When she vanished, the speck which indicated her position disappeared from the Mekinese radar-screens. The hundredth of a second in overdrive as known to the Mekinese should have put her hundreds of millions of miles away. But something new had been added to the _Horus_. The hundredth of a second did not mean millions of miles of journeying. It meant something under three thousand, and a much more precise interval of time could be measured and used by her micro-timer.
Therefore, at one instant the _Horus_ was some two thousand miles from the lip of the half-globe of enemy ships. Then she was not anywhere. Then, before the mind could grasp the fact of her vanishing, she was in the very center, the exact focus of the formation of Mekinese battle-craft. She was at the spot a Mekinese commander would most devoutly wish, because it was equidistant from all his ships, and all their missiles should arrive at the same instant when their overwhelming number could not conceivably be parried.
But it was more than an ideal position from a Mekinese standpoint. It was also a point which was ideal for the _Horus_, because all her missiles would arrive at the encircling ships at the same instant. Each Mekinese would separately learn--without information from any other--that those projectiles could not be intercepted. No Mekinese would have the advantage of watching the tactic practiced on a companion-ship, to guide his own actions.
The _Horus_ appeared at that utterly vulnerable and wholly advantageous position. She showed on the Mekinese screens. They launched missiles. The _Horus_ launched missiles.
She reappeared, beyond and behind the half-globe formation. Again she showed on the Mekinese screens. The Mekinese could not believe their instruments. A ship which fled in overdrive could not reappear like this! Having vanished and reappeared once, it could not duplicate the trick. Having duplicated it....
There was more, and worse. The _Horus_ missiles were not being intercepted. Mekinese missiles were swerving crazily to try to anticipate and destroy the curving, impossibly-moving objects that went out from where the _Horus_ had ceased to be. They failed. Clouds of new trajectiles appeared....