Five minutes later the captain of ordnance announced, “The ship is revolving, sir. She’s in an erratic course about half a million miles off our starboard bow.”
Gorthy grunted. “Watch her.”
They saw her name then, printed in strange characters that no one could read. “I’d say she’s from the Third Universe,” said the junior admiral. “But what’s she doing away over here?”
“She could be off course,” said the captain of ordnance.
“Not a hundred thousand light-years off course,” growled Gorthy. “You’re the semantics expert, Lt. Braniff. What do you make of her name?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said Braniff. “The only guess I can make is that those symbols have a mathematical origin, but they’re definitely not the symbols of the Triangle-men of Theta Cygni.”
Gorthy grunted.
“I think she’s getti
