On

"From a standing

"From a standing start, we'd overhaul him in short order. But he got the jump on us by a couple of minutes, after he lobbed the fish into us. If we'd been able to close the gap in the first half hour or so, we'd have had him; but at trans-L velocities, you can get some strange effects. One of them is that our vectors become asymptotic. We're closing on him—but we'll never overtake him."
Pryor whistled. "Broadly could be busted for this fiasco."
"Uh-huh," Aaron grinned. "Could be—unless the bandit stops off somewhere for a quick one . . ."
After Aaron rang off, Pryor turned to study the position repeater screen. On it Malthusa was represented by a bright point at the center, the fleeing Djann craft by a red dot above.
"Charlie,"