"No, we're going in. But I want to surprise them." Suddenly she grinned. "I think I know - did you ever live on a free-water world, Huron? Skip stones on water?"

"Yes, but - "

"Everyone sees the splash of the skips - and then the rock sinks, and disappears. We'll make sure they see us - and then they don't - and if we're lucky it'll look like someone in transit with a malfunctioning FTL drive, blipping in and out of normal space."

"They'll see that - "

"Yes. But with our special capabilities, they're unlikely to spot us when we're drifting. Suppose we get in really close to whatever planet they're using - "

"It'd help if it had a moon, and if we knew which it was." As the hours passed, and their tracking computers reworked the incoming data, it became clear where the others were going. A planet somewhat larger than Old Earth Standard, with several small moons and a ringbolt.

"The gods are with us this time," said Sass. "Bless the luck of a complicated universe - that's as unlikely a combination as I've seen, but perfect for creating unmappable chunks of debris..."

"Into which we can crunch," pointed out Huron.

"Getting cautious in your old age. Lieutenant Commander?" Her question had a little bite to it, and he reddened.

"No, captain - but I'd prefer to take them with us."

"I'd prefer to take them, and come home whole. That's what we have Ssli assistance for."

After careful calculation, Sassinak's plan took them "through" the outer reaches of the system in a series of minute FTL skips, a route that taxed both the computers and the Ssli. With a last gut-wrenching hop, the Zaid-Dayan came to apparent rest, drifting within a few kilometers of a large chunk of debris in the ring, its velocity not quite matched, as would be true of most chunks. Their scans began to pick up transmissions from the surface, apparently intended for the incoming slaver ships. At first, some kind of alarm message, about the skip - traces noted... but as the hours passed, it became clear that the surface base had not detected them, and had decided precisely what Sassinak had hoped: something had come through the system with a bad FTL drive, and was now somewhere else. In the meantime, the alarm message had activated beacons and outer defenses: Sassinak now knew exactly where the enemy's watchers watched.

One of the moons had a small base, on the side that faced away from the planet, and a repeated station placed to relay communications to and from the surface. A single communications satellite circling the planet indicated that all settlement was confined to one hemisphere - and by the scans, to one small region.

"A big base," was Arly's comment, as scans also picked up weapon emplacements on the surface. "Their surface-to-space missiles we can handle. But those little ships are going to cause us trouble; they've got only one or two optical weapons each, but - "

"Estimated time to launch and engagement?" Sassinak looked at Hollister.

"If they're really battle-ready, they can launch in an hour, maybe two. Nobody keeps those babies really ready-to-launch: you boil off too much propellant. Most of the time they like to fight from a high orbit, or satellite transit path, in systems like this with moons. I'd say a minimum of ninety standard minutes, from the alarm... but will we pick up their signals?"

"We'd better. What about larger ships?"

'There's something like the slaver escort, but it's cold... no signs of activity at all. More than two hours to launch - at least five, I'd say. But it's still twenty-three standard hours before the incoming ships arrive, if they hold their same trajectory and use the most economical deceleration schedule. We may see more activity as they get closer."

But except for brief transmissions every four hours, between the incoming ships and the base, little happened that they could detect from space. Sassinak insisted on regular shift changes, and rest for those off-duty. She followed her own orders to the extent of taking a couple of four-hour naps.

Then the ships neared. For the first time, they drifted apart; the escort, Sassinak realized, was taking up an orbit around the outermost moon, alert for anything following them or entering the system. The slave-carrying trader began braking in a long descending spiral.

Taking the chance that the attention of the base below would be fixed on the incoming slaver, and the attention of the escort ship above on anything "behind" them, Sassinak ordered the Zaid-Dayan's insystem drive into action: they would ease out of the ring-belt, and intercept the slaver on the blind side of the planet, out of sight/detection of the escort.

All stations were manned with backup crews standing by. Sassinak glanced around the bridge, seeing the same determination on every face.

One of the lights on Arly's panel suddenly flashed red, and a shrill piping overrode conversation. She slammed a fist down on the panel, and shot a furious glance around her section, then to Sass.

"It's a missile - Captain, I didn't launch that!"

"Then who - ?" But the faces that stared back at her, now taut and pale, had no answer. Yes, we do have a saboteur on board, Sassinak thought, then automatically gave the orders that responded to this new threat. All firing systems locked into bridge control, automatic partitioning of the ship, computer control of all access to bridge... and the fastest maneuver possible, to remove them from the back-trail of that missile.

"They know something's here, and they know it's armed - so if we want to save those kids on the slaver, we'd better do it fast."

Red lights winked on displays around the bridge, scans picking up enemy activity, from communications to missile launch.

"Oh, brillig! Of course they saw it, and just what we need - !" Huron gave her an uneasy glance, and she grinned at him. "But life is risky, eh? If we go for their armed ships, we'll lose the kids for sure, and if that slaver has any sense and a peashooter, it could plug us in the rear. So - " The Zaid-Dayan surged, suddenly freed of its stealth constraints, and closed on the slaver. They were just over the limb, out of line-of-sight from both the escort and the base below, although the missiles launched would be a factor in a few minutes. The slaver vessel, cut off from radio communication with its base, could have chosen to boost away from the planet, or try a faster descent... but whether in confusion or resignation did neither. Nor did it fire on them. "Huron!" He looked up from his own console, when Sassinak called. "You take the boarding party - get that ship out of here, safely into the next sector. I'll give you Parrsit: he's good in a row, and Currald's sending half our ground contingent - " She quickly named the other boarding party members. Huron frowned when she named the two Wefts.

"Captain - "

"Don't argue now, Huron. Wait 'til they've shown you - you need both the heavy-world muscle and Weft ability. Get ready - " Huron saluted, and left the bridge. Sassinak waited for the boarding party's report: the marines had already donned their battle armor, but the crew that would take the trader on had to get into EVA suits and armor. Seconds passed; the ships closed. When the forward docking bay signalled green, Sassinak nodded to the helmsman. "Screens open to code, tractor field on - " Now the screen showed a computer-enhanced visual of the fat-bellied trader vessel, within easy EVA range. It attempted a belated burn, but the shields absorbed the energy, and the tractor field held it, dragged it nearer. The boarding party, clustered in assault pods whose nav codes overrode the tractor, blew an airlock and started in.

The fight for the slaver was short and bitter: once inside the lock, the boarding party found well-armed and desperate slavers who fought hand-to-hand in the passages, between decks, and finally on the bridge. The marines lost five, when a passage they thought they'd cleared erupted behind them in a last desperate flurry of fighting. Sassinak followed the marine officer's comments on her headset, wincing at the losses. Slavers were dangerous: they knew they faced mindwipe if they were taken alive. You had to check every hole and corner. But she could do nothing from the Zaid-Dayan, and she could not leave her ship. The last thing the marines needed was her scolding them over the radio. Deck by deck the marines reported the ship safe; in the background Sassinak could hear hysterical screams which she assumed must be the prisoners.

Finally a very out-of-breath Huron called to report success, and admitted that the Wefts were "more than impressive." The trader had, he said, adequate fuel, air, and supplies for a shortest-route journey to the nearest plotted station, but he wouldn't be able to use the ship's maximum insystem capabilities because of the captives, some seven to eight hundred of them.

"They're not in good shape, and they're half-wild with panic and excitement. They don't know a thing about ship discipline; there aren't any acceleration barriers, and this thing doesn't have a zero-inertia converter. I'd pile 'em all up along the bulkheads like fruit in a dropped crate - "

"All right. We'll shield you. Just get out as quick as you can, and if you do jink, be sure we know ahead of time."

"I can't jink in this junk," said Huron, quick-tongued as ever, even in a crisis. "I'll be lucky to jump in it. And the nav computer is a joke."

"That we can help," she said. "What's your cleanest comm link?" When he told her, she had her communications specialists patch a direct line from the Zaid-Dayan's navigation computer to the slaver's. Now Huron could keep track of the various incoming threats, and have a chance to evade them.

"Take care," she said. She wished she'd said it before he left; she wished they'd had time for a real farewell. His face in the vidscreen already looked different, the face of a fellow captain... she saw him turn as one of his crew - no longer hers - asked a question.

"You, too," he said, his expression showing that his thoughts ran with hers, as they did so often. She wanted to touch his hand, his shoulder, wanted a last feel of his body against hers. But it was too late: he was captain of a very vulnerable ship, and she was captain of a Fleet cruiser - and even if they met again, it would be a different meeting. Sassinak looked around the bridge at a very sober crew. Fighting off a single enemy was one problem - keeping several enemies from blowing an unarmed transport with limited maneuvering capability was another. They all realized that the pirates would be perfectly happy to lose that ship - the evidence of their crimes. Now that lost ship would include loss of Fleet personnel as well - their own friends and shipmates.

But there was little time to think about it. Already the missiles from the surface were within range, homing (as Sassinak had suspected they might) on the transport. Arly took out this first assault easily, dumping the data generated by their explosion into a primary bank for analysis later. If there was a later. For the escort vessel, boosting at its maximum acceleration, would all too soon round the planet's limb on their trail. Already Huron had boosted the transport into an outward trajectory; Sassinak let the Zaid-Dayan fall behind and inward, where she could more easily intercept the surface-launched missiles. Behind them, she knew, would be the manned craft: the little one-man killerships, and the larger escort. Their only chance to protect the transport, and save themselves, lay in using every scrap of cover the complex system offered.

The main display screen now showed a moiré pattern of red, yellow, and green: safe zones, when both transport and cruiser were hidden from all known enemy bases and ships, zones when one or the other were exposed, and maximum danger zones when both were exposed. On this pattern their current and extrapolated courses showed in two shades of blue - and the display shifted every time another factor came into play.

"If that tub had any performance capabilities at all," Sassinak muttered angrily, punching buttons, "Huron could use that inner moon as a swing-point, and head back out picking up another swing from the middle one - and that'd take him safely over the ring, too. But I'll bet that thing won't take it - " Sure enough the return from Huron's ship showed unacceptable acceleration that way. But she had performance to spare, plenty of it, if she guessed right about how the slaver escort would choose to come in.

"Swing-point off the second moon gives 'em the best angle," said Arly, hands busy on her console as she checked out the systems again.

"No - fastest is the deep slot. using the planet itself. They'll come by like blown smoke - maybe get a lucky shot, and for sure see what they're up against. They can use the maneuver Huron can't - it's a high-G trick, but they'll save fuel, really, and it gives them a reverse run in less than two hours."

"So?"

"So we go up and meet them. Outside."

The Zaid-Dayan barely vibrated as the most versatile insystem drive known lifted her poleward and away from the planet. Sassinak held to the edge of their own green zone, making sure that they could blow any missile sent after the transport with their LOS optical weaponry. Ahead, the transport lumbered along, slow and graceless. Sassinak tried not to think of the children on board, and hoped that Huron had enough sedative packs along.

"Captain - got a ripple." The faint disturbance ahead of the escort's high speed movement showed on one screen. Sassinak tapped her own console, while nodding a commendation to the Helm tech. "Good eyes, good handling. Yes - here she comes. Arly, see what you can do - "

Arly chose an EM beam, lethal to unshielded ships, and temporarily blinding to the sensors of most others. Sassinak followed the green line of its path on the monitor; the beam itself was invisible. Something flared out there, and Arly grunted. "Thought they'd have shields. But it may have glared out their scan." In the meantime, a flick of pale blue sparkled into brilliant rainbows: the escort had fired back, but their own shields held easily. Sassinak watched another line score with bright orange the yellow zone near them on the monitor - a clear miss, but remarkably good aim for a ship that had just been lashed by an EM beam. The Zaid-Dayan shifted in one of the computer-controlled jinks, covering the transport's stern just as the escort vessel fired at it. Again the cruiser's shields held.

The escort, on the course Sassinak had predicted, was now in rapid transit between them and the planet. Arly lay a barrage of missiles near its expected path. At the same time, the scans showed the telltale white blips of missiles boosting from the escort.

"Those are targeted to the transport," Arly said. "They've got all its signature." Even as she spoke, she had their own optical weapons locking on. But although two of the missiles burst suddenly into silent clouds of light, another had jinked wildly and continued. Arly swore, and reset her system. "If that sucker gets too close to Huron, I can't use these - " Again the missile seemed to buck in its course, and continued, now clearly aiming up the transport's stern.

Sassinak opened the channel to Huron on the transport. "Huron - dump the bucket!" The only defenses they'd been able to give him had all been passive, and this one depended on a fairly stupid self-guidance system.

The "bucket" was a small container of metal foil strips, armed with explosive to disperse them and make a hot spot of itself. It could be launched from a docking bay or airlock. If heat, light, and a cloud of metal fragments could confuse it, they'd be safe. If not, Sassinak would have to try to "grab" the missile with the cruiser's tractor field, a technique dismissed in the Fleet Ordinance Manual as "unnecessarily risky."

She watched tensely as the monitor showed the "bucket" being launched on a course that fell behind and below the transport. When it exploded, the missile shifted course, and headed for that bait. So - they had stupid missiles. Now if Huron had enough buckets...

But in the meantime, the escort passing "beneath" them had gained on the transport, improving its firing angle. It had detonated or avoided the missiles Arly had sent to its expected position. Helm countered with a shift that again brought the cruiser between the worst threat and the helpless transport. The cruiser's shields sparkled as unseen beam weapons lashed at her. Arly's return attack met adequate shielding; the deflected beams glowed eerily as they met the planet's atmosphere below.

Unfortunately, the best solution was narrowing rapidly, as all three vessels were approaching the terminator. Beyond that, too quickly, the base's own missiles and scoutships would be rising to join the fray. Sassinak could not keep the cruiser between the transport and everything else. There are no easy answers, she thought, and opened the channel to Huron again.

"If your ship will take it, get on out of here," she said. "I know you'll have casualties, but we can't hold them all off for long."

"I know," he said. "We can't - afford another close transit - I've done what I can for 'em." She saw by the monitor that the transport had increased its acceleration, climbing more steeply now.

"Can you make the swing-point for that inner moon?" she asked.

"Not... quite. Here's the solution - " And her right- hand screen came up with it: far from the ideal trajectory, but much better than before. It would lengthen the attack interval from below and the manned moonlet would be on the far side of the planet when they passed its orbit. Best of all, surface-launched missiles wouldn't have the fuel to catch it. Only the escort already engaged was a serious threat. And that, committed as it was to its own high-speed path, could not maneuver fast enough to follow, after the next few minutes. Not without going into FTL - if it had the capability to do that so near a large mass.

"Good luck, then." She would not think of the children crushed in the slaveholds, the terrified ones who found themselves pressed flat on the deck, or against a bulkhead, unable to scream or move. They would be no better off if a missile got them, or one of the optical beams.

The configuration of the three ships had now changed radically. The Zaid-Dayan had fallen below the transport, keeping between it and the escort, which was now approaching its turnover if it was intending to use the inner moon as a swing-point. Its course so far made that likely. All she had to do, Sassinak thought, was keep it from blowing the transport before the transport was out of LOS around the planet's limb.

She had just opened her mouth to explain her plan to Arly when the lights darkened, and the Zaid-Dayan seemed to stumble on something, as if space itself had turned solid. Red lights flared around the bridge: power outage. Before anyone could react, a flare of light burned out the port exterior visuals, and a gravity flux turned Sass's stomach. A simple grab for the console turned into a wild flailing of arms, and then a thump as normal-G returned. Someone hit the floor, hard, and stifled a cry; voices burst into a wild gabble of alarm.

Sassinak took a deep breath and bellowed through the noise. Silence returned. The lights flickered, then steadied. An ominous block of red telltales glowed from Helm's console, red lights blinked on others. The main screen was down, blank and dark, but to one side a starboard exterior visual showed some kind of beam weapon flickering harmlessly against the shields.

"Report," said Sass, more calmly than she expected. Her mind raced: another act of sabotage? But what, and how, and why hadn't the ship blown? She couldn't tell anything by the expressions of those around her. They all looked shaken and unnatural.

"Ssli..." came the speech synthesiser, from the Ssli's biolink. Sassinak frowned. The Ssli usually communicated by screen or console, not by speech. For one frantic instant she feared the Ssli might lie her unknown saboteur - and the cruiser depended, absolutely, on its Ssli - but its words reassured her. "Pardon, captain, for that unwarned maneuver. The enemy ship went into FTL, to catch the transport - no time to explain. Used full power to extend tractor, and grab enemy. This lost power to the shields, and enemy shot blew the portside pods." From relief she fell into instant rage: how dared the Ssli act without orders, or warning, and put her ship in danger. She fought that down, and managed a tight-lipped question.

"The transport?"

"Safe for now."

"The escort?" This time, instead of speech, the graphics came up on her monitor: the escort had decelerated, braking away from its original course to attempt to match their course. Well - she'd wanted the transport safe, and she'd hoped to get the escort into a one-to-one with the Zaid-Dayan. However unorthodox its means, the Ssli had accomplished that... and she was hardly the person to complain of unorthodoxy in tactical matters. If it worked. Her temper passed as quickly as it had risen. Sassinak glanced up at the worried faces on the bridge, and grinned. "Shirty devils... they think they can take us hand-to-hand!" An uncertain chuckle followed that. "Never mind: they won't. Thanks to our Ssli, they didn't get the transport, and they aren't going to get us, either. Now, let's hear the rest: report."

Section by section, the report came in. Portside pods out - probably repairable, but it could take days. Most of their stealth systems were still operative - fortunate, since they couldn't get into FTL flight without at least half the portside pods. Internal damage was minimal: minor injuries from the gravity flux, and loss of the portside visual monitors. All their weapons systems were functional, but detection and tracking units mounted on the pods were blown.

And where, Sassinak wondered, do I find a nice, quiet little place to sit tight and do repairs? She listened to the final reports with half her mind, the other half busy on the larger problem. Then it came to her. Unorthodox, yes, and even outrageous, but it would certainly keep all the enemy occupied, their minds off that transport.

Everyone looked startled when she gave the orders, but as she explained further, they started grinning. With a click and a buzz, the main monitor warmed again and showed where they were going - boosting toward the course Sassinak had originally plotted for the escort.

The Zaid-Dayan had lost considerable maneuvering ability with the portside pods, but Sassinak had insisted that they make her disability look worse than it was. Having lost the transport, surely the escort would go after the "crippled" cruiser - and what a prize, could it only capture one! As if the cruiser could not detect the escort, now nearly in its path, it wallowed on. Such damage would have blinded any ship without a Ssli on board... and apparently the escort didn't suspect anything. Sassinak watched as the escort corrected its own course, adjusting to the cruiser's new one. They would think she was trying to hide behind the moonlet... and they would be right, but not completely.

Comm picked up transmissions from the escort to the planet's single communications satellite, and routed them to her station. Sassinak didn't know the language, but she could guess the content. "Come on up and help us capture a cruiser!" they'd be saying.

If they were smart, they'd go for the crippled side: try to blow the portside docking bay. So far they'd been smart enough; she hoped they'd find the approach just obvious enough. Would they know that was normally a troophold bay? Probably not, although it shouldn't matter if they did. Handy for the marines, thought Sass.

"ETA twenty-four point six minutes," said Bures, Navigation Chief. Sassinak nodded.

"Everyone into armor," she said. That made it official, and obvious. Bridge crew never wore EVA and armor, except during drills - but this was no drill. The enemy would be on their ship - on board the cruiser itself - and might penetrate this far. If they were unlucky. If they were extremely unlucky. The marines, already clustering near the troop docking bay below, were of course already in battle armor, and had been for hours. Sassinak clambered into her own white plasmesh suit, hooking up its various tubes and wires. Once the helmet was locked, her crew would know her by the suit itself - the only all-white suit, the four yellow rings on each arm. But for now, she laid the helmet aside, having checked that all the electronic links to communications and computers worked.

The one advantage of suits was that you didn't have to find a closet when you needed one; the suit could handle that, and much more. She saw by the relaxation on several faces that hers hadn't been the only full bladder. Minutes lurched past in uneven procession - time seemed to crawl, then leap, then crawl again. From the Ssli's input, they knew that the escort was sliding in on their supposedly blind side. If it had external visuals, Sassinak thought, it probably had a good view of the damage - and blown pods would look impressively damaged. She'd seen one once, like the seedpod of some plant that expels its seeds with a wrenching destruction of the once-protective covering.

Closer it came, and closer. Sassinak had given all the necessary orders: now there was nothing to do but wait. The Ssli reported contact an instant before Sassinak felt a very faint jar in her bootsoles. She nodded to Arly, who poured all remaining power to their tractor field. Whatever happened now, the escort and cruiser were not coming apart until one of them was overpowered. With any luck the escort wouldn't notice the tractor field, since it wasn't trying to escape right now anyway.

Interior visuals showed the docking bay where she expected the attack to come. Sure enough, the exterior bay lock blew in, a cloud of fragments obscuring the view for a moment, and then clearing as the vacuum outside sucked them free. A tracked assault pod straight out of her childhood nightmare bounced crazily from the escort's docking bay and its artificial gravity, to the cruiser's, landing so hard that Sassinak winced in sympathy with its contents, enemies though they were.

"Bad grav match," said Helm thoughtfully. 'That'll shake 'em up."

"More coming," Arly pointed out. She was hunched over her console, clearly itching to do something, although none of her weaponry functioned inside the ship. Sassinak watched as two more assault pods came out of the escort to jounce heavily on the cruiser's docking bay deck. How many more? She wanted them all, but the docking bay was getting crowded: they'd have to move on soon. A thin voice - someone's suit radio - came over the intercom at her ear.

" - Can see another two pods, at least, Sarge. Plus some guys in suits - "

That clicked off, to be replaced by Major Currald, the marines' commanding officer. "Captain - you heard that?" Sassinak acknowledged, and he went on. "We think they'll stack the pods in here, and then blow their way in. We've bled the whole quadrant, and everyone's in position; if they can fit all the pods in here we'll take them then, and if they can't we'll wait until they unload the last one."

"As you will; fire when ready." Sassinak looked around the bridge again, meeting no happy faces. Letting an enemy blow open your docking bay doors was not standard Fleet procedure, and if she got out of this alive, she might be facing a court martial. At the very least she could be accused of allowing ruinous damage to Fleet property, and risking the capture of a major hull. That, at least, was false: the Zaid-Dayan would not be captured; she had had the explosives planted to prevent that, by Wefts she knew were trustworthy.

Two more pods came into the docking bay: now six of them waited to crawl like poisonous vermin through her ship. Sassinak shuddered, and fought it down. She saw on the screen an enemy in grayish suit armor walk up to the inner lock controls and attach something, then back away. A blown door control was easier to fix than a blown door. The white flare of a small explosion, and the inner lock doors slid apart. One pod clanked forward, its tracks making a palpable rumbling on the deck, steel grating on steel.

"Three more waiting, captain," said the voice in her ear.

"Snarks in a bucket," said someone on the bridge. Sassinak paid no attention. One by one the assault pods entered the ship, now picked up on the corridor monitors. Here the corridor was wide, offering easy access for the marines' own assault vehicles when these were being loaded.

"They can do one hell of a lot of damage," said Arly, breathing fast as she watched.

"They're going to take one hell of a lot of damage," said Sass. The first pod came to a corner, and split open, disgorging a dozen armored troops who flattened themselves to the bulkhead on either side. Now the escort's last pods were entering the docking bay. "And any time now they'll start wondering why no one seems to have noticed - "

A wild clangor drowned out her words, until Communications damped it. The enemy should take it that the damaged sensors were finally reacting, and that the Zaid-Dayan's unsuspecting crew were only now realizing the invasion. On the monitor, the first assault pod, its troop hatch now shut, trundled around the corner and loosed a shot down the corridor to the right. That shot reflected from the barrage mirrors placed for such occasion, and shattered the pod's turret. Its tracks kept moving, but as they passed over a mark on the deck a hatch opened from below and a shaped explosive charge blew a hole in its belly. Sassinak could see, on the screen, its troop hatch come partway open, and a tangle of armored limbs as the remaining men inside fought to get free. One by one they were picked off by marine snipers shooting from loopholes into the corridor. By now the second and third pods were open, unloading some of their troops. The second one then lumbered to the corner, and around to the left.

"Stupid," commented Arly, looking a little less pale. "They ought to realize we'd cover both ends."

"Not that stupid." Sassinak pointed. The enemy assault pod, moving at higher speed and without firing, was making a run for the end of the corridor. With enough momentum, it might trigger several traps, and open a path for those behind. Sure enough, the first shaped charge slowed, but did not stop it, and even after the second blew off one track, it still crabbed slowly down the passage toward the barrage mirror. This slid aside to reveal one of the marines' own assault vehicles, which blew the turret off the invader before it could react to the mirror's disappearance. Another shot smashed it nearly flat.

"That's the last time I'll complain about the extra mass on troop deck," said the Helm Officer. "I always thought it was a stupid waste, but then I never thought we'd have a shooting war inside."

"It's not over yet," said Sass, who'd been watching the monitor covering the docking bay itself. Three more assault pods had entered, and now the foremost started toward the inner hatch. "We're going to lose some tonnage before this is done." Even as she spoke, high access ports in the docking bay bulkheads slid aside to reveal the batteries that provided fire support in hostile landings. The weapons had been hastily remounted to fire down into the docking bay, with charges calculated to blow the docking bay contents - but not that quadrant of the cruiser. Even so, they could all feel the shocks through their bootsoles, as the big guns chewed the attackers' pods to bits. None of the troops in five of the pods escaped, but the foremost one managed to unload some into the corridor beyond, where they joined the remnants from the first three pods.

With frightening speed, that group split into teams and disappeared from the monitor's view. Sassinak flicked through the quadrant monitors, picking up stray visuals: gray battle armor jogging here, flashes from weapons there. Fleet marine green armor sprawled gracelessly across a hatchway - she noted the location, and keyed it to the marine commander.

The computer, faster than any human, displayed a red tag for each invader, moving through the schematics of the cruiser. Marines were green tags, forming a cordon around the docking bay, and a backup cordon of ship's crew, blue tags, closed off the quadrant.

Almost. Someone - Sassinak had no time then to think what someone - had left a cargo lift open on Troop Deck. Five red tags went in... and the computer abruptly offered a split screen image, half of troop deck, and half of the schematic of the cargo lift destination. The lift paused, airing up as it passed from the vacuum of the evacuated section to the pressurised levels. But it was headed for Main!

In one fluid motion, Sassinak slammed her helmet on and locked it, scooped her weapons off the console, and ran out the door. She tongued the biolink into place just under her right back molar, and felt/saw/heard the five who followed her out: two Wefts and two humans. Fury and exultation boiled in her veins.

The cargo lift opened onto the outer corridor, aft of the bridge and behind the galleys that served the officers' mess. Instead of going forward to the cross corridor, and then aft, Sassinak led her party through the wardroom, and the galley behind it. Through the exterior pickup, she could hear the invaders clomping noisily out of the lift, and in her helmet radio she could hear the marine commander even more noisily cursing the boneheaded son of a Ryxi egglayer who left the lift down and unlocked. Forward, the nearest guardpost on Main was in the angle near the forward docking bay. Aft, the same. Main Deck had not been built to be defended; it was never supposed to be subject to attack.

They heard the invaders heading aft; Sass's computer link said all five were together. Cautiously, she eased the hatch open, and a blast of fire nearly took it apart and her hand with it. They were all together, but some of them were facing each way. Too late for surprise - and the standing guard might walk into this in a moment. Sassinak dove out the door and across the corridor, trusting her armor; she came to rest in the cargo lift itself, with a hotspot on her shoulder, but no real damage - and a good firing position. Behind her, the two Wefts went high, grabbing the overhead and skittering toward the enemy like giant crabs. The other humans stayed low.

Everyone fired: bolts of light and stunner buzzes and old fashioned projectiles that tore chunks from the bulkheads and deck. That was one of the enemy, and whatever it was fired rapidly, if none too accurately, knocking one of the Wefts off the bulkhead in pieces, and smashing a human into a bloody pulp. The other was wounded, huddled in the scant cover of the galley hatch. His weapon had been hit by projectiles, and the bent metal had skidded five meters or so down the corridor. One of the enemy went down, headless, but another one apparently recognized Sassinak by her white armor.

"That's the captain," she heard on the exterior speaker other helmet. "Get him, and we've got the ship."

You've got the wrong sex, Sassinak thought to herself, and you're not about to get me or my ship. She braced her wrist and fired carefully. A smoking hole appeared in one gray-armored chest.

"He's armed," said a surprised voice. "Captains don't carry - " This time she checked her computer link first, and her needler burned a hole in the speaker's helmet. Three down - and where was that Weft?

He was flattened to the overhead, trying to position a Security riot net over the two remaining, but they edged away aft, firing almost random shots at Sassinak and the Weft.

"Forget capture," Sassinak said into her helmet intercom. "Just get 'em."

The Weft made a sound no human could, and shifted, impossibly fast, onto one of the enemy. Sassinak heard the terrified shriek over her speakers, but concentrated on shooting the last one. She lay there a moment, breathless, then hauled herself up and locked the cargo lift's controls to a voice-only, bridge-crew only command. The forward guard peeked cautiously around the curve of the corridor, weapon ready. Sassinak waved, and spoke on the intercom.

"Got this bunch - you take over; I'm going back to the bridge." The Weft clinging to the dead enemy let go - reluctantly, Sassinak thought - and shifted back to human form. Inside his armor - a neat trick.

"I'll call Med," he said. On the way back through the galley and wardroom, Sassinak queried the situation below. No other group had broken out; in fact, none had reached the outer cordon, and the marines had lost only five to the twenty-nine enemy dead. Two of the enemy had thrown plasma grenades, damaging the inner hull slightly, but Engineering was on it. The marine assault team was about to enter the escort, and someone on it had signalled a desire to surrender. "And I trust that like I'd trust a gambler's dice," the marine commander said grimly.

Sassinak came back onto the bridge to find everyone helmeted and armed and as much in cover as the bridge allowed. She nodded, popped her helmet, and grinned at them, suddenly elated and ready to take on anything. Other helmets came off, the faces behind them smiling, too, but some still uncertain. Most of the consoles had red lights somewhere, blinking or steady... too many steady.

"Report," she said, and the reports began. With portable visual scanners, Engineering had finally gotten a view of the portside pod cluster.

"Not much left to work with," was the gruff comment. "We'll have to use the replacement stores, and we may still be one or two short."

"But we can shift again?"

"Oh, aye, if that's all you want. I wouldn't go on another chase in FTL, though, not if you want to live to see your star. It'll get us home, that's about it. And that's assuming you find us a quiet place to work. From what I hear, they're in short supply. We'll need three to five days, and that's for the pods alone. What you did to the portside docking bay is something else."

Sassinak shook her head. Engineering always thought the ship counted for more than anything else. "I didn't blow that hole," she said, well aware that a court martial might think she'd been responsible anyway.

Fire Control was next, reporting that their external shields were still operative: to normal levels except in the damaged quadrant, where they would hold off minor weapons, and offer partial protection from larger ones. Their own distance weapons were in good shape, although the detection and ranging systems on the port side were not. "Soon as we can get someone outside, we can rig something on the midship vanes, and link it to the portside battle computers - except the one that got holed, of course."

Nav reported that they were almost out of LOS of the oncoming ships from the planet. "They only had a two minute window, and apparently were afraid of hitting their own ship: they didn't fire, and they won't be in position for the next five hours." Sassinak grimaced. Five hours wasn't enough for any of the repairs, except - maybe - rigging the detector lines. And she still didn't know how the fight for the escort was coming.

Just then the marine commander came on line, overriding another report. "Got it," he said. "And they didn't get word off, either: we had to blow a hole in the bow, and they're all dead - nobody to question - " Sassinak didn't really care about that, not now. She didn't want to worry about prisoners on board. "You wouldn't believe this ship," he went on. "Damn thing's stuffed with weaponry and assault gear: like a miniature battle platform. Most of the crew travels in coldsleep: that's how they did it."

"Anything we need?" she asked, interrupting his recital. "Never mind - I'll patch you to Engineering and Damage Control: if they've got components we can use, take 'em... then clear the ship. Twenty minutes."

"Aye, captain." Med was next: eighteen wounded, including the man who'd been with Sass, and the Weft she'd thought was dead. Its central ring and one limb were still together, and Med announced smugly that Wefts could regenerate from that. Minor ring damage, but they'd sewn it up and put the whole thing in the freezer. Sassinak shivered, and glanced around to see if the other Weft had come back in yet. No. She looked at the bridge chronometer, and stared in disbelief. All that in less than fifteen minutes?

CHAPTER Eleven

By the grace of whatever gods ruled this section of space, they had a brief respite, and Sassinak intended to make the most of it. She had the grain of an idea that might work to buy them still more time. Now, however, her crew labored to dismantle the escort's docking bay hatch - although not as large as their own, it could form part of the repair far more quickly than Engineering could fabricate a complete replacement. Another working party picked its way along the Zaid-Dayan's outer hull, rigging detector wires and dishes to replace the damaged portside detectors. Inside the cruiser, the marines hauled away the battered remains of the enemy assault pods, and stacked the corpses near the docking bay. That entire quadrant remained in vacuum.

Red lights began to wink off on consoles in the bridge. A spare targeting computer came online to replace the one destroyed by a chance shot, a minor leak in Environmental Systems was repaired without incident, and Engineering even found that a single portside pod could deliver power - it had merely lost its electrical connection when the others blew. One pod wasn't enough to do much with, but everyone felt better nonetheless.

One hour into the safe period, Sassinak confirmed that the escort vessel had been stripped of everything Engineering thought they might need, and was empty, held to the cruiser by their tractor field.

"This is what I want to do," she explained to her senior officers.

"It'll stretch our maneuvering capability," said Hollister, frowning. "Especially with that hole in the hull - "

"The moon's airless - there's not going to be any pressure problem," said Sass. "What I want to know is, have we got the power to decelerate, and has anyone seen a good place to go in?"

Bures, the senior Navigation Officer, shrugged. "If you wanted a rugged little moon to hide on, this one's ideal. Getting away again without being spotted is going to be a chore - it's open to surveillance from the ground and that other moon - but as long as we don't move, and our stealth gear works?" Sassinak glanced at Hollister.

"That's all right - and it's the first time I've been happy with it where it is."

" - Then I can offer any patch of it," said Bures. " - the only thing regular about it is how irregular it is. And yes, before you ask, our surface systems are all functional."

The next half hour or so was frantic, as working parties moved the enemy corpses and attack pods into the escort - along with escape modules from the cruiser, a Fleet distress beacon and every bit of spare junk they had time to shift. Not all would fit back in, and cursing crewmen lashed nets of the stuff to the escort's hull. Deep in the escort's hull and among the wreckage in its docking bay, they placed powerful explosive charges. Last, and most important, the fuses, over whose timing and placement Arly fussed busily. Finally it was all done, and the cruiser's tractor field turned off. The Zaid-Dayan's insystem drive caught hold again, easing the cruiser away from the other ship, now a floating bomb continuing on the trajectory both ships had shared. The cruiser decelerated still more, pushing its margin of safety to get to the moonlet's surface before any of the pursuit could come in sight.

It was only then that Sassinak remembered that Huron's navigational computer, on the transport, was still slaved to the Zaid-Dayan's. She dared not contact him - had no way to warn him that the violent explosion about to occur was not the mutual destruction of two warships. The Fleet beacon would convince him - and he was not equipped to detect that the Zaid-Dayan's tiny IFF was not in the wreckage - only a Fleet ship could enable that. She looked at the navigational display - there, still boosting safely away, was the transport. She tapped the Nav code, and said, "Break Huron's link."

A startled face looked back at her. "Omigod. I forgot." Bures's thumb went down on the console and the coded tag for Huron's ship went from Fleet blue to black neutral.

"I know. So did I - and he's going to think the worst, unless it occurs to him that the link went quite a while first."

On the main screen, the situation plot showed the cruiser's rapid descent to the moon's surface. Navigation were all busy, muttering cryptic comments to one another and the computer; Helm stared silently at the steering display, with Engineering codes popping up along its edges: yellow, orange, and occasionally red. Sassinak called up a visual, and swallowed hard. She'd wanted broken ground, and that's exactly what she saw. At least the radar data said it was solid, and the IR scan said it had no internal heat sources.

They were down, squeezed tight as a tick between two jagged slabs on the floor of a small crater, within eight seconds of Nav's first estimate. Given the irregularity of the moon, this was remarkable, and Sassinak gave Nav a grin and thumbs-up. Ten seconds later, the escort blew, a vast pulse of EM, explosion of light, fountains of debris of every sort. And on the outward track, the Fleet distress beacon, screaming for help in every wavelength the designers could cram into it.

"That had me worried," Hollister admitted, grinning, as he watched it. "If that damn thing had blown this way, they might have decided to come get it and shut it off. I had it wired to the far side, but still - "

"The gods love us," said Sass. She looked around, meeting all their eyes. "All right, people, we've done it so far: now we'll be hiding out silently for awhile, until they're convinced. Then repairs. Then I suppose we'd better explain to Fleet that we weren't actually blown away."

They looked good, on the whole, she thought: still tense, but not too stressed, and confident. "Full stealth," she said, and they moved to comply, switching off non-essential systems, and powering up the big gray canisters amidships to do whatever they did however they did it.

There was still the matter of the person who caused the first disturbance, and Sassinak wondered why more trouble hadn't surfaced during the fight. Surely that would have been the perfect time... unless she'd sent the subversive off with Huron, part of the boarding party. Her heart contracted. If she had - if he didn't know, if he were killed because - she shook her head. No time for that. Huron had his own ship; he'd deal with it. She had to believe he could do it - and besides, she hadn't any choice. Here, though - what about that cargo lift?

She called Major Currald, the marine commander, and asked who had been assigned to secure the cargo lift when they cordoned the area.

"Captain, it's my fault. I didn't give specific orders - "

She looked at his broad face in the monitor. Subversive? Saboteur? She couldn't believe it, not with his record and the way he'd handled the rest of the engagement. If he'd slipped much, the enemy would have won. "Very well," she said finally. "I'm holding a briefing in my quarters after the overpass - probably about four hours - we're going to need your input, too." So. The cargo lift could be pure accident, or "Once is accident, twice is coincidence, and three times is enemy action." That reminded her to take it off bridge voice command, now that the fight was over. Once could be enemy action, too.

Sassinak had taken what precautions she could to ensure that only a few senior officers had access to controls for exterior systems. If her bridge crew wanted to sabotage her, there was really no way to prevent it. Now, with the ship on full stealth routine, all they could do was wait as the enemy's ships appeared, and see if they accepted the evidence of a fierce and fatal struggle. Every kind of debris they might expect to find was there, and surely none of them had any idea what, precisely, the Zaid-Dayan was. They would not know what total mass to expect. Besides, that Fleet beacon screeching its electronic head off was not the sort of thing a live captain wanted reporting on his or her actions. She winced, thinking of what would happen when its signal finally reached a Fleet relay station, if she hadn't managed to get word through on a sublight link earlier. She had better have a whole ship, and a live crew, and a good story to tell.

In the meantime, they had another hour and a bit to wait until the first of the enemy ships came into scan. Miserable as it was, they should stay in their protective gear until it was obvious that the enemy had accepted the scam. Not that a suit would really keep anyone alive long on that moonlet, but -

"Coffee, captain?" Sassinak glanced around, and smiled at the steward with a tray of mugs. She was, she realized, feeling the letdown after battle. She waved him toward the rest of the bridge crew. They could all use something. But she had something better than coffee... a private vice, as Abe had called her leftover sweet tooth. She always kept some in her emergency gear, and this was just the time for it... chocolate, rare and expensive. And addictive, the medical teams said, but no worse than coffee. She left her mug cooling on the edge of her console as the thin brown wedge went into her mouth. Much better. As they waited, the crew settled again to routine tasks, and Sassinak assessed their mood. They had gained confidence - she liked the calm but determined expressions, the clear eyes and steady voices. Most of the bridge crew made an excuse to speak to her; she sensed their approval and trust.

The first enemy vessel appeared on scan, high and fast, a streak across their narrow wedge of vision. It continued with no visible sign of burn or course change; the computer confirmed. Another, lower, from the other side, followed within an hour. This one flooded the moonlet with targeting radar impulses... which the Zaid-Dayan passively absorbed, analyzed, and reflected as if it were just another big rock. Over the next couple of hours, three more of the small ships crossed their scan; none of them changed course or showed any interest in the moon.

"I don't expect any of them carrying the fuel to hang around and search," said Hollister. "If they were going to, they'd have to get into a stable orbit - which this thing doesn't encourage."

"And I'm glad of it." Sassinak stretched. "Gah! I can't believe I'm stiff after that little bit of running - "

"And getting shot at. Did you know your back armor's nearly melted through?"

So that had been the hotspot she'd felt. "Is it? And I thought they'd missed. Now - do you suppose that other escort is going to show up - and if it is, do they have it crammed with as much armament?"

"Yes, and yes, but probably not for another couple of hours. The little ships will have told them about the explosion. Wish we could pick up their transmissions."

"Me, too. Unfortunately, they don't all speak Standard, or anything close to it."

Finally, the steward came again to pick up the dirty mugs, and gave Sassinak a worried look. "Anything wrong, captain?"

"No - thanks for the thought. I just indulged my taste for chocolate instead. Tell you what - I'm briefing the senior officers in my office in - " she looked at the chronometer, " - about fifteen minutes. Why don't you bring a pot of coffee in there, and something to eat, too. We'll be there awhile." The steward nodded and left. Sassinak turned to the others. "Bridge crew, you can get out of armor, if you want: have your reliefs stand by in case. Terrell - " This to her new Executive Officer, a round-faced young man.

"Yes, captain?"

"Take the bridge, and tell the cooks to serve the crew coffee or some other stimulant at their duty stations. As soon as we're sure that cruiser isn't onto us, we'll stand down and give everyone a rest, but not quite yet. I'll be in my office, but I'm going to the cabin first." Sassinak went aft to her cabin, got out of the armored suit, and saw that the beam had charred a streak across her uniform under it. Grimacing, she worked it off her shoulder, and peered at the damage in her mirror. A red streak, maybe a couple of blisters; she'd peel a little, that was all. It didn't hurt, really, although it was stiffening up. She grinned at her reflection: not bad for forty-six, not bad at all. Not a silver strand in that night-dark hair, no wrinkles around the eyes - or anywhere else, for that matter. Not for the first time she shook her head at her own vanity, ducked into the stall, and let the fine spray wash away sweat and fatigue. A clean, unmarked uniform, a quick brush to her curly hair, and she was ready to face the officers again.

In her office, her senior officers waited; she saw by their faces that they appreciated this effort: nothing could be too wrong if the captain appeared freshly groomed and serenely elegant. Two stewards had brought a large pot of coffee and tray of food: pastries and sandwiches. Sassinak dismissed the stewards, with thanks, and left the food on the warmer.

"Well, now," she said, slipping into her chair behind the broad fonwood desk, "we've solved several problems today - "

"Created a few, too. Who let off that firecracker, d'you know?"

"No, I don't. That's a problem, and it's part of another one I'll mention later. First, though, I want to commend all of you: you and your people."

"Sorry about that cargo lift - " began Major Currald.

"And I'm sorry about your casualties. Major. Those here and those on the transport both. But we wouldn't have had much chance without you. I want to thank you, in particular, for recommending that we split the marines between us as we did. What I really want to do, though, is let you all in on a classified portion of our mission." She tapped the desk console to seal the room to intrusive devices, and nodded as eyebrows went up around the room. "Yes, it's important, and yes, it has a bearing on what happened today. Fleet advised me - has advised all captains, I understand - of something we've all known or suspected for some time. Security's compromised, and Fleet no longer considers its personnel background screening reliable. We were told that we should expect at least one hostile agent on each ship - to look for them, neutralize their activities, if we could, and not report them back through normal channels." She let that sink in a moment. When Hollister lifted his hand she nodded.

"Did you get any kind of guidance at all, captain? Were they suspecting enlisted? Officers?" His eye traveled on to Currald, whose bulk dwarfed the rest of them, but he didn't say it.

Sassinak shook her head. "None. We were to suspect everyone - any personnel file might have been tampered with, and any apparent political group might be involved. They specifically stated that Fleet Security believes most heavyworlders in Fleet are loyal, that Wefts have never shown any hint of disloyalty, said that religious minorities, apart from political movements, are considered unlikely candidates. But aside from that, everyone from the sailor swabbing a latrine to my Executive Officer."

"But you're telling us," said Arly, head cocked.

"Yes. I'm telling you because, first of all, I trust you. We just came through a fairly stiff engagement; we all know it could have ended another way. I believe you're all loyal to Fleet, and through Fleet to the FSP. Besides, if my bridge crew and senior officers are, singly or together, disloyal, then I'm unlikely to be able to counter it. You have too much autonomy; you have to have it. And there we were, right where you could have sabotaged me and the whole mission, and instead you performed brilliantly: I'm not going to distrust that. We need to trust each other, and I'm starting here."

"Do you have any ideas?" asked Danyan, one of the Wefts who had been in the firing party. "Any clues at all?"

"Not yet. Today we had two incidents: the firing of an unauthorized missile which gave away our position, and the cargo lift being left unlocked in an area which could easily be penetrated. The first I must assume was intentional: in twenty years as a Fleet officer, I have never known anyone to fire a missile accidentally once out of training. The second could have been accidental or intentional. Major Currald takes responsibility for it, and thinks it was an accident; I'll accept that for now. But the first... Arly, who could have fired that thing?"

The younger woman frowned thoughtfully. "I've been trying to think, but haven't really had time - things kept happening - "

"Try now."

"Well - I could, but I didn't. My two techs on the bridge could have, but I think I'd have seen them do it - I can't swear to that, but I'm used to their movements, and it'd take five or six strokes. At that time, the quadrant weaponry was on local control - at least partly. Ordinarily, in stealth mode, I have a tech at each station. That's partly to keep crew away, so that accidents won't happen. That went out of quad three, and there were two techs on station. Adis and Veron, both advanced-second. Beyond that, though, someone could have activated an individual missile with any of several control panels, if they'd had previous access to it, to change its response frequency."

"What would they know about the status of any engagement?" asked Sass.

"What I'd said today, was that we were insystem with those slavers, trying to lie low and trap them. Keep a low profile, but be ready to respond instantly if the captain needed us, because we probably would get in a row, and it would happen fast. I'd have expected them to be onstation, but not propped: several keystrokes from a launch, though not more than a five second delay."

"The whole crew knew we were trailing slavers, captain," said Nav. "I expect the marines, too - ?" The marine commander nodded. "So they'd know when we came out of FTL that we were reasonably close. Full-stealth-mode's a shipwide announcement... easy enough for an agent to realize that's just when you don't want a missile launched."

"Arly, I'll need the names of those on duty, the likeliest to have access." She had already keyed in Adis and Veron, and their personnel records were up on her left-hand screen. Nothing obvious - but she'd already been over all the records looking for something obvious. "And, when you've time, a complete report on alternate access methods: if an exterior device was used, what would it look like, and so on." Sassinak turned to Major Currald. "I know you consider that cargo lift your fault, but in ordinary circumstances, who would have locked it off?"

"Oh... Sergeant Pardy, most likely. He had troop deck watch, and when the galley's secured, he usually does it. But I'd snagged him to supervise the mounting of those barrage mirrors, because Carston was already working on the artillery. That would have left... let's see... Corporal Turner, but she went with the boarding party, because we needed to send two people with extra medical training. I really think, captain, that it was a simple accident, and my responsibility. I didn't stop to realize that Pardy's usual team had been split, when the boarding party left, and that left no one particular assigned to it."

Sassinak nodded. From what he said, she thought herself that it was most likely an accident - almost a fatal one, but not intentional. And even if it had been - even if one of the marines now dead had told another to do it, in all that confusion she would find no proof.

"What I'm planning to do now," she told them all, "is sit here quietly until the fuss clears, then do our repairs as best we can, and then continue our quiet surveillance until something else happens. If the slavers decide to evacuate that base, I'd like to know where they go. Even if they don't leave, we can log traffic in and out of the system. Huron's taking that transport to the nearest station - a minimum of several weeks. If something happens to him, our beacon is... mmm... telling the world just where the Zaid-Dayan was. It'll be years before anyone picks it up, probably, but they will. If we see something interesting enough to tail, we will; otherwise, we'll wait to see if Huron brings a flotilla in after us."

"Won't he think we're destroyed?" asked Arly.

"He might. Then again, he might think of the trick we used - we both read about a similar trick used in water-world navies, long ago. Either way, though, he knows the base is here, and I'm sure he'll report it." Sassinak paused, her throat dry. "Anyone for coffee? Food?" Several of them nodded. Nav and Helm rose to serve it. Sassinak took two of her favorite pastries, and sipped from her full mug. Her nose wrinkled involuntarily. Coffee wasn't her favorite drink, but this had a strange undertaste. Major Currald, who'd taken a big gulp of his, grimaced.

"Somebody didn't scrub the pot," he said. He took another swallow, frowning. The others sniffed theirs, and put them down. Nav sipped, and shook his head. Helm shrugged, and went to fill the water pitcher at the corner sink.

Sassinak had taken a bite of pastry to cover the unpleasant taste when Currald gagged, and turned an unlovely shade of bluish gray. His eyes rolled up under slack lids. Hollister, beside him, quickly rolled him out of the seat onto the floor, where the commander sprawled heavily, his breathing harsh and uneven. "Heart attack," he said. "Probably the stress today - " But as he reached for the emergency kit stowed along the wall, Sassinak felt an odd numbness spread across her own tongue, and saw the frightened expression of those who had taken a sip of coffee.

"Poison," she managed to say. Her tongue felt huge in her mouth, clumsy. "Don't drink - " Her vision blurred, and her stomach roiled. Suddenly she doubled up, helplessly spewing out the little she'd had. So was Bures, and now Currald, apparently unconscious, vomited copiously, gagging on it. Someone was up, calling for Med on the intercom. Someone's arm reached into her line of sight, wiping up the mess, and then her face. She nodded, acknowledging the help but still not able to speak.

When she looked again, Hollister was trying to keep the commander's airway open, and Bures was still hunched over, wild-eyed and miserable. She expected she herself didn't look much better. A last violent cramp seized her and bent her around clenched arms. Then it eased. Her vision was clearer: she could see that Arly was trying to open the door for Med, and realized that it was still on voice-only lock. She cleared her throat, and managed an audible command. The door slid aside. While the med team went to work, she put the room ventilation on high to get rid of the terrible stench, and rinsed her mouth with water from the little sink. This was not what she'd had in mind when she'd insisted on running a water line into this office, but it was certainly handy. The med team had Currald tubed and on oxygen before they spoke to her, and then they wanted her to come straight back to sickbay.

"Not now." She was able to speak clearly now, though she suspected the poison was still affecting her. "I'm fine now - "

"Captain, with all due respect, if it's a multiple poison there may be delayed effects."

"I know that. But later. You can take Bures, keep an eye on him. Now listen: we think it's the coffee, in here - " She pointed to the pot. "I don't want panic, and I don't want the whole ship knowing that someone tried to poison the officers: clear?"

"Clear, captain, but - "

"But you have to find out. I know that. If we're the only victims, that's one thing, but you'll want to protect the others - I recommend the sudden discovery that those invaders may have put something in the galley up here, and you need to see if they contaminated the galley on Troop Deck."

"Right away, captain."

"Lieutenant Gelory will help you." Gelory, a Weft, smiled quietly; she was the assistant quartermaster, so this was a logical choice.

The movement of a litter with an unconscious Major Currald aboard couldn't be concealed. Sassinak quickly elaborated her cover story about the invaders having somehow contaminated the galley for the officers' mess. The bridge crew were angry and worried - so was she - but she had to leave them briefly to get out of her stinking uniform. Her face in the mirror seemed almost ten years older, but after another shower her color had come back, and she felt almost normal - just hungry.

Bures and the others who had sipped the coffee were also better, and had taken the opportunity to get into clean uniforms. That was good: if they cared about appearance, they were going to be fine. She settled into her seat and thought about it. Poisoning, an open cargo lift through the cordons, and a missile launch... ? Three times enemy action: that was the old rule, and a lot better than most old rules. But it didn't feel right. It didn't feel like the same kind of enemy. If someone wanted the ship to reveal itself to the slavers - and that was the only reason for a missile launch - what was the poison supposed to do? If they all died of it, retching their guts out on the decks, the whole crew together wouldn't make enough noise to be noticed. So the subversive could take over the ship? No one person could: a cruiser was too complicated for any one individual to launch. Was it pique because the earlier sabotage hadn't done its work? Then why not put poison in something where it couldn't be tasted? The poison was, in fact, a stupid person's plot - she leaned forward to put Medical on a private line and picked up her headset.

"Yes?"

"Yes, poison in the coffee: a very dangerous alkaloid. Yes, more cases, although so far only one is dead." Dr. Mayerd's usually business-like tone had an extra bite in it.

Dead. Tears stung her eyes. Bad enough to lose them in combat, bad enough to have her ship blown open... but for someone in the crew to poison fellow crew! "Go on," she said.

"Major Currald's alive, and we think he'll make it, though he's pretty bad. He'll be out for at least three days. Two more have had their stomachs pumped; those who just sipped it heaved it all up again, as you did. So far everyone's buying the idea of the invaders having dumped poison in the nearest canister in the galleys - that would almost fit, because the coffee tins were sitting out, ready to brew. Apparently it wasn't in all the coffee - or didn't you drink that first batch sent to the bridge?"

"I didn't, but some others did, with no effect. What else?"

"The concentration was wildly different in the different containers we found - as if someone had just scooped a measure or so, carelessly, into the big kettles, and not all of those. Altogether we've had eleven report in here, and reports of another nine or ten who didn't feel bad enough to come in once they quit vomiting - I'm tracking those. More important: captain, if you experience any color change in your vision - if things start looking strange - report here at once. Some people have a late reaction to this; it has to do with the way some people's livers break down the original poison. Some of the metabolites undergo secondary degradation and lose the hydroxy - "

Sassinak interrupted what was about to be an enthusiastic description of the biochemistry of the poison, with, "Right - if things change color, I'll come down. Talk to you later." She found herself smiling at the slightly miffed snort that came down the line before she clicked it off. Mayerd would get over it; she should have known the captain wouldn't want a lecture on biochemical pathways.

So someone had tried to poison not only the more senior officers, but also the crew - or some of the crew. She wondered just how random the poisoning had been... had the kettles which hadn't been poisoned been chosen to save friends? Poisoning still made little sense in terms of helping the slavers. Unless this person planned to kill everyone, and somehow rig a message to them... but only one of the Communications specialists would be likely to have the skills for that. Sassinak was careful not to turn and look suspiciously at the Comm cubicle. Morale was going to be bad enough.

Her intercom beeped, and she put the headset back on. "Sassinak here."

It was the Med officer again. "Captain, it's not only an alkaloid, it's an alkaloid from a plant native to Diplo."

She opened her mouth to say "So?" and then realized what that meant. "Diplo. Oh... dear." A heavyworld system. As far as some were concerned, the most troublesome heavyworld political unit, outspoken to the point of rudeness about the duties of the lightweights to their stronger cousins. "Are you sure?"

"Very." Mayerd sounded almost smug, and deserved to be. "Captain, this is one of the reference poisons in our databank - because it's rare, and its structure can be used to deduce others, when we run them through the machines. It is precisely that one - and I know you don't want to hear the name, because you didn't even want to hear about the hydroxy-group cleavage - " Sassinak winced at her sarcasm, but let it pass. " - And I can confirm that it did not come from medical stores: someone brought it aboard as private duffel." A longish pause, and then, "Someone from Diplo, I would think. Or with friends there."

"Currald nearly died," said Sass, remembering that the Med officer had had more than one sharp thing to say about heavyworlders and their medical demands on her resources.

"And might still. I'm not accusing Currald; I know that not every heavyworlder is a boneheaded fanatic. But it is a poison from a plant native to an aggressively heavyworlder planet, and that's a fact you can't ignore. Excuse me, they're calling me." And with the age-old arrogance of the surgeon, she clicked off her intercom and left Sassinak sitting there.

A heavyworlder poison. To the Med officer, that clearly meant a heavyworlder poisoner. But was that too easy? Sassinak thought of Currald's hard, almost sullen face, the resigned tone in which he claimed responsibility for the open cargo lift. He'd expected to be blamed; he'd been ready for trouble. She knew her attitude had surprised him - and his congratulations on her own success in the battle had also been a bit surprised. A lightweight, a woman, and the captain - had put on armor, dived across a corridor, exchanged fire with the enemy? She wished he were conscious, able to talk... for of all the heavyworlders now on the ship, she trusted him most.

If not a heavyworlder, her thoughts ran on, then who? Who wanted to foment strife between the types of humans? Who would gain by it? A medical reference poison, she reminded herself... and the medical staff had their own unique opportunities for access to food supplies.

"Captain?" That was her new Exec, to her eye far too young and timid to be what she needed. She certainly couldn't get any comfort from him. She nodded coolly, and he went on. "That other escort's coming across."

Sassinak looked at the main screen, now giving a computer enhanced version of the passive scans. This vessel's motion was relatively slower; its course would take it through the thickest part of the expanding debris cloud.

"Its specs are pretty close to the other one," he offered, eyeing her with a nervous expression that made her irritable. She did not, after all, have horns and a spiked tail.

"Any communications we can pick up?"

"No, captain. Not so far. It's probably beaming them to that relay satellite - " He paused as the Communications Watch Officer raised a hand and waved it. Sassinak nodded to her.

"Speaks atrocious Neo-Gaesh," the Com officer said. "I can barely follow it."

"Put it on my set," said Sass. "It's my native tongue - or was." She had kept up practice in Neo-Gaesh, over the years, just in case. If they had even the simplest code, though, she'd be unlikely to follow it.

They didn't. In plain, if accented, Neo-Gaesh, the individual on the escort vessel was reporting their observation of the debris. " - And a steel waste disposal unit, definitely not ours. A... a cube reader, I think, and a cube file. Stenciled with Fleet insignia and some numbers." Sassinak could not hear whatever reply had come, but in a few seconds the first speaker said, "Take too long. We've already picked up Fleet items you can check. I'll tag it, though." Another long pause, and then, "Couldn't have been too big - one of their heavily armed scouts, the new ones. They're supposed to be damned near invisible to everything, until they attack, and almost as heavily armed as a cruiser." Another pause, then, "Yes: verified Fleet casualties, some in evac pods, and some in ship clothes, uniforms." That had been hardest, convincing herself to sacrifice their dead with scant honor, their bodies as well as their lives given to the enemy, to make a convincing display of destruction.

When the escort passed from detection range, Sassinak relaxed. They'd done it, so far. The slavers didn't know they were there, alive. Huron and his pitiful cargo were safely away. One lot of slavers were dead - and she didn't regret the death of any of them.

But in the long night watch that followed, when she thought of the Fleet dead snagged by an enemy's robot arm to be "verified" as a casualty, she regretted very much that Huron had gone with the trader, and she had no one to comfort her.

CHAPTER Twelve

Repairs, as always, ran overtime. Sassinak didn't mind that much: they had time, right then, more than enough of it. Engineers, in her experience, were never satisfied to replace a malfunctioning part: they always wanted to redesign it. So mounting replacement pods involved rebuilding the pod mounts, and changing the conformation of them, all to reconcile the portside pod cluster with the other portside repairs. Hollister quoted centers of mass and acceleration, filling her screen with math that she normally found interesting... but at the moment it was a tangle of symbols that would not make sense. Neither did the greater problem of ship sabotage. If someone hadn't blown their cover, they might have gotten away without that great gaping hole in the side of her ship, or the fouled pods. Or the deaths. This was not, by any means, the first time she'd been in combat, or seen death... but Abe had been right, all those years ago: it was different when it was her command that sent them, not a command transmitted from above.

Finally they were done, the engineers and their working parties, and as the pressure came up in the damaged sector, and the little leaks whistled until they were patched, Sassinak could see that the ship itself was sound. It needed time in the refitting yards, but it was sound. Marine troops moved back into their quarters when the pressure stabilized, to the great relief of the Fleet crew who'd been double-bunking, and not liking it. Seven days, not three or four or five, but it was done, and they were back to normal.

Currald was out of sick bay, just barely in time to move his troops back into their own territory. Sassinak had visited him daily once he regained consciousness, but he'd been too sick for much talk. He'd lost nearly ten kilos, and looked haggard.

She was in the gym, working out with Gelory in unarmed combat, when Currald came in for the first time. His eyes widened when he saw the shiny pink streak across her shoulder.

"When did that - ?"

"One of the pirates nearly got me - the five that got up to Main." She answered without pausing, dodging one of Gelory's standing kicks, and throwing a punch she blocked easily.

"I didn't know you'd been hurt." His expression flickered through surprise, concern, and settled into his normal impassivity. Sassinak hand-signed Gelory to break for a moment.

"It wasn't bad," she said. "Are you supposed to be working out yet?"

He reddened. "I'm supposed to be taking it easy, but you know the problem - "

"Yeah, your calcium shifts too readily in low-grav. I could have Engineering rig your quarters for high-grav..."

His brows raised; Sassinak gave herself a point for having gotten through his mask again. "You'd do that? It takes power, and we're on stealth - "

"I'd do that rather than have you blow an artery working out here before you're ready. I know you're tough. Major, but poisoning doesn't favor your kind of strength."

"They said I could use the treadmill, but not the weight harness yet." That was an admission; the tread-mill wasn't even in the gym proper. Currald gave her the most human look she'd had yet, and finally grinned. "I guess you aren't going to think I'm a weakling even when I look like one..."

"Weaklings don't survive that kind of poisoning, and weaklings aren't majors in the marines." She delivered that crisply, almost barked it, and was glad to see the respectful glint in his eye. "Now - if you and Med think that a high-grav environment would help you get back to normal, tell me. We can't take the power to do more than your quarters, without risking exposure, but we can do that much. I have no idea if that's enough to do any good. In the meantime, I'd appreciate it if you'd follow Med's advice - you don't want them telling you how to handle troops, and they know a bit more about poisoning than either of us."

"Yes, captain," he said. This time with neither resentment, defensiveness, nor guilt.

"I'll expect you for the staff conference at 1500," Sassinak went on. "Now, I've got another fifteen minutes of Gelory's expertise to absorb."

"May I watch?"

"If you want to see your captain dumped on the gym floor a dozen times, certainly." She nodded to Gelory, who instantly attacked, a move so fast she was sure it must have been half shapechange. Something that felt almost boneless at first stiffened into a leg over which she was flipped - but she coiled in midair, managed to hang onto a wrist, and flipped Gelory in her turn. But this was the only change that Gelory pulled on her for the rest of the session. Instead they sparred as near-equals, and she hit the floor only once. She could not ask, in front of Currald, but suspected the Weft of making her look good in front of the heavyworlder.

Staff meeting that day found almost the same group in her office as on the day of the poisoning. Sassinak noted with amusement that suddenly no one went near the coffee service - although until Currald's return, the coffee fiends had been drinking at their normal rate.

"I'm fairly sure this coffee is safe," she said, and watched their faces as they realized their unconscious behaviors. When everyone was settled, and had taken the first cautious sips, she brought Currald up to date, outlining the repairs, the few changes necessary for the marines on Troop Deck, and the discreet hunt for the poisoner. The chief medical officer had already told him the poison was from Diplo, she knew, and she outlined what they had discovered since.

"It's obvious that any saboteur, as we discussed before, would want to foment trouble between factions. My first thought was that having a heavyworld poison pointed to someone who wanted to put heavyworlders in a bind, and knew that I had a reputation for trusting them. But we had to take a look at the possibility that a heavyworlder had, in fact, done the poisoning. It had to be someone with access to the galleys - preferably both, although it's just barely possible that some of the coffee from Main made it down to Troop Deck. Since we were serving all over the ship, it's hard to trace the source of everyone's drink... particularly if one or more of the stewards was involved."

"You no longer believe that the intruders poisoned open canisters?"

"No. There'd have been no reason for them to do so: they thought they were taking the ship. They'd have used our supplies. And remember, we have that other sabotage to consider, the missile."

"Have you figured it out, captain?"

"No. Frankly, Major, I wanted you well before we went further. I do have a list of suspects... and one of them is a young woman from an ambiguous background." She paused; no one said anything, and Sassinak went on. "She was a medical evacuee from Diplo - an unadapted infant who did not respond to treatment. Reared on Palun - "

"That's an intermediate world," said Currald slowly. Sassinak nodded. "Right. She lived there until she was thirteen, with a heavyworlder family related to her birth family. Applied for light-G transfer on her own, as soon as she could, and joined Fleet as a recruit after finishing school."

"But you're not sure - "

"No, if I were sure she'd be in the brig. She had access, but so did at least four other stewards and the cooks. Thing is, she's the only one with a close link to Diplo - not just any heavyworld planet, but Diplo. She's actually visited twice, as an adult, in protective gear. We don't know anything about it, of course. And anyone who wanted to incriminate a heavyworlder could hardly have found a better way than to use a Diplo poison."

"Could she have popped the missile?" Currald glanced at Arly, who quickly shook her head.

"No - we checked that, of course, right away. Particularly when both my techs in that quadrant came up sick. But they were well when the missile went off, and unless they're in it together they clear each other. I think myself it was a handheld pulse shot, probably from a service hatch down the corridor, that triggered the missile."

"You remember that Fleet Intelligence warned each captain to expect at least one agent... they didn't say only one," said Sass. "I think the character of the missile launch and the poisoning are so different as to point to two different individuals with two different goals. But what I can't figure out for sure is what someone hoped to gain by random poisoning. Unless the poisoner had a group of supporters to take over the ship..."

Currald sighed, and laced his fingers together. Even gaunt from his illness, he outweighed everyone else at the table, and his somber face looked dangerous. "Captain, you have the reputation of being fair..." He stopped, clearly unhappy with that beginning and started over. "Look: I'm just the marine commander; I don't mingle with your ship's crew that much. But I know you all believe heavyworlders clump together, and to some extent that's true. I think I'd know if you had any sort of conspiracy among them on your side of the ship, and I hope you'll believe that I'd have told you."

Sassinak smiled at his attempt to avoid the usual heavyworlder paranoia, but gave him a serious response. "I told you before. Major, that I trust you completely. I don't think there was a conspiracy, because nothing happened while the poisonings were being discovered. But I am concerned that if this steward is the source, and if I arrest her, you and other heavyworlders will see that as a hasty and unthinking response to the Diplo poison. And I'd be very interested in what you thought such a person could hope to gain by it. What I know of heavyworlder politics and religion doesn't suggest that poisoning would be the usual approach."

"No, it's not." Currald sighed again. "Though if I had to guess, I'd bet her birth family - and her relations on Palun - were strict Separationists". She couldn't be, because she couldn't handle the physical strain. Some of those Separationists are pretty harsh on throwback babies. A few even kill them outright - unfit, they say." He ignored the sharp intakes of breath, the sidelong glances, and went on. "If she's been unable to adjust to being a lightweight, or if she thinks she has to make up for being unadapted, she might do something rash just to make the point." He glanced around, then looked back at Sass. "You don't have any heavyworlder officers, then?"

"I did, but I sent them with Huron on the prize ship." At his sharp look, Sassinak shrugged. "It just worked out that way: they had the right skills, and the seniority."

Something in that had pleased him, for he had relaxed a little. "So you might like a heavyworlder officer to have a few words with this young woman?"

"If you think you might find out whether she did it, and why."

"And you do trust me for that." It was not a question, but a statement tinged with surprise. "All right, captain; I'll see what I can do."

The rest of the meeting involved the results of their surveillance. For the first few days after the landing, they'd recorded no traffic in the system except for a shuttle from the planet to the occupied moon. But only a few hours before, a fast ship had lifted, headed outsystem by its trajectory.

"Going to tell the boss what happened," said Bures.

"So why'd they wait this long?" asked Sass. She could think of several reasons, none of them pleasant. No one answered her; she hadn't expected them to. She wondered how long it would be before the big transports came, to dismantle the base and move it. The enemy would know the specs on the ship Huron had taken; they'd know how long they had before Fleet could return. A more dangerous possibility involved the enemy attempting to defend the base, trapping a skimpy Fleet expedition with more overweaponed ships like the little escort she had fought.

"So what we can do," she summed up for them at the end of the meeting, "is trail one of the ships that leaves, and hope we're following one that goes somewhere informative, or sit where we are and monitor everything that goes on, to report it to Fleet later, or try to disrupt the evacuation once it starts. I wish we knew where that scumbucket was headed."

Two hours later, Currald called and asked for a conference. Sassinak agreed, and although he'd said nothing over the intercom, she was not surprised to see the steward under suspicion precede him into her office.

The story was much as Currald had suggested. Seles, born without the heavyworlder's adaptations to high-G, had nearly died in the first month of life. Her grandfather, she said, had told her mother to kill her, but her mother had lost two children in a habitat accident, and wanted to give her a chance. The medical postbirth treatments hadn't worked, and she'd been evacuated as a two-month-old infant, sent to her mother's younger sister on Palun. Even there, she had been the weakling, teased by her cousins when she broke an ankle falling from a tree, when she couldn't climb and run as well as they could. At ten, on her only childhood visit to Diplo, she had needed the adaptive suits that lightweights wore... and she had had to listen to her grandfather's ranting. She had ruined them, he said: not only the cost of her treatment, and her travel to Palun, but the simple fact that a throwback had been born in their family. They had lost honor; it would have been better if she had died at birth. Her father had glanced past her and refused to speak; her mother now had two "normal" children, husky boys who knocked her down and sat on the chest of her pressure suit until her mother called them away - clearly annoyed that Seles was such a problem.

In school on Palun, she had been taught by several active Separationists, who used her weakness as an example of why the heavyworlders should avoid contact with lightweights and the FSP. One of them, though, had told her of the only way in which throwbacks could justify their existence... by proving themselves true to heavyworlder interests, and serving as a spy within the dominant lightweight culture.

In that hope she had requested medical evacuation to a normal-G world, a request quickly granted. She'd been declared a ward of the state, and put into boarding school on Casey's World.

Sassinak realized that Seles must have gone to that strange boarding school at about the same age she herself had come to the Fleet prep school - within a year or so anyway. But Seles had had no Abe, no mentor to guide her. Bigger than average, stronger than usual (though weak to heavyworlders), she already believed she was an outcast. Had anyone tried to befriend her? Sassinak couldn't tell; certainly Seles would not have noticed. Even now her slightly heavy-featured face was not ugly - it was her expression, the fixed, stolid, slightly sullen expression, that made her look more the heavyworlder, and more stupid, than she was. She had been in trouble once or twice for fighting, she admitted, but it wasn't her fault. People picked on her; they hated heavyworlders and they hadn't trusted her. Sassinak heard the self-pitying whine in her voice and mentally shook her head, though she made no answer. No one likes the whiner, no one trusts the sullen.

So Seles had come from school still convinced that the world was unfair, and still burning to justify herself to her heavyworld relatives. In that mood, she had joined Fleet - and in her first leave after basic training, had gone back to Diplo. Her family had been contemptuous, refused to believe that she really meant to be an agent for the heavyworlders. If she'd had any ability, they told her, she'd have been recruited by one of the regular intelligence services. What could she do alone? Useless weakling, her grandfather stormed, and this time even her mother nodded, as her younger brothers smirked. Prove yourself first, he said, and then come asking favors.

On her way back to the spaceport, she had bought a kilo of poison - since its use on Diplo was unregulated, she had assumed that the heavyworlders were immune to it. She was going to kill all the lightweight crew of whatever ship she was on, turn the whole thing over to heavyworlders, and that would prove -

"Exactly nothing!" snapped Major Currald, who had held his tongue with difficulty through this emotional recitation. "Did you want the lightweights to think we're all stupid or crazy? Didn't it occur to you that some of us know our best hope is inside FSP, alongside the lightweights?"

The girl's face was red, and her hands shook as she laid a rumpled, much - folded piece of paper on Sass's desk. "I - I know how it is. I know you're going to kill me. But - but I want to be buried on Diplo - or at least my ashes - and it says in regulations you have to do that - and send this message." It was as pitiful and incoherent as the rest of her story. "In the Name of Justice and Our Righteous Cause - " it began, and wandered around through bits of bad history (the Gelway Riots had not been caused by prejudice against heavyworlders - the heavyworlders hadn't been involved at all, except for one squad of riot police) and dubious theology (at least Sassinak had never heard of Darwin's God before) to justify the poisoning of the innocent, including other heavyworlders as "an Act of Pure Defiance that shall light a Beacon across the Galaxy." It ended with a plea that her family permit the burial of her remains on their land, that "even this Weak and Hopeless Relic of a Great Race can give something back to the Land which nurtured her."

Sassinak looked at Currald, who at the moment looked the very personification of heavyworlder brutality. She had the distinct feeling that he'd like to pound Seles into mush. She herself had the same desires toward Seles' family. Perhaps the girl wasn't too bright, but she could have done well if they hadn't convinced her that she was a hopeless blot on the family name. She picked up the paper, refolded it, and laid it in the folder that held the notes of the investigation. Then she looked back at Seles. Could anything good come out of this? Well, she could try.

Briskly, holding Seles' gaze with hers, she said, "You're quite right, that a captain operating in a state of emergency has the right to execute any person on board who is deemed to represent a threat to the security of the vessel. Yes, I could kill you, here and now, with no farther discussion. But I'm not going to." Seles' mouth fell open, and her hands shook even more. Currald's face had hardened into disgust. "You don't deserve a quick death and this - " she slapped the folder, "sort of thing, these spurious heroics. The Fleet's spent a lot of money training you - considerably more than your family did treating you and shipping you around and yelling at you. You owe us that, and you owe your shipmates an apology for damn near killing them. Including Major Currald."

"I - I didn't know it would hurt heavyworlders - " pleaded Seles.

"Be quiet." Currald's tone shut her mouth with a snap; Sassinak hoped he'd never speak to her like that, although she was sure she could survive it. "You didn't think to try it on yourself, did you?"

"But I'm not pure - "

"Nor holy," said Sass, breaking into that before Currald went too far. "That's the point, Seles. You had a bad childhood: so did lots of us. People were mean to you: same with lots of us. That's no reason to go around poisoning people who haven't done you any harm. If you really want to poison someone, why not your family? They're the ones who hurt you."

"But I'm - but they're - "

"Your birth family, yes. And Fleet has tried to be - and could have been - your life family. Now you've done something we can't ignore; you've killed someone, Seles, and not bravely, in a fight, but sneakily. Court martial, when we get back, maybe psychiatric evaluation - "

"I'm not crazy!"

"No? You try to please those who hurt you, and poison those who befriend you; that sounds crazy to me. And you are guilty, but if I punish you then other heavyworlders may think I did so because of your genes, not your deeds."

"Heavyworlders should get out of FSP, and take care of themselves," muttered Seles stubbornly. "It never helped us."

Sassinak looked at Currald, whose mask of contempt and disgust had softened a little. She nodded slightly. "I think. Major Currald, that we have a combined medical and legal problem here. Under the circumstances, we don't have the best situation for psychiatric intervention... and I don't want to convene a court on this young lady until there's been a full evaluation."

"You think it's enough for - "

"For mitigation, and perhaps for a full plea of incompetence. But that's outside my sphere; my concern now is to minimize the damage she's done, in all areas, and preserve the evidence."

Seles looked back and forth between them, clearly puzzled and frightened. "But I - I demand - I"

Sassinak shook her head. "Seles, if a court martial later calls for your execution, I will see that your statement is returned to your family. But at the moment, I see no alternative to protective confinement." She opened a channel to Sickbay, and spoke briefly to the Medical Officer. "Major Currald, I can have Security take her down, or - "

"I'll do it," he said. Sassinak could sense that pity had finally replaced disgust.

"Thank you. I think she'll be calmer with you." For several reasons, Sassinak thought to herself. Currald had the size and confident bearing of a full-adapted heavyworlder, trained for battle... Seles would not be likely to try escape, and under his gaze would be unwilling to have hysterics.

Less than an hour later, the Medical Officer called back, to report that she considered Seles at serious risk of suicide or other violent action. "She's hanging on by a thread," she said. "That note - that's the sort of thing the Gelway terrorists used. She could go any minute, and locked in the brig she'd be likely to do it sooner rather than later. I want to put her under, medical necessity."

"Fine with me. Send it up for my seal, when you've done the paperwork, and let's be very careful that nothing happens to that coldsleep tank. I don't want any suspicions whatever about our proceedings."

Now that was settled. Sassinak leaned back in her seat, wondering why she felt such sympathy for this girl. She'd never liked whiners herself, the girl had killed one of her crew - but the bewildered pain in those eyes, the shaky alliance of courage and stark fear - that got to her. Currald said much the same thing, when he got back up to Main Deck. "I'm an Inclusionist," he said, "but I've always believed we should test our youngsters on high-g worlds. We've got something worth preserving, something extra, not just something missing. I've even supported those who want to withhold special treatment from newborn throwbacks. There's enough lightweights in the universe, I've said, breeding fast enough: why spend money and time raising another weakling? At first glance, this kid is just the point of my argument. Her family spent all that money and worry and time, FSP spent all that money on her boarding school, Fleet spent money and time on her in training, and all they got out of it was an incompetent, fairly stupid poisoner. But - I don't know - I want to stomp her into the ground, and at the same time I'm sorry for her. She's not good for anything, but she could have been." He gave Sassinak another, far more human, glance. "I hate to admit it, but the very things I believe in probably turned her into that wet mess."

"I hope something can be salvaged." Sassinak pushed a filled mug across her desk, and he took it. "But what I told her is perfectly true: many of us have had difficult childhoods, many of us have been hurt one way or another. I expect you've faced prejudice on account of your background - " He nodded, and she went on. " - But you didn't decide to poison the innocent to get back at those who hurt you." Sassinak took a long swallow from her own mug - not coffee, but broth. "Thing is, humans of all sorts are under pressure. There've been questions asked in Council about the supposed human domination of Fleet."

"What!" Clearly he hadn't heard that before.

"It's not general knowledge, but a couple of races are pushing for mandatory quotas at the Academy. Even the Ryxi - "

'Those featherdusters!"

"I know. But you're Fleet, Currald: you know humans need to stick together. Heavyworlders have a useful adaptation, but they couldn't take on the rest of FSP alone." He nodded, somber again. Sassinak wondered what went on behind those opaque brown eyes. Yet he was trustworthy: had to be, after the past week. Anything less, and they'd not have survived.

Her next visitor was Hollister, with a report on the extended repairs and probable performance limits of the ship until it went in for refitting. Even though the portside pods had not been as badly damaged as they'd originally thought, he insisted that the ship would not stand another long FTL chase. "One hop, two - a clear course into Sector - that we can manage. But the kind of maneuvering that the Ssli has to call for in a chase, no. You've no idea what load that puts on the pods - "

Sassinak scowled. "That means we can't find out where they go when they leave?"

"Right. We'd be as likely to end up here as there, and most likely to be spread in between. I'd have to log a protest."

"Which would hardly be read if we did splatter. No, never mind. I won't do that. But there must be something more than sitting here. If only we could tag their ships, somehow..."

"Well, now, that's another story." He'd been prepared to argue harder, Sassinak realized, as he sat back, brow furrowed. "Let's see... you're assuming that someone'll come along to evacuate, and you'd like to know where it goes, and we can't follow, so..."

His voice trailed off; Sassinak waited a moment, but he said nothing. Finally he shook himself, and handed her another data cube. "I'll think about it, but in the meantime, we've got another problem. Remember the trouble we were having with the scrubbers in Environmental?"

"Yes." Sassinak inserted the cube, wondering why he'd brought a hardcopy up here instead of just switching an output to her terminal. Then she focussed on the display and bit back an oath. When she glanced at him, he nodded.

"It's worse." It was much worse. Day by day, the recycling efficiency had dropped, and the contaminant fraction had risen. Figures that she'd skimmed over earlier came back to her now: reaction equilibrium constants, rates of algal growth. "One thing that went wrong," Hollister went on, pointing to the supporting data, "is that somehow an overflow valve stuck, and we backflushed from the 'ponics into the supply lines. We've got green crud growing all along here - ' He pointed to the schematic. "Cleaned it out of the crosslines by yesterday, but that's nutrient-rich flow, and the stuff loves it. We can't kill it off without killing off the main 'ponics tanks, and that would mean going on backup oxygen, and we lost twenty percent of our backup oxygen in the row with that ship."

Sassinak winced. She'd forgotten about the oxygen spares damaged or blown in that fight.

"Ordinarily," Hollister went on, "it'd help that we have a smaller crew, with the prize crew gone. But because we weren't sure of the biosystems on that transport, I'm short of biosystems crew. Very short. What we need to do is flush the whole system, and replant - but it'd be a lot safer to do that somewhere we could get aired up. In the meantime, we're going to be working twice as hard to get somewhat less output, and that's if nothing else goes wrong."

"Could it be sabotage?" asked Sass.

Hollister shrugged. "Could be. Of course it could be. But it could just as easily be ordinary glitches."

CHAPTER Thirteen

Day by day the biosystems monitors showed continued system failure. Sassinak forced herself to outward calmness, though she raged inwardly: to be so close, to have found a slaver base, and perhaps a line to its supporters, and then - not to be able to pursue. Hollister's daily reports reinforced the data on her screens: they had no reserves for pursuit, and they could not hold station much longer.

She hung on, nonetheless, hoping for another few ships to show up, anything to give her something to show for this expedition. Or, if Huron's relief expedition arrived, they could take over surveillance. She spent some time each day digging through the personnel files, checking every person who should have been in the quadrant from which the missile came, and who might have had access to a signalling device. There were forty or fifty of them, and she worked her way from Aariefa to Kelly, hoping to be interrupted by insystem traffic. Finally a single ship appeared at the edge of her scanning range, just entering the system. Its IFF signal appeared to be undamaged, giving its mass/volume characteristics straightforwardly.

"Hmm." Sassinak frowned over the display. "If that's right, it should have the new beacon system installed." "Can we trip it?"

"We can try." The new system functioned as planned, revealing that the ship in question had come from Courcy-DeLan: before that it had hauled "mixed liquids" on the Valri-Palin-Terehalt circuit for eighteen months. "Mixed liquids" came in ten-liter carboys, what-ever that meant. Fuels? Drugs? Chemicals for some kind of synthetic process? It could be anything from concentrated acids to vitamin supplements for the slaves' diet. Not that it was important right then, but Sassinak wished she could get a look at the ship's manifest.

Two more transports entered the system, and cautiously made their way down to the planet surface. The Zaid-Dayan's sensitive detectors were able to pinpoint the ships' locations on the surface, confirming that they had both settled onto the original contact site. Then a huge ship appeared, this one clearly unable to land on-planet. A Hall-Kir hull, designed for orbital station docking, settled into a low orbit. Now Sassinak was sure they were going to evacuate the base. A Hall-Kir could handle an enormous load of machinery and equipment. But the ship was at least twelve years old, and lacked the new beacon; nor could Sassinak figure out a way to tag it for future surveillance. Its IFF revealed only that it was leased from General Systems Freight Lines, a firm that had nothing on its records. Since the IFF reported only serial owners, Sassinak could not tell who had it under lease, or if it had been leased to doubtful clients before.

"Fleet signal!" Sassinak woke from her restless doze at the squawk in her ear, and thumbed down the intercom volume control.

"What is it?"

"Fleet signal-inbound light attack group. Commodore Verstan commanding. It's on a tight beam, coded - but they're sure to have noticed - "

"I'm on my way." Sassinak shook her head, wondering if the slight headache was an artifact of worry, or really a problem with the air quality. Into the shower, fresh uniform, then onto the bridge, where alertness replaced the slightly jaded look of the past few days.

"It was aimed for this planet's local system," said the Corn officer. "They must know we're - "

Sassinak shook her head. "They're hoping - they don't know for sure."

"Well, aren't you going to send a return signal?"

"What's our window?"

"Oh. That's right." Shoulders sagged. "We just barely picked it up, and now that miserable planet's in the way."

"And their moon station should have intercepted it, right?"

"Yes, but - "

"So we lie low a little longer," said Sass. "Give me a plot to the nearest Fleet position, and your best guess at its course."

That came up in light blue on the system graphics. Sassinak tried to think what she'd heard about Commodore Verstan. Would he ease cautiously into the system on the slower but very accurate insystem drives, or would he take FTL chunks across, as she had? How many were in his battle group - would he send a scoutship or escort vessel ahead? Surely Huron would have warned him about the falsified IFF signals, and he'd be ready for trouble... but some flag officers tended to downplay the warnings of juniors.

She called Hollister up to the bridge, to ask about their capabilities. It would be lovely if they could spring a trap on the pirates - although how to arrange that without revealing their existence was a bit tricky.

Far sooner than she expected, they intercepted another Fleet signal - evidently the Commodore had elected to come in fast, leapfrogging his smaller vessels ahead of the cruisers. The Scratch, an escort-class ship, was now sunward of them, scanning the entire "back" side of the planet system for any activity. Sassinak put a single coded message burst onto the tightest focus she could manage, and then waited. With any luck, the pirates wouldn't have anything around to notice that transmission.

Within seconds, she had a reply, and then a relayed link to Commodore Verstan. He wanted a rendezvous, and insisted that she move the Zaid-Dayan from its hidden location. Her suggestion that they arrange a trap, in which her concealed ship could suddenly intercept ships fleeing from his more obvious attack force was denied.

There was nothing to do but comply. The outside crew retrieved the sensors and nets it had deployed on nearby chunks of rock, and when they were all back inside, Hollister gave the various drive components a last check. Then they waited over two hours, to clear the pirate surveillance.

"I may have to give up a good observation post," said Sass, "but I'm not about to jump out in front of them and say 'Boo.' We might be able to sneak away without their knowing we existed."

Carefully, delicately, the pilots extricated the Zaid-Dayan from the rocky cleft in which it had been hidden, and boosted away from the moonlet. Once free of it, Sassinak took a deep breath. Although it had given them safety at a critical time, a moon's surface was not her ship's natural home, and she felt irrationally safer in free flight. Besides, they could now "see" all around them, no longer confined to the narrowed angle of vision imposed by the moon and its rugged surface.

As the ship came up to speed, all systems functioned perfectly - no red lights flared on the bridge to warn of imminent disaster. If she had not known about the damaged pods, and the patched hole in the port side docking bay, Sassinak would have thought the ship in perfect condition.

Navigating through the planet's cluttered space required all her concentration for the next few hours. By the time they were outside all the satellites and rings, the Fleet attack force was only a couple of light minutes away. She elected not to hop it, but continued on the insystem main drives, spending the hours of approach to ensure that her ship and its crew were ready for inspection. A couple of minutes with the personnel files had reminded her that Commodore Verstan had a reputation for being finicky. She had a feeling he would have plenty to say about the appearance of her ship.

Meanwhile, she noted that his approach to the pirate base followed precisely the recommendations of the Rules of Engagement. Two escort-class vessels. Scratch and Darkwatch, were positioned sunward of the planet, no doubt "to catch strays." The command cruiser, Seb Harr, and the two light cruisers formed a wedge; three patrol craft were positioned one on either flank and one trailing. They held these positions as the Zaid-Dayan approached, rather than closing with the planet system.

Sassinak brought the Zaid-Dayan neatly into place behind the Seb Harr, and opened the tightly shielded link to Commodore Verstan. He looked just like his holo in the Flag Officer Directory, a lean, pink-faced man with thick gray hair and bright blue eyes. Behind him, she could see Huron watching the screen anxiously.

"Commander Sassinak," said Verstan, formally. "We received signals from a Fleet distress beacon."

Sassinak's heart sank. If he was going to take that approach...

"But I see that was some kind of... misunderstanding." She started to speak but he was going on without waiting. "Lieutenant Commander Huron had suggested the possibility that the apparent explosion of your ship was staged somehow, though I believe... uh... tradition favors disabling the beacon if this is done..."

"Sir, in this instance the beacon's signal was necessary to fool the pirates - "

"Ah, yes. The pirates. And how many armed ships were you facing, Commander?"

Sassinak gritted her teeth. There would be a court of inquiry; there was always a court of inquiry in circumstances like these, and that was the place for these questions. "The first armed ship," she said, "was escorting the slaver transport. We did not know at that time if the slaver were armed - "

"But it wasn't. You had the IFF signal - "

"We knew the IFF of the escort had been falsified, and weren't sure of the transport. Some of them are: you will recall the Cles Prel loss, when a supposedly unarmed transport blew a light cruiser away - " That was a low blow, she knew: the captain of the Cles Prel had been Verstan's classmate at the Academy. His face stiffened, then she saw dawning respect in his eyes: he was a stickler for protocol, but he liked people with gumption.

"You said 'the first armed ship,' " he went on. "Was there another?"

Sassinak explained about the well-defended base, and the ships that had boosted off to join the battle. She knew Huron would have told him about the weaponry on the first ship - if he'd listened. Then, before he could ask details of the battle, she told him about the traffic in the system since.

"They've had three Gourney-class transports land in the past few days, and there's a Hall-Kir in low orbit. One of the Gourney-class is definitely from a heavyworlder system, and it's made unclassified trips before. I think they're planning to evacuate the base; we monitored considerable shuttle activity up to the orbital ship."

"Any idea how big the base is?"

"Not really. We were on the back side of that moonlet, with only a small sensor net deployed for line of sight to the planet. The thermal profile is consistent with anything from one thousand to fifteen thousand, depending on associated activities. If we knew for sure what they were doing, we could come closer to a figure. I can dump the data for you - "

"Please do."

Sassinak matched channels, and sent the data. "If their turnaround is typical. Commodore, they could be loaded and ready to lift in another couple of days."

"I see. Do you think they'll do it with our force here?"

"Probably - they won't gain anything by waiting for you to put them under siege. Oh - that outer moon - did Huron tell you about their detection profile?"

"Yes. I know they know we've entered the system - we also stripped their outer warning beacon. But that's exactly what I'm hoping for. Three medium transports, one Hall-Kir hull... we should be able to trail several of them, if we can tag them. If we wait another week, we may have more in the net when we attack. How about you?"

She wanted to join the hunt more than anything in years, but Hollister was shaking his head at her. "Sir, my environmental system is overloaded, and my portside pods sustained considerable damage... the engineers tell me we can't do another long chase."

"Humph. Can you give us a visual? Maybe we have something you can use for repairs?"

Apparently one of the other cruisers had a visual on them, for before Sassinak could reply, she saw a picture come up on the screen behind Commodore Verstan. One of his bridge officers pointed it out to him, and he turned - then swung back to face Sassinak with a startled expression.

"What the devil happened to you? It looks like your portside loading bay - "

"Was breached. Yes, but it's tight now. Looks pretty bad, I know - "

"And you're short at least two portside pods... you're either lucky or crazy, Commander, and I'm not sure which."

"Lucky, I hope," said Sassinak, not displeased with his reaction. "By the way, is Lieutenant Commander Huron attached to your command, now, or are you bringing him back to me?"

Verstan smiled, and waved Huron forward. "We weren't sure you were here, after all - but if you're in need I'm sure he'll be willing to transfer over." Huron had aged in those few weeks, a stern expression replacing the amiable (but competent) one he had usually worn. Sassinak wondered if he felt the same about her - would he even want to come back? She shook herself mentally - he was telling her about his trip with the slaver transport, the horrible conditions they'd found, the impossibility of comforting all those helpless children, orphaned and torn from their homes. Her eyes filled with tears, as much anger and frustration at not having been able to stop it as grief from her own past. His ship had been short of rations - since it had been inbound, at the end of a planned voyage - and to the other miseries of the passengers hunger and thirst had been added. Now he wanted to be in the assault team; as he had no regular assignment on the flagship, he had requested permission to land with the marines.

"I'll come back, of course, if you need me," he said, not quite meeting her eyes. Sassinak sighed. Clearly his experience haunted him; he would not be content until he'd had slavers in his gunsight... or gotten himself killed, she thought irritably. He wasn't a marine; he wasn't trained in ground assault; he ought to have more sense. In the long run he'd be better off if she ordered him back to the Zaid-Dayan, and kept him safe.

"Huron - " She stopped when he looked straight at her. Captain to captain, that gaze went - he was no longer the compliant lover, the competent executive officer whose loyalty was first to her. She could order him back, and he would come - but without the self-respect, the pride, that she had learned to love. She could order him to her bed, no doubt, and he would come - but it would not be the Huron she wanted. He would have to fight his own battles awhile first, and later - if they had a later - they could discover each other again. She felt an almost physical pain in her chest, a wave of longing and apprehension combined. If something happened to him - if he were killed - she would have to bear the knowledge that she could have kept him out of it. But if she forced him to safety now, she'd have to bear the knowledge that he resented her.

"Be careful," she said at last. "And get some of the bastards for me."

His eyes brightened, and he gave her a genuine smile. "Thank you. Commander Sassinak. I'm glad you understand."

Whatever she did, the battle would be over by the time she got back to Fleet Sector Headquarters for refitting. Sassinak hoped her answering smile was as open and honest as his: she felt none of his elation.

In fact, the trip back to Sector Headquarters was one of the most depressing of her life. She, like Huron, had itched to blow away some pirates and slavers... and yet she'd had to run along home, like an incompetent civilian. She found herself grumbling at Hollister - and it wasn't his fault.

Her new executive officer seemed even less capable after that short conversation with Huron... she knew she criticized him too sharply, but she couldn't help it. She kept seeing Huron's face, kept imagining how it would have been to have him there. For distraction, such as it was, she kept digging at the personnel records, looking over every single one which could possibly have had access to the right area of the ship when the missile was fired. After Kelly came Kelland, and from there she plowed through another dozen, all the way to Prosser. Prosser's ID in his records had an expression she didn't like, a thin-lipped, self-righteous sort of smirk, and she found herself glaring at it. Too much of this, and she'd come to hate every member of the crew. They couldn't all be guilty. Prosser didn't look that bad in person (she made a reason to check casually); it was just the general depression she felt. And she knew she'd face a Board of Inquiry, if not a court martial, back at Sector.

.................................. Sector Headquarters meant long sessions with administrative officers who wanted to know exactly how each bit of damage to the ship had occurred, exactly why she'd chosen to do each thing she'd done, why she hadn't done something else instead. As the senior engineers shook their heads and tut-tutted over the damage, critiquing Hollister's emergency repairs, Sassinak found herself increasingly tart with her inquisitors. She had, after all, come back with a whole ship and relatively few casualties, and rescued a shipload of youngsters, when she might have been blown into fragments if she'd followed a rigid interpretation of the Rules of Engagement. But the desk-bound investigators could not believe that a cruiser like the Zaid-Dayan might be out-gunned by a "tacky little pirate ship" as one of them put it. Sassinak handed over the data cubes detailing the escort's profile, and they sniffed and put them aside. Was she sure that the data were accurate?

Furthermore, there was the matter of practically inviting a hostile force to breach her ship and board. "Absolutely irresponsible!" sniffed one commander, whom Sassinak knew from the Directory hadn't been on a ship in years, and never on one in combat. "Could have been disastrous," said another. Only one of the Board, a one-legged commander who'd been marooned in coldsleep in a survival pod on his first voyage, asked the kinds of questions Sassinak herself would have asked. The chair of the Board of Inquiry, a two-star admiral, said nothing one way or the other, merely taking notes.

She came out of one session ready to feed them all to the recycling bins, and found Arly waiting for her.

"Now what?" asked Sass.

Arly took her arm. "You need a drink - I can tell. Let's go to Gino's before the evening rush."

"I feel trouble in the air," said Sass, giving her a hard look. "If you've got more bad news, just tell me."

"Not here - those paperhangers don't deserve to hear things first. Come on."

Sassinak followed her, frowning. Arly was rarely pushy, and as far as Sassinak knew avoided dockside bars. Whatever had come unstuck had bothered her, too. Gino's was the favorite casual place for senior ship officers that season. For a moment, Sassinak considered the change in her taste in bar decor. Ensigns liked tough exotic places that let them feel adventurous and mature; Jigs and 'Tenants were much the same, although some of them preferred a touch of elegance, a preference that increased with rank. Until, Sassinak had discovered, the senior Lieutenant Commanders and Commanders felt secure enough in their rank to choose more casual, even shabby, places to meet. Such as Gino's, which had the worn but scrubbed look of the traditional diner. Gino's also had live, human help to bring drinks and food to the tables, and rumor suggested a live, human cook in the kitchen.

Arly led her to a comer table in the back. Sassinak settled herself with a sigh, and prodded the service pad until its light came on. After they'd ordered, she gave Arly a sidelong look.

"Well?"

"An IFTL message. For you." Arly handed her the hardcopy slip. Sassinak knew instantly, before she opened it, what it had to be. An IFTL for a captain in refitting? That could only be an official death notice, and she knew only one person who might... she unfolded the slip, and glanced at it, trying to read it without really looking at it, as if this magic might protect her from the pain. Official language left the facts bald and clear:

Huron was dead, killed "in the line of duty" while assaulting the pirate base. She blinked back the tears that came to her eyes and gave Arly another look.

"You knew." It wasn't a question.

"I... guessed. An IFTL message, after all... why else?"

"Well. He's dead, I suppose you guessed that, too. Damn fool!" Rage and grief choked her, contending hopelessly in her heart and mind. If only he hadn't - if only she had - if only some miserable pirate had had a shaky hand...

"I'm sorry, Sass. Commander." Arly stumbled over her name. uncertain. Sassinak dragged herself back to the present.

"He was... a good man." It was not enough; it was the worst trite stupid remark, but it was also true. He had been a good man, and being a good man had gotten himself killed, probably unnecessarily, probably very bravely, and she would never see him again. Never feel him again. Sassinak shivered, swallowed, and reached for the drink that had just been delivered. She sipped, swallowed, sipped again. "He wanted to go," she said, as much to herself as to Arly.

"He was headed for that before you ever got the Zaid-Dayan," said Arly, surprisingly. Sassinak stared at her, surprised, to be surprised. Arly gulped half her own drink and went on. "I know you... he... you two were close. Commander, and that's fine, but you never did know him before. I served with him six years, and he was good... you're right. He was also wild - a lot wilder before you came aboard, but still wild."

"Huron?" It was all she could think of to say, to keep Arly talking so that she could slowly come to grips with her own feelings.

Arly nodded. "It's not in his record, because he was careful, too, in his own way, but he used to get in fights - people would say things, you know, about colonials, and he'd react. Political stuff, a lot of it. He wouldn't ever have gotten his own ship - he told me that, one time, when he'd been in a row. He'd said too many things about the big families, in the wrong places, for someone with no more backing than he had."

"But he was a good exec..." She had trouble thinking of Huron as a hothead causing trouble.

"Oh, he was. He liked you, too, and that helped, although he was pretty upset when you didn't go in and fight for that colony."

"Yeah... he was." Sassinak let herself remember their painful arguments, his chilly withdrawal.

"I - I thought you ought to know," said Arly, tracing some design with her finger on the tabletop. "He really did like you, and he'd have wanted you to know... it's nothing you did, to make him insist on going in. He'd have managed, some way, to get into more and more rows until he died. No captain could have been bold enough for him."

Despite Arly's well-meant talk, Sassinak found that her grief lasted longer than anyone would approve. She had lost other lovers, casual relationships that had blossomed and withered leaving only a faint perfume... and when the lover disappeared, or died, a year or so later, she had felt grief... but not like this grief. She could not shake it off; she could not just go on as if Huron had been another casual affair.

She was not even sure why Huron had meant so much. He had been no more handsome or skilled in love, no more intelligent or sensitive than many men she'd shared her time with. When more details of the raid came in, she found that Arly's guess had been right: Huron had insisted on joining the landing party, had thrown himself into danger in blatant disregard of basic precautions, and been blown away, instantly and messily, in the assault on the pirate's headquarters complex. Sassinak overheard what her own crew were too thoughtful to tell her: the troops he'd gone in with considered him half-crazy or a gloryhound, they weren't sure which. But the more official reports were that he'd distinguished himself with "extreme bravery" and his posthumous rating was "outstanding." Still, this evidence of his instability didn't make her feel any better. She should have been able to influence him, in their months together, should have seen something like this coming and headed it off - it was such a waste of talent. She argued with herself, in the long nights, and carefully did not take a consoling drink.

Meanwhile the ship's repairs neared completion. The environmental system had had to be completely dismantled and refitted, filling the two lower decks with a terrible stench for several days. Apparently the sulfur bacteria had overgrown the backflow sludge, and coupled with the fungal contamination from the down-stream scrubbers created a disgusting mix of smells. Worse than that, the insides of the main lines had become slightly pitted, providing a vast surface for the contaminants to grow on. So every meter of piping had to be replaced, as well as all valves, pumps, scrubbers, and filters.

Hollister still could not tell whether the problems were inherent in the new layout, or had resulted from deliberate sabotage. Attempts to model the failures on computer, and backtrack to a cause, led to six or seven different possible routes to trouble. Two of them would have involved a single component failure very early in the voyage - highly unlikely to be tampering, in Hollister's opinion. The others required multiple failures, and one clearly favored sabotage, with eight or ten minor mis-adjustments in remote compartments. But which of these was the real sequence of events, no one could now determine. In trying to correct the problems once they developed, Hollister and his most trusted technicians had handled virtually every exposed millimeter of the system.

Sassinak grimaced at Hollister's presentation. "So you can't tell me anything solid?"

"No, captain. I think myself sabotage was involved - things could have gone a lot worse, as the simulations show, and someone wanted to save his or her own life - but I can't prove it. Worse than that, I can't prevent it happening next time, either. If I request entirely new personnel, who's to say they're all loyal? And it needn't be an engineering specialist, although that's a good guess. Everyone knows some of the basics of environmental systems: they have to, in case of disaster. An agent could have been provided specialist knowledge, if it comes to that - Fleet's environmental systems use the same standard components as everyone else's."

"What about the other repairs?" Hollister nodded, and brought her up to date on those. The structural damage had required more dismantling of the portside than Sassinak expected; Hollister explained that was nearly always true. But repairs on that were complete, and on the portside pods as well. To his personal satisfaction, mounting the newest issue of pods there meant replacing half the starboard pods to match them... he had been worried, he confided, that their prolonged FTL flight on unbalanced pods, with the starboard pods taking the strain, might have caused hidden damage in them. None of the stealth gear had taken damage, and all the computer sections out of service had been replaced. It was just the environmental systems holding them up, and he calculated it would be another two weeks before it was done.

Sassinak began to wonder if the Zaid-Dayan would still be in refitting when Verstan's battle group returned with Huron's body. By now everyone had seen reports of the successful assault on the pirate base, holos of shattered domes and blasted prefab buildings. Sassinak stared at them, wondering if the base where she'd lived for her years as a slave had looked anything like this. At least her action had saved those children from being imprisoned in those domes. She visited the hospital once or twice, chatting with youngsters who were now orphans, as she had been. They were less damaged psychologically, if "less" meant anything. Looking at some of them, mute anguished survivors of inexplicable disaster, she almost cursed herself for not intervening before the colony was raided. But some had already bounced back, and some had relatives already coming to take them into known families.

The Board of Inquiry wound down, and turned in a preliminary report - subject to further analysis, the chair explained to her. She was commended for saving the children from the colony, and mildly scolded for not having saved the colony itself - although a dissenting comment argued that any such attempt would have been an unnecessary and reckless risk to her ship. She was commended for the outcome of the battle, but not for the methods she'd chosen. Entirely too risky, and not a good example for other commanders - but effective, and perhaps justified by circumstances. The structural damage to the Zaid-Dayan certainly resulted from her decision to allow the enemy too close, but the environmental system damage might well have been sabotage, or simply bad engineering in the first place. They approved of her handling of the suspected poisoner: "a deft manipulation of a politically explosive situation." Sassinak thought of the girl, now in the hands of the psychiatric ward of the Sector military hospital - could she ever be rehabilitated? Could she ever find a way to respect herself? Fleet wouldn't take another chance on her, that was certain. On the whole, the Board chair said, recapturing her full attention, they found that she had acted in the best interests of the service, although they could not give an unqualified approval.

Under the circumstances, that was the best she could hope for. Admiral Vannoy, Sector Commandant, would make his own decision about how this Board report would affect her future. She had worked with him several years before, and expected better from him than from the Board. He liked officers with initiative and boldness. Sure enough, when he called her in, he waved the report at her, then slapped it on his desk.

"The vultures gathered, eh?"

Sassinak cocked her head a little. "I think they were fair," she said.

"Within their limits, I hear under your words. So they were - some Boards would have landed on you a lot harder for coming in with damage like that. And for having a Fleet distress beacon telling the universe that a Fleet cruiser had bumped its nose on something painful. Bad for our reputation. But I'm satisfied: you got back a load of kids - frightened out of their wits, some of them hurt, but still alive and free. And you defeated one of their little surprise packages - which, by the way, have caused more than one cruiser to come to grief. You're the first survivor to come out with a good profile of them and the specifics of their faked IFF signals: that's worth all the rest, to my mind. And then you managed to stick tight, undiscovered, and pick up quite a bit of useful information. Now we know how well the stealth technologies work in real life. All in all, I'm pleased, Commander, as you probably expected. After all - you know my prejudices. We're going to put you back out on the same kind of patrol, in another part of the sector, and hope you catch another odd fish."

"Sir, there is one thing - "

"Yes?"

"I'd like to have more options free in case of another encounter."

"Such as?"

"Last time my orders specified that surveillance was my primary mission - and on that basis, I did nothing when the colony was attacked. My crew and I both had problems with that... and I'd like to be free to act if we should face another such situation."

The admiral's eyes fell. "Commander, you have an excellent record, but isn't it possible that in this case your own experience is affecting your judgment? We've tried direct, immediate confrontation before, and repeatedly the perpetrators, or some of them, have been able to escape, and strike again. Tracking them to their source must be more important - "

"In the long term, yes, sir. But for the people who die, who are orphaned or enslaved - have you been to the hospital, sir, and talked to any of the kids Huron brought in?"

"Well, no... no, I haven't."

"All they want to know is why Fleet couldn't prevent the attack - why their parents died - and what's going to happen to them now. And it's not just my own feeling, sir. Lieutenant Commander Huron, my exec, was very upset about my decision not to intervene - and, as you know, he insisted on joining the attack force, and then the landing party, and he died. Other officers and crew have expressed the same feelings - "

"Openly? To you?" Sassinak could tell he did not entirely approve of such openness.

She nodded. "Some of them. Others in conversations I overheard. They don't like to think of themselves - of Fleet - as standing by idly, in safety, while helpless civilians get killed and captured."

"I see. Hmm. I still feel. Commander, that surveillance must be your primary mission, but under the circumstances... and considering your crew's most recent experience... yes, if you find it absolutely necessary to engage a hostile force, to save innocent lives... yes. And I'll amend your orders to make that discretion explicit." He looked closely at her. "But I'm not going to take kindly to any shoot-'em-up action you get into that's not absolutely necessary, is that clear? You've damn near bankrupted our sector repair budget for the next eighteen standard months, with that bucket of bent bolts you brought into the yard, so take better care of it. And call for help if you need it - don't wait until you're shot to pieces."

"Yes, sir!" She left his office with a lighter heart. No, she would not get into an unnecessary fight - but she wouldn't have to go through the misery of standing by while others suffered, either.

In the meantime, she would be busy checking in additional crew. Some were those who had been assigned to the prize vessel, but had not gone back out with the battle group. Others were newly assigned to replace casualties or transfers out.

BOOK FOUR

CHAPTER Fourteen

"Commander Sassinak..." The voice was vaguely familiar; Sassinak pulled her attention out of an engineering report and glanced up. Incredulous joy engulfed her.

"Ford!" She could hardly believe it, and then wondered why she hadn't already known. Surely the name would have been on the roster of incoming officers -

"Lieutenant Commander Hakrar broke a leg and two ribs in a waterboat race... and they offered it to me, so - " His broad grin was the same as ever, but now he subdued it. "Lieutenant Commander Fordeliton reporting for duty, captain." He held out his order chip, and she took it, feeding it into the reader. Her side screen came up with a list.

"There're just a few chores waiting for you, as you can see - "

"Mmm. Maybe I should have stopped for a drink before I reported aboard." He leaned over to take a look at the screen, and feigned shock. "Good grief, Commander, hasn't anyone done any work on this ship since you docked?"

Sassinak found herself grinning. "Did you see the holos of the damage we came in with?"

"No - but I heard rumors of a Board of Inquiry. Bad fight?"

"Fairly stiff. I'll tell you later. For now - " She looked him up and down. The same dark bronze face, the same lean body that could slouch carelessly in a dockside bar or dance elegantly at a diplomatic reception, the same tone of voice, wordlessly offering support without challenge. If she had had her pick of all the possible executive officers, he would have been the one. And yet - she wasn't ready for anything more, not yet. Would he understand? "Just get yourself settled, and we'll have a briefing at 1500. Need any help?"

"No, Commander, thank you. I met your Weapons Officer on the way to the dock, and she's helped me find my way around."

Sassinak leaned back, after he'd gone, and let herself remember that crazy trip as prize crew on a captured illicit trader, something more than ten years before. She'd been exec on a patrol-class vessel, Lily of Serai, and they'd caught a trader carrying illegal and unmarked cargo. So her captain had put her and five others aboard, as a prize crew to bring the trader to Sector HQ; she'd had command, and Fordeliton, then a Jig, had been her exec. She'd hardly known him before, but it was the kind of trip that made solid relationships. For the trader crew had tried to take the ship back, and they'd killed two of the marines - and almost killed Ford, but she had led the other two in a desperate hand-to-hand fight through the main deck corridors. If Huron had seen that, she told herself, he'd never have doubted her will to fight. In the end they'd won - though they'd had to space most of the trader's original crew - and she had brought the ship in whole. When Ford recovered from his injuries, they'd become lovers - and in the years since, whenever they chanced to meet, they had enjoyed each other's company. Nothing intense, nothing painful - but she could count on his quiet, generous support. Another incoming officer brought her much less content. Fleet Security, apparently impressed by her conviction that she had yet another agent on board, decided to assign a Security officer to the ship. Sassinak frowned over his dossier: a Lieutenant Commander (in Security, a very high rank) from Bretagne. All she'd wanted was a deeper scrutiny of her personnel records, and instead she got this... she looked at his holo. Slim, dark hair and eyes, somehow conveying even in that official pose a certain dapper quality.

In person, when he reported for duty, he lived up to his holo: suave, courteous, almost elegant. His voice had the little lilt she remembered from Bretagne natives, and he used it to compliment her on her ship, her office decor, her reputation. Sassinak considered biting his head off, but it was never wise to alienate Security. She gave him courtesy for courtesy, alluding to her first ship service under a Bretagnan captain, and he became even sleeker, if possible. When he'd gone to his quarters, Sassinak took a long breath and blew it out. Security! Why couldn't they do the job right in the first place, and prevent hostiles from getting into Fleet, instead of sending people like this to harass honest officers and interfere with their work?

But Dupaynil turned out better than his first impression, He got along well with the other officers, and had a strong technical background that made him useful in both Engineering and Weaponry, His witty conversation, which skirted but never quite slid into malicious gossip about the prominent and wealthy among whom he'd worked, livened their meals. And he was more than a quick wit, Sassinak found out, when they discussed the matter of planet piracy and slave trading.

"You haven't been at Headquarters for several years," he said. "I'm sure you remember that speculation about certain families had begun even ten years ago..."

"Yes, of course."

"Our problem has been not in finding out who, but in proving how - with persons of such rank, we cannot simply accuse them of complicity. And they've been very, very clever in covering their tracks, and making their accounts clean for inspection. That ship you captured, for instance - "

"I was thinking Paraden," said Sass.

"Precisely. But you noted, I'm sure, that although there were apparent links to Paraden family enterprises, there was no direct, traceable proof..."

"No. I'd hoped the traces on those transports coming into the pirate base would be helpful."

"Oh, they were. Commodore Verstan forwarded all available data - and we're now sure of some kind of complicity between the Paradens and at least one group of political activists from Diplo."

"That's what I don't understand," said Sass. "The Paradens I've met were all prejudiced against any of the human variants - I'd think they'd be the last people to consort with heavyworlders."

"The Paraden family stronghold maintains a body of heavyworlder troops. That's not widely known, but we have - had, I should say - an agent that had infiltrated them just so far. It would be within their philosophy to use the heavyworlders that way - and to gain exclusive access to chosen worlds."

"That young woman who went crazy and tried to poison us all was born on Diplo. But I thought she was too irrational to be anyone's agent - "

"You're undoubtedly right. No, if you have a saboteur on your ship. Commander, it's someone more subtle than that. And quite possibly not a heavyworlder. There's a growing sentiment that Fleet demands too much and delivers too little protection... that it's used to keep colony planets subdued, or to prevent the opening of suitable worlds for colonies. Exploration has shifted a lot of blame to Fleet, over the past decade or so - and that concerns us, too. Why are we blamed when Exploration chooses to classify a world as unsuited for colonization? Why is Fleet responsible when the alien vote in the FSP puts a system off-limits for humans? Because we enforce the edicts, apparently... but who is emphasizing that, and why?"

"And you have no idea if any of this crew is such an agent?"

Dupaynil shook his head. "No - the records all seem clear, and that's what you'd expect from a professional. They're not going to do anything stupid, like use a faked name or background. We can check too easily on that sort of thing these days - the Genetic Index gives us the references for each planet-of-origin. If I said I was from Grantly-IV, for instance, you could look it up in the Index and find out that I should be blue-eyed and a foot taller."

"But surely most planets have a variety of genomes - "

"A variety, yes, but not the entire range of human possibilities. Much of the time it doesn't tell us precisely where someone is from - although with tissue samples for analysis it does much better - but it certainly tells me what questions to ask, and what to look for. Anyone from Bretagne, my home world, has experienced double moonlight, and knows about the Imperial Rose Gardens. You're from Myriad - you lived in its one city - and so I know you experienced a seacoast with mountains inland, and you must have seen at least one gorbnari."

Sassinak had an instant memory of the gorbnari, the wide-winged flyers of Myriad, who preyed on its native sealife. Not birds, not fishes - exactly - but gorbnari swooping down for krissi.

"So if I asked you," Dupaynil went on, "whether gorbnari were gray or brown, you'd know - "

"That they were pale yellow on top and white underneath, with a red crest on the males... I see what you mean."

"Since the Myriad colony was wiped out, and not replanted, the references to native wildlife are pretty vague. In fact, the only comment on gorbnari gives their color as 'mid-to-light brown, lighter below' because it's taken from the first scoutship report - and that ship sampled on the other continent, where they are that color."

"So you're going to mingle with the crew, and check that sort of thing, stuff that doesn't come up in the records at all?"

"Right. And of course, I'll fill you in on whatever I find."

Dupaynil was the last incoming crewman - when Sassinak thought about it, the perfect arrangement, since anyone transferring out so late would be noticed. The orders came through for them to leave, and soon they were on their way to their assigned position. Sassinak wasn't sure whether to be glad or sorry that she had no chance to attend Huron's funeral. Soon she was far too busy to brood about it.

For one thing, she had to supervise the continuing education of five newly "hatched" ensigns, fresh from the Academy, and eager to prove themselves capable young officers. Fordeliton handled their assignment slots, but she had an interview with each one, and chaired the regular evaluation sessions. It was a very mixed group. Claas, one of the largest heavyworlder women Sassinak had ever seen, came with a special recommendation from Sass's old friend Seglawin at the Academy. ("I can trust you," she'd written, "to perceive the sensitivity and generosity of this ensign - she's bright, of course, and reasonably aggressive, but still too easily hurt. Toughen her, if you can, without sending her straight into the Separationists.") Sassinak looked up - and up - at the broad face with its heavy brow and cheekbones, and mentally shook her head. If this girl was still oversensitive, after four years in the Academy, she had small chance of curing it.

Timran, stocky and just above the minimum height, had a low rank in the graduating class, and an air of suppressed glee. Clearly he was thrilled (surprised, even?) to have made it through commissioning, and equally delighted to have such a good assignment - and such a commanding officer. Sassinak was used to male appreciation, but his wide - eyed admiration almost embarrassed her. She wondered if she'd really been that callow herself. His only redeeming characteristic, according to the file, was "luck." As his pilot instructor said, "Under normal circumstances, this cadet is adequate at best, and too often careless or rash. But in emergencies, everything seems to come together, and he will do five wrong things that add up to the best combination. If he continues to show this flair in active duty, he may be worth training as a scoutship pilot, or a junior gunnery officer."

Gori, on the other hand, was a quiet, studious, almost prim young man who had ranked high in academics and sports, but only average in initiative. "The born supply officer," his report said. "Meticulous, precise, will do exactly what he is told, but does not react well in chaotic situations. He should do well in a large crew, and ultimately onstation in a noncombat capacity. Note that this is not lack of courage; he does not panic in danger - but he does not exceed his orders even when this is desirable."

Kayli and Perran were more "average," in that their abilities seemed to be all on one level. Physically they were something else. Kayli was a stunning diminutive brunette, who could have had a new partner every night if she'd wanted it. What she wanted, apparently, was Gori. Sassinak was not surprised to find that they were already engaged, and planned to marry at the end of their first cruise. What did surprise her was Kayli's continuing disinterest in the other men - very few people were exclusive in their relationships. But despite all suggestions, Kayli spent her off-duty time with Gori, much of it in the junior officer's mess with books spread all over the table. Perran, not at all as overtly attractive as Kayli, turned out to be the vamp of the group. She had an insatiable interest in electronics... and men. Ford's description of her stalk of the senior communications tech gave Sassinak her first relaxed laugh in weeks.

As the trip progressed, Claas seemed content enough, if quiet, and Sassinak noted that she seemed to spend some free time with Perran. It seemed like an odd combination, but Sassinak knew better than to interfere with what worked. Timran got into one scrape after another, always apologetic but undaunted as he discovered the inexorable laws of nature all over again. Sassinak wondered if he'd ever grow up - it didn't seem likely at this point. Only her experience with other such youngsters, who surprisingly grew into competent adults if given the chance and a few years, reassured her. Gori and Kayli occupied each other, and Perran, having caught her first man, soon started looking for another. Sassinak felt a twinge of sympathy for the unlucky quarry; Perran was none too gentle in her disposal of the former lover.

Dupaynil turned up evidence of several anomalies in the crew. He said quite frankly that most of them were probably innocent errors - data entered wrong in the computer, or misunderstandings of one sort or another. But sorting them out meant hours of painstaking work, correlating all the data and holding more interviews to recheck vital facts.

"I had no idea that the personnel files were this sloppy," grumbled Sass. "Surely most of these must mean something." They were back to Prosser, and Sassinak was careful to say nothing about her earlier reaction to his holo in the files. His eyes weren't quite as close together as she'd thought earlier. Dupaynil passed over the file with a shrug - nothing wrong with it at all.

"Have you ever really looked at your own file?" asked Dupaynil with a sly smile.

"Well, no - not carefully." She had never wanted to brood over the truncated past it would have revealed.

"Look." He called up her file onscreen, and ran it through his expanded database backups. "According to this, you had two different grades in advanced analytic geometry in prep school... and you never turned in your final project in social history... and you were involved in a subversive organization back on Myriad - "

"What!" Sassinak peered at it. "I wasn't in anything - "

"A club called Ironmaids?" Dupaynil grinned.

"Oh." She had forgotten completely about Ironmaids, the local Carin Coldae fan club that she and Caris had founded in their last year of elementary school. She and Caris and - who was that other girl? Glya? - had chosen the name, and written to the address on the bottom of the Carin Coldae posters. And almost a year later a packet had come for them: a club charter, replica Carin Coldae pocket lasers, and eight copies of the newest poster. Her parents wouldn't let her put it up where anyone could see it, so she'd had it on the inside of her closet door. "But it wasn't subversive," she said to Dupaynil. "It was just a kid's club, a fan club."

"Affiliated with the Carin Coldae cult, right?"

"Cult? We weren't a cult." Even her parents, conservative as they were. had not objected to the club... although they'd insisted that a life-size poster of Carin Coldae, in snug silver bodysuit with a blazing laser in each hand, was not the perfect living room decoration.

Dupaynil laughed aloud. "You see, captain, how easy it is for someone to be caught up in something without realizing it? I suppose you didn't know that Carin Coldae's vast earnings went into the foundation and maintenance of a terrorist organization?"

"They did?"

"Oh yes. All you little girls - and boys, too, I must admit - who sent in your bits of change and proofs of purchase were actually funding the Sector XI resurgents, as nasty a bunch of racist bullies as you could hope to find. The Iron Chain, they called themselves. Carin herself, I understand, found them romantic - or one of them, anyway. She was convinced they were misunderstood freedom fighters, and of course they encouraged that view. So your little Ironmaids club, in which I presume you all felt brave and grown-up, was a front for terrorists... and you had your brush with subversive activity."

Sassinak thought back to their six months of meetings, before they got tired of the routine. The little charter and handbook, which had them elect officers and discuss "old business" and "new business" according to strict rules. The cookies they'd made and served from a Carin Coldae plate, and the fruit juice they'd drunk from special glasses. If that was subversive activity, how did anyone keep doing it without suffering terminal boredom? She remembered the day they'd disbanded - not to quit watching Carin Coldae films, of course, but because the club itself bored them stiff They'd gone back to climbing in the nearby hills, where they could pretend that villains were hiding behind the rocks.

"I think the most subversive thing we did," she said finally, "was decide that our school principal looked exactly like the villain in White Rims. I still have trouble believing - "

Dupaynil shrugged. "It doesn't really matter. Security knows that nearly all the kids in those clubs were innocent. But some of them went on to another level of membership, and a few of those ended up joining the Iron Chain... and those have been a continuing problem."

"I remember... maybe a year after we quit holding meetings, we got another mailout, suggesting that we form a senior club. But we'd lost interest, and anyway that was just before the colony was taken."

"Right. Now - can you explain the two grades in analytic geometry? Or the uncompleted social history project?"

Sassinak frowned, trying to remember. "As far as I know, I always got top grades in math... what are those? Oh... sure... they were trying a pass/fail system, and gave all of us dual grades in math that semester. It's not two grades, really; it's the same grade expressed two ways. As for social history - I can't remember anything."

"You see? Three little things, and you can't clear up all of them. And yet it's not important. If we had a pattern - if you seemed to have incompletes in all your social science classes - it might matter. But this is nothing, and most of the odd things in your crew's records are nothing. Still, we must look into all of it, even so silly a thing as a child's fan club."

Among the odd bits Dupaynil turned up in the next week were a young man who'd chosen to use his matrilineal name rather than his far more prominent patrilineal title, and yet another person of heavyworlder genetic background posing as a normal human. Sassinak came in on the interviews of both these, but neither had the unstable personality of the poisoner. The young man insisted that he'd joined Fleet to get away from his father's influence - he'd been pushed to enter the diplomatic service, but preferred to work with his hands. The heavyworlder said frankly that heavyworlders looked down on him, but that he had found acceptance and even friendships among the lightweights. "If they know I'm from a heavyworld family, they're afraid of my strength - I can tell by the way they hold back. But I can pass as a strong normal, and that suits me just fine. No, I wouldn't help heavyworlders expand their influence - why should I? They're snobs - they teased me and threw me out for being a weakling, as if they really were superior. They're not. Let 'em stay on their worlds, and let me go where I fit in."

Dupaynil, Sassinak noticed, seemed far more sympathetic to the young man escaping a pushy father than to the heavyworlder. She herself found both convincing.

They had been on-station a month when their detectors picked up a ship off the normal FTL paths. Its IFF and passive beam gave its ownership as General Freight (again! thought Sass), but from the passive beam they could strip its origin code... and that was a heavyworld system.

Once more the Zaid-Dayan took up the chase, guided by its Ssli perception of the quarry's disturbance of space. And once more it soon became clear that the quarry was headed for someplace unusual.

CHAPTER Fifteen

"And just what is this?" No one answered the navigation officer's murmur; Sassinak leaned over to see what identification data were coming up on the screen. Nav went on. "Mapped... hmm... on the EEC survey, Ryxi on the fifth planet, which is on this side of the system, and a human team dropped to do some exploration on the fourth, called Ireta. Wonder why it's got a name, if it doesn't have a colony and this was the first exploration team. Something about mesozoic fauna, whatever that means."

"New contact: ship on insystem drive boosting out of the fifth planet's system - " That went up on the main screen, where they could all see it. "No leech beacon - d'you want to try its IFF, captain?"

"No - if they're what I think, another pirate escort, they'll notice that," said Sass. "But... Ryxi?"

"Dropped here some forty years ago - colonial permit - "

"No one's ever suggested Ryxi were involved in this kind of thing," said Dupaynil, looking as confused as Sassinak felt. "Certainly not in anything with heavyworlders. They hate them worse than they do normal humans."

The Zaid-Dayan crept cautiously after the other two ships, which now seemed to be making for Ireta, a journey of some days on insystem drive. Sassinak wondered what someone might be planning - another "accidental" missile release? Some other dangerous accident? Dupaynil had come up with nothing definite, and although she had moved both the most likely suspects away from their usual duties, that didn't make her feel any safer. She made sure that none of the same people were assigned duty in the quadrant missile rooms, that the stewards' duties were rotated differently. What else could she do? Nothing, really.

Day by day the two target ships arced toward the distant fifth planet. Sassinak had time to look it up in the Index for herself, and check out the reference to "mesozoic." One of her new Jigs, a biology enthusiast, rattled on to everyone about the possibilities. Huge reptilian beasts from prehuman history on old Terra, superficially similar to some races of reptiloid aliens, but really quite stupid... Sassinak grinned to herself. Had she ever had that kind of enthusiasm, and been so unaware of everyone else's lack of interest? She thought not, but indulged him when he showed her his favorite slides from his files.

Fordeliton happened into the middle of this, and turned out to be another enthusiast, though more restrained. "Dinosaurs!" he said. "Old Terran, or near enough - "

"Pirates," said Sassinak firmly. "Dangerous, or near enough."