"Who are they? How many? ” Even as I asked, I was activating the console's laser and missile triggers. lt might turn out to be noth- ing at all. But a WWWA Crime TroubIe ConsuI- tant iS always prepared. Of course, one reason been nicknamed the Dirty Pair was that we were always an itty-bitty bit t00 prepared.. "There're five bogies, ” came Yuri's answer. "Twenty-meter-class saucers! They're heading straight for us!" we have a visual? ” “ I ' 11 feed it onto the main screen. Except for the emergency port, there are no win- dows in Lovely Angel's conical control cabin. ln- stead, we can check out each and every kind of situation on the dozens Of large and small screens of all descriptions lining the wall panels. The larg- est one, located directly in front of the pilot and co-pilot seats, is the main screen. 、 can call up any kind Of image on it, from X-ray scans to en- hanced imagery ・ screen showed five flying saucers bar- reling toward Lovely Angel. The distant silver specks glittered against a background of dazzling blue sky. "Enlarge one for me!" The image shifted before I could finish speaking ・ 18

waist, and add four rocket nozzles and four alternating tWO large and tWO tO the stern. That's a general description of LovelY Angel. Of course, she's really formed Of far 1 れ ore subtle curves than that. NO sooner had we gotten aboard than Mugi came out tO greet us. He must have been overjoyed tO see us. He bounded all over the place without a care, whining incessantly. Thank Mugi' for a hard half-day minding the store. But there's no time to play with you right now. HeartlesslY pushing him aside, we hurried tO the cockpit. Yuri sat herself down in the pilot's seat, I t00k the co-pilot's, and we blasted 0 伍 LovelY Angel ripped howling through the atmosphere, dancing upward toward the distant heights 0f space. After inserting Lovely Angel into rough orbit around Dangle, we got coordinates for Vulcan from the spaceport control tower and modified our traJec- tory. By chance, the flight controller wh0 appeared on my screen just happened t0 be the same little gentleman as before. This time, though' I had t00 much on my mind tO be a tease. was immense, T-shaped space station. lts central axis was a cylinder 3,000 meters long and 86