Derelict For Trade

16

Craig Tau stowed his kit aboard the shuttle, and watched as the Starvenger spun out of view, bringing the vast bulk of the habitat across the viewport. Beyond hung a gray hopeless arc of light, the marginal planet below that served merely as a spacetime anchor for the orbiting habitats. Just a hole in space, Craig thought, shaking his head. Microgravity was stressing them all—he sometimes wondered if they shouldn’t adopt Tooe’s disorienting approach, and give up the battle to pretend acceleration. Though he had noted that the four younger men were using their magboots a lot less often than they had on first arriving. The four apprentices seemed to be adjusting the quickest to the stressfully unnatural biorhythms of habitat life and the bewildering amount of strange and new technology surrounding them.

The vast bay of the habitat swallowed the shuttle. Now Craig felt like he was diving up into the maelstrom of ships and lights and machinery and little service vessels, a ceaseless dance of commerce.

But he wasn’t watching the activity outside; it was mere backdrop to his thoughts. He’d spent his two days reviewing his initial observations of what he had begun to call the Esperite Effect, and writing up his recent experiences. This was not an easy chore. He was scrupulously careful to report precisely what he had seen and heard, registering his interpretations and hypotheses on another field. At times his text was cluttered with the tiny icons indicating his own views, which totaled three times the wordage of his lab reports. This was fine. It meant someday he might get a clue to what was going on.

It was also preferable to resisting the impulse to reorganize the Starvenger's lab into a replica of the Solar Queen's. He noted rather sadly that the others had stopped taking little items over with them for their two-day stints and then leaving them; he recorded this too, reflecting on how the Starvenger had begun, incrementally, to metamorphose into their territory—a process which had halted with Ya’s news about the conflicting abandonment dates and the mysterious Ariadne.

When the shuttle reached the Queen, he went directly down to his quarters to copy his notes into his lab computer, and to make a general status check. The cats were fine, and there were no weird illnesses or nasty accidents recorded in the sick bay log. In fact, there were no notes at all for the past eighteen hours—and, he discovered, a mighty dent had been

made in the supplies.

So Rael had made her foray into Spin Axis territory. He wondered how successful she’d been, and went back to check the log for her report. Nothing.

Alarm kindled in him. Had she returned? He crossed the lab toward the up-ladder hatchway just as Rael Cofort emerged from her cabin.

Tau backed inside, frowning at the signs of stress marking her fine skin and expressive eyes. He was about to ask her for a report when she stopped, standing very still, her gaze distracted, and a moment later there was the familiar firm tread of the captain’s boots on the deckplates.

"Are you all right?" Jellico addressed Cofort abruptly.

"Of course," Rael said, turning to face the outer corridor.

"Tooe tells us you are planning to go back up there."

"I have to," Rael said. "There’s a need."

"Would you obey if I forbid it?"

Cofort smiled, just slightly, but her voice was cool. "I’d have to," she said. "You’re the captain, I’m new crew, and not so high in the hierarchy. But before this conversation goes any further, answer me this: would you forbid Craig to go?"

Tau heard a short intake of breath, followed by a long pause. The medic realized first that the captain did not know he was there, and second, though there was nothing personal in the words he heard, the conversation was private.

He was about to retreat back to his lab when Rael Cofort broke it off by turning away from the captain, who was still not in view, and coming inside. After a moment the captain followed, his face impassive except for a tightening along his jaw.

Tau bent to pick up Omega, who instantly began to purr. He straightened up slowly, aware of the magboots imprisoning his feet against the deck. It sometimes took an effort of will not to imagine oneself hanging from the ceiling—there was no sense of one’s feet pressing against the deck.

"I’ll make my report," Cofort said to Tau, "while you get your update."

Tau turned to the captain, who gave him a terse rundown on the latest news in their mystery. Tau listened to the talk of computer ferrets and lists, but he didn’t pay much attention. There were other crew members better qualified to interpret that data. Instead he sifted the captain’s words for how the news was taking its toll on the crew.

At the end, he offered no comment, nor did Jellico ask for any. He thanked the captain for the report, then said, "So how is Tooe adjusting? Or should I say, how is everyone adjusting to her?"

Jellico’s grim face eased as he gave a slight smile. "She’s divided her time between these runs to the Spinner and sitting in the cargo bay with Thorson cramming data on Trade lingo, and customs, trade, and cargo stowage."

"Could she possibly be a cargo wrangler?" Tau asked doubtfully, thinking of the sinewy Thorson and Jan Van Ryke, whose comfortable-looking bulk hid a very powerful musculature.

"Van and Thorson both insist she knows more about the intricacies of null-grav cargo moving than both of them together. We’re used to planetside dealings, and gravity, where size can make a difference. If we’re going to push further afield, then we need to adjust to the exigencies of null-grav trade," Jellico said.

Tau, sifting the words, nodded in agreement. "We’ve access to loading machines if it comes to that. But what I’m hearing here is that they both seem to be in favor of hiring her on."

"At least on a trial basis," Jellico said. "Van put it to me just today. He doesn’t want anything said to Tooe yet, though—there’s no use in it until we settle our problems with Trade."

Tau sighed. "Right. For a nice moment I’d forgotten that."

Jellico gave a short laugh. "You won’t for long. Dane and Ali and Rip will see to that."

Rip Shannon heard a rap on his cabin door.

He opened it, saw Dane standing in the doorway of his cabin across the narrow corridor. Thorson was strapping a sleeprod to his belt. "Ready to go?" he asked.

"You really think we’ll need those?" Rip asked as Dane reached into his cabin and pulled out another sleeprod to hand over.

Thorson shrugged. "Nunku and Tang both said that it’s inevitable that the ferret is going to trigger alarms, in which case they’ll figure out where the data is going. One of these times we’re going to find a welcome party waiting for us down there."

"Do these things even work on Shver?" Rip asked as he hastily strapped his to his belt so he’d have both hands free. "With our luck a zap from this will hit them like Dirjwartian Joy Juice and they’ll be stampeding after us for more."

"Either that or it just makes them really, really mad," Dane said with a grin. "Anyway, I asked Tau about that. He says these things are a broad-band neural disruptor. They’ll deck pretty much any being we’ve come across—though not for long if they mass a lot, like Shver."

"Long enough for us to show them our heels suits me fine," Rip said. "All right, let’s get this over with."

Dane grinned again, leading the way. They left the Queen and pulled themselves down the dock. Rip looked around, breathing in the featureless habitat air. If you ignored the weird visual proportions this was like any spaceport: lit at all hours, and busy at all hours. As they moved toward the maglev, Rip wondered if the dock workers lost all sense of the passage of time, or if they had their ways of reestablishing diurnal/nocturnal physiological ryhthms.

The maglev was crowded. Rip hadn’t bothered to bring a chrono, since the lack of recognizable (planet-dictated) work-and-sleep cycles rendered time measure meaningless for humans. At least in the Kanddoyd parts of Exchange, it seemed that life went on pretty much round the clock. Though he wondered if they’d inadvertently set out at some generally acknowledged shift-change time, for there were Kanddoyd workers in all of the pods, their fiddle-voices chattering away with the eternal

accompaniment of hums, chirps, whistles, taps, and clicks. None of them sat still, but moved about as they communicated.

Rip found that watching them as the pod accelerated was a mistake, especially after the pod emerged from the interior of the habitat’s end cap and the interior burst into light around them. The odd horizon out the window and the movement of the pod amid the strangely angled, tube-shaped Kanddoyd domiciles did not accord well with the immediate prospect of Kanddoyds swarming about in zigzag patterns. Dizziness made him clutch at his seat.

He closed his eyes and tried to let the sound pass over him like an audio tide. After a time he had to admit that, so long as he didn’t watch the Kanddoyds, their noises were more pleasing than not.

At any rate they did not stay on the pod long; as they started the descent toward the surface and gradually heavier gravity, the Kanddoyds disappeared from the pod, a few at each stop.

For a short time they were alone, then Shver started boarding. Each time Dane eyed the newcomers, his hand straying near his belt. None of the Shver molested them in any way; few of them even looked at the Terran Traders.

Presently Rip’s inner ear gave him that steadying sense that one grav affords humans. He stretched out and breathed deeply. All too soon he felt his limbs gain weight, as if his own mass fought against him. He flexed his muscles in some stationary isometrics, figuring he’d turn the experience into a workout.

Presently they started the curve that meant they’d reached the surface, and Rip was relieved. He felt his lungs laboring to breathe; if he tried to breathe too fast, he felt the faintest burning sensation.

He turned to Dane, saw a look that reminded him of Captain Jellico. Dane’s bony face was set hard, his jaw grim. But when the pod slid to a halt at their stop, the big cargo apprentice got up with no diminution in his usual speed.

"Walk," Dane said a moment later. "This way."

His voice was quiet. Rip felt his heart rate increase, which was almost

painful. He forced his body to move at Dane’s pace, being careful to keep his knees slightly bent and to place each foot carefully. He did not want to fall down in this grav—broken or shattered bones were much too likely a result.

"Where’s the problem?" Rip asked softly when they were well away from the nearest Shver. He saw the huge, elephantine beings moving about, but none seemed to be particularly menacing.

"Other side of the pod," Dane said, tipping his head back the other way. "A couple of Khelv and a Zhem, all of Clan Golm. I’ve been learning the clan skin markings as much as I can."

"Where’d you get the data?"

"Here." Dane indicated his eyes. "They won’t permit anything written down. But I know what Golm clan looks like now." His deep voice took on a steely edge. "These three were prowling along looking in the pods."

"Then they’re onto us?" Rip asked. "Shouldn’t we go back?"

"I don’t think they are, or they’d be waiting at the mail drop," Dane said. "I’ll bet they heard about a Terran Trader being here, which is probably rare enough to put whoever is watching out for that kind of news on his guard. So they’re nosing about."

"Khelv. Zhem," Rip repeated. "Aren’t those levels in the noncitizen rank?"

"Kind of," Dane replied. "It’s technically a rank for single beings. A Khelv has only contributed one ’gift’ to his or her clan, and they tend to be the hungriest for some kind of score. A Zhem has only one more to make the sacred five; a Jheel has three more. When they reach five, they can find a mate and reproduce, and once they do that, then they get citizenship within the clan, which means speaking rights at clan meetings. They can also be assigned a task in order to advance in rank again."

"Assigned?" Rip asked as they entered the building.

Dane glanced around, as did Rip. To Rip’s eyes the Shver seemed peaceable enough; at least they were thoroughly ignoring the Terrans. Dane apparently didn’t see the Golm, because he said as he led the way to

the communications chamber, "That’s right. The group can assign them a task. If they don’t like it, or don’t complete it, that’s it for career advancement. If they refuse out of what the clan terms cowardice, they’re cast out."

Rip shook his head slightly, then stopped, feeling his neck twinge.

Both men were silent as Dane tapped his code into the waiting automat. Rip turned his back to Dane and watched the room for any sign of menace.

No one came in. Dane pulled something from the machine and tucked it into his pouch, then said, "Let’s move." He was breathing with rapid, shallow breaths, probably from talking so long. Rip could tell that he wasn’t put out. In fact there was an instinctive sense, though Rip had no idea where it came from since the big Viking was about as expressive as a sack of coal, that Dane was flattered to have his knowledge sought.

Still, Rip forbore asking any more questions until they were safely back on the maglev. Dane sat tensely, his hand on his sleeprod, until the pod started to move.

Then he relaxed just a little. "There they are," he said, pointing out the window as the pod began to accelerate.

Rip felt the acceleration as added weight, and was disinclined to move far enough to catch a glimpse of the Golm trio. All he saw were three Shver stalking along a grassy path at an oblique angle to the maglev concourse.

"I’m staggering the times of the visits," Dane said. "I wonder how long they’ve been there?"

Rip had no idea, and did not speak.

Instead, he gazed out the window at the squat, thick-trunked trees that crisscrossed the land in lines, or grew in dark clumps hither and yon. Some of the lines of trees had ditches at one side or another, and Rip remembered someone saying that the Shver were really like the elephants they reminded humans of in that they wouldn’t jump. A ditch was as effective as a wall for deterring Shver. At the very idea of having to jump even an inch in the punishing gravity, Rip winced; though the Shver were

adapted to their heavy gravity, still, it was a serious business to lift so much mass into the air.

He looked farther, but all he saw was green, and trees, and a few roads. No dwellings were visible, of course, only business-related buildings.

Presently the pod swooped up, pressing them back against their seats, and soon the grav began to ease. The sensation of climbing gave way gradually to forward movement as the pressure on his body dissipated.

Suddenly Dane took a deep breath, and he rubbed his neck. "Whew," he said. "Takes it out of you, doesn’t it?"

Rip nodded, gesturing toward his pouch. "What’s the word?"

Dane had already slid his hand into the belt pouch, from which he extracted a folded printout. As the pod raced along, Dane read silently.

Rip waited, his curiosity increasing as Dane continued to say nothing, just frowned down at the paper.

Finally he handed the printout to Rip. "You tell me," he said. "You’re the comtech, and I don’t know if what I’m reading is what I’m supposed to understand."

Rip took the printout, and said, "All this stuff at the top is the number and types of fire walls the ferret had to break through, and these are the routes the ferret took to isolate the information."

"Understood." Dane gave a curt nod. "Go on."

"The search field here was the Ariadne, as you already know, and—"

Rip broke off, scanning the data as the meaning reached him. Names of ships resonated through his skull like a rung bell. Finally he looked up at Dane. "This is a list of all the ships coming through Mykosian space that were insured through Trade, and the insurance codes indicating what the cargo was, in priority order."

"So I got that right." Dane’s mouth was a thin angry line. "Did you look at the date that the Ariadne was due to arrive?"

"Hell and blast," Rip muttered. "Ten weeks ago!"

"And look whose computer it came from—"

"Our old buddy Prime Facilitator Koytatik. Whatever’s going on, she’s in it right up to her mandibles." Rip looked up, and whistled softly. "If I’m right—"

"If we’re both right," Dane said sourly. "You hit the same rad dump I did—"

Rip nodded. "What we’re looking at is hijacking on the biggest level I’ve ever heard of."

Dane flexed his big fists, as though he was about to go find the perpetrator and effect his own kind of justice.

Just then the pod slid to a stop, and a swarm of Kanddoyds entered.

"Stash this," Rip murmured, handing him the printout.

Dane quickly stowed the paper in his belt pouch, and for the remainder of the journey they both sat in a tense silence, glaring at every passenger who came aboard, their hands never far from their sleeprods.

No one bothered them, though.

When they reached the docks, they bounced out onto the concourse and pulled themselves swiftly toward the Queen and Captain Jellico.

1

They were all crowded into the mess cabin—that is, all but Karl Kosti, who single-handedly was watching the Starvenger. "Johan and Jasper know how I feel," the big man had said before he boarded the shuttle. "They’ll speak for me if there’s need."

Dane stood in his accustomed place at the back, where his elbows and knees didn’t feel so desperately ungainly. His palms were still sweating, as they had ever since he and Rip had read that printout. He still couldn’t really believe it. How could anyone get away with what seemed to add up to legalized piracy?

"So this is what it looks like," Van Ryke said. For once his habitual smile was gone, replaced by a serious expression that rendered him almost unfamiliar. He gestured with his right hand to one set of printouts. "Koytatik receives word that an insured Free Trader ship is coming in, one with at least one high-pri trade item. She sends word to someone—"

"Flindyk," Rip said. "There’s a secondary set of ship names in his computer, time of arrival of messages after the lists Koytatik got. She must be forwarding these ship names to his office."

"So the by-the-books Flindyk is part of the conspiracy?" Stotz asked.

"Possibly," Van Ryke said. "Except he’s an executive, and as yet we have no proof that anything sent to him actually gets before his eyes. He could have any number of minions screening his mail—and using his ID to protect them from being scanned by coworkers."

"Conceded," Jellico said. "Go on."

"So the Ariadne was reported due in carrying an extremely rare cargo of cielanite, plus some very advanced weaponry that the Shver are always collecting. Whoever is above Koytatik somehow makes certain the Ariadne is met out in space, probably soon after snapout—"

Wilcox nodded. "Easy enough to calculate probable jump points, and sit there watching for snapout."

"And a ship is most vulnerable then," Stotz said. "You control-deck jockeys are busy making certain we are where we need to be, while we make certain the engines came through."

"Even if they came out attack-ready, like some Patrol boat, what good if they don’t have weapons?" Ali asked. "And how many Free Traders carry weaponry?"

"A few," Jellico said. "Mostly those who either are on the wrong side of the law or else ply their trade so far out on the fringes they perforce are their own law." He gestured to Van Ryke. "Continue."

Jan said, "The pirates fire on the ship to disable, not to destroy—if they can—and space the crew. Take the cargo. Replace it with ordinary stuff from Exchange. Clean the ship, including all logs and computers, space all personal effects. Then they fire on the old registry name and paint in the

name of a ship registered as abandoned and claim-released, then they leave it." He paused. "At that point, the probable sequence of events dwindles into mere guesswork."

Jasper said mildly, "Aren’t those ships reported as abandoned also reported with coordinates—oh, but those are next to worthless unless the ship is dead in space," he amended.

Wilcox nodded. "And even then it could move, especially if something hits it. Always possible, though unlikely. Mostly ships are abandoned while moving—why spend fuel slowing it down? Sure it travels in a straight line, but what if that line intersects a gravity well? Approach at the right angle, and it slingshots around and zaps off in another direction. You could probably spend the time plotting likely courses of a ship—in fact, that’s one of the things we had to do in school— but why bother?"

"These are all minor Traders, with no one in high or influential places to call for big, expensive investigations," Van Ryke said.

"Right." Jellico looked around at all of them. "Two things. We need the name of whoever’s at the top, and we need to know exactly what’s the purpose behind this switching of ship names. If Jan’s scenario for what happened to Starvenger —Ariadne—is correct, that’s a lot of work to go to just to leave the ship as an orbiting hulk."

"They probably wait a certain period of time, then go out and harvest the ships," Stotz said. "For parts, if nothing else. You can get plenty for good engines, or up-to-date refrigeration units, or ship’s computers, in the right market. I’m always looking out for a good buy in spare macronucleic collimators, because they have a tendency to blow right after snapout, when we’re millions of kilometers from anywhere and moving fast. You can’t stock up on too many"—he frowned— "and until now I never thought to ask where they came from."

"Same with the jets and jet parts," Jasper offered, his pale, mild face concerned.

Jellico swung round to face Ya. "Can you do anything to flush out the data we need?"

"I wish I could," Tang Ya said. "I’d need better access to Exchange’s computer system—and I’d need time to study its organization. Nunku’s

the one to oversee it, but even genius that she is, that ferret of hers is bound to crash soon—if it hasn’t by now—and she’ll never get a second one in there. The system’s immune reaction won’t permit it. She’d almost have to be on-site to do the delving."

Jellico’s fingers were drumming lightly on his chair arm. "All right.

Then it’s up to us. Let’s break, and each consider what we’ve heard and what we can do. Meantime, Thorson, keep checking that mail drop—but this time I want you to take at least two people as backup."

Dane nodded, surreptitiously wiping his hands down his pants again.

He was slightly distracted by the sight of Tooe sliding out of the mess cabin. She probably had to go to the fresher, he thought. She faded from his mind when Rip said, "What I can’t seem to get hold of is how could anyone get away with something that big?"

"I think I can answer that," Wilcox said, his austere Scots face grim.

"All these ships have been insured through Trade. But except for the Lucky Lucy twelve years ago, and the Ariadne recently, none have been run by humans. Some are humanoid registered or owned, but they all seem to range from farther outside Terran spheres of influence."

"That would explain the cats," Craig Tau said.

Everyone turned to look at him.

"If the hijackers are used to nonhumans, that would explain why the cats were overlooked. Having ship’s cats is a custom peculiar to Terrans," he explained. "Alpha and Omega probably hid when the intruders came aboard, and if you don’t know to look for a hiding cat, you won’t find one," he finished dryly.

Dane thought of Sinbad, who could make himself scarce when he was of a mind—even though by now there wasn’t an inch of space Dane wasn’t familiar with aboard the Queen.

"And they were in a hurry," Rip said.

"They wouldn’t want to risk being a blip on the screens of some ship just emerging from hyperspace, or one moving to its jump point," Jasper put in.

Rip nodded, and continued, "Which would explain their overlooking that extra little console down in the hydro. It was pretty well hidden by plants, and there was stuff piled all over it. The woman who tended it must have come from a real jungle environment."

"The main thing is that the hijackers are sticking to small stuff. Independents—like us," Dane said.

"Which means even less likelihood of anyone pursuing mysterious disappearances," Ali drawled. "Company ships disappearing would occasion those big, splashy searches Van mentioned. A succession of humans disappearing from well-traveled starlanes might cause a raised brow or two. No one is going to notice a bunch of missing rockrats gathered from spaceports spread across the galaxy."

"Which explains the correlation between the stories I heard up in the Spinner." Rael Cofort spoke for the first time. Dane could see muted pain in her dark blue eyes. "A good many of the people I met were either refugees from unexplained—uninvestigated—ship attacks, or had been left behind for one reason or another when their ships disappeared and didn’t come back for them."

The captain smiled very faintly. "So you’re ready to do battle on their behalf, Doctor?"

"A system is suspect that deliberately throws away so many people who otherwise would be working happily within the law, utilizing their talents for something besides stealing food and shelter." Her voice was soft, but there were spots of color along her cheeks. Dane looked from her rigid posture to the captain’s same and wondered what he was missing. Then he felt a change near him, a kind of mental tickle that made him glance to the side, and he saw an odd expression on Ali Kamil’s face.

Ali did not speak. Dane realized that Tooe had still not come back, and he wondered what that meant.

Van Ryke said, "Let us each go our own way for a time, and put our minds to the problem. We all have unique talents, and varying perspectives on tackling problems. Let’s use those now."

"We’ll discuss this again later," the captain said shortly, and he one-handed himself off his bench and catapulted through the hatchway.

"What’s going on?" Dane asked his peers in a low voice as the others were all moving out. "The captain, I mean. And Cofort."

Ali laughed. "The stone and the steel, my blind Viking, the stone and the steel." And he dove out the door and vanished.

"What does that mean?" Dane asked Rip, now feeling more defensive by the second where before he was merely perplexed.

Rip just shook his head, and Jasper said quietly, "When the captain decides he wants us to know, we’ll know."

Dane sighed, and went off to seek Tooe.

It all certainly seemed to add up, Jellico thought as he pulled himself down in his chair. He stared reflectively at the blue hoobat, who rocked in dreamy slow motion in his cage, making contented noises that sounded like the tearing of metal. Jellico’s mind reviewed the knot of mysteries tangling their affairs. The mysterious disintegration of their cargo deals. The spread of detrimental gossip not just among Traders but Monitors as well. The generous offer to buy the Starvenger—sight unseen—by someone who would not meet Van Ryke face to face, but sent a series of mouthpieces whose lies did not match. The postponements, the put-offs, the hounding of his crew followed by official commands to brig them. all of these could be viewed as tactics to wear the Queen's crew down, to make them want to leave as soon as they could. Even the postponements, for what that meant was added cost. Jellico had no doubt whoever was in command had a good idea how much credit the Solar Queen had, and was hoping they’d decamp and run cargoless—and maybe without taking the Starvenger, which could then quietly be made to disappear.

You could almost do anything, if you were working within the law to commit crimes.

Even if the others didn’t see it yet, the cold fact was: if Flindyk had commanded the hijackings, and was using his position to mask, hide, and eventually legitimize his actions, then he was going to use his position to stamp out anyone who tried to get in his way.

Ali and the other apprentices were burning for justice for the dead crew of the Ariadne/Starvenger; Wilcox and Van Ryke were burning to get their hooks into this villain who would use Trade to hide nefarious actions and thus risk tarnishing the reputation of Free Traders forever; Rael Cofort was burning to solve the problems of the outcasts up in the Spin Axis. None of them seemed to realize that as soon as Flindyk—if it was he—tracked the ferret back to the Solar Queen, a squad of Monitors would not be far behind. Locked up in jail and unable to communicate, with the Queen impounded, they would not be able to get justice for themselves, much less for anyone else.

Burning with the Rightness of their cause, they didn’t yet see the inevitability of this outcome. One of Miceal Jellico’s earliest memories was the realization that the universe wasn’t fair. Though everyone looked at their crossing of the threshold from child to adult in different ways—some merely by age, others by more conventional marks of passage such as graduation from tech training, or making a career choice, or marriage—Jellico’s private acknowledgment of his own adulthood was the conscious decision that, though the universe was not fair, he still could be, to the best of his endeavor. He did not expect justice, or mercy, or intervention from an indifferent cosmos, but he did want to be able to know, whenever his life came to an end, that no good person took harm at his hand, and no bad one was aided. Aid in his definition included standing by and doing nothing.

He fully expected Flindyk, or whoever, to come after him. That didn’t mean he couldn’t make some preparations of his own.

He leaned forward and hit the com. "Ya?"

"Captain?"

"Come here. I’ve an idea."

"Be right there, Chief."

The com light went blank, and Jellico leaned back again, gently propping one boot on the edge of his desk, keeping the other magged to the deck.

He also disliked cowardice, and the truth was, his refusal to examine his emotions concerning Dr. Rael Cofort could no longer be attributed to expedience—which meant he was a coward.

He sighed and shut his eyes, remembering without any effort at all the

intensity in her violet eyes, the determination expressed in every line of her slender frame when she had faced him down in the meeting. So she’d fight for her lost souls at the Spinner, eh?

And he remembered her standing outside the lab, passionate, honest, and completely unafraid, when he threatened to ground her. What she’d fired right back at him was true: would he ground Tau?

He knew he wouldn’t.

So if he wouldn’t ground Tau, but he would Cofort, then. then.

He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes.

The truth was that he had found what he had never thought to find, the companion who could keep stride with him, match wits with him, who was as intelligent as he was, and as loyal, and as passionate about doing what seemed right and to hell with the odds against. He’d seen that kind of commitment twice in his life, and both times he’d also seen the terrible grief that resulted when something happened to one partner. That was life in Trade. He’d made the decision never to risk himself that way, never to permit himself to fall in love, but it seemed that the decision had revoked itself.

He couldn’t live Rael Cofort’s life for her. He couldn’t force her to bide in safety and contentment somewhere far from risk, to ignore the teeth of danger when she saw a true cause. If she were the sort who would permit him to hedge her round with the padding of security he would never have fallen in love in the first place.

Ya tapped at the door.

Jellico sighed, and keyed the door open, and— Coward! his inner voice taunted him—turned with relief to the problems at hand.

"Now here’s what I want," he started.

Dane had been over the Queen once, and no Tooe. She’d never before left without telling him, not since she’d understood she was on probation, so he must have overlooked her.

At least that was what he hoped. He decided to be more methodical,

starting with the treasure room down in the cargo area, which the crew had left untouched since the Denlieth run—and where she’d apparently hidden during her time as a stowaway.

He was on his way when he felt a twitch of awareness behind him, as though Rip Shannon had called him in so faint a voice he almost didn’t hear it. Without thought he turned back to his cabin.

In the corridor between his and Rip’s cabins stood Tooe, with Rip. The Rigelian’s crest was spread at its fullest, her yellow eyes so wide they seemed to glow. "Come!" she fluted. "Dane, you get help, we go now, Flindyk comp. Quick!"

"What’s this?" he asked.

Tooe one-handed herself up the ladder so they were on eye level. She bobbed in the air, held by her webbed fingers on the steel ladder pole as she said, "Nunku says, they find ferret soon. Nunku says, we don’t stop now, the Monitors go through Spinner, kill everyone. Nunku says, klinti help now, we go out of Spinner, we go to Flindyk office. You bring help."

"Help? You mean Ya and Rip for computer delving?" Dane asked.

"I think she means for muscle," Rip said with a grin.

Tooe nodded, so violently she bobbed up again, and her crest snapped out flat as she handed herself back to the level of their heads. Dane’s mind had been distracted by the way Tooe worked to keep her head oriented in the same direction he and Rip did—as if there was normal grav—and not at the most convenient angle for her next move. She was doing her best to adapt to human ways, and yet she’d left without telling him.

Doubts assailed him afresh. Was this after all another big game, as big in its way as the hijackers’? Was the Queen being used by the Spinner klinti to get at the authorities—and had they all been manipulated by those pitiful stories?

Dane shook his head hard. "Wait a minute," he said. "Tooe, why did you leave? You agreed to the terms of your probation."

"Is this the time—" Rip started.

"Yes," Dane cut in. "Right now. She’s my responsibility. I have to get this straight."

Tooe’s pupils flicked from slits to round, making her eyes dark. Her crest folded back at an odd angle, one he didn’t remember seeing before.

"Do you understand my question?" he asked.

"Tooe understand, me," she replied, her voice plangent. "Captain say, ’It’s up to us.’ Captain want plan. I go to ask Nunku—"

"Why didn’t you ask me first?" Dane interrupted.

Tooe’s voice went high again as she blurted out a fast answer in Rigelian, then she said, slowly and painstakingly in Trade, "Tooe always talk to Nunku when trouble. Dane always talk to captain when trouble—except when go with Tooe to Spinner, first time."

Dane sucked in a deep breath. He’d never considered she’d observed his actions as closely as he’d observed hers. "Well, what I did was stupid, but I thought it was to protect the captain in case I. well, got myself into trouble."

Tooe’s crest tilted in a humorous mode, but she said nothing.

"All right," he said. "I can see you had a reason, and I know you want to save your pals up at the Spinner. Except. if you’re going to really sign on with us, then your first loyalty is going to have to be with us." He tapped his chest, then turned his thumb at Rip and up at the captain’s cabin.

"You have to think about the Queen first."

Tooe’s pupils narrowed again. She was still silent.

Dane said awkwardly, "We can talk about it later, all right? Now, what’s this plan? We’re going now?"

Tooe gave a nod. Dane knew the dangers of attributing too-human emotions to someone not human, but she seemed slightly less energetic, and even her voice was a bit lower as she said, "We go now. Quick, search computer. Find last data. Bad place, Flindyk office, many many traps. Maybe Monitors come, maybe other people." She smacked her palms together lightly. "Try to catch us. You bring help?" she ended on a note of

inquiry.

Dane sighed. "May’s well." He turned to Rip, who raised a hand as though to say "Count me in."

"My first thought would be Kosti—"

"Mine too," Rip said. "No one gets past him whom he doesn’t want passing. There’s Mura, who is an expert in martial arts. He hasn’t left the ship yet—I don’t know why—but he might be willing now."

Dane snapped his fingers, then caught at the ladder so he wouldn’t bounce. "Go ask him. I’ve got someone else to ask," he said.

"Let’s each grab a sleeprod, and meet at the outer lock in—two minutes."

Tooe gave a chirp of anticipation, and rocketed up the ladder.

Rip followed more slowly.

Dane dove at the down-ladder and hand-over-handed himself down to the engine level. As he expected, he found Johan Stotz at his console, deep in a multidimensional flowchart of the power flow in the Queen, from engines out. To Dane it looked like a multicolored sea urchin with a blue-white star at its heart, radiating out crooked, angular spines of light that shaded through the rainbow to red as they tapered out to nothingness. For Stotz, he realized, it was like reading a simple map.

Johan Stotz was a tall, thin, taciturn fellow only a few years older than Dane, though sometimes Dane felt that Johan was closer to Van Ryke’s age. He was by nature quiet, and he seemed completely absorbed in engineering; more than once, when Jellico had set down on some pleasant world and gave the crew leave for R and R, it turned out later Stotz’s idea of relaxation and enjoyment was to travel halfway across a continent to attend a seminar on "The Macronucleic Interface to Ship’s Power: Friend or Foe?"

He never talked about his past—none of them did, really. But Dane remembered very well that first day when they found Tooe. He knew it must have taken some formidably trained knowledge of microgee movement to lay hold of that quick little Rigelian.

"You know null-grav sports?" Dane asked.

Stotz blinked once, his brows rising in mild surprise. "I was pretty good at school," he conceded.

"How good?" Dane asked.

Stotz grinned faintly. "Paid my way through by playing Nuller Rugby."

Dane whistled. That meant he wasn’t just good, he was lethal. "That’s just what I need," he said, and he briefly outlined what Tooe had proposed. "We’re going now, taking a sleeprod. Are you in?"

He half expected Stotz to bow out. He just never got involved in rowdy stuff, at least while Dane had been on board.

But now his slight grin stretched, and with a quick gesture he saved his work and shut down his console.

"Lead on," he said.

They stopped to get a pair of sleeprods, then started up to the outer lock.

There he found not just the captain waiting, but a good part of the crew. Another surprise awaited Dane: Rip, Tooe, and Frank Mura stood on the dock. Mura’s face was utterly impassive, and he carried no sleeprod, but Dane noted a short, thin object just outlined in Frank’s tunic pocket. Dane guessed it had to be the weird little ultrasonic instrument Frank called a feedle pipe.

The crew watched them go in silence; to all intents and purposes anyone else on the dock would see a group setting out for one of the concourses for some entertainment.

But anyone spying, Dane thought seconds later, would be puzzled by their disappearance. They dropped rapidly through a one-person access hatch that Tooe had shown him earlier, and started along a hidden route.

At a juncture, Dane encountered his third surprise. In the midst of Tooe’s klinti members, as though protected by them, Dane recognized the long, fragile form belonging to Nunku.