Read "Triplanetary" by E. E. Smith online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Apparently motionless to her passengers and crew, the Interplanetary liner Hyperion bored serenely onward through space at normal acceleration. In the railed-off sanctum in one corner of the control room a bell tinkled, a smothered whirr was heard, and Captain Bradley frowned as he studied the brief message upon the tape of the recorder -- a message flashed to his desk from the operator's panel. He beckoned, and the second officer, whose watch it now was, read aloud:
"Reports of scout patrols still negative."