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one.”
    â€œThen it’d have to be a landing party….”
    â€œWith Hiver ground batteries trained on it?” Yngocelen asked sarcastically. “They’d blast it out of the sky once they saw it moving away rather than let us have it.”
    â€œBut they don’t
know
we’re here,” Langio reminded them.
    â€œAnd they’re not supposed to,” Metrios said, heaving a sigh.
    â€œRojer, you couldn’t just inch it out of their surface-to-air missile range?” Langio asked plaintively.
    â€œNo, I couldn’t. Not even to give Captain Prtglm its moment of glory.”
    â€œNow wait a minute,” Metrios said, and turning to his console, accessed another program. “To get the Great Sphere back, two Galaxy-class ships acted as tows, and a shuttle was attached to control directional thrusters….”
    â€œSo?” Yngocelen asked.
    â€œIf we could mount thrusters on the hull…”
    â€œThat would mean we’d be seen from the surface…”Yngocelen interjected. “Oh…” he added, and turned, as Metrios had, to Rojer.
    Rojer shook his head. “Look,
sirs
,” and he paused to give the courtesy address emphasis, “I’m glad to oblige with a lot of things but if anyone…anything…down there is monitoring space—and they sure knew when the refugee ship arrived—thrusters big enough to move it out of orbit would be very very visible, even if putting them there wasn’t.”
    â€œWhat do we know about Hiver eyesight?”
    â€œThey probably have a specialist for that, too,” Anis remarked in a caustic tone.
    â€œPossibly,” Metrios agreed and then went on, “but why would they be watching a ship they know is disabled and uninhabited?” Clearly, he wanted to defend his strategy. “They
don’t
know we’re here. They certainly wouldn’t expect
anyone
to come robbing them of a ship. Surprise is a big plus….”
    â€œOur orders, gentlemen,” Captain Osullivan reminded them in droll reprimand, “are to hold a watching brief.” Then he gave them a wistful smile. “The Council has not given us any latitude. We are especially not to engage the enemy at this point in time.” He heard their murmurs of discontent and disappointment. “If we can follow their ion trails, they can follow ours.”
    â€œTrue enough, sir, but they don’t have another operational vehicle,” Metrios pointed out.
    â€œWe have our orders, gentlemen, and we will obey them,” Osullivan said and strode to his command chair, where he remained the rest of that watch.
    *   *   *
    It was the next morning that the captain asked Rojer to report to the bridge before his usual watch.
    â€œIt occurred to me, Rojer,” Osullivan said at his mostrelaxed and genial, “that we shouldn’t miss a golden opportunity.”
    â€œWhich one, sir?” Rojer asked dubiously, glancing at Metrios, Doplas and Yngocelen, who were ranged behind the captain.
    Osullivan grinned, as did the others. “Only that one area of this vessel is destroyed? Right?” When Rojer nodded, the captain went on, “You seemed to have no difficulty ’porting that monitor around the interior.”
    â€œIt was a small one, with a limited detection capacity…. Oh, I see…”
    At Rojer’s sudden comprehension, Osullivan turned to the other officers. “He catches on real quick. Good lad. If we can present coherent diagrams of every level of
this
ship, the crews restoring the Great Sphere will have a template to work from. Captain Prtglm informed me that the design has not altered in all the centuries they’ve been dealing with the Hivers.”
    â€œExcept for the size of the Great Sphere…” Metrios interposed.
    â€œWould you oblige?” Osullivan said, gesturing at Rojer’s couch and grinning with