Not detecting the expected amount of enthusiasm, Stormalong had smugly pointed out, “Do you have anything else that could go up and visit those things orbiting four hundred miles up there?”

For some days now there had been four bright objects in orbit. First there had been one, then two, and now four.

“Visit them!” Jonnie had said, aghast. “This thing doesn't even have guns anymore!”

“We put them back,” said Stormalong. “And every screen and instrument in it works now. There were spares.”

“You better test fly it,” said Jonnie, “with a jet backpack close to hand!”

“I did,” said Stormalong. “Yesterday. The console buttons are a bit old-fashioned but it flies great.”

“Well, don't go flying up to those objects!” said Jonnie.

“Oh, I didn't,” said Stormalong. “I just took pictures of them.”

He had them. One was a big craft with a diamond-shaped bridge and a lot of blast-gun snouts. One was a cylinder with a control deck in the front, flat end. One was a thing which looked like a five-pointed star with a sort of gun on each star point. And the fourth was a sphere with a ring around it.

“Hey,” said Jonnie, “that answers the description, the last one, of the small gray man's ship, the one you did, but didn't, crash into.”

“Precisely,” said Stormalong. “We're under surveillance.”

Jonnie had known they were under surveillance. No enemy had a monopoly on that. They had shifted their own drone pattern and control to Cornwall and there were repeaters here. Twelve drones, flying slow around the globe, were passing the American minesite every few hours. They were also recording the objects in orbit, though not so well for drones were basically down-looking. No, a potential enemy had no monopoly. And ground defenses were also alert. But it was minimal defense and Jonnie knew it.

Tonight he couldn't sleep at all. Dunneldeen was overdue with the first recordings of Terl’s activities, and Jonnie didn't even know yet whether they would get recordings. Radio chatter about their project was forbidden. He was in the dark.

He got up restlessly at last and paced about. Then he went outside the compound. Hot, muggy. A lion was roaring down by the lake. The sky was overcast. Suddenly he was overcome with the desire for some cool air and a look at stars.

There were a couple of battle planes on standby, ready for a scramble if needed, but they were defense items. The ancient relic Stormalong had repaired was near at hand, a dull green in the glow of compound lights. On impulse, wanting only to do something besides brood, he went in to the duty officer and told him where he was going and got a mask and flight suit.

True enough the controls were a bit old-fashioned. The lift-balance buttons were bigger and in a different place. The gun trips had been moved to make way for the crane controls. But so what? He put on a jet backpack, strapped himself in, closed all the windows tight, and vaulted the old wreck skyward.

He burst through the overcast and there were the stars. Jonnie could always get a thrill from flying. Since that first enchanting day he had been aloft, he had never lost it. The black sky and bright stars, half a moon, some snow-capped peaks close by shoving their crowns up through the overcast and into the night sky. Jonnie felt some of his tension ease away.

He simply enjoyed it. It was certainly cooler now.

Out of habit he scanned his screens. Some blips! He looked through the screen for a visual check. Four objects in orbit was what should be there. No, there were five. One new object was approaching the four old ones, all brighter and steadier than stars. About four hundred miles up.

The last thing he was going to do was go up and “visit” them. Unknown ships there; he was flying a relatively untried ship here. He had no support.

And even if this old relic could fly clear to the moon and back, he needed no additional incidents at this time, thank you.

But maybe he could get some better pictures. Stormy's, taken in daylight, had been fuzzy with ultraviolet. He threw his plane up to a height of two hundred miles and closer to the objects, his attention mainly on putting the recorders on standby.

What was that? A flash from the new fifth ship? Yes. Another flash? Were they shooting at him?

Ready to take evasive action, he suddenly saw a wild flurry of flashes coming from one of the four objects and a splash of light on the fifth. Hey! The fifth ship was shooting at one of the original four and that one was firing back!

He quickly battered away at the old controls and closed the distance to about a hundred fifty miles. He was so intent on getting his recorders working he didn't realize he was shooting in toward those ships at hypersonic maximum.

Astonishing! The fifth ship and one of the original four were really having at it. Blast streaks were sheets of blue-green and red between them. Orange splashes of hits!

Abruptly he realized they were getting awfully big in his viewscreens. A Psychlo-numbered digital was rolling up the narrowing distance. Seventy-five miles.

An instant before he pressed the console for a reverse role and drive, the firing among the ships ceased abruptly.

Jonnie put his old wreck into a full power fall and got out of there. That was not his war. He didn't even know whether he had working guns.

At about a hundred miles above the Earth's surface he eased off. He was about fifty miles up when he was flying level again.

He looked back. They were not firing now. Just sitting up there. The fifth ship seemed to have closed in on the others.

Jonnie shook his head at himself. This was not the time to be doing crazy, reckless things. He had almost done exactly what he had warned Stormy not to do– go visiting.

The old relic he was flying had become heated from air friction. It was built to take it but he had come up for a cool breath of air and now the flight deck was hot. If he'd really wanted to go up there he would have taken just an ordinary battle plane, making sure its gaskets were tight around the doors. And making sure its guns were loaded and working. Sir Robert would not have been proud of him!

Another blip on his viewscreens. Down low at about a hundred thousand feet of altitude. Coming on a route from Scotland? America over the pole?

Warm cabin or no cabin, he streaked down to intercept and identify. He flipped on his local command channel, and just as he did so a voice from the nearby plane came through:

“Don't shoot! I’ll marry your daughter!” It was Dunneldeen.

Jonnie laughed. It was the first time he had laughed since returning from America.

He spun the old relic around and flashed after Dunneldeen as the Scot roared down toward the minesite.

The small gray man in his small gray cabin was sighing patiently. Well, not too patiently. His indigestion had not improved at all, and now this.

Things were distressing enough without the military people getting into fights among themselves. But it was a military matter, not political, not economic, and not strategic, so he was perforce out of it, a mere observer.

He now had four faces on his separate viewscreens. And if it kept on going this way, he'd have to ask his communications officer to break more screens out of stores and put them in on a rack. It made one's office so cluttered.

The face of the Tolnep half-captain was quite angry-looking and he kept adjusting his glasses in an agitated way. “But I don't care if you surprised to see me here. I have no advices at all that our nations are at war!”

The Hawvin's face was the light violet Hawvins got when they were very provoked. The square helmet was crushed down on his oval head, bending his ear antennae. His untoothed but blade-gummed mouth was distorted in the lifted attitude of biting. “How would you know who was at war and who wasn't at war! You cannot be less than five months out from any base!”