Chapter TWO, part three

“You getting something, Sandy?” asked Ling after awhile as the girl listened intently, carefully fine-tuning the signal, if it was a signal. She only nodded once, a curt shake of her bouncy curls as she held the earpiece tightly. The lieutenant turned back to his scanner, checking to make sure the computer was recording all the readings. If it was a ship. . .

“It's gone now,” said Leblanc, looking up with a shake of her head. “It's like a sine-modulated carrier wave; no apparent code, just the wave.”

“Um,” grunted the science officer, looking into his scope. “The blip's faded out. . . You pin-point the source of the signal?”

“It seemed to emanate from the general vicinity of your blip. . . You know I think it is?”

“What?” asked Ling, looking up.

“A ship, tailing us, trying to cause trouble, though how such a simply modulated signal is going to cause trouble, I don't know.”

“Could be. But you know how Wes is. He'll accept it as an hypothesis, but he won't take it seriously without a heck of a lot more support. We've got be absolutely certain it wasn't a glitch or he'll bring up that old “Toreador” story again,” sighed the Lieutenant, grimacing at the memory.

“Yes,” smiled Leblanc, dimpling. “I wonder how he never tires of telling us all how he spent five weeks chasing his own shadow. You'd think he'd find it too embarrassing.”

“Well, call it an object lesson in checking ALL your facts,” replied Ling, returning the smile. “In the meantime, I'll check all the circuitry again.”