NICK

Nick Succorso rubbed the scars on his face as if they were tight with old pain and waited for Billingate Operations to assign him a berth.

Where he was told to dock would hint at where he stood with the Bill.

He knew perfectly well that he was pushing the Bill into a difficult position. The Amnion warships—Tranquil Hegemony and now Calm Horizons, looming out of deep space—had certainly been in communication with Thanatos Minor, transmitting their requirements. Also certainly, those requirements weren’t to Nick’s benefit. And the Bill had to take them seriously. He lived here on sufferance: his hosts could revoke his whole economic existence whenever they wished. In addition, two Amnion warships represented enough firepower to root him out of his rock like a rat out of a hole.

And then there was the question of selling human beings to forbidden space. The Bill had no moral, or even visceral, qualms about such things: that was sure. Nevertheless he was equally sure to have pragmatic qualms. If Thanatos Minor became known as a place where men and women were lost to the Amnion, Billingate would lose traffic. Fewer ships would come; fewer repairs would be done; fewer goods would be sold.

He wouldn’t thank Nick Succorso for bringing problems like that down on his head.

On the other hand, Nick had credit for the repairs he needed; and providing such repairs brought in much of Billingate’s wealth. And the ships which came for repair were the same vessels which brought the resources and information the Amnion craved. Any ship the Bill turned away would have a double impact on his profits.

Also the circumstances surrounding the sale of Morn and her damnable brat were unique. In this situation, the Bill might believe that he could cooperate with Nick—perhaps secretly, perhaps passively—without risking too much damage.

He wouldn’t thank Nick for coming to him now, like this. But he might conceivably do the work Nick needed from him.

The first indication of his leanings would come when Operations assigned a berth. A visitor’s dock or a place in the shipyard? If the Bill treated Captain’s Fancy like a visitor, Nick’s troubles were just beginning.

As if Morn hadn’t already done him enough harm—

He still had no idea how she’d escaped from her cabin to reprogram that ejection pod. The maintenance computer reported that the lock on her door worked fine. His crew volunteered nothing. Someone had betrayed him, but he didn’t know who—or why.

“Damn them all to hell and shit,” he muttered. “What the fuck’s taking so long?”

Mikka Vasaczk and her watch had the bridge while Captain’s Fancy coasted toward the rock. Sib Mackern sat at the data station because he and Alba Parmute were sharing the work of three people; but Scorz was a competent replacement for Lind on communications, Ransum could manage helm despite her jittery hands, and Karster was safe enough at targ. The scan second, Arkenhill, was no substitute for Carmel—who was?—and this close to Thanatos Minor, as well as to two Amnion warships, scan was critical; but Mikka was watching everything that came in through Arkenhill’s board almost as carefully as Nick himself did.

In any case, Captain’s Fancy was moving too slowly to survive a fight. She might inflict damage, but she would be destroyed nonetheless.

While his ship glided along her approach trajectory toward Billingate, Nick paced the bridge and studied the screens and fretted as if he had worms gnawing inside him. The electricity, the combative frisson, which usually filled his nerves like eagerness when death and ruin threatened him, was gone. The knowledge that he could beat anybody had been replaced by the fear that Morn had dug a hole too deep for him to climb out of.

There was no question about it: he should have ripped out her female organs when he first heard she was pregnant, instead of taking her to Enablement to have her brat.

He shouldn’t be stewing about that now, of course. The past was the past: men who looked back got shot by what was in front of them. Until now, the only regret of his life was that he’d ever trusted anyone enough to let that woman scar him. Unfortunately his acid longing to take back the mistakes he’d made with Morn refused to recognize its own futility. Instead it gnawed inside him like cramps, hindering his strength, restricting his energies.

She was so beautiful—Sex with her was the closest he’d ever come to healing his scars. And every bit of it was a lie. Like the first time, with the woman who’d cut him. The welcoming spread of Morn’s legs had been a steel trap, open to shear off his manhood, his ability to beat impossible odds; gaping to amputate the part of him that never lost.

What she’d done to him made his heart hurt as if she’d laid her knife there instead of on his cheeks.

What the fuck’s taking them so long?

“It’s not a simple question for them,” Mikka answered unnecessarily. “They have to figure out whose side they’re on. Probably they’ve never had to do that before.”

For the first time since he’d known his second, her habitual scowl didn’t look merely closed, defended. Instead it conveyed criticism; even hostility. It gave the impression that she no longer trusted him—him, Nick Succorso, who had once been as unquestionable to her as the orbits of the stars.

Morn had cost him that as well.

“This may come as a surprise to you,” he snarled from the burning depths of his regret, “but I knew that already.”

Mikka shrugged stolidly.

“Whatever they’re talking about,” Scorz reported in an abstract tone, “they’re beaming it too tight for us to hear. There’s some residual buzz, but I can’t pick up anything else.”

Struggling to put Mikka and Morn and regret out of his mind, Nick muttered as if he didn’t know he was repeating himself, “Damn them all to hell and shit.”

Operations continued to transmit routine traffic information, trajectory confirmation, station protocols; nothing else.

He paced the bridge and tried to think.

At some point he would have to resume his air of superiority and confidence; fake it if he couldn’t actually feel it. His dread and regret were infectious: the more uncertain he felt, the more his people would doubt him. Mikka wasn’t the only one—although she was the worst, because she was the most capable; because he’d trusted her the most. Sib Mackern seemed to flinch whenever Nick caught his eye. And Ransum’s nervousness was spreading. Normally confined to her hands, it now affected the way she turned her head; it made her shuffle her feet as if she felt an unconscious desire to run.

Already three people on the bridge distrusted Nick enough to be unreliable.

Who else felt that way? Maybe no one except Vector Shaheed. And Vector’s attitude was predictable: he had reason to think Nick was going to kill him. Hell, the phlegmatic shit deserved to be killed. He’d ignored an order. Maybe the infection hadn’t spread any farther yet.

But it was going to spread. It would certainly catch Pup. The kid was Mikka’s brother. And he admired Vector.

And the rest of the crew would be exposed to the same illness as soon as they felt Nick’s vulnerability and realized that the center of their lives might not hold much longer.

Groping for clues—for ways to pull himself out of his stew—maybe for hope—Nick stopped at the scan station and asked harshly, “Where did they take that damn pod?”

“Cargo berth,” Arkenhill answered promptly without lifting his gaze from his board. He may have been trying to prove that he was as capable as Carmel. “I guess they’re planning to keep the pod. The ship docked a couple of minutes ago. You want to know which berth?”

“No.” Nick had only one reason for caring what happened to Davies Hyland. “I want id on the ship.”

“That’s easy. We’ve got traffic data.” As a precaution against accidents, Operations transmitted information on all ships and movements in Billingate’s control space. Arkenhill hit keys, consulted his readouts. “She calls herself Soar. Captain Sorus Chatelaine. Port of registry, Terminus.”

“She’s a ways from home,” Mikka observed dryly. Terminus was farther from forbidden space than any other human station—at least a hundred light-years farther than Earth.

Nick turned to Sib Mackern. “What does data say about her?”

Sweat and lack of sleep made Mackern’s pale mustache stand out and his eyes recede. His hands faltered as he worked his board. After a moment he reported, “Nothing, Nick. We’ve never heard of her before.”

Involuntarily Nick’s fingers curled into fists. Sib sounded like a weakling—and Nick despised weaklings. He had to stifle an impulse to hit the data second.

“Cross-reference it,” he snapped. “Name, captain, registry, id codes. Give me a real answer.”

Among illegal ships, there was often a considerable discrepancy between public and private id. Ships and captains could change their names as often as they liked. But they couldn’t change their registrations—or the id codes embedded in their datacores. Not without swapping out the datacores themselves.

Even that was possible, of course. But then there would be other kinds of discrepancies—

“Do it by configuration, too,” Mikka added for him. “Try their emission signature or anything else scan picked up on them.”

Now it was his second that Nick wanted to hit. Not because she was wrong, but because she helped him when he shouldn’t have needed it; because he did need it. His brain wasn’t working, and he hated that more than he despised weaklings.

Morn, you goddamn bitch, what have you done to me?

Who betrayed me for you? Who let you out?

“Here it comes,” Scorz put in abruptly. “Final approach and docking instructions.”

Nick held his breath while the communications second relayed the details to command and helm.

She was being treated like a visitor. A ship without cargo. A fugitive. An illegal in search of recreation. Or a dealer in information.

Certainly not as a ship that needed—and could pay for—massive work on her gap drive.

Cursing explosively, Nick strode to Scorz’ station. “Give me a channel!”

Scorz tightened the receiver in his ear, tapped keys. Almost immediately he said, “Stand by for Captain Succorso,” and leaned away from his pickup to give Nick room.

“Operations!” Nick snapped. “This is Captain Succorso. Who’s garbling your reception? Didn’t you hear me say I need repair? Didn’t you get my credit confirmation? I want a berth in the shipyard!”

“Captain Succorso.” The reply which came over bridge audio was laconic; insufferably unconcerned. “Our reception isn’t garbled. And we aren’t deaf. We just don’t like ships that come in chased by angry Amnion. You’re lucky we’re letting you dock at all. But the Bill wants to talk to you.” A pause. “He wants to confirm your credit in person.”

All at once Nick’s dread became as heavy as a blow to the stomach. For a second or two he felt that he couldn’t breathe; that his voice would crack like a kid’s if he tried to talk.

He couldn’t wait for the shock to pass, however. Half coughing, he rasped, “Make sense, Operations. This is a goddamn credit-jack,” coded to be read by a computer, “not a physical transfer. He won’t learn anything by looking at it.

“I need repairs. I can pay for them. Dock me in the shipyard!”

Operations forced him to wait for an answer. When it came, the voice from the speakers seemed to be laughing secretly.

“Apparently that credit-jack has been revoked.”

“You sonofabitch!” Nick hunched over the pickup, trying to drive his anger into the face of the man he couldn’t see. “It can’t be revoked. It’s money! You can’t revoke money!”

The radio voice permitted itself an audible chuckle. “Try telling that to the Amnion warship behind you.”

With a definitive click, Operations cut transmission.

An unnatural silence filled the bridge, as if the air-scrubbers and servos had shut down.

Karster usually kept his questions to himself. Perhaps to compensate for the fact that he looked as unformed as a boy, he tried to act like he already understood everything. He couldn’t stand the silence, however.

“Confirm it in person?” he asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Mikka replied as if she were suddenly tired, “the Bill wants to know what’s going on before he makes up his mind about us.”

Nick wheeled on the command second. If she kept this up, he was certainly going to hit her. “You said it yourself,” he snarled. “It’s not that simple. He’s got fucking Morn’s fucking brat.”

The Bill wanted to know what was going on so that he could milk the situation for all it was worth. And so that he could get even with Nick for bringing him this kind of trouble.

Nick had promised Davies to the Amnion.

Trying to demonstrate that he’d never intended to break his bargains with them—as well as to conceal the true nature of his dishonesty toward them—he’d also promised them Morn.

But the Bill had Davies. If Nick’s credit-jack had been revoked, he had nothing with which to buy the brat back.

Except Morn.

He’d come to a place where he had to cheat somebody—and whoever he cheated would kill him for it.

Unless—

The idea hit him like a bolt of his old lightning, the electricity which kept him and everything he valued alive.

—unless he cheated the cops instead.

Hashi Lebwohl had assigned him to undermine Billingate, do the shipyard potentially permanent harm. And the DA director had told him how to do it. A dangerous gamble: the kind Nick specialized in. That Lebwohl was willing to take such risks had impressed Nick in spite of himself.

It was a risk which could be turned against Lebwohl and the entire fucking UMCP.

Would they respond to his last message? He didn’t know. Maybe not. But if they did, so much the better. They were much more of a threat to Thanatos Minor and the Amnion than to Nick himself. As far as they were concerned, Morn was the only excuse he needed for whatever he did. He could always say he was trying to rescue her.

And if they didn’t respond, they couldn’t interfere.

The consequences would be incalculable, of course. But that wasn’t Nick’s problem. Let Lebwohl clean it up. Or Dios himself. They deserved it.

In the meantime it just might work.

For a moment he simply stood still, tasting his own resources, letting the bolt’s charge bring him back to himself. Then he turned away from Mikka as if her doubts no longer mattered.

“Arkenhill,” he asked with a semblance of his old relaxed, deadly insouciance, “how far back are those warships?”

The scan second had this information at his fingertips. “Tranquil Hegemony is about half an hour. She burned for a while after we passed her—after the pod changed course. Closed most of the distance. But she’s down to our speed now—normal approach velocity for Billingate.” To show that the hostility of her intentions wasn’t aimed at the shipyard.

“Calm Horizons has been coming up on us as fast as a lumbering tub like that can and still leave room to decelerate. In fact, she cut it a lot finer than we did.” Which she could do because she was Amnion—and because she’d been moving much slower than Captain’s Fancy’s imponderable .9C. “She should be in dock”—Arkenhill checked a screen—“call it eight hours from now.”

Nick shook his head. “They won’t come all the way in. They’re going to hang off in prime range for that damn super-light proton beam, just to remind us—and the Bill—we can’t hope to cross them and live.

“So,” he continued as if he were thinking aloud, “I’ll have a little more than half an hour to talk to the Bill before Tranquil Hegemony arrives. And I can stall for four or five hours after that—until Calm Horizons is in position to support Tranquil Hegemony.

“By then I’d better be ready to get us out of this mess. One way or another.”

He scanned the bridge. No one disagreed with him—and no one except Mikka and Ransum met his gaze. The helm second’s face conveyed nothing more profound than worry and tension. However, Mikka’s expression was dour and defiant, almost openly skeptical. Minute by minute she allowed more of her distrust to show.

“Scorz,” Nick said over his shoulder, approximating a poised casualness he still didn’t feel, “call me when we’re ten minutes out of dock. I’ll be in my cabin.”

Getting ready.

Then he moved to the command station and leaned close to Mikka’s ear. Maybe she was the one who’d betrayed him. Ignoring the way she pulled her head back as if she didn’t want him to touch her, didn’t want to feel his breath on her cheek, he murmured intimately, “I’m going to do my job. You do yours. But the next time you look at me like that, you’d better be prepared to back it up.”

Leaving that threat behind him, he walked off the bridge.

When Captain’s Fancy docked, he was waiting in the access passage of her airlock as if he were eager.

He tried to believe that he’d recovered his sure genius for victory: to some extent he succeeded. Yet his new energy felt as artificial as the resources Morn’s zone implant gave her.

Why were the Amnion so bloody determined to get their hands on her brat? What did he represent to them? Was he just an excuse—a way to unmask Nick’s real treachery? Or did Davies have some value Nick hadn’t guessed?

Because he couldn’t answer questions like that, he couldn’t gauge his own position accurately—or the Bill’s. How much did the Bill have to gain by pleasing the Amnion in this situation? How much did he stand to lose by refusing to help Nick?

The sensation that Morn had done him more damage than he could sustain continued to gnaw deep in his guts despite his efforts to believe he was ready.

“Dock in two minutes,” Scorz announced over the intercom. “Secure to disengage spin.”

Nick was ready for that, at least. With his hands on the zero-g grips, he waited for the transition between Captain’s Fancy’s internal spin and Thanatos Minor’s pull.

The rock’s gravitic field was roughly .8g. In itself, Thanatos Minor lacked the mass to produce so much gravity. However, one of the curious side effects of the kind of fusion generator which powered Billingate was an increase in the planetoid’s effective density. It had almost enough g to be comfortable.

As Nick’s boots began to drift from the deck, imitating freefall, Scorz said unnecessarily, “One minute.”

Nick clenched his teeth against his visceral distrust of dock. He was illegal: his survival depended on movement—Captain’s Fancy’s as well as his own. Even when he was safe, he disliked surrendering his ship to the clamped paralysis of a berth. But now he was faced with the very real possibility that he and his ship would never move freely again.

Then the hull relayed a jolt of impact. Transmitted through the bulkheads, the sound of the grapples and limpets carried clearly across the ship. From Billingate’s lock came the hiss of air-lines. As if they were magnetized, Nick’s boots pulled him toward the new floor.

“Dock secure, Nick.” This time the voice over the intercom was Mikka’s. “We’re switching to installation power now.” Familiar with every hum and glow of his ship, he noticed the nearly subliminal flicker of the lights as the current changed. “Shall we keep drive on standby?”

Damn her. That was something else he should have thought of for himself. Resisting an impulse to snarl, he answered, “Good idea. Let’s act like we expect to be assigned a shipyard berth almost immediately.” Then he added, “Lock up behind me. Nobody goes in or out until I get back.”

“Right,” she acknowledged.

At the control panel, Nick checked the airlock, then hit the sequence to open the doors. His hands did everything abruptly, as if he were eager—or afraid.

As soon as he entered the lock and closed the doors, an indicator told him that Mikka had sealed the ship.

Reaching to key the outer door, he heard Sib Mackern over the intercom. “Nick?”

Nick thumbed the toggle. “What?”

“I’ve got alternative id on Soar. The ship that picked up Davies. It’s tentative—you might call it hypothetical—but I thought you would want to know.”

Nick dismissed the suggestion. “Tell me later. I haven’t got time now.” He was in a hurry. The timer was running on his last half hour before the Amnion arrived and began throwing their weight around.

He silenced the intercom; opened Captain’s Fancy’s outer door.

It was like being back on Enablement. Billingate’s airlock stood open, admitting him to the scan field passage which would search him for weapons or contaminants. And at the end of the passage, two guards waited. The only significant difference was that these guards were purportedly human—and they already had their guns trained on him.

Both of them looked like their doctors had forgotten—or never known—the distinction between bio-prosthetic and bio-retributive surgery.

Nick was accustomed to such sights, but they still filled him with contempt. Any man who couldn’t shoot straight unless his gun was built into his arm, or couldn’t decide when to shoot unless Operations radioed orders directly into his brain, was something less than human, no matter how much he thought he’d been enhanced. But the doctors hadn’t stopped there. In addition to prosthetic firearms and transmitters, both guards had optical monitors where one or the other of their eyes should have been. They were machines, nothing more: pieces of equipment pretending to be human. For recreation, Nick thought mordantly, they probably stuck their fingers in power receptacles.

“Captain Succorso?” one of them asked as if his vocal cords had been replaced by a speaker.

Nick grinned maliciously. “Who were you expecting? Warden Dios?” Striding between the guards, he said, “I’m going to see the Bill. Be good boys and stay here. Make sure nobody steals my ship.”

He knew the way; but the guards didn’t let him find it for himself. After a momentary hesitation while they listened to orders from Operations, they came after him, bounding against the rock’s g until they caught up with him. One at each shoulder, they steered him along the access passages into the reception area for the visitor’s docks.

In Reception they passed more guards, as well as data terminals which would have enabled Nick to secure lodgings, establish local credit, hire women off the cruise, or prepare id verification through finger- or voice-print. He had no interest in those amenities, however. Moving at a pace that made him bounce from stride to stride, he half led, half accompanied his escort toward the nearest lift which ran down into the core of the rock; to the depths where the Bill had hived his lair.

Down there, a thousand meters of stone, concrete, and steel kept the Bill and his profits safe from any attack short of a prolonged super-light proton barrage. Calm Horizons and Tranquil Hegemony could probably dig him out, but only by blazing away at Thanatos Minor until the entire surface was slagged and the reactor in the heart of the rock reached meltdown temperatures.

The Bill may have been as larcenous and uncaring as a billy goat, but he was smart enough to be afraid. Otherwise he wouldn’t live down here—and Nick’s credit-jack would be good.

The ride down in the lift made Nick wish he carried a transmitter that could reach Captain’s Fancy. But here even the kind of nerve beepers he used routinely in places like Com-Mine Station were worse than useless: they didn’t function, but they did arouse suspicion.

On either side, the guards kept their guns aimed at his ribs as if they expected him to do something crazy at any moment.

“So how’s business?” he asked as if he wanted to start a conversation. “Do you clowns get enough activity around here to keep you from dying of boredom?”

One of the guards smiled to show that he had no teeth: they’d been rotted away by nic or hype. The other remarked, “As long as we think we might get to shoot you, we’re happy.”

Nick shrugged. “Sorry to disappoint you. You can’t shoot me now—the Bill wants to talk to me. And once we do that he’ll realize that keeping me alive is more important than you are.”

“You have to pay him first,” the guard with no teeth chuckled, “and you ain’t got no credit.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Nick sneered cheerfully, trying to diffuse the tension which tightened around his chest as the car descended. “Some things are more valuable than credit—although a BR like you probably can’t understand that.”

“What do you think?” the second guard asked the first. “I think he’s trying to insult us.”

“Don’t think,” Nick advised. “You’ll get confused.”

Involuntarily, despite his air of confidence, he held his breath as the lift sighed to a stop.

Another access passage. More guards. Nick hardly noticed them. The mass of rock piled above him had never felt so heavy. It seemed to lean down on him, making his shoulders sag and his step falter in spite of the light g. Until his jaws began to ache, he didn’t realize that he was grinding his teeth.

He needed energy now; needed his wits and his superiority. The problems he’d left behind aboard Captain’s Fancy could be ignored temporarily. Another victory or two would restore his crew’s confidence in him. Eventually he would discover who had betrayed him. But the problems ahead could kill him in a matter of minutes. If he didn’t measure up to his reputation, he was finished now.

Do you think I’m done with you, Morn? he asked the echoing corridor. Do you think I’ve finished hurting you? You’re out of your mind. I haven’t started yet.

That came first, before he tried betraying the cops.

Straightening his shoulders, he walked the last meters to the strongroom which served as the Bill’s personal command center, and grinned sardonically at the door guard.

Unlike Nick’s escort, this individual cradled his beam gun in his hands. He didn’t appear normal, however. Except for his mouth, most of his face had been covered or replaced by scanning equipment. Red and amber lights winked cryptically at his temples. The Bill didn’t entrust his own security to the bugeyes—the optical monitors and listening devices—which scrutinized and reported on all the rest of Billingate.

On the wall over the door was a sign that read:

I’M THE BILL YOU OWE. IF YOU DON’T PAY ME, YOU DON’T LEAVE.

Apparently none of the guards needed to announce Nick aloud. Their transmitters did the job inaudibly. After a moment’s consultation, the scan-guard keyed the door and admitted Nick to the strongroom.

His escort stayed behind. He did his best to saunter inside without them like a man who owed nothing.

The room was large enough to be a cargo hold. The Bill liked to have space about him, perhaps to counteract the claustrophobic depth of his covert. The flat surrounding walls were featureless, however. In fact, they were barely lit. Most of the illumination came from a set of ceiling spots which focused down on the Bill himself.

If recent events disturbed him, he didn’t show it. Alone in his command center, he stood encircled by a neat ring of computer stations, gleaming under the spots: boards, terminals, screens, and readouts which, presumably, kept him in contact with every part of Billingate. The grotesque length of his head was mimicked by the rest of his body: he was insatiably thin. Stark in the light, he looked hungry enough to suck the marrow from Nick’s bones. Shadows filled the hollows of his cheeks. Arms like sticks supported hands with fingers as sharp and narrow as styluses. Under his dirty hair and glittering eyes, his lipless smile exposed his keen, crooked teeth.

As if in welcome, he spread his arms. “Captain Nick,” he said in his incongruously boyish voice. “How nice to see you. You haven’t been away all that long—not as long as some—but it’s always a pleasure when you visit.

“I gather you’ve led an interesting life recently. It isn’t every day that you arrive here escorted”—he relished the irony of the word—“by Amnion defensives. You must tell me all about it sometime.

“But not now,” he added quickly, like a solicitous host. “I know how busy you must be. For the present, tell me how I can serve you. Somewhere here, we have”—he made a gesture which seemed to encompass the galaxy—“everything you can pay for.”

Nick was in no mood for blather. Nevertheless his ship—as well as his life—depended on his ability to match the Bill. Deliberately casual, he remarked, “That depends on how much money I’ve got. I have a credit-jack”—Nick named the sum—“but Operations tells me you won’t honor it. That limits my options.”

“‘Won’t,’ Captain Nick?” the Bill put in promptly. “Surely Operations didn’t say ‘won’t’?”

Nick tried to grin with his old, dangerous amusement. “Maybe I’ve missed something. I requested a shipyard berth. They docked me with the visitors.” A little of his anger leaked into his voice, but he kept it quiet. “And they told me my credit-jack has been revoked. Doesn’t that mean ‘won’t’?”

“Not at all, not at all.” Whenever the Bill moved his head, the light made his face look like it was being eaten by shadows. “It simply means the situation has become delicate. The ‘issuing authority’ of that credit-jack has ‘instructed’ us not to honor it.” Apparently the Bill enjoyed euphemisms. “This is not strictly—shall we say, not strictly legal? If it were, no one would ever pay me for anything. Men in your position—not you, of course, Captain Nick, certainly not, but men with fewer scruples—would give me credit for goods or services, and then after they were gone they would simply ‘revoke’ my remuneration.

“I don’t do business that way. I’m the Bill you owe, Captain Nick.” Behind his light, enthusiastic tone, he was fatally serious. “That means I get paid first—and I make sure the money is good before I accept it. If I accept your credit-jack, you can be certain the Amnion will honor it.”

“Fine,” Nick said, “good.” His poise was fraying. He would have loved to hit the Bill a few times and hear those thin bones snap. “How do we get there from here? I need repairs. I have a credit-jack to pay for them. But you’re suspicious. Now what?”

“Simplicity itself.” The Bill smiled so that his teeth shone. “Ask the Amnion to rescind their instructions. As soon as they inform me that they no longer object to our transactions, your credit will be good, and I’ll provide repairs which will satisfy you completely.”

Without realizing it, Nick had tightened his shoulders, clenched his fists. By an act of will, he uncurled his fingers. But he couldn’t undo the knots in his voice as he said, “I can’t do that. It’s up to you, not me. You have something that belongs to me. It’s something I’ve already promised to them—payment for services rendered. As long as you have that, I can’t satisfy them. And as long as I can’t satisfy them, they’re going to be a threat to all of us. They may decide to just take my property away from you.”

Smoothly the Bill said, “I may decide to ‘just’ give it.”

“And if you do,” Nick countered, “you’ll be cheating me.” He stifled a need to brandish his fists. “I may not look very dangerous right now, but I can do your reputation a lot of damage. Ships will stay away when they hear you’ve started cheating.

“No,” he continued harshly, “the really simple solution is for you to give me what’s mine. I’ll pay your costs, of course—and a salvage fee. Then I can satisfy the Amnion, and we’ll all get what we want in the end.”

The Bill shook his long head. “I’m afraid that’s a little too simple.” Boyish high spirits seemed to bubble in the background as he spoke. “Just as an example of the complexities you’ve neglected—salvage fees depend on the value of the goods salvaged. You’re asking me to surrender those goods, but you haven’t told me what they’re worth.”

Nick swallowed a curse. “They haven’t got any value to me at all. The Amnion want them, I don’t. And I can’t explain the Amnion to you. I don’t know why they think that brat is so precious.” I don’t even know whether it’s really him they want. I don’t know which one of us they were trying to kill in the gap. A bit lamely, he added, “You could ask them to set the fee.”

“My dear Captain Nick,” replied the Bill with cadaverous amusement, “I’ve already done that. They decline to place a value on your ‘property.’ Indeed, they decline to solve any of your problems for you. If I understand them rightly, they insist that the sole, or at least the only relevant, issue here is ‘the mutual satisfaction of requirements.’ They feel that they’ve bargained with you in good faith, and that you’ve cheated them. This they consider intolerable. They insist on restitution, pure and simple.”

Nick clenched his teeth for a moment. Then he took a deep breath, let it out with a sigh, and said as if he were admitting defeat, “So I’m stuck. You won’t return the contents of that ejection pod. And you won’t accept my money. That doesn’t leave me very many options.” Are you ready for this, Morn? It might work. Can you stand it? “I guess I’ll have to offer you something else.”

The Bill beamed. “Naturally I’m interested—although I can’t imagine what you have that would be worth more than money.”

“Try this.” Nick glanced around the dark corners of the strongroom as if to ensure that no one else could hear him. Then he moved closer to the Bill. Billingate’s g made him feel light: what he was about to do made him feel light-headed. When he came up against the nearest of the Bill’s computer stations, he stopped. In a quiet, conspiratorial tone, he said, “I’ll trade you. You give me the kid you found in that pod. I’ll give you a UMCP ensign, complete with id tag.”

The Bill’s face seemed to stretch as if he were feigning surprise.

“She’s a cop—and she’s intact,” Nick articulated softly. “If that were all, she would be worth a fortune out here. The things she can tell you are priceless. But there’s more.

“She’s a cop, she’s intact, she’s gorgeous—and she has a zone implant. The control comes with her.”

The shifting of the shadows on the Bill’s face began to make his surprise appear more genuine.

“Think about it for a minute,” Nick urged. He’d already promised Morn to the Amnion, but that didn’t hinder him. They were after Davies: Morn was just “restitution” for their inconvenience. Nick would be able to find some other way to satisfy that requirement. “Her id tag alone is precious. It’ll give you all the codes the cops use to access their own computers. And you won’t even have to break her to get the rest. All you have to do is turn her on and let her spill everything she knows.

“But here’s the best part.” Are you listening, Morn? “When you’re done with what she knows, she’s still priceless.

“I tell you, she’s gorgeous. And that zone implant makes her the most effective piece of female flesh you’ll ever see. I know from experience. She’ll make every other woman here look like a dry hag. In the end, you might get more for selling her on the cruise than her information and codes are worth.” The idea of selling Morn into sexual slavery almost restored his sense of being sure and unbeatable. “The truth is, she’s a hell of a lot more valuable than that fucking brat. Except to the Amnion, because they don’t fuck women—and they don’t know she’s a cop. But she’s about the only thing I’ve got left to bargain with. For the sake of surviving what you call my ‘escort,’ I’ll trade her for that kid.”

“Interesting.” The Bill twisted his lipless mouth. “A tasty offer—apparently. Of course, I accept your glowing picture of her worth unreservedly. But simply out of curiosity—do the cops know you’ve got one of their ensigns to sell?”

Curiosity, shit. “Sure they do. Her name is Morn Hyland—she came to me off Angus fucking Thermo-pile’s ship after Com-Mine Security arrested him. They probably think she’s still working for them—they don’t know about the zone implant—but that doesn’t mean they haven’t already taken precautions. Some of what she knows is out of date by now. Pieces of her information have been changed. She’s still priceless.”

“Then why,” inquired the Bill, “haven’t you simply sold her to the Amnion and solved all your problems that way?”

“Because”—Nick glared straight into the Bill’s bright gaze—“I don’t want to solve that many of their problems. I’m like you. I do business with them for what I can get out of it, not because I’m trying to help them.”

Remember that. I’m warning you. I’m like you. If you mess with me, I’ll burn your heart out.

The twisting of the Bill’s mouth became a grimace. He looked down at his readouts, tapped a key or two absent-mindedly. Etched by light, he ran his fingertips along the edges of his boards.

When he lifted his head again, he was smiling like a corpse with an orgasm.

“Captain Nick, I don’t trust you. You’re playing some kind of game with me—perhaps the same game you’re playing with the Amnion. Why else did you divert your ejection pod here, instead of letting Tranquil Hegemony have it?”

Before he could stop himself, Nick protested, “Morn did that.”

When he realized his mistake, he swore at himself viciously. How had she done him so much damage? How had she reached so far inside him with the knife of her treachery?

“And you expect me to believe,” the Bill retorted as if he were pouncing, “she did it without your connivance? No, Captain Nick. You planned that with her. Or else the picture you paint of her is decidedly—shall we say, decidedly optimistic? In either case, I can be sure of only one thing. If I trade for her, what I get will not be what you say it is.

“Haven’t you heard the rumors about you, Captain Nick? Don’t you know people think you’re a pirate who supplements his income by doing odd jobs for UMCPDA? Perhaps this entire exercise is an elaborate charade designed to plant your pet ensign on my installation.

“I’m afraid my answer is no.” He sounded as happy as a kid who’d won a game of marbles. “If you can’t pay me, Captain Nick, we really have nothing further to discuss.”

Nick sagged as if he were beaten.

But not because the Bill had refused him.

Oh, the loss he felt was real. So intensely that it made his groin ache, he wanted to force Morn into prostitution on Thanatos Minor. As revenge that would have pleased him more than giving her to the Amnion. It would have fit the way she’d hurt him.

Nevertheless his show of dismay was a ploy. He allowed himself to appear defeated in an effort to conceal the true nature of his desperation.

“All right,” he said like a groan, “all right. I’m helpless here, you know that. If I weren’t, I would see you crawl before I did any more business with you. But I’m stuck. You won’t honor my credit. Without repairs, I can’t run. And you won’t give me that brat you rescued. If I don’t turn him over to the Amnion, they’ll do worse than kill me.” He recited all this in a deliberate display of prostration. The Bill liked to see people prostrated; liked it so much that he might believe it. “You haven’t left me any choice.

“I’ve got one last thing to trade.”

“Ah.” The Bill gave a sigh of expectant gratification. His eyes watched Nick keenly.

“I’ve got—”

Abruptly a light flashed on one of the Bill’s boards, distracting him. He touched a key, glanced at a readout; his long, delicate fingers tapped in instructions.

Listen to me! Nick wanted to shout. You’re right—I sometimes do jobs for Data Acquisition. That’s why I’ve got an immunity drug for Amnion mutagens. Hashi Lebwohl gave it to me. To test for him. That’s why I went to Enablement. To test it. And it works. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here now.

I’ll give you some of it if you give me Davies.

But the words died inside him as the door swept open, and a woman with a slight stiffness in her stride came into the strongroom.

“Captain Nick,” said the Bill with his usual incongruous eagerness, “do you know Sorus Chatelaine? She tells me you haven’t met, but you may recognize her by reputation. It was her ship”—his grin was obscene—“that salvaged your ‘property.’”

The light seemed to contract around Nick. The woman was all he could see as she approached. Baffled by surprise and old terror, he stared and stared at her while she greeted the Bill, then shifted her stance to study him with an air of detached amusement. The stiffness in her limbs suggested that she disliked even the rock’s lesser g.

“As it turns out,” she said in a low, vibrant tone, “I was wrong. Captain Succorso and I have met after all. He was using another name at the time, as I recall. That’s why I didn’t make the connection.”

Sorus Chatelaine, the captain of Soar. He hadn’t made the connection, either, of course he hadn’t, like her ship she’d had another name then. And she was much older now. Lines and tired skin marred the structural handsomeness of her face; the light made the gray in her hair look white. Yet he recognized her instantly, absolutely, as if she’d stepped out of a recurring nightmare.

She was the woman who’d put the scars on his cheeks, the wounds on his soul.

“I see the surprise is mutual,” she added archly, as if he were still only a helpless boy in front of her.

Fear and rage knotted his muscles, twisted his face. An instinct for survival stretched as thin as thread was all that kept him from hurling himself at her throat.

With a confident smile, she dismissed him and returned her attention to the Bill. “You’ve been busy.” Her voice still had the contralto richness which had once wrung Nick’s heart when she made love to him; when she laughed at him. “You may not have had time to pick up the latest bulletins. I wanted to discuss them with you—and Captain Succorso may have something to contribute.” She was laughing at Nick again, secretly but unmistakably.

He couldn’t stop staring at her. His muscles were so tight with strain that he could hardly breathe.

“Your timing is unfortunate,” the Bill chided cheerfully. “Captain Nick was about to make what I’m sure is a most unusual offer. However, that can wait for a moment.” He looked at his readouts. “Which bulletin did you wish to discuss?”

“Operations,” Captain Chatelaine replied promptly, “has just had contact from what appears to be a UMCP ship. A Needle-class gap scout, presumably unarmed—if her id is honest. She calls herself Trumpet. She’s about eighteen hours out, and requesting permission to approach.

“According to her first transmission, she has two men aboard.” Sorus paused for effect, then said, “Angus Thermopyle and Milos Taverner.

“They claim they stole her.”

Nick seemed to feel the air being sucked out of the room. Nailed where he stood by contracting light and too much stress, he feared for a moment that he was going to pass out.