The City Who Fought by Anne McCaffrey + S.M. Stirling

PROLOGUE

"How long?" Amos ben Sierra Nueva said desperately.

"Another forty-five minutes, esteemed sir," the technician answered in a voice flat with focused concentration.

Amos touched the pickup in his ear and turned back to the low hills ahead. They were covered in pine forest, or had been, until about an hour ago. Now they were burning, a furnace of resin-fueled candles fifty meters high. The invaders had barred their own way with the blast of beam-fire from the aircraft, but they seemed lazily indifferent about inflicting casualties on their own forces. Hie Bethelite nobleman ground his teeth in fury at that lordly disdain; unfortunately, it seemed justified.

For now. Most of the resistance to the Kolnari invasion had come from Bethel's planetary constabulary, and the Guardians of the Temple. Those few who didn't see the invasion as punishment for the sins of godless young Amos ben Sierra Nueva and his followers had, of course, resisted. The faithful had effectively offered their throats to the pirate knife. Sheer luck that Amos and those followers had been preparing even if their efforts had been made against the day when the Guardians came for them.

"Everything is in place, my brother," said the man beside Amos in the rear seat of the pickup. Joseph ben Said was a commoner — worse than that, a bastard from the slums of Keriss—but he had been the first of Amos' followers, and had proved to be the most loyal. Stating Not to mention certain skills, Amos reminded himself.

"Take me forward to the bunker," he said, and cut off Joseph's protest with a brusque chop of his hand.

The gunner behind the pintle-mounted launcher swayed as the driver gunned the fans and slid the vehicle down the dirt track. He was inexperienced; they all were. The Second Revelation had trained in secret with their hoarded weapons, preparing for the Second Exodus to Al Mina. Official Temple policy held there was no need to venture beyond Bethel when three centuries of valiant breeding left the Chosen still thin on the ground in the initial area of settlement. There had been no time to acquire much real skill with the tools of destruction. The measures had been insurance, really, in case the Elders actually were willing to use force to prevent the settlement of the Saffron system's other habitable planet Ahead, the fire throbbed and roared. The pines were a native variety; candlestick trees, they were called. They were explosively flammable this time of year, and the air was thick with the heavy resinous smoke. Dust spurted from under the car as they swung behind the bunker, just now thrown up with farming machines and covered with raw dirt The driver backed and then let the vehicle settle on its flexible skirt, keeping the fens running and the gunner's line of sight just over the top of the mound.

"Good man," Amos said, thumping him on the shoulder before he hopped down and ducked to enter the bunker.

A display film had been tacked to one wall. It showed footage from a pickup located a kilometer down the road. Haifa dozen men and women in coveralls and caps were talking into communicators or hovering over a schematic display on a rickety camp table. In the bunker, the air was full of a crackling tension, louder to the nerves than the burning forest was to the ears.

Amos nodded \o...the officer, he reminded himself. No longer friends and retainers, but warriors.

"They are coming," Rachel bint Damscus said.

Her plain bony face was tightly impassive. She was an info-systems specialist, rare for a woman on Bethel, where most females held to traditional feminine careers like medicine or literature, Joseph made her a formal bow.

"You are well, lady?" he said.

She gave a curt nod, then turned back to Amos. "They hit the forest with some sort of indirect-fire incendiary weapon, and now they are advancing through it Powered vehicles. Fusion-bubble neutrino signatures, fairly heavy ones."

"They probably do not know how common bad fires are here," Amos said. He worked a tongue in a mouth gone dry. Bethel vehicles used stressed-storage batteries.

Rachel was holding up well, better than he had expected. She had a violent temper, and he suspected a buried streak of hysteria. She was also a daustrophobe: the bunker would add that distress to her burdens. The more credit to her, for conquering her phobia.

"They thought to mask their approach in the flames," he said aloud.

Their first ambush had killed several of the invader infantry. Even a few hours had shown how the strangers reacted to a challenge: strike back immediately with overwhelming power. He cleared his throat and asked calmly:

"How far are they from the mine?"

"Two kilometers and closing. Closing at twenty kph. Onscreen."

The view through the screen tacked to the wall trembled. That meant something was shaking the ground under the pickup, even though it was spiked to solid rock. Hills rose on either side ahead, everything on fire except for the narrow stream and the road beside it, down at the base of the massive granite slopes. Shapes were moving through the burning trees on the lower slopes. Dull-gleaming shapes, hard to make out against the background, as if the surfaces were adapting themselves, chameleon-fashion, as they moved. Low turtle-backed outlines, with long weapons jutting from their sloped forward plates, the barrels built up from coils or rings, some sort of wave-guide or electromagnetic launcher.

One fighting vehicle pivoted. The muzzle flashed, bright even through the hot-iron glow of the fires. The viewscreen fogged slightly as a pickup was blasted into plasma, then cleared as the system compensated by spreading input from the others.

"Well, that gives us a due to the sensitivity of their detectors," Joseph said. He leaned forward. "Everyone is out of there?"

"Falling back to the launching ground. There is nobody within fifteen kilometers," Rachel said. "We are closest"

"Do it, then," Amos said.

She touched a control surface. The screen flashed white and went blank. Haifa second later an actinic glare flashed through the bunker, reflected in from the rear entrance but still bright enough to make their goggles darken protectively. Sound and shock followed in a few heartbeats: a roar like God returning in anger, an earthquake rumble through the soil, then a wave of heat and pressure making their ears pop.

"So Keriss died," Rachel said absently, to herself. "Tamik saw it He said the flash was like the sword of God, and the waves a kilometer high when they broke over the Peninsula mountains."

"Everyone leave," Amos said quietly, glancing down at the watch woven into his sleeve. There was nothing else to say. Rachel's family had lived in Keriss, the capital city of Bethel. So had most of Amos' surviving kindred, and Joseph's, if he had any. "We will rendezvous in forty minutes at the shuttle." He paused. "And Rachel?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Well done. Very well done."

When they left the bunker, the pillar of cloud was already flattening out high in the stratosphere.

"SSS." The sensor overwatch AI filtered a possible message out of the interstellar background and passed it through to the controller of Station SSS-900.

"Hissing again, are we?" Simeon muttered absendy at the subprogram, and turned his attention back to the simulacrum.

Napoleon had just pushed the British north of Nottingham. Wounded, exhausted soldiers sprawled across the fields where the defeated army camped, as the rain drained down, gray skies darkening over trampled muddy fields. Away across the rolling landscape fires still flickered, where dead men lay gaping around smashed cannon. The women were out with lanterns, looking for their husbands and sons.

A dispatch rider came clattering up to Wellesley's tent with news of the Jacobin uprisings in Birmingham and Manchester, and a landing of the Irish rebels. The big beak-nosed man stood in the open flap of the tent as the dripping militiaman saluted clumsily and handed over the dispatches, blinking in the driving rain.

"The devil with it," he muttered, turning to the maptable within and unfolding the heavy wax-sealed papers. "It's too bad. If we'd won that last battle ... if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Still, it was a damned near-run thing—a very near thing."

He looked up. "You are to inform His Majesty that he and the royal family must take ship for India immediately. These—" he extended the reports from his folding desk "— are for Viceroy Arnold in Calcutta."

I concede, the computer said.

"Of course," Simeon answered smugly.

He switched his primary visual focus from simulation back to the lounge and looked down at the big holotable. An excellent model for use in war-gaming, the map of England was scattered with unit symbols. Finer and finer detail could be obtained by magnifying individual sectors — right down to die animate models of soldiers and horses. Or tanks and artillery, for some of the other games. He focused: on a horse tiredly nipping at its neighbor on the picket line, on the stubbled gap-toothed face of a sentry yawning.

"SSS."

"What is that?" Simeon asked.

The answer floated up into his awareness from the peripherals; tightbeam signal, modulated subspace waves, picked up by one of the passive buoys out on the fringes of the system. A subroutine had flagged it as possibly interesting, Hmmm, he thought. Odd. It might just be the last fading noise from a leaking mini-singularity about to go pop. The things tended to cluster in this area, which was full of third-generation stars and black holes, though this one tasted like a signal. The problem with that was that there was nothing much out that way; nothing listed as inhabited for better than two hundred lights. Certainly no traffic into the sphere of Space Station Simeon-900-X's operations. He would have to see if anything more came of it. Presumably if someone was calling, they would try again.

Idly, he ran a checklist of station functions. Lifesupport was nominal, of course; any variation of that was red-flagged. One hundred seventy-two craft of various sorts from the liner Altair to barge-tugs were currendy docked. Twenty-seven megatons of various mineral powders were in transit, in storage, or undergoing processing in SSS-900-X's attendant fabrication modules. Two new tugs were under construction in the yard. A civic election was underway, with Anita de Chong-Markowitz leading for councilrep in station sector three, the entertainment decks. Death in the Twenty-First was still billing as most popular holo of the month. Simeon sneered mentally, with a wistful overtone. Historical dramas were impossible for a serious scholar to watch because the manufacturers would not do their research.

It was not necessary to investigate much more in detail. With the connectors, shellperson Simeontyos SSS-900-X. Little awareness remained of the stunted body inside its titanium shell in the central column of the lounge. He was the station, and any weakness or failure was, like pain, intense and personal. As far as his kinesthetic sense was concerned, he was a metal tube a kilometer long, with two huge globes attached on either end.

The Abair was in. Simeon had docked die incoming ship with his usual efficiency but without his usual close scrutiny. He deliberately turned his attention away from disembarking passengers, refusing to study their faces, especially the faces of the women.

Radon's replacement as Simeon's brawn was on this ship, and all he knew was her work record and her name. Channa Hap. Probably from Hawking Alpha Proxima Station, Hap being a common surname for those born in that ancient and wealdiy community. He wasn't entirely sure. He'd fought Radon's retirement too hard to have much personal interest in his replacement All right, I was sulking, he told himself. Time to get with the program. He'd established a subroutine to trash the applications of replacements. That hadn't been personal, merely a ploy.

He hadn't wanted her, but they were stuck widi each other now.

Liners docked at the north polar aspect of the tw< linked globes diat made up the station. The tube was; kilometer long and half diat wide, more than enougl for the replenishment feeds and a debarkation loungi fancy enough to satisfy die station's collective vanity twenty meters on a side and fifteen high, lined witi murals, walled and floored with exotic space-minec stone, with information kiosks and everything else < visitor needed to feel at home.

"I'm Channa Hap," a woman said to one of th< kiosks. "I need directions to Control Central."

So that's her. Long high-cheekboned face, mediumlength curling dark hair.

"You are expected, Ms. Hap," the terminal said. Ii had a mellow, commanding voice syndied from several of Simeon's favorite actors, some of whom dated back to the twenty-fourth century. "Do you wish transportation?"

"If diere's no hurry, I'll walk. Might as well get used to the new home."

"This way, please."

She nodded. Simeon froze the visual and studied her; tall, athletic. Dressed plainly in a coverall, but she had presence. Nice figure, too, if you liked subde curves and rolling muscle. A fox.

In an amazingly short time the door-chime signaled a request for admittance. Feeling as nervous as he had when meeting his first brawn, Simeon said, "Come," and die door swished open.

Channa entered. He dosed in on the viewer to what he thought of as normal conversational distance. That was an advantage sometimes, since softshells couldn't get to their psychologically comfortable distance widi you. She had delicate, clear-cut features and earnest dark eyes, and the curly black hair was swept back from her face in a disciplined no-nonsense fashion. A vid-show heroine. Perfect! he thought FUget things off on the right foot. He switched on a screen with his own "face" — the way he'd imagined it, ruggedly handsome with a tan, a Heidelberg dueling scar, level gray eyes, dose-cropped blond hair and a Centaurijets fen cap — and spoke aloud:

"Hubba-hubba!"

The dark eyes widened slighdy, "Excuse me?"

He laughed, "That's ancient Earth slang for 'sexy lady.'"

"I see."

The words were so dipped Simeon could almost hear them ping on the deck as they fell through a short silence.

Ah, geesh, he thought, this is going realty well. "Urn, I meant it as a compliment." Why didn't they send me a male brawn? he asked himself, conveniendy forgetting his request form. Male bonding he knew about "Yes, of course," she said coolly. "It's just not a type of compliment that I'm particularly fond of receiving."

She's got a nice voice, Simeon thought uneasily. Pity she seems to be a bitch. "What sort of compliments do you accept?" he asked in a tone of forced jocularity which wasn't easy to manage through a digital speaker.

"I accept those that deal with my quick learning ability, and my efficiency, or that acknowledge I'm doing a good job," she said, moving further into the room and taking a seat before his column. Until she had finished speaking, she did not look directly at him.

"The sort of compliment you'd give a servomechanism, if you gave servo-mechanisnis compliments,'' he said.

"Exactly." She smiled sweedy and folded her hands.

"You've an interesting attitude, Ms. Hap," he said, laying a little stress on the ancient honorific. If she wants to get formal, Ftt show her formal. "Most of the women I've worked with didn't object to an occasional compliment on their appearance."

She raised her brows slighdy and cocked her head, "Perhaps if they objected you simply dismissed it as being part of an 'attitude.*" tcoiddcry, iffcouldcry, Simeon thought He'd gotten lonely these last weeks without Tell Radon. He'd begun to anticipate the^/un he'd been going to have with a new brawn. Someone to talk to.... How could they have matched him with this... ice princess? They knew he was easy going, sure, but he'd given them a very good idea of what he was looking for in a brawn. Exact specifications, which Channa Hap hadn't met, fully. Was someone in Central taking advantage of his good nature, somehow hoping he could straighten her out, or maybe loosen her up?

"I find your attitude rather interesting," she murmured, narrowing her eyes. "Have you checked your hormone levels recendy?"

"That's a rather personal remark...." Maybe they just want me to blast her out an airlock when nobody's looking. " 'Sexy lady' isn't?" She smiled and raised a sardonic brow.

"That was a compliment, intended to put you at ease. Have you checked your own hormone levels lately?"

There was silence.

After a moment she sat forward and looked at him levelly. "Look, even though it hardly seems worth the trouble of officially submitting my orders to you, on a practical level we may as well just admit that, for the time being, we're stuck with each other. You need a brawn and I'm here. I'm well trained, experienced and hard working. We don't have to love each other to work together."

"True, but it gets a little cold trying to maintain your distance with someone you see every day. It would be a lot easier if we could be friends. Look, why don't we just erase what just happened and start over? Whaddaya say?"

She pursed her lips, then smiled. "I'm game. But let's start slow, and we'll avoid the personal remarks for the time being, okay?" She cocked her head at him and raised an eyebrow. "You start."

"Hello, you must be Channa Hap. Welcome to the SSS-900-C."

"Thank you. I hope I'm not interrupting." "Nah, I always have time for a pret... colleague." He detected a slight narrowing of her eyes. "My, you sure are efficient looking."

"Well, and so are you, you're so steely and all." "Funny, I was just about to say the same thing about you."

She stood up. "This isn't going to work." "My fault. I shouldn't have said that. Look, you must be tired from all the travel you've been doing. Why don't you settle in, look around, relax a little — things might look different"

"This has nothing to do with my being tired or your hormones...."

"What is this fixation you have with my hormones?" "Shut-up-and-listen-to-me." Channa was giving him a look that he could almost feel. She paused and held up her hands, sitting down again. 'Just listen," she said earnesdy. "1 think that it would be best if we put our cards on the table. I haven't studied your files in full yet," she admitted with a tired smile. "I just couldn't make myself do it But I do know quite a bit about you." She leaned back and crossed her long legs. "I know that you have a fair amount of influence and a lot of contacts at Central Admin. And I know that you called on just about all of them in the matter of your brawn replacement" She gave him a severe look. "You made yourself famous on just about every level."

He was a little lost here. He had kicked up quite a fuss when they forcibly retired Tell Radon, but what did it have to do with her?

"In case you're wondering why I'm bringing this up," she continued.

Geeeze, Simeon thought, that's eerie! She can't possibly readmymmd. Canshe?

"It may interest you to know that I have my own contacts at Admin. And they've told me that you came up with a list of qualifications that were extremely hard to fill. In fact, I was the only candidate who did fit them, with the glaring exception of the age qualification. I hear that I'm four years too young for this post."

"Well, you see..."

"Excuse me, I'm not finished. I was also told that you went over my service records looking for black marks, and that when you couldn't find them, you went looking for shadows that you could pretend were blackmarks...."

"Hey! I don't know who you were talking to."

"Bear with me a few moments longer," Channa said, holding up one finger. "Then you can have your say. I'm not going anywhere." She looked at his image on the screen for a moment with narrowed eyes, and when he remained silent she nodded. "I've been told that all you need do to ruin the day of almost any Admin executive is to mention my name. The feeling you appear to have left behind you as the smoke cleared on this was that where there's smoke, there's fire. And that if you, well-known and respected brain that you are, would object so strenuously to my assignment to the SSS-900, despite the feet that I fit all but one of your many qualifications, then there must indeed be something seriously wrong with me."

"Oh." He honestly hadn't thought about that He'd been so intent on saving Tell from forced retirement that no other considerations had seemed important. Channa Hap as a person had never entered into his thoughts.

Channa continued speaking, "I told myself that it probably wasn't personal."

God, it's weird the way she can pick uponmy thoughts tike that!

"I told myself to keep an open mind. If you had only greeted me as a fellow professional, then I think I could have let the whole mess be forgotten. But the first words out of your speakers show that either you can't discern the difference between a compliment and a lipsmacking, smarmy, personal remark, or your campaign to get rid of me continues."

"Now wait a minute!" Simeon said. She opened her mouth to speak and he overrode her. "It's my turn. Okay, you said I'd get a turn and I'm taking it." She raised her brows and gave him an open-handed gesture, giving him the floor. "I don't know who your informant is, but they've got it all wrong. I'm going to assume that you know the system well enough to realize that whoever came up for consideration was going to be gone over with a fine-tooth comb. A space station the size of a small city requires versatility. I'm going to assume that you're mature enough to know that twenty-six is very young for this posting. Tell was thirtyeight when we came here, and that's the general age I was looking for. I don't think, given the importance of the SSS-900, that I'm being unreasonable. But, I suppose that to someone uninformed, the in-depth investigation could look like a campaign to discredit you. That was honestly not my intention, nor is it my intention now. If my greeting was a little too familiar, I apologize, but I had no way of knowing what dark suspicions you were harboring, I'm really very open, Ms. Hap."

She smiled amiably and nodded. "Mmhm. This entire charming explanation of yours is predicated on the assumption that my informant is someone's secretary." She shook her head sadly. "No."

Gulp, maybe 1did go a little far.... "Urn..."

"You can rest easy," she assured him. "I'm very good at what I do. As you well know, I have an almost perfect record...."

Actually, you do have a perfect vecord, Simeon thought miserably. "... so, whether we actually get along or not, the station won't suffer. And I promise you that I'm not going to just up and disappear on you once you've gotten used to me. Because I have it on good authority that, after what you've done to my career and reputation, I'd have to bribe and sleep my way into a secondary assignment on the meanest asteroid-mining outpost at the farthest reaches of the explored galaxy." She rose and said, "I'd like to look at my quarters now."

"Yeah.. -just," Simeon slid the door to the brawn's quarters open, "just settle in. We'll work this out, Ms. Hap — you'll see. I'm not as bad as you seem to think I am, I'll check out your allegations and see if I can make things right. Okay?"

She looked from the open door to Simeon and back again. She sighed as she walked to the door. "No, I think it would be better if you just left things alone for a while."

"Ms. Hap," Simeon called. She turned. "When a new brawn comes aboard, station protocol recommends a little informal gathering of the department heads. I've arranged one for this evening at 20:00. That is, if that's all right with you?"

She nodded and smiled. MI think that's a great idea." The door to her room slid shut behind her.

"I can't keep her level! I can't keep her level!"

Amos ben Sierra Nueva leaned forward, gripping the edge of the console as if he could force strength down the commlink and the beam to the stricken transport "Do not panic, Shintev," he said, firm but calm. "You are too close to your destination for panic."

Panic seemed to be the order of the day. The bridge of the Exodus — a minor substation control center for three hundred years — was in pandemonium as the refugee technicians struggled to activate and improvise. There was a hissing puncture right through the pressure hull where they had slammed a steel tube for the coaxial feeds to Guiyon's shell. None of the big cargo-bay doors were operable so they had had to lash the surface-to-ship transporters to the exterior of the ancient ship and climb in through service-hatch doors. The air was thin and cold, dim with the emergency lighting, full of the smell of fear and sweat and scorched insulation.

"Excellent sir. I think that the enemy has detected us," a voice said from one corner.

"You i At n A?"

"I am not sure!" the technician wailed, on the brink of tears. "They are moving... yes! They have detected us!" Amos' head whipped around. Then the link from the last shuttle began to transmit only a long highpitched scream. He looked back again to see a face rammed into the pickup, plastered there by centrifugal force. Flesh and pooling blood rippled across the screen before it blanked out.

"They are gone," Amos said into the sudden hush. "Decouple the remaining shutdes. Prepare for boost"

Another chorus of screams protested that they were not ready.

"The engines are on-line," Guiyon's calm deep voice said. "That will suffice for now."

Amos turned and punched an override. "Prepare for acceleration! Acceleration in ten seconds from mark. Mark!"

A speck of light blossomed across one of the exterior fields.

"They got Shintev," somebody whispered. An extraorbital fighter, bouncing across the surface of the troposphere like a skipped stone had gotten dose enough to launch a seeker missile at the out-of-control shuttle.

"Attend to your duty!" Amos snapped. Later there-will be time far prayers, and for tears.

Force pushed at the ancient ship. Humming and snapping sounds vibrated through the hull. Exterior feeds showed gantries and constructs bending and breaking under a strain they had never been intended to endure. The ground-to-orbit shutdes were breaking away as well, and a few figures in spacesuits.

Damnation, Amos thought, looking away. They mere warned! So many lives rested on his shoulders.

The great cloud-girdled shape of Bethel began to shrink in the rear viewscreen. The visible face of the planet was obscured by dust and flame from the fighting. Acceleration flattened him into his chair as he read figures from the flickering screens.

"Guiyon!" he said. "We are moving too slowly!"

"Peace, Amos. I am trying to—yes, I am venting the life-support tanks." Tens of thousands of kilotons of water were jettisoned. "That will help us. And hinder the enemy."

"What force pursues us?"

"Five ships of small to moderate size. I think they ai^ the enemy sentinels. None other are in position or rigged for pursuit."

"Will they be able to intercept?"

"I do not know. But I must stress the engines, and there will be casualties among the passengers."

"Do what must be done."

Tlie weight pressing into his body increased until his bones creaked from the gravity that the antique compensators could not handle. The actual gravity would crush.

Behind the Exodus, half the universe vanished in a blaze of drive energies. The hull did not hum anymore: it creaked, with occasional rending and crashing noises as components which had weakened or reset during the long years as an orbital station came apart under the stress and crashed sternwards. Somewhere a child called for its mother, again and again.

"What can we do?" Amos asked.

"Little, until we clear the gravity well," Guiyon answered. "Pray, perhaps, since that was your custom?"

One by one, the refugees lifted voices in chant.

Patsy Sue Coburn glanced over at a silk-clad Channa Hap. Channa was sipping champagne and listening politely to a medical officer who had backed her into a corner to tell a story that seemed to involve a lot of cutting motions. The room was full of station bigwigs, section representatives, department heads, company reps, merchanter captains, the odd artist or entertainer. Trays floated about at shoulder height, loaded with beverages, canapes, and stimulants. Everyone seemed filled with a new enthusiasm for conversations they'd had a hundred times before, as if the new brawn had reinvigorated old topics. Patsy Sue felt the warmth of Florian Gusky's presence even before his deep voice rumbled softly in her ear. "So... what do you think of the new girl?" patsy looked at him out of the corner of her bottlegreen eyes and flicked back her long blond hair. His jaw was thrust forward and his thick neck was hunched into heavy shoulders, accentuating the rugged cast of his features. A big man and nearly as tough as he thought he was. Gusky was an enthusiast for Revival Games, particularly rugby; he looked ready to tackle Channa.

Or stomp on her with cleats, she thought. " I think the new woman's elegant," Patsy replied. And makes me wish Fd been a tittle more restrained, she added to herself. Her own Junoesque figure was squeezed into a tight red sheath with a deep cleavage and a slit skirt. Her ashblond hair — her own natural coloring with the barest tint of help from modern technology — was woven with ropes of black pearls.

"I think she's a snob," Gusky said decisively.

"She seems a bit reserved," Patsy allowed. Who wouldn't be, dropped into this mill-and-swill?

"She seems shallow."

"What is yer problem? Y' lookin* at the woman like you think she's got the legs of a cockroach under that gown. I've neva known you to make snap judgments. Do you know somethin1 that needs tellin'?"

He looked into his drink, frowning. "No ... it's just ... Simeon's awfully quiet" He looked up at her with concern in his brown eyes. "That's just not like him."

She grinned and flicked her blond bangs aside. "Well, this will be quite an adjustment fer him after all," she said. "He an* Tell Radon were together for decades. Maybe he's missin' him and doesn't feel like bein' at a party."

Gus nodded, pursing his lips. "Yeah, or maybe he wants to give her a chance to shine...."

They both looked down for a moment and shuffled their feet. They looked up at the same moment and said, "Simeon?" simultaneously, and then burst out laughing.

"You called?" The familiar image bloomed on a screen beside diem.

"Ah! Oh, hi, Sim, we, uh... we..."

"We were just saying you're kinda quiet tonight," Gus finished.

"Well, with most of my senior staff here at the party, I'm sort of pulling double-duty," Simeon said listlessly. "Excuse me," and he was gone.

Patsy and Gus looked at each other in amazement, then turned to take a new look at Channa Hap, now being introduced to a cargo specialist.

Gus shook his head. "What did she do to him?"

Patsy smiled. "Trimmed his sails good and proper."

"This was not a match made in Paradise," Gus muttered.

"Oh, I dunno," Patsy said, narrowing her green eyes thoughtfully. "The woman has style, Gus. This place could use some style. Look at this party. When was the last time you came to Simeon's place and got somethin' besides beer and pretzels?"

Gus looked at her in amazement "What's that supposed to mean? Are you telling me you can be bought widi the right canapes?"

"No. Chocolate truffles maybe, but not synthesized fish eggs on carbo wafers." At his growl she continued more seriously. "What I'm sayin' is, this place is more like a boys' camp dian the hub of culture and science and business that it could be. She'll shake us up all right, but maybe that's a good thing. It's goin' to get a lot more interestin' around here."

He went back to glowering. Patsy went over to Channa to compliment her choice of the Rovolodorus' Second Celestial Suite as background music.

"Glad you like it, Ms. Coburn," Channa said. Her smile had the slightly artificial quality of someone who has spent the last few hours fending off would-be favor seekers. "You're from Larabie, diough, aren't you?"

"I left," Patsy replied. "Didn'tlikethedown-home music tfiere, and I get so sick of the Miner's Rant and the other Pioneer Stomp stuff Simeon plays. No offense, Simeon."

"None taken" a voice said out of the air, the "n" fading into silence.

Channa's next smile was more genuine. "I'd have thought the chief environmentalist would be in favor of stability," she said.

"I get so sick of watchin' algae breed," Patsy said, and they both laughed. "Maybe diat's why I had four husbands in a row —just to show I wasn't a unicellular organism."

"Goodnight," Channa called as the door swished shut behind the last departing guest. The big circular room looked even larger with the crowd gone; the holos on the walls had reset to restful underwater scenes with tropical fish.

She turned toward Simeon's screen image on the pillar — a brain's body was there, after all, and it had become a matter of courtesy in brawns to address diat position even if the brain could hear them anywhere on the station. She stood a moment leisurely studying the large Sinosian tapestry that was tastefully draped across his column.

"That's a lovely hanging," she said at last "I've been admiring it all evening." She clasped her hands behind her back and walked slowly towards him. "Thank you," she said softly. "This party was very pleasant, Simeon, and a thoughtful gesture."

Once you, loosened up a tittle, Simeon thought in some surprise, you were fun, too. If I can just keep you half-tanked, we might be able to get along.

"Well, everyone is more relaxed at this sort of gathering," he said, "divorced from their official positions. You get to see the social side before you have to contend with the professional."

She nodded. "I had just enough time before they got here to glance at everyone's records. I didn't want to make the same mistake with them that I made with you."

"You didn't read my records?"

"No," she said archly, "I wanted to be surprised."

"So did I," he admitted.

She laughed. "Then I guess we do have something in common after all. We can both screw up. Goodnight, Simeon."

Smiling, she gave one last wave at the column as she went into her room.

She has a nice laugh, Simeon thought, as the door swished closed behind her.

Phew, Channa thought.

She thought again, and took several recondite pieces of equipment out of her bag.

When these showed that the sensors in the walls weren't activated, she was slightly ashamed of herself for being so uncharitable about Simeon.

"There is no chance of repairing it?" Amos ben Sierra Nueva said.

"Crapulous none," the technician rasped. "Esteemed sir," he added, wiping at the lubricating fluid on his cheek.

They both backed out of the corridor and dogged the hatchway. A subliminal hum surrounded them; Amos was alone among the refugees in knowing that was a bad sign. Misaligned drive, no surprise after the colony ship had spent three centuries doubling as an orbital station. It was a miracle that the engines functioned at all, and a tribute to the engineers of the Central Worlds. A double miracle that they were holding up under the unnatural stress of maintaining subspace speeds past redline for so long. Guiyon's doing.

"We will just have to economize on oxygen," Amos said firmly.

"Stop breathing?" the technician asked.

"Coldsleep," Amos replied. "That will cut down our consumption by at least half. A small crew can manage the ship. It was designed so. Guiyon could run it alone, if need be."

Sweat from more than the exertion of crawling along disused passageways glistened on the man's brown skin. Amos forced himself to breath normally as he walked back to the command deck. His chest felt heavy but it was impossible to detect any COg buildup yet Purely psychological, he told himself sternly.

"There is no chance of repairing the machinery," he said to the assembled command group. A few of them grunted as if struck. "At the current rate, we will exhaust the available air supplies two-thirds of the way to our destination."

"Why was the ship not properly maintained?" someone half shouted.

"Because this was an orbital station with unlimited supplies and an algae tank!" Amos snapped, then brought himself back under control. Of necessity, they had had to dump the excess water in the tanks. Too much mass to haul when speed is essential. "We lost more supplies, too, when the enemy hulled us."

"This is our situation," he said, deliberately calm. "We have to deal with it. A hundred lives and the fete of Bethel depend upon it"

They aU nodded. There was no way the Kolnari fleet could have been kept secret, even in backwaters like the Saffron system, if there were any witnesses after they left a world. Given time on Bethel, they would hide their tracks the same way.

"What... what about coldsleep?" Rachel said, licking her Hps.

"A possibility presently to be considered," Amos said. "Giriyon?"

The brain's voice sounded inhumanly detached as always. There were four centuries of experience behind him, and abilities no softperson could ever match. Amos shuddered slightly. Abomination was the most charitable term the Faith used for such as he. Control yourself, Amos chided. Guiyon rescued us all. He is our onfy hope. The stress was bringing back archaic fears.

"Marginal," Guiyon said. "Possible. We should concentrate all the personnel in one or two compartments, pump the atmosphere from the others back into reserve, and begin coldsleep treatments immediately." He paused. "We are not properly equipped—internal temperature control is very uncertain. There is a risk of substantial casualties."

"Do it," Amos said, with the ring of authority in his voice. He could sense the others relaxing. The menace was still there, but someone was taking steps. Now, if onfy I had an authority figure, he thought wryly. I suppose the responsibility has to stop somewhere. "And may God have mercy upon us."

"Amen."

Amos waited until the others had filed out to begin reorganizing the hundred-odd refugees.

"The enemy?" he asked softly.

"Four ships," Guiyon replied. "One turned back, I think, with engine problems — there were discontinuities in its emissions. The remainder are gaining slowly. I am running the engines over the specifications as it is, but they were never designed for this sort of usage. My estimate is that we have escaped so far because the Kolnari ships are carrying extra fuel mass and suhtight maneuver engines. They are also not redlining their propulsion systems."

"Will we have enough lead-time to reach Rigel Base?"

"That is impossible to calculate," Guiyon said. His voice was slowly taking on an extra tinge of animation, like a piece of rusty machinery that turned more smoothly when warmed up after long disuse. "Too much depends on intervening factors — mass density in the interstellar medium, the enemy's actions, and what awaits us. We still have several possible destinations, but there may have been changes since the last update. My data is very old."

"As God wills," Amos said reflexively.

"Indeed."

The data-input jumped and fizzled through the jury-rigged inputs. Pain jagged along Guiyon's nerves in sympathy with the overstressed fabric of the ship. Anxiety ate at him as sector after sector went blank, a spreading numbness like leprosy.

Behind him, the rosette of pursuing Kolnari ships was mostly hidden by the blaze of his own drive energies. The sleeting energetic particles of their beam-weapons were not probing and eroding at the drive coils of the ancient, crumbling vessel. Ghost memories of the ship when it was young and strong haunted him, confusing his responses. His own nutrient and oxygen feeds kept slipping past redline, and each time the emergency adjustments took longer to swing the indicators back.

We will not make Rigel Base, Guiyon knew. He would not, and the ship would not. And if they could, the softshells on board most certainly would not. / must select an alternate destination.

If there is one.

"Is it really necessary to inspect in person, Ms. Hap?" the detection systems chief said. "We have a virtual system for remotes," he went on helpfully.

"No substitute for hands on," Channa said with determined cheerfulness.

She reached up to the hatchway and chinned herself, sliding into the narrow inspection corridor. "Hand me up the toolkit, will you?"

Two hours later the chief stood rigidly as Channa finished her checklist. His skin was a muddy gray under the natural brown, and he seemed to be shaking slightly. "... and deviations are more than thirty percent beyond approved," she said crisply.

"Ms. Hap" — the luckless bureaucrat said, trying to cut in once more — "those long-range systems are purely backup. They haven't been used since the SSS was commissioned!" At her raised eyebrow, he continued hurriedly, "Besides, I'm understaffed, and —"

"Chief Doak," she went on. "Regular personal inspections are standard procedure in all installations of this type. I don't care if the equipment is used infrequendy. Backups exist for an emergency when they had better be able to perform the functions for which they were designed. And I don't can? if you send in the remotes every so often. Machinery does what you tell it to do, whether that's the right thing or not. Experienced technicians are supposed to have a feel for their equipment Your people obviously don't This isn't satisfactory. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Ms. Hap," he said woodenly.

Bitch, she read in his eye. That's /me. You have your right to an opinion of me, and I have a right to expect you to do your work, she thought, turning and striding briskly for the door.

"I don't care what anyone says, Ms. Hap. I think you're going to do a great job."

It was one of the communications technicians. Channa smiled pleasantly at her and said softly, noting her name tag. "Frankly, Ms. ... Foss, I don't give a damn wAoi you think. I'm only concerned with the quality of your work. Which, at the moment, you're not doing." She continued down the corridor.

"Excuse me." Simeon said to Channa when she was out of earshot "Yes?"

"Did you have to be so nasty to her?"

"Simeon, it would be unprofessional of me to allow people to choose up sides like that We can chew out a section chief, but interfering in the chain of command is petty and divisive and causes morale problems. Perhaps I'm not going to be here very long, and I'm unwilling to leave that sort of mess for someone else to sort out \bu've got to nip these things in the bud."

"Nipping is one thing. You cut her off at the knees."

"Oh, I see. You think I was unkind."

"You were\ In feet, you were downright cruel."

Channa stood a moment, hands on hips, looking down thoughtfully. Then she shifted her weight and crossed her arms. "Simeon, I noticed that Tell Radon was here twelve years longer than standard retirement date."

"He wasn't ready to go," Simeon replied suspiciously.

"But six years ago he submitted his resignation,"

"He changed his mind and withdrew it. I wasn't about to force him out He's a friend."

"Un-hunh. Well, when I glanced over some of the meeting records for the last few years, I couldn't help but notice that everyone behaved as though he wasn't there. On the infrequent occasions when he did make a contribution, it was immediately questioned. Or don't the words 'Is that right, Simeon' sound familiar?"

"So what are you getting at?"

"I'm getting at the basic difference in our styles, Simeon. When I'm cruel, it's to prevent more pain further down the line. When you're cruel, it's to get your own way."

"What!"

"Surely you know that consideration for a friend can go both ways? Maybe Tell Radon stayed because he knew you would prefer it that way. You've had things your own way around here for quite a long while now. I don't imagine you were looking forward to breaking in someone new. Some stranger who might want to do things their way instead of using the nice, smooth routines you've worked out over time."

"Where are you getting this bullshit?"

She shrugged. "It's thatoryoujustgotso used to seeing him humiliated on a daily basis that you didn't notice it anymore. Either way, it probably felt the same to him."

"I know him, Hap; you don't. If Tell had a problem, he would have said something. Why would he suffer in silence when he knew he could come to me?"

"Have you looked at the recordings?"

"I don't have to look at anything. I was there."

"They'll confirm what I've said, you know."

You coryciuin-plated bitch! "Has it occurred to you that you're biased? You've been finding fault with me since we said hello. Let me tell you something, omniscient one, you can't get a good impression of Tell from the recs. He hated the damn meetings, 'Hell,' he used to say, 'these frigging meetings make my brain melt.' He rarely spoke at meetings. They just weren't his style."

"Was it customary to question his every comment when he did speak?"

"You're making a simple request for confirmation sound like attempted murder."

Channa bit her lower lip. "Simeon, the recs will confirm that what I saw is there, very plain to see, unmistakable, dear, obvious. You might find a review of the meeting recs illuminating. Okay?"

After a moment's reflection, something in Simeon opened like an eye and he saw a bitter twist to Tell Radon's mouth. Tell had always described it as "gas," but...

"You fight dirty, Channa," he said.

She blushed, but her expression remained hostile. "I'm angry," she said honestly. "My career is in ribbons because you wanted him to stay on. So when I saw..." She bit her lip again. Then she went on more calmly. "You have to be careful how you use expressions like, 'you cut her off at the knees' and 'you were cruel,' around me. It tends to set me off. Also, you could have taken me at my word instead of turning selfrighteous."

"Yeah... I'll remember that" He paused. "Ylcnow, if you're really so hot to get out ofhere, I'll back your transfer request to the hilt. Since I didn't get what I asked for last time, I figure I'm still owed a few favors...."

"Ho no. The last time you backed someone to the hilt, the hilt ended up protruding from between my shoulder blades. Thank you so much. Now that I think about it, I intend to give Central Admin plenty of time to forget this mess and my starring role in it. You're stuck with me for a couple of years, at least, so you'd better get used to it. Oh, on the subject of overlooking things...*'

"Yeah?" What now? Is there duston the tight fixtures? "I came face to face with a little boy in one of the aft engineering compartments."

Silence.

"What? No comment? Does this mean that you know about him? After all, you are able to view all areas of the station."

In the silence that followed, she walked over to the wall and leaned casually against it. "He was gone before I could react. But you know what's really strange? There is nothing on file about such a kid." The silence lengthened. "Simeon?" she asked with some asperity.

"A little boy?"

"Yes, Simeon, about twelve years old — Standard — give or take a couple of years. In the aft power compartment. A restricted area, I believe. A kid who looks and smells like a Sendee mud-puppy. Whose child is he? What can you tell me about him? Don't even try to tell me you know nothing. Kids don't acquire a patina of dirt like that overnight He also looked like he'd been eating regularly, if not well. So someone's been looking out for him... minimally." / don't think saying "You're cute when you're angry" would be a very good idea right now, Simeon thought. He froze her image and scanned it for temperature variations and pupil dilation. She was angry on behalf of an abandoned child rather than at him. Which makes a nice change.

Besides, he could use an ally with this problem.

"He calls himself Joat," Simeon confessed with a sigh. "I don't know how long he's been here. I discovered him by accident myself. He's mechanically brilliant. The area he's staked out as his own just stopped needing repairs. That's probably the only reason I investigated. I mean, there are enough squeaky wheels around here. Why take notice of one that's quiet? Then I noticed that the last repair made in that section was two years ago. I got curious about nothing ever going wrong. So I went on a prowl, using mobile bugs, and kept, well, softpersons refer to it as seeing things out of the corner of their eyes. I always thought that had something to do with blinking, you know, eyelashes getting in your line of sight or something. But I kept seeing these flickers of movement and I don't blink. By turning up my sound reception I could sometimes hear little scrapes and movement, but there was a sort of'white noise' masking it It seemed unlikely that everything else in the area was running perfectly with the exception of my sensors, so I decided to do a stakeout. Eventually, he got careless and wandered into my line of sight. The first time I spoke to him, blip, he disappeared. It was a long time before I could get him to talk to me. You'll note I said talk, not trust. He's incredibly wary. I can't believe he was clumsy enough to let you see him."

"Tvioyears?"

Leave it to you, you bitchoid, to pick out the pertinent mformation. "I said the last logged repair was two years ago. It's been known to happen. What can I say? Somewhere from two years to two months, who knows?"

"Who is he, Simeon?"

"His story is that he ran away from a tramp freighter. Joat told me that the captain won him from his uncle in a card game. I know, I know, that sort of thing's illegal, but it does happen out here in the boonies. The tramp left abruptly and went somewhere not listed. Joat has never had it soft, but apparendy, the captain he ran from was of a different order ofbrutality altogether."

Channa wrinkled her nose. "Sounds like something out of Dickens."

"Yeah, well, the more things change..." and he left the sentence dangling. "What are you going to do?" he asked warily. After his first, disastrously wrong, impression, Channa hadn't struck him as a bleeding heart Would she suggest flooding the compartment to flush the poor kid out?

"We've got to get him out of there. We can't leave a little boy in a dangerous and restricted area. It's illegal at best and irresponsible by any standard."

"He's been badly hurt and frightened, Channa. He doesn't want to be with people. The little guy can barely tolerate me. He likes machinery better than people, and I qualify as a borderline case. Besides, even / can't find him if he really doesn't want to be found. Maybe we should leave him alone for the time being. He's where he wants to be."

Channa looked up with her jaw set. "Simeon, no child wants to be alone in the dark and the cold of a power room, or wherever he's lodged himself. He needs and deserves to be taken care of. It's his right."

"I agree in principle, but I think he needs more time. I'll take the responsibility."

"What does that mean?"

"I'll take full and complete responsibility for what happens to him."

Channa brightened. "Really?"

"Yeah, really."

"Okay," she said, "I'll call up some information on adoption procedures and we can get things underway."

"What?" I'm always screaming what? at this woman. Pm beginning to feel like a demented parrot.

"Well, what else did you mean when you said you would accept responsibility?"

"That, if anything goes wrong, I'll answer for it." / swear, if I had hair I'd tear it out. Softshells have some advantages after all. But, what is this ... this .. . wench trying to do to me?

"Great! If he gets killed or maimed, you'll accept a discommodation? Well, how big of you!" Channa cut Simeon off when he began to splutter a protest "By now you should know that I listen to what you say, even when you don't. I promise you, Simeon. I will always call you on it when you try to shut me up or fob me off. You're not going to shuffle this one off, buddy. I won't let you."

"What are you talking about? I didn't put him in this situation. I want to help the kid. Hell, I am helping. I just don't see any need to rush him. The feet that you saw him may mean that he's almost ready to come out on his own. I'm certainly opposed to coercing him. Geeeze but you're hostile! You're so willing to believe the worst about me that every time I talk to you I feel like my circuits are being realigned. Am I really such an evil bastard? Or," and he changed his tone from plaintive to trenchant, "could it be that you really are the most bloody-minded, impossible woman I have ever met?"

"Oh, Simeon," she drawled, "you have no idea how difficult I can be. Just cross me if you want to find out"

A chill settled in Simeon's mind. Does that mean that so far she's been reasonable? Gahf "You're about to become a father, Simeon. That's what full and complete responsibility for a child means. Congratulations, it's a boy. If your word is good."

"They're not going to let me adopt a kid."

"Why not? You've been extensively tested for emotional stability, you have a responsible job. You even appear to care very much about his feelings. Do you think such a wounded child, of his age, is going to have prospective parents lining up to take care of him? I think you've got a very good chance."

She clapped her hands and rubbed them together gleefully. "So... let's get to work on it."

Mart'an presented the menu with a flourish and left them with a bow.

Channa looked around wide-eyed at the dimly lit, subdued elegance of the Perimeter Restaurant There were even actual beeswax candles burning on the tables; a fortune for material and air-bills both.

No pleasure, she thought The Perimeter was paying; something of a goodwill gesture. And it was logical for her to get acquainted with one of the station's premier tourist attractions.

SSS-900's finest restaurant was just down from the north-polar docking extension; the outer wall was a hundred-meter sheet of synthmet set on clear. Stars rolled huge and bright beyond — fixed stars and the frosty arch of the Snakeshead Nebula, and the bright moving points of light that were shuttles and tugs. Within, the floor was of glossy black stone set with squares of gold — SSS-900 processed a lot of gold as a by-product — and the tables were made of real and precious wood, glossy under the snowy linen tablecloths. Waiters moved amid a quiet chinking of silverware, savory smells wafting from the platters they carried. A live orchestra played something soft and ancient.

"Stars and comets — a little rich for this outposter!" Channa said. "I'd heard of the Perimeter, but somehow I never expected to actually come here."

Patsy grinned. "C'mon now, Hawking Station wasn't an asteroid minin' center. Leastwise, not of the sort oui sainted Simeon cut his teeth on."

"Well, no... but I couldn't afford anything like this when I was at home. Didn't have the time, either. After I graduated and started pulling assignments, I've been mostly at outposts. Worse than Simeon's."

Waiters filled water glasses, laid their napkins in their laps, brought warm rolls and softened butter. Everything except brush our teeth and massage our feet, Channa thought. It was a little unnerving. Most places you asked for the selection, told the table what you wanted, and a float brought the meal to you. The sheer expense of having live human beings do all this!

"I'd never've et in here if it weren't on the station's ticket," Patsy confessed in a whisper during a lull in the service. "Or unless a date was really tryin* to impress me. More relaxin* with another female — you kin concentrate on the food without insultin' 'em.** "If this weren't complimentary, I wouldn't be here now, either."

They grinned at each other.

"Well, thank you fer invitin' me," Patsy said. "I woulda thought you might invite that med-tech you were talkin' to last night."

"Please, I'm looking forward to this meal. I won't be able to eat if I remember him. Have you heard some of his anecdotes?"

"All of "em," Patsy said, nodding solemnly. "You've a point thar, ma'am. Chaundra's a nice enough feller, but his stomach's a mite too strong fer me."

"Besides, you and I have similar taste in music. You can always talk to someone who likes the same music."

Talk they did, touching on everything from Geranian folk ballads to eighteenth-century Earth composers, eventually matching the personnel of the station to various types of music.

"Simeon? Straight honky-tonk, no question," Channa said firmly.

Patsy laughed. "Oh, c'mon, Channa, there's unplumbed depths there. He's not that simple. It's just that the minin* center assignment came at an impressionable age fer him. Rough, tough rockjack, you know. His public image."

"Well." She looked down at the menu. It provided motion holos of the dishes as she ran her finger down the page. "I'll start with these grumawns, first, in the fiery sauce. Cleardrop soup. Grilled rack of jumbuk from Mother Hutton's World — good grief, they do have everything here! — baby carrots, salad. Spun pastry bluet confection for dessert, with Port Royal coffee. Castiliari brandy."

"Sounds good. I'll go with the jumbuk too, but... hmm. Fennel-leek soup first. Wine?"

"I don't usually —" Channa began.

"If I might suggest?" Mart'an appeared at their table. Appeared, Channa thought, as if he'd blinked out of some hypothetical subspace. "The Mon'rach '97 to begin with, a half-bottle. Then, with the main course, a Hosborg estate-bottled '85. I'll open it now so it can breathe."

"Sure," Channa said, then sighed with pleasure. "You know, I was looking forward to the Perimeter, ever since they told me SSS-900 would be —"

"SSS-900-C, now, Ms. Hap."

Channa blushed."— would be my next assignment"

The first course arrived. The pink grumawns were coiled steaming on top of a bed of fragrant saffron rice, the sauce to one side. Channa took a sip of the wine, chilled and with a feint scent of violets, then lifted one grumawn on the end of a two-tined fork.

"I did do a lot of work today," she murmured to herself. She opened her mouth, and — The Confederate armor was grinding through the woods and fields north of Indianapolis. The burning city cast a pall of smoke into the sky behind them. Diesel engines pig-grunted as the smooth low-slung shapes of the tanks and tank-destroyers crashed through brush and twelve-foot high cornstalks, past the flaming shards of a farmhouse and barns. The long 90mm barrels of the tank guns swung toward the thin strung-out lines of the Union convoys, caught in the flank as they attempted to switch front The fighting vehicles surged back on their tracks at each monster crack of highvelocity cannon fire, and the air filled with the bitter scent of cordite. Chaos spread through the blue ranks as tracer and cannon fire sent trucks exploding into globes of magenta fire. A Northern tank dissolved, the turret flipping up like a frying-pan, a hundred meters into the air.

Behind the fighting vehicles, long lines of men in gray uniforms followed, advancing with their semiautomatic rifles carried at the port Here and there an officer carried a sword, or the Stars and Bars fluttered from a staff.

"Now!" General Fitzroy Anson-Hugh Beauregard III said into the bulky mike hung from his vehicle helmet His command tank was a little back from the edge of the combat, hull down; the general stood head and shoulders out of the commander's cupola. The turret pivoted under him, the massive casting moving smoothly on its bearing race. The long cannon fired in a flash that seared his vision, just as the opening salvos of artillery went by overhead. Down along the road, tall poplar-shapes of black dirt gouted skyward. Another explosion shook the earth and sent heavy vehicles pinwheeling like a child's models under a careless boot; the command-tank's round had hit the tracked carrier for a Unionist self-propelled gun.

The general nodded. "Nothing to stop us short of the Lakes," he said. Nothing to stop them linking up with the British Guards Armored Corps, driving southeast out of occupied Detroit, cutting the Union in two....

"Conceded," Florian Gusky said, and lifted the visor of the simulation helmet. He sighed heavily and took a pull of his beer, then looked around the room as though surprised to find himself alone with Simeon, blinking away the consciousness of a world and war that had never been. There was a slight sheen of sweat on his heavy-browed face and he worked the thick muscles of his shoulders to loosen the tension.

"You could play it out to the end," Simeon's image said from a screen above his desk.

"No dam' point. You've whipped my butt in that simulation fo^,fromboth Union and Confederate sides."

"I could take a handicap," Simeon said with much less enthusiasm, Gus noted.

So he nodded. The last time he had beaten Simeon was in a Caesar vs. Rommel match on the site of Carthage, with the shellperson commanding Caesar's spear-armed host against Panzers and Stukas. Even then he had inflicted embarrassing casualties.

"Where is she?" Gus asked. There was no need to identify the female in question.

"She's dining at the Perimeter."

Gus raised his eyebrows in astonishment. "The Perimeter? That's some salary she gets." The Perimeter attracted two sets of guests: the rich, and spacers looking to blow six months' pay on one night.

Simeon laughed. "Nab, she's a guest of the management. Patsy's with her."

"Yeah, Patsy likes her," Gus said, his tone indicating that this revealed a serious and heretofore unsuspected flaw in Patsy's character. "Can you see them?"

"Yup."

"What're they doing?"

"Talking."

"About us?"

"I don't know. I'm not listening. Now they're laughing."

"They're talking about us, alright," Gus said gloomily.

"Geesh, Gus, let's get back to the game."

There was a plaintive edge to Simeon's voice. Gus reached for the helmet and then stopped, a slow grin creasing his heavy features. " Isn't it about time we had a drill?" he said, thoughtfully.

"We just had one. About four hours ago, remember?"

"When I was in the Navy we had 'em six times a day, sometimes," Gus replied.

He knew that Simeon badly wanted to pull Navy duty. Only a few staff-and-command vessels used shell controllers and Simeon didn't rate, yet. In the meantime, he put a lot of weight on Gus' experience as a fire-control officer on a patrol frigate. That had been some time ago — Florian Gusky had spent a decade's hard work clawing his way up to regional security chief for Namakuri-Singh, the big drivesystems firm — but Simeon had a bad case of military romanticism. And real talent, he told himself without envy of the brain's abilities.

"I know it's early," Gus went on persuasively, "but it's important not to have predictable intervals. So we don't get complacent."

"Well..."

"I'd love to see the look on their faces."

"Since you put it that way —"

Channa started as the klaxons rang. They sounded like no other she had ever heard, a harsh repeated ouvuuga-ouuuuga sound. The elegant minuet of movement among the waiters turned to an inelegant but efficient scramble for the exits; some moved to assist guests. Thick slabs hissed up out of the floor along the outer wall and the lights flared bright "BREACH IN THE PRESSURE HULL!" a harsh male voice tone announced. "EMERGENCY PERSONNEL TO THEIR STATIONS. SECURE ALL SUBSECTION REFUGE AREAS."

Patsy stood and looked at her barely touched entree with dismay. "Damn! That's the second time this shift!" She threw her napkin down with disgust. "Simeon pulls these drills like a boy kickin* over an anthill to see the bugs scurry."

"Simeon!" Channa shouted.

"Yeah?" The klaxons dimmed in a globe around them.

"Is this a genuine emergency or just a test?"

"Excuse me, brawn-o'-mine, but you're not supposed to be privy to that information." There was the hint of a smug smile in the brain's voice.

"If you think I'm getting up from the best meal that's ever been put in front of me just because you're feeling your oats, you've got another thing coming. Cut it!"

As the klaxon abrupdy ceased, people stopped, puzzled, and milled around uncertainly.

"Tell them it's over, Simeon. Don't just leave them standing there."

"This has been a test," Simeon informed them in the feminine tones he used for such announcements, "Return to your stations. This has been a test"

"We will discuss this later," Channa assured him icily. "Overdoing drills is dangerous, irresponsible and generally counterproductive."

Ah, hell, Simeon thought exhaustedly, why did I listen to you, Gustldan't ihmkyou like the looks on their faces after all, buddy. I know I don't. He wondered what he could do to make it impossible for her to gain access to him for the next week.

Patsy sat down slowly, her wide eyes fixed on Channa's flushed countenance. "You really don't lahk him, do ya?" she said with some astonishment Channa looked at her blandly. "Whatever makes you say that?"

Patsy shook her head. *Just a hunch."

Channa sighed and smiled ruefully. "Well, to be fair, there may be a touch of'transference' there. You see, I've always wanted to work planet-side. I love the feel of wind in my hair and rain on my face. I enjoy splashing in an ocean, and the feel of earth under my feet So, for the past two years I've been campaigning for a particular assignment" She looked up at Patsy inquiringly. "Have you ever been to Senalgal?"

Patsy nodded and smiled warmly in reminiscence. "I sher have. 1 had my first honeymoon thar. What a gorgeous place! Beautiful beaches, warm ocean, flowers eve'rwhar, and the/ood. I'd love to live thar, at least fer a while." She sighed. "So, go on."

"Well, as you can imagine, the competition was incredible. I'd been through twelve interviews, including one with Ita Secand, the city-manager of Kelta, whom I would have been working with. God! What I wouldn't give to work with her. She's witty, charming, sophisticated. I felt that I could learn so much from her. It had come down to two of us, myself and someone else."

She shook her head. "I never did know who the other candidate was, but my feeling was that it was going to be an extremely difficult choice. When suddenly, after holding on for twelve years, Tell Radon decides that he has to retire right now! And thatsweet little plum, that was almost inmy hand, was snatched away so fast it left scorch marks on my nail polish, '"Vbu're station born and bred,' they told me, 'You're perfect for this assignment,' they said. 'It's an extremely important and prestigious post,' they assured me. Rurrrgh! Asthesayinggoes, Icouldjustspit"

Patsy looked at Channa's bitter face.

"It's a gyp, alright. Looks like yer skills ah goin' against you instead of helpin* you out. So, maybe you ah takin' it out on Simeon jest a teensy bit?" She grinned and held up a hand that measured out a micrometer between thumb and forefinger. "Hey, maybe that's good fer him. Now, I think," she placed a hand on her bosom, "that we need you mo'n Senalgal does. I mean, Senalgal's gonna be special whoever runs it, right? But a station, well, it can be just a big oT factory with the wrong people in charge. You don't need Ita Secand t' teach you to be witty and sophisticated — you already ah. We need some a' that right here, Ms. Hap, an I'm not kiddin'."

Channa blushed and grinned, taking a sip of her wine to hide her embarrassment "Well, thank you. That's quite a challenge you've set me," she murmured, and changed the subject. "Who was that big, handsome, gray-haired fellow you were talking to last night? Somehow I never met him,"

"FlorianGusky?"

"We call him Gus."

"I can see why."

Patsy smiled warmly. "He's quite a guy — a retired Navy man, a crack navigator. Tlie stories he's got... I mean to tell you, mmhm."

"I see he's spoken for," Channa said with a grin.

"Not so you'd notice," Pasty said primly. "I admit I lahk him, though. I jus* love to heah him talk. When I was a kid, I thought I'd do what he did. You know, join the Navy and scour the universe of evil doers, jus' like some ferocious holo-hero." She sighed. "But heah I am, nothin* but an algae-herder."

"An algae-herder?" Channa asked in amusement. "Algae travel in herds?"

"Oh, you know what I mean. Instead of doin' somethin* adventurous, I'm just watchin* these bubblin' vats o* goop. The excitement is not goin* to give me ulcers." She sighed. "Sometimes 1 wish fer a real disaster. Something special."

Channa looked at her seriously. "Be careful what you wish for," she said. "You may get it"

Channa hummed tunelessly as she filled out the adoption forms, looking perfectly content and at peace with the world. The sound irritated Simeon excessively. True, he could in a sense "leave" the area and had done so. But he kept coming back, as though to a blown circuit; drawn to the irritant, checking again and again to see if anything had changed.

Finally he said, "You seem happy." Hap. Happy. Bet that would bug herbad.

"I love filling out forms," she said. "The more complex the better."

Somehow it figures, Simeon thought. When you became a broom, the universe lost a great tax auditor.

"Filling out your side of this is no problem," she said. "Your whole life is on file. But I'm going to have to talk to the child soon."

"I can do that," he said defensively. Icon oho fell out the damn forms, in half the time or less and without making obnoxious noises.

She turned to look at the column that held him. "Simeon... while I grant you that we should be as delicate as possible." She paused and gestured helplessly. "I've ... we've, got to get him to Medical. We've got to prove, by retinal patterns and gene analysis, that he exists at all. You know how bureaus are: no tickee, no washee. We've got to do a recorded interview of him. So he's got to emerge, fully grown — well, almost—from the engineering compartments and into the real world," she concluded in a rush. "Okay.I'U talk to him."

"Simeon," she hesitated, "why don't you introduce us? I mean, you can discuss the adoption with him. I can stay out of sight nearby until he wants to meet me." She's being conciliatory, he realized. Why doesn't this reassure me? He forced down nonexistent hackles and replied in a neutral tone. "Sure, why not?"

Channa could hear them talking from where she sat against the cold bulkhead.

"You want to adopt me?" a young voice asked in disbelief. A yearning hope sounded through it "Yeah," Simeon said, surprised to find that he was getting to like the idea.

Joat's head popped into Simeon's line of sight, seemingly from out of nowhere.

"You can't do that," he said with complete certainty, voice flat again. "They won't let you adopt a kid. You're not real."

Simeon was taken aback. "What do you mean I'm not real?"

Joat's young face was lit with amused wonder. "I hate to be the one to break your bubble, but who's going to let a computer adopt a kid?"

"Where did you get the idea that Ymjust a computer?" Simeon demanded with a hard edge to his tone.

Channa bit down on the fleshy part of her hand. That kid doesn't pull his punches, she thought. Poor Simeon brain, though, dolfttfa offended dignity bit well... Shestifledthe rising guffaw with a swallow. An audible reaction would be out of place. Definitely "You told me," Joat informed him, exasperation creeping into his voice. "You said 'I am, in effect, the station.' That means you're a machine. I've heard about AIs and voice-address systems."

To both his observers, his voice was conciliatory but his expression reflected an inner anxiety that maybe this computer was losing its tiny mind.

And he probably thinks that would be very interesting, the station computer losing function, Simeon thought in exasperation. Kids!

He had noted that, while Joat could keep his voice disciplined, his expression revealed his real feelings. Simeon wondered if he could maintain that duality in the presence of the visually-advantaged. Not that he, Simeon, was in any way visually-dtsadvantaged. Quite the opposite, as Joat would learn soon enough. 'Joat, I think it's time that notion got altered. There's someone nearby I'd like you to meet. She's known as a brawn, and she's my mobile partner." Which was true as far as it went, Simeon amended.

Joat's face went wary. "I don't want to meet anybody," he muttered sullenly, looking cautiously around him. "She, you said?" Another pause. "No, I don't want to meet anyone."

"But we've already met, sort of," Channa called out. Joat vanished instantly. "He's gone," Simeon said.

"No, he's not," Channa contradicted. "He's nearby. Joat? Simeon is a real person, as real as you or me. But heis connected to the station in such a way that the station is an extension ofhisbody. I'd be happy to tellyouaboutit."

No answer but a receptivity which she could almost feel beyond her in the narrow access aisle.

"Well," she began, "shellpeople were created as a means of enabling the disadvantaged to live as normal a Hfe as possible. At first that was limited to the creation of miniaturized tongue or digital controls, or body braces. The extension of such devices was to encapsulate the entire body, though some people still think it's just the person's brain — because they're called "brains.' Despite popular fiction, such an inhumanity is not permitted. Simeon is there, body, mind and ..." She paused and then realized that she couldn't permit personal opinion to corrupt the explanation. **... heart. Simeon is a real person complete with his natural body but he is also this station-city in the sense that instead of walking about it, he has sensors that gather information for him and he controls every function of the station from his central location."

"Where is —M Joat paused, too, struggling to comprehend the concept"— he? He is a he, isn't he?"

Tin as masculine as you," Simeon said, accustomed to such an explanation of shellpeople but wishing to underline his humanity. He did note that his voice had dropped further down the baritone level he used. Weft, whynot?

"Oh!"

"Instead of having to give orders to subordinates," Channa went on, "to, say, check the life-support systems, or Airlock 40, or order an emergency drill, he can do it himself more quickly and more thoroughly than any independently mobile person could.** "And I don't need to sleep, so I'm on call all the time." Simeon couldn't resist adding that.

"Never sleep?" Joat was either appalled or awed.

"I don't require rest, although I do like relaxation and I have a hobby...."

"Not now, Simeon, although —" and there was a smile in Channa's voice **— I admit that that makes you more human."

"Were you human... I mean, were you... did you live like one of us?" Joat asked.

"I am human, not a mutant, or a humanoid, Joat," Simeon said reassuringly. "But something happened when I was born, and I'd never have been able to walk, talk, or even live very long unless the process of encapsulating had been invented. Usually it's babies that become shellpeople. We are more psychologically adjusted to our situation than adults. Though sometimes pre-puberty accident victims work out well as shellpeople. I can look forward to a long and very useful life. But I'm human for all of that"

"Very human," Channa replied in a droll voice.

Simeon didn't quite like the implications, but at least she said the right tilings.

"And you run the city?"

"I do, having instantaneous access to every computerized aspect of such a large and multi-function space station as well as peripheral monitoring devices in a network to control traffic in and out."

"I thought brains only ran ships," Joat said after a long pause.

"Oh, some do, of course," Simeon said, slightly patronizing, "but I was specially chosen and trained for this demanding sort of work." He ignored the delicate snort from Channa that somehow reminded him he'd started out his management career in a less prestigious assignment. "Do you understand now that I am human?"

"I guess so," was Joat's unenthusiastic reply. "You've been in that shell since you were a ftofcy?"

"Wouldn't be anywhere else," Simeon said proudly, letting his voice ring with a sincerity no shellperson ever had to counterfeit.

There was a slightly longer pause. "Then it's not true, what I heard?" Joat began tentatively.

"Depends on what you heard," Channa said, having learned in academy the long list of atrocities supposedly enacted.

"That they put orphaned kids in boxes?"

"Absolutely not!" Channa and Simeon chorused in loud unison.

"That's totally inaccurate," Channa said firmly. "It's the sort of mean thing people say to scare kids, though. The program won't accept perfectly healthy bodies. To begin with, the medical costs and education are incredibly expensive. So is the maintenance for shellpersons. But it's better than depriving a sound mind of life because the body won't function normally. Don't you think so?"

Silence greeted that query.

"And if you've also heard the one about taking the brains from the homeless or displaced — no, that is definitely not permitted, either."

"You're sure?"

"Sure!" Simeon and Channa replied firmly.

"And we should know," Channa went on. "I had to spend four years in academy to learn how to deal with shellpeople, of all types."

Which, Simeon knew, was another backhanded slam at him. Did she never let up? One thing was sure, Joat's misinformation made him more determined than ever to adopt the boy and give him such security that that sort of macabre stuff would be forgotten.

"And, no matter what sort of spaceflot you've been told, Central Worlds doesn't make slaves of people," Channa was saying at her most emphatic. "The very idea sends chills up my spine."

"Not even criminals?"

"Especially not criminals," Channa said with a little laugh. "With all the power available to a shellperson, you may be very sure Central Worlds makes certain that they are psychologically conditioned to a high ethical and moral standard."

"What's this e'tical?" Joat asked.

"Code of conduct," Simeon said, "probity, honesty, dedication to duty,personal integrity of the highest standard."

"And you own this station?" Joat asked, his voice tinged with awe.

Channa laughed in surprise at that assumption. "I wish," Simeon said fervently.

"Remember my mentioning that creating and training a shellperson is expensive? I wasn't kidding. By the time Simeon graduated from training, he had an enormous debt to pay off to Central Worlds."

"Hunh. Thought you said they weren't slaves,"

"They're not Every shellperson has the right to pay off their debt and become a free agent A good many shippersons do and then they own themselves. A management shellperson, like Simeon, will often get their debt picked up by a corporation, and when they've worked off the debt, they work under contract"

"Are you paid off, Simeon?"

"No, though my contract fee is generous enough. But, as I mentioned, I have hobbies.. .** "Like what?" Joat asked.

"I've got a great sword and dagger collection which includes a genuine Civil War flag, a regimental eagle."

"Hey, way cool! Got any guns?"

What is it with some males ? Channa thought.

"Yeah," Simeon said eagerly. "I've got a real Brown Bess flintlock, and an M22. And one of the first backpack lasers ever issued!"

"No shit!" Joat said, seeming to forget Channa's presence for a moment His voice sounded louder, as if he was drifting back from whatever refuge he had bolted towards. "All sorts of old weapons, eh?" "You name it A Roman gladius, even." "A what?"

"Good question," Channa said. "Shortsword. Over three thousand years old," Simeon broke in. A pause. "Of course, it could be a reproduction. If so, it'sstill in awfully good shape for an artifact of that age. I can trace it back at least five hundred years* provenance. The records say it was first owned by the legendary collector Pawgitti, then dug up out of the ruins of his villa."

My throat is getting hoarse, Channa realized an hour later. Amazing what he knows. Joat had probably neatly escaped formal education, but had acquired a jackdaw's treasure chest of information about his keener interests. Anger awoke in her. It was criminal that a mind like Joat's had been ignored, like a weed in a corner lot. Or the barbaric way in which pre-shell handicapped were ignored as nonproductive persons. Joat wasn't just interested in showing that he knew things that she didn't, either. There was a naked hunger to learn in his voice. Closer and closer... She could see a little huddled shadow and an occasional glint of his eyes as he turned his head.

"And weapons are merely a pan of what I've been collecting over the years," Simeon was saying. "I've got great strategy games — whole boards..."

Channa was shocked. Simeon would adopt the kid as a games partner? Then she realized he was only sweetening the pot "I don't know of a shellperson who has adopted, but I think it would be to your advantage, Joat. Certainly it would mean security and a place to call your own instead of ducking from one hidey-hole to the next when inspection teams go through. You'd have regular meals, and you could go to engineering school"

Channa heard a soft "yeah" from out of the cold darkness.

"Think it over tonight, why don't you?" Simeon said "Tomorrow you can come up and scan the room I can assign you. Maybe have dinner with Channa and talk about it some more."

"Yeah," came more dearly from out of the darkness.

"Okay," Simeon's voice was pleased. "If you have any questions tonight, just speak 'em out, and 111 answer."

It's an honor to win the trust of a child, Simeon thought, especially one who's been through what this kid has. I don't think Fve ever been quite this happy. He intuited that the feeling approximated what the word "tickled" meant, and he also thought that this was what it felt like to smile. Since Joat had moved in, he'd been trying to empathize more with the softperson worldview.

Of course, there have been some surprises....

Seen for the first time by the full light of day-cycle floros, Joat was not prepossessing. Short for his age, scrawny to the point of emaciation, with huge blue eyes in a face that might have been any color short of black under the gray, ground-in coating of grime and machine oil. The mouse-brown hair had been hacked off and was standing up in tufts. The clothing was an adult-sized coverall with the arms and legs cut off to fit An air of sullen suspicion accompanied a pungent odor.

"I've never run across the name, Joat' before," Channa began casually. "It doesn't give a clue about where you're from the way that some names do. I use 'Hap' as a surname because I was born on Hawking Alpha Proxima Station, for example."

'Joat'smy name." Joat answered, sticking his chin out aggressively. "I gave it to myself. It means 'jack of all trades,' 'cause that's what I do, some of everything."

"So it's a nickname," Channa said. "Shall we put you down on the form as Jack, then?"

Joat looked at her with cool contempt "Why? That's "You're a ... girl?" Simeon asked, bringing the "g" sound up from the depths of his diaphragm and managing to split the word in several astonished syllables.

"What's wrong with that? She's a girl!" Joat declared defensively, pointing at Channa, as though ducking responsibility.

Channa burbled with heavily suppressed laughter before she managed some reassurance. "Hey, it's all right that you're a girl. It's just that... All that dirt..." Channa couldn't risk continuing in that vein and switched abruptly "... is an effective disguise."

"Good disguise," Joat said proudly. "Bad idea to let people know when you're a girl. Can cause you trouble. But, since you say I gotta go to a medic," she paused to look questioningly at Channa who nodded, "best you don't look surprised then." She grinned slyly and then looked over at Simeon's column. "You really didn't know?"

"Not a clue," he said wonderingly, and Joat giggled with pleasure. "Hmm. According to the biological studies I had, it's not easy to tell with the pre-pubescent ... dressed or in disguise."

*7 can always tell," Joat said with some contempt for his ignorance.

"You're a softshell."

"You sure you're not a computer?"

"Yes, lam — stop teasing!"

Joat grinned unrepentently. Simeon felt an unfamiliar sensation and tried to identify it. A flutter in the ribcage? he thought wonderingly.

"Why haven't they answered the tight-beam?" Simeon asked nervously a week later. "I sent everything. The forms were all correct"

"It's a bureaucracy," Channa said soothingly.

"Oh? That's supposed to reassure me?" Simeon said. A moment later: "Why is Joat's room always a mess?

I send in the servos twice a day and it's still in a maximum-entropy state."

"It's called 'adolescence,' Simeon," Channa said. "At least she seems to be settling in at school"

Simeon's image winced. Joat had unexpectedly cleaned up as pretty, though she had wrinkled her nose when he'd mentioned that. She seemed to trust him — Channa as well — to a limited extent Any further social interfacing was... lacking.

"She gets in too many fights," he said. She also fought very, very dirty. He winced again when he thought of the places some blows, kicks and punches had landed.

"She's not used to interacting except as a potential victim," Channa replied. "I don't think she's ever been with anyone in her own age group. She certainly doesn't know the local rituals. She's an outsider — practically a feral child. We're lucky she can respond to other human beings at all."

An awkward silence fell for a moment Unspoken: and she didn 't think you were human when she met you.

"She's learned about daily showers," Simeon pointed out helpfully.

"Oh, there's good stuff in Joat," and Channa grimaced. "Even if her brand of ethics is unusual, at least she's consistent in applying it. All she needs is some security and a chance."

"Isn't that all anybody needs?"

Several hours later, Simeon still glowed with satisfaction in their accomplishments with Joat. This, being a father thing, is great, he thought, and warmed measurably towards Channa. Tvegot to thank her.

For the first time since she had arrived, Simeon looked into her quarters and was surprised at how, in that short time — under two weeks, although it seemed like more — it had changed from the Spartan chamber Tell Radon had occupied. She had tinted the walls a soft, off-pink and had put "paint-chips" into the permanently installed frame-projectors. The jewel-bright colors and romantic images of the pre-RaphaeEtes, Alma-Tadema and Maxfield Parish glowed from the walls, along with some modern Mintoro reproductions. The bedspread was an icy gray satin on which were scattered embroidered pillows of peach and gray and blue.

"Say, Channa," he said in tones of pleased approval, "I like what you've done with the room."

Channa emerged from the bathroom dad in a blue silk robe trimmed with lace, a brush in her hand and swept out of her quarters into the main lounge without saying a word. She stopped in front of Simeon's column and crossed her arms, her eyes blazing. All Simeon's warm feelings fell into cold ash as he looked out at her. Maybe if he didn't say anything, she'd go away and not say whatever it was that was burning inside her eyes. Nah, when have 1 euer been that lucky ivhere she's concerned* Her body was rigid, though her shoulders twitched and her ftps opened several time. He'd better say something to stem the acid eruption.

Using as casual and complimentary tone as he could manage, he said, "You have very romantic tastes, Channa," which seemed to reduce her blazing eyes a degree or two. He'd never know why he continued: perhaps sheer mischief to get a little of his own back. "Though your bed looks amazingly like an ice cube."

She blinked in astonishment and he thought, A hit! A very palpable hU! But then she took a deep breath.

"I did not think," she said, every word precise and polished, "that it would be necessary to actually say this, but since I must, I shall. Because we got off on the wrong foot and I did not trust you, I swept my quarters for active scanners.'1 She crossed her arms. "You will please," she went on with careful emphasis, "not ever enter my quarters without knocking and requesting admittance, and waiting for my express permission to enter. Is that clear, Simeon?"

"I apologize, Channa. Of course you're right. I got careless, all those years with Tell."

"As to the quality of my taste ..." she said in a voice even more brittle than before.

Ohplease, hethought/orone^just once, skutupandletitgo. "... it's none of your business." She glared at him. "Given your own preference for interior decoration," she said indicating his sword and dagger collection, "I'd say you have titanium gall to make snarky remarks about mine."

"But I like it. I said I liked it!"

"And what," she continued unheeding, "would someone with such a morbid fascination with humanity's lapses into ritualized slaughter know about romance anyway?"

Simeon was dumbstruck. "I've never... thought of my interest in military history as a 'morbid fascination.' I am genuinely fascinated by strategy and military tactics. But to call it morbid, well, romance and morbidity have a long and interesting relationship."

She sighed with exasperation. "Let's just say that while both can be morbid, romance and militarism make uncomfortable..." and she winced "... bedfellows."

"Channa, some of the most romantic people in history have been military personnel. Doesn't the very word 'warrior' conjure up romantic images?"

She shook her head discouragingly. "Not to me!"

"Not even 'knights in shining armor'?"

She groaned. "Look, Simeon, it's late and I'm tired. Let's just say that I don't like my privacy invaded at any time, by anyone." Her lips curled in a slight rueful grin. "But I think I overreacted a tad. Especially when you made fun of my decor."

"Well, you might wait till you're actually being made fun of before you start clawing pieces out of people."

"Sorry."

"Romance has its place," he murmured.

She smiled sardonically and raised one eyebrow. "With all due respect, Simeon, I doubt that romance has crossed your mind. Real, genuine romance, with its aspects of tenderness and sentiment are, if you'll excuse me, beyond your ken."

TTiere was more challenge than honest regret in her voice, and he took offense. "Because I'm a shellperson?" he asked, fairly purring with suppressed anger.

Channa's jaw dropped. "N-no, of course not!" she said, stammering slightly. Then she caught herself and shook her hairbrush at him. "What a nasty, evil, slimy debater's trick! You know perfectly well that I never even thought of that! What I meant was that so far in our acquaintance, you have yet to demonstrate that you are sensitive, or idealistic or ... well, tender, ftission, now — I think you've very effectively conceptualized raw, basic, animal passion. Which does not exist in the same universe as romance."

"Let me tell you something, Ms. Hap. I'm well aware that romance happens in the mind and the soul and the heart. I know that it isn't necessarily a physical thing. Remember Heloise and Abelard.. .* "Great warrior couple, were they?" she asked smiling.

He sighed to himself. What do they teach them in university these days? "Not they, milady. I see I must persuade you beyond any measure of doubt You've put me on my mettle." She cocked her head at him. "I shall court you, belle dame sans merri, and win your heart."

She laughed aloud in astonishment. "You've got your work cut out for you. I may like the romantical— as decor — but I'm no dewy-eyed sentimentalist and not at all susceptible."

"Oh, so you're seduction-proof, are you?"

"I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer. Goodnight, Simeon."

"Goodnight, Channa," he said quietly as she left without another word.

Not susceptible, eh, Happy baby1? Well, get ready for it, sweetheart — you're in for the time of your life.1 You want romance? FU give you romance, little lady, in such subtle and clever portions, you won't realize that you're being wooed by a very personal phantom lover.

He settled down to consider his strategy. Softshells could rely on physical attraction for starters; that was impossible for him, of course.

How to begin, he wondered. Well, with Channa, I suppose I could start with deft cooperation and nineteenth-century manners. I'd better look into the mores of Hawking Alpha Proxima Station and see what their courting customs are. Nothing so blatant as gifts right off, hmmm. Ah-ha! Music! After all, it hath charms to soothe the savage beast, or breast. Both apply in this case. Now, fit just access her musical repertoire — which doesn't invade her privacy, merely her overt records...

"Hey, Simeon, what's going on?" Joat said, turning from her breakfast to stare at his column.

"Going on, my dear?" Simeon said.

"Yeah, going on. All of a sudden you're so smooth you'd make a wombat puke, and Channa looks as if she'd just found a dead body, a long-time dead body."

Channa snorted suddenly. Since she was in the middle of a mouthful of coffee, the results were spectacular. Joat silendy offered her a napkin as she coughed and sputtered.

"You're imagining things," Simeon replied, with a touch of asperity. He shifted into a mellow tone: "Are you all right, Channa?"

"What's wrong with Simeon?" Patsy asked, sotto voce. They were in the shadow of an impeller pump, and the vibration would make voice-pickup difficult "Wrong?" Channa said, frowning.

"Yeah, he's agreem' all the time.

"Now that you mention it..."

The woman from Larabie shrugged. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Chan. But, if you do, check the teeth fer file-marks."

Chief Administrator Claren gave a final keystroke.

"That's the projections matched against the past five years," he said. "You'll note turnover is a little high, but on a transit station, it's difficult to keep people."

Channa frowned. "I'd think it would be easier here," she said. "More big-city facilities."

"Also easier to leave," Claren pointed out, nodding towards the large passenger terminal.

"We should do more in the way of social and cultural activities," Channa said. "The contingency fund would cover it, and in the long run, such amenities pay for themselves and then some. There are a lot of mining and exploration sectors around here " — which was exactly why SSS-900-C had been established in the middle of the cluster of mineral-rich fifth-generation suns — "and their people need leisure activities just as much as their equipment and ships need servicing. The Perimeter's a gold mine for its owners and for the station, to name your only real star attraction. If the outposters could get entertainment and commissary supplies in a range from cheap to expensive, they wouldn't need to travel further in towards Center. This whole area would take a big step further toward being part of the Central Worlds and not just a primitive frontier zone,"

"Exactly, Ms. Hap," Claren said. He was a mousylooking little man, with thinning black hair combed back over his head. He dressed like a humorist's caricature of a bureaucrat, down to the keypad holder on his belt. "It's what I've been saying for years."

"What do you think, Simeon?" Channa asked.

"Sounds good to me," the affable city manager replied.

Claren coughed violently; one of his hovering assistants scurried forward with a glass of water.

Channa waited until he had recovered. "Surprise you, did he?"

"Surprise me? Me? No, no, something caught in my throat. Air's dry, I think." He hastily swallowed another sip of water to reinforce that interpretation. "Now, here," and his fingers flew over the key of his terminal, "are some plans we've had pending, with the projected —"

"Answer the question, please, Administrator Claren," she said firmly but quietly. She might be new, but she could recognize "sign now, please," when she heard it "Well, ah, this isn't the first time these specific projects have been put forward," Claren said. "But, ah, there has never been a sufficiently positive reaction to implement the schemes. Until now, that is. It's a pleasure to work with someone who can appreciate planning ahead and is so naturally decisive. Ahhhhh, oh dear." His voice trailed off.

Channa's took on a steely note. "Changed our mind, have we, Simeon?"

"This station wasn't in a position to plunge into such an ambitious project. Much less have the incentive," Simeon replied smoothly. "Tell was a roughneck like me. Neither of us had the background for coordinating such enterprises. Here, anyway."

Channa turned, subliminally aware of something moving through the air behind her. It was a message tray, floating at elbow height. The domed top folded back, revealing chilled glasses and a frosted, uncorked bottle of a fine vintage. A single red rose lay on the white napery. Her lips grew thin but, as she saw Claren watching her closely and knew that she must be flushing, she controlled her impulse to sling the bottle at the sensor that linked Simeon to this office.

"Yes, by all means let us drink to the success of this undertaking, Claren," she said and began to pour.

Facetiously, she lifted her glass towards the sensor and sipped, mildly surprised at the dry crisp taste. "Hmm. Not a bad white! Didn't know you had it in you, Simeon."

"I'm not without a few talents of mine own," he replied, wishing there was an imager in Claren's office so he could project the suave smile he was feeling.

She downed the rest of the glass, replacing it on the float. "If you'd just transfer the plans to my terminal, Administrator Claren, I can peruse them at my leisure." Then she strode purposefully out of the office.

She was storming by the time she got to their lounge. "I bet you think you were being subtlel Subtle like colliding with an asteroid, you —" She swung around to the screen which he had prudently left blank, giving her anger no focus. Then she began to hear the sounds filling the room.

Simeon delightedly watched her expression gradually alter from livid to astonished and finally to enchanted as the lilting sounds of the Reticulaii mating croon filled the lounge. The sounds were long, low, dreamy. There was no formal melody, but somehow the theme suggested the stillness of deep forest and dew felling like liquid diamond in streaks of sunlight dazzling through die leaves.

Channa stood still for a moment. She winced slightly as the door dosed with an audible swoosh, annoyed that any other sound marred the perfection of what she was hearing. Then, stepping carefully, as though fearful that doth brushing against doth or shoe against carpet might cause her to lose a precious second of the complex musk that surrounded her, she walked to a chair. She sat down so slowly she seemed to float down to it, scarcely seemed to breathe as she absorbed the music.

My first impression of her was correct, Simeon thought, watching Channa. She is a fox! Then, peering more dosely, he wasn't so sure, for her eyes were half-dosed, starred with tears, and his acute vision let him see the skin of her face relaxing, smoothing out Shedoesn't look that foxy now! In feet, she looks kinda... sweet When the croon had drifted offinto a serene silence, she sat without moving. Then she dosed her eyes and slowly leaned back, clasping her hands before her. When she opened her eyes, they shone and her voice was husky.

"Oh, Simeon ... I can forgive you a lot of tricks for thatl I might even kiss you. In appreciation, of course. That was so beautiful. Thank you," and she smiled.

Simeon modulated his voice so that there was a "smile" in his tones when he answered her. "You're welcome. Do you happen to know what that was?" He didn't think she was likely to, but he kept that out of his tone.

She wiped an eye and said, "I've never had the opportunity to hear one, but that has to be a Reticulan croon."

"You're right about that," Simeon said with satisfaction. "But 111 bet you'll never guess who performed it" He tried hard to keep any smugness out of his voice.

"Now, how would I know tufe? sang, much less who could, beside Reticulans, and they're on the other side of this galaxy. Oh! It couldn't be ..." Her eyes went round in awed surprise. "Not Helva? She's supposed to be able to sing them. But... you ... and Helva, the ship who sings?"

"None other." Simeon was gratified by her reaction.

"You know her?"

"Indeed I do," and Simeon allowed himself to speak with considerable pride. "She drops by every now and then to visit —" he couldn't resist a little pause for effect "— me. We discuss and exchange contemporary music from all parts of the galaxy. Since there are so few recordings of Reticulan croons — which we shellpeople enjoy so much — she herself made me a gift of this one." The memory of his thrill at receiving such a prize colored his tone.

Channa smiled in response. "Finally read my personnel tape, did you?"

"Well, I'd love to say that I'm just terribly perceptive, but music's mentioned as a significant interest. I just thought this particular recording might please, too."

"Oooh," she said with a quaver in her laugh, "music hath charms department? As you said not long ago," and there was an edge of combined sarcasm and chagrin, "you have a few talents." Then she added brightly, "Do you sing, too? That's not mentioned in your personals."

Simeon made a throat-clearing, clearly selfdeprecating sound. "I am not like Helva and make no claims to musical discrimination. I listen to what I like, but I don't know if I'll like something until I hear it."

"So what else have you heard and liked?" she asked, relaxed in the afterglow of the beautiful croon. "Besides rockjack, that is?"

His tone was embarrassed. "I really don't tike Rant much. I just got used to it, you know. The guys on those early mining belt assignments I had didn't play anything else. Most ofwhat I like turns out to be classical or operatic."

"Me, too," she said, smiling towards his column with a kindliness he had not seen in her before. "Well, if Helva liked you enough to give you that superb Reticulan recording, and you actually admit to a preference for classical and operatic, perhaps we should call a truce?"

"A truce? Do we need one?"

She narrowed her eyes. "In a manner of speaking, we do. We have struck a few sparks." She grinned. "A mutual appreciation of music is so far probably the firmest common ground between us. Halfway through secondary school, I realized that my best friends were also my choirmates." She leaned toward the column, with the first intimacy she had so far shown him. "We used to produce and cast ghost operas."

"You did what?"

"We'd choose a subject or theme, and a composer, then select a cast The rules said that composer and cast have to be dead,"

"Really? How bizarre!" Simeon paused to consider the notion. "Do go on."

"We'd start with ... the name of this opera. Say, 'Rasputin.' Have you heard of him?" The merry tone of her voice was subtly teasing, challenging him.

"Of course, I have. He's often credited with being the indirect cause of a successful revolution."

She regarded his column with a wry expression. "You would know about him if he caused a war, wouldn't you?"

"Do we, or don't we have a truce?"

"We do," she said, holding up both hands in surrender.

"Who writes this 'Rasputin' opera?"

"Oh, Verdi," she said instantly. "Sucha grand theme as well as that particular time would appeal to him. Don't you think? Now, you tell me who should play the lead."

Simeon accessed the necessary historical information from his files. "In the available likenesses of him, Rasputin has enormous eyes and a riveting gaze, so we want a singer who's physically powerful and dramatically able to do justice to such a role. How about fllac Sue, the Sondee tenor?"

"Eh... he does have a compelling gaze, I grant you, and his eyes are large. But don't you think he has a few too many of them? Besides he's only retired, not dead,"

Simeon flipped back a massive leap in the research file. "Um, Placido Domingo?"

"I know of him! He lived in a time blessed with great tenors. He's perfect! Tall, lean, big brown eyes and what a voice. Nice choice, Simeon."

"And he's dead, too."

"I can see it now," she said, standing suddenly and clutching histrionically at her throat. "They poison him, you see," and then she flung her arms wide, "and he sings! They stab him," she mimed a thrust to the bosom, before flinging her arms wide again, "and he sings! They drown him," she flapped her arms as though splashing frantically, then placed both hands on her heart, "and he sings! They shoot him," she staggered to Simeon's column and leaned her back against it.

"Channa, he's got to stop singing sometime."

She raised a finger, "Sotto voce, he sings, 'it is over.' ** She slid down the column into a graceful art-deco position, "And he dies." Her head flopped forward and her hands dangled loosely from her wrists.

The com chimed and the screen cleared, allowing communications specialist Keri Holen an unobstructed view of Channa slumped at the base of Simeon's column. "Oh! What's hap ... I mean, Ms. Hap! Simeon, is she all right?"

Channa was instantly on her feet, palm up in a calming gesture. "I'm fine," she said, serenely adjusting her tunic blouse. "What is it?"

"Uh ... a message from Child Welfare on Central, from a Ms. Dorgan. If it's convenient, she's scheduled a conference call for 1600 today."

"Perfect," Simeon said, "tell her thank you," and he broke the connection.

"I thank the powers that be that wasn't Ms. Dorgan herself," Channa said nervously.

"I like that 'if it's convenient,'" Simeon said, musingly. "Channa, have you ever replied, 'No, it's damned inconvenient' ?"

Channa regarded him with a singularly blank expression. "No, actually I haven't But then, in my branch of the service, it shouldn't ever be!"

Simeon studied Joat nervously, wondering if they should have dressed her differently. All the other children her age wore the same shapeless clothes, disgusting and often raucous color combinations, but not necessarily what the prudent guardian would recommend for this kind of interview. The com chimed.

Too late, he thought. Channa seemed calm, but then Channa always seemed calm. Odd when she can exude such depths of hostility.... Still, she always did them with a controlled and icy demeanor. Yeah, Channa was fine. Joat's hands were clasped in her lap. Poor fad, her knuckles are white. But otherwise she seemed composed. Tm fme, too, he thought Tm not calm, but fin fme.

Ms. Dorgan studied them from die screen, like a teacher assessing a class of delinquents, then smiled, a tight superior little smile. Her hair was gray, cut short, combed in a simple disciplined style. She wore a severe dark blue suit with a prim white blouse and no jewelry. The view ofbackground behind her was official and equally unsofiened by anythingeven remotely unofficial I'll bet she starches her bras, Simeon thought. He remembered Patsy Sue using that expression: entirely appropriate right now.

Ms. Dorgan nodded to Channa, then fastened her cold litde eyes on Joat. "Hello, dear," she said in syrupy tones. "I'm Ms. Dorgan, your case-worker."

Joat's face had hardened to wariness, her whole body going rigid. Simeon wondered how his nutrient fluid had suddenly gone so cold, but he didn't dare divert an erg of his attention away from these proceedings. He didn't even dare reassure Joat. She mumbled a barely audible "hello" in response.

"Well, dear, you made some very impressive scores on the tests. Did you know that?"

A nearly inaudible "no" answered her.

Ms. Dorgan glanced down at something below the screen's range, and then her right hand became visible, probably pressing the button to scroll her file forward.

"You are, however, considerably behind your age group in a good many subjects, with the exception of mathematics and mechanicals, where you positively excel." That much was said with some genuine enthusiasm. "You've no idea the excitement you've generated in some quarters. I think you may now anticipate a much brighter future than your past may have led you to expect, dear."

Simeon spoke for the first time, keeping his promise to his prote"ge\ *Joat wants to study engineering. You obviously concur that she has a unique talent in that field."

Ms. Dorgan's studied smile wavered and the tendons on her neck stood out with the strain of not obviously peering around the room. "You are the ... shellperson?" She seemed to hold her thin lips away from the word as though it might soil them. Her eyes roved between Channa and Joat as though hoping one of them might be ventriloquising the male voice.

"Yes. I am Simeon, the SSS-900-C. I'm applying to adopt Joat as a full daughter and full relation."

Ms. Dorgan's hand delicately brushed a strand of hair back into place.

"Yes, well, as to that," she raised her brows as though surprised that he had spoken at all, "you realize that other prospective parents have put in applications for children with Joat's potential. We usually give preference to couples." There was a feint emphasis on the final word. She fingered her collar nervously. "In Joan's case..."

*Joat," said Joat, Simeon and Channa in unison.

'Joat's case, I've shown her file to a quantum-lattice engineer, who is a professor of my acquaintance, and he immediately expressed an interest in her. He'sextremely enthusiastic about tutoring someone of such promise. He's married, too, on a life-contract with a poet Such a situation would have many advantages for die child."

Simeon watched Joat's face go white. "As a station manager, I am intimately acquainted with a variety of sciences, including regular updates on state-of-the-art, so 1 am quite capable of tutoring her, on the practical level she prefers, in any specialty that interests her. Relax, Joat Ms. Gorgon'smerelymentioningoptionsand possibilities.'* The case-worker loudly cleared her throat" My name, Station Manager Simeon, is Dorgan, with a D. Which reminds me, Joat, somewhere on the application, ah, here it is, it says diat your name is an acronym for 'jack-of-all-trades.' Where Jack* was a gender-inappropriate first name, Jill* was substituted. How would you feel about being called Jill?"

"About the same as I'd feel about being called shit," Joat replied, every inch the belligerent corridor-kid now, scornful and angry; no trace of her earlier diffidence remaining. "And I wouldn't answer to it 'cause it's not my name."

'Joat!" Channa gasped.

"Don't you see it, Simeon, Channa?" Joat said, her blue eyes sparkling with contempt "This is all a joke! This ol'Ms. Organ..."

"Dorgan, if you please." "... bitch has made up her mind. What are we wasting our time and credit talkiri to her for?"

"Calm down, Joat," Simeon said. "Let's not jump to conclusions yet. Ms. Dorgan, although I have unlimited communication links, my time is heavily scheduled, and I was assured by the authorities that this was merely a formality. Shall we move to settling the details now?"

Slightly pink in the cheeks, Ms. Dorgan took a deep breath and released it in a small huff.

"I can'tbelieve that you would persistin thisapplication, Anne McGffiey & S.M. Stnimg knowing that a human couple is interested in the child It would be one thing if no one wanted her, but that is not the case. In the first place, since she's at a very sensitive stage of development, there is no way that someone like you could appreciate what she's going through."

"Because Simeon is male?" Channa asked quietly.

"Because he is a shellperson. My dear Ms. Hap, as a professional brawn, you are surely well-acquainted with the peculiarities of these persons. Why deny that they are practically a different species? With no real understanding of what it's like to be independently mobile? How could he possibly raise an active, growing child?" The slight emphasis on the two adjectives made Channa clench her teeth in disgust Dorgan's question was also rhetorical.

"Well, now, Joat," Simeon drawled, heavily borrowing from Patsy Sue again, "I guess you were right. Ms. Gorgon had made up her mind before she saw us."

"That's Dorgan," the case-worker said, leaning heavily on the "d."

"Toldja," Joat said, "ol* Ms. Organ's already decided."

"Dorgan. Dorgan. DORGANI"

"Stop it! All three of you." Channa cast her glare over Simeon's column, Joat's flushed face, and finally settled it on the Child Welfare representative. "You have some very strange ideas about shellpeople, Ms. Dorgan, with a D. My advice would be to consider carefully before you make any more bigoted remarks. I particularly resent your denying Simeon his intrinsic humanity. I've never met a shellperson who wasn't at hist as able and responsible as a softperson. And indisputably more ethical! In fact, your remarks indicate active prejudice on your part. Prejudice which is, I might remind you, legally actionable.''

Ms. Dorgan raised her chin. "There's no need, no need at all, Ms. Hap, to make threats. No doubt it is due to your long association with such persons that you no longer consider them... abnormal." Before Channa could get over sputtering at that, the case-worker smiled smugly. "In the child's best interests, I'm afraid that I shall have to deny this petition. I shall make arrangements for her transport to Central, where, after a short stay at our orphan facility, she will no doubt be adopted by aproper family." Still smiling she broke the connection.

"Well?" Simeon almost shouted into the ensuing silence. "You're not going to let her have the last word on this, are you?"

"Don't she have it? Far's this orphan child's concerned?" Joat demanded bitterly. "I knew this'd happen. I told myself this'd happen. But you two trained brains were both so damned sure" She sneered as she counted off her points. "You knew just where to go and just who to talk to and just what to do. But you know what? You don't know ANYTHING! But after all, how could you?" she asked her eyes beginning to fill with tears. "Everything's always gone your way. Everything's always just been handed to you." She started to sob. "Shells, education, food, a living place. Well, they don't get handed out, lemme tell ya. And look what you've done to me\ Now they know I exist and where I am, and they're coming to get me! For all I know, that lattice engineer wants to play diddly on my lattice work. Only he's human and a professor and's got an 'in* with her. You got me into this, but I'm sure not waiting for you to get me out. I'm not goin' anywhere with nobody \ don't want to!" Her voice had reached scream level before she pivoted and ran from the lounge.

*Joat!" Channa moved to follow her, but Simeon closed the door in her face. "Simeon!" she said in disbelief.

"Let her go, Channa. What could you do now? Lock her in her room until they come for her?" Channa looked as though he'd struck her. "She needs time and privacy. She needs to feel in control again. Let her alone."

"There are things we can do, Simeon. I'm not going to let that woman win. We can go over her head in Child Welfere. We can appeal to SPRIM and Double M for help. You taped that interview, didn't you?"

He laughed, for once pleased to see her so combative. "Yes, I did, and won't the Mutant Minorities and the Society for the Preservation of the Rights of Intelligent Minorities dump on La Gorgon for her attitudes! Good thinking, Channa. I'm this very moment apprising them of this incident Y'know, this could even be fun."

Late that night, Simeon noticed that a light came on in Channa's quarters. He had assiduously kept to his promise, but the faint glow under the door was plainly visible. Well, to anyone with photonscanners like mine, he amended. Still, he was observing the principle of the thing.

Channa heard a chiming sound and, after a surprised pause, called out "Hello?"

Simeon's voice, carefully adjusted to low audibility, answered from the lounge, "May I come in?"

She smiled and laid aside the reader she'd picked up. "Yes, you may."

She lay in bed, looking tousled and sleepy. Simeon thought that she looked little more than a kid herself, "Can't sleep?" he asked.

She shook her head, "I keep thinking of Joat, alone down there in the dark."

"Joat's been asleep for hours,"

"How do you know that? She might still be crying her heart out for all we know."

"I know because I can hear little, Joat-sized snores issuing from one of her favorite haunts."

"She didn't turn on her sound-scrubber?"

"Nope. She was upset!"

"No, she was thoughtful. She is becoming more civilized if she didn't want us to worry." And Channa laughed in relief, then sobered. "She's such a good kid. She really didn't deserve Gorgon on her case. Look, Simeon, B & B's are considered couples by Central Worlds. Our contracts tend to last a lot longer than mere marriages. If I stayed on for say, ten years and applied for joint custody with you, most of Gorgon's objections would be invalid."

"Joint custody, huh? Well, Gorgon can't say a female brawn isn't a good role model. I've got comlines hotting up, but what I don't know is how many others at Child Welfare suffer from Dorgan's prejudice. I'd hate to see you make such a 'supreme sacrifice' for nothing. Fighting Ms. Gorgon through the bureaucracy won't turn us to stone, but it could bore our brains into oatmeal."

Channa gave a litde "tsh" of scorn. "It's not like I've got anywhere else to go."

"I know, I heard about Senalgal. Sorry, Channa. I know what it's like to lose an assignment you'd sell your soul to get"

She raised her eyebrows inquiringly. "What was it for you, if you don't mind my asking — a planet-based city, a scout ship? Or maybe you looked as high as a whole planet?"

"I've got a city, more or less. Definitely not a scout ship. The brain/brawn scout ship is too claustrophobic and limited. Ilike dealing withalot of people. lenjoy the give and take of various personalities and situations. More challenge on a station this size. Hove being challenged."

"Not a city, not a ship. You're after a planet?"

"No, I wouldn't want that much responsibility. And a planet's too sedentary. But a ship, definitely, so I could get around a lot."

"Ah,*' she said, making the connection between his leisure interests and the only ship assignment that applied, "a Space Navy command-ship." She cocked her head. "Are you in line for one?"

"Theoretically, yes. I've applied and what do I get? "You're too important where you are,' " he began in a singsong monotone, " 'You're too perfect where you are, there's no one else as well-trained as you are for such a highly specialized situation.' I've always," he added wryly, "considered SSS-900-C to be a temporary assignment.''

"Forty years is temporary?''

"With shellpersons, of course it is."

"Maybe we aren't so imperfectly matched after all." She paused a moment, then in a flippant tone added, "With Joat to sweeten the deal, I don't think I would regard staying here as a 'supreme sacrifice.' Ugh! Orphan facility, indeed! Pick her up? Like some sort of a package?" She peered out of her room towards his column. "Do you think we stand a chance of reversing Dorgan's decision?"

Simeon wouldn't have taken bets, but he had barely tackled the task. On the up side, he felt something deep inside him beginning to uncoil. "With a B & B partnership, we have a chance. 1 appreciate your willingness to consider one very much, Channa. Right now though, dear lady, why don't you sleep on it?"

She sighed. "Mm, but I'm restless, and," she played with an edge of the reader, "there's nothing I really want to read."

"Then," he said, gendy dimming the lights, "I shall recite a bedtime poem for you. Settle in." He waited until she had scooted down and adjusted covers and pillows, smiling as she did so. He began, "We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage ..." Her eyes dosed, and gradually she drifted off to sleep as Simeon recited. "... softly through the silence beat the bells, Along the golden road to Samarkand."

Channa emerged into the lounge, heading for the table and her morning coffee. A wave of sound struck her — very much a wave, like plunging into a curling jade-green wall that seized her and bore her back towards the beach.

She couldn't help but recognize the music as "The Triumphal March" from The Empress of Ganymede by User.

She paused with a slight frown when she realized that she had unconsciously altered her stride to suit the march tempo. She stopped, and her pause was the length of a measure. She laughed when she realized it. "Does this mean I get to be queen today?"

"Actually, after your restless night, I decided something upbeat would suit."

"Well, I sure got off on the right foot, then," she said with a sound approximating a giggle.

Simeon was pleased. Last night their relationship really had turned a corner. They were going to be all right.

"So, a good morning to you, Simeon," she said with an impish smile.

"And a good morning right back atcha, as Patsy Sue would say."

Channa's appreciative smile faded slowly into a frown. "I'd consider it a real good morning if I could see and speak to Joat as soon as possible. I'm very worried that she might jump ship on us, and that would ruin every step of progress we've made with her." fc? SM. Stirling "Wish I could oblige you on that, Charm a, but I don't know where she is now. She turned on her sound-scrubber early this morning and effectively vanished." He hurried on when Channa's face showed her disappointment clearly. "I don't think she'd leave on two counts. One, she knows her way intimately between the skins of this station, and it's certainly big enough for her to change hidey-holes on an hourly basis if necessary. And two, none of the ships undocking today are the type she could stow away on or hire out on. I've got every sensor tuned to her registered patterns, and I've discreetly alerted key personnel."

Channa nodded and went to her console, pulling the notescreen towards her. "Then we had better get to work. SPRIM ought to be moving on that dispatch you sent off last night." Her anxiety lifted at Simeon's knowing chuckle. She ran her fingers in a tattoo on the console. "And I suspect Child Welfare won't like being on their hit list."

"Hit list?" Simeon spoke with some alarm. "Are they that way inclined?" He didn't wish Ms. Dorgan any pkysicalharm.

"The way SPRIM execs rave about humanocentric chauvinism is enough to turn even a tolerant person into a xenophobe. They've got money and they're tireless in ensuring protection. That slur she made on shellpeople, well.,. And the MM make SPRIM look like a quilting party."

"Quilting party?" Simeon searched his lexicon for the term.

"Old-fashioned way to spend a productive and socializing evening," she explained absently, "Oh. Not much we can do until they get back to us, I suppose."

Simeon sounded unhappy. Channa quirked a corner of her mouth.

"We can't go in with lasers blazing and slag Child Welfare Central, if that's what you mean. If the station had full self-government, they wouldn't be able to mess with us — so let's concentrate on station business for now, shall we?" She cleared her throat. "I've been going over your accounts, Simeon, and I've got to say that you have some weird entries. For example, tucked away in the fourth quarter is the notation 'stuff.' You'll have to be more specific than 'stuff.'"

"Why? 'Stuff' is acceptable to the accountants," he said in a facetious tone.

"I'm not an accountant. I'm supposed to be your partner. Would you explain 'stuff'?"

"It's like this, Channa, I buy things that interest me. Me, Simeon, not the station master brain." Never mind that that also accounted for why he hadn't paid off his natal debt to Central Worlds. So Tm a packrat. Is that her business now?

Far out in space, Simeon's peripheral monitors, the ring of sensors that warned of incoming traffic, began to transmit information that suggested a very large object was headed their way. From the ripples it caused in subspace, it was very large or very fast or both. He split his attention between her and the alert, and sent a communicator pulse in the direction of the disturbance. There were strict rules on how to approach a station. Approaching unheralded broke half a dozen regs and invariably caused stiff credit penalties.

Respond to hailing, he transmitted. Respond immediately.

"Well, we've got this inspection and audit coming up in two weeks," he heard Channa saying in a firm let'snot-beat-about-the-bush tone. "We have get to have everything shipshape and Bristol fashion, partner."

He did appreciate that she subtly reminded him of her promise to help with Joat, but this was no time for petty details.

"I don't have a ship shape, Channa," he muttered in his distraction, "but I do have something very unusual out there, approaching me without due protocol."

Visual information was now reaching him. Dropping out of interstellar transit and approaching at... Great Ghu> .17 c! A large vessel whose profile did not fit any known human ship. The basic hufl-fonn was spherical, but carried a web of crazy-quilt additions, constructions of girder and latticework. Some of them looked as if they had been slashed off short with energy beams, and the cutpoints were tattered. People were generally not sloppy with cutting tools. Enemies were. Simeon relayed a standard "please identify" message and put the tugbays on standby.

"Nor am I abristle," he continued to Channa. "The inspectors will be when they come, though."

Channa groaned. "Even for you that was lame. You're being unusually ridiculous, Simeon. You know the mentality that goes with these inspections — sentence first, trial afterwards."

"In other words, off with our heads, if they could reach mine."

"And us running as fast as we can to stay in one place, too. Which capability you also don't have. Now, since this is my first time with you.. .** "Oh, Channa... pant, pant** "Simeon," she said warningly. "I know where the controls for your hormone balance are."

"Heh hen, sorry. What's the worst they can do to me? Send me back to asteroidic purgatory? Like I told you, I'm only on temporary duty here anyway."

Channa had been running a scan. "There are twelve entries for the word 'stuff'! You want this to be a temporary assignment? Well, you may get your wish."

"It's not a wish, my dear, I never said 'I wish they'd take me away from here and put me anywhere else.' I've a very definite destination in mind, as you so astutely concluded the other evening. If I had my druthers, I'd be running a command ship and waging star wars on the Axial Perimeter. But," and he gave a huge audible sigh, "wbo believes in wishes anymore?"

"You do, with all your war games and tactical daydreams."

The approaching ship still had not responded, nor was it dumping speed as fast as it should. In fact, whoever was in command had waited much too long to begin doing so. The flare of drive energies should be blanking out that whole quadrant, and the neutrino flux was barely enough for a pile just ticking over. Simeon came to a disagreeable conclusion.

"Whoa, there, Channa. We've got stuff, not mine, coming in to make mince of us if we're not careful. Have a look?"

Simeon slapped up a main screen view of the intruder bearing down on them. Surprise and alarm held her motionless for only a split second before she reacted.

"I'm alerting the perimeter guard," she said, wiping her previous program and inputing the new.

"Right!" Although he already had, two sources of the same alert emphazised the emergency. "I'm busy calculating how to cushion the impact of that great hulking mass whistling towards us. I hope they know where the brakes are." Nice to have a brawn to share emergency work. The station personnel should get used to dealing with her.

Stabbing the alert button on the main console, Channa then called up a finer resolution of the object, which to her appeared to be a darker mass against the black of space.

"Unannounced arrival!" She transmitted the image to the personnel on perimeter traffic control, alerting them to the pertinent vector and ordering them to begin rerouting incoming traffic.

"How do you know it's ivhistting toward us?" she asked in as calm a voice as he was using while her fingers flew over the controls. "There's no sound in space."

Simeon could detect just a micro-tremor of fear in her noncommittal tone. "If I think it whistles," he answered, "it whisdes."

"Perimeter says it's like nothing they've ever seen before either and —" she paused and licked her lips "— it's about to cut a broad swath through the proper traffic pattern."

Simeon took full control of the traffic control boards. He could see and respond to die necessary changes in traffic patterns faster than any unshelled human. He was simultaneously redirecting and responding to dozens of ships.

Suddenly Channa started cursing. "Damn their eyes and innards! These damned civilians are asking questions instead of doing what they're supposed to in emergency routines. Now you see why I didn't like you calling those false alarms. No one's paying a blind bit of attention to tkasgenuine emergency! Wolf-cryer!"

"I've put it on every public screen. They'll know it's no drill," Simeon said, his voice velvet with malice, "and it's coming straight at us. I don't think it'll stop,"

I didn't realize you could banter when you're terrified, he thought with tight control, though it helped being able to set your analogue of adrenal glands.

Channa stared, stunned, as the screen filled with the alien ship. "You haven't activated the repel screen? Hit it for God's sake!" She pressed her rocker switch just a fraction of a second behind Simeon.

Joat gritted her teeth and wiped eyes and nose on the back of her sleeve. It was a good shirt, and dean. Dumb, she told herself fiercely. Dumb, dumb, dumb bitch, dumb gash, just like the captain told you you were. Especially when he was drunk. He'd always been worse then.

She turned her attention back to the little computer. It was the best she'd ever been able to steal, a real Spuglish; jacked into the station system right now, with the skipper-unit she'd cobbled up to keep the station from knowing just where or why.

Ship schedules / departures / outsystem, she told it Machines didn't lie to you! You could trust machines and, if they didn't do what they were supposed to, it wasn't because they had lied. Maths and machinery could be believed.

A barking sob broke through her lips, spattering drops on the screen. She bit down on her hand until the pain and the taste of her own blood let her continue. Then she wiped the machine down with the tail of her shirt Machines didn't let you down, either.

Departures, the computer said. Look, Joat, you don't have to leave here. Trust me, we're— "No!" she screamed.

Joat stuffed the scramblers into her pockets and went off down the duct at a scrambling crawl, ignoring projections and brackets that only slighdy impeded her progress. The motions were reflexive, with a graceless efficiency.

Nobody's going to give me away again, she thought. Get me used to eating regular and school and everything, then give me away! The thought went round and round in her head, filling it, so that it was minutes before the klaxon penetrated her self-absorption.

"Oh, shit," she whispered in a still small voice, listening. Then she turned and went back the way she came, faster still The computer was back there, and without it, she wouldn't be able to find out what was really going on.

Her spacesuit was diere, too. This sounded serious.

"THIS IS NO DRILL! REPEAT, THIS IS NO DRILL1" The words rang down the corridors and haUspaces, without the melodramatic klaxons Simeon had always used. "Nonessential personnel report to secure areas. Report to secure areas. Prepare for breach of hull integrity."

This time the citizens of the SSS-900-C listened, hastening into suits, gathering children and pets and heading for the central core or section shelters. Crews pelted onto their ships, even as moorings were detached and entry locks irised shut and each "all on board" signal was relayed to Simeon. Emergency crews flocked to their assigned stations. Infirmary patients who could not be moved were placed in individual, independently powered life-support units. All too soon, most of the citizens of SSS-900-C could only wait, imagining their station crushed like an egg as die invader plowed into them.

Simeon worked frantically, ordering ships of all sizes out of the projected path of the incoming ship, brutally suppressing the knowledge that ships with ordinary, unshelled pilots could barely handle the split second timing he was asking of them. So for, so good — no one out there seemed destined to die today. For a heartstopping moment he thought the alien might be decelerating, but the blaze of energies sputtered and died. It's only shed 7% of relative velocity, he calculated dismally. Not nearly enough.

"Why didn't they program mobility?" "Who?" Channa asked distractedly. "Where?" "In me! In this station! I can't duck! I've no weaponry to blast it out of my way. I can't even fend off such mass. All I can do is watch. What lasers I've got can just about handle a decent-sized meteor. The best I can do is warm up his hull a little, and I have to wait till he's up my ass to do it! Damn! This station is like a paraplegic spaceship!"

"Whoa! Did you see that?" Channa shouted. The mass had seemed to deliberately veer aside from an ordinary asteroid miner vessel, something the miner pilot himself probably couldn't have done. "Watch," she said, "there! Did you see? It jigged just a bit to miss that incoming ferry traffic It is being guided."

"But by what?" Simeon asked. He ran calculations on the ballistics of those maneuvers. The deviations were absolutely minimal for the effect. "It's traveling so fast now, no human pilot could stop it and stay conscious. TTiey don't answer any radio messages. TTiey're ignoring the.damn warning flares. Shit, maybe they think we're welcoming them. Ah, goodF "But they are decelerating again, Simeon," Channa said, glancing up from her own screens to the main viewer before she went back to other chores which she had assumed.

"Yeah, marginally longer this time. No, cutting out — no, decelerating again. Rate of energy-release ... God, but they're still not dumping enough velocity! And still on a collision course!" His voice went slightly wild. "They mustwant to destroy me!"

"I don't see any weapons," Channa said, trying to finish her current task in time.

"Who can tell in that jumble of struts and boxes and crap! Besides, that thing itself is a weapon." Simeon had just one card to play and at exactly the right moment for maximum effect. "You're not even suited up, partner. At least take shelter in my shaft core, Channa."

She shook her head, "Not till I'm dirough evacuating the alien quadrant 'Sides, those Letheans scare easily enough as it is without me appearing in full gear."

She had managed at last to get through to the leader of the Lethe contingent. A people so formal that emergencies required a ceremony, mercifully brief, for deferring the usual endless courtesies in favor of survival. Had Channa not performed the ceremony and explained the situation to them, they would have died rather than commit such a breach of manners as assuming that something was actually wrong. She broke the connection at last and exclaimed, 'JoatT "She has a suit," Simeon said, "first thing I gave her. She's probably in it right now. Why aren't you?"

She dashed for the cabinet holding her space suit and began to struggle into it "Come to me, Channa," he said, in a wildly facetious tone, "come, touch the hard, male core of my innermost being."

"Ee-yuck, is that the sort of romance you've been studying? Try another mode."

"When I've world enough and time, lovely one, but have a look at what I've managed to arrange as stop signs."

Seemingly from out of nowhere, three communications satellites came diving towards the incoming ship, two striking it head on and one slightly astern. Whole sections of die scaffolding and outer skin of the derelict sublimed in white flashes that expanded into circles with zero-g perfection. The alien ship was not slowed — there was too much kinetic energy in that mass — but its vector altered slightly.

"Comsats aren't supposed to be able to move like that!" Channa exclaimed tightly. Simeon's sensors could hear the pounding of her heart, analyze the ketones her sweat-damp skin was emitting. Fear under hard control. The lady has guts, he thought.

"A little something I cooked up on my own," he said smugly.

"Cooked in the wrong sort of pot, you crazy loon. Without those satellites, we'll be out of communication with half the universe for weeks."

"Channa, if I hadn't done that we'd be out of communication with the all of the universe permanently. Besides, my satellite tactic worked!"

Channa looked up at the main monitor and saw that the projected vector had skewed slightly. "Not enough," she muttered. "Please don't use any more of our comm satellites like billiard balls, Simeon. If we do survive this, they'll be needed more than ever."

"Oh-oh," Simeon muttered.

"Oh-oh?" she repeatedly anxious.

It means, I screwed the pooch, Channa, Simeon thought Aloud he went on. "SS Conrad, dump your carrier modules and get out of that sector. You are now directly in the path of the incoming ship."

"No-can-do SSS-900-C. I've got a full load here. The company'll have my ass if I desert it"

"The company'll have to hold a seance to get it, then, 'cause if you stay put, you're about to become immortaL Jump it!"

"Now!" Channa shouted. "It's less than two k-thousand kilometers from you. Now, dammit!"

"No shit!" the pilot shouted and disconnected the "cab," the crew quarters and control section of the ship, from the much larger freight storage sections.

They watched the tiny cab move with agonizing slowness across the seemingly endless bow of the strange ship.

"Down on station horizon," Simeon instructed, "ninety-degrees, straight down."

"Down? You want me to stop? With that bastard coming right for me! Are you crazy?"

"It's your only chance, buddy. She's shallow on the bottom but, by Ghu, is she wide! Show me what kind of pilot you are! Not what kind of smear you'll make."

Obediently, the little ship flared energy, applying thrust at right-angles to its previous vector. Its path shifted, slowly at first and then with growing speed like a bell-curve graph across a computer screen. Slowly, slowly, descending, a bright spot against the ever larger mass approaching them.

"Oh shit, oh shit," the captain whispered desperately. "Help?"

The intruder was less than a kilometer away, now, from the cab which looked like a white pin-point against the black hull of the stranger. At half a kilometer it cleared the leading edge of the incoming ship and the pilot began to laugh wildly.

"Keep going," Simeon ordered sharply, to be heard through the hysteria. "It's about to hit your freighter. Keep moving till I tell you to stop."

"It's ore," the captain gasped though he sounded more as if he was weeping, "iron ore. Nickel iron carboniferous, in ten-kilo globules,7 Atu, crap! Simeon thought, as the intruder struck the freighter with majestic slowness. The forward third of its hull vanished in the fireball, and so did much of the freighter's cargo. The energy-release and spectrographic analysis would tdl him a good deal about the composition. Right now he had millions of special delivery meteors pouring down from the breached holds onto his station. Greatexample ofNewtonian physics, actionand reaction.

The collison had, serendipitously, damped much of the incoming ship's remaining velocity, but the fragments of ship and cargo had picked it up for themselves. He tracked the myriad trajectories of the space flotsam and relayed the information to the ships in the scatter area, directing them into still more impossible flight patterns. He assigned the computer responsibility for tracking and blasting the larger chunks of ore with the station's lasers. No problems with dispersion when the stuff was in your face. On the other hand, there was one hell of a lot of it Simeon set the computer to figuring out just how much would get through.

He realized that Channa was staring at the monitor in horrified fascination. "Hey Hap, Happy baby, get in the shaft core."

"Why?" she asked. "It's stopping."

"Slowing, yes, but if it so much as kisses me on the cheek, it'll breach the station and you're on a one-way trip to the nebula. We need you here, so shaft me baby."

"Shaft yourself," she said. "It has come to a complete cessation of forward movement"

A final flare of energy left the aft third of the intruder's hull slumping and melting, the drive cores and conduction vanes white-hot and misting titaniumrutile monofiber.

"So it has," Simeon said mildly.

Channa gave a giddy whoop and slumped against die central shaft, trying to wipe at the sweat that filmed her face. Her glove dadoed against the faceplate ofher helmet "Dead, stock still," he said, feeling intense relief. "Relative to the station, that is."

With a glance at his column, Channa hit the disconnect switch and the red warning lights stopped flashing. Simeon began to announce stand-down to Condition Yellow in dulcet, paternal tones. Channa took off her helmet and began to confer with the Lethe leader, reestablishing the usual formal relations.

When at last they disconnected from their various crucial chores, Channa looked at her incoming electronic messages and laughed. "By God, but we're a resilient species. Look at these."

Simeon scanned them and laughed, too. "I haven't even finished flushing the excess adrenalin from my system and they're already complaining about lost cargo and insurance. I love the human race. We're consistently more concerned with trivia than serious threats."

"And we're not even out of danger, are we?"

"Out of mortal danger. That thing could have totaled us. The ore will cause a lot of trouble and expense, so let's maintain Condition Yellow for a while."

That would keep nonessentials out of the exterior compartments, mostly industrial areas anyway, and everyone in suits with helmets in reach and within sprinting distance of the shelters. Megacredits of money were being lost, of course, most of which would be paid by Lloyds' Interstellar.

Channa was examining the strange ship on a dose screen.

"Next question is who, or what's, aboard.** "And if there's anything left of the pilot captain," Simeon added, "who's broken regulations I didn't know existed till now. I sent out a dozen probes to secure available information on what's left. Ah! Input!"

The main screen blanked, and then displayed a schematic of the strange craft, shifting to a threedimensional model as the computers extrapolated.

"So that's what it looked like before it started hitting things and melting down its drives," Simeon murmured as brain and brawn surveyed an elongated sphere amid its tangle of extensions. "And now I'D subtract what doesn't appear to be part of the original construction."

The resulting model didn't look much like the slagged ruin tumbling slowly through space in the real-time image that Simeon kept up in the lower righthand corner of the screen. Channa leaned forward and frowned at such an unfamiliar design. Huge it certainly was. At least eighty kilotons mass, with extravagant ship-bays and airlocks, old-fashioned cooling vanes around the equator...

"That looks like human construction," she said thoughtfully. "Just not any model I've ever seen or heard about" Human civilization had been unified at the beginning of starflight and their ships bore a family resemblance.

"It does look vaguely human-made," Simeon agreed, "but I can't even find a match in historical files of Janes'All the Galaxy's Spaceships for the last century. The composition is odd, too; metal-metal fiber matrix. Ferrous alloys. No comparable design for the last two centuries. Hmmm."

"Something?"

"This." He called up an image beside the reconstructed ship.

"Close but no cigar," Channa said.

"That's the last of a, line of heavy transports — that one was a Central Worlds space-navy troop-transport Designers were Dauvigishipili and Sons. They used to make a lot of militaty craft, operated on stations out of the New Lieutas system. See, there is some use to being a military historian. Ah, tere."

The image changed and now there was a virtual one-to-one match.

"Colonial transport," Simeon said. "They stopped building them about three hundred years ago, so it could be up to four hundred years old. Original capacity was ten thousand colonists, in coldsleep of course, with a crew of thirty. There were a lot of odd litde colonies back then, people looking for places where they could practice as weird a religion as they wanted and not have the Central Worlds bugging them. The few that survived are still pretty flaky. Are you surprised to learn that the ship-class was called the Manifest Destiny vehicle? A few of the later models had brain controllers before Central Worlds put a stop to that practice on humane grounds. Some of those minor cults were —" he made a brief pause to consult his lexicon "— aberrant! Hmm, and I'd bet this one got transmogrified into an orbital station. Look at all that stuffi"

"Your kind of 'stuff'?" asked Channa ingenuously.

"Gadgetry," he amended in a firm, this-is-serious voice, "plastered on the exterior: observation stuff, transmission stuff, the usual. And intended to be used in orbit. I mean, who would try to fly any ship with all that crap sticking out? For starters, the thrust axis wouldn't be through the center of mass anymore, so for starters, it's unbalanced."

Channa scanned through more probe transmissions, induding some views taken by the perimeter sensors as the hulk barreled in, so they could see the havoc caused by collision and too-rapid deceleration.

"They may have had cause for their precipitous intrusion," she said, and froze a view of the stubs of the radar and radio antennas. "Those look like battle damage to me."

"Hmmm." Simeon did a rapid close-scan and match with the naval records in his files. "You're right, Channa-mine. Transmission antennae sheared off so they couldn't have responded to our hails. Whoever shot those darts knew his stuff, and their most vulnerable points. See the long star-shaped ripple patterns in the hull? And those long sort of fuzzy distortions clustered in the rear third of the hull? Those are beamers at extreme range, I'd say. Hard to tell 'cause it's so messed up." He spoke more slowly, in an almost somber tone. "Hell, Channa, beamers like that are naval ordnance weapons. The real thing." Oh, boy, this is not like a simulation at all. "Somebody was trying to destroy that ship."

"While the victims were desperate enough to fly dose to blind and totally deaf," Channa said. That was not a safe thing to do, even in the vastness of interstellar space. "My next intelligent question is, did they escape? Or are they still being pursued?"

"Ahead of you there, partner," Simeon replied, feeling slightly smug that he had anticipated her. "I can't detect anything coming in on the same vector." He heaved an audible sigh of relief that coincided with hers. "Or ... no, they were blind. The pursuit could have dropped off long ago, and they wouldn't have had any way to tell. But we'd better establish who and why. If, and it's a big if, there's anyone alive in there now to tell us the facts. I'm not inclined to be charitable. For all we know, they could be pirates or hijackers, and they were running from Central Worlds* naval pursuit.

Either way, they came within centimeters of smashing us to a smithereen."

"Smithereens," Channa said thoughtfully, "because it's fragments they are and they have to be plural to be dangerous. I rather discount their being illegals. Something real deadly mustjjiave pushed them to run in a craft that unspacewbrthy. Something that came to their planet suddenly. Why else wouldn't they take the time to cut away that mass dinging to the ship? Maybe their sun went nova. Anyway," she said briskly, "if there are people on board, they're in bad shape and what have you been doing to rescue and/or apprehend them?"

"Ahem, Channa-mine. You're the mobile half of this partnership. Remember? So go be brawn for me. And be careful!*1 Channa paused. "Ah, yes, so I am. Thank you for reminding me of that!" Her tone was brightly britde. "Somehow this wasn't the sort of duty I thought came along with this assignment.''

"Well, it has!" he said, making his voice lilt. "Hate to have caused you to get into that clumsy suit for no reason at all."

She lifted her helmet.

"Thatta girl!" Simeon said rather patronizingly. She ignored him. "Oh, and Channa?" "What?" "Before you lock your helmet, do switch on your implant"

"Ah!" She couched the switch grounded in bone just behind her ear, the contact responding only to her individual bio-energy. "Are you receiving?"

"Check,"

"Can I go now?" she said rather patronizingly.

"Check."

"And mate, Simy baby."

"Got it," Joat muttered to herself as she rescued the computer from the shadowed ledge and turned it on, fingers clumsy in the space suit gloves. Joat had become well-acquainted with the station's drills but, with survival skills as finely honed as hers were, she had put the suit on when the klaxon sounded Red Alert Besides, she'd had a chance to time just how fast she could get into the flippin' thing.

"Wow!" was her reaction to the activity the computer duly reported. "Fardling A wow!" Hie system was taking in some heavy data, converting it and feeding it to Simeon the way it transferred data from the pickups, though never in this density or complexity. "Heavy read!"

Joat did her best to follow, but the speed was too much. Then, "Got it." Now the main computer was also encoding it for her little friend. She fiddled to get a finer tuning, get rid of the drivel, giving her the visual and aural stuff. She reared back in surprise, hitting her head on the metal bulkhead but ignoring the pain as she realized what she now had.

Hey, this is from Channa. Strange, heavy strange — Tm getting what she's seeing. She must have an implant to input directly to Simeon like Mis. And what Channa was seeing made Joat feel a little more charitable towards her. Channa wasn't squishstuff, her private term for organic tissue.

"Beats hacking in to the holo system any day," Joat muttered, eyes glued to the miniature screen. She squirmed into a more comfortable position, plopped down a purloined pillow so she wouldn't slam her head again, braced her feet against the roof of the duct, plugged the earphone into the helmet outlet, and absorbed the action.

"Real-time adventure holo!" Perfect, apart from a wavering line down one side of the picture-cube that must represent breathing and life-signs and stuff "Go, Channa, go!"

CJtAFTERSIX Station-born and bred, Channa had gone spacewalking as soon as she was old enough to fit into a juvenile suit. But there the difference between her Hawking Alpha Proxima Station days and now ended.

Theoretically, she knew that SSS-900-C was at the edge of the Shiva Nebula. Trade routes crossed here, carrying processed ores essential for drive-core manufacture. As the ship which had brought her had approached the dumbbell-shaped station, she'd watched the process on her cabin's screen with great interest. But theory, and that shipboard view in complete safety, had not prepared her for the great arc of pearly mist that filled her vision plate; mist glowing with scores of proto-suns in a score of colors.

"Spectacular, ain't it?" Patsy asked.

Channa came to herself with a start "What are^ow doing out here?"

"This tug's my emergency station," she said, grinning broadly inside her bubble helmet "The algae'U keep right on breedin' for a while without me, randy little bastards. An' I'm a right good tug pilot, too."

"Believe you, ma'am," Channa said, throwing a salute from her bubbled temple. What's Simeon on about1* He's got a fleet — of sorts—tocommand. "Let'sgo."

In turn, they slid down into the cramped cabin of the tug and plugged suit feeds into the ship system. The tugs were stripped-down little vessels, just a powerplant and drive with minimal controls; wedgeshaped, with grapnel fields and an inflatable habitat for taking survivors in their dual role as rescue vessels. The docking bay and the cabin itself were open to vacuum, but she felt a low whining as Patsy brought the drive up and lifted them out. ijiere was the usual disorienting lurch as they passed out of station gravity. Now the only weight was acceleration, and the barbell shape of the station was a huge bulk below them instead of behind. Her senses tried to tell her she was climbing vertically in a gravity field, then yielded to training as she made herself ignore up and down for the omnidirectional outlook that was most useful in space.

"Vectoring in," Patsy said into her helmet mike.

Other tugs were drifting motes of light, fireflies against the blackness. The analogy remained in force as they circled the drifting hulk of the intruder; it was big. Forward was a frayed mass of tendrils, and the rear still glowed red-white, heat slow to radiate in vacuum.

"Readings?" Channa asked. Her nose itched; it always did when she had a helmet on.

Simeon's voice answered her. "Main power system went out when they burned their drive," he said. "Be careful about that, by the way — it's radiating gamma, real museum piece. Main internal gravity field's down. There are localized auxiliary systems still operating amidships, and traces of water vapor and atmosphere. There might be a chamber in there still running lifesupport"

Channa scanned the bridge section of the ship again. The instruments available in the cockpit of the tug were basically little more than sophisticated motion detectors.

"I can't get a thing," she said in frustration. "Am I missing something?"

"Not much," Simeon told her. "There's too much dirt out there, which'U confuse readings. See if you can get aboard."

'Right," she said, and looked down the hull toward the equator where the shuttle bays should be located. "Bring us in there, Patsy."

Channa flicked an indicator light on the hull. They sank gradually, until the ancient ship filled half the sky.

"Don't build 'em like this anymore," Patsy said as they beheld shuttle bay doorsVhich were easily two hundred meters long, big enough to accommodate a small liner.

"They don't havejto," Channa answered absently. Drive cores were a lot cheaper and safer nowadays, which made ships this size obsolete. "Somebody did wA hke them."

This close in, the scars on the hull were enormous, metal heated to melting with a slagged look around the edges of the cuts, but miraculously there didn't seem to be much structural damage as they swung further into the bay.

"They have to be alive," Channa murmured. "Nothing could kill people this lucky."

"Except running out of luck," Simeon said grimly.

"There is that." She came at last to a smaller shuttle bay and attempted to open the portal with several standard call codes. "Simeon, what does the library suggest we use for a ship this old? I'm not getting any response with the usual ones."

"Three one seven, three one seven five?"

"Tried it, nothing."

Simeon relayed several more codes.

"Nothing's working," she said in disgust. "Could they have locked them?"

"Hard to say until we're sure they're crazy or not. Try another bay. That one might just be inoperative."

She had Patsy fly out and down the massive ship's side until they came to another shuttle bay. It, too, refused her admittance.

"This is ridiculous," she said in exasperation. "They got in, so there has to be an operable entrance!"

"Considering the visible damage, maybe you'd have more luck with a service hatch. There're close to a hundred of them and only six shuttle bays. Try something midship."

"That's a good idea," she said, feeling more optimistic with such odds. *Just in case, what do we use for a can opener? We don't want any survivors dead of old age before we reach them."

The very first hatch they tried opened, about half a meter. Channa looked at it, Simeon looked at it through her eyes via the implant which connected directly to her optic nerve.

"You're not that big, but you're also not that small," he said with a wistful note.

"I'm putting us down," Patsy said. "Contact" A feint dunk came through the metal of the tug as the fields gripped the big hull.

"And I'm going to try and effect entry. I think it's wide enough." Channa told Simeon.

"Just you be very careful, Channa-mine..."

"For Ghu's sake, Simeon, I've been space-walking since I was five. I'm a stickfoot"

"Yeah, but I don't think your station ever experienced a hostile attack. And there's all that flying junk! Could knock you right off the hull... or smear you across it"

"You do know how to give a girl confidence. I'm going, Simeon, and that's that." She muttered to herself about titanium twits and agoraphobic asses as she prepared to leave the tug. Patsy Sue at least gave her a cheerful grin and a thumbs-up. "We need to know what or who's in there."

"No problem," Patsy cut in, reaching into the toolbox under the pilot's seat. Her hand came out with the ugly black shape of an arc pistol.

Channa looked around, her jaw dropped. "Aren't those illegal?"

Patsy waggled the pronged muzzle. "Not on Larabie, they ain't"

Channa shook her head, then picked up where she'd left off. "You know, Simeon, they do give us brawns training. I've done search-and-rescue before."

"How often?""

"Once. My inexperience will only make me more cautious. J can-do thisj£imeon. Once I'm inside maybe I can do something to widen the hatch opening. Direct some of the other tugs this way so I'll have reinforcements nearby, if I need them."

Patsy waggled the arc pistol, apparendy accustomed to the weight of the weapon.

"Assuming it's needed," Channa added cheerfully. "Have you got any positive life readings, partner?" she asked as she eased herself with practised care out of the tug. With one hand on a hull bracket, she let herself drift to the hull where the stickfield of her boots held her safely.

"According to my sensors, nobody's conscious. But there imgfa be —"

"Stop being so reassuring," she said facetiously. "Have you got a medical team ready?"

"We were just getting to know each other," he said regretfully.

Channa paused, caught by the emotion in his voice. "You are the most manipulative creature it has ever been my misfortune to meet," she said coldly, dipping a reel of optical fiber to her suit. Simeon sighed. "Look, I'm not a total idiot The tug will shield me on one side, and I'm only two strides away from the hatch."

"Me? Manipulative? I'm supposed to keep my brawn from risking its fluffy little tail."

Carefully breaking boot contact, she took the first step to the hatch, and the second. Then clipped both feet free and floated neady to the opening to examine it more closely. The magnetic grapple built into the left forearm of her suit twitched, with a feeling like a light push. The contact disk flicked out, trailing braided monofilament, and impacted on the door of the bay. She activated the switch that reeled her in. Patsy followed with an expert somersault leap that landed her less than an arm's length from her friend.

"Showoff," Channa said.

"You ain't the only one with walk experience," Patsy said. Her voice was light, but the arc pistol was ready as she peered within the half-open hatch.""Coburn to rescue squad. We're about to enter the Hulk. Stand by."

Channa licked dry lips. It's the suit air, she told herself firmly. Always too dry. She spoke aloud to Simeon. "You're just jealous of me, Bellona Rockjaw, heroine of the space frontier."

"I'm right there with you, Channa," Simeon said with a trace of wistfulness in his voice.

"Hmmph."

She struggled to get through the narrow opening, grunting with effort.

"Do not get stuck," he advised her.

Channa started to giggle. "Do not make me laugh," she admonished. "And stop reading my mind."

With the unpleasant sensation of metal and plastic scraping against each other, she pushed through at last. The chamber had held maintenance equipment of some sort long ago; there were feeds and racks for EVA suits, and empty toolholders. Only a single strip lit the dim interior. On the hullside wall was a massive, clumsy-looking airlock, and a blinking row of readouts beside it "Some systems still active," she said. "Patsy, prop yourself against the frame and see if you can't push the hatch door open."

"Nevah get through iffen I doan," the older woman muttered. "Makes me wish I were fiat-chested, too."

"She is not," Simeon replied vehemently.

Channa grinned, but Patsy Sue was busy getting herself into position in the hatchway, attaching her filament to the inside of the hatch before she grabbed the top of the frame with both hands and gave a mighty heave. The hatch did not so much as budge a millimeter.

"No, it's jammed tighter'n... nemmind. You got a polarizin' faceplate?" Patsy asked.

"Standard."

"Okay. I'll try sometnifa' subtle."

Coburn stepped t&ck, raised the arc pistol and fired four times. The bar_oT actinic blue-white light was soundless in vacuum, but a fog of metal particles exploded outward like glittering donuts centered on the aiming points. Patsy nodded in satisfaction and twisted herself around to brace her feet on the hatch and grip two handhold loops on the hull nearby. Channa could hear her give a grunt of effort, and the hatchway flipped out into space, tumbling end over end.

"Nice brand of subtle you wield," Channa said.

"Think nothin' of it," Patsy said, pretending to blow smoke off the arc pistol's barrel. "Any luck?"

Channa bent over the touchpad beside the airlock. "Not much. Ah, that's got it. Simeon, how's the transmission holding up?"

"Loud and dear, since Patsy got the door out of the way. I may lose Patsy's signal further inside. Maybe you should wait? There're four more tugs dosing in on your position."

Channa ignored the pleading note, not without a pang of guilt But what the hell, the situation is irresistible, she admitted. She had been trained as an admiriistrator-paitner-troubleshooter, but most of the time, circumstances were fairly conventional. Not boring; she wouldn't have made it through brawn training if she were bored with it. On the other hand, she wouldn't have been picked if there weren't an element of the adventurer in her psychological profile.

"String this, would you, Patsy?" she said, passing over the reel. The optical fiber was encased in woven tungsten-filament, with receptor-booster chips at intervals. Barely thicker than thread, it had a breaking strain of several tons. Tacked to the wall behind them, neither her implants nor Patsy's suit communits could fade out Patsy welded the outer encj to the hull beside the hatch, using the spot heater in her construction suit's gauntlet, "Ready?" Channa said, taking a deep breath.

"Surely am." Patsy came up behind her, arc pistol ready.

"Standing by," Simeon said.

The keypad lights blinked green and amber. "I think it's saying there's some doubt about the atmosphere," Channa said. "It's definitely pressurized in there." She attached a sensor line to the surface.

"They're in trouble," Simeon said. "Hear that whining?" Channa shook her head, and felt him boost the audio pickups of her helmet. A feint tooth-grating sound came through.

"What is that?"

"That's the main internal drive cores," Simeon replied grimly. "The powerplant's down, but they're still superconducting. The alloys they used back then were tough. They built 'em more redundant then, too."

"Which means?"

"Which means ... to stop this thing, the pilot put everything the powerplant had into the drive. The exterior coils blew before it could go all out. Now the internal coil's going to go."

"Bad news," Patsy said.

"It's going to blow?" Channa asked apprehensively. The energies needed to move megatons between stars were immense.

Simeon listened. "Not/urf yet, but soon. Building, but the noise will be considerably more audible before I'd panic. Get that inner hatch open, woman! I'll send the troops. You've got about thirty minutes before you have to be off."

The interior airlock slid open. The two women kept their helmets firmly ori as it slid down again and the air hissed in. Channa locjked down at the readouts on her sleeve and punched foranalysis.

"Oxygen's down, COg's way up," she said grimly. "Necrotic ketofaes, or so it says — decay products. I'd hate to have to breathe this stuff. Could anyone breath it and live?"

"Depends oh natural tolerances," Patsy replied. "And it might not be bad further in." Being an environmental maintenance specialist, she knew the parameters. "From the volume of n.k.'s, their scrubbers must have been down for a while."

The inner hatch of the airlock slid open. Now that they were no longer in a soundless vacuum, the exterior pickups of their suits relayed the hiss. Unfortunately, a high-pitched whine was now equally audible: the kind that made the hair on your arms lift up. Channa looked down the long corridor, shabby with age and dim with the emergency glowstrips' ghostly blue light.

Flies buzzed around them. Patsy slapped one against the wall.

"Blowflies," she said after a good look. There was a feint quaver in her voice. "Had 'em on the ranch."

"Sound pickup says there are live ones down there," Channa said. "Let's go."

Doctor Chaundra's hands flew over his keypad as he made notes. He was a smallish brown-skinned man with delicate bones and a precise, scholarly manner.

"Fifty maximum, you say?"

Simeon switched back to the implant data filling another part of his consciousness. Channa's breathing sounded ragged; her heartbeat was elevated, and the stomach-acid level indicated suppressed nausea. Simeon wasn't surprised. The things she was seeing made Aim feel a little sick in an entirely nonphysical way that was still highly unpleasant.

"Short-term, improvised attempt at coldsleep," she said, voice struggling for the objectivity of a report. He looked at the tangle of cobbled-together equipment around living and dead. "Probably*to cut down on air consumption. Heavy equipment failures."

The latest chamber held mostly dead ones, eyes fallen in and dried lips shrunk back over grinning teeth. Maggots, too. Some of the corpses were children, dead children nestled against dead mothers. In a few, the maggots gave a ghastly semblance of life, moving the swollen, blackened limbs. About the only mercy was the elastic nets that held living and dead down to the pallets on the deck or to the bunks. Evidently someone had foreseen that the interior gravity fields might go. Simeon imagined walking into one of those chambers and finding die putrefying bodies floating loose....

"This one —" Channa began, swallowing and bending over a body that was either still alive or only recendy dead. Drifting maggots brushed the surface of her faceplate and clung wedy, writhing. She retched, then forced herself to brush them away.

A chuwngggg sound echoed through the still air. "What was that?"

Simeon split his viewpoint yet again. TTie rescue ship hovering off the side of the hulk had launched a missile carrying a large-diameter hose and attached to a pumping system: a force-deck system which punched through the hull and sealed itself. <4Airharpoon,"hesaid. "WeTlbepumpinginasecond."

"I kin hear it," Patsy said from the corridor. Her arc gun crashed, opening a sealed door. "More in heah. *Bout the same."

"With fifty living, we should have no trouble," the doctor was saying to Simeon in the safe, clean sickbay office. Chaundra tapped for a closeup on one of the recordings, looking at the life-signs readouts beside the wasted face of a refugee. "Coldsleep dosed, the old partial method; very^ unsafe dosage, and oxygen deprivation. Dehydration, starvation, but mostly inadequate air. Hmm."

He blinked. "Physical type? Sometimes there is genetic divergence on isolated colonies. I must check. These look to be of sudeuropan race — archaic type, very pure.. We should evacuate them as soon as possible."

"I'm working on it," Simeon said with controlled passion, fm never going to look at battlefield reconstructions quite the same way again, he thought Through Channa's ears, he heard feet clacking in the corridor outside, stickfields in the suit shoes substituting for gravity. The volunteers came in briskly enough, inflatable rescue bubbles in their hands, then halted in disbelief One tried to control his retching for a moment and then went into an excruciating and dangerous fit of vomiting inside a closed helmet. His squadmates removed it, only to have his paroxysm grow worse as the stink hit his nostrils. The luckless volunteer went into the first of the bubbles.

"Get moving!" Channa ordered. Only Simeon could hear the tremors in her voice beyond the range of normal ears. "The living ones are marked with a slash of yellow from a cargo checker. Use plasma feeds, the emergency antidotes, and get them out of here. These people belong in regeneration. Now."

Raggedly, then with gathering speed, the stationers moved to their work. Channa escaped back into the corridor, exhaling a breath she had not been conscious of holding. Simeon was profoundly thankful she had not tried cracking her suit seals when the air hose went in. It would take months of vacuum to get the stink out i of this ship. Much more time than the vessel had. The final fire of the interior coils would at least cleanse it "How long?" she asked.

"Not less than an hour, not mc-re than three," he replied. "I think the pirate hypothesis is out."

Channa nodded jerkily; too many families and children. Pirates were much more common in fiction than in feet, anyway. Bodies floated in the next chamber down, and medics working over the three living before transferring them to life bubbles.

"Ms. Hap, I'm !Tez Kle." The Sondee worea medical assistant's arm-flash on his suit.

Channa glanced at him in surprise. Not many aliens chose Co specialize in Terran medicine. Of course, Sondee were rather humanoid, if you managed to ignore the four eyes — two large and golden about where eyes should be, and two more above the whorled ridges that served as ears; you could not sneak up on a Sondee — and the lack of any facial features apart from a nostril slit and round suckerlike mouth. They had lovely voices, with far more vocal range and control than a human.

She came up beside the bubbles. "You're in charge?" He nodded. "Let me give you a hand," she said.

The first figure she turned to had reddish-black hair, a short muscular man with a square face. She released his restraints and lifted him, then gave him a gende shove into the body-length sack, sealed it and activated it. His color seemed to improve immediately. She turned to his companion and froze.

"Channa, your vital signs just did the strangest little jig. What's the problem?" Simeon asked.

This young man was tall, dose to two meters, broadshouldered and slim-hipped, shapely and muscular as an athlete. He had a clean, classically perfect profile, with firmly molded chin and sensitive mouth. His delicately curving cheekbones were brushed by long dark lashes, the corners of his eyes tilted upwards. His long hair was blue-black, curling back from his high intelligent forehead to fell almost to his shoulders.

Channa sighed in admiration, then caught herself. This stud is so handsome even being sick makes him look good.

"Oh ho," Simeon crowed. "Very nice, Channa, but if you don't put AHorys there in his sack, he's going to go a very unflattering shade of blue."

"Em ... right" She unbuckled the man and sealed him in his sack, connecting the two bags together. Then she tugged them behind her to the lock where she turned diem over to the waiting med-techs. The goodstransporter's hold was filled with floating, jostling sacks while Channa and the med-tech chief stood in the lock, checking their sensors for heart-beats.

"Guess we got them all," !Tez Kle said. "But I don't think we can save them all. We left those we were certain we couldn't help," he said apologetically.

"Nothing else you could do," Channa told him. "We don't have time for anything else. Go," she said, and slapped his shoulder, "I've got a tug outside." She sealed the end of the caterpillar lock behind him and waited impatiently for the pilot to retract it "Damn, I wish we could have gotten to the bridge."

"You and Patsy give it a try," Simeon answered. "Every bit of data wUl help, but we're cutting it a little close. I'm positioning tugs to push that wreck away from the station and soon"

Channa looked up sharply. "It's still a danger to you?"

"Nothing this brain can't handle," Simeon said blithely. "You do what you can, brawn."

She looked down at the notescreen tethered at her waist, studying the map of the ship's interior which she had managed to acquire from its own data banks, archaic as they were.

"I'll try through here," she said, struggling with the toggles of the hatch. "It'dbe the more direct route, if it's open. If it isn't, I'll rendezvous with Patsy immediately."

***

"I need some people for tug and detonations work," Simeon announced. "It's going to be dicey."

The assembly room beneath the-south-polar docking bay was full of second-wave volunteers, those not needed or qualified for the emergency medical work. Every single one stepped forward. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Simeon found time for a grim internal smile. That old line's worked its challenge since GOgamesh, he thought, proving that even the oldest books on military psychology were right. People were very reluctant to appear frightened in front of others, especially their friends. He called the roll of those he needed. They were already suited up, helmets under their arms. Gus, of course, and six of the more experienced tug pilots, with six of the mining explosives experts who had been taking R & R on the SSS. "Thank you and I thank all the rest of you, too."

As soon as the room emptied of all but the participants, he began the briefing with the truth.

"That ship is going to blow. The engines, by the sound of them, are critically unbalanced, redlining far off scale. We've got the survivors off her. But we've got to get her far enough from the station so that when she goes, she won't take us with her. That's not the only problem. We've got to be sure she'll break into the smallest possible fragments and that they are thrown in a favorable dispersal pattern."

The explosives men grinned at each other. "Easiest thing in the workl, Simeon," their spokesman said with a rakish smile. "If you know what you're doing."

"We do," one of the others said, thumping the spokesman jovially on the back. The man didn't so much as rock on his toes.

"That's good to know, guys! Can you tug pilots match their skill by redlining your engines a little to putt her as far away from us as you can?" i "Hell, Simeon," Gus said, "you oughta know we'd have no trouble doing that little thing for you."

Til be monitqring and should be able to give you fair warning to get yburselves clear." He paused a moment, anxious despite their obvious disregard for the inherent danger^. "Have 1 made the situation clear?"

Gus grinned. "Couldn't be clearer, station man," he said, giving his broad shoulders a preparatory twitch in response to the challenge. "And we don't have much time for further chatter!"

Another voice broke in: Patsy's. Simeon keyed her visual transmission to one of the ready-room screens; she was back in the control seat of her tug.

"My, ain't the machismo level high around here? You got one tug already in place, Simeon — mine. Count me in, too."

Gus winced. "Look, Patsy, we're in very deep, ah —"

"Very deep shit," she finished, grinning at him. "Ah know the words, Gus."

Everybody laughed. Simeon looked them over and stifled a wave of bitter longing. A military commander of any stature led his troops from the front, not from an impervious titanium column. Don't worry, if they fail you'll be the only one left to say what happened, thanks to thai sametitanium column. Ifyoucan buewithyowconseience, thatis.

"I'll keep my eye on the coils and give you enough warning to peel oS," Simeon promised.

Almost simultaneously, helmets covered the faces of this small band of heroes.

"This is taking more time than it's worth," Channa said in disgust, giving the control panel a final thump with her fist. The door valved open, "Damn! And I thought that was a station legend," she said. "Does it work for you, Simeon?"

"Having a servo whack me with a wrench to make me work properly?" he asked. "No, not often. The bridge ought to be right down there. And hurry"

"How are we handling the demolition?" she asked him, stepping through the half-open door and trotting down the darkened way, her helmet light fanning ahead. Mercifully, no bodies floated about this section.

"I've got a team rigging explosives all around the ship to blow it to," he paused, his own nerves making him play the down, "smithereens. Real, genuine, nonstation piercing smithereens. It would be disgraceful, utterly disgraceful, to get holed by flying debris after surviving this morning, don't you think? Ah, the tug volunteers are in place, ready to grapple. Ah! They've broken her out of orbital inertia."

Movement was not obvious this far in the bowels of the dying ship. "Who's in charge of the team?" Channa asked.

"Gus."

"Patsy said he was a good pilot," Channa commented. "Soon as I finish here, I'll join her. Is she still standing by at the hatch?"

"She is, to pick you up and bring you straight back to the station with any information you discover."

"I can scan the info back to you, Sim-mate, but first I have to find it, you know.1* She stumbled over some jumble piled in the corridor and recovered herself.

"You and Patsy getsfra^jAi back here. I can't have my brawn risking her neck when..."

"Simeon," she said reasonably, "brawns are supposed to risk their necks far their brains. And if you, the station, are at risk, / am required to reduce that risk any way possible. This time I can do it by helping tug the risk away from here. Have I made myself clear on this point?"

"I don't like it," Simeon said in a disgruntled mumble. "Foolish risk."

"Thank you for your input, but Simeon..."

"Yeah?"

"Don't you ever try to forbid me to do the job I'm here to do. You got that?"

"Right in the forehead, sweetheart"

"Not quite where I was aiming, but it'll do," Channa said.

"If you get thronghte the bridge of that ship, can I ask you for a download?" Simeon said plaintively.

"Why else1 am I penetrating this about-to-blow-up wreck?" Channa said. "Patsy, you read me?"

"Welcome to the pahty, Channa," came Patsy's cheerful wice.

"You don't mind my crashing?"

Patsy laughed. "Watch yoah choice of words, girl."

"I just noticed something," Channa said, slowing her pace.

"What?"

"Paper. What's all tiuspaper doing around?" There were sheets of it drifting down the corridor and sticking with static attraction to the rubbery walls.

"This lumbering hulk must be filled with gear so ancient it's exotic," Simeon said.

"Paper storage?" she said dubiously.

"Maybe they regressed."

"Could it originally have been piloted by a shellperson?" Channa asked, suddenly jumping to some conclusions mat ought to have been more obvious to both herself and Simeon. Ifshegottheedgeonhimonthisone...

"Highly unlikely," Simeon said patronizingly. "B & B ships weren't that common then. All of these little backof-beyond colonies were literally a shot in the dark, too risky to expend us on. C'mon, forward is to your right, one more passage to reach that control room."

"Aye, sir," she said. She worked her way forward, past leaking pipes and the occasionally sparking control boxes, ruptured by the overloads of the catastrophic deceleration.

"Paper," Channa said in wonder, wishing she could touch the valuable substance with her bare hands.

"And books! At least I think that's what I saw when you glanced into that corner. Nor further right. Yes! Books!"

"No time for browsing now," Channa said firmly.

"Right," he said. "Antiquarian refjex, sorry."

"Ah, I am now at the control room," she said.

It was large and circular; most of the consoles were under shrink-shrouds of plastic that looked rigid with age. Raw, hasty jury-rigs had restored a few panels to functionality. She had to duck under festoons of cable which were draped to and fro with no noticeable pattern. In the dimming light, she saw jury-rigged control boxes taped to consoles. The whole bridge seemed to have been reconstructed with mad abandon.

"Ghu! They flew this thing?" Simeon exclaimed. They must have been crazy, he thought and cocked a weather-ear to the sound from the engine. "The log," Simeon reminded her. "Though I'm inclined to doubt that this outfit has anything that fancy. Strip the data bank, too. We want any information we can get,"

"You tell me how to retrieve information from this archaic mess and you've got it," she answered, peering from workstation to workstation, trying to figure which one might access the main banks.

"I've got to go a long way back in my own files to find something comparable," he said. "There're only three centuries of buggering-up to decode but... ah, try the second console to your right. About the only one they hadn't been trying to use."

She drew the information feedline out of her glove and pressed it over the inductor surface. The screen beside it clicked to life and began flowing with a spaghetti-complex web of symbols.

"Oh, my oh my," Simeon muttered.

"Problems, Sim?"

"Nothing oT Simeon can't handle," he said. "But the code is old. I don't have anything that esoteric on file. Nothing I can't eventually decipher."

"Don't let your modesty run away with you," she muttered, looking down at her wrist chrono. Plenty of time, she thought ITwpe?

"I'm just cracking the interface and downloading it to decode at leisure," Simeon replied. "Don't get your tits in a tizzy."

"What did you say?", "Old slang," he replied blandly.

"Another antiquarian reflex, no doubt," she said archly.