He turned his attention back to the cards. The pilot, who was English, called this game Patience. It was well named. Kzanol was learning patience the hard way. The floor of the lounge was littered with scraps of torn plastic; but this one deck had already survived ten lost games. It was the last deck on board.

Growling deep in his throat, like the carnivore he was, Kzanol scraped the cards together and shuffled them. He was learning coordination, too. And he had learned something about himself: he would not let a slave see him cheating at cards. He had cheated once, and the pilot had somehow guessed. He would not cheat again.

Kzanol jumped. Another one! This one was too far to the side to control, but easily dose enough to sense. And yet… the image had a fuzziness that had nothing to do with distance. As if the slave were asleep. But… different.

For half an hour it stayed within reach. In that time Kzanol satisfied himself that there was no other slave on board. He did not think of another thrint. He would have recognized the taste of a thrint command.

At six hundred hours the next morning, Greenberg's ship turned around. Three minutes later the Golden Circle did the same. Anderson found the prints in the scope camera when he woke up: two lights which stretched slowly into bright lines, then contracted with equal deliberation into somewhat brighter points.

The time passed slowly. Garner and Anderson were already deep in a tournament which they played on the viewer screen: a rectangular array of dots to be connected by lines, with victory going to the player who completed the most squares.

Almost every day they raised the stakes.

On the morning of the last day Garner got back to even. At one point he had been almost eleven thousand dollars in debt. "See?" he said. "You don't give up all your pleasures as you get older."

"Just one," Anderson said thoughtlessly.

"More than that," Garner admitted. "My taste buds have been wearing out for, lo, these many years. But I guess someday someone will find a way to replace them. Just like my spinal cord. That wore out too."

"Wore out? You mean it wasn't an accident? The nerves just died?"

"Just went into a coma would be more like it."

A swift change of subject was in order. "Have you got any better idea of what we do when we get to Neptune? Do we hide on one of the moons and watch?"

"Right," said Garner.

But half an hour later he asked, "Can we reach Earth from here?"

"Only by maser," Anderson said dubiously. "Everyone on Earth will be able to listen in. The beam will spread that far. Have you got any secrets from the man on the slidewalk?"

"Don't worry about it. Aim a maser at Earth."

It took half an hour for Anderson to center the beam and set it tracking. "If it's 'Love to Mother, you're dead," he warned Garner.

"My mother passed away some time ago. In fact, it's been just about a century. And she thought she was an old woman! Hello, Arm Headquarters. This is Lucas Garner calling the United Nations Technological Police."

Anderson nudged him with an elbow. "Are you waiting for an answer, shnook?"

"Of course not!" Habits are hard to break. "This is Garner calling Arm Headquarters, Earth. Please aim your reply at Neptune. We urgently need the following information from Dorcas Jansky. Does his retarder field stop radar completely? Repeat, completely. Would the ET suit do the same?" He put down the mike. "Okay, son, repeat that a few times."

"All right, it's on repeat. Now what was that all about?"

"I don't know why it took me so long to figure it out," Garner said smugly. "The ET has been frozen for about two billion years, according to Greenberg. I think he was telling the truth. He couldn't know that there's something on Neptune unless he put it there two billion years ago. And how could he assume that it hasn't fallen apart or rusted to death or whatever, after all that time?"

"It's in a retarder field."

"Right."

Anderson looked at the chron. "You'll be getting your answer in a little over eight hours, not counting the time it takes to get what's-his-name. Figure an hour; they'll be calling around nineteen thirty. So let's get some sleep. We'll be coming in about three tomorrow morning."

"Okay. Sleeping pills?"

"Uh huh." Anderson punched buttons on the medicine box.

"Luke, I still think you were waiting for Earth to answer."

"You can't prove it, son."

Twenty-one forty-five. Garner studied the board for a moment, then drew one short line between two dots of light. The scanner, set to follow the movements of the tip of his stylus, reproduced the line on the board.

The radio boomed to life.

"This is Arm Headquarters calling spaceship Heinlein. Arm Headquarters calling Lucas Garner, spaceship Heinlein. Garner, this is Chick. I got hold of Jansky this morning, and he spent three hours doing experiments in our lab. He says a retarder field does, repeat does, reflect one hundred percent of energy of any frequency, including radar, and including everything he could think of. Visible, ultraviolet, infrared, radio, X rays. If you're interested, he thinks there's a mathematical relation between a retarder field and a fusion shield. If he finds one, do you want to know? Is there anything else we can help you with?"

"You can help me with this game," Luke muttered. But Anderson had erased it, along with the six-inch curve Luke had drawn when he jerked his arm at the sound of the radio.

The man in the lead ship ran fingers through his cottony hair like a man sorely puzzled. He barely had room-in the tiny control bubble. "All ships," he said. "What the hell did he mean by that?"

After a few moments someone suggested, "Code message." Others chorused agreement. Then Tartov asked, "Lew, does Earth have something called a retarder-field?"

"I don't know. And there's nowhere we can beam a maser that some Earth ship won't get in it." He sighed, for masers are always a chore to use. "Someone ask the Political Section about retarder fields."

"Retarder fields?"

"Retarder fields. And they sent us the full text of the message to Garner."

Lit smiled with one side of his mouth. "Retarder fields were part of Garner's story. I knew he'd be thorough, but this is ridiculous." He thought of the thousands of Belt ships he'd put on standby alert, just in case Garner's fleet was intended to distract attention from things closer to home; and he thought of five mining ships and a priceless radar proof headed for what might as well be outer space. Garner was causing more than his fair share of activity. "All right, I'll play his silly game. Beam Arm Headquarters and ask them what they know about retarder fields."

Cutter was shocked. "Ask the Arms?" Then he got the joke, and his face was chilled by a smile. On Cutter a smile always looked false.

It wasn't until Arm Headquarters cautiously denied all knowledge of retarder fields, that Lit Shaeffer began to have doubts.

With the first jarring clang of the alarm Garner was awake. He saw Anderson groan and open his eyes, but the eyes weren't seeing anything. "Meteor strike!" he bawled.

Anderson's eyes became aware. "Not funny," he said.

"No?"

"No. Are you the type who yells 'Red Alert' on a crowded slidewalk? What time is it?"

"Oh three oh four." Garner looked out at the stars. "No Neptune. Why?"

"Just a sec." Anderson fooled with the attitude jets. The ship swung around. Neptune was a blue-green ball, dim in the faint sunlight. Usually a world that close is awe-inspiring, if not blinding. This world only looked terribly cold.

"There it is. What'll I do with it?"