Which was its purpose. It would arouse professional curiosity on the cruiser, which would then waste some precious time attempting to identify it. There wouldn't be suspicion because it didn't act suspiciously. Still, it couldn't be dismissed, because it didn't behave in any recognizable fashion. The cruiser would want to know more about it; it shouldn't move at a steady velocity going outward from a sun.
In consequence, Bors got in the first shot.
He said, "Fire one!" when the Mekinese would be just about planning to turn their electron-telescope upon it. A missile leaped away from the _Isis_. It went off at an angle, and it curved madly, and the instrumentation of the cruiser could spot it as now there, now here, now nearer, and now nearer still. But the computers could not handle an object which not only changed velocity but changed the rate at which its velocity changed.
Missiles came pouring out of the Mekinese ship. They were infinitesimal, bright specks on the radar-screen. They curved violently in flight trying to intercept the _Isis's_ missile. They failed.
There was a flash of sun-bright flame very, very far away. There was a little cloud of vapor which dissipated swiftly. Then there was nothing but two or three specks moving at random, their target lost, their purpose forgotten. The fact of victory was an anticlimax.
The inner-compartment doors opened. The normal sounds of the ship were heard again. Bors began to calculate the data needed for the journey to Garen. There was the angle and the distance and the proper motions and the time elapsed.... He found it difficult to think in such terms. He was discontented. He'd ambushed a Mekinese cruiser. True, he'd let his own ship be seen, and the Mekinese had warning enough to launch missiles in their own defense. It was not even faintly like the ambush of a cruiser on the bottom of a Kandarian sea, waiting to assassinate a fleet when its complement went on board. But Bors didn't like what he'd just done.
The figures wouldn't come out right. Impatiently, he sent for Logan. The mathematical Talent came into the control room.
"Will you calculate this for me?" Bors asked irritably.
Logan glanced casually at the figures and wrote down the answer. Instantly. Without thought or reflection. Instantly!