; but no human could hope to read that straggling 
script. 
She was a latter day Mary Celeste. She was one of several Mary Celestes in 
orbit about The Outsider. 
Boats from the three ships had rendezvoused at the airlock of the derelict. 
Grimes himself had piloted Faraway Quest's pinnace. With him he had Sonya 
and Mayhew. Irene had brought with her Trialanne and Stanley Smith, the 
man from GLASS. Flandry was accompainied only by a simian 
young officer, 
almost as broad as he was tall, whom he introduced as Ensign Bugolsky. 
This, of course, was when they were all assembled 
in the Shaara ship's 
control room, standing among the equipment and instruments, some familiar 
(although modified to suit arthropodal claws instead of human hands) and 
some weirdly alien. There were cradles of flimsy-looking webbing 
but no seats. 
As the vessel was in free fall, to stand was no hardship. 
Flandry, resplendent in his black and gold space armor, removed his helmet. 
The others removed theirs. Grimes didn't like the way that the man looked at 
Irene and Trialanne. He most certainly didn't like the way that the man looked 
at Sonya. And he disapproved most strongly of the way in which the three 
women looked at Flandry. Mental undressing can be a two-way process. 
"And now," announced Flandry with a wide grin, "I declare this meeting 
open." 
"Not so fast, Captain," Grimes told him. "As the senior officer present I feel 
that that should be my privilege." 
"Senior officer? But I represent the Imperium." 
"What Imperium?" demanded Irene nastily. 
"Commodore!" Mayhew's usually soft voice was sharp with urgency. 
"Commodore! Sir!" 
Grimes waved him aside. "Later, Commander Mayhew—unless my ship's in 
danger. She's not? Good. Then let's get this business settled first." He turned 
to the others. "I'm not overly rank conscious, 
and I'm insisting on my seniority 
only because 
Rim Worlds' sovereignty is involved. To begin with—we are in 
Rim Confederacy's territorial 
space. Secondly, I outrank everybody present in 
this control room...." 
"In a pig's arse you do!" flared Irene. "But I do, madam. I concede that you 
were an empress, but you're not now. Legally speaking you're only the chief 
officer of Wanderer...." 
"And the owner of Wanderer, Grimes! Which is more than you can say 
regarding yourself and your precious rustbucket!" 
"And I still claim," stated Flandry, "that Wanderer 
and Faraway Quest are no 
better than pirates, 
attempting to steal Imperial property." 
"It's a great pity that GLASS is not operative in your universe," said Smith 
in a flat voice. "But since we are discussing legalities, I feel that I, as the 
charterer of Mrs. Trafford's vessel, should have some voice in the matter." 
"Irene!" Trialanne was trying to gain the attention 
of the ex-Empress. 
"Irene!"

"Pipe down, damn you! Can't you see I'm busy?" 
"Obviously," said Sonya coldly, "it would be pointless to put it to the vote 
who should be chairman of this meeting. Everybody is quite convinced that 
he has a more valid claim than anybody else. I could say—and, come to that, 
I do say—that I represent the Federation, but I have no desire to be yet 
another complication...." 
"But a very charming one," murmured Flandry, flashing that dazzling grin. 
"Thank you, Sir Dominic." 
"Very charming, and, I feel, highly competent. For the record, I do not 
recognize the Interstellar Federation. Nonetheless, I feel that Mrs. Grimes—or, 
if you prefer it, Commander Verrill—should preside over this meeting. She 
appears, 
in spite of her marriage..." he made it sound as though he meant 
"disastrous marriage"... "to be the nearest thing we have to a neutral. Will you, 
then, take charge, Commander Verrill?" 
She smiled at him. "Thank you, Sir Dominic. I will." She raised her voice 
slightly. "To begin with, all of you, this situation calls for straight thinking. We 
are met together in what is, to all of us, an alien ship. We represent, between 
us, three different cultures, at least four different governments. 
But we are 
all—and I include you, Trialanne—human...." 
"So you say," growled Irene. 
Sonya ignored this, went on. "As an aid to straight thinking, recapitulation 
will be in order. We are all of us here, all of us now—that much is obvious. But 
it should be obvious, too, that The Outsider, the Outsiders' Ship, warps normal 
space time. It exists simultaneously in our universe, 
and in yours, Sir 
Dominic, and in yours Irene—and yet it is from outside all our universes...." 
Somebody was grabbing Grimes' arm, the pressure 
evident even through 
the thick sleeve of his suit. It was Mayhew. The telepath was pointing to the 
hatch which gave access to the control room from the body of the ship. 
Through it a helmeted head was rising slowly. 
"I—we—were trying to tell you!" muttered Mayhew. 
"Tell me what?" growled Grimes. 
In reply the other shrugged—no easy feat in a space suit—infuriatingly. 
Bloody prima donna! thought Grimes. But it can't be all that important. 
Probably somebody from one of the ships with some trivial message. 
"It could be," Sonya was continuing, in a schoolmistress' voice, "that we are 
all of us here on sufferance...." 
The shoulders of the new arrival were now visible, 
but the faceplate of his 
helmet was almost opaque. Grimes stared at those armored shoulders. 
They 
carried the broad gold stripe of a commodore, 
the winged wheel of the Rim 
Worlds Navy. Who the hell could it be? Lannigan? DuBois? Why should either 
of them be sent out here to interfere with him, Grimes? And this interloping 
commodore had somebody with him, wearing 
commander's badges of rank, 
and the stylized star cluster of the Federation.... 
Sonya's voice trailed off into silence. She had seen the newcomers at last. 
So had all the others. 
The stranger put gloved hands to his helmet, twisted, lifted. He stared at 
Grimes—and Grimes stared at him. It was long seconds before Grimes

recognized him. One is used to seeing one's own face in a mirror, but one 
spends very little (if any) time studying solidographs of oneself. Dimly, Grimes 
was aware that the other stranger, standing 
to one side and a little behind 
the commodore, had removed her helmet. He didn't really notice her until 
she spoke. 
"This is a surprise, John," said Maggie Lazenby. 
Flandry laughed. "Getting back to our original argument—just which of you 
two gentlemen is the senior?" 
XIV 
"Mphm," grunted Grimes. 
"Mphm," grunted Grimes. 
Slowly he opened the pouch at his belt, took from it his tobacco tin and his 
battered pipe. Carefully 
he filled the pipe, returned the tin to the pouch, 
brought out a lighter. He lit the pipe. He squinted at Grimes through the swirl 
of blue, acrid smoke. 
Slowly he opened the pouch at his belt, took from it his tobacco tin and his 
battered pipe. Carefully 
he filled the pipe, returned the tin to the pouch, 
brought out a lighter. He lit the pipe. He squinted at Grimes through the swirl 
of blue, acrid smoke. 
Sonya made a major production of a lung-wracking cough. 
Maggie said, "Let the man have his little pleasures—and his aid to 
cerebration." 
Sonya demanded, "What are you doing with him?" 
Maggie replied, "I could ask you the same, duckie." 
Grimes demanded, "How the hell did you get here?" 
Grimes replied, "The same way as you." He gestured toward the nearest 
hexagonal viewport with the hand that held the pipe. 
Grimes stared out into the blackness. There had been three vessels there: 
Flandry's Vindictive, Irene's Wanderer, his own Faraway Quest. Now there 
were four. He asked, "And what is the name of your ship?" 
"Faraway Quest, of course. She was Delta Puppis before the Federation 
flogged her to us." 
"Mphm," grunted Grimes again, feeling a twinge of envy. His Faraway 
Quest was an ex-Epsilon Class tramp. He turned to Mayhew. "You might have 
kept me better informed, Commander." 
"Sir, both Trialanne and I tried to tell you as soon as this other Faraway 
Quest broke through. I couldn't tell you anything before then as she does not 
carry a psionic communications officer." 
"Unfortunately, no," agreed Grimes II. "I tried to convince my masters that a 
good PCO is worth ten thousand times his weight in Carlotti transceivers—but 
they know best." He added after a pause, "I can never understand this craving 
to put oneself at the mercy of a single fuse...." 
"And how many times have you heard that before, 
Maggie?" asked Sonya. 
"I've lost count," said Maggie Lazenby.

"But this question of seniority...?" hinted Flandry, obviously determined to 
extract the utmost 
in amusement from the situation. 
"I am the senior," stated both Grimeses. 
"I was here first," said Grimes I. 
"Mine is the larger ship," said Grimes II. 
Grimes I laughed. "This is bloody absurd, Grimes. Before we get involved in 
any futile arguments 
would you mind putting me—us—into your picture?" 
"I'll try, Grimes. My masters decided that it was time that somebody took 
another expedition out to the Outsiders' Ship, and I was given the job. 
Maggie—you do know Maggie, of course...?" 
"I do. And so does Sonya." 
"And I know Sonya. Quite a family party, isn't it? But where was I? Oh, yes. 
Maggie, although she's married to me, has retained her Federation citizenship 
and her commission in the Federation's Survey Service. She's along as an 
observer for the Federation." 
"As Sonya is. But go on." 
Grimes II carefully relit his pipe. "Well, we rather suspected that there would 
be other ships, in addition to the known derelicts, in orbit about The Outsider. 
But we were certainly surprised to find that one of those other ships, like 
mine, was named Faraway Quest. Your second-in-command, Commander 
Williams, was even more surprised. It must have been a shock to him to see my 
face looking out of the screen when we started nattering 
over the NST radio. It 
put him in rather a dither. There he was, conditioned to say, 'Yes, sir; no, sir,' 
to Commodore Grimes...." 
"That doesn't sound like Williams!" said Grimes I. 
"Well, as a matter of fact he called me 'Skipper.' But he was in a fine tangle 
of conflicting loyalties. He suggested that I'd better make contact with you to 
get things sorted out, and told me where I'd find you. And now, Commodore 
Grimes, suppose you introduce your friends to me...." 
"Certainly, Commodore Grimes," said Grimes who, in a dazed sort of way, 
was beginning to enjoy himself. "Irene, Trialanne, this, as you see, is 
Commodore Grimes, who obviously is from a time track not too far divergent 
from my own. And the lady is Commander Lazenby, of the Federation's 
Survey 
Service, and also Mrs. Grimes. Commodore, may I present Mrs. Trafford, who is 
chief officer and owner of the so-called yacht Wanderer, and Trialanne, one of 
her PCOs. Oh, yes, before I forget—Mrs. Trafford is also the ex-Empress Irene." 
"I am honored," said Grimes II, with a stiff little bow. 
"You bloody well should be," growled Irene. 
"And Mr. Smith, the managing director of GLASS, charterer of Wanderer. 
GLASS is an acronym 
for GALACTIC LEAGUE AGAINST SUPPRESSION and 
SLAVERY. It is, I imagine, a severe pain in the neck to quite a few governments 
in Irene's universe...." 
"We try to be just that," agreed Smith modestly. 
"And this, Commodore, is Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, of the Imperial 
armed scout Vindictive. The young gentleman with him is Ensign Bugolsky." 
Flandry smiled, but his eyes were cold, wary. "I am glad to meet you, 
Commodore. And you, Commander Lazenby." 
You would be, thought Grimes.

"In one way your arrival, sir, is welcome. Until now I have been inclined to 
doubt your alter ego's stories of alternate time tracks and all the rest of it. But 
now...." Flandry shrugged. He went on, "You are welcome to join our 
discussion." 
"What discussion?" asked Grimes II. 
"As to who can lay claim to The Outsider." 
"You will agree with me," said Grimes I, "that it lies within Rim 
Confederacy's territorial space." 
"Of course," said Grimes II. 
"But whose Rim Confederacy?" demanded Flandry and Irene 
simultaneously. "Yours or his?" 
"It's my flag that's planted on it," stated Grimes I stubbornly. 
"You and your bloody flag!" snarled Irene. 
"As I see it," said Grimes II judiciously, "this is a matter to be decided 
between Commodore Grimes and myself." 
"Definitely," said Grimes I. 
"We're surrounded by the bastards," muttered Irene. Then, to Flandry, 
"You'll not stand for that, Sir Dominic? 
"You," said Sonya, "can fight it out between yourselves which Empire has a 
claim to ownership." 
Flandry flashed a charming smile at Irene. "I really think, ma'am, that we 
imperialists should stick together." 
"GLASS has never approved of imperialism," stated Smith. "In any case, 
Wanderer is on charter to my organization." 
"I seem to remember," said Sonya coldly, "that quite some time ago it was 
decided that I should preside over this meeting. Even though my husband has 
been duplicated, I have not. Therefore 
I suggest that we carry on from where 
we left off." 
"And just why were you so honored, Sonya?" asked Maggie curiously. 
"Because I, as an officer of the Federation's Survey Service, am the only one 
who can claim neutral status." 
"But I, too, am an officer of the Federation's Survey Service, dearie." 
"Commodore Grimes!" Mayhew called excitedly. 
Both Grimeses turned to look at him. 
"Yes, Commander?" asked Grimes I. 
"Faraway Quest.... She's... gone!" 
"I was in touch with Clarisse," confirmed Trialanne. "But the contact has 
been broken." 
From Flandry's suit radio came a small, tinny voice. "Captian, sir, Faraway 
Quest, the first Faraway Quest, has vanished." 
There was no need for Grimes to stare out through the viewport, but he did 
so. There, hanging in nothingness, were the three ships, three only: 
Vindictive, Wanderer and what must be the other Quest, the wrong Quest. 
He turned to look at the elaborately grotesque Outsider with something 
akin to hatred. "That bloody thing!" he muttered. "That bloody thing!" And he 
thought, My ship, my people... where are they? Where-or when-has It thrown 
them?

The Iralian woman said softly, "Commodore, It is not responsible. Your 
vessel's Mannschenn Drive was restarted just before she vanished. So I am 
told by Mr. Tallentire, aboard Wanderer." 
"Trialanne! Mayhew! Get in touch with Clarisse. Find out what's 
happening!" 
"Don't you think that I'm bloody well trying already?" snarled Mayhew. 
"Damn your ship. It's my woman I'm worried about!" 
"Sorry, Ken," said Grimes. "I needn't tell you to do your best, and better...." 
"Mutiny?" asked Grimes II quietly. 
"Be your age, Commodore!" flared Grimes I. "With a handpicked crew, like 
mine, it's impossible." 
"The passengers weren't handpicked, John," Sonya told him somberly. "At 
least, not by you." 
Mayhew, his face white and strained, whispered, 
"The blame is mine, John. 
I should have disregarded the Rhine Institute's code of ethics. I should have 
pried." 
"But you didn't. And I didn't order you to...." He looked around him at the 
faces of the others in the control room. All realized the gravity of the situation. 
Grimes II broke the silence. He said, "Much as I hate to leave the Outsiders' 
Ship to these.... outsiders, my Faraway Quest is at your disposal, Commodore. 
After all, we may as well keep this in the family." 
"Mutiny is a crime," stated Irene. "All law-abiding citizens should combine to 
capture and to punish the criminals. I am with you. I am sure that I speak for 
my officers." 
"And count me in," said Flandry, not without a touch of regret. 
"Thank you," Grimes said. "Thank you. All of you." 
"And where," asked Maggie Lazenby, "do we go from here?" 
XV 
Where did they go from there? Where had Faraway Quest gone? 
And where was that Waldegren destroyer, Adler? 
But the discussion, the consideration of these problems was better than the 
rather childish squabbling as to who had prior claim to the Outsiders' 
Ship. 
It was decided that Grimes, Sonya and Mayhew should take passage in the 
second Faraway Quest, and that Flandry should accompany them. Flandry's 
own ship, Vindictive, was unsuitable for the pursuit of the original Quest. She 
had faster than light drive, of course, and faster than light deep space 
communications equipment, but neither of these operated on the principles of 
the Mann-schenn Drive or the Carlotti beacon. She could proceed from Point A 
to Point B at least as fast as Faraway Quest or Wanderer, but until she 
reemerged into normal space time she would be completely out of touch with 
them. 
Vindictive, therefore, would remain in orbit about The Outsider as a guard

ship. Flandry impressed 
upon her acting captain that he was to counter any 
hostile move made by Adler, should she put in an appearance, without 
hesitation, but that he was to be careful in his dealings with Faraway 
Quest I 
should she return. As long as there was any possibility that her rightful crew 
were still alive, as prisoners, as hostages, their safety must be considered at all 
times. 
All this took time, but not too much time. And then Flandry, with his aide, 
returned briefly to his own vessel, while Irene and her party made their way 
back to Wanderer, while Grimes I in his pinnace 
followed his other self, in his 
pinnace, to Faraway Quest II. The stowage of this extra boat in the Quest's 
cargo hold presented no great problems. 
By the time that it was secured 
Captain Flandry was alongside, at the airlock, and was being admitted. 
And then the control rooms of Wanderer and Faraway Quest were manned. 
Grimes sat in one of the spare acceleration chairs, with Mayhew to one side of 
him and Sonya to the other, and with Flandry 
beside Sonya. He watched the 
other Grimes enviously. He still had a ship of his own. He looked curiously at 
the officers at their stations—and they looked curiously at him and at Sonya 
and at Flandry. He felt that he almost knew them. Almost certainly their 
counterparts lived in his continuum; he must have met some of them, however 
briefly. The communications officer, beside whom Mayhew had taken a seat.... 
Surely that was young Carradine, who held the same rank in Rim Runners in 
Grimes' universe.... 
Grimes II was giving his orders unhurriedly, decisively; they were 
acknowledged smartly. In the little screen of the NST transceiver, Captain 
Trafford in Wanderer's control room was doing likewise. Then Trafford said, 
facing the iconoscope, 
"All machinery on full stand by, Commodore." 
"Thank you, Captain," replied Grimes II, just a fraction of a second before 
Grimes I could do so. (I'll have to watch myself, he thought. I'm only a 
passenger....) 
"Execute on the count of zero." 
"Aye, aye. Execute on the count of zero." 
"Five..." intoned Grimes II. "Four... Three... Two... One... Zero!" 
From below came the high, undulating whine of the Mannschenn Drive, and 
with it the temporal disorientation, the sense of unreality. Grimes looked at 
Sonya and asked himself, with wry humor, How many of me is she seeing 
now? The picture of Wanderer's control room faded from the NST transceiver 
screen, was replaced by that in the screen of the Carlotti set. Beyond the 
viewports 
the brightly lit Vindictive and the distant Shaara derelict faded into 
invisibility—but the cold-gleaming intricacy of the Outsiders' Ship persisted 
stubbornly. 
It is in every space, thought Grimes. It is in every time. But how is it that 
nobody else has ever reported 
this phenomenon? He answered his own 
question. Dead men and missing men do not tell tales. 
And then, suddenly, things were normal—or as normal as they ever are, as 
they ever can be while the Drive is in operation. 
Flandry looked at Grimes. His face was pale. He said, "So this is your 
Mannschenn Drive. I think I prefer our Standing Wave." 
"You get used to it," Grimes told him.

"Speak for yourself," snapped Sonya. 
But Grimes II—after all, this was his ship—was taking charge. "Mr. 
Carradine," he ordered, "keep your ears skinned for the faintest whisper from 
anybody on the main Carlotti. Grab a bearing if you can. Mr. Danby, let me 
know if you see even the merest flicker in the MPI. And you, Commander 
Mayhew, I needn't tell you what to do. I'm sorry that this ship doesn't run to 
psionic amplifier, but Mr. Metzenther and Trialanne in Wanderer have one." 
Flandry said something about trying to find a black cat in a coal mine at 
midnight. Grimes II laughed. "Yes, Captain, that just about sums it up. And 
once we do find it we may not be much better off. For any physical contact to 
be made between ships while the Mannschenn Drive is operating there must 
be exact synchronization of temporal precession rates. There have been 
devices whereby one vessel can induce synchronization in the Mannschenn 
Drive unit of another vessel with her own. But most ships today—certainly all 
warships—are fitted with special governors which make this impossible unless 
the captain so desires." 
"And when do you start accelerating, Commodore? 
I'm finding all this free 
fall rather boring." 
"As soon as we know where to accelerate to." 
Flandry shrugged. The gesture, now that he was out of his space suit and 
attired in a close-fitting, beautifully tailored, black and gold uniform, was 
much more effective. 
Irritated, Grimes II asked sharply, "And do you have any ideas, Captain 
Flandry?" 
"Why, yes. People don't hijack ships just for the fun of it. We don't have any 
Duchy of Waldegren in my universe—but, from what I have gathered, the 
Waldegrenese are baddies. The people who have seized the Faraway Quest, 
the first Faraway Quest that I was aboard, are also baddies. Could this 
hijacked Faraway Quest be making a rendezvous with Adler?" 
"What do you think, Commodore?" asked Grimes II. 
"I think that Captain Flandry could be right, Commodore," replied Grimes I. 
"Of course I'm right," said Flandry. 
"Mphm," grunted Grimes II thoughtfully. He turned to his navigator. "Mr. 
Danby," he said, "run up a trajectory for Waldegren. We'll just have to assume 
that she's coming out by the most direct route, the same as we did from 
Faraway...." 
"No," Grimes told him. "She's running out on the Leads astern, the same as 
we did." 
"The Leads?" demanded Grimes II. 
"Yes. Macbeth and the Kinsolving sun in line." 
"You have some most peculiar ideas about navigation 
on your time track, 
Commodore. However, this Adler also belongs to your time track, so.... All right, 
Mr. Danby, do as the carbon copy Commodore 
Grimes says. And Mr. 
Carradine, inform Wanderer of our intentions." 
Carbon copy... thought Grimes indignantly. But, original or not, this was not 
his ship. He—or his own version of himself—was not giving the orders. He 
could only suggest and be thankful that this other Grimes did not seem to be

as pigheaded as he, more than once, had been accused of being. 
Briefly the Mannschenn Drive was shut down, and the big, directional 
gyroscopes rumbled, hummed and then whined as the ship turned about her 
short axis. Directly ahead—overhead from the viewport of those in Control—the 
dim, misty Galactic Lens swam into view and was almost immediately distorted 
beyond recognition as the interstellar drive was restarted. The irregular 
throbbing beat of the inertial drive made itself felt, and there was gravity again, 
and weight, and up and down. 
"Now we're getting someplace," murmured Flandry a little smugly. 
Grimes glared at him and was even more annoyed 
when he saw that Sonya 
was looking at the Imperial Captain with what could have been admiration. 
XVI 
It was not a long pursuit, and it ended in stalemate. 
Falling through the non-space, non-time between 
the dimensions were the 
four ships: Adler, Wanderer, both versions of Faraway Quest. Trajectories had 
been matched, in spite of the initial 
efforts of Adler and Faraway Quest I to 
throw off their pursuers; but it was only those two vessels 
that had 
synchronized temporal precession rates. 
Back toward The Outsider they ran, all four of them, a mismatched 
squadron. And they would run past their objective, and go on running, until 
somebody did something, somehow, to break the deadlock. 
Meanwhile, Grimes had learned that his crew was safe, although they were 
now prisoners. At last, at long last, and with assistance from Metzenther and 
Trialanne, Mayhew had been able to reestablish his rapport with Clarisse. It 
had not been easy, but after many hours of concentrated effort the three 
telepaths had been able to drag her mind up out of its drugged sleep to a 
condition of full awareness. She was able, then, to supply the details of 
Druthen's take-over of the ship. It had been done with surprising ease, merely 
by the introduction of an instantaneously anesthetic gas into the air 
circulatory system. In theory, this should have been impossible. Alarms should 
have sounded; pumps and fans should have stopped; baffle plates should 
automatically have sealed off the ducts. But Druthen was a scientist, and his 
people were scientists and technicians. He had a very well equipped laboratory 
at his disposal. And, most important of all, Mayhew and Clarisse had obeyed 
that commandment of the Rhine Institute: 
Thou shall not pry into the mind of 
a shipmate. 
"It's no use crying over spilt milk, Ken," Grimes told his psionic 
communications officer. "At least we know that Clarisse and the others are 
unhurt...." 
"What the hell's the use of having these talents if you don't use 'em?" 
wondered Flandry, all too audibly. 
"Some of us," Grimes told him coldly, "subscribe 
to ethical codes." 
"Don't we all, Commodore? Do unto others as they would do unto you—but 
do it first!" 
"Captain Flandry is right, John," said Sonya.

Yes, thought Grimes, I suppose the bastard is right. And, come to that, I've 
tried often enough, and sometimes successfully, to get PCOs to pry for me.... Like 
Spooky Deane, who loved his gin—or my gin.... Even so.... 
Anyhow, there was now telepathic communication 
between the two 
Faraway Quests, and communication 
regarding which neither Druthen nor 
the captain of Adler was aware. Not that it would have worried them much if 
they had known about it. Clarisse was locked up in the quarters that she had 
shared with her husband. There was little that she could tell him, and nothing 
that she could do. She could not communicate with the other prisoners, 
who 
were nontelepaths. She could not even pry into the minds of Druthen and his 
people—and neither could Mayhew and Metzenther and Trialanne. The 
scientist had, somehow, succeeded in stimulating Mayhew's psionic 
amplifier—it could, of course, have been just a side effect of the anesthetic gas 
that had been used during the takeover—
and the continual howling of that 
hapless, disembodied dog's brain blanketed all stray thoughts. Trained 
telepaths could punch their signals 
through the psionic interference, but that 
was all. 
In any case, Druthen was willing enough to talk. 
He, fat and slovenly as ever, glowered out at Grimes from the screen of the 
Carlotti transceiver. Grimes stared back at him, trying to keep his own face 
emotionless. It was all wrong that he should be looking into his own control 
room this way, from outside, that he should see the nerve center of his own 
ship in the hands of strangers, of enemies. With Druthen were two of the 
scientist's own people, and in the background were three uniformed men: 
large, blond, obviously officers of the Waldegren Navy. 
The senior among them, a full commander by his braid, came to stand 
beside Dr. Druthen. Druthen seemed to resent this, tried to push the officer 
out of the field of the iconoscope. He muttered, "Nehmen Sie mal Ihre 
Latschen weg." 
The other replied, "Sie sind zwar dick genug fur zwei, aber Sie haben nur fur 
einen Platz gezahlt Riicken Sie weiter." 
Sonya laughed. Grimes asked her, "What's the joke?" 
"Just that they don't seem to love each other. Druthen told the commander 
to get his big feet out of his way, and the commander told him that even 
though he's big enough to fill two seats he's only paid for one...." 
"Paid?" asked Grimes. 
"Obviously. He's bought his way into the Duchy of Waldegren." 
"Ja," agreed the Waldegren commander. And then, speaking directly to 
Grimes, "And you the captain of this ship were? But...." His eyes widened. " 
Vich of you der kapitan vas?" 
"I suppose we're twins, of a sort," grinned Grimes I. "The gentleman standing 
behind me is Commodore Grimes, commanding Faraway Quest. And I am 
Commodore Grimes, commanding Faraway Quest—the Faraway Quest aboard 
which you, sir, are trespassing." 
"But I am the captain now," stated Druthen, smugly. 
Grimes ignored this. He asked coldly, "Where are my people?" (There was no 
point in letting Druthen and the officers of the prize crew know that he was 
already fully informed on that subject.)

"Do you want them back?" countered Druthen, with an infuriating 
expression of deliberate incredulity. 
"Yes. And my ship." 
Druthen laughed sneeringly. "You don't want much, Commodore. Or should 
I say, ex-Commodore? Your masters will not be very pleased with you. The 
ship—I keep. Doubtless the Duchy will pay me a fair price for her. The crew.... 
They are useful hostages. You and your allies dare make no hostile move for 
fear of hurting them." The fat face was suddenly gloating, 
evil. "And, perhaps, I 
can use them to persuade 
you to call off this futile chase. Suppose I have 
them thrown, one by one, unsuited, out of the airlock...?" 
"Herr Doktor!" snapped the commander. "Enough. That I will never 
countenance. I am an officer, not an executioner." 
"Sie glauben wohl Sie sind als Schiffsoffizier was besonderes!" 
"Hau'ab!" The commander struck rather than pushed Druthen away from 
the screen. Those in the control room of Quest II watched, fascinated, a brief 
scuffle in the control room of the other ship. 
And then the senior officer of the prize crew was addressing them again. 
"Herr Commodore, my apologies. But I my orders must follow, even when I am 
told to cooperate with schwein. Aber, my word I give. I, Erich von Donderberg, 
promise you that your crew will be treated well as long as I in this ship am." 
"Thank you, Commander," said Grimes stiffly. 
Druthen, with one eye puffed and almost shut, bleeding from the corner of 
his mouth, reappeared. 
"Officers!" he spat. "Gold-braided nincompoops, 
survivals from a past age 
who should have become extinct millennia ago! I'm cutting you off, Grimes. I 
want the transceiver so that I can call Captain Blumenfeld in Adler. There'll be 
some changes made in the composition of this so-called prize crew!" 
The screen went blank. 
"What now?" asked Flandry. "You know these Waldegren people. I don't." 
"They're naval officers," said Grimes at last. "They're professional naval 
officers. They can be ruthless bastards—but they do, at times, subscribe 
to a 
rather antique code of honor...." 
"I concur," said Grimes II. 
"Would you mind," asked Grimes I, "passing the recording of this rather odd 
interview on to Wanderer? Irene and her people may have some comments." 
"Certainly, Commodore." 
"And you should be able to let us know, Ken, if Druthen is able to persuade 
Captain Blumenfeld to let him play the game his way?" 
"I'll try," said Mayhew doubtfully. "I'll try. With Clarisse alert and with 
Metzenther and Trialanne to help us.... Yes, I should manage." 
"And so," commented Flandry, "we just, all of us, go on falling through sweet 
damn' all until somebody condescends to make something happen." 
"That's the way of it," agreed Grimes. 
XVII 
They, all of them, went on falling through sweet damn' all.

They swept past the Outsider's Ship, which was still dimly visible, although 
the derelicts in orbit about it were not. Neither was Flandry's Vindictive. 
The 
Imperial Captain complained rather bitterly 
that he was unable to 
communicate with his ship. Both Grimeses growled, simultaneously, that it 
was the fault of his culture for developing neither psionic communications nor 
the Carlotti system. Both Mrs. Grimeses were inclined to commiserate with 
Flandry. Relations aboard Faraway Quest II were becoming strained. Aboard 
Wanderer there were not the same problems. 
There was only one of each 
person, and there were no outsiders. 
Out they fell, the four ships, out into the ultimate night. 
Druthen and Captain Blumenfeld made an occasional 
attempt at evasion, 
which was countered with ease by the pursuers. Once Blumenfeld, using the 
Carlotti equipment, tried to reason with Grimes—either or both of him—and 
with Irene, who had been hooked into the conversation. 
Blumenfeld was an older and stouter version of von Donderberg, and he was 
more of the politician and less of the space officer. His accent was not so heavy. 
He appeared in the screens of Faraway Quest II and Wanderer by himself, a 
fatherly-grandfatherly, almost—figure, smoking an elaborate 
pipe with a 
porcelain bowl. It was a pity that his cold, very cold, blue eyes spoiled the 
effect. 
"Come now, Commodore," he said, "we are both reasonable men. And you, 
Kaiserin, are a reasonable lady. What do any of us gain by this pointless 
chase?" 
"You gain nothing," Grimes told him. "Furthermore, 
you are intruding in 
Rim Worlds' territorial space. I order you, legally, to hand my ship and my 
personnel back to me, and also Dr. Druthen and his people so that they may 
be dealt with by our courts...." 
"You order, Commodore?" asked the other Grimes softly. 
"Yes. I order, Commodore. Faraway Quest I is mine, and Druthen and his 
accomplices will be my prisoners." 
"Speak up, Commodores," put in Blumenfeld jovially. "Do I detect a slight 
dissension in your ranks? And you, Kaiserin, do you acknowledge the right of 
these gentlemen to give orders? And you, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry? What 
is your view?" 
"We'll settle our own differences after you have been disposed of," growled 
Irene. 
"I second that," said Flandry. 
Captain Blumenfeld puffed placidly at his pipe. Grimes wondered what 
tobacco it was that he was smoking. The man seemed to be enjoying it. At last 
he said, through a wreathing blue cloud, "My patience 
is not inexhaustible, 
Commodore. Or Commodores. I am addressing, however, whichever one of you 
it is who commanded the Faraway Quest aboard which I have placed my prize 
crew. The good Herr Doktor Druthen has made certain proposals to me 
regarding the prisoners. 
I was horrified, and told him so, in no uncertain 
terms. But..." There was a great exhalation of smoke. "But... I have thought 
about what he said to me. I still do not like it." He shrugged heavily. 
"Nonetheless, my loyalty is to the Duchy, not to citizens of a Confederacy 
that the Duchy still has not recognized. It may—note that I say 'may,'

Commodore, not 'will'—it may be expedient to use those prisoners as a lever to 
force a certain degree of compliance from you." Again he shrugged. "I shall not 
like doing it—assuming, that is, that I am obliged to do it. And I shall not resort 
to painful or... messy methods. Just a simple shooting, to be watched by all of 
you. And then, after a suitable interval, another. And then, if it is necessary, 
another." He smiled coldly. "But there is no real urgency. You will be given 
time to think it over, to talk it over. Three days' subjective time, shall we say? 
Call me on this frequency. Over. And out." 
The screen went blank, but the other screen, that showing Wanderer's 
control room, stayed alive... "Well?" demanded Irene harshly. "Well?" 
"Suppose," said Grimes, "just suppose that I do knuckle under, to get my 
people back, my ship back. Suppose that I, as the ranking officer of the Rim 
Worlds Confederacy, do allow him prior rights to The Outsider.... What about 
you and you, Commodore Grimes, and you, Captain Flandry?" 
"I shall abide by your decision, John," said the other Grimes. 
"Speaking for the Federation," said Sonya, "I shall be with you." 
"You beat me to it," said Maggie Lazenby. 
"I'll have to think about it," stated Irene. 
"As tour charterer," Smith told her, "I have some say. A great deal of say. I 
sympathize with Commodore Grimes. But it's a matter of evaluation. 
Are the 
lives of a handful of people of greater importance than the lives of the millions 
of oppressed 
men and women and children who look to GLASS for help?" 
"Anybody mind if I shove in my two bits' worth?" asked Flandry. "I owe 
allegiance neither to the Federation nor to the Confederacy and certainly 
not 
to GLASS. I swore an oath of fealty to the Emperor." He looked at Irene's face 
in the screen, and added, "My Emperor. But my sympathies 
are with the 
Commodore." 
"Thank you, Sir Dominic," said Grimes. 
"Wait till you see the bill. Furthermore, sir, I would remind you that you 
have at your disposal equipment and personnel which I have not. The same 
applies to you, ma'am. You have your espers. Can't you make full use of 
them?" 
"I would remind you, Sir Dominic," said Mayhew, "that my wife is among the 
prisoners aboard the Quest." 
"All the more reason why you should pull your finger out. All of you." 
You arrogant bastard, thought Grimes. 
"Sir Dominic's talking sense," said Sonya. "We have the telepaths. Adler 
hasn't. Furthermore, one of our telepaths is aboard your Quest, John. There 
must be something that Clarisse can do to help herself. And the others." 
"It's all we can do to get through to her," objected 
Mayhew. "There's too 
much interference from Lassie...." 
Sonya muttered something about a poodle's brain in aspic. Then she said, 
"Why don't you silence the bitch? Lassie, I mean. There's three of you here: 
Metzenther and Trialanne aboard Wanderer, 
and yourself. You told us once— 
remember?—that thoughts can kill." 
"I... I couldn't, Sonya...." 
"Damn it all!" exploded Grimes. "Do you put that animal brain before your 
wife? What sort of man are you?"

"But... but Lassie's so... helpless." 
"So is Clarisse, unless we do something to help her—and fast. It is essential 
that she be able to keep us informed as to what Druthen is thinking, and von 
Donderberg... and with that psionic interference snuffed out you should be 
able to keep us informed as to Captain Blumenfeld's intentions. 
You must do 
it, Ken." 
"'Yes," agreed the telepath slowly. "I... must. Metzenther and Trialanne will 
help. They have already told me that." 
"Then go to it," ordered Grimes. 
Not for the first time he thought, They're odd people. Too bloody odd. But I 
suppose when you live inside your pet's brain, and it lives inside yours, you feel 
more intensely for and about it than any normal man feels for his dog.... 
There'll be guilt involved, too.... You'II blame yourself for its absolute 
helplessness.... 
He watched Mayhew stumbling out of the control 
room, his features stiff, 
too stiff. He saw the sympathy on the face of Grimes II, and rather more than a 
hint of a sneer on that of Flandry. 
Grimes II looked at his watch. He said, "There's nothing much that we can 
do, Commodore, until your Commander Mayhew reports results. I suggest that 
we all adjourn for dinner." 
"An army marches on its stomach," quipped Flandry. "I suppose that the 
same saying applies to a space navy." 
"I've never known John to miss a meal," Sonya told him, "no matter what the 
circumstances." 
Women.... thought Grimes—both of him. 
"You said it," agreed Maggie Lazenby. 
XVIII 
This was the first proper, sit down meal that anybody 
had enjoyed for quite 
a while. Not that Grimes really enjoyed it. He was used to eating at the 
captain's table—but at the head of the board. To see himself sitting there, a 
replica of himself, was... odd. He derived a certain wry pleasure from the fact 
that this other Grimes, like himself, was not one to let conversation interfere 
with the serious business of feeding. He did not think, somehow, that Maggie 
appreciated this trait any more than Sonya did. 
There were five of them at the Commodore's table. Grimes II was at the head 
of it, of course, with Maggie Lazenby at his right and Sonya at his left. Grimes I 
sat beside Maggie, and Flandry beside Sonya. The Imperial Captain was a 
brilliant conversationalist, and the two women were lapping 
it up. He made his 
own time track sound so much more glamorous than the time tracks of the two 
Grimeses—which, in any case, differed only very slightly from each other. He 
made the two Commodores seem very dull dogs in comparison with his 
flamboyant, charming self. And, in spite of the nonstop flow of outrageous 
anecdotes, his plate was clean before any of the others. 
The meal, Grimes admitted, was a good one. Grimes II kept an excellent 
table, and the service, provided by two neatly uniformed little stewardesses, 
matched the quality of the food. There was wine, of which Grimes II partook

sparingly, of which the others partook not so sparingly. Grimes thought, with 
disapproval, That man Flandry is gulping it down as though it were lager.... 
then realized that he was doing the same. 
At last they were finished, sipping their coffee. Grimes—both of him—pulled 
out his pipe. His wife—both of her—objected, saying, "John! You know that the 
air conditioners can't cope with the stink!" Flandry, sleek and smug, lit a cigar 
that one of the stewardesses brought him. The ladies accepted lights from him 
for their cigarillos. 
Grimes, from the head of the table, looked at Grimes with slightly raised 
eyebrows. He said, "I'm going up to Control, Commodore, to enjoy my pipe in 
peace. The officer of the watch mightn't like it, but he daren't say so. Coming?" 
"Thank you, Commodore." 
He (they) excused himself (themselves), got to his (their) feet. Flandry and 
the wives were enjoying 
liqueurs with their coffee and hardly noticed their 
going. Grimes II led the way out of the dining saloon, which, as a public room 
in a much larger ship, was luxurious in comparison with that aboard Faraway 
Quest I. Indoor plants, the lush, flowering vines of Caribbea twining around 
every pillar. Holograms, brightly glowing, picture windows 
opening onto a 
score of alien worlds. Grimes paused before one that depicted a beach scene on 
Arcadia. Maggie was an Arcadian. He looked closely to see if she were among 
the naked, golden-skinned people on the sand and in the surf. But what if she 
was? He grunted, followed his counterpart into the axial shaft. 
The control room seemed bleak and cold after the warm luxury of the dining 
saloon. The officer of the watch got to his feet as the two Commodores entered, 
looked doubtfully from one to the other before deciding which one to salute. 
But he got it right. Outside the viewports was—nothingness. To starboard, 
Grimes knew, were his own ship and Adler, and beyond them was Irene's 
Wanderer— but unless temporal precession rates were synchronized they 
would remain invisible. One of the Carlotti screens was alive. It showed a bored 
looking 
Tallentire slumped in his chair, his fingers busy with some sort of 
mathematical puzzle. 
"Any word from our tame telepaths yet, Mr. Grigsby?" asked Grimes II. 
"No, sir. Commander Mayhew did buzz me to tell me that he and the people 
aboard Wanderer are still trying but aren't getting anywhere." 
"Mphm." Grimes slumped into an acceleration chair, motioning to Grimes to 
follow suit. He (they) filled and lit his (their) pipes. "Mphm." 
"There must be a way," said Grimes thoughtfully. 
"There always is," agreed Grimes. "The only trouble is finding it." 
The two men smoked in companionable silence. Grimes I was almost at ease 
but knew that he would be properly at ease only aboard his own Faraway 
Quest. He looked around him, noticing all the similarities—and all the 
differences. From the control room he went down, in his mind, deck by deck. 
And then... and then the idea came to him. 
"Commodore," he said, "I think I have it. Do you mind if I borrow your 
O.O.W.?" 
"Help yourself, Commodore. This is Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat and 
call the cat a bastard." 
Grimes winced. So that was the way it sounded when he said it. He caught

the attention of the watch officer. "Mr. Grigsby...." 
"Sir?" 
"Ask Commander Mayhew to come up here, will you?" 
"Aye, aye, sir." 
The young man spoke into a telephone, then said, "He's on his way." 
"Thank you." 
When Mayhew came in the two Commodores were wrapped in a pungent 
blue haze. "Sir?" asked the telepath doubtfully, looking from one to the other. 
"Sir?" 
"Damn it all, Ken," growled Grimes. "You should know which one of us is 
which." 
"There was a sort of... mingling." 
"Don't go all metaphysical on me. I take it that you've made no headway." 
"No. We just can't get through to Lassie. And it takes effort, considerable 
effort, to maintain Clarisse in a state approaching full awareness." 
"But you are getting through to her." 
"Yes." 
"Good. Now tell me, Ken, where is she? Yes, Yes—I know bloody well that 
she's aboard my Faraway Quest—but where aboard the Quest? In your living 
quarters—or in your watch room?" 
"In... in the watch room, sir. She hates Lassie, as you know, but she went to 
the watch room to maintain better communications when we left the ship to go 
aboard the Shaara derelict. The watch room is fitted up as a living cabin, and 
Druthen and his crowd left her there after the take-over." 
"That makes things easier, a lot easier. Now, get in touch with your cobbers 
aboard Wanderer...." 
"I already am." Mayhew's voice was pained. 
"Punch this message through, the three of you. Stop Lassie's life-support 
system." 
"You can't mean...." 
"I do mean. It's the only way to quiet that helpless 
hound of yours. With 
that source of telepathic interference wiped out we might be able to learn 
something. After all, it's only short range work. You don't need an amplifier." 
"But...." 
"Do it!" 
"All right, Sir." Mayhew's face was white and strained. "But you don't 
understand. If I could do it myself, kill Lassie, I mean, it wouldn't be as bad. 
Because... because Clarisse has always hated Lassie. She'll.... she'll enjoy it...." 
"Good for her," said Grimes brutally. "And have Mr. Metzenther inform 
Captain Trafford of what's going on." 
He visualized Clarisse's slim fingers switching off the tiny pumps that 
supplied oxygen and nutrient 
fluid to the tank in which floated that obscenely 
naked brain—but only a dog's brain—and, suddenly, 
felt more than a little 
sick. 
He said, "I think I'll go below, Commodore." 
"As you please, Commodore," replied Grimes II. "I shall stay up here. There 
should be information 
coming through at any time now. If things start 
happening, this is my place."

"Too right," agreed Grimes. "And there's an old saying about two women in 
the same kitchen. Two shipmasters in the same control room would be at least 
as bad. 
XIX 
He made his way down from the control room to the deck upon which the 
master's quarters and the V.I.P. suite—in which he and Sonya had been 
housed—were situated. The general layout was very similar to that of his own 
ship. There was no extra accommodation in this compartment; everything 
was 
on a larger scale. 
Absentmindedly he paused outside the door that had above it, in gold 
lettering, CAPTAIN. It was ajar. He had started to enter when he realized his 
error, but too late for him to pull back. He could see through into the bedroom. 
His wife was there, sitting up in bed, reading. The spectacles that she was 
wearing enhanced her nakedness. 
His wife? 
But she might have been. 
On another time track she was. 
"Come in," she not quite snapped. "Don't dither around outside." 
He went in. 
She put down her book and looked at him gravely, but there was a quirk at 
the corners of her mouth. She was very beautiful, and she was... different. Her 
breasts were not so full as Sonya's but were pointed. Her smooth shoulders 
were just a little broader. 
She said, "Long time no see, John." 
He felt a wild, impossible hope, decided to bluff his way out—or in. He asked 
gruffly, "What the hell do you mean?" 
She replied, "Come off it, John. She's put her mark on you, just as I've put 
my mark on him. Once you were identical, or there was only one of you. That 
must have been years ago, round about the time that we had the fun and 
games on Sparta. Remember?" 
Grimes remembered. It had been very shortly after the Spartan affair that he 
and Maggie had split brass rags. 
"Furthermore," she went on, "my ever-loving had the decency to buzz down 
to tell me that he'd be in Control all night, and not to wait up for him...." 
"But Sonya...." 
"Damn Sonya. Not that I've anything against her, mind you. We've known 
each other for years and have always been good friends. But if you must know, 
John, she and I have just enjoyed a girlish natter on the telephone, and she's 
under the impression that you're sharing my John's sleepless vigil." 
Get the hell out of here, you lecherous rat! urged the rather priggish censor 
who inhabited an odd corner of Grimes' brain. 
"Don't just stand there," she said. 
He sat down at the foot of the wide bed. 
"John! Look at me." 
He looked. He went on looking. There was so much that he remembered

vividly, so much that he had almost forgotten. 
"Have I got Denebian leprosy, or something?" 
He admitted that she had not. Her skin was sleek, golden gleaming, with the 
coppery pubic puff in delicious contrast, the pink nipples of her breasts 
prominent. He thought, To hell with it. Why not? He moved slowly toward her. 
Her wide, red mouth was inviting. He kissed her—for the' first time in how 
many years? He kissed her and went on kissing her, until she managed to get 
her hands between their upper bodies and push him away. 
"Enough...." she gasped. "Enough... for the time being. Better shut the outer 
door... and snap on the lock...." 
He broke away from her reluctantly. He said, "But suppose he..." he could 
not bring himself to say the name "... comes down from Control...." 
"He won't. I know him. I should, by this time. The only thing in his mind will 
be the safety of his precious ship." She smiled. "And, after all, I am an 
ethologist, specializing in animal behavior, the human animal included. ..." 
Grimes asked rather stiffly, "I suppose you knew that I would be coming in?" 
"I didn't know, duckie, but I'd have been willing 
to bet on it. The outer door 
was left ajar on purpose." 
"Mphm." Grimes got up, went into the day cabin, shut and locked the door. 
He returned to the bedroom. 
She said, "You look hot. Better take off your shirt." 
He took off his shirt. It was a borrowed one, of course. And so was the pair of 
trousers. So were the shoes. (He had boarded this ship, of course, with only 
the usual long Johns under his space suit.) 
Borrowed clothing, a borrowed wife.... 
But was it adultery? 
Grimes grinned. What were the legalities of the situation? Or, come to that, 
the ethics? 
"What the hell are you laughing at?" she demanded. 
"Nothing," he told her. "Everything." 
She said, "I'll do my best to make this a happy occasion." 
It was. There was no guilt, although perhaps there should have been. There 
was no guilt—after all, Grimes rationalized, he had known Maggie for years; he 
(or one of him) had been married to her for years. It was a wild, sweet mixture 
of the soothing familiar and the stimulating unfamiliar. It was—right. 
They were together on the now rumpled bed, their bodies just touching, 
each of them savoring a fragrant cigarillo. 
Grimes said lazily, "After all that, I'd better have a shower before I leave. I 
don't suppose I—he—will mind if I use his bathroom...." 
She said, "There's no hurry...." And then the telephone buzzed. She picked 
up the handset. "Mrs. Grimes..." she said drowsily, with simulated drowsiness. 
"Yes, John. It's me, of course. Maggie.... Yes, I did lock the door...." She covered 
the mouthpiece 
with her hand, whispered, "Get dressed, and out. Quickly. I'll 
try to stall him off." Speaking 
into the telephone again, "Yes, yes. I know that 
I'm the Commodore's wife and that nobody would dream of making a pass at 
me. But have you forgotten 
that wolf, Sir Dominic Flandry, who's aboard at

your invitation, duckie, is prowling around your ship seeking whom he may 
devour? And you left me all by myself, to sit and brood, or whatever it is you do 
up there in your bloody control room.... No, Sir Dominic didn't make a pass at 
me, but I could tell by the way he was looking at me.... All right, then...." 
Grimes was dressed, after a fashion. As he walked fast toward the door, he 
saw that Maggie was punching the buttons for another number on the ship's 
exchange. She called over her shoulder, "Wait a moment!" 
"Sorry. See you later." He went out into the alleyway. He hesitated outside 
the door to his own quarters. Dare he face Sonya? It would be obvious, too 
obvious, what he had been doing, and with whom. 
The door opened suddenly—and Grimes was staring at Flandry, and Flandry 
was staring at him, staring and smiling knowingly. 
"You bastard!" snarled Grimes, swinging wildly. The punch never connected, 
but Flandry's hand around Grimes' right wrist used the momentum 
of the 
blow to bring Grimes sprawling to the deck. 
"Gentlemen," said Grimes II coldly. "Gentlemen—
if you will pardon my 
misuse of the word—I permit no brawling aboard my ship." 
Grimes I got groggily to his feet assisted by Flandry. They looked silently at 
the Commodore. He looked at them. He said, "Such conduct I expected from 
you, Captain Flandry. But as for you, Commodore Grimes, I am both surprised 
and pained to learn that your time track is apparently more permissive than 
mine." 
At last Grimes felt the beginnings of guilt. In a way it was himself whom he 
had cuckolded, but that was no excuse. And what hurt was that during this 
night's lovemaking it had been his own counterpart, 
himself although not 
himself, who had been the odd man out. He knew how this other Grimes must 
be feeling. 
He thought, I wish I were anywhere but here. 
He said, "Believe me, Commodore, I wish I were anywhere but here." Then 
he grinned incredulously, 
looking like a clown with that smile on a face 
besmeared with lip rouge. "And why the hell shouldn't I be?" 
"If I had any say in the matter you would be, Commodore. You and Captain 
Sir Dominic Flandry." 
He made it sound as though the honorific were a word 
of four letters, not three. 
"You just might have your wish, Commodore. Tell me, have you received any 
reports from Commander Mayhew and the other PCOs?" 
"This is no time to...." 
"But it is. The success of our mission, the safety of our ships; these matters, 
surely, are of overriding 
importance...." 
"He's right, you know," said Sonya, who had appeared in the doorway, 
looking as though butter would not melt in her mouth. 
"Shut up!" snapped Grimes. "You keep out of it." 
"He's right, you know," said Maggie, cool and unruffled, who had just joined 
the party. 
"Shut up!" snapped Grimes II. "You keep out of it." 
"He's right, you know," drawled Flandry. 
Grimes II snarled wordlessly. Then, "As a matter 
of fact, your Mayhew and

his mates did get Clarisse to... to turn off the amplifier. They're trying to sort 
out the psionic impressions that they're getting from Adler and your Faraway 
Quest, now that the interference has been... switched off. I was thinking of 
calling you to let you know, but there was no urgency, and I thought you 
needed your sleep. Ha, ha." 
"So now we work out a plan of campaign..." murmured Grimes I. 
"Yes. In the control room. It'll be some time before I feel like setting foot in 
my own quarters again. And might I suggest that you two officers and 
gentlemen get yourselves looking like officers, at least, before you come up." 
Grimes looked doubtfully at Sonya. Then he turned to Flandry. "Do you 
mind if I make use of your toilet facilities, Sir Dominic?" 
"Be my guest, Commodore." Then, in almost a whisper, "After all, I was 
yours—and you were his." 
Grimes didn't want to laugh, but he did. If looks could have killed he would 
have died there and then. But women have no sense of humor. 
XX 
Wanderer and Faraway Quest II synchronized temporal precession rates, 
and Wanderer closed with the Quest, laying herself almost alongside her. It was 
a maneuver typical of Irene's spacemanship—or spacewomanship—and when it 
was over Grimes I looked closely at Grimes II's head to see if his counterpart 
had acquired any additional gray hairs. He thought wryly, Probably Maggie 
and I have put a few there ourselves.... It was essential, however, that the 
meeting of the leaders be held aboard one of the ships; Adler would do her 
best to monitor a conversation conducted 
over the Carlotti transceivers. 
So there they all were in Faraway Quest's control 
room: the two Grimeses, 
their wives, Sir Dominic, Irene, Trafford, Smith (inevitably), Mayhew and 
Metzenther. Somehow Grimes I found himself in the chair. 
Slowly and carefully, he filled and lit his pipe. (The other Grimes produced 
and lit a cigarette. Subtle, thought Grimes. Subtle. I didn't think you had it in 
you, John...) After he had it going well he said, "All right. I think we can take it 
as read that our PCOs have silenced the dog, and that they— including, of 
course, Clarisse—are now doing some snooping into the minds of our mutual 
enemies. Correct?" 
"Correct, sir," answered Mayhew. 
"Good. Then report, please, Commander." 
The telepath spoke in a toneless voice. "Clarisse is well, although her mind 
is not yet operating at full capacity. As far as she can determine, 
as far as we 
can determine, all the other members of Faraway Quest's crew are unharmed. 
As yet. 
"Insofar as their captors are concerned, we have found it advisable to 
concentrate on key personnel: 
Dr. Druthen, Captain Blumenfeld and 
Commander von Donderberg, who is still the senior prize officer aboard Quest. 
Dr. Druthen is not quite sane. He is ambitious. He thinks that the Duchy of 
Waldegren will appreciate his brilliance, whereas the Confederacy does not. 
His mother, who exercised considerable influence over him during his

formative years, was an expatriate Waldegrener. Druthen, too, has strong 
sadistic tendencies. 
Had it not been for the restraining influence 
of von 
Donderberg the lot of the prisoners would have been a sorry one. He is still 
urging Blumenfeld to use them to blackmail us into giving him a free hand 
with The Outsider. 
"Now, von Donderberg. The impression you gained from that talk with him 
over the Carlotti radio is a correct one. Like many—although not all—naval 
officers, he regards himself as a spaceman 
first and foremost. The prisoners 
happen to be wearing the wrong uniform, but they, as far as he is concerned, 
are also spacemen. He hates Druthen, and Druthen hates and despises him." 
"Finally, Captain Blumenfeld. Once again, sir, you summed him up rather 
neatly. He is essentially 
a politician, with a politician's lack of conscience. 
He 
would stand on his mother's grave to get two inches nearer to where he wants 
to be. As a spaceman he is, at best, merely competent—but the success of this 
mission would put him at least two steps up the promotion ladder. He would 
play along with Druthen if he thought that he could get away with it, but 
realizes that maltreatment, or even murder of Faraway Quests' rightful crew 
could lead to an outbreak of hostilities between the Duchy and the 
Confederacy. He knows that his government would welcome this rather than 
otherwise, but fears, as they fear, that the Confederacy's 
Big Brother might 
step in. Should he get the 'all clear' from Waldegren—we gained the 
impression 
that the Duchy's political experts are hard at work evaluating the 
possibility of Federation intervention—he will tell Druthen to go ahead." 
"Meanwhile, he is hoping that there will be dissension 
in our ranks. That 
was why he gave us time to think things over; not long, but long enough." He 
looked at Smith. "As you know, at least one of us present puts his own 
interests before the well-being of Faraway Quest's crew." 
"Mphm." Grimes puffed thoughtfully at his pipe. Then, "Do you concur, Mr. 
Metzenther?" 
"Yes, Commodore. Commander Mayhew has summarized the findings of all 
four of us." 
"And now you know," said Grimes II, who did not seem to be enjoying his 
cigarette, "what are you going to do about it? Not that you can do much. You 
haven't a ship of your own, even though...." 
"Even though I'm carrying on as though this were my own ship?" asked 
Grimes. "In a way, she is. Just as...." 
"She's not. And neither is Maggie." 
"Shut up!" snapped the wife referred to. "Shut up! This is no time to let your 
personal feelings get in the way of important business." 
"You should have thought of that last night," her husband told her. 
Flandry laughed. 
"Just what has been going on aboard this rustbucket?" asked Irene 
curiously, looking at Sir Dominic speculatively. 
"It's a pity that you weren't here," he told her, while Sonya looked at him 
nastily. 
"Just a slight domestic problem," said Grimes airily. 
"Some people's idea of what's slight..." snarled Grimes II. 
"Don't forget that I, too, am an injured party."

Flandry laughed again. 
"Please..." pleaded Grimes. "Please. We're getting no place at all with this 
petty squabbling." He turned to Mayhew. "You've given us the general 
background. It's obvious that we have to do something before Blumenfeld gives 
Druthen the okay, or before Druthen acts off his own bat. I've already thought 
of something that we—that Clarisse especially—can do. I take it that there are 
writing materials in your watch room aboard my Quest?" 
"Of course." 
"And writing materials are also drawing materials...." 
"Yes. But to call up some peculiar deities or demons at this juncture could 
make the situation worse than it is now." 
"Who mentioned deities or demons?" Grimes saw that Flandry, Irene and 
Trafford were looking at him curiously, as were his alter ego and Maggie 
Lazenby. He said slowly, "I suppose I'd better put you in the picture. Clarisse is 
more than a mere telepath. She is descended from a caveman artist who, 
displaced in time, was found on Kinsolving's Planet many years ago. He, it 
seems, had specialized 
in painting pictures of various animals which, 
consequently, were drawn into the hunters' 
traps. Clarisse inherited his 
talent..." 
"Impossible," said Grimes II flatly. 
"Not so, Commodore. I've seen it happen. Ken Mayhew has seen it happen. 
So has Sonya." 
"It's true," she agreed soberly. 
"So Clarisse could be a sort of Trojan horse..." murmured Flandry. 
"You're getting the idea. Of course, there's one snag. Each time that 
she's... performed she's been under the influence of some hallucinogenic 
drug." 
"And the rest of you," sneered Smith. 
"No. Most definitely not. The main problem now is to get her suitably high." 
"That's no problem," said Mayhew. A great load seemed suddenly to have 
dropped from his thin shoulders. He had something to do at last—something to 
help to save Clarisse. "That's no problem. Two telepaths who are married have 
more, much more in common than any pair of nontelepaths. There is far 
greater sensitivity, far more... sharing than in any common marriage. If I get 
high on anything at all, so will Clarisse. If I go on a trip, so will she." 
"Good," murmured Grimes. "Good. So buzz the quack and tell him what you 
need to put your mind in the proper state. Try to get instructions through to 
Clarisse. All she has to do is sketch us, one by one, and we'll be with her...." 
He looked rapidly around the control room. "Not you, Ken. I'm sorry, but you'll 
be too muzzy with dope. What about you, Mr. Metzenther? Good. And you, 
Flandry? And myself, and Sonya...." 
"Count me in," Irene said gruffly. "I still don't believe it, but if it works I'd like 
to be in the party." 
"And me," said Trafford, although not overenthusiastically. "Tallentire can 
look after the ship." 
Smith did not volunteer. 
Maggie Lazenby was about to, Grimes thought, but lapsed into silence as 
her husband looked at her long and coldly.

And Grimes II said, "I'll not be sorry to see some of you off my vessel and 
back aboard your own ships." 
XXI 
This shouldn't be happening, thought Grimes. Magic—and what else can it 
be called? in the control room of an interstellar ship.... But this was the Rim, 
where the laws of nature, although not repealed, were not enforced with any 
stringency. This was beyond the Rim. 
He looked at Mayhew as the telepath regarded dubiously the little glass of 
some colorless fluid that he was holding. "This," the too jovial ship's doctor had 
assured him, "will give you hallucinations 
in glorious technicolor and at least 
seven dimensions...." Grimes looked at Mayhew, and everybody else looked at 
Mayhew. The PCO quipped, "Now I know how Socrates must have felt." 
"Get on with it, Ken," urged Grimes. 
"I'm drinking this muck, not you. All right, then. Down the hatch." He 
suited the action to the words. 
His prominent Adam's apple wobbled as the draught went down. He licked 
his lips, enunciated slowly, "Not... bad. Not... too... bad." An odd sort of 
vagueness crept over his face. His eyes went out of focus. He wavered on his 
feet, groped almost aimlessly for a chair, slumped down into it. 
Grimes whispered to Metzenther, "Clarisse—is she ready? Are you and 
Trialanne standing by to help?" 
"Of course, Commodore." 
Mayhew said with surprising clarity, "The black lambs of Damballa. But they 
shouldn't. No." 
Never mind the bloody black lambs, thought Grimes testily. 
"Clarisse..." Mayhew's voice was very soft, almost inaudible. "Clarisse. You 
shouldn't have killed Lassie." 
"Damn Lassie," muttered Grimes. 
"A man's best friend is his... is his... is his...? But the black lambs. And no 
sheep dog. Yes." 
Metzenther looked toward Grimes. He whispered 
reassuringly, "It'll not be 
long now, Commodore. 
She's started on her pictures. And they won't be of 
black lambs. Black sheep, more likely." 
"You can say that again," grunted Grimes II. 
Grimes I allowed himself a smile. Let Metzenther enjoy his play on words, 
and let the other Grimes make what he liked of it. It didn't matter. He would 
soon be back aboard his own ship. He looked down at the Minetti automatic 
pistol that he was holding, ready, in his right hand. (Luckily, his counterpart 
shared his taste in personal weaponry—as in other things.) He, he was sure, 
would be the first to be pulled aboard the Quest. After all, he knew Clarisse, 
had known her before Mayhew had. He took one last look around at the other 
members of the boarding party. All were armed. Sonya, Trafford and 
Metzenther wore holstered laser handguns; and Irene, two ugly looking pistols 
of .50 caliber. Flandry had something 
that looked as though it had been 
dreamed up by an illustrator of juvenile science fiction thrillers.

Grimes remembered the two occasions on which he had seen Clarisse at 
work. He recalled, vividly, that bare, windswept mountaintop on Kinsolving, 
with the black sky overhead, the Galactic Lens a misty shimmer low on the 
horizon. He visualized, without any effort on his part, the floodlit easel with its 
square of canvas, the pots of pigment, the girl, naked save for a scanty scrap of 
some animal pelt, working with swift, sure strokes on her brushes. 
Sudden doubt assailed him. 
Those had been ideal conditions. Would conditions 
aboard the hijacked 
Faraway Quest be as ideal? 
Mayhew seemed to be completely out, sprawled loosely in his chair, his eyes 
closed, his mouth slack. A thin dribble of spittle crawled down his chin. Had 
the telepath taken too much of whatever concoction it was that the doctor had 
prepared? Was Clarisse similarly unconscious? 
Metzenther smiled reassuringly at the Commodore, 
whispered, "Any time 
now...." 
Flandry, overhearing, snorted his disbelief. 
Grimes turned to admonish him, and.... 
Flandry was gone. 
XXII 
Flandry was gone. 
Grimes wondered why there had been no miniature 
clap of thunder as the 
air rushed in to fill the vacuum caused by his abrupt departure. Had the 
exactly correct volume of atmosphere been teleported from the room in which 
Clarisse was imprisoned 
to fill the space that the Imperial Captain had 
occupied? What did it matter, anyhow? Magic is an art, not a science. 
Flandry was gone—and who next? 
Grimes was more than a little hurt. He had known Clarisse for years. Sonya 
had known her for almost as long. And yet she called a stranger to her. She 
had met Sir Dominic only once; he must have made an impression on her. 
He turned to the others. "Well, it seems to be working. But why him?" 
"Why not?" asked Sonya sweetly. "He's resourceful. 
He's tough." 
"And he's out of my hair," added Grimes II. He did not say aloud that he 
hoped that other people would soon be out of his hair. He did not need to. 
Mayhew, still unconscious in his chair, twitched. He looked as though he 
were having a bad dream. 
"Is she all right?" demanded Grimes of Metzenther. 
"Yes, Commodore," answered the telepath. "Yes." He looked as though he 
had been about to say more but had decided against it. 
"Can't you tell her to get the rest of us shifted across?" 
"I... I will try. But you must realize that teleportation is a strain upon the 
operator." 
"Damn it all, this is urgent." 
"I know, Commodore. But... she will not be hurried." 
"Druthen, von Donderberg.... Do they know that Flandry is aboard the 
ship?"

"No. And with von Donderberg actually in charge everything—including the 
prisoners' meals—is very much to timetable. There is little chance that Clarissa 
and Sir Dominic will be disturbed." 
Disturbed? thought Grimes. An odd choice of words.... 
"You must be patient, Commodore," said Metzenther. 
Grimes was never to know if it was his own imagination, or if the telepath 
had deliberately planted the picture in his mind. But he knew what was 
happening, what had happened. He saw Clarisse, her clothing cast aside the 
better to emulate 
her savage forebears, working at the sketch she was making 
on a signals pad. She saw the picture growing out of her swift, sure stylus 
strokes, the depiction of Sir Dominic. What subconscious 
desires had been 
brought to the surface by the drug that Mayhew had taken, the effects of 
which he had shared with her? 
And then.... 
And then Flandry was with her. 
Flandry, the unprincipled, suddenly confronted with a beautiful, naked, 
available and willing woman. 
If Metzenther had not put thoughts, impressions into Grimes' brain he had 
read the Commodore's mind. He said, telepathically, "Mayhew will never know. 
We shall make sure of that." 
"But... but how can she?" asked Grimes silently. 
He got the impression of quiet laughter in reply. "How could you? How could 
Sonya? How could Maggie? Some of us—even you, Commodore—have regarded 
this straying into other continua as a sort of a holiday. A pubic holiday.... 
Forgive me. That just slipped out. And Clarisse has been under strain as much 
as any of us, more than most of us. What's more natural than that she should 
greet her deliverer in the age-old manner? Are you jealous, Commodore?" 
"Frankly, yes," thought Grimes. He grinned ruefully. "What the hell do you 
find so amusing?" asked Sonya sharply. 
"Oh, er... I was just wondering where Sir Dominic had finished up. As we 
both of us know, this talent of Clarisse's is rather... unreliable." 
"You have an odd sense of humor," she told him. She was beginning to look 
anxious. 
There were no pictures in Grimes' mind now. He was rather thankful for 
that. But still he did not know how long it would be before Clarisse resumed 
her magical activities. He knocked his pipe out into one of the large ashtrays 
that were placed all around the control room. He refilled it. He lit it. 
"Please, John," said Clarisse, "not in here. It's dreadfully stuffy." 
She was, as he had visualized her, naked. She was standing at the desk, 
adding the last touches to the sketch she had made of Grimes. Flandry was 
seated on the bunk. He was fully clothed. 
But.... 
"Wipe the lipstick off your face, Sir Dominic," said Grimes coldly. 
XXIII 
Clarisse ignored the exchange. She tore the sheet upon which she had

portrayed Grimes off the pad, put it to one side. She started a fresh sketch. The 
Commodore peered over her smooth, bare shoulder as she worked. The 
likeness was unmistakable. 
"Now!" she whispered intently. 
Grimes was almost knocked off his feet as Irene materialized. She exclaimed 
cheerfully, "Oops, dearie! Fancy meeting you here!" And then, to Clarisse, 
"Hadn't you better put something on, ducks? All these men...." 
"I work better this way," she was told. 
"Ssshh!" hissed Grimes. "This cabin.... bugged...." 
"It was," remarked Flandry, in normal conversational 
tones. "And very 
amateurishly, if I may say so." 
"So you did, at least, take precautions before...." 
Grimes began. 
"Before what?" asked Flandry, smiling reminiscently. "I always take 
precautions, Commodore." 
Clarisse blushed spectacularly, over her entire body. But she went on 
sketching. 
Sonya appeared, looking around her disapprovingly. 
What's been going on 
here? she asked silently. 
Then it was Trafford's turn, and finally 
Met-zenther's. The little cabin was uncomfortably crowded. Grimes didn't like 
the way that his wife was sitting close beside Flandry on the bunk. She, 
obviously, didn't like the way that he was being pressed between Irene's 
flamboyance and Clarisse's nudity. Somebody knocked over the tank in which 
the psionic amplifier was housed. It did not break, but the cover came off it, 
allowing the stagnant 
nutrient solution to spill on the deck. It smelled as 
though something had been dead for a very long time. 
Sonya sniffed. "And now what do we do?" she demanded. "I'd suggest that 
Clarisse get dressed, but I realize that it's almost impossible in these 
circumstances." 
"This is your ship, Commodore," said Flandry. 
"Mphm. When is your next meal due, Clarisse?" 
"I... my watch... with my clothes. On the bunk..." 
Flandry rummaged in the little pile of garments and found the timepiece. He 
announced, "It is 1135 hours, this ship's time." 
"Twenty-five minutes," said Clarisse. 
"So we wait," said Grimes. "It'll not be for too long. Then we overpower 
whoever brings the tray and any other guards and take over." 
Flandry laughed jeeringly. "Brilliant, Commodore. 
Really brilliant. And if 
anybody fires into this dogbox he'll get at least four of us with one shot." 
"Have you any better ideas, Captain?" 
"Of course," Flandry replied smugly. "If I am not mistaken, those weapons 
being toted around by Sonya, Captain Trafford and Mr. Metzenther are laser 
pistols. They are not used much in my continuum, but you people seem to like 
them. A laser pistol can be used as a tool as well as a handgun. A cutting 
tool...." 
"So we break out, rather than wait to be let out." 
"A truly blinding glimpse of the obvious, sir." 
Trafford was nearest the door. "Go ahead, please, Captain," said Grimes. 
The little man unholstered his weapon. He pulled out a slender screwdriver

that had been recessed in the butt of it. Carefully, not hurrying, he made 
adjustments to the power settings. He replaced the screwdriver. 
Grimes took a pencil from Clarisse. He managed to shove his way through 
the crowd to stand beside Trafford. He drew a rough circle on the smooth, 
painted metal panel of the door. He said, "The lock should be there, Captain. If 
you burn around it...." 
"I'll try, Commodore." 
The narrow beam of intensely bright light shot from the muzzle of the pistol. 
Metal became blue white incandescent immediately but was reluctant to melt. 
The structural components of a starship are designed to withstand almost 
anything. Trafford removed his finger from the trigger, used the screwdriver to 
make further adjustments. Then he tried again. 
Grimes had foreseen what was going to happen. After all, as Flandry had 
pointed out, this was his ship. Grimes should have warned the others, but this 
chance to see the silly grin wiped off Sir Dominic's face was not one to be 
passed over. 
The air in the watch room became stiflingly hot, and acrid with the fumes of 
burning paint and metal. And then.... 
And then there were bells ringing, some close and some distant, filling the 
echoing shell of Faraway 
Quest with their clangor. A klaxon added its 
stridency to the uproar. From the nozzles of the spray system jetted a white 
foam that blanketed everything and everybody. Flandry cursed, but he could 
never hope to match Irene's picturesque obscenities and blasphemies. 
The door sagged open. 
Grimes, pistol in hand, shoved past Trafford, out into the brightly lit 
alleyway. Sonya, looking like a figure roughly hacked from white foam plastic, 
was behind him, then Trafford, then Irene. Metzenther staggered out 
supporting Clarisse, who looked as though she had just emerged from a 
bubble bath. 
"You bloody fool," gasped Flandry, who was last to emerge. "You bloody fool! 
You should have known...." 
"I did know," snapped Grimes. "Pipe down, damn you!" 
The fire-extinguishing foam was pouring out into the alleyway. Grimes 
motioned to the others to follow suit, dropped to his knees, let the cool, not 
unpleasantly acrid froth almost cover him. How long would it be before the 
fire-fighting party was on the scene? When Quest's own crew had been running 
the ship scant seconds would have elapsed; but Druthen and his scientists 
and technicians 
were not spacemen, and at least one of the three officers put 
aboard from Adler would be remaining in the control room. 
Somebody, somewhere, switched the alarms off. So they realized that there 
was a fire. And without that incessant noise it was possible to think, to give 
orders. 
"Keep covered," said Grimes. "They'll not see us until it's too late." He added, 
in a disgruntled voice, "The bastards are certainly taking their time. Billy 
Williams and his crowd would have had the fire out half an hour ago!" 
"Glumph," replied Sonya through a mouthful of foam. 
They were here at last, rounding the curve in the alleyway: a tall figure in a 
space suit, the spiked helmet of which made it obvious that he was a member

of the Waldegren Navy, four men in civilian 
space armor, pushing a wheeled 
tank. 
"Lasers only," whispered Grimes. "Fire!" 
Lasers are silent—but they are dreadfully lethal. Grimes hated to have to do 
it—but the fire fighters must be given no chance to warn Druthen and von 
Donderberg in Control. Druthen's men were hijackers, and their lives were 
already forfeit. 
The universal penalty for this crime is death. The Waldegrener 
was acting under orders, but he had no business aboard Grimes' ship. What 
happened 
to him was just his bad luck. 
Grimes stood up slowly in the waist-high foam. He looked at the five silent 
figures. They were dead all right, each of them with his armor neatly pierced in 
half a dozen places. There was no blood, luckily, and luckily nobody had 
employed the effective 
slashing technique, so the suits were still reasonably 
intact. 
Five of them, he thought, trying hard to fight down his nausea. Seven of us. 
Flandry can wear the Waldegren space suit—it'll fit him. Then myself. 
And 
Sonya. Irene? Metzenther? Trafford? Claris se? 
He said, "Get the armor off them. It's a made-to-order disguise." 
Trafford, Flandry and Sonya went to work. The smell of charred meat and 
burned blood was distressingly 
evident. Suddenly, Sonya beckoned to Grimes. 
He went to look, down at the stripped figure. It was a woman. She was, she had 
been one of the junior technicians. Grimes remembered her. He had referred 
to her, in his thoughts, as a hard-faced little bitch. Feeling sorry for this would 
not help her now. 
He walked slowly back to where Clarisse was standing, patches of foam 
slipping slowly down her smooth skin, others still clinging to the salient points 
of her body. He whispered, pointing, "You know her?" 
"Yes." 
"Wear her suit. Speak into the suit radio, using her voice.... You can do 
that?" 
"Of course." 
"Report that the fire is under control. Should Druthen or von Donderberg 
feel uneasy about anything you, as a telepath, will know the right things to say 
to put their minds at rest. Say that we are returning topside to report as soon 
as the fire is out. Get it?" 
"Yes." 
"Then get suited up." 
She obeyed him, assisted by Sonya and Irene. She spurned their suggestion 
that she should wear the dead woman's long Johns. Grimes didn't blame her, 
although he winced at the thought of the un-lined inside of the suit chafing 
her unprotected skin. 
Then Grimes, too, stripped to his skimpy underwear, could not bring himself 
to put on a dead man's next-to-the-skin union suit. Neither could Sonya. But 
the corpse robbing worried neither Irene nor Flandry. 
The bodies were concealed in the congealing foam, which hid, too, the tools 
taken from the belt pouches of the fire party. Those same pouches served as 
holsters for the weapons of Grimes and his people. It was decided that Trafford 
and Metzenther, 
who had been unable to disguise themselves, 
would stay in

the watch room. They would be safe enough there, especially since Metzenther 
should be able to give ample advance warning of the approach of any hostile 
persons. 
Then, speaking in a voice that was not her own, Clarisse said into her 
helmet microphone, "Sadie Hawkes reporting to Dr. Druthen. The fire's out. 
Nothing serious. That stupid bitch was burning papers for some reason or 
other." 
"Is she hurt?" Druthen's voice did not betray much, if any, concern. 
"Naw, Doc. We just slapped her round a little, is all." 
Von Donderberg's voice came through the speakers. "Lieutenant Muller." 
"Sorry, Commander," Clarisse told him. "The Lieutenant slipped on the foam 
an' caught his helmet 
a crack. His transceiver's on the blink." 
"Where is the prisoner now?" inquired Druthen. 
"We left her in her bubble batch to cool down. Ha, ha." 
"Ha, ha," echoed Dr. Druthen. 
Ha, ha, thought Grimes nastily. 
XXIV 
Grimes led the way into the control room. (After all, this was his ship.) He 
was followed by Flandry, whose right hand hovered just over the butt of his 
energy pistol, then by Sonya, then by Irene. Clarisse caught up the rear. 
Druthen and von Donderberg swiveled in their chairs to face the returning 
fire-fighting party. The scientist was fatly arrogant. The Waldegrener looked 
more than a little frayed around the edges. It's your own fault, thought 
Grimes. If you aren't fussy about the company you keep.... 
Grimes and the others stood there. Druthen and von Donderberg sat there. 
Grimes knew that he should act and act fast, but he was savoring this moment. 
Druthen, an expression of petulant impatience growing on his face, snarled, 
"Take your bloody helmets off! Anybody'd think there was a smell in here." His 
words, although distorted by the suit diaphragms, were distinct enough. 
"There is," replied Grimes. "You." 
The scientist's face turned a rich purple. He sputtered, "Mutinous swine! 
Von Donderberg, you heard! Do something!" 
Von Donderberg shrugged. There was a flicker of amusement in his blue 
eyes. 
Grimes said, "Mutiny, Dr. Druthen? I am arresting 
you for mutiny and 
piracy." He fumbled for his Minetti, but the little pistol, unlike the heavier 
weapons carried by the others, was not suitable for use by a man wearing 
space armor with its clumsy gloves. 
But Flandry's odd-looking weapon was out, as were Sonya's and Irene's 
pistols. Druthen stared at them helplessly, von Donderberg in a coldly 
calculating 
manner. "You will note, Herr Doktor," remarked the Waldegren 
officer, "that there are neat holes in those space suits, holes that could have 
been made by laser fire at short range." He seemed to be speaking rather 
louder than was really necessary. "It would seem that our prisoners 
somehow 
have escaped and have murdered my Lieutenant Muller and four of your

people." He turned to face Grimes. "You will surrender." 
"I admire your nerve," Grimes told him. 
"That is not one of the prisoners!" exclaimed Druthen. "It's that bastard 
Grimes! But that's impossible!" 
"It's not, Doctor. It's not." The Commodore was really enjoying himself. "You 
sneered at me—remember—for carrying a practicing witch on my Articles of 
Agreement...." 
The practicing witch screamed, "John! The Carlotti set! It's on! Adler's seeing 
and hearing everything!" 
And Adler's temporal precession rate was synchronized 
with that of 
Faraway Quest. No doubt her cannon and projectors were already trained 
upon their target. No doubt boarding parties were already suited up and 
hurrying into the warship's airlocks. 
Grimes swore. His gloating could easily have ruined everything. He dived for 
the Mannschenn Drive remote controls. He heard pistol fire as somebody, 
Irene probably, switched off the Car-lotti transceiver in an effective but 
destructive manner. Von Donderberg got in his way, grappled him. The 
Waldegrener was a strong man and agile, whereas Grimes was hampered by 
his armor. His body was a barrier between the Commodore and the 
Mannschenn Drive control console. Brutally, Grimes flailed at him with his 
mailed fists, but von Donderberg managed to get a firm grip on both his wrists. 
Grimes tried to bring his knee up, but he was too slow and the foul blow was 
easily avoided. 
It was Irene who settled matters. (After all, this was not her ship.) Her heavy 
pistols barked deafeningly, the slugs just missing Grimes (intentionally, 
he 
hoped) and von Donderberg. The face of the control panel splintered; 
otherwise the immediate 
results were unspectacular. 
But down in the Mannschenn Drive room the duty technician watched 
aghast as the great, gleaming rotors ran wild, precessing faster and faster yet, 
tumbling down and into the dark dimensions 
uncontrolled and 
uncontrollably. Beyond the control room viewports, the image of Adler glowed 
with impossible clarity against the blackness, 
then flickered out like a snuffed 
candle flame. Throughout the ship, men and women stared at familiar 
surroundings and fittings that sagged and fluoresced, that wavered on the very 
brink of the absolute nothingness. Belatedly, alarm bells started to ring, but 
their sound was a thin, high shrilling, felt rather than heard. 
Abruptly, shockingly, normalcy returned as the Drive shut itself off. Colors, 
forms and sounds were suddenly... drab. The irregular throbbing of the inertial 
drive was harsh and irritating. 
Grimes, still straining against von Donderberg, snapped, "Shut that bloody 
thing off!" Apart from the Waldegren Commander and his surviving 
officer—wherever he was—there were no spacemen 
among those who had 
hijacked the ship. Free fall would not worry Grimes and his boarding party 
overmuch, but it would be, at the very least, an inconvenience to the planet 
lubbers. 
The annoying vibration ceased. What next? Grimes asked himself. It was 
hard to think clearly. That blasted von Donderberg was still putting up a fight, 
and Sonya and Clarisse, who had come to the Commodore's aid, were more of a

hindrance than a help. "Irene!" he called. "Check the indicator! Are all AT doors 
shut?" (The airtight doors should have automatically at the first signs of main 
drive malfunction.) 
"Yes," she replied at last. 
"There's a switch by itself in a glass-fronted box.... It's labeled LOCK...." 
"Got it...." 
"Then throw it!" 
Grimes heard the little crash of shattering glass, heard Irene say, "Locked." 
Sonya had a space suited arm across von Donderberg's 
throat. The man was 
starting to choke; his face was turning blue, his eyes were protruding. 
Suddenly he relinquished his hold on Grimes' wrists. The two women hustled 
him to an acceleration 
chair, forced him down into it. They held him there 
while Irene, using a length of flex that she had found somewhere, lashed him 
into the seat. Druthen had already been similarly dealt with by Irene and 
Flandry. 
"Mphm," grunted Grimes. The situation was, for the time being, under 
control. Slowly he removed 
his gloves, then took his pipe from one of the 
pouches at the belt of his space suit. He filled it and lit it, ignoring Sonya's 
"Not now!" He stared at Druthen, demanded, "Where are the prisoners?" 
"Find out!" came the snarled reply. 
From the intercom speakers came a growing uproar. "Doctor Druthen, 
what's happened?" 
"We're shut in, let us out of here!" 
"Doctor, there's no gravity!" 
"We can do without that," said Grimes. Sonya switched off the system. Then, 
"Where are the prisoners, Druthen?" 
Again the scientist snarled, "Find out!" 
"And that is just what we intend to do, Herr Doktor," remarked Flandry. He 
pulled that complicated 
looking weapon from a makeshift holster at his belt, 
looked at it thoughtfully, said regretfully, 
"Not quite subtle enough..." From 
another pouch he took out a knife, drew it from its sheath. It was only small, 
but it gleamed evilly. "Perhaps a little judicious whittling..." He murmured. 
"Where shall I start?" 
Von Donderberg, who had recovered his voice, croaked, "Remember that you 
an officer and gentleman 
are. A civilized man." 
"Who says that I'm civilized, Commander? Come to that—who dares say that 
either you or the learned Herr Doktor are civilized? You, sir, are a pirate. He is 
either a mutineer or a hijacker or both—but this is no time to discuss 
legalities. H'm. Your hands are nicely secured to the arms of your chair. 
Doctor. Perhaps if I pry off your fingernails, 
one by one...." 
"Flandry, you wouldn't!" expostulated Grimes. 
"Wouldn't I, Commodore? You may watch." 
"But I know where they are," said Clarisse. She added tartly, "What the hell's 
the good of having a professional telepath around if you don't make use of 
her?" 
"Why must you spoil everything?" asked Flandry 
plaintively. 
Von Donderberg laughed mirthlessly and Druthen fainted.

XXV 
Yes, clarisse knew where they were. It was an obvious enough place anyhow, 
the empty cargo compartment, right aft, in which Grimes had intended 
to 
stow whatever fantastic artifacts could be plundered from the Outsiders' Ship. 
Sonya, taking with her the electronic master key that would allow her passage 
through the locked airtight 
doors, went to release them. She was 
accompanied 
by Irene and would pick up Trafford and Metzenther on the way. 
She assured Grimes that if she encountered any of Druthen's people she 
would shoot if she had to. Irene growled that she would shoot, period. But 
there was not much risk. Metzenther would be able to give them ample 
warning of what hostile action, if any, awaited them in any compartment that 
they were about to enter. 
Grimes switched on the second Carlotti transceiver—luckily the ship was 
fitted with two of the sets—and raised Faraway Quest II without any difficulty. 
She was no longer ahead, relatively speaking. Adler had turned, and Quest II 
and Wanderer had turned with her, and all three ships were racing back 
toward The Outsider on a reciprocal of their original trajectory. 
"So you've got your ship back, Commodore," commented the other Grimes, 
looking out from the little screen. "Your Commander Mayhew, and Trialanne 
aboard Wanderer, have been keeping us informed." 
"There's a little mopping up yet, Commodore," said Grimes. "But it shouldn't 
take long. I suggest that you and Wanderer slow down to allow me to catch up." 
"Wanderer can if she likes, Commodore, but I'm not going to. Adler's going 
like a bat out of hell, and has the heels of us. Mayhew tells me that she's using 
some experimental accelerator, for the first time. Unluckily he's a mechanical 
and mathematical 
moron, so he can't get anything but absolute 
gibberish 
from the mind of Adler's engineer officer. But I know that it's Blumenfeld's 
intention to race us to The Outsider and then to seize and to hold it against all 
comers, waiting for reinforcements." 
"What about Vindictive? Captain Flandry's ship?" 
"What, indeed?" echoed Flandry. 
"We can't warn her," said Grimes II. "That stupid culture she comes from has 
never developed the Carlotti system, or used telepaths...." 
"I resent that," snarled Flandry. 
Grimes II seemed to notice him for the first time. "Sorry, Captain. I didn't 
realize that you were listening. But can you warn your ship?" 
"No, I can't. But my men have very itchy trigger 
fingers." 
"They'll need 'em. But switch on your other set, Commodore. Mr. Smith in 
Wanderer would like a word with you." 
"I can't. Commodore. Will you tell Mr. Smith that his Mrs. Trafford switched 
off my other set rather permanently? The same applies to the remote 
control 
panel of my Mannschenn Drive." 
"Then switch over to Wanderer. I'll just stick beak." 
Grimes made the necessary adjustments, found himself looking at Smith. 
Tallentire was well in the background.

"Commodore," said Smith, "you realize that neither we nor the other 
Commodore Grimes can afford to wait until you have effected repairs and 
adjusted trajectory. Adler must be stopped. I, as the charterer, have assumed 
effective command of Wanderer. I do not see either Captain Trafford or Mrs. 
Trafford in your control room. Could you ask them to speak with me?" 
"They're not available at the moment," said Grimes. 
"They bloody well are!" Irene contradicted him. 
Suddenly the control room had become crowded with people: Sonya, Irene, 
Trafford, Metzenther, Billy Williams, Carnaby, Hendrikson, Major Dalzell and 
Daniels. Williams reported to Grimes, "Commander Davis and his juniors have 
gone straight to the engine room, Skipper. They'll let you know as soon as 
they can get her started up." He went to where Druthen and von Donderberg 
were lashed in their chairs. "An' what shall we do with these drongos?" 
"Take 'em away and lock 'em up, as soon as we can get round to it." 
"Captain Trafford; Mrs. Trafford," came Smith's insistent voice from the 
Carlotti speaker. 
"Yes!" snapped Irene. 
"You and Captain Trafford should be aboard this ship. But you're not. So I 
had no option but to order Mr. Tallentire to press the chase." 
"You... ordered?" 
"Yes. I ordered." 
"He is the charterer," pointed out Trafford. 
"All right. He's the bloody charterer. And so what?" 
"Blumenfeld must be stopped," insisted the little 
captain. "Waldegren, in 
any continuum, cannot be allowed to get its hands on The Outsider's secrets." 
"You'll never stop us now!" bragged von Donderberg. 
"Shut up, you!" growled Billy Williams. 
Irene turned back to the Carlotti transceiver, "All right, Smith. Press the 
chase. But, as owner, I appoint Mr. Tallentire master—until Captain Trafford's 
return. Mr. Tallentire will act as he sees fit. Get it?" 
"As you wish." Smith managed to convey the impression of being supremely 
unconcerned. 
"I will talk with Mr. Tallentire now." 
Tallentire's face replaced that of Smith in the screen. He looked far from 
happy. "Yes, ma'am?" 
"You are acting captain. Put the interests of the ship before those of Mr. 
Smith. Press the chase. Make use of your weaponry as requisite. You will revert 
to your normal rank as soon as we are back on board. That's all." 
Somehow a junior engineer had managed to insert 
himself into the crowded 
control room. He elbowed his way toward Grimes. "Sir, Commander 
Davis told 
me to tell you that you can start inertial and Mannschenn Drives as soon as 
you like. He's been trying to raise you on the intercom, but the line is dead." 
"It's switched off," Grimes admitted. "But we'll get it working again to the 
engine room...." Daniels had anticipated him, handed Grimes a microphone. 
"Commodore here, Commander Davis. The remote control panel of the 
Mannschenn 
Drive is... out of order. You'll just have to get your instructions 
by telephone. Good." He turned to Carnaby. "Get ready to put the ship on the

reciprocal heading—straight for The Outsider. We may be a little late for the 
start of the party, but we should be there before it's over..." 
Flandry, Irene and Trafford looked at him with some animosity. "It's all right 
for you," growled the ex-Empress. "You've got a ship now, and we haven't." 
"Can you get us back to where we belong?" 
Flandry asked Clarisse, a little desperately. 
"I... I don't know..." she admitted. "I've never tried sending anybody anywhere 
before." 
"You'd better try now," Grimes told her. "Or as soon as we have things sorted 
out." He didn't want Sonya and Flandry in the same ship. 
XXVI 
The commodore's quarters still retained the distasteful traces of Druthen's 
occupancy, but the cleaning up could wait. Grimes forced himself to ignore the 
untidiness—no less than his own, but different—the scars left by smoldering 
cigarette ends on table tops; the sticky rings that showed where slopping over 
glasses had been set down. Sonya had wanted to do something about it at 
once, if not before, but Grimes had restrained her. "It is essential," he said 
firmly, "that Sir Dominic, Irene, Captain Trafford and Mr. Metzenther be 
returned to their own ships as soon as possible...." 
"And it is equally essential—to me, anyhow—that Ken be brought back here 
as soon as possible," 
Clarisse told him. 
"Mphm. I see your point. But first of all both Captain Flandry's Vindictive 
and Captain Trafford's Wanderer must be put in a state of full fighting 
efficiency, so as to be able to cope with Adler. I would suggest that you deal 
with Sir Dominic first." 
"Thank you," said Flandry. 
"It will be a pleasure, Captain. Well, Clarisse?" 
"I don't know how it can be done..." muttered the girl. "I don't know if it can 
be done...." 
"Rubbish!" snorted Irene. "If you can pull, you can push. It's as simple as 
that." 
"Then why don't you try it?" 
"It's just not my specialty, dearie. I'm just a rough and tough ex-mate out of 
the Dog Star Line." 
"To say nothing of being a rough and tough ex-empress," commented Sonya 
acidly. "Shut up, unless you have something constructive to contribute." 
"What I said was constructive." 
"Like hell it was." 
"Ladies, ladies...." murmured Flandry soothingly. 
Then, to Clarisse. "As I see 
it, your talent works this way. You're in the right, drug-induced frame of mind. 
You paint or draw a picture of whatever animal or person you wish to pull into 
the trap or ambush, concentrate—and the result is instant teleportation...." 
"You've oversimplified a little, Dominic, but that's about it." 
"All right. Now suppose you sketched, to the best of your ability, the inside 
of my control room aboard Vindictive...."

"I've never been aboard your ship, Dominic." 
"But you've been inside my mind." 
Oh, thought Grimes. Have you, indeed? But I suppose that a telepath wants 
more than mere physical contact.... 
"Yes." 
"This is what I want you to do. You must order from the ship's doctor 
whatever hallucinogen it is you need. And then, when you are ready, I'll 
visualize 
the control room of my ship, in as exact detail as possible, and you 
put it down on paper...." 
"And what," asked Grimes, "if Vindictive's control room is brought to Captain 
Flandry, instead 
of the other way round? I seem to recall a law of physics that 
I learned as a child: Two solid bodies cannot occupy the same space at the 
same time." 
"Let me finish, Commodore. After she has drawn the control room she will 
put me in it....." 
"Yes, Dominic," whispered Clarisse. "I think it will work. I'm sure it will 
work." 
"As long as somebody's sure about something..." 
grumbled Grimes. "Now, I 
think that we have some neo-mescalin in our medical stores. It was you who 
insisted that we carry some...." 
"That is correct. If you will have it sent up...?" 
Grimes called the doctor on the intercom, and then Billy Williams in 
Control. "Commander Williams," 
he said, "unless it is a matter of utmost 
urgency we are not, repeat not, to be disturbed." 
"You won't be, Skipper. We're the also-ran in this race—an' I'm afraid that 
Adler's the odds on favorite! Of course, Vindictive might pip her at the post." 
"We're trying to insure that she does," said Grimes, breaking off the 
conversation. 
Slowly, without embarrassment, Clarisse removed 
her clothing, ignoring 
Irene's, "Is that necessary?" and Sonya's, "You're only jealous." She took the 
small glass of opalescent fluid that Grimes handed her, drained it. In her 
nudity she was more witch than mere woman. She was... untouchable. (But 
that bastard Flandry hadn't found her so, thought Grimes.) Her face was 
solemn, 
her eyes looking at something very far away. And yet it was Sir 
Dominic at whom she was looking. At whom? Through whom? Beyond whom? 
She was stooping slightly over the table upon which a sheet of paper had 
been spread, upon which the colored pens had been laid out. With her gaze 
still intent upon Flandry she commenced to draw with swift, sure strokes. The 
picture was taking shape: acceleration chairs, consoles, screens, the remote 
controls of machinery and weaponry, all subtly unlike anything that Quest's 
and Wanderer's people had ever seen before. Different 
ships, different long 
splices, thought Grimes, recalling an ancient Terran seafaring proverb. 
Different universes, different interstellar drives.... 
Tension was building up in the Commodore's day cabin as the naked 
Clarisse stared at Flandry in his glittering uniform; as Flandry stared at 
Clarisse. As far as he was concerned, as far as she was concerned they were 
alone. Under her weaving 
hands the sketch was becoming three dimensional, 
real. Were the lights dimming? Was the irregular beat of the inertial drive, the

thin, high whining of the Mannschenn Drive becoming fainter? Was the 
deathly cold of interstellar space pervading the ship? 
There is one law of nature that is never broken—magic notwithstanding: You 
can't get something for nothing. A transfer of a solid body across a vast distance 
was about to take place. Such a transfer, whether by wheels, wings or 
witchcraft, involves the use of energy. There was energy in many usable forms 
available within the hull of Faraway Quest. It was being drawn upon. 
Grimes stared at the picture on the table. The lights—red, green, blue and 
amber—on the panels of the consoles were glowing, and some of them were 
blinking rapidly. The darkness beyond the viewports was the utter blackness of 
intergalactic space. Something swam slowly into sight beyond one of the big 
transparencies—the dome-shaped Shaara derelict. 
And then.... 
And then there was a man there, standing in the middle of the hitherto 
deserted control room, the details of his face and figure growing under the 
witch artist's flying fingers. It was unmistakably Flandry, and he was stark 
naked save for his belt and his holstered pistol. 
Grimes looked up from the sketch to stare at the emptiness where Flandry 
had been standing. He was... gone. But not entirely; his uniform, a small 
bundle of black and gold, of rainbow ribbons, was all that remained of him. 
Irene said—was it to Sonya or to Clarisse?— "At least you've something to 
remember him by, dearie." 
Clarisse, her face cold and hard, snatched the sheet with the sketch off the 
table, screwed it up into a ball, threw it toward the disposal chute. She did not 
miss. She moved swiftly around the table, picked up the empty uniform, then 
stuffed it down the chute after the crumpled paper. Grimes made as though to 
stop her—after all, an analysis of the cloth from which Flandry's clothing had 
been cut could have told a great deal about the technology of his culture—then 
decided against it. He would be able to swap information with Sir Dominic 
after Adler had been disposed of. Nonetheless, he was sorry that he had not 
said goodbye properly to the man, thanked him for all his help. (But Flandry 
had helped himself, in more ways than one....) 
The witch girl was ready to resume operations. A fresh sheet of paper was on 
the table. She said nothing aloud to Metzenther, but the two telepaths must 
have been in communication. He came to stand beside her, was obviously 
feeding into her mind the details of Wanderer's control room. Again the 
detailed picture grew. 
Irene asked. "Would you mind if I kept my clothes on. Clarisse? Public 
nudism never appealed 
to me." 
Sonya said, cattily, "I don't think female nakedness interests her." 
Nor did it. When Irene vanished she left nothing behind—and neither did 
Trafford nor Metzenther. 
And now, at last, Clarisse was working for herself. 
For the last time the 
lights dimmed, the temperature 
dropped, the shipboard sounds were muffled. 
Grimes looked at the flattering portrait of Mayhew that had appeared, then at 
Sonya. He said, "I think we'll see what's happening topside, my dear." And, as 
Mayhew materialized, just as they were leaving, "It's good to have our ship to 
ourselves again."

XXVII 
They had their ship to themselves again, but she was a ship alone. Far 
ahead of them now were their allies—allies only as long as it was expedient for 
them to be so—and their enemies. There was communication still with 
Faraway Quest II and with Wanderer, by Carlotti radio and through the 
telepaths. There was no word from Vindictive; but as Irene, Trafford and 
Metzenther were safely back aboard their own vessel, it could be assumed that 
Flandry was safely back in his. 
Grimes, pacing his control room (three steps one way, three steps the other 
unless he wished to make complicated detours around chairs and banked 
instruments) was becoming more and more impatient. For many years he had 
thought of himself as a man of peace—but in his younger days, in the 
Federation's Survey Service, he had specialized in gunnery. If there was to be a 
fight he wanted to be in it. Apart from anything else, should he not be present 
at the moment of victory over Adler his prior claim to The Outsider would be 
laughed at by Irene, by Smith, by Flandry and even by his other self. And his 
engines were not developing their full capacity. 
The emergency shutdown of the Mannschenn Drive had affected the smooth 
running of that delicate, 
complex mechanism. It was nothing serious, but 
recalibration was necessary. Recalibration can be carried out only on the 
surface of a planet. And even if there had been any planets in the 
vicinity—which, of course, there were not— Grimes could not afford the time. 
So Faraway Quest limped on, while, at last, the reports started coming in 
from ahead of her. Wanderer 
thought the Vindictive was engaging Adler. One 
of the officers aboard Faraway Quest II had broken the code that Adler was 
using in her Carlotti transmissions to base, and Grimes II reported that 
Blumenfeld was screaming for reinforcements. 
Wanderer and Faraway Quest II were now within extreme missile range of 
the engagement but had not yet opened fire. To do so they would have to revert 
to normal space time. Metzenther, aboard Wanderer, reported through Clarisse 
that he and Trialanne were monitoring the involuntary psionic transmissions of 
the personnel of both ships presently engaged in the fighting, and that 
Flandry was emanating confidence, and Blumenfeld 
a growing doubt as to 
the outcome of the battle. Each ship, however, was finding it difficult to counter 
the unfamiliar weapons being used by the other, and each ship was making 
maximum use of the cover of the derelicts in orbit about The Outsider. 
Wanderer had emerged into the normal continuum 
and had launched 
missiles. 
Faraway Quest II was engaging Adler with long range laser. 
Somebody had scored a direct hit on the Outsiders' 
Ship itself. 
And that was all. 
XXVIII

The carlotti transceiver was dead insofar as Wanderer, Faraway Quest II and 
Adler were concerned. 
There were no psionic transmissions from Wanderer, no 
unintentional emanations from the crews of the other ships. 
What had happened? Had the allies launched their Sunday punch against 
Adler, and had Adler's retaliatory Sunday punch connected on all three of 
them? It was possible, Grimes supposed, just barely possible—but wildly 
improbable. 
"Are you sure you can pick up absolutely nothing?" he demanded of 
Mayhew and Clarisse. (There are usually some survivors, even when a ship is 
totally destroyed, even though they may not survive for long.) 
"Nothing," she replied flatly. And then—"But I'm picking up an emanation.... 
It's more an emotion than actual thought...." 
"I get it too," agreed Mayhew. "It's... it's a sense of strong disapproval." 
"Mphm. I think that I'd disapprove strongly if my ship were shot from under 
me," said Grimes. 
"But... but it's not human..."insisted the girl. 
"Mr. Carnaby," Grimes barked at his navigator. "What do you get in the MPI? 
Is the Outsiders' Ship still there?" 
"Still there, sir. And, as far as I can make out, only four vessels in orbit 
about her.... There could be a cloud of wreckage." 
Possibly a couple of the derelicts, thought Grimes. Possibly Adler, or 
Wanderer, or the other Quest, or Vindictive. Possibly a large hunk blown off the 
Outsiders' Ship herself. Possibly anything. 
He said, "We will stand in cautiously, proceeding 
under Mannschenn Drive 
until we are reasonably 
sure that it is safe to reenter normal space time. 
Meanwhile, Mr. Hendrikson, have all weaponry in a state of instant readiness. 
And you, Major Dalzell, have your men standing by for boarding operations. 
Commander Williams, see that the boats are all cleared away." 
"What is a killer ape?" asked Clarisse suddenly. 
"This is hardly the time or place to speculate about our probable ancestry!" 
snapped Grimes. 
"I am not speculating, Commodore. It is just that I picked up a scrap of 
coherent thought. It was as though a voice—not a human voice—said, 'Nothing 
but killer apes.'" 
"It's a pity we haven't an ethologist along," remarked Grimes. And where was 
Maggie Lazenby, the Survey Service ethologist whom he had known, years ago, 
whom he knew, now—but when was now?—as the other Grimes, captain of 
the other Faraway Quest? Where was Grimes? Where was Irene? Where was 
Flandry? He didn't worry about Blumenfeld. 
He went to look at the MPI screen. It was a pity that it showed no details. 
But that large, rapidly expanding blob of luminescence must be The Outsider; 
those small sparks the derelicts. Carnaby said, in that tone of voice used by 
junior officers who doubt the wisdom of the procedures of their superiors, 
"We're close, sir." 
"Yes, Mr. Carnaby. Mphm." He took his time filling and lighting his pipe. "All 
right, you may stand by the intercom to the engine room. Stop inertia! drive. 
Half-astern. Stop her. Mannschenn Drive—stop! Mr. Hendrikson—stand by all 
weapons!"

And there, plain beyond the viewports, was The Outsider coldly luminescent, 
unscarred, not so much a ship as a castle out of some fairy tale told when Man 
was very young: with towers and turrets, 
cupolas and minarets and gables and 
buttresses, 
awe-inspiring rather than grotesque. And drifting by, tumbling 
over and over, came one of the derelicts, the Shaara vessel aboard which the 
conference had been held. It had been neatly bisected, so that each of its 
halves looked like one of those models of passenger liners in booking agents' 
display windows, cut down the midship line to show every deck, every 
compartment. 
"We will continue to orbit The Outsider," said Grimes. "We will search for 
survivors." 
"Commodore," said Mayhew. "There are no survivors. They are all.... gone." 
"Dead, you mean?" 
"No, sir. Just... gone." 
XXIX 
They were... gone: Wanderer and Adler, Faraway 
Quest II and Vindictive. 
They were gone, without a trace, as though they had never been. (But had they 
ever been?) There was wreckage in orbit about The Outsider—the shattered 
and fused remains of the Dring cruiser: a whirling cloud of fragments that 
could have come only from that weird, archaic and alien ship that had never 
been investigated, that would never now be investigated. 
And Grimes' flag, the 
banner of the Rim Worlds Confederacy that he had planted on the Outsiders' 
Ship, was gone too. This was a small matter and was not noticed until, at last, 
Grimes decided to send away his boarding party. Until then the search for 
survivors had occupied all his attention. 
Faraway Quest had the field to herself. 
"We will carry on," said Grimes heavily, "with what we came out here to do." 
And his conscience was nagging him. Surely there was something that he could 
have done for Flandry, for Irene, for the other Grimes. All of them had helped 
him. What had he done to help them? What had he done to help Maggie? But 
space was so vast, and space time, with its infinitude of dimensions, vaster 
still; and the lost ships and their people were no more than microscopic 
needles in a macrocosmic haystack. Too, he told himself, some clue to their 
fates might be found within that enormous, utterly alien hull. 
So it was that Grimes, suited up, stood in the airlock of the Quest with Sonya 
and Williams and Major Dalzell. The Outsider had... permitted the ship to 
approach much closer than she had before; there would be no need to use the 
boats for the boarding party. The door slowly opened, revealing beyond itself 
that huge, gleaming construction. It looked neither friendly nor menacing. It 
was... neutral. 
Grimes made the little jump required to break magnetic contact between 
boot soles and deck plating, at the same time actuating his suit propulsion 
unit. He knew, without turning to watch, that the others were following him. 
Swiftly he crossed the narrow moat of nothingness, turning himself about his 
short axis at just the right time, coming in to a landing on an area of The

Outsider's hull that was clear of turrets and antennae. He felt rather than 
heard the muffled clang as his feet hit the flat metal surface. Sonya came down 
beside him, then Williams, then Dalzell. 
The commodore looked up at his ship, hanging there in the absolute 
blackness, faint light showing from her control room viewports, a circle of 
brighter light marking the reopened airlock door. He could see four figures 
jumping from it—the sergeant of marines and three privates. Next would be 
Mayhew, with Engineer Commander Davis, Brenda Coles, the assistant 
biochemist and Ruth Macoby, assistant radio officer. It was a pity, thought 
Grimes, that he had not crewed his ship with more specialist officers; but it 
had been assumed, 
of course, that Dr. Druthen and his scientists 
and 
technicians would fill this need. But Druthen and his people, together with von 
Donderberg and his surviving junior officer, were prisoners 
in the empty cargo 
hold in which Faraway Quest's crew had been confined. 
"We're being watched," whispered Sonya, her voice faint from the helmet 
transceiver. 
They were being watched. Two of the antennae on the border of the clear 
area were turning, twisting. 
They looked unpleasantly like cobras poised to 
strike. 
"Not to worry," Grimes assured her. "Calver mentioned the very same thing 
in his report." 
The sergeant and his men were down now. The eight humans were tending 
to huddle. "Break it up!" Dalzell was barking. "Break it up! We're too good a 
target like this!" 
"So is the ship, Major." Grimes told him. 
"Sorry, sir." The young marine did not sound very penitent. "But I think we 
should take all precautions." 
"All right," said Grimes. "Scatter—within reason." 
But he and Sonya stayed 
very close together. 
Mayhew, Davis, Coles and Macoby came in. The telepath identified Grimes 
by the badges of rank on his space suit, came to stand with him and Sonya. 
"Well, Ken?" asked the Commodore. 
"It... it knows we're here. It... it is deciding...." 
"If it doesn't make its mind up soon," said Grimes, "I'll burn my way in." 
"Sir!" Mayhew sounded horrifed. 
"Don't worry," Sonya told him. "It's opening up for us." 
Smoothly, with no vibrations, a circular door was sliding to one side. Those 
standing on it had ample time to get clear of the opening, to group themselves 
about its rim. They looked down into a chamber, lit from no discernible source, 
that was obviously an airlock. From one of its walls, rungs spaced for the 
convenience of human beings extruded 
themselves. (And would those rungs 
have been differently spaced for other, intelligent, space-faring beings? Almost 
certainly.) 
Grimes reported briefly by his suit radio to Hendrikson who had been left in 
charge. He knew without asking that Mayhew would be making a similar report 
to Clarisse. Then he said, "All right. We'll accept the invitation." He lowered 
himself over the rim, a foot on the first rung of the ladder. 
The Outsider's artificial gravity field was functioning, 
and down was down.

There was ample room in the chamber for all twelve of them. They stood 
there silently, watching 
the door slide back into place over their heads. Dalzell 
and his marines kept their hands just over the butts of their handguns. 
Grimes realized that he was doing the same. He was wearing at his belt a pair 
of laser pistols. He spoke again into his helmet microphone. His companions 
could hear him, but it became obvious that they were now cut off from 
communication with the ship. Captain Calver, he remembered, had reported 
the same phenomenon. It didn't really matter. Mayhew said that he could still 
reach Clarisse and that she could reach him. 
"Atmosphere, Commodore," said the biochemist, looking at the gauge among 
the other gauges on her wrist. "Oxygen helium mixture. It would be safe to 
remove our helmets." 
"We keep them on," said Grimes. 
Another door in the curving wall was opening. Beyond it was an alleyway, a 
tunnel that seemed to run for miles and flooded with light. As was the case in 
the chamber there were no globes or tubes visible. There was nothing but that 
shadowless illumination and that long, long metallic tube, like the smooth 
bore of some fantastically huge cannon. 
Grimes hesitated only briefly, then began to stride along the alleyway. 
Sonya stayed at his side. The others followed. Consciously or unconsciously 
they fell into step. The regular crash of their boots on the metal floor was 
echoed, reechoed, amplified. They could have been a regiment 
of the Brigade 
of Guards, or of Roman legionaries. They marched on and on, along that 
tunnel with no end. And as they marched the ghosts of those who had been 
there before them kept pace with them—the spirits of men and of not-men, 
from only yesterday and from ages before 
the Terran killer ape realized that 
an antelope humerus made an effective tool for murder. 
It was wrong to march, Grimes dimly realized. It was wrong to tramp into 
this... this temple in military formation, keeping military step. But millennia 
of martial tradition were too strong for him, were too strong for the others to 
resist (even if they wanted to do so). They were Men, uniformed men, members 
of a crew, proud of their uniforms, their weapons and their ability to use them. 
Before them—unseen, unheard, but almost tangible—marched the phalanxes 
of Alexander, Napoleon's infantry, Rommel's Afrika Korps. Behind them 
marched the armies yet to come. 
Damn it all! thought Grimes desperately, we're spacemen, not soldiers. Even 
Dalzell and his Pongoes are more spacemen than soldiers. 
But a gun doesn't worry about the color of the uniform of the man who fires 
it. 
"Stop!" Mayhew was shouting urgently. "Stop!" He caught Grimes' swinging 
right arm, dragged on it. 
Grimes stopped. Those behind him stopped, in a milling huddle—but the 
hypnotic spell of marching 
feet, of phantom drum and fife and bugle, was 
broken. 
"Yes, Commander Mayhew?" asked Grimes. 
"It's... Clarisse. A message... Important. I couldn't receive until we stopped 
marching...." 
"What is it?" demanded Grimes.

"The... ship... and Clarisse and Hendrikson and the others.... They're 
prisoners again!" 
"Druthen? Von Donderberg?" 
"Yes." 
Grimes turned to his second-in-command. "You heard that, Commander 
Williams?" 
"Yair. But it ain't possible, Skipper. Nary a tool or a weapon among Druthen 
an' his mob. We stripped 'em all to their skivvies before we locked 'em up, just 
to make sure." 
"How did it happen?" Grimes asked Mayhew sharply. 
"The... the details aren't very clear. But Clarisse thinks that it was a swarm 
of fragments, from one of the blown up derelicts, on an unpredictable 
orbit. 
The Quest was holed badly, in several 
places... including the cargo hold. Mr. 
Hendrikson 
opened up so the prisoners could escape to an unholed 
compartment." 
"Any of us would have done the same," said Grimes slowly. He seemed to 
hear Sir Dominic Flandry's mocking laughter. "But what's happening 
now?" 
"Von Donderberg has all the Quest's weapons trained on The Outsider, on 
the airlock door. If we try to get out we shall be like sitting ducks." 
"Stalemate..." said the Commodore. "Well, we've a breathable atmosphere in 
here—I hope. So that's no worry. There may even be water and food suitable 
for our kind of life...." 
"But they're coining after us. The airlock door has opened for them! They're 
here now!" 
"Down!" barked Dalzell, falling prone with a clatter. The others followed suit. 
There were dim figures visible at the end of the tunnel, dim and very distant. 
There was the faraway chatter of some automatic projectile weapon. The Major 
and his men were firing back, but without apparent success. 
And at the back of Grimes' mind a voice—an inhuman voice, mechanical but 
with a hint of emotion—was saying. No, no. Not again. They must learn. They 
must learn. 
Then there was nothingness. 
XXX 
Grimes sat on the hilltop, watching Clarisse work. 
She, clad in the rough, more-or-less cured pelt of a wolflike beast, looked 
like a cavewoman, looked as her ancestors on this very world must have 
looked. Grimes looked like what he was—a castaway. He was wearing the 
ragged remnants of his long Johns. His space suit, together with the suits of 
the others who had been so armored, was stowed neatly in a cave against the 
day when it would be required again—if ever. Other members of the party wore 
what was left of their uniforms. They were all here, all on what Grimes had 
decided 
must be Kinsolving's Planet, twenty men and thirteen women. 
And, some miles away, were Druthen and von Donderberg and their people. 
They were still hostile—and in their tribe were only five women, two of them 
past childbearing age. They had their weapons still—but, like Faraway

Quest's crew, were conserving cartridges and power packs. Nonetheless, three 
nights ago they had approached Grimes' encampment closely enough to bring 
it within range of their trebuchet and had lobbed a couple of boulders into the 
mouth of the main cave before they were driven off by Dalzell and his marines. 
All of them were on Kinsolving's Planet. 
It was Kinsolving's Planet ages before it had been discovered by Commodore 
Kinsolving, ages before those mysterious cavemen had painted their pictures 
on the walls of the caves. (Perhaps the ancestors of those cavemen were here 
now....) The topography was all wrong. But by the time that Man pushed out to 
the rim of the galaxy, old mountain ranges would have been eroded would have 
sunk, seas would roll where now there were plains, wrinklings of the world's 
crust would bring new, towering peaks into being. 
But that feeling of oddness that Grimes had known on his previous visit 
(previous, but in the far distant future) to this planet still persisted. On 
Kinsolving anything could happen, and most probably would. 
Was it some sort of psionic field induced by the Outsiders' Ship? Or had The 
Outsider been drawn to that one position in space by the field? Come to 
that—who (or what) were the Outsiders? Do-gooders? Missionaries? Beings 
whose evolution had taken a different course from that of Man, of the other 
intelligent races of the galaxy? 
And we, thought Grimes, are descendants of the killer ape, children of 
Cain... What would we have been like if our forebears had been herbivores, 
if 
we had not needed to kill for food—and to protect ourselves from other 
predators? What if our first tools had been tools, peaceful tools, and not 
weapons? But conflict is essential to the evolution 
of a species. But it could 
have been conflict with the harsh forces of Nature herself rather than with other 
creatures, related and unrelated. Didn't some ethologist once refer to Man as the 
Bad Weather Animal? 
But They, he thought, as he watched Clarisse, squatting on her hunkers, 
scratching industriously away with a piece of chalky stone on the flat, slate 
surface of the rock, but They have certainly thrown us back to our first 
beginnings. We didn't pass the test. First of all there was the naval battle—and I 
wonder what happened to Wanderer, 
Vindictive, the other Quest and Adler.... 
First of all there was the naval battle, and then the brawl actually within the 
sacred precincts. Calver and his crew must have been very well behaved to 
have been accepted, nonetheless. Perhaps, by this time, the stupid pugnacity is 
being bred out of Man, perhaps Calver was one of the new breed.... 
"Stop brooding!" admonished Sonya sharply. 
"I'm not brooding. I'm thinking. I'm still trying to work things out." 
"You'd be better employed trying to recall every possible, smallest detail of 
your beloved Quest. Clarisse knows damn' all about engineering, and if she's to 
succeed she must have all the help we can give her." 
"If she succeeds...." 
"John!" Her voice betrayed the strain under which she was living. "I'm not 
cut out to be an ancestral cavewoman, or any other sort of cavewoman. I was 
brought up to wear clean clothes, not filthy rags, to bathe in hot water, not a 
stream straight off the ice, to eat well-cooked food, not greasy meat charred on 
the outside and raw inside.... Perhaps I'm too civilized—but this is no world for 
me." She paused. "And here we are, all of us, relying on the wild talent of a

witch, a teleporteuse, who's been at least half poisoning herself by chewing 
various wild fungi which might—or might not—have the proper hallucinogenic 
effect..." She laughed bitterly. "All right—the artists in her ancestry did have 
the power to pull food animals to them. She has it too, as well we know. But 
will it work with a complex construction such as a spaceship?" 
"It worked," Grimes told her, "with complex constructions such as human 
beings. And Clarisse is no more an anatomist or a physiologist than she is an 
engineer." 
"Commodore," Mayhew was calling. "Clarisse needs your help again!" 
Grimes got to his feet. Before he walked to where the artist was at work he 
slowly looked from his vantage point around his little kingdom. To the north 
were the jagged, snowcapped peaks, with their darkly forested foothills. To the 
south was the sea. To east and west were the rolling plains, with their fur of 
coarse, yellowish grass, their outcroppings of stony hillocks and boulders. 
From behind one of the distant hills drifted the blue smoke of Druthen's fires. 
"Commodore!" called Mayhew again. 
"Oh, all right." 
He walked over the rocky hilltop to that slab of slate, to where Davis, 
Williams, Hendrikson and Carnaby were clustered around Clarisse. The sketch 
of Faraway Quest was taking shape, but it was vague, uncertain in outline. 
How many attempts 
had there been to date? Grimes had lost count. Earlier 
drawings had been obliterated by sudden vicious rain showers, had been 
rubbed out in fits of tearful anger by the artist herself. Once, and once only, it 
had seemed that a shimmering ship shape, almost invisible, had hung in the 
air for a microsecond. 
Grimes looked at the faces of his officers, his departmental heads. All 
showed signs of strain, of overmuch concentration. Williams, who was 
responsible 
for maintenance, must have been making 
a mental tally of every 
rivet, every welded seam in the shell plating. Davis would have been visualizing 
machinery; Hendrikson, his weapons; Carnaby, his navigational instruments. 
But.... 
But, Grimes suddenly realized, none of them had seen, had felt the ship as 
a smoothly functioning 
whole. 
"Ready?" he asked Clarisse. 
"Ready," she replied in a tired, distant voice. 
And Grimes remembered. He remembered the first commissioning of 
Faraway Quest and all the work that had gone into her, the maintenance and 
the modifications. He relived his voyage of exploration 
to the Galactic East: his 
landings on Tharn, Grollor, Mellise and Stree. He recalled, vividly, his discovery 
of the antimatter systems to the Galactic West, and that most peculiar voyage, 
during 
which he and Sonya had come together, which was made as part of the 
research into the Rim Ghost phenomena. 
All this he remembered, and more, and his mind was wide open to Clarisse 
as she scratched busily away with her rough piece of chalk—and hers was 
open to him. It was all so vivid, too vivid for mere imagination, for memory. He 
could actually have been standing in his familiar control room.... 
He was standing in his familiar control room. 
But that was impossible.

He opened his eyes, looked around in a slow circle. 
He saw the jagged, snowcapped peaks to the north, with their darkly 
forested foothills. He saw the glimmering sea to the south. To east and west 
were the rolling plains, with their fur of coarse, yellowish grass, their 
outcroppings of stony hillocks 
and boulders. From behind one of the distant 
hills drifted the blue smoke of Druthen's fires. 
But.... 
But he was seeing all this through the wide viewports 
of Faraway Quest. 
He walked, fast, to the screen of the periscope, adjusted the controls of the 
instrument so that he had an all-round view around the ship. Yes—his people, 
his crew were there, all of them staring upward. He did not need to increase 
the magnification 
to see the wonder on their faces. 
"Mphm," he grunted. He went to the panel on which were the controls for 
the airlock doors. He punched the necessary buttons. The illuminated 
indicators came on. OUTER DOOR OPEN. INNER DOOR OPEN. RAMP 
EXTRUDING— to be replaced by RAMP DOWN. 
Meanwhile.... 
He put his eyes to the huge binoculars on their universal mounting. 
Druthen and von Donderberg must have seen the sudden appearance of the 
ship. She would mean a chance of escape for them. Yes, there they were, two 
dozen of them, running. The sun glinted from the weapons they carried—the 
guns with their hoarded ammunition, their carefully conserved power packs. 
It was a hopeless sortie; but desperate men, more than once have achieved 
miracles. 
Grimes sighed, went to the gunner's seat of the bow 40 millimeter cannon. 
He put the gun on manual 
control. It would be the best one for the job; a 
noisy projectile weapon has far greater psychological 
effect than something 
silent and much more deadly. He flipped the selector switches for automatic 
and H.E. He traversed until he had the leaders of the attackers in the 
telescopic sights. Druthen was one of them, his bulk and his waddling 
run 
unmistakable. Von Donderberg was the other. 
Grimes sighed again. He was genuinely sorry for the Waldegrener. In many 
ways he and Grimes were the same breed of cat. Only Druthen then.... 
He shifted his sights slightly. But the explosion of a high explosive shell 
might kill, would probably injure von Donderberg. Solid shot? Yes. One round 
should be ample, if Grimes' old skill with firearms still persisted. And it would 
be a sepctacular enough deterrent for the survivors of Druthen's party. 
Still Grimes hesitated. The hijackers would be marooned on Kinsolving; 
nothing would make him change his mind about that. But even if they didn't 
deserve a chance their children, their descendants did. 
And, on a primitive world such as this, the more outstandingly bad bastards 
contributing to the gene pool the better. 
Again he flipped the ammunition selector switch, then lowered his sights. 
He stitched a neat seam of bursting incendiary shells across the savannah, 
well ahead of Druthen and von Donderberg. 
The long grass was highly and 
satisfactorily flammable. The raiding party retreated in panic. By the time that 
those of them who possessed space armor got back to their camp to put it on, 
no matter how they hurried, Faraway Quest would be gone.

"All aboard, Skipper," reported Williams from behind Grimes. "Take her up?" 
"Take her up, Commander Williams," ordered the Commodore. 
XXXI 
"Set trajectory sir?" asked Carnaby. 
Grimes looked out through the viewports, toward 
the opalescent sphere 
that was Kinsolving, toward the distant luminosity of the Galactic Lens. 
"We have to go somewhere, John," said Sonya sharply. 
"Or somewhen," murmured Grimes. He said, in a louder voice, "We'd better 
head for where The Outsider was, or will be, or is. We have unfinished 
business." 
But it didn't really matter. For the time being, nothing really mattered. 
He had his ship again. 
EOF