The _Isis_ came to a stop in space. The battleship rose and rose. It did not drive toward the _Isis_. There was a maximum distance beyond which space-combat was impractical; beyond which missiles became mere blind projectiles moving almost at random and destroying each other without regard to planetary loyalties. There was also a minimum distance, below which missiles were again mere projectiles and could not greatly modify the courses on which they were launched.
But there was a wide area in between, in which combat was practical. The Mekinese battleship reached a height where it could maneuver on solar-system drive without rockets. It might, of course, flick into overdrive and be gone thousands of millions of miles within seconds. But that would be flight. It would not return accurately to the scene of the fight. So overdrive could not be used as a battle tactic. It could be used only for escape.
Near the planet, where the two space-boats floated, the dawnline appeared at the world's edge. The space-boats swung about, facing backward, and applied power for deceleration. They dropped into the atmosphere and bounced out again, and in again--more deeply--and then swung once more to face along their course. They began a long, shallow, screaming descent from the farthest limits of the planet's atmosphere.
Out where the sun of Garen was a disk of intolerable brilliance and heat, the battleship bumbled on its way. It would seem that its commander scornfully accepted the _Isis's_ terms of combat and moved contemptuously to the position where his weapons would be most deadly. His ship's launching-tubes were at the ready. It should be able to pour out a cloud of missiles. In fact, a sardonic voice came from the battleship.
"_I was about to say_," said the sardonic voice, "_that it is now too late._"
The radar-screen showed tiny specks darting out from that larger speck which was the battleship. They came hurtling toward the _Isis_. Bors counted them. A ship of the _Isis's_ class mounted eighteen launching-tubes. She should be able to fire eighteen missiles at a time. The Mekinese ship had fired nineteen. If the _Isis_ opened fire, by all the previous rules of space-combat, she would need to use one missile to counter every one of the battleship's, there would still be one left over to destroy the _Isis_--unless she fired a second spread of missiles, which was virtually impossible before she would be hit.