<p>I threw them as snappy a salute as
I could muster and they filed out.
Staring gloomily at their backs I envied
for one moment their simple
faith in the League Navy. When in
reality the vengeful fleet was just as
imaginary as my admiral's rating.
This was still a job for the Corps.
Inskipp would have to be given the
latest information at once. I had sent
him a psigram about the theft, but
there was no answer as yet. Maybe
the identity of the thieves would stir
some response out of him.</p>
<p>My message was in code, but it
could be quickly broken if someone
wanted to try hard enough. I took it
to the message center myself. The
psiman was in his transparent cubicle
and I locked myself in with him. His
eyes were unfocused as he spoke
softly into a mike, pulling in a message
from somewhere across the galaxy.
Outside the rushing transcribers
copied, coded and filed messages, but
no sound penetrated the insulated
wall. I waited until his attention
clicked back into the room, and
handed him the sheets of paper.</p>
<p>"League Central 14—rush," I told
him.</p>
<p>He raised his eyebrows, but didn't
ask any questions. Establishing contact
only took a few seconds, as they
had an entire battery of psimen for
their communications. He read the
code words carefully, shaping them
with his mouth but not speaking
aloud, the power of his thoughts carrying
across the light-years of distance.
As soon as he was finished I
took back the sheet, tore it up and
pocketed the pieces.</p>
<p>I had my answer back quickly
enough, Inskipp must have been
hovering around waiting for my message.
The mike was turned off to the
transcribers outside, and I took the
code groups down in shorthand myself.</p>
<p>"... xybb dfil fdno, and if you
don't—don't come back!"</p>
<p>The message broke into clear at
the end and the psiman smiled as he
spoke the words. I broke the point
off my stylus and growled at him not
to repeat <i>any</i> of this message, as it
was classified, and I would personally
see him shot if he did. That got
rid of the smile, but didn't make me
feel any better.</p>
<p>The decoded message turned out
not to be as bad as I had imagined.
Until further notice I was in charge
of tracking and capturing the stolen
battleship. I could call on the League
for any aid I needed. I would keep
my identity as an admiral for the
rest of the job. I was to keep him
informed of progress. Only those
ominous last words in clear kept my
happiness from being complete.</p>
<p>I had been handed my long-awaited
assignment. But translated
into simple terms my orders were to
get the battleship, or it would be my
neck. Never a word about my efforts
in uncovering the plot in the first
place. This is a heartless world we
live in.</p>
<p>This moment of self-pity relaxed
me and I immediately went to bed.
Since my main job now was waiting,
I could wait just as well asleep.</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>And waiting was all I could do.
Of course there were secondary tasks,
such as ordering a Naval cruiser for
my own use, and digging for more
information on the thieves, but these
really were secondary to my main
purpose. Which was waiting for bad
news. There was no place I could go
that would be better situated for the
chase than Cittanuvo. The missing
ship could have gone in any direction.
With each passing minute the
sphere of probable locations grew
larger by the power of the squared
cube. I kept the on-watch crew of
the cruiser at duty stations and confined
the rest within a one hundred
yard radius of the ship.</p>
<p>There was little more information
on Pepe and Angelina, they had
covered their tracks well. Their origin
was unknown, though the fact they
both talked with a slight accent suggested
an off-world origin. There was
one dim picture of Pepe, chubby but
looking too grim to be a happy fat
boy. There was no picture of the girl.
I shuffled the meager findings, controlled
my impatience, and kept the
ship's psiman busy pulling in all the
reports of any kind of trouble in
space. The navigator and I plotted
their locations in his tank, comparing
the positions in relation to the growing
sphere that enclosed all the possible
locations of the stolen ship.
Some of the disasters and apparent
accidents hit inside this area, but
further investigation proved them all
to have natural causes.</p>
<p>I had left standing orders that all
reports falling inside the danger area
were to be brought to me at any time.
The messenger woke me from a deep
sleep, turning on the light and handing
me the slip of paper. I blinked
myself awake, read the first two lines,
and pressed the <i>action station</i> alarm
over my bunk. I'll say this, the Navy
boys know their business. When the
sirens screamed, the crew secured
ship and blasted off before I had
finished reading the report. As soon
as my eyeballs unsquashed back into
focus I read it through, then once
more, carefully, from the beginning.</p>
<p>It looked like the one we had been
waiting for. There were no witnesses
to the tragedy, but a number of monitor
stations had picked up the discharge
static of a large energy weapon
being fired. Triangulation had lead
investigators to the spot where they
found a freighter, <i>Ogget's Dream</i>,
with a hole punched through it as
big as a railroad tunnel. The freighter's
cargo of plutonium was gone.</p>
<p>I read <i>Pepe</i> in every line of the
message. Since he was flying an
undermanned battleship, he had used
it in the most efficient way possible.
If he attempted to negotiate or
threaten another ship, the element
of chance would be introduced. So
he had simply roared up to the
unsuspecting freighter and blasted her
with the monster guns his battleship
packed. All eighteen men aboard had
been killed instantly. The thieves
were now murderers.</p>
<p>I was under pressure now to act.
And under a greater pressure not to
make any mistakes. Roly-poly Pepe
had shown himself to be a ruthless
killer. He knew what he wanted—then
reached out and took it. Destroying
anyone who stood in his way.
More people would die before this
was over, it was up to me to keep
that number as small as possible.</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>Ideally I should have rushed out
the fleet with guns blazing and dragged
him to justice. Very nice, and I
wished it could be done that way.
Except where was he? A battleship
may be gigantic on some terms of
reference, but in the immensity of the
galaxy it is microscopically infinitesimal.
As long as it stayed out of the
regular lanes of commerce, and clear
of detector stations and planets, it
would never be found.</p>
<p>Then how <i>could</i> I find it—and
having found it, catch it? When the
infernal thing was more than a match
for any ship it might meet. That was
my problem. It had kept me awake
nights and talking to myself days,
since there was no easy answer.</p>
<p>I had to construct a solution, slowly
and carefully. Since I couldn't be
sure where Pepe was going to be
next, I had to make him go where I
wanted him to.</p>
<p>There were some things in my
favor. The most important was the
fact I had forced him to make his
play before he was absolutely ready.
It wasn't chance that he had left the
same day I arrived on Cittanuvo. Any
plan as elaborate as his certainly included
warning of approaching danger.
The drive on the battleship, as
well as controls and primary armament
had been installed weeks before
I showed up. Much of the subsidiary
work remained to be done when the
ship had left. One witness of the
theft had graphically described the
power lines and cables dangling from
the ship's locks when she lifted.</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/004.png" width-obs="600" height-obs="445" alt="" title="" /></div>
<p>My arrival had forced Pepe off
balance. Now I had to keep pushing
until he fell. This meant I had to
think as he did, fall into his plan,
think ahead—then trap him. Set a
thief to catch a thief. A great theory,
only I felt uncomfortably on the spot
when I tried to put it into practice.</p>
<p>A drink helped, as did a cigar.
Puffing on it, staring at the smooth
bulkhead, relaxed me a bit. After all—there
aren't that many things you
can do with a battleship. You can't
run a big con, blow safes or make
burmedex with it. It is hell-on-jets
for space piracy, but that's about all.</p>
<p>"Great, great—but why a battleship?"</p>
<p>I was talking to myself, normally a
bad sign, but right now I didn't care.
The mood of space piracy had seized
me and I had been going along fine.
Until this glaring inconsistency jumped
out and hit me square in the
eye.</p>
<p>Why a battleship? Why all the
trouble and years of work to get a
ship that two people could just barely
manage? With a tenth of the effort
Pepe could have had a cruiser that
would have suited his purposes just
as well.</p>
<p>Just as good for space piracy, that
is—but not for <i>his</i> purposes. He had
wanted a battleship, and he had gotten
himself a battleship. Which
meant he had more in mind than
simple piracy. What? It was obvious
that Pepe was a monomaniac, an
egomaniac, and as psychotic as a
shorted computer. Some day the mystery
of how he had slipped through
the screen of official testing would
have to be investigated. That wasn't
my concern now. He still had to be
caught.</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>A plan was beginning to take
shape in my head, but I didn't rush
it. First I had to be sure that I knew
him well. Any man that can con an
entire world into building a battleship
for him—then steal it from
them—is not going to stop there. The
ship would need a crew, a base for
refueling and a mission.</p>
<p>Fuel had been taken care of first,
the gutted hull of <i>Ogget's Dream</i>
was silent witness to that. There were
countless planets that could be used
as a base. Getting a crew would be
more difficult in these peaceful times,
although I could think of a few answers
to that one, too. Raid the mental
hospitals and jails. Do that often
enough and you would have a crew
that would make any pirate chief
proud. Though piracy was, of course,
too mean an ambition to ascribe to
this boy. Did he want to rule a whole
planet—or maybe an entire system?
Or more? I shuddered a bit as the
thought hit me. Was there really anything
that could stop a plan like this
once it got rolling? During the Kingly
Wars any number of types with a
couple of ships and less brains than
Pepe had set up just this kind of
empire. They were all pulled down
in the end, since their success depended
on one-man rule. But the
price that had to be paid first!</p>
<p>This was the plan and I felt in my
bones that I was right. I might be
wrong on some of the minor details,
they weren't important. I knew the
general outline of the idea, just as
when I bumped into a mark I knew
how much he could be taken for, and
just how to do it. There are natural
laws in crime as in every other field
of human endeavor. I <i>knew</i> this
was it.</p>
<p>"Get the Communications Officer
in here at once," I shouted at the
intercom. "Also a couple of clerks
with transcribers. And fast—this is
a matter of life or death!" This last
had a hollow ring, and I realized my
enthusiasm had carried me out of
character. I buttoned my collar,
straightened my ribbons and squared
my shoulders. By the time they knocked
on the door I was all admiral
again.</p>
<p>Acting on my orders the ship
dropped out of warpdrive so our psiman
could get through to the other
operators. Captain Steng grumbled as
we floated there with the engines
silent, wasting precious days, while
half his crew was involved in getting
out what appeared to be insane instructions.
My plan was beyond his
understanding. Which is, of course,
why he is a captain and I'm an admiral,
even a temporary one.</p>
<p>Following my orders, the navigator
again constructed a sphere of
speculation in his tank. The surface
of the sphere contacted all the star
systems a days flight ahead of the
maximum flight of the stolen battleship.
There weren't too many of these
at first and the psiman could handle
them all, calling each in turn and
sending by news releases to the
Naval Public Relations officers there.
As the sphere kept growing he started
to drop behind, steadily losing
ground. By this time I had a general
release prepared, along with directions
for use and follow up, which he
sent to Central 14. The battery of
psimen there contacted the individual
planets and all we had to do
was keep adding to the list of
planets.</p>
<p>The release and follow-ups all
harped on one theme. I expanded on
it, waxed enthusiastic, condemned it,
and worked it into an interview. I
wrote as many variations as I could,
so it could be slipped into as many
different formats as possible. In one
form or another I wanted the basic
information in every magazine,
newspaper and journal inside that
expanding sphere.</p>
<p>"What in the devil does this nonsense
<i>mean</i>?" Captain Steng asked
peevishly. He had long since given
up the entire operation as a futile
one, and spent most of the time in
his cabin worrying about the affect
of it on his service record. Boredom
or curiosity had driven him out, and
he was reading one of my releases
with horror.</p>
<p>"Billionaire to found own world
... space yacht filled with luxuries
to last a hundred years," the captain's
face grew red as he flipped
through the stack of notes. "What
connection does this tripe have with
catching those murderers?"</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
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