banter fades to an occasional obscene remark, either too loud or too forced.

Boredom is dead. The men have a sharper edge than past appearance would suggest. The Commander has done his job well.

Westhause exchanges professional chatter with his colleague aboard the other Climber. The Old Man

and First Watch Officer hover close.

Two hours later. We begin quartering the region where Johnson got her neutrino readings. She dances with us, our two radii of detection barely overlapping.

I'm alert and interested, though not in my screen. I want to catch every nuance in each man's stance, movement, expression. I want to see the subtle alterations in speech patterns that betray emotion.

The Commander demonstrates the most marked change. It's a matter of intensity. Some internal switch has closed. Suddenly, he has a truly commanding presence. The men respond without words being spoken. Their eyes flick to bun, then back to then" work.

The Climber has come ah've. The shark has caught the smell of blood.

This new Commander is the man I came to Canaan to see, the man who was usurped by a bitter,

unfathomable stranger sailing without a compass. The doubts and fears and alum-flavored self- despite have been set aside.

He has his effect on me, too. My nerves settle. He will get us through.

What's happening inside his head? Has he set it all aside and let duty take control? His thinking

remains impenetrable even during his most open moments. For all I know, he's scared shitless.

The new search program has both ships covering a tiny chunk of space in one-minute hyper translations, and closing the communications gap each half hour.

During the first half hour we get a dozen neutrino readings.

"Intensity?" the Commander demands after the last.

"High, Commander."

"Direction? Estimated course line?" This is tricky business here. Like cutting the beam of a

handflash at a kilometer, at an angle, in a microsecond, and trying to guess where the flash is

and where it's heading if it's moving.

Rose and Canzoneri curse and mutter incantations over their thinking devil. The devil puts numbers into the Chief's mouth.

"Put it in the tank," the Old Man orders.

The display tank flickers to a slight adjustment. It gives a skewed view, with the Climber at one boundary. The ship casts a thin cone of red shadow across the tank.

"Got her within twenty degrees of arc," Canzoneri says. A thin black pencil stroke lances down the

heart of the red cone. "Baseline within three degrees of Rathgeber."

"Range?"

"Indeterminate." Of course. We'd have to know what kind of ship she is to guess her distance from

the intensity of her neutrino output here.

"Very well. Mr. Westhause, let's see what the Squadron Leader has."

The net is closing. Johnson's data should pull it tighter.

Time drags. I fidget. Two hunting Climbers leave a lot of tachyon traces. Those people hear us

coming. They'll be on their toes. Right now they're filing their teeth and calling their big

brothers.

The Commander grins as if reading my thoughts. "Don't worry. Our team is sending in the best we have."

"Waiting gracefully isn't one of my virtues."

The others are more patient. They've been schooled for this. As I should know by now, 99 percent of Climber duty consists of waiting.

Can they keep their edge till contact?

Johnson has enough data. We narrow the hunting zone to the size of a backyard garden. Time to go

kick the rabbit out of the lettuce patch.

We jump knowing we'll meet the other firm within hours.

We drop hot on the trail. The neutrino gear sings and pops. We can't be more than a few light

hours behind. Westhause and his co-conspirator confer only briefly. The computers commune. We

translate again.

We almost bracket her this time. On infrared I can pick out the long, wild rapier of ions blowing behind her. Even on max enhancement I can get no image of the ship. She has her black warpaint on and is moving too damned fast.

"Jesus God in a canoe!" Berberian murmurs. "Commander! Check the size of this blip."

The target is millions of kilometers away already.

"Commander, she's started a turn," Berberian adds.

At her velocity it'll be a vast, lazy arc, and the best evasive maneuver available-especially if

she keeps it irregular. There's no way we can keep her in radar range for more than a few seconds.

"Chasing after wind, eh?" The Commander is whispering to Fisherman. I barely catch it. The TD

operator nods. The Old Man notes my interest. "Silly pastime, eh?"

"We'll need luck. Or they'll have to do something stupid."

"They won't. They don't anymore. We've taught them too well."

"Here she comes!"

Startled, I look round wildly, then glare at my screen. Westhause has translated us into the

fugitive's path. For an instant I catch a glimmer that must be Johnson firing.

"That the Squadron Leader?"

"It is," the Commander replies. "She'll attack. We'll observe."

"Commander!" Chief Canzoneri shouts. "That's no logistic hull. That's a goddamned Leviathan Main

Battle."

Bright spider's silk spins across the black satin backdrop from spinnerets on the black widow that is Johnson's Climber. I stare, enthralled, though it lasts but an instant. We skip again. For a moment I forget to roll my visual tapes.

Skip-fire-skip-fire-skip-fire. How can we do any damage this way? Maybe we're just getting her measure.... Canzoneri says the Squadron Leader is tickling her round her bows. I'll have to take his word for it.

A nova takes life at the lase-fire's source.