But the “why.” That’s what gets me. Some entity aboard (either a computer or a crew) decided to come to my ship. How did they even know I was here?

Same way I saw them, I guess. The massive IR light coming off my engines. And since the rear of my ship was pointed at Tau Ceti, that means I was shining a 540-trillion-watt flashlight in their direction. Depending on where they were at the time, I might have appeared even brighter than Tau Ceti itself. At least, in the Petrova frequency.

So they can see the Petrova frequency. And so can I.

I flip through the Spin Drive console screens until I find one labeled “Manual Control.” When I select it, a warning dialog pops up:

MANUAL CONTROL IS RECOMMENDED ONLY FOR EMERGENCIES. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO ENTER MANUAL CONTROL MODE?

I tap “Yes.” It brings up another dialog.

SECOND CONFIRMATION: TYPE “Y-E-S” TO ENTER MANUAL CONTROL MODE.

I groan and type Y-E-S.

The panel finally takes me to the Manual Control screen. It’s a bit scary. Not because it’s complex, but because it’s so simple.

There are three sliders labeled “Drive1,” “Drive2,” and “Drive3,” each presently at zero. The top of each slider is labeled “107N.” The N must mean “Newtons” —a unit of force. I guess if I threw all three drives to maximum, it would give me 30 million Newtons. That’s about sixty times the thrust a jumbo jet’s engines produce during takeoff.

Science teachers know a lot of random facts.

There are a bunch more little sliders. In groups labeled “Yaw,” “Pitch,” and “Roll.” There must be little spin drives on the sides of the ship to adjust its orientation. I can definitely see why it’s a bad idea to mess with this panel. One screw-up and I’ll put the ship into a spin that tears it apart.

But at least they thought of that. There’s a button in the middle of the screen labeled “Zero All Rotation.” Good.

I check the Petrovascope again. Blip-A hasn’t moved. It’s on my port side, and slightly forward.

I flick the Petrovascope back to Petrova-frequency mode, and the screen turns mostly black. As before, I can see the Petrova line in the background, occluded by Blip-A.

“Let’s see if you have anything to say…” I mumble. Spin drive 2 is in the center of the ship. Its thrust will be along my central axis and hopefully won’t introduce attitude change. We’ll see.

I set it to 0.1% power for one second, then back to 0.

Even with just one engine, at one one-thousandth power, for one second, the ship drifts a bit. The “Velocity” value for Blip-A on the Radar panel shows 0.086 m/s. That tiny thrust set my ship moving about 8 centimeters per second.

But I don’t care about that. I care about the other ship.