But it would not arrive on Kandar for a long while yet. Not for three whole days.
The small fighting ship lifted swiftly from the surface of Kandar. As it rose, the sky turned dark and the sun's brilliant disk, far too bright to be looked at with unshielded eyes, became a blazing furnace that could roast unshielded flesh. Stars appeared, shining myriads despite the sun, with every one vivid against a background of black. The planet's surface became a half-ball, of which a part lay in darkness.
"_Co-o-ntact!_" said a voice through many speakers placed throughout the fighting ship's hull.
There was the rushing sound of compartment doors closing. Then a cushioned silence everywhere, save for the faint, standby scratching sounds that loudspeakers always emit.
Screens lighted. A speck moved among the stars.
"_Prepare counter-missiles_," said the voice. "_Proximity and track. Fire only as missiles appear._"
The moving speck flamed and was again only a moving speck. It ejected something which hurtled toward the ship just up from Kandar.
"_Intercept one away!_" said a confident voice.
The last-launched missile fled toward the first moving speck, diminishing as it went. It swung suddenly, off course.
"_Fire two!_" snapped somebody somewhere.
Another object hurtled away toward the stars.
Far away, something came plunging toward the ship. It did not travel in a straight line. It curved. It was not reasonable for a missile to travel in a curved line. The interceptor missiles had to detect it, swing to intercept, to accelerate furiously. The first interceptor missed. Worse, it had lost its target. It went wandering vaguely among the stars and was gone.
The second missed. The voice in the speaker seemed to crack.
"_Fire all missiles! They're turning too late! Pull 'em up ahead of the damned thing!_"
The deadly contrivances plunged away and further away into emptiness. The third interceptor missed. The fourth. Tiny specks moved gracefully on the radar screen. There was something coming toward the ship that had risen from Kandar. The tracer-trails of missiles appeared against the stars. They made very pretty parabolas. That was all. The thing that was coming left a tracer-trail too. It curved preposterously. The just-risen ship furiously flung missiles at it. It did not dodge. But none of the tracer-trails intersected its own. All of them passed to its rear.