STARSHIP OF FOOLS - (C) 1986 Jerry Kindall and Rex Crossley

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

"You have just started reading the sentence that you have just finished
reading."
                                                 - Douglas R. Hofstadter

     Xorn sat in his ship, reading a newspage, as the ship piloted
itself to its destination.  The despotic Jordann, self-proclaimed
Conqueror Of The Universe, seemed to be making major strides in galactic
domination.  This worried Xorn, as he was a man of conscience, but there
wasn't much he could do about it for now.
     Xorn's ship's autopilot had a number of advanced features, among
them the ability to find any ship by tracing its garbage, a top-secret
capability normally only found on military vessels.  Xorn was using this
gadget now to find the Glorkwinkle, since there was no other way to know
where Melvin's ship was.
     The ship's sensor alert chimed softly, bringing Xorn out of his
reading.  He activated his viewscreen for a look outside.
     A ferocious space battle raged just a few kilometers away.  Xorn
glanced at the battle briefly, wondering why the garbage tracer had
malfunctioned.  Then performed a double-take; that looked like...
     Abruptly the firing ceased and the larger, bulkier ship moved
around the smaller one.  As it did, the smaller ship's registration
information became visible.
     Xorn's eyes opened wide in astonishment.  It was!

