Distant Friends and Other Stories

THE EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN

Omens.

There are men in space today who'll tell you, in all apparent sincerity, that every major star ship disaster is preceded by an omen of one kind or another. I suppose most of those who say that don't really believe it, but I have seen crewers walk off a ship half an hour before launch because they thought a rash of snafus in the countdown checks meant the ship would disappear into a cascade point somewhere in the near future. Superstitious nonsense, of course, and I can prove it-because the day the Aura Dancer lifted for the last time was just as smooth and trouble-free as polished teflene.

I mean that; and for a struggling tramp starmer like the Dancer that's a minor miracle all in itself.

Wilkinson and Sarojis had the cargo stowed away twenty minutes ahead of schedule, Matope ran a complete check of the Dancer's systems without finding a single malfunction that Baroja's overly stuffy tower controllers could frown at; and Matope's success meant Tobbar was available to welcome our handful of passengers aboard, a task which traditionally falls to a ship's captain but which I've almost always successfully avoided. About the only thing that could remotely have been considered a problem was that Alana Keal, my second-in-command, nearly missed the boat.

She buzzed in about fifteen minutes before our scheduled lift, and I do mean buzzed. All the worry and guilt on her face couldn't mask the fact that she'd just been through some very serious celebrating with some old friends and was running a good two points above cruise velocity. "Sorry I'm late, Pall," she apologized with the slight breathlessness of having come from the hatchway to the bridge at a dead run.

"Did you have to drop us in the lift pattern?"

"No, I was going to give you another five minutes before I called the tower, I told her as she slid into her chair.

"They'd have had your head," she said, keying for a systems check. "You're supposed to give them twenty minutes' notice of a delay.

"Life is tough all over," I shrugged, watching her fingers skate over the keys. For a moment I considered telling her all the pre-lift checks had been done, but changed my mind. Alana was the serious type who insisted on pulling her own share of the load, and there was no point making her feel any worse about her tardiness. Not that she was really feeling bad now, but it would eventually catch up with her. "So... how did the Angelwing take the news that they had a new captain?"

She laughed, a sparkling splash of sound we heard all too seldom aboard ship. "The funny thing is that they really do have one. Old Captain Azizi's finally retired, and Lenn Grandy's been promoted."

"Ah." The name was vaguely familiar; one of Alana's fellow junior officers during the year she'd been on the Angelwing. "I presume you compared notes on which of you got the captaincy first?"

"Oh, we tried, but we ran into the usual simultaneity problems. He probably made it first, though."

"Well, I bet you look better in the captain's uniform than he does."

She glanced a smile up at me. "Why, thank you, Pall. Maybe sometime this trip you can stay with me during a cascade point and see for yourself."

She glanced a smile up at me. "Why, thank you, Pall. Maybe sometime this trip you can stay with me during a cascade point and see for yourself."

"They're not clock-watchers-Cunard's just very touchy about keeping their liners on schedule," she protested. But she obediently got to her feet and headed for the door. "Just remember, I've got first cascade point duty in four hours."

"We'll see if you're up to it," I called after her, a line that permitted me to be basically honest while still avoiding an argument. Physically, she'd certainly be up to doing the point by then. But emotionally- Emotionally, she would still be carrying the warm glow of the celebration and the triumph of a "captaincy" which, though purely imaginary, was in another sense very real.

And I had no intention of letting cascade point duty ruin that for her quite so quickly.

Four hours later I was alone on the bridge, and ready for the first cascade point.

The Dancer was quiet. All her sensors and control surfaces had been shut down, all electronics including the computer put into neutral/standby mode. The crewers and passengers were shut down, too, the sleepers Kate Epstein had administered guaranteeing they would all doze blissfully unaware through the point. They were ready, the Dancer was ready; and postponing the inevitable gained nothing for anyone.

Lifting the safety cover, I twisted the field generator knob... and watched as the cascade pattern began to fill up the room.

Someone early in the Colloton Drive's history, I'd once heard, had described the experience as being like that of watching some exotic and rapid-growing crystal, and there'd been times I could see it myself on almost that high of an intellectual level. The first four images that appeared an arm's length away were quickly joined by the next set, perfectly aligned with them, and then by the third and fourth and so on, until I was at the center of an ever-expanding horizontal cross of images.

Images, of course, of me.

Land-bound philosophers and scientists still had lively arguments as to what the effect "really" was and what the images "really" represented, but most of us who saw them regularly had long since come to our own conclusions, minus the fine details. The Colloton Drive puts us into a different kind of space... and somehow it links us through to other realities. The images stretching four ways toward infinity were hints of what I would be doing in each of those universes.

In other words, what my life would be like if each of my major decisions had gone the other way.

I spent a moment looking down the line, focusing on each of the semi-transparent images in turn. Four figures away, conspicuous among the jumpsuits and coveralls on either side of it, was an image of myself in the gold and white of a star liner captain.

I didn't regret the decision I'd made a year earlier that had lost me that universe, but the image still sometimes raised a reflexive lump into my throat. I had the Dancer-my ship, not some bureaucracy's-and I was satisfied with my position... but there was still something siren-song impressive about the idea of being a liner captain.

I didn't regret the decision I'd made a year earlier that had lost me that universe, but the image still sometimes raised a reflexive lump into my throat. I had the Dancer-my ship, not some bureaucracy's-and I was satisfied with my position... but there was still something siren-song impressive about the idea of being a liner captain.

Reaching to the small section of control board that still showed lights, I activated the Dancer's flywheel.

The hum was clearly audible in the silence, and I shifted my gaze to the mirror that showed the long gyroscope needle set into the ceiling above my head. Slowly, as the flywheel built up speed, the needle began to move. The computer printout by my elbow told me the Dancer needed a rotation of three point two degrees to make the four point four light-years we needed for this jump. It was annoying to have to endure a cascade point for such relatively small gain-the distance traveled when we left Colloton space went up rapidly with the size of the yaw angle the ship had rotated through-but there was nothing I could do about it. The configuration of masses, galactic magnetic field, and a dozen other factors meant that the first leg of the Baroja/Earth run was always this short. And it was accounted for in our-as usual-tight schedule. So I just leaned back in my chair, did what I could to ease the induced tension that would turn into a black depression when we returned to normal space, and thought about Alana. Alana, and her phantom captaincy.

It had been on the last cascade point coming in to Baroja that she'd first seen the gold-and-white uniform in her own cascade image pattern, tucked in there among the handful of first- and second-officer dress whites that represented the range of possibilities had she stayed with the Angelwing. She'd caught the significance immediately, and the resulting ego-boost had very nearly gotten her through the point's aftermath without any depression at all. She'd left the liner four years back for reasons she'd apparently never regretted, which put the new image into the realm of pleasant surprise rather than that of missed opportunity. A confirmation of her skills; because had she stayed aboard the liner, she, not Lenn Grandy, would be captain today.

Or so the theory went. None of us who believed it had ever come up with a way to prove it.

The gyro needle was creeping toward the three-degree mark now. Another minute and I'd shut the flywheel down, letting momentum carry the Dancer the rest of the way. A conjugate inversion bilinear conformal mapping something something, the mathematicians called the whole thing: a one-to-one mapping between rotational motion in Colloton space and linear translation in normal space. Theorists loved the whole notion-elegant, they called it. Of course, they never had to suffer the drive's side effects.

But then, neither did most anyone else these days. The Aker-Ming Autotorque had replaced the old-fashioned manual approach to cascade maneuvers aboard every ship that could afford the gadgets.

The Angelwing could do so; the Dancer and I could not. I wondered, with the first hint of cascade point depression, whether Alana would spend her own next point regretting her decision to join up with me.

Three point one degrees. I flipped the gyro off and, for no particular reason, turned my attention back to my cascade pattern.

The ship was still rotating, and so the images were still doing their slow dance, a strange kaleidoscopic thing that moved the different images around within each branch of the cross. A shiver went up my back as I watched: that complex interweaving had saved my life once, but the memory served mainly to remind me of how close I'd come to death on that trip. Automatically, my eyes sought out the pattern's blank spots, those half-dozen gaps where no image existed. In those six possible realities I had died... and I would never know what the decision had been that had doomed me.

The gyro needle had almost stopped. I watched it closely, feeling afresh the sensation of death quietly waiting by my shoulder. If I brought the Dancer out of Colloton space before its rotation had completely stopped, our atoms would wind up spread out over a million kilometers of space.

But the spin lock holding the field switch in place worked with its usual perfection, releasing the switch to my control only when the ship was as close to stationary as made no difference. I flipped the field off and watched my cascade images disappear in reverse order; and then I drew a shuddering breath as my eyes filled with tears and cascade point depression hit like a white-capped breaker, dragging me under. I reactivated the Dancer's systems and, slumping in my seat, settled down to ride out the siege.

By dinnertime two hours later the ship and crew were long back to normal, and the passengers were showing signs of life, as well.

Or at least some of them were. I reached the dining room to find a remarkably small crowd: three of our eight passengers plus Alana, Tobbar, and Matope. They were grouped around one of the two tables, with two seats to spare. "Good evening, all," I said, coming forward.

"Ah-Captain," Alana said, a look of surprise flicking across her face before she could catch it. "I was just explaining that you probably wouldn't be able to make it down here for dinner."

A fair enough assumption, if not entirely true: I usually managed to find a plausible reason to avoid these get-togethers. But a chance comment Tobbar had made when reporting the passengers were all aboard had made me curious, and I'd decided to drop by and see the phenomenon for myself. "I probably won't be able to stay very long," I said aloud to Alana and the table at large. "But I'd hoped at least to be able to personally welcome our passengers aboard." I cocked an eyebrow at Tobbar.

He took the cue. "Captain Pall Durriken, may I present three of our passengers: Mr. Hays Trent, Mr.

Kiln Eiser, and Mr. Rollin Orlandis."

Trent and Eiser were youngish men, with what seemed to be very athletic bodies under their business suits and smiles that somehow didn't reach their eyes. I said hello and turned my attention to Orlandis...

and found that Tobbar had been right.

Orlandis didn't belong on a ship like the Dancer.

That much I got in my first quick glance; but as my brain switched to logic mode to try and back up that intuitive impression, I realized it wasn't nearly as obvious a conclusion as I'd thought. His suit, which had seemed too expensively cut for a tramp starmer passenger, turned out to be merely a small jump above the outfits Trent and Eiser were wearing, not much more than twice what I could afford myself. His ring and watch looked new but ordinary enough; his vaguely amused look no worse than others I'd seen directed the Dancer's way. But something about the man still felt wrong.

I apparently hesitated too long, and the conversational ball was plucked neatly from my hands. "Good evening, Captain Durriken," Orlandis said, giving me an easy, not-quite-condescending smile. His voice was quiet and measured, with the feel of someone used to being listened to. "First Officer Keal has been explaining the ins and outs of the Aura Dancer to us, and I must say it sounds like a fascinating craft.

Would you be able to spare her a bit later in the journey for a guided tour? Say, tomorrow or the next day?"

Would you be able to spare her a bit later in the journey for a guided tour? Say, tomorrow or the next day?"

"I'd prefer Ms. Keal."

For a moment my tongue tangled around itself with confusion. Orlandis hadn't raised his voice, hadn't so much as cocked an eyebrow, but suddenly I felt like a child... or an underling.

And if there was anything guaranteed to pull my control rods it was someone pushing me around who didn't have the right to do so. I was ungluing my tongue to say something approximating that when Alana jumped in. "If you don't mind, Captain," she said, "I have no objections to showing Mr. Orlandis around during my off-duty hours."

I looked away from Orlandis's steady gaze to find Alana staring just as intently at me, a hint of pleading in her expression. Don't anger the passengers. With a supreme effort of will I gave in. "Very well, I said, turning back to Mr. Orlandis. "You and Ms. Keal may make your own arrangements on this. Please bear in mind that her work schedule may need to change on short notice; ships like the Aura Dancer are almost by definition always short of hands to do the necessary work."

He nodded once, a simple acknowledgment without any detectable trace of triumph to it. He was used to being obeyed; pure and simple. "It will be, what, another five days until the next cascade maneuver?"

"About that," I told him, wishing obscurely that I could rattle off the precise time to him, in days, hours, and minutes. "You'll have plenty of warning; don't worry."

"I wasn't. Will the food be much longer?"

I glanced at Tobbar, who had presumably been there when they all submitted their orders. "Another minute or two; no more," he told Orlandis. "Our autochef is getting a bit old and sometimes takes its time filling orders."

"These things happen," Orlandis said equably. "Captain, I don't believe you've ordered yet."

An invitation to an entire evening of cat-eat-mouse sparring? Perhaps; but if it was, I was going to take the coward's way out. "I'm sorry; but as I said, I won't be able to stay," I told him, getting to my feet.

"There's some work on the bridge I need to attend to. Please enjoy your dinner, and I expect I'll be talking with you all again soon."

"Perhaps under more relaxed conditions," Orlandis said. "Good evening, Captain."

I turned, and as I did so the autochef beeped its announcement that dinner was finally ready. Assured that they all had something more interesting than me to occupy their attention, I made my escape.

I went to the bridge, kicked Pascal out-it was his shift, but he had some maintenance work on the computer he wanted to do anyway-and pulled a copy of the cargo manifest. Just for something to do, actually... but when Alana stopped in an hour later I was still studying it. "Dinner over already?" I asked her as she slid into her chair and swiveled it to face me.

"More or less," she said, eying me closely. "Orlandis and Tobbar are going hard at a discussion on governmental theory. I get the impression Orlandis knows a lot about the subject."

"More or less," she said, eying me closely. "Orlandis and Tobbar are going hard at a discussion on governmental theory. I get the impression Orlandis knows a lot about the subject."

I grunted. "You noticed that, did you?"

"Come on, Pall-it's no big deal if I play tour guide for a couple of hours. I've done it before, you know."

"It's the principle of the thing," I told her stiffly. "Passengers don't give a ship's captain orders."

Her eyebrows rose at that. "He never ordered you to let me show him around. You could have said no anywhere along the line."

"After you cut the landing skids out from under me?" I retorted. "Come on, now-I couldn't very well fight both of you."

"And you shouldn't fight with passengers at all," she shot back. "I was trying to give you a dignified way out; if you're hot about that, take it out on me, not him. But bear in mind I was doing you a big favor in there."

"How do you figure that?"

She flashed an impish smile. "He could have asked you to show him around."

I held onto my frown for another second before giving up and grudging her a twisted smile in return. "I can't win anything today, can I?" I muttered, only half joking. "Oh, all right, I owe you one. If Orlandis was bound and determined to cause me trouble he missed his biggest chance."

"I don't think that was what he was up to," she demurred thoughtfully. "I think he's just used to the very best of everything."

"Then the change here should do him good," I snorted.

She gave me a now, now sort of look and waved at the manifest in front of me. "Trouble with the cargo?"

"Not really." I shook my head, glad to have a change of topic. "Just trying to figure out why we've suddenly attracted new customers."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I didn't notice it before, but nearly a quarter of our cargo space is being taken up by four large crates coming from two companies we've never done business with."

She got out of her seat and peered over my shoulder. "Huh. Are we the only ship heading between Baroja and Earth at the moment? If they need to get the cargo there right away that might explain it."

And also explain why someone like Orlandis would stoop to our level? "Maybe, but that seems unlikely.

Didn't you say the Angelwing was even going to Earth this trip?"

"Yes, but by way of Lorraine. They won't arrive until a month after we do."

I sighed. "Well, I suppose it's not impossible. Seems pretty odd, though."

"Maybe I can poke around the question with Orlandis tomorrow," Alana suggested. "He's a businessman; he ought to know about shipping schedules and all."

"What business is he in?"

Her forehead furrowed. "Now that you mention it, I don't think he ever actually said," she told me slowly.

"Though I got the impression it was something important."

"He ought to be on a commercial liner if he's that rich," I grumbled.

"Unless," she said quietly, "he's afraid of people."

I looked up at her, feeling my stomach tighten reflexively. Alana had made practically a second career for herself years back as a mender of bruised spirits and broken wings; had overdosed on the loss and pain that nearly always seemed to come with the job; and was only in the last year or so taking her first tentative steps out from behind the self-erected barriers. If Orlandis was aboard because he was psychologically unable to mingle with the masses of people on a standard liner, then she probably had enough of a challenge to last her the rest of the trip. "Well, if he is he's picked a lousy place to hide," I growled. "Not much real privacy on this albatross."

She touched my shoulder gently. "Don't worry about me," she said. "Orlandis doesn't scare me."

"Um," I said brilliantly, and for a moment we were both silent. Then she took a tired-sounding breath and stepped toward the door.

"I'd better head downstairs and get some sleep," she said. "You ought to do the same, you know-and it is Pascal's shift."

"In a minute," I told her. "Goodnight."

" 'Night."

She left, and with a sigh I called back to the computer room and told Pascal to finish whatever he was doing and get back to the bridge. It wasn't any business of mine if Alana wanted to play emotional counselor on her own time. It wasn't my business whatever she did with her own time. She was all grown up and fully in charge of her life.

Pascal arrived, and I headed down to my cabin. Eventually, I went to sleep.

I spent the next five days walking around on mental tiptoe, waiting for trouble of one type or another to spark between Alana and Orlandis. But all I got for my trouble was the mental equivalent of strained arches. I saw them only once myself as they passed through the engine room, and to all appearances their relationship was running on a strictly proper crewer/passenger level. Certainly Alana was well on top of things; I had ample opportunity to chat with her between our bridge shifts and at occasional meals in the duty mess, and she showed no strain that I could detect.

relationship was running on a strictly proper crewer/passenger level. Certainly Alana was well on top of things; I had ample opportunity to chat with her between our bridge shifts and at occasional meals in the duty mess, and she showed no strain that I could detect.

Meanwhile, with the ship largely running itself, I spent a couple of duty periods trying to make some sense out of the mysterious first-time clients represented so heavily in our cargo holds. But our computer records had limited information on business and financial arcana, and my attempts to trace through parent firms, holding companies, managing directorates, and so forth all ended quickly with zero results.

Eventually, I concluded that word of mouth must have been kinder to the Dancer than I realized. Either that, or we really were the only ship that had been heading straight to Earth.

And then the Dancer came up on its second scheduled cascade maneuver out from Baroja... a maneuver I will never forget as long as I live.

It was Alana's turn to handle the point; and I wasn't yet entirely out of the mind-numbing sleeper state when I pried my eyes open to find her sitting on the edge of my bed, one hand shaking my arm as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Wha's wron'?" I slurred, trying to at least sit up but finding my body in worse shape than even my brain was. "Lana-wha's wron'?"

Her face was filled with horror and pain and hopelessness as she fixed blurry eyes on me-a cascade depression times a thousand. "Oh, Pall," she managed to get out between sobs. "It's gone-the Angelwing is gone. And-and I died with it."

And with that the storm broke again... and she buried her face in my shoulder, sobbing like she would never stop.

I held her close to me for nearly an hour, until her mind and body were simply too exhausted to cry any more. And only then did I finally find out exactly what had happened... and if it wasn't quite as nerve-chilling as her seeing her own death, it was plenty bad enough.

"I'd started the Dancer's rotation," she said, her voice trembling with emotional fatigue and the echoes of her horror. I was watching the cascade images, thinking about Aker-Ming Autotorques and wondering whether I'd trust one even if we had it... and I was looking at the image of me as the Angelwing's captain when it-when it just disappeared. There's nothing there now but another gap."

In my mind's eye I watched it happen... and nearly started crying myself. I'd known people who'd been forced to watch helplessly as a loved one died; had seen the way a trauma like that could make a person a bag of broken glass. And to see it, in effect, happen to yourself...

I tried to find words of comfort to say, but without success. So I just continued to hold her, and after a minute she spoke again. "They are dead, aren't they? All the people aboard the Angelwing?"

"I don't know," I said honestly. "Maybe not. Maybe it just means you would have made some mistake if you'd been in command. I mean-maybe your friend Lenn did something else and the ship's okay."

"I've been trying to think of some way a captain could get killed without the rest of the ship dying, too," she said, still talking into my shoulder. "But the Angelwing's a liner-Cunard liner, yet. It's got failsafes on the failsafes, the best medical facilities you can get-" she said, still talking into my shoulder. "But the Angelwing's a liner-Cunard liner, yet. It's got failsafes on the failsafes, the best medical facilities you can get-"

"I don't think so. It was just... there... like all the others." She took a deep breath and finally pulled away from me. Her face looked terrible, all red eyes and pain. "I guess I'd better get back upstairs. I haven't computed position or-"

"Never mind all that," I told her. "I can do it after we get you in bed and have Kate give you a sedative."

"No, I'm okay." She attempted a smile that didn't even come close and got to her feet. "Really. Thanks for the listening ear."

I stood up, too. "I'll help you to your cabin." She tried to argue, but her heart clearly wasn't up to even that much effort. Five minutes later Kate Epstein was tucking a blanket under her chin and making the soothing sort of sounds doctors traditionally make while waiting for their potions to take effect. I hung around in the background until Alana's eyes began to glaze over, and then headed to the bridge. By the time I'd finished the position check and cleaned up the various odds and ends of the maneuver the rest of the crewers were starting to call in to find out what the hell had happened to Alana. I told the story twice, then just gave up and pulled everyone in on the crew intercom hookup for one final rendition. They were as shocked as I'd been, and equally at a loss as to anything we could do to help her. I got two offers to relieve me on the bridge, turned down both of them, and sent them all back to whatever they'd been doing.

We all sort of limped along at half speed for a couple of days after that. Alana spent the first one alone in her cabin before venturing out to return to duty, claiming she was recovered enough to function as first officer again. I pretended to believe her and juggled her back into the shift schedule... and as I kept a close eye on her, I decided she really was up to it. In retrospect, I suppose, I shouldn't have been all that surprised; anyone who mended other people's traumas for a hobby would have to come equipped with a high degree of emotional toughness.

I wasn't nearly so tough, though; and if I'd thought I was, I found out otherwise when I came off the bridge on the third day to find Orlandis waiting for me on the command deck.

"Good afternoon, Captain," he said smoothly. "I wonder if I might speak to you for a moment."

"Mr. Orlandis," I nodded, staying civil with a supreme effort. "This area is off-limits to passengers."

"Yes, I know. As I said, though, I wanted to have a quiet word with you."

I glanced down the hall. Near the spiral stair leading down to the passenger deck I could see either Eiser or Trent-I couldn't tell which of the two passengers it was-reading the little cartoons Pascal liked to put up by the computer room door. It never failed, I thought with a flash of disgust: let one passenger wander where he wasn't supposed to, and pretty soon you'd find the rest following. Two-legged sheep, the whole lot of them. "We can talk down in the lounge," I told Orlandis shortly.

"Or perhaps as we walk," he said, starting leisurely toward the stairway.

I took two long strides and settled into step beside him, already wondering if there was some legal or at least practical way to block off that stair. "If there's a problem with service or accomodations-"

I took two long strides and settled into step beside him, already wondering if there was some legal or at least practical way to block off that stair. "If there's a problem with service or accomodations-"

My murderous thoughts toward the passengers switched to murderous thoughts toward the crew. The one single order I'd issued on this was that the passengers were not to get even a whiff of what had happened. "I'm not sure what you're referring to," I said carefully. "Ms. Keal had a slightly more traumatic reaction than usual to the cascade point, but she's certainly up and about now."

Facing forward with my eyes locked on Eiser ahead, I could still tell Orlandis was smiling. "Come now, Captain, we don't have to play these games. I assure you anything you tell me will go no further."

A great confidence-builder, if I'd ever heard one. Still, even walking slowly, we were getting within earshot of Eiser, and if one person with a rumor was bad, two would be even worse. "Suppose you tell me what exactly you've heard," I suggested, for lack of a better idea.

"I heard she saw something terrible in her cascade images," Orlandis said. "Something that indicated a ship-possibly even the Aura Dancer-was going to be destroyed."

I groaned inwardly, making a note to personally strangle whoever had let this mangled version slip. "The Aura Dancer is in no danger whatsoever," I told Orlandis. "Another liner may have suffered damage-"

"Or been destroyed?"

"Or even been destroyed," I snarled. "But that's all strictly conjecture. Do you know anything about cascade images?"

"Some of the theory, but I've never seen them myself."

"Well, then you at least know that the images represent possibilities, not realities. What Ms. Keal saw may or may not have anything to do with the real universe."

"But regardless, the Aura Dancer itself is not in danger?"

"None at all."

Orlandis nodded. "I see. Thank you for putting my mind at ease."

The idea of his mind being any more at ease than it always seemed to be anyway was faintly ludicrous, but I wasn't in the mood to appreciate the irony. We'd reached Eiser now and I told him briefly that he didn't belong up here. His immediate and highly embarrassed apology nearly made up for Orlandis's lack of same, and I felt a little better as I watched the two of them go down the stairway. Following, I made sure the "Off Limits to Passengers" sign was indeed still prominently posted, and then headed back upstairs to the bridge.

Alana still didn't have all of her fire back, but she was as firm and adamant as she could be without it.

"No, I certainly did not tell Orlandis anything," she said when I'd described my little confrontation with the man. "I was told you'd given orders not to spread it about."

"I did," I growled, already making a mental list of the next likely suspects. Orlandis didn't have the same access to most of them that he had to Alana, but obviously that hadn't mattered to someone. Sarojis, possibly-he talked as much as any other two aboard. Leeds and Kate Epstein? They were reasonably discreet, but they worked most directly with the passengers and Orlandis could be pretty overwhelming

"I did," I growled, already making a mental list of the next likely suspects. Orlandis didn't have the same access to most of them that he had to Alana, but obviously that hadn't mattered to someone. Sarojis, possibly-he talked as much as any other two aboard. Leeds and Kate Epstein? They were reasonably discreet, but they worked most directly with the passengers and Orlandis could be pretty overwhelming

"Forget what?"

"Raining fire on anyone's head. So the passengers know-big deal. As long as there's no panic, I can handle any extra stares and whispers. Whoever spilled probably feels bad enough as it is.

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly. She was right, of course. As usual. "Oh, all right." I tried another breath and was more or less back to normal. "You going to do a check of my calculations for the next point?"

"Already started." She licked her lips and looked up at me. "I'd like to do this one, Pall, if you don't mind."

"Just to prove you can handle it?" I shook my head. "Thanks, but it's my turn."

"But I still owe you one-"

"Then we'll settle things later in the trip," I told her firmly. "You're not up to it yet."

"If I'm not up to it now, when will I be?"

"All right, then; I'm not up to letting you do it. Okay?"

She glared at me for a minute, but then the brief spark faded. "Okay," she sighed. "If you're going to make it an order."

"I am," I nodded, knowing at that point that I had indeed made the correct decision. If she wasn't strong enough to argue with me, she almost certainly wasn't strong enough to handle a cascade maneuver. "Just make sure I got all the numbers entered properly. Talk to you later."

I left, trying not to feel like an overprotective mother. I would handle the next cascade maneuver, whether it bothered her pride or not.

And as it turned out, it was probably a good thing I did.

Below me the flywheel was humming its familiar drone, and in four directions the cascade images had begun their intricate saraband. Among them, like departed dance partners whose places no one had dared to take, the six dark gaps wove in and out as well. Always, their presence was noticeable; today, it was almost overwhelming. Gaps... flaws... voids-mortality underlined. I wondered how I would feel to see one of my own images wink out like Alana had... wondered if I'd be able to handle the shock as well as she had.

I doubted it. I'd had my share of nightmares about losing the Dancer; had come close to actually doing so on at least one occasion. To know that, even in another reality, I was capable of killing myself, my crew, and my passengers through some foolish decision wasn't something I was prepared to face.

And right about then all the relays in my brain went click together, and I stared at the gaps in the pattern as suddenly everything that had made sense five days ago ceased to do so.

And right about then all the relays in my brain went click together, and I stared at the gaps in the pattern as suddenly everything that had made sense five days ago ceased to do so.

"Pall?" she asked, concern beginning to show through the fog.

"Relax," I told her. "I think I may have good news for you. Maybe. Tell me, was it only your captain's image that vanished? None of the ones around it?"

"Uh-huh. Why?"

She would have gotten it in a minute, but I was too impatient to wait for her to wake up all the way.

"Because the two or three on either side of the captain's image were of you as a subordinate officer on the Angelwing. You see? If the ship had died those should have disappeared, too."

Her eyes widened as it finally penetrated. "Then... the Angelwing's still all right?"

"It has to be. Look, consecutive cascade images are usually pretty similar, right? So whatever happened to the captain should also have happened to the first officer next to it in the pattern. Only it didn't, because the captain's gone but the first officer's still there. With you not in command, apparently, the ship comes out okay-and you're not in command. QED."

She closed her eyes and seemed to slump into her mattress. "It's all right," she murmured.

I squeezed her hand and got to my feet. "Just thought you'd like to know. Got to get back to the bridge now, check our position. See you later."

I didn't wait for the rumor mill this time, but went ahead and broadcast the news on the crew intercom as soon as the sleepers wore off. I can't say that there was any great jubilation, but the easing of the general tension level was almost immediately evident. They stopped tiptoeing in Alana's presence and got a little of their usual vigor back, and within a day I'd even heard an off-handed reference to the shortest captaincy on record. I came down a bit on that one-it was still a traumatic experience from Alana's perspective, after all-but in general I was satisfied with the results of my surprise insight. Little things like that were what made a captain feel he was doing his job.

I got to bask in that self-generated glow for two days more... and then the whole thing started to unravel.

It was Pascal, predictably, who was first to tug on the thread. I was relieving him on the bridge, and he had given me the normal no-changes report, when suddenly his eyes took on an all-too-familiar faraway look. "Captain, I've been thinking about the Angelwing," He announced.

"Yes?" I said with quiet resignation.

"Yes, sir. I've been trying to think of an accident that could possibly occur that could kill the captain and no one else."

I suppressed the un-captainly urge to tell him to shut up. Pascal was famous for coming up with the most thoroughly bug-brained theories imaginable... and I really didn't want to hear anything more about the Angelwing. But if I could let Alana cry on my shoulder, I figured I could at least hear Pascal out. "We don't know no one else would have been killed," I reminded him, choosing my tenses carefully. It had not happened, after all. "Just that if Alana hadn't been in command she wouldn't have been killed." thoroughly bug-brained theories imaginable... and I really didn't want to hear anything more about the Angelwing. But if I could let Alana cry on my shoulder, I figured I could at least hear Pascal out. "We don't know no one else would have been killed," I reminded him, choosing my tenses carefully. It had not happened, after all. "Just that if Alana hadn't been in command she wouldn't have been killed."

I nodded: liner companies keep their employees' health under embarrassingly tight scrutiny. "What about the other thirty-odd deaths?"

"Direct violence. Murder, in one degree or another."

I thought about the politics you get in any large company, and the fact we were still talking abstract might-have-beens didn't affect the shiver that went down my back. "Are you suggesting she would have been murdered if she'd been made captain?"

Pascal shrugged. "Possibly, but I don't think it was that. Statistically, it's much more likely that she would have died from one of the two multiple-death causes. Quite a few thousand have gone that way. Now-"

"Where'd you get all these figures, anyway?" I interrupted. "You're not wasting library space with this stuff, are you?"

He looked surprised. "It's all from the Worlds' Standard Deluxe you bought for us last year."

I ground my teeth. I'd picked up the encyclopedia originally as a tool for settling shipboard arguments.

Obviously, I hadn't been thinking about Pascal at the time. "All right, then, let's have the rest of it. What are these two multiple-death causes?"

"One is the complete destruction or disappearance of the ship," Pascal said. "Usually disappearance, presumably from failure of the Colloton field generator during cascade maneuver. Seldom proved, of course."

"Right." Whether a ship disappeared completely down some unknown galactic rabbit hole or spread itself over a few million kilometers of its path weren't results you could readily distinguish. "And number two?"

"Large-scale accident. Engine room plasma explosion, flywheel breakup-things like that."

I gnawed at the inside of my cheek. "Neither of those ought to affect the captain," I pointed out, with more enthusiasm than I felt. The logical corner this conversation was directing us toward had a lot of unpleasant thoughts lurking in it. "What sort of accident could affect a liner's bridge?"

Pascal sighed. "I don't know, yet. That's the part I'm still working on."

"Well, work on it down below," I grunted. "And let's not spring this one on anyone else for a while."

He shrugged. "Yes, sir. If you insist."

I forced my brain and fingers to go through my standard check-out routine after he left, confirming that the Dancer and her systems were functioning properly. But when that task was over there was little left to do but sit back, watch the displays and status boards, and think.

I forced my brain and fingers to go through my standard check-out routine after he left, confirming that the Dancer and her systems were functioning properly. But when that task was over there was little left to do but sit back, watch the displays and status boards, and think.

The figures themselves could be checked out easily enough, but I had no reason to doubt them. Pascal's research was usually good; it was in the conclusions that he usually clarnked up. So assuming his numbers, I was left with three possible cases.

Case One: a freak accident or sickness. I didn't really believe in the first and definitely didn't believe in the second. I watched my crewers' health as closely as the commercial lines did, and it was virtually impossible for a life-threatening condition to slip through a full examination without making at least a hint of its presence known. Alana was in far too good a shape simply to drop over dead. Regardless, my duty in response to Case One: no action. The Angelwing was proceeding on its way with its first officer in command, and we'd eventually learn the details.

Case Two: Colloton field failure. Maybe only if Alana had been captain, though that was also a hard scenario to set up. Case Two response: again, no action. If the Angelwing's field had gone, it was far too late to do anything now.

And Case Three: a major accident that had killed the captain and possibly crippled the ship. My response...?

My response should be to turn tail, make hell-bent back for Baroja, and raise the alarm. With an early enough jump, the ship might be saved.

I ran through the logic five times, and got stuck at that same spot each time. Returning to Baroja would throw the Dancer's own schedule completely out the lock, and the resulting flurry of penalty-clause claims could bring us flaming out of orbit for good. For the guarantee I'd save some lives it would probably be worth the risk. But without any such certainty... and here I found Case Four staring me in the face: an unexplained cascade point event and Pascal's fertile imagination teaming up to create a giant wad of nothing.

The more I thought about it, the more Case Four seemed the likeliest. To get information like Pascal was assuming out of the cascade images you had to assume that they were able to couple to the real universe and that they were able to respond to changes in the universe instantaneously and that Alana's captaincy was the only significant difference between us and that particular might-have-been. None of those assumptions sounded likely, let alone orthodox. If I bankrupted the Dancer and made a fool of myself for nothing, never forgiving myself would be the kindest of possible responses.

But if Case Three was, in fact, correct...

It took me an hour to conclude finally that there was no logical way out of the deadlock, and another half-hour to decide that, as matters stood, the evidence was too frothy to justify risking our financial integrity. At that point, it took a mere five minutes to decide it would be best if no one else even heard about the theory.

A good, rational decision, and one I probably could have lived with. Unfortunately, as it turned out, I made it nearly an hour too late.

I'd put the Angelwing out of my mind-with some difficulty, I'll admit-and was looking over the plots for our three upcoming cascade points when Alana came charging onto the bridge. "Pascal tells me the Angelwing may be crippled," she said without preamble. "What are we going to do?"

I'd put the Angelwing out of my mind-with some difficulty, I'll admit-and was looking over the plots for our three upcoming cascade points when Alana came charging onto the bridge. "Pascal tells me the Angelwing may be crippled," she said without preamble. "What are we going to do?"

"He didn't-well, not really," she said, coming to stand next to my chair. "I picked up on an under-the-breath comment he made and forced it out of him."

"Like forcing a star to give off light. He's worse than Sarojis when he locks onto something."

"I told him it would be all right, Pall-please don't make a legal action out of it. So now what are we going to do about the Angelwing,?"

"What do you suggest? I asked.

She seemed taken aback. "That we head to the nearest port and get a patrol rescue squad out there, of course."

"And what do we tell them when they ask how we know the ship's in trouble?"

"We tell them-" She broke off, suddenly recognizing the problem. "Well, we tell them the truth, I guess."

"You think they'll listen?"

Her uncertainties began to edge into anger. "Pall, what's the matter with you? There may be people out there who'll die if they don't get help right away."

"Or who may not die; or who may not be out there at all. And before you get mad, just listen to me a minute."

I gave her a condensed version of the mental gymnastics I'd gone through earlier. Somehow, the arguments didn't sound nearly as persuasive when listed aloud. Not to me, and certainly not to her. "And what if you're wrong?" she asked quietly when I'd finished. "You could be, you know. Maybe this is a perfectly normal aspect of the Colloton Drive that's just never been noticed before."

"And what if it was really just wishful thinking?"

That was not what I had meant to say, or at least not the way I'd meant to say it. But all the good intentions in the universe couldn't soften the shock that appeared on Alana's face like a handprint after a slap. "Pall... you think I want the Angelwing to die?"

"No, of course not," I told her, wishing I could bite off my tongue. "I just meant that maybe as a-oh, I don't know; a justification, I suppose-that maybe to justify giving up your position there your subconscious might have... done some editing."

Her smile had an edge of permafrost to it. "You're the one who's always had problems with cascade images, not me. If the mind could edit them out at will, don't you think yours would have done so long ago?" She didn't wait for an answer, but headed back to the door. "If proof is what you're looking for, then that's damn well what you're going to get," she said over her shoulder.

"Alana-" I called. But too late; she was already out the door. For a long minute I stared at the displays, swearing whole-heartedly under my breath. Suddenly, with a few badly arranged words, I'd changed the whole character of this issue. No longer was it simply a theoretical question of whether there was a ship in danger out there; now it'd become a test of Alana's psychological health and my trust in her.

"Alana-" I called. But too late; she was already out the door. For a long minute I stared at the displays, swearing whole-heartedly under my breath. Suddenly, with a few badly arranged words, I'd changed the whole character of this issue. No longer was it simply a theoretical question of whether there was a ship in danger out there; now it'd become a test of Alana's psychological health and my trust in her.

Which very likely meant that whatever she came up with, I was going to have to pretend to believe her.

I swore again and punched up a list of our current cargo contracts, keying for the penalty clause sections.

It was as bad as I'd expected it to be-if we hit Earth that late the Dancer would be years paying off the penalties. Assuming our creditors let us fly again at all.

I was about a third through when I hit the first anomaly, and by that time my mood had deteriorated so far that I did what I would normally have found impossible to do: I called Wilkinson up on the crew intercom and actually yelled at him.

Good old solid unflappable Wilkinson, he just sat there quietly and absorbed it for the two minutes it took me to run down, never so much as raising his voice in protest. I wished afterwards that he had; I might have felt less like a fool if he'd cut me off sooner. "There's nothing missing from that contract, Cap'n," he said calmly when I finally gave him a chance to respond. "That's exactly how it came aboard."

"That's ridiculous," I snorted. "No penalty clause, no secondary routing or credit arrangements-this thing looks like it was thrown together over someone's lunch hour."

"Yeah, I noticed that," Wilkinson nodded. "All the crates from our two first-timer clients are the same way."

"You're kidding." I hadn't reached the others yet, but now I called up their listings, to find that Wilkinson had actually understated the case a bit. Not only were all the contracts deficient, they were deficient in exactly the same areas. "Are you sure you were really dealing with people from these companies?" I asked. "Harmax Industries practically invented Baroja's electronics business-you can't tell me they don't know how to write a shipping contract."

"The papers had the proper letterheads and ID grain. And the fund transfers were done properly."

"But you didn't run a full confirmation check?"

"Didn't think it was necessary, with the shipping fee already in our account. Besides, with the deals cut as late as they were I probably wouldn't have been able to get a check through the hierarchy and back in time."

I remembered now Wilkinson's telling me our cargo space had finally been filled, barely two days before our scheduled lift. What I hadn't realized-"All four of those big crates were contracted the same day?"

"Plus one small one that's in the Ming-metal shield. That one's Harmax, too."

With, I quickly discovered, the same amateur contract... and by now my anger and frustration had given way to another emotion entirely. A cold, unpleasant one... "You, uh-you have any idea what's inside any of them?" I asked carefully.

way to another emotion entirely. A cold, unpleasant one... "You, uh-you have any idea what's inside any of them?" I asked carefully.

Which told us exactly nothing. As it was probably meant to.

And suddenly I began to feel nervous. Nervous enough to try something both unethical and highly illegal.

"Wilkinson," I said slowly, "do you think you could get those crates opened enough for us to take a look inside? And then seal them again undetectably?"

"Well... I could open them, sure. But closing them up, probably not."

"It doesn't matter that much. Meet me in the number three hold right away, with whatever tools you'll need."

"Yes, sir," he said. Breaking the connection, I gave the status boards one last check and headed out the door, trying not to show the anxiety I felt. Pascal hadn't been able to come up with any reasonable accident on the bridge that could result in the captain's death, and in my own hours of thinking about it I hadn't found any possibilities, either. But there was one scenario that could easily explain it.

Sabotage.

We opened the first of the huge crates as carefully as if it were loaded with loose eggs... and to my great relief found nothing resembling a bomb inside. What we did find was far more unlikely.

"What the hell?" I growled as we peered down through the plastic slatting Wilkinson had opened.

"What's Harmax doing shipping space yachts around?"

"It's just the nose, Cap'n," Wilkinson pointed out, playing his light around the back of the vaguely conical shape. "Maybe bout-oh, bout a third of a ship."

"A third?" There were four crates, plus the one inside the shield... and my stomach was starting to chum again. "Let's take a look inside the others."

He turned out to be correct. Two of the other crates contained the mid and aft sections of the yacht, with what looked to me like a complete quick-connect system at the edges. The fourth crate contained an impressive set of tools, including welding equipment and several SkyHook gravetic hoists.

It also contained a small, flat flywheel.

The implications of the latter were clear, but neither Wilkinson nor I really believed it. We had to open the box in the Ming-metal shield to confirm that it did, indeed, contain two Aker-Ming Autotorques before either of us would admit out loud that we had a miniature star ship aboard the Dancer.

"It's crazy," Wilkinson grunted as we set about resealing the crates. "No one builds ships that size for interstellar travel. Costs too much to put a Colloton Drive aboard, for starters."

"Could it be a new design lifeboat?" I suggested. "You could probably squeeze ten or twelve people aboard the thing if you really worked at it. Lord knows the passenger lines have been begging for a Colloton-equipped lifeboat long enough."

"And they'll continue to beg for one," he said. "Matope could tell you why you get the size constraints you do, but I know this much." He rapped the plastic we were working on with his hammer for emphasis.

"This little boat here probably cost as much as a top-of-the-line passenger ship."

"And they'll continue to beg for one," he said. "Matope could tell you why you get the size constraints you do, but I know this much." He rapped the plastic we were working on with his hammer for emphasis.

"This little boat here probably cost as much as a top-of-the-line passenger ship."

"Why send a whole boat?" Wilkinson countered. "The specs or computer trials would be adequate.

Besides-sent it with us?"

I sighed and gave up. "Okay, so there isn't a logical explanation. We'll write Harmax a letter when we get to Earth and ask them about it."

Wilkinson cleared his throat. "Speaking of unexplained phenomena... I understand we may be diverting back to Baroja soon."

I clenched my jaw momentarily. "I get one guess as to where that idea came from?"

"She talked to me for a couple of minutes about the Angelwing maybe being in trouble, just before you called with your questions about these shipments," Wilkinson said, looking as close to embarrassed as I'd ever seen him. "And since you were asking about penalty clauses, I assumed you'd decided she was right."

"What do you think?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "I never was good at that kind of decision, Cap'n. Maybe you should ask one of the others if you want advice. They've probably heard about it by now."

Sometimes I wondered why I ever bothered with the crew intercom. "Thanks, but a vote won't be necessary. If you'll finish up here, I need to get back to the bridge."

I started the computer calculating the run back to Baroja and then used the main intercom to set up a meeting with the passengers in half an hour. I expected Alana would check in with me before then, and I was right.

"We're going back?" she asked quietly, again coming over to stand beside my chair instead of sitting down.

"Yeah," I told her, keeping my voice as matter-of-fact as possible. "It looks like we might possibly be carrying some stolen property aboard, and I think it's worth looking into." I explained about the sectioned yacht and the oddly deficient papers on it. "Whether it's some rich man's toy or a breakthrough prototype, it doesn't belong on a tramp starmer," I concluded.

"Unless there's some perfectly reasonable possibility we've overlooked," she said. "Though... I suppose it still gives you a good enough excuse to go back.

Her unspoken sentence hung heavy in the air for a moment, and eventually I gave in and answered it. "It's not that I doubt your belief in what you saw," I told her. "It's just that... I don't want to look like a fool, Alana. And I especially don't want to lose my ship while looking like a fool."

"I understand. Dignity is very important to you." She touched my shoulder gently. "Thanks for... indulging me on this. What can I do to help?"

"I understand. Dignity is very important to you." She touched my shoulder gently. "Thanks for... indulging me on this. What can I do to help?"

"I haven't been thinking about much else lately," she said dryly. "When do you want to listen?"

"In about fifteen minutes," I said, unstrapping and getting to my feet. "I've got to go to the lounge and give the passengers the exciting news. I'm sure they'll be just thrilled."

Stunned would have been a closer prediction. Stunned, followed by worried and angry in about equal proportions. For no particular reason I skipped the whole thing about the yacht in our hold, giving them instead the ship-in-danger reason for our course change. Fortunately, I suppose, no one seemed to know enough about interstellar communication to ask embarrassing questions about how we knew the Angelwing was in trouble, though I was kept busy answering more mundane questions of scheduling, delays, fuel and provision reserves, and so forth. The whole thing took nearly twice the fifteen minutes I'd promised Alana, and it was with a wet-noodle kind of relief that I finally bid them good day and escaped from the lounge.

Or almost escaped. I'd made it barely ten meters down the hallway when Orlandis caught up. "A word with you, Captain?" he said, falling into step beside me.

I kept walking. "If it's brief. There's a lot of work to be done in rerouting the ship."

"I understand. Tell me, do you really believe this Angelwing is in trouble?"

"I wouldn't be disrupting all of our lives like this if I didn't," I told him shortly. It was a pretty stupid question.

"Um. Captain... I need to get to Earth as soon as possible. It's why I chose the Aura Dancer, in fact; you were the most direct carrier. It seems to me that we're very near the midpoint of our trip right now-is that correct?"

"More or less. In time, at least, which I presume is what you care about."

"Yes. All right, then, why can't we simply continue on to Earth and alert the patrol there?"

"That should be obvious." Even to you, I added silently. "The Angelwing will be within a very few light-years of Baroja. Getting the message from Earth back to Baroja would add a minimum of three more weeks to the two it'll take us to get things going anyway."

We took a couple more steps in silence, and then Orlandis cleared his throat. "I understand liners are legally required to keep a three months' emergency-ration supply of food on hand. Three extra weeks shouldn't be fatal to them... and I could make it worth your while to continue on to Earth."

I snorted. "I doubt that very much, Mr. Orlandis."

"No? The Aura Dancer is currently running several sizeable debts-"

He overshot a step as I abruptly stopped and turned smoothly to face him. "How the hell do you have access to the Dancer's finances?" I snarled. "That's legally privileged information-"

He overshot a step as I abruptly stopped and turned smoothly to face him. "How the hell do you have access to the Dancer's finances?" I snarled. "That's legally privileged information-"

The rest of my speech evaporated. "And what one do you work for?"

"I don't work for any of them," he said with a faint tinge of disdain. "But I have extensive financial interests in various companies and institutions, including four to whom you owe money. Shall I quote you names and account numbers?"

"Uh... yeah, why not."

He proceeded to do so, and I felt the universe tilt gently around me. Even getting such information illegally required a lot of money, and it slowly dawned on me that I was facing a man who could probably buy Cunard Lines a new Angelwing if he wanted to without unduly straining his resources. "And you're offering to cancel my debts if we get you to Earth right away? I asked him carefully.

He smiled. "When you're talking potential millions, a few thousands to get you out of debt aren't really significant. Yes, I'm offering that... and perhaps some extra compensation besides."

Out of debt. The words echoed through my brain. To be finally out of our slowly deepening hole...

Which would be of no comfort at all to the Angelwing's dead. Or to Alana.

I took a deep breath. "I can't morally justify those extra three weeks of delay," I told Orlandis. "But maybe we can compromise. Have you ever heard of Shlomo Pass?"

He frowned slightly. "I don't think so."

"Well, it's sort of an in-joke among star ship pilots. It's just a section of space between Earth and Cetiki that happens to be very 'smooth'-that is, easy to calculate cascade maneuvers from. A lot of ships use it, and not only for that particular run.

"Now, it'll take us three cascade maneuvers to get back to Baroja anyway, and we can probably make the first of those to Shlomo Pass. Getting in position for the next one would take a couple of days; and if during that time we get within communication distance of a ship bound for Baroja, I can have them report on the Angelwing while we turn around and make for Earth. You'd lose-oh, a maximum of five days, probably closer to three. Would that be enough to salvage whatever deal you need to get back for?"

Orlandis pursed his lips and then nodded. "Yes, I believe it would. And if you don't find such a ship-?"

"We continue to Baroja."

His eyes searched my face, and I had the sudden, uncomfortable feeling of being a side of beef up for appraisal. But if he'd been planning to raise his offer, he apparently changed his mind. "Very well. I certainly understand your position. Let's both hope you find a cooperative ship. Good day."

He nodded and stepped past me, heading back toward the passenger areas. I continued on toward the bridge, resisting the urge to turn and watch him go. Whether he realized it or not, in five minutes of conversation the man had just about doubled the confusion level surrounding this whole affair. The confusion and, with his bribe offer, the pressure I was feeling. Grumbling under my breath, I tried not to stomp and wished I'd followed my original coward's inclination to let Alana or Tobbar give the passengers the news.

conversation the man had just about doubled the confusion level surrounding this whole affair. The confusion and, with his bribe offer, the pressure I was feeling. Grumbling under my breath, I tried not to stomp and wished I'd followed my original coward's inclination to let Alana or Tobbar give the passengers the news..

I've been told more than once that I work best under pressure. Work and think. And it was as I was climbing the circular stair to the command deck that the first pieces finally started falling tentatively together....

Alana was still waiting when I reached the bridge. "I was wondering if you'd gotten lost," she greeted me, searching my face unobtrusively as if for fresh traumatic scars. "Someone make a fuss?"

"It was actually more of an offer." I gave her a sketch of Orlandis's proposal and my counter to it, watching the emotions shift across her eyes as I did so.

"And what are you going to do when Shlomo Pass turns out to be empty?" she asked when I'd finished.

"Pessimist."

"Realist. I know Shlomo as well as you do-it isn't exactly the grand switching station you make it sound like."

"In that case we go back to Baroja ourselves," I growled. "How many times today am I going to have to say that?"

"Sorry." She shook her head. "Sorry for everything, Pall-this whole mess is my fault."

"Let's worry about assigning blame after the fallout's decayed about a half-life, okay? For now let's concentrate on the Angelwing."

"Yeah." She took a deep breath. "Where do you want me to begin?"

The intercom beeped before I could answer: Kate Epstein, down in the passenger section. "Captain, do you know were Alana is?"

"I'm right here, Kate," Alana spoke up. "It's Mr. Orlandis, right?"

"Yes. He says you'd promised him a chess rematch this afternoon."

"I know; I'd completely forgotten. Listen, would you make apologies for me, and"

No, go ahead," I interrupted her. "This talk isn't all that urgent-we're a solid day away from even the first cascade point back."

"But-"

"No buts about it," I said firmly. Another piece of the puzzle had clicked into place-maybe-and suddenly it was highly desirable to have Alana and Orlandis off in a quiet corner. Away from the rest of us. "Look, tell you what I'll do: I'll stay here with you through the first part of your shift and we can talk about the Angelwing then. Fair enough?"

"Fine. Have fun."

I watched her leave, and gave her enough time to meet Orlandis and get into their game. Then I got on the crew intercom. It took a few minutes, but eventually I had the seven other crewers tied into the circuit with me. "I suppose you've heard rumors by now about a course change back to Baroja," I told them. "I want to open the floor to discussion... but before I do, one very important question." I took a deep breath. "After Alana saw her cascade image captain disappear, I asked you all to keep what had happened away from the passengers. If one of you let it slip anyway, I need to know that. I have no interest in placing blame or in punishment, but that information is vital to what we do next. Understand?

All right, then: anyone?"

My crewers have their fair share of problems, but I'll give them this much: every last one of them is unflinchingly honest. And one by one, they thought it through and declared themselves innocent of even discussing it within passenger earshot.

I turned them to the Baroja issue then, and for awhile the pros and cons, facts and figures flew back and forth freely. But I didn't really hear most of it. My mind was on another subject entirely... one that was slowly beginning to twist my guts.

Orlandis had accosted me three days after the event with clear knowledge of Alana's cascade point vision. But he hadn't found out about it from anyone aboard. Was he telepathic? Hardly. A good guesser and judge of body language? That could have given him only a reading on the crewers' tension level, not any of the details.

Then had he somehow known the Angelwing was headed for disaster?

Sabotage. The word repeated itself over and over in my head. A man who could buy a ship if he needed to get to Earth in a hurry, and yet he'd chosen instead to travel on the Dancer. Whose first officer just happened to have once been an officer on the Angelwing.

Had he known what would happen to Alana's cascade pattern? Known, or guessed, or intuited? And if he had, what did confirmation of the Angelwing's disaster gain him?

I couldn't imagine. But I knew it was necessary for him to go to Earth to make it worth his while. He'd as much as admitted that when he risked exposing himself as wealthy enough to make his bribe offer believable.

Wealthy enough to afford the pocket star ship down in our hold?

Perhaps... and that thought sent a fresh shiver down my back. If that was Orlandis's, then he didn't actually need the Dancer to get where he needed to go.

Abruptly, I realized conversation had ceased. "Any other comments?" I asked. "All right, then. Again, this issue is not to be discussed with the passengers. You get any questions or complaints, you buck them to me. Understood?"

They assured me they did, and we broke the multiple connection. I went back to thinking; and when Alana arrived ninety minutes later I was still at it. "You beat him?" I asked as she settled into her seat.

They assured me they did, and we broke the multiple connection. I went back to thinking; and when Alana arrived ninety minutes later I was still at it. "You beat him?" I asked as she settled into her seat.

"Whenever you're ready."

"Okay. Let's start with Lenn Grandy. He's a lot like me in many ways-an old-fashioned type who doesn't really trust wizard gadgetry like the Aker-Ming Autotorque..."

She talked nonstop for over an hour, and I listened in silence the entire time. More than once I considered telling her my suspicions about Orlandis, but each time I fought down the urge. Alana was smart and capable... but she was also a mender of bruised souls, a woman who empathized with and cared for people. What would her reaction be to finding out she'd been associating with a possible murderer?

I couldn't risk it. For once, I was on my own.

Shlomo Pass was, from a theoretical viewpoint, a fascinating anomaly in the sky: and, from a practical viewpoint, a boon for calculation-weary travelers. For nearly a quarter light-year in any direction the magnetic, gravitational, and ion vector fields were extremely flat, which meant you could calculate a cascade maneuver several hours ahead of time without worrying too much about fluctuation errors sending you to hell and gone off your intended target point. There also wasn't a single sizeable body for five light-years to clarnk you up, and on top of that it was a convenient spot for at least fifteen interstellar runs. All in all, if there was any spot in deep space you were halfway likely to run into another ship, Shlomo was it.

Unless, apparently, you were the Aura Dancer.

We spent two days traversing a section of the Pass, and never once picked up signs of anyone else.

"I've got the calculations for the next point," Pascal announced as I came onto the bridge on that final day. "That is, if you still want to head out in three hours."

I nodded and took the printout in silence. A full sixteen light-years back toward Baroja-Pascal had taken good advantage of Shlomo's benevolence. "Looks fine," I said. "Okay, I'll take over now."

"Yes, sir. Uh... Captain? I've been thinking some more about the Angelwing. I think I may have an idea of what could have happened."

Think, may, could. With qualifiers like that, this one ought to be a real gem. "Let's hear it," I grunted.

He waved his hand in the general direction of the Colloton field switch. "Even with an Aker-Ming actually doing the work, a liner's supposed to have an officer on the bridge during cascade maneuvers. Right?"

"Right. He's usually in light sleep state, but he is there.

"Okay, then. Suppose the Colloton generator somehow created an electrical feedback along the control cable to the bridge-shorted out, maybe, and sent line current along the wires as it was shutting down. An Aker-Ming couldn't take that-it'd likely vaporize its global lattice and explode."

And sitting right next to it would have been the sleeping captain? "Have you talked to Sarojis about this?"

I asked.

"Well... he says it isn't possible to get line current to the control cable," Pascal admitted. "But who knows about freak accidents like that? And he did say an Aker-Ming will explode if you put that much power to it."

"Um. Okay, well, you head below and work out the details. If you come up with a plausible feedback mechanism we'll talk some more about it."

"Sure. See you later, Captain."

I settled down into my seat and ran through the checkout routine... but even as my fingers kept themselves busy, my eyes kept straying to the Colloton field switch. In some ways Pascal was a curiously naive man; he could theorize an incredible tangle of assumptions about the universe at large while missing entirely the factor of simple, human evil.

You didn't need line current across the Aker-Ming Autotorque when a bomb would work equally well.

I reached over to the crew intercom, keyed for the engine room where Tobbar had just come on duty.

"Everything normal back there?" I asked when he answered.

"Yes, sir. No problems at all."

"Good. Tobbar, you once told me that Orlandis didn't belong on the Dancer. Why not?"

"He's too rich and important," was the prompt reply. "Probably rich enough to own his own ship; at least rich enough to charter a decent one."

"But how do you know?"

"Because he talks too slowly."

I blinked. "Say again?"

"He talks too slowly. You see, Captain, when you're important enough you don't have to talk fast-people will take whatever time's necessary to hear you out. It's those of us at the bottom of the social heap who have to get our thoughts out quickly before everyone walks away."

I thought back over the few brief conversations I'd had with Orlandis, and damned if Tobbar wasn't right.

Precise, carefully measured speech-and a very clear sense that you would stand patiently by until he'd finished. "Any chance he could be faking it?" I asked Tobbar.

He shrugged. "I doubt it. It he were trying to pass himself off as the original nabob of borscht he should have put some more money into his clothes and jewelry. If he were smart enough to change his speech pattern, he should have been smart enough to think of obvious details like that."

I gritted my teeth. "Yeah. Okay, thanks. We'll be doing our next point in about three hours, so you can start securing things whenever you're ready."

"Yes, sir."

I broke the connection and scowled at the Colloton field switch for a few minutes. Okay: so Orlandis was rich. And the yacht in our hold was certainly expensive; it was hard to avoid the inference that the two went together. So let's see: Orlandis had sabotaged the Angelwing by unknown means and for unknown purpose, then signed aboard the Dancer in hopes of getting confirmation of his success. A

sudden thought occurred to me, and I called up the passenger manifest. Yes: Orlandis had booked passage four days after our arrival on Baroja; two days after Alana's first get-together with her old Angelwing friends. With a good enough information network, then, he would have had enough time to hear about her cascade point "captaincy" and make his plans.

I broke the connection and scowled at the Colloton field switch for a few minutes. Okay: so Orlandis was rich. And the yacht in our hold was certainly expensive; it was hard to avoid the inference that the two went together. So let's see: Orlandis had sabotaged the Angelwing by unknown means and for unknown purpose, then signed aboard the Dancer in hopes of getting confirmation of his success. A

sudden thought occurred to me, and I called up the passenger manifest. Yes: Orlandis had booked passage four days after our arrival on Baroja; two days after Alana's first get-together with her old Angelwing friends. With a good enough information network, then, he would have had enough time to hear about her cascade point "captaincy" and make his plans.

Steady, Durriken, steady, I told myself as a lump rose to about the middle of my windpipe. Think it out.

Would getting rid of us really do the trick? If we didn't raise the alarm the first hint of trouble would be when the Angelwing failed to show up at Lorraine. Twenty-eight days after her departure from Baroja; nearly that since her accident. I hadn't been joking earlier about Cunard's clock-watching reputation: on a given run their ships always took the exact same number of cascade points, each of an exactly specified length, with the real-space intervals between them equally well defined. Given that, the Lorraine office probably wouldn't let the ship be more than two or three days overdue before sounding the alarm... and when they did, they would have only those four precisely demarcated real-space areas to search.

Except that from the timing of Alana's cascade point event we knew that the disaster had occurred on one end or the other of the Angelwing's first maneuver... which meant it was either a few hours out from Baroja-and presumably already rescued-or else nine point two light-years out toward Lorraine. To reach that spot, the Lorraine searchers would require another three weeks. Total time: less than eight weeks.

Easily within the three months the Angelwing should be able to survive.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. The more I tried to track through the logic, the more confused I became and the more the loose ends threatened to grow up my sleeves. If Orlandis was trying to destroy the Angelwing, he was doing a lousy job of it. If he wasn't, then none of this made any sense at all.

Unless the accident itself was what he needed, fatalities or lack of them being irrelevant. The accident, and getting quickly to Earth. Well, if that was what it took to make him feel happy, then I was perfectly happy to oblige. Keying the main intercom to general broadcast, I flipped it on. "Good morning, everyone, this is Captain Durriken," I said into the mike. "In just under three hours Dr. Epstein will be administering your sleepers for the Aura Dancer's next cascade maneuver. You will be pleased to know that we've changed course once again and will be continuing on to Earth as scheduled. A few minutes ago I was able to contact another ship bound for Baroja, and so the rescue mission I told you about will be handled without any need for us to go back. Thank you for your patience, and I'm glad things have worked out this way. Enjoy your day; Captain out."

I switched off the intercom and picked up the printout Pascal had left me. If Orlandis wanted to play games, fine. I could play games, too. Maybe sometime in the next few days I'd figure out what exactly was going on here. Preferably before we actually arrived at Baroja.

Death and taxes are still the only two items universally acknowledged as inevitable; but on my own personal list a post-cascade visit from Orlandis was running a pretty close third. Correctly, as it turned out; and as I came down the spiral stair to the passenger deck at the end of my shift I found him waiting.

At least this time he'd had the grace to stay where he belonged.

"I just wanted to thank you for your assistance and cooperation, Captain," he said as I stepped around the stairway railing. "And I wanted also to assure you that my end of the arrangement will be carried out as soon as we reach Earth."

"I just wanted to thank you for your assistance and cooperation, Captain," he said as I stepped around the stairway railing. "And I wanted also to assure you that my end of the arrangement will be carried out as soon as we reach Earth."

"It should be," he nodded. "In fact, if you could allow me access to the ship's communication equipment once we're within range, I could practically guarantee it."

"Well... we'll see, but it should be all right. I don't suppose this deal is anything I could get in on?"

His smile wasn't quite condescending, but it was pretty damn close. "I'm afraid not, Captain. Not unless you have a hundred million in investment capital available to you. Tell me, what do you think happened to the Angelwing?"

The abrupt change in subject threw me off guard. "The-uh-what do you mean?" I stammered at last.

"You know-the accident you believe happened to it. What do you think went wrong?"

My mind went blank. With my suspicions about Orlandis, I'd been fighting to avoid even thinking about the Angelwing in his presence, lest he pick up something odd in my attitude. To have him ask such a point-blank question was the last thing I'd expected... and with no plausible story prepared I had only one recourse. "Well, I'm not sure. But my computer expert thinks it may have been a field generator feedback..."

I spun out Pascal's whole theory for him, working hard to make it sound plausible. I must have succeeded, because when I finished he nodded. "I see. Interesting. Would a blast of that sort actually be enough to disable a ship that big?"

I shrugged. "The exploding Autotorque, probably not. But remember that the field generator would also have been ruined, and if the damage was extensive enough it might be beyond repair."

"Leaving the ship helpless somewhere out in deep space," he nodded.

"Exactly nine point two light-years out, if they were on Cunard Lines standard Baroja/Lorraine run," I said, obscurely glad I could quote him the exact number. "And of course they would have blown out a cloud of highspeed distress buoys as soon as they knew they were in trouble, so the rescue ships won't have to get closer than maybe five light-hours to find them."

"Sounds like you've worked all of this through quite well," Orlandis said. "I trust the patrol rescue squads will be equally astute. How long now before we land?"

"Uh-" I tried to remember how long it usually took from Shlomo Pass to Earth. "Should take three more cascade maneuvers, unless conditions have changed drastically in the past year or so. Which it may have-the Barnard's Star system can be a pain. Say, ten or eleven more days.

"I see. Thank you, Captain; I'll let you get on with your business now."

"Thank you," I said automatically as he turned and walked away. Scowling to myself, I headed the other way and escaped to the solitude of my cabin. There I threw myself down on my bed and roundly cursed Orlandis and the power he had to make me feel like one of his menials. For a long moment I seriously considered going to the man and telling him that we were headed for Baroja, and that if he wanted to go to Earth he could jolly well put together his fancy yacht, load his two Autotorques aboard, and leave.

Orlandis and the power he had to make me feel like one of his menials. For a long moment I seriously considered going to the man and telling him that we were headed for Baroja, and that if he wanted to go to Earth he could jolly well put together his fancy yacht, load his two Autotorques aboard, and leave.

I stared at the ceiling for a long, chilling moment. Then I got back up and left, forcing myself not to run.

Matope was lounging in front of the main engine room status board when I got there a few minutes later with the canvas duffel bag I'd brought up from One Hold. "Everything under control and quiet, Captain," he reported, eying the bag.

"Good," I told him, "because I've got work for you. Come here."

He followed me back to the work table; and even with my peripheral vision I clearly saw his mouth fall open as I carefully withdrew the first of the two Aker-Ming Autotorques. "Captain! Where'd that come from?"

"Same place this one did," I said as calmly as I could. "A box marked Harmax Industries in our Ming-metal shield."

He looked at me with the kind of expression he usually reserved for sudden, unexpected problems with the Dancers engines. "Captain-"

"I want you to take them apart," I interrupted him brusquely. "I think one of them might be rigged to destroy a Colloton generator."

He stared at me for a long minute, gradually getting his face back together. Then, without a word, he picked up the two Autotorques and carried them over to the scale. One, it turned out, weighed nearly a hundred grams more than the other. Taking the heavier one back to the bench, he spread out his tools and got to work.

I'd never seen the inside of an Autotorque before, and it was only as Matope slowly moved down the table, leaving a neat line of components and fasteners in his path, that I began to understand exactly why the things were so damned expensive. About halfway into the disassembly it suddenly occurred to me that we would probably have to take both Autotorques apart in order to find out why the first was heavier, because whatever the extra component was it could probably crawl out and bite either of us without our recognizing it as spurious. The thought added one more twist to the wringer around my stomach: we were in plenty of trouble right now without having two Autotorques belonging to someone else that we couldn't put back together again.

But that worry, at least, turned out to be unnecessary. Five minutes later, Matope carefully slid out the delicate global lattice and there, wedged in where it obviously didn't belong, was our culprit: a tiny mechanical timer and a heavy-duty sodium-bromine battery with attached capacitor.

"Well?" I asked after Matope had spent a few minutes poking around the battery and its environs. "What does it do?"

He fingered his screwdriver thoughtfully. "Hard to say exactly, Captain, but it looks like it's supposed to feed extra current into the lattice. Contact points here and here-see?"

I thought about Pascal's theory. "Which would vaporize it and make it explode?"

My eyes drifted to the timer. "Mid-maneuver. And what happens if the lattice melts?"

He ran some numbers on his calculator. "Hard to say. If the voltage peak is strong enough, it could discharge across the safeties into the Colloton generator control cable here. No, wait a minute-there must surely be a surge protector to ground out dangerous pulses like that."

"Show me."

He poked around for another half hour before finally giving up. If there'd ever been a surge ground line, it wasn't there now. And at that point there didn't seem to be any conclusion available except the one I'd already come to: this Autotorque had been designed to kill its ship.

If the control circuitry gets hit with that kind of voltage spike, you'll probably lose at least a couple of the major coils before it can be drained off to ground," Matope explained. His voice was as calm and dry as always, but the hand gripping his screwdriver showed white knuckles. "There's a feedback line that would kick in the emergency braking system for the flywheel, though, and even with the generator ruined there's enough hysteresis to hold the ship in Colloton space for at least a few seconds."

"Long enough for the ship to stop?"

He hesitated, then shook his head. "Not if the flywheel and ship were already rotating at top speed. A

liner just has too much inertia to stop that fast."

And an instant later, both it and the device that had killed it would be disassociated atoms. I thought about that for a long minute, until I suddenly realized Matope was looking at me with an air of expectation. "All right," I said slowly. "Let's take the batteries and timer out and put the rest back together."

"And after that?"

"I'll put them back in their box in the shield and... figure out then what to do."

It took longer to reassemble the Autotorque than it had taken to pull it apart, and I was feeling extremely nervous by the time I headed back to the hold. But my temporary theft had apparently gone unnoticed, and within a few minutes everything was back to normal. Five minutes after that, I was flat on my back on my bed, staring at the cabin ceiling and wondering what the hell I was going to do.

Because suddenly the whole game had changed. Again. It'd started out as a freak event, moved on to become a logical puzzle, and then to a question of financial risk versus Good Samaritanship and the need to back Alana up in her fears about the Angelwing. But now the stakes had abruptly gone up... because there was only one reason I could think of for that gimmicked Autotorque to be aboard.

Orlandis was planning the same fate for the Dancer as he'd planned for the Angelwing.

And I was out of my depth. Completely. Logical problems I could tackle; equipment problems I could turn Matope and Tobbar loose on... but this was a situation of human invention, and I didn't have a handle on any of it. What did Orlandis ultimately hope to gain, for starters? Had the Dancer been doomed from the start, or was that decision still open?-and if so, what action of mine was likely to push it the wrong way? Orlandis thought we were going to Earth... or had he seen through my simple stratagem?

And if I couldn't figure out the answers to any of those, how could I possibly save all of our lives?

turn Matope and Tobbar loose on... but this was a situation of human invention, and I didn't have a handle on any of it. What did Orlandis ultimately hope to gain, for starters? Had the Dancer been doomed from the start, or was that decision still open?-and if so, what action of mine was likely to push it the wrong way? Orlandis thought we were going to Earth... or had he seen through my simple stratagem?

And if I couldn't figure out the answers to any of those, how could I possibly save all of our lives?

Her sensitivity.

Slowly, I withdrew the hand that had been reaching for the intercom. Through design or accident, Orlandis had continued to spend a fair amount of time with her even after he'd gotten his confirmation of the Angelwing disaster. I didn't know how Alana was starting to view him, but even if she were merely being friendly as part of a crewer's normal duty toward the passengers I still couldn't risk it. What learning the truth would do to her...

"All right, damn it," I snarled abruptly at the ceiling. "I'll figure it all out by myself."

And for starters, I'd figure out what exactly-exactly-had happened to the Angelwing. Because if she'd been fitted with a doomsday Autotorque like the one in our hold, it was clear the thing had failed in its task. Only the captain in Alana's cascade pattern had died, which meant the Angelwing hadn't disintegrated. So... why?

The timer had malfunctioned. If the generator had been fried too soon or too late, the ship could have possibly stopped rotating in time. Which would have left it disabled near one end or the other of its real-space translation.

But why then would the captain have died?

The overload device in toto had failed. Not enough power to ruin the generator at all, though possibly enough to change the lattice voltage balance and consequently foul that particular maneuver. Again, though, the captain should have come out of it alive.

I thought about everything Alana had told me about Lenn Grandy. From the old school, she'd described him, uncomfortable with wizard gadgets like the Autotorque. Could he have positioned himself close enough to the device during the maneuver to have somehow taken a lethal shock from it while he slept?

Or could he even have been awake?

Awake.

It was as if someone had suddenly turned on the air-conditioning to my overheated brain. Of course-Grandy had elected to remain awake during the maneuver, trading the pain of cascade point depression for the assurance his Autotorque was indeed performing properly. It was something I could easily visualize Alana doing in that position, especially with her captain's gold barely out of its box.

So I now had a key piece to what had at least partially thwarted Orlandis's sabotage... a piece that Orlandis very possibly did not have.

Did that really help me? At the moment I couldn't think how, but it was a good feeling regardless to be a step ahead of Orlandis in at least one aspect of this mess. Whatever theoretical knowledge he had about the Colloton Drive and cascade points, he had no first-hand experience with them. If there was any further information about the Angelwing's fate to be squeezed out of Alana's cascade pattern, I had a better shot of getting it than he did.

the Colloton Drive and cascade points, he had no first-hand experience with them. If there was any further information about the Angelwing's fate to be squeezed out of Alana's cascade pattern, I had a better shot of getting it than he did.

Assuming we stayed alive to report it.

Gritting my teeth, I brought my mind back to the immediate problem at hand. So Lenn Grandy had been awake during the fatal cascade maneuver; had figured out what had happened and interrupted proceedings in time to save his ship. Possibly by unintentionally replacing the Autotorque's missing voltage surge drain, drawing enough of the extra current through his own body to slow the Colloton generator destruction those extra few critical seconds. In which case... the Angelwing could be literally anywhere along a line nine point two light-years long.

Hell in a bubble-pack.

No wonder Orlandis had been so phlegmatic about the idea of sending a rescue mission out after the Angelwing. Even if the searchers thought to look in the space that would normally have been bypassed, their chances of finding anything there would be virtually non-existent. Even a single light-year-hell, a single light-month-was just too much territory to cover, Colloton Drive or no. Somehow, we had to narrow that range down to something manageable.

And all we had to do that with were Alana's cascade images.

Or... perhaps Alana herself.

I thought about it for several minutes, and the longer I looked at the idea the nuttier it sounded. Aside from the fact that its chances of proving anything were slimmer than my credit rating, it might very well drive a wedge between Alana and me, might finally precipitate her departure from the Dancer.

I didn't want that. I'd grown accustomed to having someone with Alana's competence beside me in all the big and little emergencies that are part of a tramp starmer's life. To lose both her presence and her friendship-and I'd lose both if I lost either. Were the lives of a bunch of rich strangers I'd never met worth the risk?

They would be worth it to Alana. That much I knew for sure... and I was willing to defer to her better judgment on such matters.

Rolling onto my side, I poked at the intercom. It took a few seconds, but eventually Pascal woke up and answered. "Yes?" he said, yawning audibly.

"I need you to work up a special program for the astrogate," I told him. "One that'll show our position as what it would be if we were on our way to Earth."

"What do you mean, 'if?" he asked. "I thought we were headed for Earth."

"We're going to Baroja," I said. "The passengers weren't-aren't-supposed to know, and to make sure not even a hint leaks out I don't want the other crewers to know, either."

"Not even Alana?"

"Especially not her. That's who the trick astrogate's for."

There was a long pause, and I could just about hear his wheels spinning as he tried to come up with a theory to explain this one. Well, he could just stew; I wasn't in much of an explaining mood. "I'll do the calculations for the next maneuver," I continued, "but since she'll be the one actually doing the point she'll undoubtedly want to double-check the numbers. I want the computer gimicked so that hers come out identical to mine, even though her input will be different. Can you do that?"

"Uh... yessir, I guess so. Uh..."

"You'll get a full explanation after it's all over," I sighed. "For now, just do it. And do not let anyone know. Anyone. Clear?"

He cleared his throat. "Yes, Captain."

"All right. Your next shift's early enough to start, I guess, so go ahead back to bed. Sorry I woke you."

"S'a'll right. Good night; or whatever."

For a wonder, he did manage to keep it quiet. By the end of his next shift he had the fake astrogate program in place, and he spent the first few minutes of mine showing me how to bypass the facade to get back to the computer. Twenty-eight hours after that, Matope and I had the rest of the props in place.

And then there was nothing left to do but worry.

Six hours later, it was time.

"Kate reports all the passengers have had their sleepers," Alana reported as she came onto the bridge.

"What's this I hear about the air-conditioning up here not working?"

"Matope's fiddling with the electrostatic precipitators in the vents again," I told her, striving for calm. "I've got all the doors locked open, though, so you shouldn't have any problems with stuffiness."

"Okay." She peered at me as she sat down. "You all right?"

"Sure. Why?"

"You seem jumpy." She scanned the printout I'd made for the upcoming maneuver, then activated the computer for her own check. I held my breath... but Pascal had done his job right. Alana watched the numbers come up, compared them carefully to mine, and nodded. "Looks good," she announced.

"Shouldn't you be getting below? There's only about fifteen minutes to go."

"I've got my sleeper right here," I told her, patting a pocket. I did, too, though I didn't intend to take it.

"See you later."

She was already shutting down the ship's systems, protecting everything electronic against the enhanced electron tunneling effects Colloton space created. Feeling uncomfortably like a voyeur, I watched her count down the seconds... and with an abrupt, almost angry gesture, she turned on the field.

My first four cascade images appeared, but I paid no attention to them. Finger ready on the stopwatch button, I kept my eyes on Alana. For a moment she gazed down the line of images, her face unreadable but-I thought-oddly calm. Then, straightening up, she turned on the Dancer's flywheel. Beneath me, I felt the rumble begin as I pushed the stopwatch button. Its ticking was soft, but clearly audible over the flywheel's hum. Mechanical clock devices are like that-all of them, including the one Matope and I had taken from the lethal Autotorque and hidden in the bridge control panel. The big question was, was it loud enough? Holding my breath, I watched Alana.

And it was clear within a handful of seconds that she did, indeed, hear it. Her head turned back and forth, a frown of concentration spreading across her face as she tried to locate the unfamiliar sound. For a moment her eyes paused on the proper section of the panel two meters away-the same distance, according to her layout of the Angelwing's bridge, that the Autotorque mounting socket would be from the duty officer's chair. Her lips compressed to a tight line, she stood up- And nearly fell on her face.

I winced in sympathetic pain, remembering the last time I'd tried to move around with a Colloton field on.

Even while sitting still, vertigo was a normal cascade point side effect; actually trying to go somewhere just about tripled the sensation. Alana pulled herself to her knees, staggered almost to the floor again...

and with a hissed word I was glad I couldn't hear, she grabbed the edge of the control panel, raised herself up again, and slapped at the flywheel switch.

And there it was, the whole explanation: simple, yet so contrary to a captain's normal ingrained preoccupation with staying on schedule that I hadn't really considered it. Aborting a cascade maneuver could add several days to a ship's trip time-a delay that would cause confusion and anger at every stop for at least the rest of its run. But Lenn Grandy had reportedly been a lot like Alana... and unlike me, she had little fear of looking foolish. Grandy had heard an out-of-place sound, had been unable to hunt it down through the Colloton field's effect... and so had simply turned the damned generator off and to hell with the consequences.

And with those facts in hand I knew where to look for the Angelwing.

I almost forgot to key my stopwatch, but I did so without losing more than a second or two. The amount of time Alana had taken to react to the timer's ticking... though I now realized that number was only useful, not absolutely vital. The flywheel hum faded into silence, and Alana waited with hand poised above the generator switch, eyes darting back and forth between the mirrored gyroscope needle and the area where the Autotorque's timer was hidden. Around me, the cascade images' interweaving slowed...

came to a stop...

Alana hit the switch, and our patterns began disappearing. Pulling off the eyepiece, I forced myself to my feet and staggered to the door. By the time the last four images were gone I was halfway down the hallway.

Alana hit the switch, and our patterns began disappearing. Pulling off the eyepiece, I forced myself to my feet and staggered to the door. By the time the last four images were gone I was halfway down the hallway.

I clicked my stopwatch; and with the booby-trap's total time setting, I had the last number I needed. "It's all right," I told Alana, stepping forward and putting my arms awkwardly around her. It's all right. The Dancer's not in danger. I'm sorry, Alana-I'm sorry. But it was the only way I could think of-"

And then our tears began to flow, and we sat down together, letting our tension and emotional pain drain away.

And a half hour later, feeling like the lowest form of vermin on twenty planets, I told her what I'd done.

And why.

The bridge door slid open, and I turned as Orlandis stepped inside. "Captain," he nodded, looking a bit woozy still from the after-effects of his sleeper. "You asked to see me?"

"Yes." Leeds was still standing in the doorway; I caught his eye and nodded, and he disappeared.

"We've got just one more cascade maneuver until planetfall," I continued as Orlandis stepped to the other console chair and sank into it. "You'd said you wanted to send a message when we were within range, and I thought this would be a good time to talk about it."

"I understood the next maneuver was several days away," he said.

"Actually, well probably be ready within twenty-four hours or less," I told him. "Though that may put you on a rather tight schedule. Reassembling your little star ship, I mean."

Orlandis was good, all right. No jerking of the head; no widening of mouth or eyes; just a slight hardening of his entire expression to show that all my suspicions about him had indeed been right. "What star ship is that?" he asked gently.

"The one you smuggled aboard under falsified contract papers-papers you apparently made up yourself, and you should have risked hiring an expert to do them for you. The one that's in five boxes below, counting the two Aker-Ming Autotorques in our Ming-metal shield. The one you plan to escape on after killing all of us and then setting up the Dancer to disintegrate itself. That star ship."

He pursed his lips. "You seem to know a great deal about the private cargo in your hold," he said, "which I'm sure various port authorities would be rather upset by. But your accusations are completely ludicrous."

"Are they?" I countered, fighting hard against Orlandis's aura of authority. "Well, perhaps we should leave those for later then, and move onto more technical ground. Do you want to know why your sabotage of the Angelwing failed?"

"I had nothing to do with the Angelwing's sabotage," he said. I remained silent, and after a moment he snorted. "All right. As a matter of intellectual curiosity, go ahead and tell me what happened."

"It's very simple. The captain chose to stay awake through the ship's first cascade point out of Baroja, which left him able to hear the ticking of the timer in their rigged Autotorque. He aborted the maneuver, which meant the ship was no longer rotating when the power surge tried to fry the Colloton generator.

Which in turn left the ship stranded somewhere out in space where no one would think to look."

"It's very simple. The captain chose to stay awake through the ship's first cascade point out of Baroja, which left him able to hear the ticking of the timer in their rigged Autotorque. He aborted the maneuver, which meant the ship was no longer rotating when the power surge tried to fry the Colloton generator.

Which in turn left the ship stranded somewhere out in space where no one would think to look."

I nodded, swallowing. "Except us, yes. Is that why you're planning to kill all of us? Because we know where the Angelwing is and can link it to you?"

"I told you before, I had nothing to do with the Angelwing's sabotage."

"Then how did you know enough to ask about Alana's cascade images?" I shot back.

"Oh, I knew the sabotage was being planned," he said with a slight shrug. "It was set up as an assassination attempt by an underworld group against one of the ship's passengers."

"If you knew-?"

"Why didn't I tell anyone? Why should I? I'm not in charge of Cunard Lines' security. My job is the making of money-and it occurred to me that there would be a distinct dip in Cunard's stock if and when the Angelwing was indeed lost."

"You knew, did you," I snarled, some of my anger venting itself in heavy sarcasm. "You knew about the attempt, you knew how it was going to be done, you knew where and how to get hold of a killer Autotorque yourself. You didn't just know-you were an accessory before the fact."

Again, he shrugged. "A legal distinction only. Impossible to prove, of course."

I stared at him. The man was even more cold-blooded than I'd imagined. "That's it, then. You'd let an entire shipload of people die for a lousy bit of pocket money."

"It's hardly that," he said coolly. "By selling my stock in Cunard-slowly, of course, over the next couple of months-I'll make enough to buy back a controlling share in the line when prices fall."

"And to get those two months' head start you bought passage on the Dancer."

He smiled. "It was easily the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard in my life, and I nearly fired one of my idea people just for suggesting it. But everyone agreed it would be worth a try, and I began to be intrigued by the possibilities. Besides, with fate having put you and Ms. Keal in my path at the right time, how could I resist? After all, all it would cost would be a few weeks aboard this flying slum."

I bristled. "Plus the chance of having your whole scheme unraveled."

His smile remained as he locked eyes with me. "It was for that possibility," he said softly, "that I brought my own ship."

A shiver went up my back. In his own, quietly confident way, Orlandis had just sentenced the Dancer to death. "Well, I hope you enjoy the trip," I said as casually as I could. "Going to be a rather long haul for you, though. Unless you just want to hop down to Baroja and start the whole trip over."

His smile vanished. "What are you talking about?"

His lip curled. "So you didn't find anyone in Shlomo Pass to send a message with. I suspected as much when Ms. Keal began avoiding me right after the last cascade point. I'd hoped you weren't actually foolish enough to leap on your white horse and come out looking for the Angelwing."

"Not looking, Orlandis," I corrected. "Finding."

He stared at me in disbelief, and in the momentary silence I leaned forward and flipped on the radio speaker. Clearly audible over the background static came the zhuUUP zhuUUP zhuUUP of a distress buoy. "We picked up the first signal right after we turned off the Colloton field an hour ago," I told him quietly. "Our estimate of their position turns out to have been no more than a light-hour or two off, and we hit our target position pretty accurately, too. Another fifteen minutes or so and we'll be close enough to raise them with our comm laser."

He glanced quickly at the bridge viewport, as if he thought he'd actually be able to see the liner. "But...

how-?"

"How did we know? Simple. There was really only one place they could be." I reached over and turned off the radio, then hit the switches that put the control systems and computer into neutral/standby. "You see," I continued, "we had your duplicate of the rigged Autotorque to study and we knew quite a lot about the Angelwing. And we had Alana."

Orlandis's eyes swung back to me, and I could see by their expression that he'd suddenly realized what our being in communication with the Angelwing would mean. His right hand dipped into his tunic pocket, emerging with a tiny summoner. "I'm afraid I can't allow you to talk with them," he said softly. "You understand."

"Of course," I nodded. "You're welcome to try and stop me." And with that, I flipped open the Colloton generator safety cover and twisted the Knob.

Orlandis actually gasped as the first cascade images appeared around us. "What the hell-?"

"Oh, we're not going anywhere," I assured him. "As long as the Dancer doesn't rotate we'll come back out in more or less the same position we left. But I was telling you how we found the Angelwing. Your assassin friends didn't reckon on Captain Grandy's being awake during the maneuver-and they certainly didn't expect him to shut down the flywheel before the Autotorque had time to blow the generator. We knew Alana would have been killed if she'd been there instead of Grandy, so we set up a similar test last cascade point to see how she'd react, and she did so exactly as I've just said. QED."

"Pretty far-fetched assumption," Orlandis said with some difficulty. He threw a quick glance at the bridge door, then resumed his apprehensive gaze at his cascade pattern.

"Perhaps," I admitted. "But he had to have brought the ship to a halt before the timer wound down, else all of Alana's Angelwing cascade images would have vanished. You following all this?"

He nodded, a short jerk of his head. Again, his eyes darted to the door.

"And finally, the really critical factor: we found out how the Autotorque was supposed to destroy the Colloton generator and how long its timer was set for. Once we knew the ship itself was safe, there were only two possibilities: one, that Grandy had gotten the Autotorque out of the circuit in time to protect the generator-possibly being electrocuted himself in the process, as Alana would have been-or two, that he'd started to take it out, got electrocuted, and still lost the generator. Only in the second case would the Angelwing be stranded. So all we had to do then was figure out how far the ship would have rotated in the time available, remembering that Grandy had to rev the flywheel up, rev it back down, and get the Colloton field shut off just before the time ran out. That's a pretty tight scenario, and with the relatively small distances you get with small rotation angles it let us calculate precisely how far the Angelwing had gotten. Turns out we were right."

"And finally, the really critical factor: we found out how the Autotorque was supposed to destroy the Colloton generator and how long its timer was set for. Once we knew the ship itself was safe, there were only two possibilities: one, that Grandy had gotten the Autotorque out of the circuit in time to protect the generator-possibly being electrocuted himself in the process, as Alana would have been-or two, that he'd started to take it out, got electrocuted, and still lost the generator. Only in the second case would the Angelwing be stranded. So all we had to do then was figure out how far the ship would have rotated in the time available, remembering that Grandy had to rev the flywheel up, rev it back down, and get the Colloton field shut off just before the time ran out. That's a pretty tight scenario, and with the relatively small distances you get with small rotation angles it let us calculate precisely how far the Angelwing had gotten. Turns out we were right."

"True, but there'll be enough time for that later." I waved toward the door. "And incidentally, I wouldn't expect your two bodyguards to show up any time soon. They'll be lucky if they don't break their necks falling down the stairs. If they manage to get that far."

Orlandis stared at me, the uneasiness on his face giving way rapidly to fury. "What-?"

"Eiser and Trent, of course. Once we realized how rich you were, we noticed that one or the other of them always seemed to be hanging around you somewhere in the background. No, cascade point vertigo will have them well out of the game by now. If you want to stop me, you'll have to do it yourself."

"Damn you-" Orlandis thrust himself out of his seat toward me, hands outstretched like killing weapons even as he piled headfirst into the floor. He staggered to his knees, lunged another half meter before falling again. I stayed where I was as he gathered himself for another try... and as he rose up and crawled forward I let my anger boil up within me; my anger at what he'd done to the Angelwing and planned to do to the Dancer. He reached out an unsteady hand, clutched at my left knee... and with my right foot I kicked him as hard as I could. He flipped over backwards, hitting his head on the padded seat he'd just left, and lay still.

Fifteen minutes later, when I judged it was safe enough, I turned off the Colloton generator and went out hunting. Eiser and Trent were easy to find, lying unconscious on the floor halfway from the stairs to the bridge. Close, but not too bad: their tiny guns were still at the bottom of the stairs, where they'd apparently been dropped.

And a half hour later I was talking to an extremely relieved duty officer on the Angelwing.

What with all the electronic equipment that got singed by my unscheduled cascade point, the Dancer was in pretty poor shape by the time we rendezvoused with the Angelwing. But Matope and Tobbar were able to make running repairs, and with the computer intact none of us was especially worried about making the short trip back to Baroja. If worse came to worst, we still had that little backup in our hold.

The passengers were somewhat more troubled. They started out furious at having had to actually experience a cascade point; shifted to astonished and only slightly less angry to find we were nowhere near Earth; and finally turned to shock at finding out the truth about Orlandis and company. I decided not to strain them further with pessimistic reports of the Dancer's spaceworthiness, but dropped our three prisoners off with the Angelwing for safekeeping and headed to Baroja to whistle up the cavalry.

Through all of it Alana was very professional, never bringing up her feelings about the whole incident and my handling of it, but doing her part to ensure that the Dancer made it through in one piece. But her underlying tension was plain; and I therefore wasn't really surprised when she came to my cabin two hours after we were safely down on Baroja to discuss her resignation.

Through all of it Alana was very professional, never bringing up her feelings about the whole incident and my handling of it, but doing her part to ensure that the Dancer made it through in one piece. But her underlying tension was plain; and I therefore wasn't really surprised when she came to my cabin two hours after we were safely down on Baroja to discuss her resignation.

"That's a... a nice compliment," she said, no better than I'd been at hiding her emotions on this. "I've enjoyed working with you, Pall-with all of you. But it seems to be time to move on."

I sighed, wondering what I should do. Offer her some inducement-any inducement-to stay? Get down on my knees and beg? Or should I simply acknowledge that she was capable of making her own decisions and let her walk out with our individual dignities intact? "You'll be badly missed," I said at last. Even now, I realized, with such a loss staring me in the face, I couldn't take the risk of losing my dignity in front of her. Of looking foolish. "You know more about dealing with people than I ever will. I don't suppose...

don't suppose there's anything I can say that would change your mind?"

She shook her head minutely, tears glistening in her eyes. "It's a matter of trust, Pall. Trust, and a realistic evaluation of my strengths as well as my weaknesses. If you can't make that evaluation by now, then I don't think you'll ever be able to."

I took a deep breath. "Alana, look... I'm sorry I put you through the hoop-I really am. I suppose if I'd thought it out a little better I might have been able to piece together what had happened without having you reenact it. But I was stuck, and we were running out of time."

"You could have come to me." Her voice was quietly accusing. "You didn't know from the beginning that you'd need to reenact things, so there wasn't any good reason to keep me in the dark about Orlandis.

Trust, Pall-you trusted Wilkinson with part of it, and Matope, and even Pascal. But me you completely cut out."

"But I had to. You were spending time with Orlandis-lots of time-"

"And you didn't think I could handle the knowledge that he might have killed Lenn Grandy? What did you think you were going to do, keep me in the dark forever? Just because I'm able to get close to people doesn't mean I lack emotional strength-"

"Who said it did?" I interrupted, frowning. "Good God, Alana-you've got more deep-down toughness than the rest of us put together. I know that."

It was her turn to frown. "Then... why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you were close to Orlandis, like I said... and all your other qualities aside, you're a lousy actress."

Her mouth fell open a crack. "You mean... all you were worried about was Orlandis getting tipped off?"

"Of course."

She licked her lips. "Oh. Well. Uh-" She stopped, looking acutely uncomfortable.

It was an old, old line... but for all that, it worked. "Sold," she said with the first smile I'd seen on her in days. "Thank you, sir. I hear the Aura Dancer's a good ship to serve on."

But of course it wasn't the Dancer we shipped out on three months later. There'd been just too much ship-wide damage to be worth repairing, at least in the opinion of the Cunard Lines officials assigned to handle our reward for saving the Angelwing. Like so many people spending other people's money, they opted for the simpler if more expensive approach.

Certainly I'm not complaining. The Daydreamer is a beauty of a ship, with the most up-to-date equipment Cunard's money could buy... including the necessary mounting socket for an Aker-Ming Autotorque.

An Autotorque which is currently still in its shipping box in our Ming-metal shield. I figure we'll haul it out and use it one of these days, but strangely enough, neither Alana nor I is in any particular hurry to do so.

For all the stress and trouble cascade images have brought into our lives... well, I guess it just wouldn't be like the old Dancer without them.