Crown of Slaves

Chapter 19

"They're moving, kaja. All of them, it looks like."

The soft voice in her earbug caused Thandi to sit up straight in her chair. She lowered her palm reader, staring unfocused at the wall of her room.

"Where?"

"Don't know yet. They're breaking into separate groups as they pass through the hotel. Three groups, one large, two small." Before Thandi could ask, the woman on the other end answered her next question: "We've got them covered. The men in the big group are all carrying overnight bags. Too small to shield any weapons from detection."

"Maybe." Thandi didn't share the former Scrag's confidence that modern search devices could really detect small weapons. Normal ones, to be sure. But leaving aside special high-priced weapons, Thandi simply knew too many ways that effective weapons could be jury-rigged. Of course, how "effective" they'd be would obviously depend on their purpose. But if this was an assassination attempt getting underway… it was really awfully easy to kill a human being, when you got right down to it.

Still, an assassination attempt didn't seem too likely to her. Why involve the entire group, for one thing? There were over forty men in Gideon Templeton's special Masadan-Scrag task force. Mobilizing all of them for a straightforward assassination seemed like overkill. Besides, who'd be the target? Any target Thandi could think of on Erewhon would either require far fewer men-or couldn't be done at all with anything smaller than a battalion of professional assault troops.

"Numbers, please."

"Thirty-five of them in the big group. That includes Templeton himself. Three in the smallest group. That includes his lieutenant, Flairty. Six in the third group. That includes the two pilots of their spacecraft."

The words in Thandi's ear came quickly and easily. That was Hanna speaking, with her usual relaxed nonchalance. Thandi's special unit were all self-confident. And had reason to be, in truth, even if Thandi thought they tended to overdo it. They were all extremely capable by nature, and Thandi's own training had brought that to a high gloss. She didn't doubt they'd be able to monitor Templeton's movements without being spotted themselves. Which was impressive, given that they were personally known to all of the male Scrags who'd joined forces with the Masadans. Ex-boyfriends, some of them.

Thandi's lips quirked in a thin, somewhat bitter smile. "Ex" was the word for it, too. It had been the decision of the male Scrags in their band to convert to Masada's brand of the Church of Humanity Unchained which had finally shaken the female Scrags loose from their lingering attachment to Manpower. None of them were in the least bit interested in becoming female chattel, which was the only role that religion gave to women. It had been pure luck that Watanapongse had run across them looking for a new employer. On their own, as disoriented as they'd been, Thandi didn't think they would have survived for very long as an independent mercenary unit. As it was, they'd thrived under Thandi's regimen-at least, once they overcame their initial skepticism.

Thandi tried to imagine what Templeton was up to. But she didn't make the mistake of jumping to any conclusions until she'd gotten more data. So she waited, and in the meantime gave some thought to whether or not she should alert Watanapongse.

She decided against it. Rozsak's orders had been crystal clear, after all-including his stress on maintaining the necessary cutout in case the operation went sour. Translated into simple terms, "cutout" meant that Thandi was the one slated to take the fall, if necessary. Neither Rozsak nor Watanapongse would appreciate it in the least if she tried to inform them of what she was up to on the eve of the operation. That would inevitably erode their "plausible deniability," and for no reason other than nervousness on the part of a junior officer.

"The operation." The term left a sour taste in her mouth. As straightforward as he normally was, even Rozsak had a tendency to slip into the sanitized jargon of black ops.

Kill them. Every last one, if you can, but make sure of Templeton and his lieutenants. First chance you get.

He hadn't told her the reason, but Thandi hadn't had much difficulty guessing what it was. That guess left a really sour taste in her mouth.

So much for the simple and straightforward life of the Marine officer she'd signed up to be.

She shook her head, to clear away the extraneous thoughts. This was no time for that. If Templeton was finally pulling all of his people out of the Suds Emporium,Thandi was being given her first chance to complete the operation. She didn't much like the assignment, true-not that she had any qualms about killing Masadans and Scrags. But if it was going to be done at all, she'd just as soon get it over with.

"They're all out of the hotel, now. But Flairty and his little group just went into the restaurant on the corner. They look to be ordering a big lunch. The others… I think they're all headed for the shuttle grounds, kaja. Almost sure of it, with the pilots. They just got into a private jitney, and the cabbie had that pleased look that comes from a fat fare. Templeton and his mob all piled into the subway. They skipped the first station, and took the second one. That line leads to the shuttle grounds."

Hanna was guessing, of course, but Thandi thought the guess made sense. Could Templeton simply be planning to leave Erewhon altogether?

Possibly. It would make sense for the pilots to take the earliest shuttle, even at the cost of a private jitney. That way they'd have Templeton's ship ready for departure when Templeton arrived.

But why wouldn't Templeton himself go with them? Why was he remaining with the large group? From Thandi's observations of the man, he struck her as the type who was very much insistent on command prerogatives. She found it hard to imagine someone who was, after all, a known and wanted terrorist throughout the Manticoran Alliance subjecting himself to the inconvenience-and potential exposure-of a trip in a crowded, start-and-stop mag-train. Not when he could have enjoyed the relative comfort and security of a jitney and made the entire trip in one uninterrupted bound.

Unless…

"No." Unthinkingly, she spoke the word aloud with the throat mike still activated.

" 'No' what, kaja? You don't want us to keep tracking them?"

"Sorry. I was thinking to myself. Keep them under observation, Hanna. But I think you're right-so don't bother trying to follow them through the subway. Too much risk of being spotted. Just assume they're all going to the shuttle grounds and get there ahead of them. Take jitneys yourselves."

"It's your expense account. What about the three in the restaurant?"

"Leave Inge to cover them. And Lara."

"Poor bastards. Flairty's trio, I mean."

Thandi understood the harsh wisecrack, and smiled thinly. Inge and Lara were perhaps the two most murderous in her team-and the whole team was a murderous bunch. But that was, indeed, why she was leaving them there.

Leaving them behind, rather. Thandi was the most murderous of them all, and she'd be leading the rest of the operation.

She'd made up her mind, and sprang to her feet. She was now convinced that, whatever the reason, Templeton was leaving the planet. If so, that gave her the best possible opportunity to finish the job.

Perhaps not herself, of course. At the moment, she could see no straightforward way to kill Templeton on a shuttle, much less all the others. But it hardly mattered. Rozsak had prepared for the possibility that Templeton might try to leave Erewhon. That was why he'd instructed two of the destroyers in his orbiting flotilla to do whatever Thandi told them to do. Both of them were War Harvest-class ships, as large and powerful as many a light cruiser, too. Templeton's ship, for all its artfully concealed weaponry, would never have been a match for even one of them, far less both.

Quickly, she stripped off her robe and put on what she thought of as her civilian war gear. It was expensive stuff, provided for her by Rozsak, designed as much as possible to provide the same protection and assets as a Marine skinsuit while still being able to pass as a civilian outfit. It wasn't quite as well armored as a skinny, since it had to make do with anti-ballistic fabric rather than hard-skin anti-kinetic armor. And it certainly couldn't function as an all-up vac suit. But she could walk right through almost any sensor net without tripping any "Marine Armed to the Canines!" alarms, and it was more than adequate for fending off most civilian-grade weaponry.

Dressed, she opened the locker where she kept her weapons. Then, after hesitating a moment, simply closed it and reset the combination lock. Her weapons, like those carried by her team, were military-grade hardware. There was no possibility that she'd be able to smuggle them through the notoriously rigorous security measures maintained by Erewhon's authorities when it came to public transport. All she'd accomplish by attempting to do so would be to get detained and questioned for hours, at the very least. And time was now at a premium.

She'd have to take a jitney herself, in fact, if she was going to reach the shuttle grounds at the same time as her team. One of the express jitneys, to boot. The cost of which, for a single person, made her wince even though none of it was coming out of her own pocket. But not even her realization of Rozsak's seemingly bottomless war chest could overcome the ingrained habits of a childhood spent in abject poverty.

"I'm leaving now," she said, as she passed through the door into the hotel corridor.

"We're already in a jitney ourselves. Two of them, actually. What orders for Inge and Lara?"

"They're to keep observing Flairty's group until I tell them otherwise."

"You won't be able to reach them once we're in orbit."

Thandi was already chewing on that problem as she moved down the corridor as fast as she could, without making it obvious that she was racing. Fortunately, with her long legs, a brisk stride covered ground quickly.

"I know that. We'll just have to play it by ear for the moment. Until we're sure that the rest of them are all leaving the planet, I don't want to precipitate any action."

"Understood. Inge and Lara are going to grumble."

"They can grumble all they want, so long as they follow orders."

"Not to worry. Lara says her arm still hurts, even though the doctor swears the bone's healed."

"I broke it pretty good. She irked me."

Thandi was going out the hotel's front door now, waving over one of the jitneys lined up at the curb. The imperious hand gesture, coupled with the grin on her face, got her instant service.

The gesture was the product of her impatience. The grin, the product of Hanna's response.

"Great kaja, you are. Orders will be obeyed."

That much, she had accomplished. Given their origins and the peculiar subculture they'd developed in the long centuries after the Final War, the Scrags had nothing resembling normal human families. Their social organizationwas more like that of certain pack predators. The term "kaja" was slang, and hard to translate directly. It carried some of the connotations of "mother," though more those of "big sister." But Thandi thought the closest equivalent was probably the status of the biggest, toughest, meanest she-wolf in a pack.

Great Alpha Female, as it were.

"Orders will be obeyed," she muttered.

She'd forgotten the pick-up mikes in the jitney. The driver gave her an aggrieved look in the rearview screen.

"I heard you the first time, lady. I'm pushing the express limit as it is. Any faster and we'll get shut down by central traffic." He pointed a finger at the speed indicator. "They'll do it in a heartbeat too, don't think they won't."

"Sorry. Wasn't talking to you."

Scowling a little, Thandi pondered one of the universe's small mysteries. How did it happen that a planet founded by gangsters had the inhabited galaxy's strictest traffic laws?

Halfway to the shuttle grounds, she remembered something.

Damn. I was looking forward to it, too.

She reached out and flicked off the cab's pick-up mikes, to give herself privacy. Then, quickly murmured the connection she needed. A moment later, a pleasant male voice came into her ear.

"Victor Cachat, here. I assume that's you, Thandi. Nobody else I know is twitchy enough about security to scramble an incoming number."

"Sorry. I didn't even realize the scrambler was on. It's set for default. Look, Victor, I won't be able to make our lunch date. Something's come up."

The pleasant tone in the voice faded a bit. "So you spotted Templeton moving too, huh? I'd ask why that requires you to move quickly, but… never mind. I can make at least three guesses, and all of them lead me to the conclusion that I'll be meeting you on The Wages of Sin. Perhaps for dinner, eh?"

Cachat's quick thoughts had left Thandi behind. "Why The Wages of Sin? All I know-" She hesitated, then decided that playing security games with Victor Cachat bore too close a resemblance to a mouse trying to play tag with a cat.

"Okay, screw it. Yes, I'm following Templeton. But all I know-and I'm still guessing about that-is that he and his crew are headed for the shuttle grounds. I've been assuming they're most likely heading for their own ship. Why would religious fanatics be heading for a place like The Wages of Sin?"

An obvious possibility occurred to her. "Oh, Christ. You don't think-"

"No, I don't. Indiscriminate terrorism against random sinners isn't Templeton's style. He's looking for a specific target."

"Who?"

"You know anything about the Manticoran royal family?"

Dumbfounded, Thandi stared out the window. They'd left the limits of Maytag, and the Erewhonese countryside was rushing past them below. Traveling as low as jitneys were required to by law, the landscape was a blur. So was her mind.

"Not much. It's a constitutional monarchy, and the current Queen is an Elizabeth, of one number or another." Like most Solarians, Thandi tended to be oblivious to the political curlicues of the galaxy's multitude of miniature star nations. Only a specialist would try to keep track of such minutia as the royal family of a "star kingdom" with no more than a handful of planets. There were well over two thousand star systems in the Solarian League, counting the hundreds who were effectively under SL dominion in the Protectorates.

Then, suddenly, she remembered the broadcast recording she'd watched a few days earlier. Anton Zilwicki and a certain-

"Are you talking about 'Princess Ruth'? What the hell would she mean to Templeton?"

"She's his sister. Half-sister, rather. And by his lights, a renegade and a traitor and a whore. And she and her companions-Anton Zilwicki's daughter and Professor Du Havel-just left for The Wages of Sin last night. Shortly after Zilwicki himself left Erewhon for parts unknown."

"Oh. Shit."

" 'Oh, shit' is right. As in: it's all about to hit the circulation system. I'll see you there, Thandi."

"What are you going to be doing?"

"Playing it by ear, of course. What else? But this is a lucky break, I can smell it."

He broke off the connection. Thandi sniffed. She couldn't smell anything, herself, beyond the scent of old upholstery kept freshly scrubbed by Erewhon's fanatically strict sanitation codes.

"Oh, great," she grumbled. "I'm about to get caught in a three-way shoot-out with a bunch of lunatics and the galaxy's number one Junior Superspy. All of it under the nose of gangsters-cum-saints, who've got the zeal of converts when it comes to lawbreaking."

She flipped the mikes back on. "Out of idle curiosity, do you have a death penalty here on Erewhon?"

The cabbie gave her a very aggrieved look. "Of course not, lady! Erewhon's a civilized planet, y'know."

She started to relax. Not much, though, as the cabbie expanded on the theme.

"Worst you can get is life without parole. In solitary confinement. For really nasty cases they tack on 'sensory deprivation,' too. That means your cell is maybe two meters by three meters, with no windows, and the only exercise you get is in a stimulation tank."

He was apparently an enthusiast on the subject. "Yup. No sunlight for your top felons. We don't go easy on criminals here on Erewhon, you betcha. Not one single day, for the rest of their stinking existence. Live like vampires. Not only that-"

Chapter 20

In the plush rear seat of her private runabout as it left atmosphere Naomi turned toward Victor, sitting next to her. He could see the earbug which she'd been using to talk to Walter Imbesi.

"My uncle wants to know if you think he should meet us once we arrive."

"In public?" Victor shook his head. "That'll run the risk of wrecking his plausible deniability. So I'd advise against it-unless he wants to bring Erewhon security down on Templeton and his crew, before they make their move. Which-"

Victor shrugged. "It's his decision, of course, but I'd strongly urge him to let things unfold some more. If we stop Templeton before he strikes, we lose most of our political leverage. But if we don't, and people find out Walter Imbesi could have stopped Templeton before then-but didn't-there'll be all hell to pay."

Naomi nodded and began muttering under her breath, in the easy manner of someone accustomed to using hidden throat mikes. Then she fell silent, listening to whatever her uncle was saying.

She glanced at Victor. "Walter says that could get very rough on the girls."

Victor could feel his face tighten. He could also, out of the corner of his eye, see the little frown on Ginny's face. She was sitting on the seat across from them, looking out the viewport at the receding surface of Erewhon. From this distance-they'd just about reached the orbit of The Wages of Sin-the planet was a gorgeous blue-and-white ball. The sight didn't seem to be pleasing Ginny, though.

"I realize that," he replied. "But I'm not in the business of rescuing Zilwicki's daughters and Manticoran royalty. If we can manage it, I'll certainly do my best to protect them. But…"

Ginny's frown was deepening. Victor's face tightened still further. "Look, it's your uncle's decision. But the best way to handle this, from a purely political viewpoint, is not to worry about collateral damage."

Again, Naomi nodded and began speaking to Imbesi.

" 'Collateral damage,' " Victor heard Ginny muttering. "I hate that damn phrase."

Victor tried to figure out something to say, but Ginny just waved a hand without looking at him. "Never mind, Victor. I understand, and I'm not faulting you. I just don't like it, that's all."

Neither do I. The faces of the two young women he'd met at the Stein funeral floated into his mind. Damn Zilwicki, anyway. Does he always wind up losing his daughters? I just hope this one's as tough as the other one. I'll do what I can, but…

That wouldn't be much, being realistic about it. Victor was throwing this operation together as he went along. Zilwicki's frigate was by now well into hyper-space on its way to Maya Sector. Along with him had gone most of the Ballroom that Victor had any contact with beyond Donald, who'd stayed behind on Erewhon after faking an illness, and seven others. Victor had been moving so fast that Donald and the three men with him were scrambling to catch a shuttle to The Wages of Sin using public transportation. Which meant that unless Victor or Imbesi notified the resort's own security force, Templeton would have to be handled by Victor, a few Ballroom members, and Thandi and her unit-who were outnumbered something like three-to-one.

So be it. Zilwicki's daughter and Princess Ruth would either be protected by their escort from the Queen's Own Regiment, or they wouldn't. Presumably, the Manticoran soldiers who'd been selected for this detail were proficient in close quarter combat. And Victor was sure that the Erewhonese had allowed them to retain their sidearms, waiving the usual draconian security measures protecting The Wages of Sin.

That wouldn't be true for anyone else involved. The space station's security scannerswere reputed to be as good as any in the galaxy. Like Victor and his people, Thandi and her team would have left their weapons behind; they weren't even going to try to smuggle arms into the space station. Neither would Templeton, unless he was a lot less expert than Victor thought he was. The Masadan zealots had not managed to evade Manticore's efforts to catch them for years by being ignorant or overconfident about modern security measures.

Sooner or later, of course-and probably very quickly-Templeton would be obtaining weapons from overwhelmed security guards. But those would be light-powered side arms, not the kind of powerful weapons which could wreak general havoc in a firefight on a space station. Even caught by surprise, the princess' guards should have a good chance to get the girls somewhere to safety.

Well. A chance, anyway. But even if they failed…

Victor chewed on the problem. He wasn't positive, but he suspected this was a kidnapping attempt rather than an assassination under way. And if so, a new possibility raised itself.

"Oh, wow," whispered Berry, staring out over the main gaming hall of The Wages of Sin. She and Ruth, followed by their guards, had just emerged through the entrance. Web Du Havel had remained behind in their suite, claiming that his age and sedentary habits would leave him exhausted if he tried to tag along with two youngsters enjoying their first romp through one of the galaxy's premier gambling casinos.

Even the princess, accustomed as she was to the splendor of the Star Kingdom's royal palaces, was impressed. " 'Oh wow' is right. Although-I'd say it was garish, except the word 'garish' doesn't begin to do it justice."

Berry chuckled. Leaving aside the flashy gaming tables and machines themselves, everything about the main hall seemed designed to overwhelm the senses of anyone standing in it. She was particularly taken by the holograph images spreading across the entire ceiling, some thirty meters or so above the floor. Right now, the gaming hall seemed to be racing through the center of a galaxy, with the coruscating side effects of an invisible black hole ahead of it. A moment later, the holographic image swept aside and they were back out in intergalactic space, with the Sombrero Galaxy looming in the rear of the hall.

"Wow,"Berry repeated.

Seeing the expressions on the faces of her special unit as they stared at the space station looming ahead of them, Thandi had to keep from smiling. For all their superior airs, the truth was that the ex-Scrags were the equivalent of country hicks. Their whole lives had been spent either in the slums of Terra's major cities, or skulking through other interstices of the inhabited galaxy. Their education was as spotty as Thandi's had been, when she'd left Ndebele years earlier-but, unlike her, they hadn't spent the intervening years in a determined effort to remedy the lack. Secure in their own subculture's superstitions-what do supermen need to learn from sub-humans?-they'd only begun resuming a program of study since encountering Thandi herself. She'd enforced that just as firmly as she had everything else. But, her program hadn't placed any great priority on teaching her new charges the curlicues which galactic luxury could create.

"Luxury" was only part of it. The shuttle, designed specifically for the transport of prospective sheep to their fleecing place, had a huge viewing port. All the better to whet the appetite of the sheep when they got their first sight of the place where they thought they'd be munching the greenest grass in the universe. Which, indeed, they would be-while being fleeced in the process.

The space station wasn't simply dazzling and impressive, it was also huge. Huge, and incredibly complex in its design. Roughly speaking, it was the shape of a sphere-but not a solid so much as a construct of interlocking tubes and passageways and, here and there, much larger chambers. Thandi was fond of a type of food which still went by an ancient term referring to its origins-Italian, it was called-and The Wages of Sin reminded her of nothing so much as what a bowl of spaghetti might look like in zero G. Keeping in mind that the pasta and the meatballs were colored in every shade of the rainbow, lit throughout by a dazzling display of modern fluorescence and holographic technology-and somewhere in the vicinity of eighteen kilometers in diameter. The shuttles she could see in its vicinity, here and there, looked like specks beside it.

A gleam from reflected sunlight on what was apparently a large ship not far away caught Thandi's eye. She suddenly realized that the merchant ship the shuttle had passed very recently was not more than six or seven hundred kilometers from the space station-the space-going equivalent of being within mooring distance.

"Excuse me a moment," she muttered, going over to the viewport controls and turning up the magnification. One of the passengers in the shuttle glared at her, but said nothing. The combination of her imposing height and figure and the fact she'd been polite, was, as usual, enough to deter anything more vehement.

Yes.That gleaming sunlight did come from the same freighter they'd passed. A fairly standard commercial design, massing perhaps five million tons.

Thandi returned the magnification to its normal setting and turned away from the viewscreen, frowning. She wondered what the ship was doing there. There was no particular reason for a freighter to be riding in orbit that close to a pleasure resort, after all. A liner, certainly. The Wages of Sin was Erewhon's principal tourist attraction. But not a freighter.

She hesitated, and then decided it was time anyway to alert Rozsak's destroyers that they might soon be needed.

One of the other luxuries afforded by Wages of Sin's transportation was a complete communications suite, with a plentiful supply of encrypted channels whose privacy the government guaranteed. Which, she reflected as she plugged her personal com into one of them, means a bit more here than it might somewhere else, doesn't it?

Not that it prevented her from bringing her own encryption software on line.

"Horatius, Lieutenant Carlson speaking," the voice of the duty com officer said into her earbug. "What can I do for you, Lieutenant Palane?"

Her personal encrypt had identified her, just as it had automatically routed her to the watch officer instead of one of the duty ratings. But it was still reassuring-and satisfying-to be part of an operation where Navy senior-grade lieutenants (the equivalent of a Marine captain) not only knew which end was up but actually sounded like they wanted to help her do her own job.

"Mainly, I'm just checking in, Ma'am," Thandi informed her, speaking very quietly into her privacy mike. "My unit and I are about to make rendezvous with Wages of Sin-we're aboard their shuttle Diamond."

"Half a sec, Lieutenant," Carlson replied. Thandi could hear her saying something to someone else, then she came back on the line. "Tracking has you, Lieutenant. We make your ETA about eighteen minutes."

"Confirm, Ma'am. As far as I can tell at this point, everything's under control, but I'm declaring Code Maguire."

"Acknowledged," Carlson said. The Navy officer had no idea in the universe what Code Maguire was all about, but it was on her priority list as an operational ID. "I'll inform the captain. Anything else we can do for you at this point, Lieutenant?"

"Just one other thing," Thandi said. "Do we have any idea what that big freighter is doing riding in orbit so close to the space station?"

"Hold on, and I'll check." After half a minute or so, Carlson's voice came back in her ear. "It's the Felicia III, a combined freighter and personnel transport. Registered as an independent carrier out of Yarrow-that's a system in Grafton Sector-but our records show it's really owned by the Jessyk Combine. According to the manifest they filed with Erewhon's orbital monitors, they're carrying about three thousand economy-rate passengers and are making a short stop-four days-to let their customers enjoy the resort."

Thandi stared at the space station. It was gigantic, now, filling the entire viewport.

She didn't believe it for an instant. True, there were freighters who provided comfortable if slow passage for people who couldn't afford the top rates charged by cruise liners. But Jessyk Combine's hybrid freighters specialized in transporting the galaxy's poorest residents. People who'd barely been able to scrape up the money to afford a single trip, almost always a voyage to settle as colonists in a new world somewhere. The one thing they wouldn't have was extra money to splurge on a four-day stop at a pleasure resort. Certainly not on a Jessyk vessel-the Combine was notorious for being able to squeeze blood out of a stone.

But there was no point in asking anything further from Lieutenant Carlson. A Solarian destroyer wouldn't have access to the records she needed.

"Thank you, Ma'am," she murmured. "Lieutenant Palane, out."

Again, she hesitated. Then she pulled her personal com out of the shuttle's communications systems and switched to a dedicated channel it hadn't had when she first arrived in Erewhon.

"Victor, can you hear me?"

His voice came into her earbug immediately. Still, the same pleasant tenor; but, this time, with the slightly detached flavor which Thandi recognized as the tone of an experienced fighter heading into combat.

"I'm here, Thandi. We just docked a few minutes ago."

"Can you talk to anyone in a position of authority on that space station?"

There was a moment's pause. Then: "Yes. But I've got to be careful about it. Cutout."

She understood the meaning of the last terse phrase. Thandi wasn't positive, but she suspected Victor was in communication with Walter Imbesi. Quickly, she considered the parameters of the situation, and came to the conclusion that Victor had decided it would be best to let Templeton's scheme unfold a bit before taking action. If so, it was obvious why he'd be chary of involving Imbesi unless it was absolutely necessary. The political repercussions if it became publicly known that Imbesi had delayed informing the Erewhon authorities would be fairly catastrophic.

"I think it's important, Victor."

Immediately the tenor voice came back. Calm, relaxed, detached-supremely self-confident without making any effort to show it. Thandi felt some primitive part of herself heating up-and another part of herself, that self-analytical faculty she'd had as long as she could remember, almost jeering.

Oh good, Thandi. You and your fixation on alpha males. Kinky, kinky, kinky. When are you going to learn?

She drove the thought away. This was no time for another morose self-examination of the fact that the only men who ever really excited her were precisely the ones she trusted the least. Or the irony that a woman who could break most men in half without working up a sweat had such a wide submissive streak running deep under the surface-which she never let out because she trusted it even less.

"Good enough, Thandi. What is it?"

She explained quickly. As soon as she was done, the assured tenor told her he'd get back to her as soon as possible. She had no doubt he would. When they broke contact, she was feeling a bit flushed.

Damn you, Victor Cachat. I don't need this!

His voice was back within five minutes. By now, her shuttle was nearing the boat bay, and most of the space station had spread out of sight beyond the viewport's edges. The sight reminded her of a small fish on the verge of being swallowed by one of the enormous sea beasts native to her home planet. As was common on heavy gravity worlds, Ndebele's surface was largely covered by oceans.

"I think you're on to something. According to their records, the only people from the Felicia III who've come across to The Wages are a dozen or so officers and crew. They've been splurging in the ritzier casinos."

"That's what I suspected. Jessyk's crews are notorious for slack discipline. They're making an unauthorized stop for their own entertainment. Which means that whatever passengers might be on that ship are being kept quarantined. There's no way to know without boarding them, but I think that ship is a slaver on its way to Congo masquerading as a combined freighter and cheap transport vessel."

"That would fit the facts, certainly. Do you think this is tied in with Templeton?"

"No way to tell yet. But I think… I think they're tied in because Templeton's planning to tie them in somehow. I don't think it's prearranged. You say they've been here two days? That would be just about right for Templeton to find out and launch whatever scheme he's had in mind."

She'd lost track of the two smaller groups detached from Templeton's main group. The members of her team who'd been tracking the half dozen men apparently headed for Templeton's own ship had broken off once the Masadan pilots had entered the spaceport. They'd rejoined Thandi and were accompanying her on the shuttle. And, unfortunately, the low-powered transmitters she was using were no longer able to stay in touch with her two women tracking Templeton's lieutenant, Flairty.

And why had Flairty and two others remained behind on the planet?

Victor's voice came into her ear. "Anything else, Thandi?"

It was a little hard to believe that that relaxed and supremely self-confident voice belonged to a man no older than she was. Two or three years younger, in fact. As usual, Thandi felt herself shying away from the attraction-and then brought herself up sharply.

Grow up! Forget your damn Hormone Anxieties. The man's good at this, girl, he's not putting on an act to impress you.

She felt herself relax. Captain Rozsak had given her the authority to make her own decisions, after all. Bringing Cachat into her full confidence was within her parameters.

"Yes, there is." Quickly, she filled Cachat in on the situation with Flairty. "Do you have any idea why he'd have been left behind?"

"Give me a moment to think about it."

There was silence for perhaps ten seconds. When Victor's voice came back, there was for the first time a slight trace of excitement in it.

"Yes. It all fits, now. This is a kidnaping attempt, Thandi, not an assassination. Templeton's planning to grab the princess-don't ask me what for, exactly. At a guess, they'll try to use her as a hostage for a prisoner exchange with Manticore and Grayson. There are hundreds-hell, thousands-of Masadan fanatics being held in prison there."

She was trying to catch up with Victor's thinking. "But… There's no way Templeton can escape Erewhon with a captive. Not in that ship of his. Oh, sure, it's got a couple of heavy weapons mounts, but no armor, and its sidewalls are a joke. It's not really a warship at all. Anything bigger than a LAC could blow it out of space without even breaking a sweat. Hell, it'd be easy enough to just board the damned thing! Okay, sure, keeping the princess alive would be difficult as hell, but- Oh."

"Yeah. 'Oh.' Erewhon might or might not be willing to risk the life of Princess Ruth. They might, actually. Manticore has a long-standing tradition of being willing to sacrifice members of the royal family if need be. But there's no way even cold-blooded Erewhonese would risk the slaughter that would ensue on a ship carrying thousands of innocent people. Templeton can't threaten too many people on The Wages itself with whatever side arms he'll pick up there, but once he gets aboard that freighter all bets are off. If nothing else, he can just blow it up by kicking out the governors on the fusion bottle. He's a religious fanatic, so he won't have the usual fear of suicide."

Thandi stared out the viewport. The freighter was barely visible in one corner for a moment, and then vanished from sight as the shuttle entered the docking bay of the space station.

She came to an instant decision. "I should board that ship now, before they're alerted."

"Yes, I agree. I'm willing to bet the reason Flairty was left behind-eating in a restaurant so close to the Suds-is because at the proper time he's going to march back into the hotel and inform Mesa's supposed overseers that their flunkeys just carried out a little rebellion and Mesa will, thank you, provide them with transport out of the Erewhon System, whether Mesa likes it or not. Probably to Congo-where, thank you, Mesa will provide them with protection, whether Mesa likes it or not. Which, if I'm right, means that you have not more than a couple of hours to make your move. Keep in mind that the third Masadan group-the one with the two pilots-is almost certainly going to be boarding that freighter ahead of you and will have taken control of it. You won't just be coming up against a sleepy freighter crew."

She shook her head. As capable as he might be otherwise, Cachat was no expert on boarding operations. Thandi was.

"It's not that simple, Victor. Without knowing the entry codes, the only way to board a ship is to blow your way in. I don't have the equipment to do that. Templeton might, on his own ship, but I sure don't. I'm not even carrying sidearms. Holodramas be damned, you don't punch your way into a modern starship-not even a freighter-using a prybar."

There was a pause at the other end. Then: "You're the expert. All right, then, here's what I propose. We'll have your people trailing Flairty grab him right after he meets the Mesan bigshots. Then bring all of them up here. I'm sure I can get Imbesi to provide private transport for that."

She winced. "Victor, my two girls are good but that's asking a lot of them. Flairty-and up to half a dozen other men? They might be able to manage that, but-"

"O ye of little faith. You keep forgetting who I'm working with, Thandi. The four of them on their way up here aren't the only ones on Erewhon. As soon as I can pass the word through Imbesi, your ladies will have the help they need. Just tell them to wait somewhere outside the restaurant. My people will know how to spot them. After all, they've been hunting them for decades."

Thandi almost choked. "Victor, ah… Jesus. Talk about supping with the devil-looked at from either side."

The amusement was obvious in his voice, even if it was a subtle thing. "True enough. But the oldest wise saw of all is probably 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.' I'd say it applies in this case, don't you?"

"Hard to argue the point. How do you propose to get me over there?"

"We'll worry about that when the time comes. I'm putting this together on the run, Thandi. Just get me Flairty-those Mesans he'll be with, rather-and I'll get the codes out of them."

His words had begun with a bit of warmth, under the calm and relaxed tone. By the time he finished speaking, they sounded like cubes of ice. Thandi didn't think to ask how Cachat was so confident he could get the information. As well ask a tiger why he was complacent about his prey.

"All right. But you'll have to get in touch with my women yourself, Victor. They're carrying military coms designed for planetary ranges and covert communications, so they're not tied into the system-wide net. They can't pick me up from here, and even the shuttle's systems can't hit them from here without a bucket receiver."

"No problem. I'm sure my contact here can do it."

A gentle chime sounded through the passenger compartment of the shuttle. The vehicle lurched a bit, and then settled down into that steady state which indicated: We have arrived. Other passengers were already beginning to get to their feet, carrying their luggage, and heading toward the entry doors.

"I'm at the station now, Victor. Where and how will we meet?"

"Who knows? I haven't been here long myself. Just follow your nose, Thandi-most of all, your ears. Things are going to be getting a little noisy around here. I still need a code word-something-to get in touch with your two ladies."

As she rose and headed toward the entry doors, followed by her team-none of them were carrying luggage, of course-Thandi's lips twisted a little. "Just have your people say great kaja sent them. And that if they don't follow orders, I'll break Lara's other arm and beat Inge to a pulp. That'll do the trick."

She could hear Victor's little chuckle in her ear. "Remind me never to enlist in any boot camp you're running. All right, Thandi. Good luck."

Chapter 21

Gideon Templeton let the new converts do the killing. For all that their slack attitudes toward doctrine often annoyed him, there was no question that as sheer physical specimens any of them were more capable than the Faithful-since-birth. Certainly in unarmed combat, if not with sophisticated weaponry and equipment they had little experience with.

Fortunately, Gideon's old Faithful were extremely competent with high-tech gadgetry-such, at least, as bore directly on their sacred duties. Templeton gave Jacob a glance. Three of the Masadan party were lined up against a wall of the security lounge, as if posing for a portrait. Jacob, standing in front of them, seemed to be fiddling with the holorecorder with which he was about to record their image for posterity.

Jacob was waiting for Templeton's glance, and responded with a slight nod. The "holorecorder" Jacob was holding was actually a white-noise generator designed by a Solarian firm which specialized in security equipment. Very expensive, as such state-of-the-art electronic devices always were. But Gideon's successful activities of the past fifteen T-years had left him with very large financial resources, to add to the considerable war chest which his father Ephraim had managed to assemble before he fled Masada.

Jacob's nod told Gideon that most security devices in the lounge were temporarily disabled, in one way or another. The audio pickups would be blanketed in silence as soon as the noise suppressor kicked in, and the video recorders interrupted with what would appear to be a malfunction of some sort. There was no way, even with that equipment, to blanket the energy sensors designed to pick up the discharge of power weapons. But Gideon was not concerned with that, since, if all went as planned, there would be no weapon discharges taking place. Not here and now, at any rate.

The noise suppressor would be activated by a timer within a few seconds. Gideon looked away, and made the same minimal head gesture. He was careful not to look at anyone in particular when he did so, certain that the individuals for whom that nod was intended would be watching him. Whatever their other faults, the new converts were dependable enough in these matters.

"That'll be it then, gentlemen," said the attendant, smiling as he emerged from the side room in the security lounge where he'd stored their personal weapons. He closed the door, turned, and his finger lifted to punch in the security code. "You'll be able to retrieve them when-"

The timing kicked in on the noise suppressor. The attendant's mouth kept moving for a second or two, until he began to realize he wasn't making any sound at all.

But, by then, his eyes were widening for more pressing reasons than unexplained speechlessness. Moving with the grace and speed provided by his genes and training, one of the new converts-Stash, that was, short for Stanislav-vaulted the counter with liquid ease. The attendant tried to shout something, but no sound emerged. He had no time for anything further. What would have been a cough of agony exploded silently from his lungs as Stash's fist went into his kidney like a piston-driven club, hammering the attendant against the still-unlocked door. The second blow of the same fist to the same kidney followed within a split-second, finishing the work. Stash tossed him aside and piled through the door into the weapons room.

Two other new converts had also vaulted the counter. One of them took the time-casually, contemptuously-to grab the dazed attendant and smash the side of his skull against the edge of the counter. Again, the genetically engineered musculature and reflexes proved their worth. In his mind if not his ears, Gideon could hear the sound of the thin temple bone shattering, driving portions into the brain. The new convert let the attendant's body slip lifeless to the floor and followed his two comrades into the weapons room.

Gideon was already turning away, sure that the rest of the immediate work was being done to the same degree of perfection.

Indeed so. The three guards who'd accompanied Templeton and his people down the corridor from the shuttle docking bay to the security lounge were already immobilized. They'd been physically silenced too, which was quite unnecessary-but probably inevitable, given the ingrained fighting habits of the new converts. They weren't really accustomed to working with the advantages of the Masadans' high-tech gadgetry, such as the noise suppressor.

In the case of two, the method of silencing-throats collapsed by hard-edged hand blows-would complete the task of killing them. As Templeton watched, the third had his neck snapped by a sudden and powerful movement by the new convert holding his head. Imre, that was, perhaps the strongest of the lot.

Aside from Templeton's crew, there had been three other visitors to The Wages of Sin on the same shuttle who had also been brought by the guards to check in their personal weapons. They all died within seconds, never overcoming their shock at the sudden eruption of murderous action long enough to put up any resistance at all beyond raising their hands in futile protest. And, as with the guards and the attendant, the noise suppressor kept any auditory warning they might have issued from being able to carry to the shuttle docking bay where two of the space station's guards had remained.

Gideon grunted-silently.

Some of that grunt was due to his satisfaction at the success of this stage of his plans. He'd decided to take the risk of retrieving their weapons rather than attempt an immediate firefight in the docking bay. To some extent, that was simply to reduce the number of his immediate opponents. Primarily, however, it had been due to Gideon's calculation that the guards would have lost their initial edge of alertness after escorting a seemingly docile new group of visitors to the security lounge. They would have done this innumerable times by now, since possession of personal weapons was commonplace in this portion of the galaxy. Most of what problems they'd faced in the past would have come from visitors unfamiliar with the draconian security policies of the space station. But those would have protested immediately, while still in the docking bay. Templeton and his men had acted casually, as if they'd already been aware of the station's policy-which they had been, of course-and took it as a given.

For the most part, however, Gideon's grunt was an expression of piety. He'd sometimes wondered why the Lord had saddled him with the often-thankless and always-exasperating task of welcoming the new converts into his flock. Now he was sure he was catching a glimpse of the Almighty's great design. On their own, he was fairly confident that his old Faithful could have managed this work. But… not so easily, nor so surely. Whatever else, the new converts were the sharpest of blades placed into his hands by Providence.

Stash was already emerging from the weapons room, carrying several of the side arms they'd brought with them to The Wages of Sin. He spread them on the counter and turned back to retrieve more. Between him and his two comrades, all of the weapons which Templeton and his men had brought to the station were quickly back in their hands, along with others they'd found to arm the rest of the crew and serve them for spares if needed.

Everyone was moving quickly, especially Jacob, who was already working at the security console on the counter next to the weapons check-in room. Gideon had stressed the importance of not leaving the white-noise scrambler running for any longer than absolutely necessary. Even the type of slackers who could normally be found working in low-wage security jobs would get suspicious if a "video malfunction" continued for long enough.

But, within seconds, Jacob was smiling. He lifted his head and gave Gideon a firm nod. Then, confirming the news, turned off the noise suppressor.

"All set. The scrambler's hooked into the security computer. It'll keep the scanners-audio and video both-looping back through the previous half hour's recordings. They're a lot of sinners, Solarians, but I will say their electronics are good."

Gideon grunted his satisfaction. To any security guard in the station's central security room who glanced at the monitors covering this lounge, it would appear to be empty again-as if, the weapons having been checked, all the passengers had left and the guards had returned to their posts. Until and unless somebody noticed that the same security guards were still moving around in the docking bay, long after their shift ended, they should be fine. They still couldn't use weapons, of course, without setting off alarms all over the station.

Stash was scowling a bit. As the former leader of the new converts-most dominant figure, more precisely-he tended to question Gideon more often than any of them.

Stash gestured back at the still-open weapons room. "There's better stuff in there. A hand-tooled side-arm flechette gun-beautiful thing, don't want to think what it cost-three military-grade pulsers, and even a tri-barrel. Ha! What idiot would have brought that to a place like this? I guess he was thinking he might go on safari if he got bored. Add the head of a Giant Faro Dealer to his trophy collection."

"No."Gideon growled the word, but managed not to snarl it. "I've made this clear before, Stash. We've still got a long way to go-we don't even know where she is-to find my sister. This vile place won't have the same extensive security scanners in the interior of the station, but they will have them. As it is, I'm gambling that we can carry these low-powered guns without being spotted, because some of the guards within are bound to be carrying similar weapons. They can't very well have alarms going off constantly, simply because guards are doing their duty. But there'd be no reason for military-grade or powerful weapons to be loose in the station, and I'm sure the scanners are set to detect those. Unless we had special registers indicating that these were authorized-and there's no way to get those codes-it'd be too much of a risk."

He let it go at that, since Stash was clearly not going to press the issue. And, truth be told, Gideon wasn't very happy with the situation himself. He was quite sure that his sister's bodyguards had been given the codes necessary to register their military-grade weapons with the station's security scanners. Diplomatic strains or not, there was no way Erewhon would run the risk of having a Manticoran royal successfully attacked because her Manticoran bodyguards had been disarmed. In fact, Gideon was quite sure that security for The Wages of Sin had been beefed up all the way around. Somewhere in the station, there'd even be a heavy-weapons unit on standby.

Templeton wasn't too concerned about a possible-probable, rather-heavy-weapons unit. They wouldn't be directly positioned to cover his sister, in any event. Princess Ruth was not making an official state visit following a carefully planned route. Since there would be no way to predict the movements of an empty-headed sinner at her play, the management of the station would not want to alarm all their other guests by having a highly visible armored unit trampling through the gaming areas in her wake. Instead, they'd simply have them on standby at some central location. Deadly enough, when they arrived-but if Templeton's project went as planned, they'd get there too late.

That still left the problem of his sister's immediate bodyguards, and those were a matter of great concern. Leaving aside the fact that they were much better trained and motivated than a pleasure resort's security guards, they'd also have weapons considerably superior to the ones in the hands of Templeton and his men. Hand pulsers, to be sure, not heavier equipment. But military-grade sidearms, in the hands of elite soldiers, were nothing to sneer at.

Templeton had even considered bringing chemical-powered weapons with him, instead of the puny personal use and sporting hand pulsers they'd brought. For all their primitive design, the right sort of chemical-powered guns could be far more lethal. But…

Not possible. Such weapons were very rare, which was exactly why Templeton was well-nigh certain the station's internal scanners wouldn't pick them up, since they had no power source. But that would not have been true for the more extensive security devices in the docking bay. The guards there would have been instantly suspicious to discover that so many men in the same party all had a burning passion for antique weaponry. As it was, Gideon had had to do a bit of explaining to account for the fact that most of his party were armed. Fortunately, the fact that he'd ordered over a third of his men to arrive unarmed had done the trick. That, and a vague reference to the ingrained frontier customs of their supposed planet of origin.

Again, he congratulated himself for the shrewdness of his scheme. He'd calculated-correctly-that there would be enough hand weapons in the check-in room left by earlier passengers to arm the rest of his party. His scheme had been all the more shrewd, in that he'd been forced to improvise most of it the moment he discovered his sister was traveling to The Wages of Sin.

But, ever mindful of the sin of pride, Gideon didn't dwell on the self-satisfaction. Nor did he overlook the fact that there'd been an element of carelessness on his part involved also. Given the foul nature of his sister, he should have known from the very beginning that the whore would fly to such a den of iniquity at the first opportunity, like a moth to a flame. So, if he'd done an excellent job of planning hastily, some of the hastiness itself had been the result of his own slackness.

He broke off the rumination. Everyone in the party was armed now-many with an extra weapon-and they were ready to begin the next stage. His men had dragged the bodies and tossed them into the weapons check-in room. One of them had even found a cloth somewhere and was beginning to wipe up the blood which one of their victims had coughed onto the floor.

"Don't bother," said Gideon. "By the time anyone else comes in here, it will all be a moot point."

His cousin and chief lieutenant, Abraham Templeton, cocked an eye at him.

"You've decided, then, to kill the guards still in the docking bay?"

"Yes. You heard what that one guard told me, when I inquired casually. There's not another shuttle scheduled to arrive at that dock for hours."

Abraham nodded. The gesture was as much one of respect as agreement. Gideon had planned for that, as well, deliberately taking a shuttle which would arrive at the tail end of the station's peak business hours for the day. That would most likely have them docking at one of the bays used only to handle overflow traffic-as, indeed, had proved true.

"That's enough time for us to do the rest," Templeton continued, "as much of it as will set off all alarms, anyway. And it'd be safer to leave no one behind who might wander over here and set off a premature warning."

Abraham nodded and gave the assembled team a quick inspection. His eyes lingered for a bit longer on the new converts. Although they were generally unaccustomed to more elaborate weaponry, the new converts were just as proficient with simple hand weapons as they were with unarmed combat.

Stash returned Abraham's gaze with a lazy smile. "Be like butchering sheep."

Indeed, it was so. And Gideon felt his piety strengthened as a result. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, after all. And if it suited Him to provide Gideon with otherwise-flawed instruments for His work, Gideon Templeton was not a man to question God's will.

Templeton had been very concerned himself, about this stage of the plan. Concerned enough, in fact, that he'd almost decided to follow Abraham's advice to leave the two remaining guards in the docking bay untouched. The problem, in a nutshell, was that they did not dare attack the guards while still in the bay. No matter how slack, not even low-paid security guards could be taken down by a direct assault without managing to set off at least some of the alarms. And since the white noise generator couldn't suppress actual weapons discharges, there would be the added risk of one of the guards managing to fire his pulser.

Stash had assured Templeton that he could handle the problem through misdirection. Or-if Stash didn't match the physique of one of the guards well enough-one of the other new converts could do so.

So it proved. Gideon was able to observe the events indirectly, using a tiny holobug set up by Jacob.

The docking bay was attached to the security lounge by a short corridor. Unlike the bay or the lounge, there were no audio-video monitors set to cover that corridor. There would undoubtedly be energy sensors, but those were of no concern.

Gideon found it hard not to suppress a sneer-and did suppress it, only because of his constant vigilance for the sin of pride. Heathen sinners could always be counted on to let avarice override caution. Had Godly men been in charge of security for The Wages of Sin, there would have been audio-video sensors everywhere-with keen-eyed Faithful to monitor them in the station's central security room. But the greedy management of the sinful place had naturally avoided the expense, and placed them only in critical areas.

Gideon watched Stash, now dressed in a uniform taken from one of the dead security guards who had approximately his size and build, amble down the corridor. "Amble" was the right word, too. No old Faithful could have managed that slovenly shuffle-nor the equally slack manner in which Stash leaned around the corner where the corridor debouched into the docking bay and waved an arm at the two remaining security guards.

The arm-wave, too, was perfect. It's done, boys. Shift's over-so let's get us a beer. All of it conveyed without Stash having to say a word-or give the two guards more than a glimpse of him.

But… it was the glimpse they'd been expecting. Indeed, awaiting. So, within seconds, the two men appeared in the corridor, walking in the easy manner of sinners looking forward to their sins. Not "ambling," exactly-they were moving too quickly for that term to apply-but with nothing at all in the way of alertness or caution.

Stash was facing away from them, down on one knee, apparently adjusting the fit of one of his boots. His face was obscured by the bill of the cap on his head. As the two security guards came alongside, one of them said something. A jest, apparently, judging from the grin on his face. Templeton couldn't hear the actual words, because the miniature transmitter Jacob had set up alongside the corridor's wall was not able to pick up audio signals.

It didn't matter, anyway. Stash was moving again, and this time there was nothing either slovenly or shuffling about it. He came up like a tiger out of its crouch, striking once-twice-

Then, quickly, finishing the work once the guards were on the floor. It was all over in a manner of seconds. And Gideon had heard not a sound coming around the bend of the corridor where he and the others waited in the security lounge.

One of the new converts went to help Stash carry the two bodies into the security lounge. It was the work of a few more seconds to stuff them into the weapons room with the other corpses.

Then, all was done except the final strike on the princess. Gideon's initial plans had worked to perfection. They departed the security lounge, filing down the corridor leading to the halls of the Devil's playground where the whore sister would surely be found.

First Lieutenant Ahmed Griggs was not a happy man. To put it mildly.

Not because of anything to do with his own people, of course. He and Laura Hofschulte had chosen Sergeant Christina Bulanchik's squad from Griggs' own platoon for the detail for several reasons. The biggest one was Bulanchik herself, a long-service noncom who, like Griggs, held the Sphinx Cross. Several of the other members of her squad had been decorated for valor also, but that wasn't particularly uncommon in the Queen's Own Regiment. Almost all of its personnel were on at least their second term of enlistment in the Royal Manticoran Army (those who hadn't been cross-transferred from the Marines, as Griggs himself had been), and the Queen's Own was able to pick and choose only the very best. But Bulanchik had two other points in her favor. One was that she had always scored very high in public place training scenarios, and the other was that Ruth Winton liked her. It wasn't essential for a protectee to have a friendly personal relationship with one of her protectors, but it never hurt. Especially when it came to guarding Princess Ruth in such a crowded, busy, distracting, security nightmare of a place like The Wages of Sin.

Since they'd entered the pleasure resort, a part of Griggs' mind had never stopped cursing. Some of those silent curses, needless to say, had been visited on the princess herself. But not many. No one expects a headstrong young woman to be sensible about security, after all, especially the people assigned to protect her.

More of his curses were visited on the now-absent head of Anton Zilwicki. Haring off on a mysterious mission for a month, leaving his daughter and the princess to manage their own affairs!

But… the lieutenant didn't curse Anton much more than he did the girls. He knew the man's reputation, and if Anton Zilwicki thought something was important enough for him to leave for a month, Griggs didn't really doubt it was true.

No, most of the lieutenant's curses were visited on a man far distant from Erewhon: the Star Kingdom's Prime Minister, whose arrogant and stupid policies had so thoroughly alienated the people and government of Erewhon and made the princess' "informal" voyage to Erewhon necessary in the first place.

The Queen had not, needless to say, explained her purpose in sending Princess Ruth to Lieutenant Griggs personally. But there'd been no need. Like all officers assigned to the Queen's Own, Griggs was quite well aware of the political situation in the Star Kingdom. In times past, when Manticore's foreign relations had been in the hands of Prime Minister Cromarty and people of his choosing, Queen Elizabeth herself might have made the trip to Erewhon-or, if not she, someone representing her officially. On such occasions, Lieutenant Griggs would have been able to take all the added security measures which were taken for granted during such elaborate events.

Now, however…

Griggs had no quarrel with the Erewhonese themselves. As soon as he informed them of the princess' proposed visit to The Wages of Sin, without even being asked, the Erewhonese had volunteered to waive the usual security rules and allow Griggs and his men to retain their sidearms. They'd also immediately informed him that they would beef up the station's normal security by assembling their special weapons unit and keeping it on standby.

And that was, realistically, as much as he could ask for. There was simply no way that security for an informal jaunt by a member of the royal family could come close to the level of security which was possible for official visits of state. Especially when the member in question wasn't even in the line of succession. Such elaborate security measures were extremely disruptive for the normal course of business, after all. If Griggs had tried to push the issue, the Erewhonese would have simply declared the space station off limits for the princess-and he would have had to face Ruth's wrath. That, by itself, he would have been willing enough to do. But he knew perfectly well the princess would simply have overruled him-he was her bodyguard, not her keeper-and he would have wound up facing the same situation anyway, with disgruntled Erewhonese to deal with instead of cooperative ones.

As they wandered through the gaming halls of the pleasure resort, the princess and her companion were gazing awestruck at the holographic displays on the ceiling whenever they weren't distracted by one or another of the equally dazzling displays at the gaming tables themselves. Griggs ignored it all. Most of his mind was given to the task of studying all the people in the vicinity, looking for any possible danger. The rest was wallowing in tradition. His family treasured the ancient art of the curse.

– to the third generation. As for High Ridge's great-grandchildren, may each and every one be born with genetic defects-not much to ask, given THAT gene pool-and suffer a protracted and agonizing death. May their corpses be dismembered by wild animals. May their body parts-

As soon as Thandi and her team got off the shuttle and past the initial screen of security guards and scanners, she called Victor again.

"This place is a maze, and I don't know it at all. I don't see any point to wandering around looking for the Princess. You and Imbesi and your-ah, bodyguards-will have to do whatever you can at the point of initial contact. I think it makes a lot more sense for me to get into position to intercept Templeton after he makes his strike."

There was a slight pause; then Victor's calm voice came back.

"Agreed. I should have thought of that myself. Naomi's been with me since I arrived and she knows this place backwards and forwards."

"I bet she does," Thandi snorted. But she didn't have the throat mike activated when she said it.

"So I didn't think to consider what it would be like coming into it cold. What do you need?"

"I need to know where I am in relation to the most likely area-or areas-where Templeton would make his move. Even more important, where he'd be most likely to make his exit from the station-and the fastest way for me to place myself across that route. Or routes, if there'd be more than one."

"You'll need to give me some time. Five minutes, at least, probably more. Neither Naomi nor Walter will have that information, so we'll have to check with someone else."

Seeing no point to wandering around any further with no goal in mind, Thandi halted her team with a little gesture. They'd drawn alongside one of the resort station's multitude of little refreshment areas recessed from the corridor, and Thandi led the way into it. Her metabolism was starting to make warning signals, so since she had a bit of time she'd take care of that problem. Quickly, she and her team ordered food and began more or less gulping it down. Thandi's women grinned at her as they did so. Their metabolisms were more ferocious than average also, of course, but nothing compared to hers.

Templeton also found the space station a maze, but he'd had time to prepare for it. So, guided by the holo-guides one of his men had obtained the day before, he and his team passed quickly enough through the corridors toward the main gaming halls at the center of the station.

He was quite sure his sister would be found there. A moth to the flame. And once he got close enough to begin picking up her chemical traces, the very expensive tracking equipment he'd brought with him would do the rest.

Thandi had just finished wolfing down her food when Victor's voice returned.

"All right. Here's the best I can come up with. Templeton arrived at one of the more isolated docking bays. Good luck for him, unless he planned it that way-which he very likely did. But he won't return by that route. He's more likely to use one of the maintenance docks-either in Tube Gamma or Epsilon-and seize two or three of the shuttles which are always stationed there for routine work. Those bays aren't guarded since there's no way to enter them from the outside without security codes. Leaving them, of course, is a different matter. That requires codes also, but I'm sure he'll get the codes from the employees working there. They're not trained to stand up under torture."

"Okay. Where's-"

"Patience, patience." A trace of easy humor filtered into the relaxed, confident voice. Thandi felt a little stab of passion and suffocated it ruthlessly. No time for that-even if she knew the man!

"I was just about to tell you," Cachat continued. "Right now, you're in Tube Beta. A bit of good luck for us, since you're much closer to Epsilon or Gamma than Templeton will be when he makes his move."

"Which will be where?"

"In the main gaming hall at the center of the station. The Manticoran women are already there, and I'm sure that's where Templeton's headed. I'm heading down there myself, as soon as this conversation is finished."

"All right. I'll find my way, easily enough. There are holo-guides all over the place." She hesitated a moment. "Take care, Victor. By now, they'll almost certainly be armed."

"There's no question they are, I don't think. Imbesi just made a call to the docking bay where they arrived, and got no answer. I'm sure they've slaughtered the guards and taken their weapons. Along with whatever they brought themselves. Hopefully, they won't have any military-grade equipment."

Thandi hesitated again. She'd already considered the methods available for arming her team. They'd brought no weapons at all, since she'd known there was no way the station's security would have allowed them to enter with their weaponry.

Victor anticipated her thoughts. "Take what you need from the station's guards, when the time comes. But if you can, try not to kill any of them."

"That'd be hard to do, to be honest. Besides… we'll see, once I get a look at the fighting ground. I might be able to get the weapons from Templeton's men themselves."

It was Cachat's turn to hesitate. "That could be… ah, really dangerous, Thandi."

"Yes, it could. On the other hand"-her lips quirked a little-"I'm really that good, too. We'll make a deal. I won't tell you how to do cloak-and-dagger stuff; you don't tell me how to do mayhem."

She heard his soft chuckle. "Fair enough. Good luck, Thandi. When I hear anything more, I'll pass it along."

Thandi rose from the table. The women in her team, scattered at three other tables as well as her own, were on their feet instantly. Glancing around, Thandi saw that they were alone in the little room.

"We've been warned to be careful," she said cheerfully. "It seems Templeton is dangerous and my-ah, gentleman friend-is a bit concerned for my health."

That got the reaction she'd expected. All of the women were scowling.

"Men!" snapped one of them. "Great kaja, you are. Eat them alive."

Chapter 22

"That's it, then," said Victor softly, turning to face Naomi and her uncle. The two were sitting in what looked like superbly comfortable armchairs. So Victor assumed, at any rate. All the furniture he'd seen so far in the Imbesi family's private suite in The Wages of Sin looked-there was no other term for it-sinfully expensive and luxurious. That was part of the reason Victor hadn't availed himself of the comfort personally, aside from the fact that he was too full of energy to sit down anyway. For someone of his background and ideological convictions, there was something vaguely distasteful about using a piece of furniture whose price could have fed a poor family for months. It was an irrational reaction on his part, of course-but he was still the person who lived inside the skin of "Victor Cachat."

"Do you really think this will work?" Walter asked, frowning a little. "It seems excessively complicated."

"It is excessively complicated. But I can't see any other way to squeeze the opening we want out of the situation. Just smashing Templeton won't do it. We need to use him like a prybar."

Naomi's frown was more pronounced than her uncle's. "What I don't understand is why you're so confident that Templeton will even find his sister." She glanced at the door which opened into one of the space station's public corridors. "Victor, I'm not sure you have any real idea just how convoluted those passageways are. Sure, there are holo-guides. But those aren't really all that easy to use, especially for someone who's never been here before-which I'd be astonished if Templeton has, given his theology."

"She's got a point, Victor," chimed in Walter. "Templeton's more likely to just blunder about. And within two hours or so the alarms are going to go up all over the station. At that point, he'll just get smashed anyway. So why not do it now-and possibly save quite a few lives?"

"I'm counting on that theology, Walter. At a guess, how many people from either Grayson or Masada do you think ever visit The Wages of Sin?"

Imbesi chuckled. "Maybe a dozen. Possibly a few more… but not many of them, that's for sure. The Graysons don't share the Masadans' more fanatical effusions of 'morality,' of course. They don't have any prohibitions against gambling-within limits, at least-but even for them, this place is pretty much a synonym for 'wickedness.' " He grinned. "I think it has something to do with the female entertainers' costumes. Or lack thereof. Hm. Come to that, most of them are probably just as uncomfortable with the male entertainer's outfits!" he added, transferring his grin to his niece.

"Exactly," Victor nodded. "And the Grayson-Masadan genetic variant is quite distinct. The equipment needed to pick it up out of stray molecules suspended in the air is extremely costly, true. But the Masadans have piled up a lot of loot from their piracies over the past fifteen years-on top of a pile which was very substantial to begin with. Templeton's not stupid. I can't imagine he would have tried this stunt if he didn't have such a chemotracker."

Naomi's eyes widened. "I've heard of that sort of equipment. But is it really that good?"

"Yes," replied Victor firmly. "I've seen the gear in action. In the hands of someone who knows how to use it, it's almost like magic. Mind you, if they were trying to track Zilwicki's daughter in this crowded madhouse, it wouldn't do them any good except at close range. But that's because she's Terran, and her DNA traces would be impossible to distinguish from most people's until they got within a few meters of her. But with the princess, it's a different matter altogether. Especially since Templeton's crew is all male, so they can set the readings to filter out anything but a female from their genetic stock. Closer than that, in fact, since she's Templeton's half-sister and he can use his own DNA to key the settings."

"All right," said Walter, "that makes sense. But I still don't see why you're so confident you can bring Templeton to ground after he strikes."

"Genetics again." He eyed the Imbesis for a moment, hesitant to offend them. One of the prominent characteristics of Erewhonese culture-one which Victor himself appreciated, in fact-was that they were ferociously egalitarian. That aspect of their culture was not evident to most foreigners, who saw only the very stratified nature of Erewhon's power structure. But a structure and the individuals who filled its niches were not the same thing. Yes, the Erewhonese had little use for what most people would called "genuine democracy." But they had even less use for the notion that any individual could not aspire to anything he or she could manage. It was standard practice for Erewhon's great families to adopt promising youngsters, with no regard for class or genetic background. In fact, one of the worst insinuations which could be made of a prominent and influential family was that it was too selective in its mating habits-"screwing in-round," to use the crude Erewhonese expression.

Still, facts were facts, and he didn't think either of the Imbesis-Walter, especially-was all that blinkered by custom. "I don't think you really appreciate how much difference it can make, especially in a hand-to-hand melee, to have people on your side with the genetic make-up of Lieutenant Palane and her Amazon wrecking crew. Especially Palane."

Naomi made a little face. "Female weight-lifter," she muttered.

With some difficulty, Victor suppressed his annoyance. Leaving aside his own feelings for Lieutenant Palane, which still confused as well as unsettled him, what made Naomi's cattiness so irritating was that Victor knew there was nothing personal about it in the sense of jealousy about him. It was just the Imbesi woman's ingrained competitiveness toward other females at work.

"That's the least of it," he said, almost snapping. "Physical superiority by itself doesn't necessarily mean that much. In fact, it can be a handicap if it leads to overconfidence. I once-" He shook his head. "Never mind. Just take my word for it-or don't, as you choose. Palane didn't claw her way out of where she came from simply by using her muscles. She's smart, disciplined, and very well-trained. And while I think the Solarian Navy is over-rated-they haven't fought a real war against a serious opponent in centuries-the Solarian Marines are a different story altogether. Given all the brushfires they're constantly being called on to stamp out, they probably have at least as much combat experience-their best units, anyway-as even Republican or Mantie Marines. So when the time comes, I'll put my money on her."

Walter Imbesi had been studying Victor in the course of his little sermon. Now, he shrugged and spread his hands wide on the armrests. "And I'm putting my money on you. I've got my doubts, but… I learned a lot time ago not to second-guess myself. Okay, Victor, we'll do it your way. And now what?"

Victor glanced at his watch. "And now I'd say it's time for me and mine to set forth for the fray."

"What do you plan to do?"

"Have you ever seen holorecordings of that rather brutal ancient Terran sport called 'bull-fighting'? Or the variant of it they still play in the Solarian League's Nueva Oaxaca sector, using native animals?"

Walter's eyes widened. "I've seen the Nueva Oaxacan sport you're talking about, though not in person. If you can call that bloody business a 'sport.' "

"Can't say I approve myself," agreed Victor. "But it's a nice little analogy. I'm counting on Thandi-Lieutenant Palane-to drive in the sword. But the beast needs to be bloodied and weakened first."

"I can't get you weapons, Victor," warned Imbesi. "Not without tipping off my own place in this scheme of yours-which I can't afford to do. I've stretched my 'plausible deniability' far enough as it is."

"I wasn't asking you to," replied Victor mildly. He loosened his wide belt and palmed an object nestled into the ornate buckle. "This'll be enough to get me started."

Naomi stared at the object. "I've never heard of a palm pulser accurate at more than a few meters. I hope-"

"A few meters will be plenty. And it isn't a pulser. No pulser, no matter how small, could have made it through the security scanners in this place. It's a nonlethal stunning device, inertly powered, and you don't want to know how much it cost to make it detection-proof."

"But what-"

Walter was almost scowling. "I certainly hope it's nonlethal. If you start killing security guards yourself, it's going to be impossible to keep you sorted out from the bad guys when the dust settles." He glanced at the four men who were leaning casually against a nearby wall. "Especially given the nature of your own wrecking crew. We're cold-blooded on Erewhon, but not that cold-blooded."

One of the four men was Donald X. The thickset ex-slave gave Imbesi a thin smile. "Not to worry. Victor's aged a bit since the last time we encountered him. I'm sure he won't run amok the way he did on- Well. Let's hope, at any rate."

Imbesi sighed. "Damn High Ridge, anyway. Damn him and his children and their children. May-"

Outside, in the corridor, Donald's smile widened. "Hadn't realized the Erewhonese were masters of the curse."

"They aren't, really," said Victor, now hurrying. "It's just that they have a serious grievance-and they're not a folk who take grievances lightly."

"Wheeeee!! Way to go, Princess!"

Lieutenant Griggs winced at the piercing feminine squeal in his ear. He normally found Princess Ruth's voice pleasant enough, but when she was excited like this…

Not, perhaps, all that excited. He noticed that she'd still had the presence of mind to call Berry Zilwicki "Princess" when her companion managed to strike the jackpot again. Of course, from the vantage point of someone born and raised in the Manticoran royal family, the amount of money involved in the "jackpot" would hardly be overwhelming.

Even Berry didn't seemed overwhelmed, actually. The girl was smiling widely, to be sure, but Ahmed thought that was more due to the pleasure of the game itself rather to any great glee over sudden fortune. Griggs didn't think he'd plumbed the depths of the Zilwicki girl's character on such a relatively short acquaintance. But one thing was already clear to him-Berry Zilwicki just didn't seem to care all that much for any of the small measures of triumph by which so many people gauged their lives. She seemed far more mature than her seventeen T-years would have led him to expect.

But he didn't spend much time pondering the matter. His eyes were moving steadily across the crowd, checking for any possible sign of danger and making sure his people were maintaining good positions.

Fat lot of good that'll do them, as much of a madhouse as this place is. With these milling crowds, a damned army could sneak up on us before we'd spot them.

But the thought was only middling-sour. In truth, Griggs was not really expecting any trouble here that he and his troopers couldn't handle readily enough. There was this much to be said for the space station's persnickety security policies: any assailant would presumably have been disarmed. The worst trouble he'd encountered thus far was an inebriated fellow who'd apparently found "Princess" Berry stunningly attractive. But the girl had fended him off with a couple of witty phrases-and the lieutenant's glare had been enough to send the man stumbling off in search of easier if less nubile prey.

Berry Zilwicki hit the jackpot again.

"Wheeeee!!!"

Ahmed Griggs resigned himself to a long night.

"I've got her now," murmured Gideon, studying the readouts on the chemotracker's display. He moved the device in his hand back and forth, selecting between three corridors. Then, nodded to the left. "The whore's scent comes from there."

His cousin Abraham gave the display no more than a perfunctory glance. The readouts were far too complex to be read casually, and their leader was the only one who'd mastered the art. Of course, that was mostly because he'd never let anyone else do more than look at the incredibly costly gadget.

"To the left," said Abraham softly, passing along Gideon's command to the men trailing behind. He did not have to speak loudly. Since there was no way to disguise the fact that the large group was traveling together, Gideon Templeton had decided to turn a minus into a plus. His strike force was lined up double file, each man carrying the hand luggage which contained their weapons, as if they constituted a well-organized tour.

A moment later, Templeton and his three dozen killers were moving down the corridor. Once again, Gideon was awed by the subtlety of the Lord. On their own, he doubted very much if the old Faithful could have maintained the image of being simple tourists. Some, yes-but most had expressions on their faces which were so pinched and hostile that a solid body of them would have been rather alarming. Almost half of his crew were new converts, however, and those men made up for it by their cheerful swagger and open ogling at the sights around them. Practically the image of "brash tourists," they were.

Within a few minutes, they could hear the sound of revelry coming from ahead. Clearly, they were nearing the gaming halls. One young female voice sounded particularly loud and excited.

"Whores born," hissed Gideon, "each and every one. A place like this brings out the truth of it for all the universe to see, if the faithless had eyes."

By the time Thandi neared her destination, she'd been able to make enough sense of the holo-guide she'd purchased to decide on a battle plan. She was basically an infantry officer, with a specialization in ship-boarding, so she had a very good sense for "ground." Provided that the air circulation ducts were wide enough…

There was no way to tell until they tried them, but she was betting they would be. Like any enclosed pleasure resort trying to please as wide a range of customers as possible, The Wages of Sin needed to keep the air in the station fresh and frequently scrubbed. The easiest and cheapest way to provide for that would be with wide air ducts. Wide enough, she was almost sure, to allow even someone as big as she was to pass through them. Not standing, to be sure, but Thandi had spent enough time crawling during training exercises that she wasn't concerned about being able to maneuver quickly through something as straightforward as a circulation duct.

And they had one big advantage: Epsilon and Gamma corridors ran more or less parallel to each other for a quarter of a loop around the space station. Unless the Erewhonese designers of the place had opted for some exotic alternative, the two corridors were almost bound to be connected frequently to the same air circulation system. If so, she could essentially cover both of Templeton's possible escape routes without dividing most of her forces.

"Most of her forces." Ha! All ten of them-eleven, counting herself. And none of them armed except for the weapons provided by nature.

Which…

She glanced back at her team and smiled coldly. Amazons, indeed.

… ain't no small thing, when you get right down to it.

As they'd planned ahead of time, Ginny was waiting for Victor and his men in a small salon not far from one of the entrances to the main gaming hall. The salon was one of many such scattered about The Wages of Sin, in order to provide patrons a place to rest in some peace and quiet before launching themselves back into the fray. Victor and Ginny had chosen that salon because it was tucked away around a corner and went largely unnoticed by the public patrons-for which reason, it was favored by the resort's employees whenever they found the chance to catch a quick break.

Especially the security guards. Sure enough, when Victor walked into the salon he found Ginny seated on an upholstered stool, wearing a skimpy outfit which showed off her bare legs to perfection. Sitting around her in a semicircle were three of the station's security guards. From the intent expressions on their faces, all of them seemed to be finding Ginny's cheerful prattle the most profound philosophical insights they'd ever heard.

Victor managed not to smile. Ginny in Full Charm Mode was something of a shock to men who weren't familiar with her.

He glanced about, first checking the door in the corner which led to a small supply closet. The door was security coded, but Victor had already examined it earlier and was sure he could crack the code in a matter of seconds. It was a purely perfunctory lock, simply designed to keep out idly curious patrons. Then his eyes swept the rest of the salon, noting the two food-service employees sitting at a small table against a far corner. That was a bit unfortunate, but it would have been blind luck to have found the salon empty of anyone except the ones he wanted.

Donald and one of the other Ballroom members wandered in a few seconds later. Paying Victor no attention, they ambled lazily over to a table next to the one where the two food-service women were enjoying their break.

So much for that. Victor was quite confident they'd handle that end of the business. The remaining two Ballroom people would stay outside in the corridor to keep watch for anyone else.

Let's do it, then.

He moved toward Ginny and her admirers. Seeing him come, Ginny gave him her most inviting smile. "Edward!"she called out happily, and started to rise.

The three guards, needless to say, were by no means so delighted to see him. All of them glanced sourly at Victor; one of them was scowling outright. As their attention was distracted, Ginny gave out a little cry of distress. A moment later-she'd apparently gotten her feet tangled in the stool as she rose-she was spilling over backward.

Thump. Fortunately the floor of the salon was well-carpeted. Ginny landed on her back, her now-completely-bare legs flailing haplessly in midair. Except for her underwear-which was every bit as skimpy as the rest of her outfit-all was, as the expression went, "completely exposed."

It was an irresistible sight, especially for men who'd been momentarily distracted already. All three guards were gawking at her. One of them began to rise to give her a gentlemanly hand.

Thtt. He collapsed back onto his own stool and then slid to the floor unconscious. Thtt. Thtt. The other two guards, likewise.

As Ginny scrambled lithely to her feet, grinning, Victor turned toward the small scuffling sounds in the far corner. Donald and his comrade had seized the food-service workers and hauled them to their feet. With one hand clamped over their mouths to keep them silent, they were forcing the two women toward Victor.

He gauged their body weight and adjusted the settings on the tranquilizer gun accordingly. The drug used in the needles could be dangerous, even fatal, if used in too great a dosage.

Fortunately, since he was in a hurry, the settings were not really all that critical. He passed over the woman in Donald's grip, since Donald was so powerful she was completely helpless, and shot the other woman first. Then, Donald's. Thtt, thtt, and it was all over. There had been hardly any noise beyond a bit of scuffling and soft thumping and the thin sound of the compressed gas firing the needles. A nice, quick operation.

By the time Donald and his comrade Hendryk had deposited the two unconscious women next to the supply locker door and carried over the three guards, Victor had broken the security code. It was the work of a minute to place all five people in the closet in as comfortable a position as possible, given the cramped quarters, but they'd survive the experience with nothing worse than mild bruises and cramped muscles. The needles themselves wouldn't even have to be surgically removed. They were made from organic compounds which, once exposed to blood, would disolve harmlessly within a few hours.

Fortunately-this had been Victor's one big worry-the supply closet had its own ventilation ducts. There was no danger of suffocation.

"How long does that stuff last?" Hendryk asked.

Victor closed the door behind him and set a different combination for the lock. That would add a further delay if another employee should happen to need something in it. "Hard to say, exactly. It varies from one person to the next based on resistance and body weight. But they'll all be out for at least four hours, more likely six to eight."

"Long enough," Donald grunted. "I will say your technique has gotten a lot smoother since Chicago."

Victor handed the guns they'd taken from the guards to three of the Ballroom members. According to Donald, they were the best shots with handguns. Victor and Donald himself would just have to make do.

So would Ginny, but Victor was bound and determined to keep her out of the coming fray. Fortunately, despite her self-confident personality, Ginny was not a gunhandler at all and was not prone to useless heroics.

She was, however, prone to useless wisecracks.

"I told you!" she scolded Donald. "It's all due to my feminine influence. Soothes the savage male, all that. Otherwise he'd have hacked them up with an ax, or something."

Victor forbore reply. Always the safest course, dealing with Ginny.

"Let's do it, then. We're not three minutes from the gaming hall. Remember: unless it looks like they're planning to kill her, we'll let them take the princess before we intervene."

Ginny shook her head. "On the other hand, it'll take me years before I've got him shaped up as what you'd call a bona fide Knight in Shining Armor."

Chapter 23

When Templeton spotted the two young women standing at one of the gaming tables, he turned away in order to conceal his glare of fury from the very alert-looking officer standing a few paces from them. The officer was out of uniform, but Templeton had no doubt at all he was in the Manticoran military.

He spent the few seconds he needed to bring his sudden flare of rage under control studying the readings on the chemotracker in his palm, turning still further aside in order to prevent the Manticoran officer from getting a real glimpse of the device. From a distance of more than five meters, cupped in a man's hand, the chemotracker would be indistinguishable from a holo-guide.

The readings matched perfectly. They practically screamed: The whore is here! And very close!

"That's her, isn't it?" murmured Abraham. "The one in the fancy apparel?"

Gideon nodded. "Don't seem to be staring. Have the men spread out and find all the security people in the area, as well as the slut's own bodyguards. Do nothing before reporting back to me."

A moment later, Abraham was passing along the orders. Gideon was careful to keep his eyes on a nearby gaming table, as if gauging his chances at it, but he was able to follow the progress of his men well enough. Again, he gave thanks to the Lord. The old Faithful were moving a bit stiffly and awkwardly. As experienced as they were in such affairs, they were much like Templeton himself-too angry and outraged by the environment of this nest of evil to be able to act really casually. The new converts, on the other hand, handled the matter to perfection. They were spreading out easily and moving through the crowd looking for guards as if they were nothing more than avid thrill-seekers. Which, in a way, Templeton suspected they were.

Within a minute, reports began coming in. Fortunately, Templeton had been able to afford the best and most discreet personal communicators, so he wasn't worried that the security staff might pick up the transmissions. He'd be able to maintain tight information, control and command throughout, something which was not always possible in such operations. And if he fell in the service of the Lord, Abraham would be able to replace him immediately. He also had a full-link command communicator, as did his own lieutenant Jacob, who would be next in command if Abraham was struck down.

"The bitch has seven personal bodyguards, all of them looking like nervous rodents. Their leader is standing near their perimeter, on the right side. The one with the red hair. All of them are carrying sidearms only."

"Three security guards at each of the four main entrances to the hall, including the gate we need to pass through once we've got the slut. Their weapons are holstered and they don't seem particularly alert."

"Two guards in tandem drifting through the crowd. I'm following them. They're armed but their weapons are holstered."

"A guard gabbing with a customer by one of the tables. I've got him when the signal goes up."

"A guard practically draped all over a whore at a table not far from the princess." That was a new convert speaking; no old Faithful would have had that undertone of concupiscence. "Her husband doesn't look any too happy about it either."

Victor wasn't happy about it, but only because the guard's holster had a buttoned-down flap that would take too long to get open and retrieve the weapon. He'd spotted the Scrag several seconds earlier, since the man was acting as carelessly as Scrags tended to do. The "superman's" version of "undercover work" was almost laughable. Victor hoped that Thandi had at least managed to beat that habit out of her own crew.

He decided to turn the Scrag's arrogance to advantage.

"Do you see them all?" he murmured into his communicator.

Donald was standing at the same gaming table, not more than ten feet away, appearing to be studying the game under progress. His voice was full of amusement.

"It's a bit like spotting wild animals swaggering through a coffee house, isn't it? The Scrags, I mean. The Masadans look like they've all eaten a jar full of pickles. I count fifteen, in my viewing range."

Victor had counted about the same number, including Gideon Templeton-who was standing with two men he presumed to be his lieutenants not more than thirty meters away from the princess. He was sure the remaining men were somewhere out of sight in the crowd. Many of them would be positioned to take out the security guards by the entrances to the gaming hall.

There was nothing he could do about those, anyway, even leaving aside the fact that he had no intention of stopping the fanatics from kidnapping the princess and making their escape. Some of them, rather. He intended to kill at least half of the Masadans, including Templeton if at all possible. Bleed the beasts so Thandi could spring the trap.

The security guard was now casually placing his hand on Ginny's arm. Ginny herself, to all apparent purposes, seemed to be enjoying the attention. Victor decided the circumstances allowed him to scowl openly.

He didn't have to fake the scowl, either. He hated complicated operations which depended on coordinated timing, but he hadn't seen where he had any choice. Glumly, he knew that Kevin Usher would have sarcastic remarks to make when he got a full report-even assuming the fancy maneuver came off properly.

For a moment, he was tempted to call Thandi again, just to reassure himself that her people still on the planet were up to the task of grabbing Flairty and the Mesans and getting them up to The Wages of Sin in time for the rest of the operation to go as planned. Imbesi already had a private shuttle waiting for them at the shuttle grounds, but…

He pushed the worry aside. Thandi's people would either manage it or they wouldn't. At this point, there was nothing either he or Lieutenant Palane herself could do about it. So he turned back to the business at hand.

"I'll have to take the Scrag watching Ginny," he murmured. "You get the guard's gun."

Donald made no reply beyond: "Okay."

Out of the corner of his eye, Victor studied the Scrag again. The man was perhaps five meters away, now. A bit too distant for the short-range accuracy of the tranquilizer gun.

Speaking of which… turning slightly away, he palmed it into his hand.

"Are you utterly insane?" Unser Diem shrieked. The Jessyk Combine's troubleshooter had shot out of his chair before Templeton's Lieutenant Flairty had completed the third sentence of his terse statement.

"What do you madmen think you're doing?" he bellowed.

Haicheng Ringstorff was furious himself, but he didn't waste time in pointless harangues. Still sitting, he exchanged looks with George Lithgow. His lieutenant's eyes were slitted with anger, and his hands were clenched on the armrests of his own chair, but Lithgow was no more prone than Ringstorff himself to useless displays of rage.

What do you think, Unser? They're religious fanatics, you idiot. You were expecting reason and logic?

For a moment-and not for the first time-Ringstorff reflected gloomily that this whole protracted operation in Erewhonese territory was pure folly. The Mesans had gotten their way for so long that they'd grown arrogant, sloppy and careless.

And now…

It was time for one Haicheng Ringstorff to extricate himself from what was rapidly becoming the worst fiasco he'd ever encountered in his life. True, the Mesans paid well. But no amount of money in the galaxy was worth the grief and risks they'd been putting him through for the past couple of years. Bad enough they'd gotten him tangled up last year with a Mantie cruiser captained by an apparent naval wizard. That had already cost Ringstorff and the Mesans four destroyed cruisers of their own. Now, by insisting that Ringstorff rely on maniacs like Masadans and Scrags for a "security team," the Mesans were about to bring the entire wrath of the Star Kingdom upon on his head.

The Mesans could be as cocksure as they chose. One Haicheng Ringstorff had had far more experience than they had when it came to the grief Manties could ring down.

Unser was still screaming invective at a passive-faced Flairty.

"I want out," Ringstorff muttered, "pure and simple."

He started to rise. So did Lithgow.

The door to the Mesan suite erupted in a flash. The concussion knocked Ringstorff off his feet. In a daze, he saw Diem and Lithgow and Flairty hammered to the floor as well. Fortunately, the two Masadans who'd remained standing next to the door absorbed most of the force of the explosion. Their shattered bodies went flying across the room.

Ringstorff knew he needed to act immediately, but his brain and nervous system were still responding sluggishly. So he wasn't able to do much more than lurch to his knees and gurgle an inarticulate protest before people started pouring through the ruptured doorway.

He was a bit surprised to see two women coming through first. Then, recognizing their distinctive phenotypes and facial structure, understood the reason. Scrags. Faster, probably, than the two Mesan security guards fumbling at their weapons. Since they'd been the farthest from the door, they'd managed to remain on their feet.

Fat lot of good it did them. The first woman through the door had a pulser in her hand and fired two quick and expert bursts. The two guards went down, dead before they landed.

The second woman strode over to Flairty, who was still lying prone on the floor, her gun pointed at the back of the Masadan's head.

And good riddance, thought Ringstorff. At least he wouldn't die without seeing the bastard zealot sent to his grave first.

But, to his surprise, the woman didn't fire. At the last moment, she swiveled the gun aside and just kicked Flairty in the back of the head. It was a powerful kick but not the lethal one she could have so obviously delivered. Just enough to daze Flairty completely.

Four men had now entered the room, moving a bit more slowly than the women. One of them remained standing near the door, a pulser in his fist but pointing at no one in particular. One of them came toward Ringstorff, another headed toward Diem, the third toward Lithgow. Lithgow, like Ringstorff himself, was now up on his knees. Diem was still flat on the floor, apparently unconscious.

The approaching men were carrying hand pulsers but, like the one by the door, didn't seem to be planning to use them. Not immediately, at least. Ringstorff decided he and Lithgow still had a chance-a piss-poor one, true-and tried to gather himself for a sudden lunge.

Then the man coming toward Ringstorff stuck out his tongue-stuck it way out-and Ringstorff froze. The genetic markers were easily visible and… unmistakable.

"Shall we dance?" the man jeered. "I don't recommend it though, Ringstorff. I really doubt you're up to being my partner."

Audubon Ballroom. More fanatics. I'm dead meat.

"My name's Saburo X, by the by. Give me any shit and I'll blow off your arms and legs, cut off your nose and feed it to you. Be a good boy, and you'll live. Maybe a long time, who knows?"

Mutely, Ringstorff gave him a nod. Then, without being asked, clasped his hands behind his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lithgow do the same. Nobody in their right mind-certainly not anyone on Mesa's payroll-was going to doubt a Ballroom fanatic's threats of mayhem.

Apparently satisfied, Saburo X glanced at the woman who'd kicked Flairty.

"It was well done," he said. The words sounded a bit grudging.

"Of course it was," she replied. But there was no heat in the response. True, she was frowning. But it seemed more like a frown of concentration than displeasure.

"Do that again," she said abruptly.

"Do what?"

She stuck out her tongue. Saburo goggled at the sight. Then, his jaws tightened.

"Please," said the woman, as if the word didn't come easily to her.

Saburo suppressed whatever angry words he'd been about to speak; hesitated; shrugged; and stuck out his tongue again.

The woman examined it for an instant.

"I can live with that," she pronounced. "In fact, it looks kind of intriguing. I'm Lara. Have you got a woman?"

The Ballroom member was back to goggling. "Not recently," he choked. "Why?"

"You do now," Lara stated, as casually as if she were announcing the time of day. "I don't like being without a man, and the one I had isn't going to live out the day. The stinking pig."

She reached down with her left hand, seized Flairty by the scruff of his blouse, and yanked him easily to his feet. Flairty wobbled, his eyes still dazed, held up only by Lara's grip.

"You can take a while to get used to the idea," she announced. "But don't take too long. I'm horny."

She began muscling Flairty toward the door, carrying him more than guiding him. On the way, she gave Ringstorff a cold glance.

"Give my new man any trouble and you'll be lucky if you die before he's done. I'll-"

By the time she had Flairty through the door, Ringstorff felt sick to his stomach. The ex-Scrag female's vivid description of the mayhem she'd inflict on him made Saburo seem like a saint.

"She's crazy," Saburo choked.

"I dunno," said the Ballroom terrorist who was now manhandling Lithgow to his feet. "I thought the last bit had a certain charm."

"Not that, Johann," replied Saburo, shaking his head. "The other part."

Johann grinned. "I dunno," he repeated. "I'm not sure I'd argue the point with a woman like that, myself. Besides, you were complaining the other day that your life was too boring."

"Especially his sex life," chimed in the Ballroom member by the door. "Bored me to death about it, he did, just yesterday." He, too, was grinning. And by the time he finished, was looking at the other ex-Scrag female still in the room.

"And what's your name?" he asked.

She grinned back. "Inge. But don't push it. I want to get a report from Lara first."

Less than five minutes later, the four Mesans had been bundled into an expensive private air-car waiting by a service entrance behind the Suds. By then, Ringstorff had gotten over his astonishment at the ease with which the abduction had been managed-there had been no one along their way through the huge edifice, not even so much as a janitor-and was now grimly certain that his life hung by a thread. This was obviously not just an Audubon Ballroom operation. Somebody high up in the Erewhon hierarchy must have run interference for them.

As he was half-thrown into the back seat of the luxurious vehicle, piling on top of Diem, he caught a glimpse of the monogram on the controls.

Imbesi. Oh, what a nightmare.

By the time Imbesi's private shuttle launched,carrying Flairty and the three Mesans up to The Wages of Sin, the major families who ruled Erewhon had their representatives already inspecting the damage.

"We can live with this," pronounced Tomas Hall, as his eyes ranged through the Mesan suite in the Suds.

"Barely," hissed Alessandra Havlicek.

The third member of the planet's triumvirate shrugged. "It's really not a problem, Alessandra. Four dead, all flunkies-two of them Masadans, from the look of the bodies. Big deal. The wrecked door's got the management of the Suds more upset than anything."

Havlicek was not mollified. "I don't like Walter Imbesi's high-handed ways. He's really pushing it, in my opinion."

Hall shrugged again. In private, the gesture was less restrained than it would have been in front of a public audience. But there was no one in the room beyond themselves, three bodyguards-and, of course, the representatives of the press.

Hall turned toward one of the reporters. His third cousin, as it happened. Like everything else on Erewhon, "freedom of the press" was refracted through a family prism.

"Keep it quiet for now, would you?" For all the politeness of the question, it was really a command.

The third cousin understood how it worked. Perfectly, in fact, or he wouldn't have enjoyed his position.

"No sweat. An unfortunate accident. We'll have to run a little vague on that, or the Suds management will get upset at the suggestion of incompetence."

"Blame it on the Mesans themselves," suggested a second reporter. An adopted member of the Havlicek clan, she was. "Fiddling with dangerous psychedelic drugs, no chemists they, an open flame presumed to have been present-boom." She chuckled harshly. "That'll do it. Nowadays, anybody will believe anything about Mesans."

Her harsh chuckle was echoed through the room.

"Done," said Fuentes. He cocked an eye at Alessandra.

Grudgingly, she nodded. "As you said, we can live with it. For now. But Imbesi better damn well have a good reason-and explain it to us fully, too, none of his usual caviling."

"What is he up to, anyway?" asked Hall. The question was addressed to Fuentes, who'd been the one to receive Walter Imbesi's hurried call.

"Don't really know. But I don't share Alessandra's skepticism. Not fully, at least. Yes, Walter can be a pain in the neck with his daredevil ways. He's also as shrewd as they come. So I'm for letting him have the reins for a bit. Let's see what happens."

Since all three were in agreement, Fuentes brought out his communicator. This was no delicate hidden device, but a full-powered one easily able to reach the space station.

"All right, Walter," he spoke into it. "We'll cover you from this end. But that's it. You're on your own for the rest-and you're the cutout. If whatever you're doing goes sour, you take the fall."

The response came immediately. "Of course. Thanks, Jack. I'll be in touch."

"Sooner than you think," was Fuentes' curt reply. "We're on our way up there ourselves, Walter. Leaving now."

Everyone was in place, finally, everything set. Gideon Templeton took a moment for quick prayer. Then spoke the battle cry of the Church of Humanity Unchained, Defiant.

"The Lord's will be done."

Chapter 24

Victor had gambled that when the time came, the Scrag would do it casually, so as not to alert anyone with a sudden motion.

"Casually," in these circumstances, meant slowly. Before the Scrag had even gotten the hidden pulser out of his bag, Victor had already taken two quick strides toward him and was within three meters. Fine range for his special palm gun.

The Scrag's eyes widened. Thinking and moving as quickly as that genetically enhanced breed could do, he realized he couldn't get out the gun in time and tried to hurl the entire handbag at Victor.

But Victor, though no "superman," was highly conditioned by training and exercise. If he wasn't as fast or as coordinated as the Scrag, he was close enough.

Thtt, thtt, thtt. Victor was taking no chances with a Scrag. If he died from an overdose, good riddance.

The Scrag was down, Victor's hand already plunging into the handbag. He groped for the gun by feel alone, however. His eyes were elsewhere, ranging the gaming hall to find the Manticoran princess.

Donald X was too thick and muscular to move that quickly. But speed was really not essential when dealing with a man bedazzled by Ginny's flirtation. The security guard never even noticed him coming until Donald's arm went round his chest, pinning his own arms. A couple of seconds later, Donald had the guard's pulser in his hand and sent the man flying with a powerful heave.

Donald took two steps to get shelter behind the gaming table. Then, like Victor, looked to find the princess. The center of the action would be on her. He paid no attention to Ginny. Usher's wife was no fool and her part in the affair was over for the moment. Donald caught a quick glimpse of bare legs squiggling under the gaming table, and grinned thinly.

Part of the grin was because his three comrades had arrived. One of them positioned himself next to Donald, while the other two went to ground in flanking positions which would allow them the best possible field of fire. Their guns were out and ready to cover the area where Templeton's main crew would make the attack. Mostly, though, he was grinning because he knew that with Ginny safely out of the way, Victor Cachat would be able to devote his full concentration to murder and massacre.

Donald X had seen Victor in action, once. Pity Templeton!

Sergeant Christina Bulanchik and Corporal Darrin Howell, assigned as Ruth and Berry's close escorts, were also alert. Their attentive eyes swept the crowded chamber endlessly, and the brains behind those eyes reacted with professional paranoia the moment the random drifting of the crowd in the gaming hall was interrupted by sudden purposeful movement. Highly trained instincts reacted with instantly enhanced attention, and their eyes narrowed as at least a dozen men separated themselves from the crowd by the simple act of moving in coordinated unison. The troopers understood they were under attack even before they spotted the guns in the hands of their assailants.

Howell's left hand darted out, catching Berry by the shoulder and spinning her away and to the floor with far more haste than care, even as his right hand flashed towards his pulser. Bulanchik reacted with matching quickness, sweeping Ruth behind her and sending her tumbling towards the floor, as well, as the sergeant went for her own holster. Both troopers managed to draw their weapons, but the time they'd taken to get their charges out of the line of fire had cost them precious fractions of a second. Before either of them could fire, they were dead in a hurricane of pulser darts.

"Werewolf!" Christina Bulanchik's warning cracked like an old-fashioned pistol shot over the Queen's Own's com net. That single code word was the most terrifying thing any member of a Manticoran protective detail could hear, and Lieutenant Ahmed Griggs reacted to it instantly.

He hadn't been facing the same direction as Howell and Bulanchik, and so he'd missed the initial swirls in the crowd which had alerted them. But Bulanchik's warning snapped his pulser into his hand with the serpent quickness of trained muscle memory. The safety came off in the same fluid movement, even as his brain dropped into the ice-cold, detached mode of a trained bodyguard who was also a highly decorated combat veteran. His eyes swept the crowd before him, seeking threat sources, and the pulser came up smoothly, so smoothly, as the first assailant identified himself. Griggs couldn't have explained exactly how the man had done that. It was something about his stance, the way he moved against the crowd, the expression in his eyes or the tenseness in his shoulders. It was something that shouted the truth to the lieutenant's trained senses, and his pulser hissed in a precise, three-dart burst that blew the terrorist's chest apart.

Ahmed Griggs was a crack shot with any hand weapon, and his entire being was focused on the crowd before him as people began to scream in terror. The quicker-witted were already flinging themselves towards the floor, and a tiny corner of his brain felt a flicker of gratitude as the innocent took themselves out of the line of his fire. Another corner realized that personally shooting attackers was the worst thing he could be doing. That his job was to command his entire detachment, to enforce order and coordination upon his people's response.

But there was no time to worry about what he ought to be doing. All he could do was respond, and his succeeding quick bursts took down three more men-all dead-before he was struck by the first return fire. A pulser dart mangled his shooting arm at the elbow in the split second before several more darts ripped into his legs. They lacked the full velocity of military-grade weapons, but even civilian-grade darts attained a velocity no chemical-powered firearm could have hoped to match. The darts were more than sufficient to reduce bone to splinters and rupture flesh. Griggs went down hard, his entire body screaming with agony, and his pulser landed on the floor beside him.

By then, the four other troopers in Griggs' unit had taken down an additional six men-and, again, all of them from fatal wounds. Ten assailants down-half again their own number, despite having suffered the loss of two troopers before they could fire even a single round.

Three of them were down, as well, and Laura Hofschulte was the only one still in action. She'd gone to one knee behind the dealer's console-pausing only to grab Ruth and throw her forcefully under the gaming table as the princess tried to climb back up onto her own hands and knees. Now her left hand stabbed the panic button on her belt com pack, alerting the detachment's supporting Erewhonese heavy-weapons squad, even as her right hand tracked onto a fresh target. She squeezed her trigger, taking down yet another attacker, but there were too many threat sources, too much background clutter to hide them from her, and she knew it.

She spotted another weapon coming at her from the left flank and twisted, bring her pulser across her body, tracking into the threat. The man's eyes met hers at a range of less than four meters. Strange eyes, a flashing thought told her, and a memory trace shouted the word "Scrag!" at her. There was shock in those eyes, as well. Disbelief at how rapidly and lethally the outnumbered detail had responded to the threat, mingled with hatred and predator arrogance that turned ever so fleetingly into something else as the muzzle of her weapon found him.

They squeezed their triggers in the same heartbeat of time.

It was as splendid a response as anyone could have asked from the soldiers of the Queen's Own, fighting in the worst conceivable circumstances: a stand-up gunfight at point-blank range in the middle of a huge mob, reacting to a surprise attack in greatly superior numbers from every direction. The names of the detail's troopers would be duly recorded on the Wall of Honor in the Queen's Own's Permanent Mess in Mount Royal Palace, along with the Adrienne Crosses each of them received for his or her actions that day.

All of them posthumous. In the end, they were simply overwhelmed.

Through the haze of the shock, Griggs could hear screaming erupt throughout the huge gaming hall. Unlike his own people, who'd taken pains to avoid hitting innocent bystanders, the attackers had been careless. Not even the Queen's Own could have avoided hitting any bystanders in a fight like this one. Anyone who thought they could have was dreaming… or completely ignorant of the realities of high-powered weapons. No, there would have been innocent civilian casualties, whatever happened and even leaving aside the security guards, with their much lower standard of training, elsewhere in the hall. But the Masadan terrorists' complete indifference to those casualties made them far, far worse. Blood and bodies were everywhere, in a whirlwind of carnage, and the sheer number of attackers told Griggs this was a major operation. He was sure whoever had planned this attack would see to it that every possible danger to them was cleared aside.

His brain worked no further than that, other than to register his own mortality. If nothing else, he'd bleed to death from the wounds he'd already received long before any medical assistance could reach him.

He did manage to turn his head enough to see that both of the girls were under the gaming table. Zilwicki's daughter seemed unusually composed, given the circumstances. The real princess, in her much less fine apparel, seemed a bit stunned. But that could have been simply from the bruise on her forehead. Ahmed suspected that Christina or Laura must have thrown her down roughly. He noted that much, then felt a stab of fresh agony that had nothing at all to do with his own wounds as he saw Laura Hofschulte go down in a spray of blood and tissue.

Then, he faded out.

The Manticoran soldiers were all dead now. Templeton was shocked at the effectiveness of the resistance they'd put up. In the space of seconds, before being finally brought down, the Queen's Own had managed to kill more than a quarter of his entire strike force-and over forty percent of the ones directly participating in the assault on the princess. He'd known he was facing elite troops, but he hadn't expected such an instantly murderous response. Not with the advantages he'd had of a surprise attack on favorable ground, led by men as lethal themselves as his new converts.

For a moment, Gideon was so shaken that he was unable to move. But then, after a quick inspection of the corpses littering the area, he settled down. Once again, he could see the Hand of God at work. Most of his casualties-eight out of twelve-had been new converts. Stash, the most obstreperous of the lot, was among them. The Lord provideth-and, when the time comes, the Lord taketh away.

Through his earbug Templeton was now getting reports from the teams throughout the gaming hall. They were also reporting success in taking down the security guards. Much easier success, needless to say, than Templeton had had coming up against elite soldiers.

All except one of his team, who failed to report at all. That was the man who'd been covering the guard dallying with a whore. A new convert, that one. Slack, as always. Gideon had no doubt he'd succeeded in his mission, but had simply failed to report.

Templeton and the other surviving men of his main detachment had reached the large gaming table now, their eyes searching for the princess. There were sixteen of the Masadans left, more than enough to search the immediate area. The bodies of the dealer and two customers, killed by stray shots from Templeton's fusillade, were draped over the table. Two more customers lay dead on the ground nearby. Once the corpses had been tossed aside, it took Templeton no more than two seconds to figure out what had happened. His sister and the Zilwicki bitch must be hiding under the table. It was more than large enough to conceal two women-and Templeton now saw that the area beneath was shielded from view by a fringe of fabric. Fancy and cheerfully decorated fabric, once, designed to please and stimulate customers. Now, half of it was soaked in gore. Blood was beginning to drip from the tassels onto the floor.

"Surround the table!" he shouted. "Get her when she comes out." Templeton was holding the chemotracker in his left hand, his gun in the right. He stooped across the body of a fallen Manticoran bodyguard and lifted the fringe with the chemotracker, taking care to point the pulser away. In his fury and excitement, he still had enough self-control not to risk killing the slut with an accidental shot.

"Okay," said Victor softly into his throat mike, "it's definitely a kidnaping, not an assassination. So hold your fire for a moment. If they'd just wanted to kill her, they'd already be aiming under the table. Get ready. Remember-Templeton stays alive. The one next to him also, the man wearing the blue embroidered jacket. He's the lieutenant. Abraham's his name, some sort of relative. Leave one other alive, so they can get the girl out easily."

"Which one?" murmured Donald's voice in his ear.

There was no time for anything fancy. Victor picked the one with the gaudiest clothing. "The Scrag wearing that irridescent yellow outfit. Those three stay alive. Kill the rest."

As soon as he stooped low enough, Templeton spotted the two figures huddled in the shadowy gloom under the table.

"Come out, sister mine," he hissed at the woman in the royal finery. He went down on one knee to get a better angle and aimed the pulser at his sister's companion. "Come out at once. Or I'll kill the Zilwicki bitch."

That much he would give his sister credit for. She didn't hesitate for more than a split-second before beginning to crawl toward him. Craven and cowardly, at least, the whore was not. That would be the male parentage at work. Gideon's father had been famous for his courage, and he'd sired Ruth as well.

The Zilwicki girl seemed dazed. Templeton decided that was good enough for his purposes. He'd leave her be, as he'd sworn on the Lord's oath. She made a feeble attempt to restrain the princess, but her groping hand fell short as Templeton's sister crawled resolutely toward him.

Everything was going well, finally. From the sounds of the screaming all over the gaming hall, Templeton was certain the entire room was a madhouse, with everyone now simply trying to escape. He and his men would just join the mob, unnoticed in the chaos and confusion.

When his sister reached him, Templeton shoved the pulser into the back of his pants and grabbed her by the hair. Then, jerked her out from under the table and hauled her to her feet.

He still had the chemotracker in his left hand, and he glanced at it. It was a casual glance, really. Nothing more than a last-minute check.

The readings were… meaningless.

He froze; then, struck by a guess, moved the tracker's sensors toward the girl still under the table.

Fury seized him, and he shook the woman's head by the hair in his hand.

"You bitches! I'll-"

Ahmed Griggs faded back in. He was staring at a man's boots, not a meter away. A girl's expensive slippers fell off her feet, as if they'd been shaken loose.

What was happening?

Confused, the lieutenant's eyes shifted and spotted his pulser, lying on the floor within reach of his left hand. The sight of the familiar weapon blew the confusion out of his brain like a strong wind. The reflexes of a combat veteran took over.

Ignoring the agony streaking through the rest of his body, Griggs had the pulser in his hand and ranging upward, seeking his target. He couldn't shoot as well left-handed as right, but at this range it hardly mattered.

As soon as the body mass loomed over the sights, Ahmed began firing. The pulser darts shredded Gideon Templeton's groin and abdomen, and the Masadan leader's body exploded like a volcano of blood, shredded tissue, and splintered bone.

The religious fanatic never had time to finish explaining his final purpose, before his God gathered him to whatever place might be his destiny.

Watching Templeton almost cut in half, Victor restrained a curse. There was no help for it, after all, and he was not a man to swear at another brave man for doing his duty even from the brink of the grave. And not when the Manticoran lieutenant was now being shredded by a tornado of darts from Templeton's enraged comrades.

That rage would work to his advantage, Victor realized. He waited until the princess, flung aside by Templeton's last convulsive movement, hit the floor and was out of the line of fire. Zilwicki's daughter would be safe enough, he thought, still sheltered under the table. And the sudden killing of their leader had both confused and distracted his followers.

He spoke quickly, but calmly. "Keep your shots waist high, no lower. Remember, Abraham and the yellow-jacket stay alive. Kill the others. Now."

Donald and his three Ballroom comrades began firing with the single, deadly precise shots of expert gunmen, and the fifteen Masadans still on their feet around the gaming table began falling like scythed grain. With, somehow, as if by a miracle, Abraham and one other remaining unharmed. As Victor had anticipated, the sudden attack from the side had caught the Masadans completely by surprise. Standing up, without the cover of the mob to conceal them and confuse the marksmen, they were like so many targets in a shooting gallery.

Victor made no attempt to add his own fire to the carnage. He was a good marksman, but not an expert one-and never would be. And while the range was easy for pistoleros like the Ballroom gunmen, it was long enough that Victor didn't think he'd add much to their efforts. He was more concerned that his stray shots might kill or injure one of the bystanders still trying to flee the area. There weren't many left anywhere near the gaming table, of course-not standing, at least. But there were still half a dozen people desperately trying to crawl away, and perhaps the same number lying about wounded. It was essential for Victor's plan to have no innocent casualties laid at his own feet.

Besides, speaking of the plan, it was time to start on the next stage of it. Victor began trotting through the gaming hall, weaving in and around the tables, heading toward the exit which Abraham Templeton would use to take away the Manticoran princess.

On the way, he took the time to call Lieutenant Palane.

"They'll be coming soon, Thandi. Gideon Templeton's dead, so his cousin Abraham will be leading them. Abraham, one other, and whoever else they pick up from the rest of the hall. I'll try to give you a count when I spot them myself."

"Good enough," came her voice in his ear. "We'll just have to hope Abraham was privy to all of Gideon's plans. Any word from the planet?"

"Yes. Walter called me not two minutes ago. They've got the Mesans and Flairty and are bringing them up. Everything went perfectly, it seems."

"Good." There was a short pause. Then: "One thing, Victor. This is my part of the deal. I need Flairty dead. I don't care about the others. But Flairty goes down."

Victor's mind raced, even while his eyes kept ranging the hall looking for more of Templeton's men. Within ten seconds, he'd spotted seven of them making their way toward the exit. Those would have been among the ones assigned by Templeton to take out the perimeter guards.

He estimated there'd been nine of them. Victor and Donald had taken out one. That left one still missing. Where was he?

But most of Victor's brain was occupied with analyzing Thandi's forceful request. By the time he spotted the last man, straggling far behind, he'd figured it all out.

"Sweet boss you've got, Thandi. But I won't argue the point. Flairty goes down. I assume you'll do Abraham yourself. Eliminate anyone who'd know the truth."

He spoke the words calmly, but there was enough of a foul taste in his mouth to condemn a man to death. As soon as Victor came within range of the Masadan straggler-who'd been so concerned with trying to find his way out that he hadn't noticed the man stalking him-Victor stopped, brought up his pulser in a two-handed grip, and cut the man down.

He'd planned to let him live long enough to join the others in the trap, but…

It was a really foul taste. And since Masadan fanatics were just as foul, Victor took out his anger by killing him immediately.

Though it didn't really seem to help much.

"All right, Thandi. I've got a full count now. I'm pretty sure it's accurate-close enough, anyway. You should be facing Abraham Templeton and eight others."

"Cut 'em down by almost three-fourths, did you? Thanks. But you might want to consider those numbers, before you condemn others for being too ruthless."

He took a long, deep breath. "The Manticoran soldiers accounted for a dozen of them. But there's a difference anyway, Thandi, and you know it. For me, there's a purpose. For your precious captain, just his own ambition."

She said nothing in response. What could she say, really?

Victor didn't know the full story yet-though he'd make sure to find out-but at least one mystery had been cleared up. Hieronymus Stein had not been murdered by Manpower, after all. He'd been murdered by Templeton and his religious goons working on the side. Not for their own purposes, but simply because they'd been hired to do so by Captain Luiz Rozsak-and now Rozsak had ordered Thandi to eliminate the witnesses.

Why? Victor was quite sure it was part of a scheme by Rozsak to advance his career. Probably by displacing Cassetti as Governor Barregos' indispensable man, because Victor was fairly certain that the order had been given by Cassetti. The governor himself probably knew nothing about it. By all accounts, Cassetti was utterly unscrupulous-and just the sort of man to come up with an elaborate scheme like this one. Kill Stein, throw the blame on Manpower-and then use that to drive forward Maya Sector's growing alienation from the Solarian League. Get the Renaissance Association's political backing as a result of Stein's murder, and…

Yes, it all made sense to him. Cassetti would have been the one. Cassetti, dreaming of the days when he could be the right-hand man-and possibly the successor-to the leader of an independent star nation richer and more powerful than any in the galaxy except the Solarian League itself. With the Solarians half-paralyzed by the fact that it had been Manpower's overweening arrogance and brutality which seemed to have been the final straw to lead to the revolt.

A clever scheme-and, like almost all such, too clever. Cassetti had overlooked the possibility that the man he'd chosen to do the "wet work" might turn it against him, when the time came.

Victor slowed down a bit. He was nearing the exit, and didn't want to be spotted by Abraham Templeton and his men as they left the gaming hall. Hiding was going to be more difficult now, because most of the panicked mob had managed to flee from the hall. He spotted a particularly elaborate gaming table with a central tower of some kind, and trotted over to stand behind it. The tower's flamboyant, coruscating lights would hide him from sight.

There, as he waited, he completed his calculations. It all came easily enough, since he'd already understood that Rozsak's ambitions would probably lead him to have a favorable response to Victor's overture. All that was really new was that Victor now understood that Rozsak had been responsible for the Stein assassination. Which…

Yes, yes, shocking. But Victor had overcome his initial surge of anger, and was thinking cold-bloodedly again. The truth was that Rozsak's actions would make him all the more willing to go along with Victor's scheme. Nor would Cassetti interfere. For both of them, Victor's plans for Congo would work splendidly. Giving them-whichever won out in their own internecine conflict-an even greater moral luster to drape over their personal ambitions.

So be it. Victor could live with foul tastes. He'd lived with Oscar Saint-Just for years, hadn't he? What the revolution required of him, Victor would give.

Flairty would go down, then. Victor swallowed the taste and ignored it thereafter.

He found himself now wondering what it all tasted like for Thandi Palane. Just as foul, he suspected. He hoped so. The woman was coming to occupy more and more of his thoughts, whether he wanted it or not.

On the planet below, other people were dealing with the taste of things.

"What the hell is going on?" Cassetti's voice was practically screaming in Captain Rozsak's earbug.

Luiz glanced at Lieutenant Commander Watanapongse, who gave him a little thumbs up. The recording was being made.

The Solarian Navy captain eased back in the armchair in his suite. "I don't know, exactly. From the garbled reports I've been getting, Sir, it sounds like the Masadans have run amok. I warned you, if you recall, that it was dangerous using them."

"They were all supposed to be taken out afterward!"

"And I also told you that 'taking out' over forty armed and dangerous men was no picnic, unless you wanted me to bring down the fleet and level half of Erewhon's capital. Assuming I could have fought my way through the Erewhonese Navy-which I couldn't possibly have done, anyway. All I've got is what amounts to a commodore's flotilla. They've got ships of the wall in orbit here, Ingemar. They'd have swatted me like a fly."

The lieutenant governor was silent. What could he say, after all? The entire scheme depended, among other things, on maintaining public approval for the high moral stature of Governor Barregos. Starting a war with a neighboring star nation would undo all the gains of the Stein killing-and then some.

When Cassetti's voice came back, it was in its normal cold and calculating tone. "All right. Point taken. Spilt milk and all that. But what do you suggest we do now?"

"I may have it taken care of already, Sir. The one good thing about Templeton's rampage is that it got him off the planet. It'll be a lot easier to take him out where he is, without too much in the way of collateral damage. And whatever such damage there is, Templeton's own actions will be blamed for it anyway."

"True enough. I hope you've got somebody good handling the thing."

"The best, Sir, when it comes to that kind of operation. The very best."

Cassetti cut off the transmission without so much as a final word of salutation.

"Rude bastard," muttered Rozsak. He studied the very fancy looking recording machine on the center table. The thing made him a bit nervous, as any such state-of-the-art electronic equipment tended to do. Rozsak had been burned too many times by the promises of research tech weenies, whose "miraculous" new designs so often failed the test in actual combat.

But he'd had no choice. Not surprisingly, Cassetti had insisted on using the very best communication devices for this very black operation-and such devices were extremely difficult to unscramble for a recording.

Watanapongse didn't share the captain's skepticism. "Damn, I love this gadget," the intelligence officer practically crooned. "Worth all that we paid for it. Listen to this."

He pressed a control and the conversation came back, the words as clear as anyone could ask for.

Captain Rozsak grunted. "Add it to the other recordings, then."

Watanapongse grinned. "Governor Barregos will have a fit when he finally finds out what his precious lieutenant governor has been doing in his name. Word of it ever gets out, Barregos is ruined. And-if you'll pardon the flattery, Sir-I think you've done a brilliant job of making it clear to anyone who listens that you tried to talk Cassetti out of it."

Rozsak smiled. "I didn't try too hard, of course. But, yes, I did. And I also made it clear enough in those recordings that I was assuming all along that the governor had given Cassetti the go ahead."

He clasped his hands over his midriff and gazed complacently at the device. Yes, it was too fancy. But, on the other hand, sometimes "too fancy" worked.

"And I will be shocked, naturally-shocked, I tell you-when I finally discover that Cassetti was operating all on his own. I'll have no recourse but to make a full report to the governor-call it a confession, if you will, since everyone trusts a man who confesses-of the entire sad affair. Also pointing out, needless to say, the best way to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

Edie Habib was sitting on another chair around the table. For the first time since Cassetti's call came in, she spoke. "First thing you do, you kill the sow."

Chapter 25

"They're taking Tube Epsilon," Victor's voice said. "Abraham's in the lead. The princess is at the rear, with just one man holding her."

"Thanks, Victor." Crouched in a ventilation duct connecting Epsilon and Gamma tubes, Thandi considered the situation for a moment. Most of her thoughts involved the ventilation ducts themselves, which she and her women had been exploring a bit while they waited for the action to reach them.

As Thandi had hoped, the tubes were more than big enough to crawl through, even for someone her size. And… they were a maze. None of the ducts were charted in the holo-guide she'd purchased. Like most such, that holo-guide was for tourists, who would have simply been confused by the added layer of unnecessary complexity. Even the public portions of the space station were complicated enough.

She turned to one of her women. "Raisha, go down Tube Epsilon maybe twenty meters or so-just around the bend out of sight of this ventilation duct. Remove the cover from the first duct you see, and leave it lying beside the open vent."

Thandi turned and opened the tool box next to her. That tool box had been left behind by a mechanic, who must have fled like a rabbit the moment he'd heard the sounds of gunshots and screams echoing down the tube from the main gaming hall. The man had been apparently been about to start working on one of the ventilation ducts, but the only thing he'd done was remove the cover. Thandi had hauled the tool box into the duct and out of sight, more out of reflex than anything else. Now…

She pulled out one of the tools designed to easily detach the duct covers and handed it to Raisha. "Use this. Go. Quickly."

Raisha took the tool, nodded, and sped off as fast as a crawl could take her. Thandi removed two more of the little tools and slid the tool box toward another woman, extending the tools in her hand at the same time.

"Yana, you and Olga take the box and the tools. You carry the box to the duct Raisha will open and leave it next to the opening. Then, the two of you and Raisha open every other outlet all down the tube, working backward toward us. The ceiling vents as well as the side vents. Understand?"

They nodded and were gone, Yana hauling the heavy tool box behind her with no real effort. Thandi reflected, not for the first time, that despite their often irritating attitudes there were real advantages to having former Scrags as her special action unit.

The immediate necessities done, she gave thought to the best disposition of her troops. It didn't take her long to plan it all out, since there was really only one of them with the speed and strength to launch an unarmed frontal assault. She'd use the rest of them in a rear attack.

Quickly, she outlined her plan. The women seemed doubtful. Judging from the scowls on their faces, at least-none of them actually tried to argue the point.

"Don't be stupid," she hissed. "Even for me, it'll be hard. Just do as you're told."

The last sentence was spoken in full kaja tone. An instant later, her women were crawling off toward the nearest junction in the maze of ventilator ducts. They'd use that to position themselves where they could drop into Tube Epsilon and attack the Templeton crew from the rear after they'd passed by. And they wouldn't be slowed by having to open the duct covers, nor-Thandi hoped-would Templeton and his men think it odd to see so many open ducts. The tool box in plain sight should be enough for that.

Thandi hoped so, anyway. She consoled herself with the thought that even if Templeton's men got suspicious, the light hand pulsers they'd be carrying probably couldn't punch darts through the metal walls of the corridors. If worse came to worst, her women could simply retreat back into the ducts.

That'd be hard on the princess, of course. And even harder on Thandi herself.

So be it. This was what she'd signed up for. She could always have stayed on Ndebele, and spent her life as a serf.

That thought was angry enough to send her scrambling down the duct toward the opening into Tube Epsilon. By the time she got there, the duct cover had already been removed. This was a ceiling vent, and she could see the duct cover lying on the side of the tube below her.

As good a place as any. Thandi rested on her haunches, like a great predator in a tree.

Berry Zilwicki had been blessed with steady nerves as far back as she could remember. She was glad to see they weren't failing her now.

Why should they, really? Yes, she was in what most people would consider a very bad spot-kidnaped by religious fanatics apparently under the assumption they'd kidnaped the actual princess. If they found out the truth, they'd kill her at once. And even if she was able to maintain the pretense, she doubted if her fate would be much better. The savagery of Masadan zealots-especially toward women-was a byword in this part of the galaxy.

But it wasn't the worst situation Berry had ever found herself in, after all. Not born and raised as she'd been, in the lawless underground warrens of Terra's capital city of Chicago. With no father she could remember until Anton Zilwicki entered her life, and a mother who was a prostitute and a drug addict and gone half the time anyway, even before she disappeared completely when Berry was only twelve years old.

Steady, girl, she told herself. What doesn't kill you, makes you strong. Just keep an eye out for an opening.

Seconds later, the opening appeared-and in the literal sense of the term.

Abraham and his crew came around yet another bend in the confusing tube-confusing, mostly, because the station's internal gravity field made it seem as if they were circumnavigating a tiny planet made up of nothing but corridors. Always seeming to climb up a hill, even if the gravity remained constant, with a new vista spreading out before them as they reached a continually receding crest.

Around-or over-this bend in the tube, the vista actually was new. Nothing all that exciting, really, just the scene of what was apparently a maintenance project. Instead of being flush with the walls and ceiling, the ventilation duct covers had been removed and were lying on the floor. From her position at the rear of the little group, Berry could see a dull red tool box lying next to one of the openings.

She fixed on the color as her goal. That one. The ventilation duct was waist-high, and quite large enough for someone of her size to scamper into.

First, of course, she had to get loose. But she was only being held by one of her captors, and that one-typical Scrag carelessness, she thought derisively-was satisfied with merely holding her by the scruff of her fancy jacket.

Idiot. By now, Berry had already surreptitiously loosened all the tabs of the jacket, just in case… .

"The last one just passed below us, kaja. He's got the girl by the neck."

Thandi said nothing. In her mind, she reviewed her estimate of the distances, gauging the right time to make her drop.

Six seconds. She began counting off.

Now. Berry wriggled out of the jacket and dove headfirst into the duct. The moment she was inside, her spirits soared. This wasn't Terra, no, but she'd grown up in the underground. She felt the same way about tunnels and warrens that any small animal did. Safety from the predators.

She scrambled down the duct like a mouse running from cats.

"That fucking bitch!"

"Get her, you idiot!"

The moment Thandi heard the shouts, she understood what must have happened. She discarded her count-off.

Now.

She was through the duct, holding the edge with her hands and swinging down gracefully in a half-somersault; then, a short drop to the floor of the tube, landing silently on her toes.

Abraham Templeton and all of his men were facing away from her, staring at the open duct next to the tool box which the princess must have used for her escape. Several of them were still shouting, with Abraham's furious voice overriding the rest. Thandi could see the feet of a man disappearing into the vent as he set off in pursuit.

Bless you, girl. You may have just saved my life.

One-two-three strides, moving like a ghost. Abraham Templeton died without ever seeing it come. Thandi's fist crushed the back of his skull like an egg. Her ensuing kick drove his corpse into his followers, sending half of them sprawling.

The nearest one left standing swivelled his gun hand toward her. A Scrag, he was, with the fast reflexes and the sneer to go with it. The sneer didn't fade even when her hand closed over his wrist. The Scrag, well-trained, simply began a standard disengagement maneuver.

Thandi knew the counter, but saw no reason to bother with it. She just slammed the Scrag against the wall of the duct, using his wrist to hurl him as if he were a toddler. Almost as an afterthought, she broke the wrist.

He slumped, stunned, his gun falling to the floor. Thandi ignored the pulser. Speed and sheer force would be her best weapons in the here and now.

One and a half long strides put her in the middle of them. They were still confused, several just getting back onto their feet. The stride ended in another kick, which caved in a rib cage. An elbow strike shattered a face and broke the man's neck in the bargain. An open palm strike did the same for another. A spinning side kick broke a thigh; the follow-on kick dislocated the shoulder.

Now, a Scrag, quicker and stronger. For the first time, she had to block a blow. And did so with such violence the man's forearm was broken. An instant later, Thandi's fist shattered his sternum, driving bone into his heart. The Scrag fell back, dying, a look of sheer astonishment on his face. The expression of a man who'd thought to face a woman in battle, only to find a monster in disguise.

She danced back, poised, ready-

No need. Her women were there, now, and Thandi had only left two of Templeton's men intact. The fact that they were both Scrags didn't help them in the least. Made it worse, in fact, since the women had a score to settle. Which they did, bare-handed, so savagely that Thandi was almost appalled.

Almost, not quite.

That still left the man who'd gone into the duct after the princess. As well as three of the men whom Thandi had taken down, but not killed.

She hesitated, but only for a second or two. Captain Rozsak had specified Templeton and his lieutenants, but he'd made it clear he'd be even happier if Thandi removed all of them from the equation. The man was paying the freight, after all-and, besides, Thandi wasn't really sure who among Templeton's men might have been taken into his confidence.

So, again, death danced through the corridor, stamping out lives under pitiless and iron-hard heel strikes. It took but a few seconds.

Then, Thandi studied the duct into which the princess and her pursuer had plunged. She'd lose almost all her advantages in there, but…

No help for it. That was part of the deal she'd made with Victor Cachat. They needed the Manticoran princess-alive-in order to keep the trap unfolding. Thandi's job was done, almost. But she knew that Victor was trolling for much bigger fish.

Her lips quirked for a moment. A deal's a deal. When in Erewhon, do as the Erewhonese do. And I really don't think I want to piss off Victor Cachat anyway.

Her women, seeing the little smile, grinned back. The expressions made them seem more like she-wolves than ever.

"You lead, great kaja. We'll follow."

For once, there was not even an undertone of mockery in the words. Studying their faces, Thandi understood that she'd sealed their loyalty completely. The exercise hall was one thing, and even broken bones knit soon enough. Whereas this-

Great Kaja, indeed. Death on two feet. The fact that they'd seen those same two feet, now and then, wearing elegant sandals and looking very feminine, only added to their satisfaction.

"Make us their chattel, would they?" snarled one of the women. She glared down at the corpse of one of the Scrags; then, just for good measure, stamped its face into a pulpier mess.

Since Thandi couldn't think of a fancier battle plan than-after them! follow me!-she said nothing. Just stooped, retrieved a pulser from the floor, and wriggled her way into the ventilation duct.

It wasn't until she'd gotten maybe twenty yards in, that the obvious problem occurred to her. She keyed to Cachat's channel, feeling obscurely unhappy that the man was proving to have feet of clay, after all.

"This isn't going to work, Victor. Templeton-both of them, Abraham as well as Gideon-was certainly staying in contact with his men on the Felicia III. It's not as if we're the only ones in the galaxy who have personal communicators."

"Don't worry about it," he replied immediately. "How are things at your end?"

"Oh. Uh, forgot to tell you. Everything's fine. We just took out Abraham and his men. All except one, who went into the ventilation ducts after the princess escaped."

She could hear him chuckle. "Why am I not surprised? And on two counts, I might add. The first count being that you're just as murderous as you claimed to be. But it's like you said: I won't tell you how to do mayhem, you don't tell me how to do scheming. I'm counting on Templeton's men in the Felicia knowing that things have all gone wrong, Thandi. But the key is that they won't know exactly why or how or what. Am I safe in presuming that you didn't give Abraham time to make coherent reports?"

Thandi felt simultaneously embarrassed and pleased. Embarrassed by herself; pleased that the man of her increasingly frequent fantasies-one of them flashed through her mind that very moment, in fact-didn't have feet of clay, after all.

And crawling through a duct in pursuit of a desperate criminal is no time to be having fantasies. You idiot.

"All right," she said gruffly, covering her embarrassment. "What's the second count?"

"Anton Zilwicki up to his tricks. The other girl-the one Templeton left behind in the gaming hall-has gotten over the shock. Mild concussion, maybe, nothing worse. But she's coherent now, I can assure you. And it turns out that she's the Manticoran princess. The one you're chasing after is Berry Zilwicki."

Again, she could hear Victor chuckle. "And let me tell you-I speak from experience-Zilwicki girls can play merry hell in a tunnel. Good luck, Thandi."

And so Lieutenant Palane crawled on, resolute, determined, hand pulser clenched in her fist. No one watching would have imagined that she did so while being distracted by a veritable cascade of florid fantasies.

Except, possibly, for Victor Cachat-who was increasingly uneasy at the effect that mezzo-soprano voice was having on his nervous system. But he had the advantage, at the moment, of facing something quite a bit livelier than a dull, gray-painted ventilation duct.

A Manticoran princess, no less, and one in full and fine fury.

"Don't tell me you couldn't have stopped them! I'm not an idiot, whoever-you-are, and if you could drop all of those bastards around this table like you did-I was under it, you know, watching 'em fall like flies-and quit trying to tell me I'm concussed!-I just banged my head a little!-then you could have taken them all out! Before they killed my soldiers! Before they grabbed Berry!" The next words came in a wail: "The best friend I've ever had!"

Victor decided that diplomacy was pointless. The young woman was practically hopping with rage.

"Sure, I could have. But why should I?" he asked bluntly. Then, nodding stiff-necked: "Introductions are in order again, perhaps. Since you seem to have forgotten-"

"Oh."

The princess' little gasp of shock drained all the anger from her face. "Oh. You're Victor Cachat. I didn't recognize you. You seem… a lot different than you did at the Stein, uh, funeral."

Clearly, though, the princess recovered from shock quickly. Anger seeped back into her expression.

"To be more precise," she snapped, "you seemed a lot nicer man. Than you do now. You cold lousy fish."

Fortunately for Victor, Ginny arrived at that moment. She'd disappeared for a bit, to try to repair as much of the damage as she could to her costume. The outfit, needless to say, had never been designed for use on a battlefield.

"He's the same guy," she announced, smiling. "He just suffers from a bit of a split personality. There's Victor the Sweetie, who's as cute as a teddy bear. And then…"

The smile vanished and Ginny was now inspecting Victor as if he were, indeed, a cold lousy fish.

"Then there's this guy. Machiavelli's Nightmare. The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. Face like a stone and a heart that's harder still."

She shrugged. Then, in one of her inimitable lightning changes of mood, smiled sweetly and gave his ribs a little tickle with a forefinger. "What would he do without me?"

She transferred the sweet smile to the princess. "You might want to keep your voice down a little, though. Chew the cold lousy fish out quietly to your heart's content. But if word gets out that the girl in Templeton's hands isn't really you…"

"Omigod!" Princess Ruth's hand flew to her mouth. "I'm a moron. The captain'll wring my neck. If they find out… they'll kill Berry!"

Victor shook his head. "Relax, will you? Your Highness, or whatever people like you get called. In polite society, which I'm not. I do have a plan, you know-and, so far, it seems to be working pretty damn well, for something slapped together at the last minute. Besides, your friend Berry's not a captive any longer." He tapped his earbug. "I just got the word. She escaped from Templeton and his gang and made it into the ventilation ducts. And there's only one of them left to chase after her, because… uh, well. Let's just say the others have been dealt with."

"A plan?" Ruth glared at him, but she did lower her voice. "What kind of idiot plan justifies allowing the murder of my security people? Or letting those murdering bastards get their hands on Berry? You-"

"A plan," Victor broke into her half-hissed tirade with flat, hard-edged assurance, "which will get your friend Berry back alive. And which will take out-once and for all-a crew of Masadan terrorists your intelligence people haven't been able to catch up with in over a decade. And," he finished as her eyes widened in surprise, "one which will hit Manpower and the entire genetic slave trade where it really counts."

The eyes which had widened narrowed suddenly, with what was obviously mingled suspicion and hard, intense speculation overcoming anger. They didn't displace that emotion, but even though Victor had hoped for a reaction along those lines, he was a bit taken aback by how quickly and powerfully it occurred. He didn't even try to follow the thoughts flashing through her brain, but he could actually see the moment at which the sums suddenly came together for her.

Ginny wasn't the only female around capable of instantaneous mood switches, it seemed. Princess Ruth's face went from anger to keen interest in a split second.

"A plan?" she repeated in an entirely different tone. "Hmph." She thought again for a moment, then nodded sharply. "So you're working with Erewhon, are you? Well, of course. You'd have to be to be standing around hip-deep in bodies without being arrested. So that means…" She grimaced. "If you're talking about hurting Manpower, then you've got to be thinking about Congo. I can see a couple of angles, I think. But if you want my opinion-"

Which she proceeded to give, at some length, despite knowing virtually nothing about the situation. The worst of it, from Victor's point of view, was how uncannily close she often came and how genuinely expert her opinion often was. Anton Zilwicki's influence and training there, Victor was sure of it.

Great. A Manticoran enemy princess with aspirations to being a spy-and some real talent for it, too. Just what I need. Like a hole in the head.

On the other hand…

Victor pondered the other hand for a bit, as Ruth kept talking. He would have labeled it "chatter" and "prattle" and "babble," except it wasn't. In fact, the girl was giving him some ideas.

The clincher came when the security guards who'd rallied to the scene finally started letting in the press. The Manticoran princess, it seemed, could also be a fine actress when she wanted to be.

"Oh!" she cried, half-sobbing into the holorecorders. "It was horrible! They took the princess away!" She clutched Victor's arm. "Would have gotten me too, if this gentleman hadn't come along."

Now it was pure chatter and prattle and babble. Which was exactly what the situation required. When the Erewhonese press, well-trained as always, finally let themselves be led away, Victor whispered into Ruth's ear.

"All right, fine. You want in?"

"Try and keep me out, you cold lousy fish."

Chapter 26

Berry was getting a little desperate. She'd been certain she could elude her captors, once she got into the ventilation ducts. She knew very little about air circulation systems on large space stations, and nothing at all about the specifics of this one. But the man who'd adopted her had once been a yard dog for the Manticoran Navy. Since Berry found everything interesting, she'd managed on several occasions to get the normally taciturn Anton Zilwicki to talk about his experiences. And she could remember him telling her that, second only to the electrical network, there was nothing as convoluted in a large space habitat as the ventilation system.

Unfortunately, she was discovering, abstract knowledge was not the same as concrete familiarity. She realized now that she'd been too quick to assume that the ventilation system of The Wages of Sin would be like her well-remembered Chicago underworld. The difference was that she knew thatunderworld and its passageways, and didn't know this one.

So, she'd lost time, guessing at which route to take and-twice!-finding herself in a cul-de-sac and forced to retrace her steps. Retrace her crawls, rather. And frustrated, over and again, by the fact that the ventilation covers in the space station had not been designed to be easily opened from the inside of the ducts. So, time after time, she'd had to pass by inviting but impossible avenues of escape back into the main corridors of the station.

She could hear the scuffling sounds of her pursuer not far behind her. Piss-poor design philosophy, anybody wants my opinion, she thought crossly. They should have taken into account the possibility that somebody masquerading as a princess might someday be crawling through these ducts trying to escape a slavering maniac.

The humorous edge to the thought reassured her, though. She was still steady, still calm. She couldn't really remember a time in her life when she hadn't been. Berry had little of the sheer athleticism of her sister Helen, and none of the martial arts training. But she could remember Helen once telling her: If I ever met anyone with nerves of steel, Berry, it's you.

Maybe it was true. All Berry knew was that she was an expert on only one subject in the universe-survival-and you didn't survive by getting rattled.

So, she crawled on, using her smaller size and relaxed ease in cramped passageways to offset the fact that her pursuer-she'd caught a glimpse of him, once-had the superior reflexes and agility of a Scrag. Even if she hadn't been able to find an actual escape, she seemed to be able to stay ahead of him. And she remembered something else her father Anton had told her:

A stern chase is a long chase.

Staring at the carnage in Tube Epsilon, the two Imbesis appeared to have lost some of their usual composure. Naomi's freckles stood out in sharper relief than ever, against a skin that seemed drained of blood. And even Walter, with his many more years of experience, had a grim expression on his face. Victor couldn't see the faces of the six armored guards from the space station's special weapons unit-they'd finally arrived, too late to do any good-but from what he could sense of their body language, they were just as shocked as anyone. Coming on top of the gruesome scene in the main gaming hall, this latest scene of mayhem was probably overwhelming them a bit. Even well-trained security guards don't expect to see their place of employment turned into a slaughterhouse.

Web Du Havel was less visibly shocked, but he did appear subdued. He'd arrived in the gaming hall just as Victor and the Imbesis had started to leave, looking for the spot where the special weapons unit had reported finding Templeton's body. Du Havel had insisted on accompanying them, once he was assured Ruth Winton was safe. Web was not only very fond of Berry herself, but was obviously feeling guilty that he'd been resting in his room when the attack was launched. Not that he would have made the slightest difference if he'd been there, other than to have probably gotten murdered himself.

"For the love of God," Walter muttered, "what did she use on them? A sledgehammer?"

Victor was able to study the scene with more in the way of clinical detachment. But even he was a little shaken. It was a bit odd, perhaps, since the gore and blood left in the main gaming hall was actually far worse than this. But one expects to see gore and blood when pulsers come into play.

He looked, again, at the corpse of Abraham Templeton, lying prone on the floor. The back of his head had literally been caved in; the occiput not simply broken but splintered-and then the pieces driven a centimeter or more into the brain.

"Just her hands and feet and elbows," he said quietly. "I really don't think you understand what she is, Walter."

"She's a freak," hissed Naomi.

I have had enough of you! Victor began to snarl something in reply, but Walter cut him off.

"Shut up, Naomi," her uncle snapped. "There's no such thing as a 'freak,' when it comes to human beings. Except an actual sport of nature, like a mutant. But those are just objects of pity, and almost always die young anyway. This is… something else. Explain, Victor."

Victor decided to ignore Naomi's sullen expression. Whatever attraction the woman had once had for him was gone now, anyway.

"The thing is, Walter, that if the Mfecane worlds had remained isolated from the rest of the human race-say, maybe twenty more generations-they probably wouldn't have been part of the human species any longer. Not, at least, in the precise biological sense of the term 'species.' "

The scions of Erewhon's great families were highly educated, so Walter understood the point immediately. "Part of the same gene pool, able to interbreed. The variation had diverged that much? In such a short space of time? Those worlds were only isolated for a few centuries, as I recall."

As usual, an intellectual problem was enough to settle down Du Havel.

"Over a full millennium, actually," he said. "Their ancestors were almost as lunatic as the original Graysons, if for somewhat different reasons, and they set out about the same time and had less distance to travel."

The professor glanced around at the carnage, wincing. "Natural selection on those two planets was ferocious, Mr. Imbesi. I know a fair amount about the Mfecane worlds, as it happens, because they're one of the standard extreme cases used by theorists when we calculate the effects of genetic variation on political processes. The child mortality rate in the first few generations approached eighty percent. Worse than that, on Lieutenant Palane's home planet of Ndebele, which was the more extreme of the two environments. Combined with an isolated population, those are the classic conditions for rapid speciation. Plenty long enough, even leaving aside the genetic manipulations of the founding colonists. In fact, if the population had been one of simple animals, they probably would have become a separate gene pool. But that's always harder to manage, when the animals involved are intelligent. A lot harder. It's-ah-" He smiled, perhaps a bit ruefully. "The final step in speciation is always the development of a distinct set of mating rituals, and that's very hard to do with humans. We're just too bright not to be able to figure out how to screw around."

He examined Templeton's corpse again. "So, she's still human, in all that matters. Still part of the same gene pool-as Manpower proved by incorporating so much of the Mfecane genotype into some of their breeding stock. For that matter, I'm sure you've heard of Duchess Harrington?"

Both his listeners nodded, and he grinned crookedly. "The Salamander" was one of the very few Manties whose name had not become "Mud" in Erewhonese ears.

"Well, she's not as extreme a case as Lieutenant Palane, but that's probably only because her ancestors managed to avoid an environment quite as extreme as Ndebele."

Victor chimed in here. "When the Navy captured her-back before she escaped from Cerberus and blacked both of StateSec's eyes in the process-we were… motivated to assemble even more data on her. That's when we found out that she's descended from a genetic modification program which has a lot in common with Thandi's ancestors.

"But Thandi's ancestral environment's taken it quite a bit further. For instance, her bones are much denser than those of most people's. Harrington apparently really enjoys swimming, but someone like Thandi Palane would have a hard time doing that without artificial aids, because her body won'tfloat. For any distance, that is, although she could certainly sprint faster than most people. But, per unit volume, even with her lungs full of air, she's heavier than water. Her muscles aren't simply harder and stronger; like Harrington's, they have a different composition. A higher percentage of quick-firing cells, a-"

He broke off. This was not the time for an extended lecture on human physiological variation. "It's a mixed bag, of course. These things always are. Gain here, lose there, there's no magic involved. She can break most people in half, including strong men-but put her in a concentration camp on starvation rations with a bunch of withered crones, and she'd be the first to die."

"No endurance, you're saying?"

Victor shook his head. "No, that's not it. As long as she's fed, her endurance will be phenomenal. Way better than yours or mine."

Walter nodded, looked about at the bodies lying all over the floor of Tube Epsilon, and then glanced at Naomi. His niece's face was still tight with anger.

"There will be no breeding in-round in my family, girl," he said in a low, cold tone. He turned back to Victor.

"What are the possibilities for encouraging emigration from those worlds? Here to Erewhon, I mean. Unless I miss my guess, we're all in for 'interesting times' in the years to come."

Victor grinned, like a wolf. "As it happens, that's just what I've been thinking about. It'll depend on the Ballroom, of course, but if they get their own planet…"

Du Havel started. This was the first time he would have heard anything about Victor's long-range plans. His interest was obviously acute, but he managed to keep silent and simply listen.

Walter matched the grin. "They'll have one of two choices. Keep it an exclusive little club-surest way in the universe to sink like a stone-or make it a beacon for the galaxy's despised and unwanted. With Erewhon-and its comforts-just a hop, skip and a jump away."

Victor started to frown-so did Du Havel-but Walter pressed on. "No, no, I understand. We Erewhonese have our faults, but we're no lousy Solarian League, bleeding its colonies like a leech. There'd be no 'brain drain,' Victor. We'd have to devote a fair amount of our own resources to make Congo livable and attractive. Incentives for people to go back, after they got an education here. Still-"

Du Havel grunted. "It'd work, Walter. If you're smart and think in the long term, anyway, instead of being stupid-greedy. And it's not just the Mfecane worlds, either. There are still Scrags scattered here and there all over the galaxy. Most of them are attached to Mesa, sure, but Lieutenant Palane's already shown that some of them can be broken loose. Another group of outcasts-and there are still others. Plenty of them. It's a big galaxy."

The head of the Imbesi family turned his head away slightly, eyeing Victor out of the corners of his eyes. The way a man will, trying to gauge every side of a thing.

"And that's what you've been angling for, isn't it?"

Victor shrugged. "Mostly-no surprise-I'm trying to break Erewhon's allegiance to Manticore." He snorted. "From what she's said, Princess Ruth has certainly figured that much out by now! And, if possible, I want to lay the basis for an alliance with my own star nation, of course. But nobody-certainly nobody on Erewhon-is going to make that kind of decision simply based on a little secret-agent razzle-dazzle. The thing has to end-has got to end-with an objective situation that satisfies everybody. You don't just need a Congo that's been pried loose from Mesa, Walter. You need a Congo that's three other things as well."

He gave Du Havel a long, considering look. "I'd be interested to hear your opinion, Professor." Then, Victor began counting off on his fingers.

"First, strong. Or, at least, tough as a nut to crack. A system that will fight tooth and nail on its own against any possible would-be conqueror."

"Agreed," said Du Havel.

"Second, prosperous and stable on its own terms-or that wormhole junction won't do Erewhon much good at all. Nobody wants to depend on a shipping route that passes through an area that's not only dirt-poor but, as usually happens, rife with instability and piracy."

"Correct," said Du Havel. "Keep going, young man."

"Third-this follows from the first two-a system that is an independent star nation. On close and friendly terms with Erewhon, of course, and with lots of objective reasons to stay that way. But not an Erewhonese colony or puppet. That has the further advantage, by the way, of making those wormholes an even less attractive attack route to Erewhon-because any enemy of yours would have to violate Congo's neutrality."

"That's been done before," countered Walter, "often enough in history." But there wasn't much force to the words. The tone was more that of a man playing devil's advocate.

Du Havel shook his head. "No, Cachat's got it right. Of course, it's certainly true that small and neutral nations have been trampled. Poor little Belgium, to use an example from ancient history. But-" Du Havel's grin was almost as wolfish as Victor's. "Belgium wasn't a nation founded by the Audubon Ballroom, much less with a heavy influx of immigrants from places like the Mfecane hell-worlds and the leftovers from Ukrainian bio-labs."

Imbesi grunted, acknowledging the point. He was as well educated in ancient history as biology. "More like Switzerland, then. A neutral nation with strong natural borders-Congo's swamps and jungles to the Swiss mountains-and whose men had been Europe's most feared mercenary soldiers for centuries. So nobody messed with them, because it just wasn't worth the grief."

Victor nodded. "There are other examples, and no historical analogy can be stretched too far in any event. But… yes. That's the deal, Walter." He gave Du Havel another long, considering look. "And I think you'd better start applying your mind to the matter also."

Imbesi smiled thinly. "I'm not running the show here on Erewhon, Victor."

"You will be soon enough, unless I miss my guess. Back in the middle of things, anyway. But it doesn't matter-and you know it. If you make the deal, Walter, and I come through with my end of it, then the families that are running the show won't renege."

It was the perfect place for a stiletto, and Victor didn't miss it. "Sure, they're a little too cautious. But they aren't the Baron of High Ridge and Elaine Descroix and the Countess of New Kiev, either."

Walter scowled. "Pack of scoundrels. A deal's a deal, dammit. It binds a whole family-a whole people-even if the one who made it was a screwball and you have to slap him down hard in private."

He and Victor studied each other for a moment. Then, Walter struck out his hand. Victor clasped it, and the deal was made.

When their hands fell away, Walter smiled. It was a sardonic expression.

"Of course, all of this depends on whether your Amazon can keep the, uh, not-princess alive. I'm only guessing, but I'm pretty sure your whole scheme depends on that."

Victor's returning smile was on the pained side. "More than just my scheme, actually. Probably my life. Sooner or later, you know, Anton Zilwicki is going to be back. And if he finds out I got his daughter killed in the course of a political maneuver…"

Victor glanced down at Abraham Templeton's shattered skull and grimaced. "Did you know that Anton Zilwicki still holds the record in the Manticoran Games-in his weight class, anyway, which is plenty big enough-for almost all the weight-lifting events? Leaving aside the fact that he was their champion wrestler, three games running."

Du Havel chuckled. But the sound was more gloomy than humorous. "Oh, yes, I've been thinking about it myself-given that Anton Zilwicki will be none too pleased with me either. Not more than a day after he left the girls in my so-called 'care'-ha! But you neglected to mention the rest, Mr. Cachat. And he's got the brain of a Machiavelli himself, and he's got the soul of a Gryphon highlander vendettist. If his girl dies-even gets badly hurt-our ass is grass."

At the moment, Lieutenant Thandi Palane was feeling more like a fish in a can than an "Amazon." Yes, the ventilation ducts were big enough-just barely-for her to crawl through. No, she didn't exactly suffer from claustrophobia. But the whole experience was still enough to leave her exceedingly unhappy.

So were the women behind her, judging from their grumbles.

"Shut up," she hissed. "You'll warn the Scrag we're after him."

The moment the term left her mouth, she regretted it. She could sense, in the sudden silence behind her, hurt feelings as well as obedience.

She sighed. Then, decided to break her own command.

"All right, I'm sorry." Then, after a pause, hissing: "No, dammit, I'm not sorry. The pig is nothing but a 'Scrag.' That doesn't mean you are, but it does mean we need to come up with a different name. For you, I mean. I can't keep thinking of you just as 'my Amazons.' "

Yana's voice drifted up from behind her. "What does 'Amazon' mean, anyway? You used the word once before."

Thandi explained. When she was done, she could hear a low rumbling chuckle in the duct, coming from several throats.

" 'Amazon' it is, then," pronounced Yana firmly.

Thandi frowned. "Not sure," she whispered. "There might be a decent male ex-Scrag coming along one of these days, you know. Decent enough, anyway."

"So what?" replied Yana. "No problem. He can be an Amazonette."

"Amazonix," countered Raisha.

"Amazon-boy," offered Olga.

The burst of laughter which echoed down the tube then would have been enough to waken the dead, much less alert a Scrag. But Thandi discovered that she didn't really care, any more.

Yeah, that's right, superman. The super-bitches are hot on your tail. Which means you are dog food.

The Scrag did hear the noise, in fact, but he'd already known he was being pursued by someone. His hearing was very acute, and he'd picked up the sound of bodies scuffling their way down the ventilation duct behind him some time earlier. At first, he'd assumed that was his own people coming to his assistance. But eventually, from subtle details in the soft sounds which he couldn't analyze consciously, he'd understood that the people behind him were women.

That could only mean that, somehow, Abraham Templeton had been brought down. And that, whoever the women were following behind him, they were no friends of his. The fact that the recent loud burst of laughter had contained a confident edge-even a savage one-made him certain they were bitter enemies.

So, as he continued his pursuit of the princess, he began thinking about his own options. He was almost certain there was really no point, any longer, to continuing that pursuit. He'd never really known what the Templetons had in mind when they planned this operation-this utter fiasco-but whatever their scheme had been, it was all a moot point now.

For a minute or so, he considered breaking off the pursuit and simply trying to make his own escape. He was almost sure he could do so, at least as far as breaking through one of the duct covers and getting back into the main corridors of the space station. The princess had passed them by, because she wasn't strong enough to just kick the covers loose. But he was sure he could, with his genetically enhanced muscles.

Whether he could then manage to escape the station itself…

Probably not. But he found that he didn't really care, anyway. Like so many Scrags, the one crawling through the ducts of The Wages of Sin was not entirely sane. Or, it might be better to say, the twisted history of his subculture gave him a death wish which resembled those of the ancient Norse berserks or the hardcore Nazis. Better to die heroically, in a glorious final battle, than to whimper away into oblivion in a universe ruled by sub-humans.

All the more so if he could flaunt his contempt for the sub-humans before he died. Templeton and his religious fetishes be damned. Here at the end, the Scrag would return to his own faith. He'd raped women before, but never a princess. He could think of no better way, under the circumstances, to make the appropriate obscene gesture from his funeral pyre.

Ahead of him, but no longer far ahead, Berry was beginning to despair. Not of her will, but simply of her body. She was young, true, but the unnatural and unaccustomed effort of crawling rapidly through the ducts had drained her strength. It had been years since she'd scurried like a mouse in Chicago's underworld passages-and, unlike her sister Helen, Berry had never been much attracted by physical exercise.

If I survive this, she told herself firmly, I'll have Daddy get me a whole set of gym equipment.

Victor's voice was back. "I need this one alive, Thandi. Don't argue with me, either. He's a Scrag, so Templeton wouldn't have let him know more than the minimum. And you've left enough dead bodies lying around here to satisfy even your precious captain."

The last two words had a slightly different taste to them, Thandi thought. An actual flavor, instead of Victor's usual calm, relaxed, self-confident tone.

Thandi savored the taste, for a moment. Savored it, because she recognized the flavor immediately. She'd tasted it herself, not so long ago.

My, how interesting. I do believe Victor is feeling a bit jealous.

It was a cheery thought. Also not a very sane one, since a romance between a Solarian Marine officer and a Havenite spy would be a picture perfect illustration of the phrase "star-crossed lovers." Still, Thandi was cheered by it. And why not? She'd never found the universe to be all that sane a place to begin with.

"Sure, Victor. But you'll need to define 'alive' for me. I warn you, my own definition is pretty stringent."

Victor's chuckle, like his voice, was that of a tenor. Nothing boyish about it, though, just the same melodious male sound that had thrilled so many women through the centuries. Thandi being one of them, in this instance. Again, she forced a sudden florid fantasy out of her mind.

"I can live with 'stringent,' Thandi. Just so long as he can talk. A croak will do, in fact."

"Consider him croaked."

When Berry turned the corner, she knew it was the end. She'd had to guess, at the last T-intersection, and she'd guessed wrong. This branch of the duct simply ended in a vent. There was no way she could break through the cover, even if she weren't exhausted.

So be it. Now her only thought was to get out of the ducts. Whatever else, she didn't want to be captured like a mouse in a hole. The T-intersection behind her, like several she'd passed, was an actual room. Not a big one, no, but it would be better to face capture there than anywhere else.

Summoning her last strength, she backed out as quickly as she could and, sighing with relief, slid out of the duct and plopped onto the floor of the little ventilation room. It was a tiny room, not more than three meters cubed-just enough to hold the air-circulation fans which filled a third of it, and still provide enough space for maintenance people to work. But, at the moment, it seemed like a glorious vista.

The vista seemed just as glorious to the Scrag, a few seconds later, when he slid into the room from the duct he'd been following her down. The princess was a pretty girl, and looked well-shaped-all the more so with her fancy royal apparel torn and dirty and ragged, and her face flushed and sweaty.

Lust came easily to the Scrag, never more than now. He didn't have much time, but not much would be needed. He wouldn't even bother to undress. He grinned down at the girl and opened the front of his trousers. He was already erect.

Then, hearing a slight sound behind him, he began to turn. But the girl's voice cut his caution down, fluttering, like a knife cutting down a banner.

"You're going to rape me with that? Ha! Do I look like a chicken? Good luck, you pathetic shithead! Maybe you can dig up a pair of tweezers around here someplace. You'll need a magnifying glass, too, just to find it."

Rage came to the Scrag even more easily than lust. He took a step forward, raising his hand to strike her senseless.

An iron vise closed over his wrist.

"Not a chance." It was the voice of an ogre.

Mezzo-soprano, oddly enough.

Chapter 27

Thandi had intended to just shoot the Scrag in the leg. But when she emerged from the duct and saw what he intended to do, that cold-blooded plan went flying. She left the pulser in the duct and slid easily and almost silently to the floor of the ventilation room.

She'd been raped herself, as a girl, in fact if not in name. In that moment, the Scrag in front of her was the embodiment of a childhood's serfdom.

As soon as Berry caught a glimpse of the shape looming in the duct behind the Scrag, her quick mind came up with the taunts she'd used to distract him. She'd intended to continue, but…

The tall figure now coming up behind the Scrag, having flowed into the room like liquid menace, was enough to silence anyone. Berry was vaguely astonished to realize that the thing was female, it looked so much like a demon. Taller than the Scrag, as wide in the shoulders-the creature just shrieked silent power.

Like an ogress, except for the human clothing. And except-

The ogress seized the Scrag's wrist, hissed something-Berry didn't catch the words-and slammed him into the metal housing of the air fans. Hard enough to put a dent in the thin covering deep enough to interfere with the fan blades. What followed was accompanied by the screeching of tortured metal as well as the screeching of the Scrag himself.

Except I think she'd actually be kind of gorgeous, if her face wasn't so distorted with fury.

The ogress now broke the Scrag's elbow; then, the other. About as easily as a person twisting off chicken wings. The Scrag was howling with agony. The howl was cut off by a forearm strike which broke his collarbone and sent him smashing into another wall.

Is there such a thing as a beautiful ogress?

The ogress stepped forward, her fist cocked and ready for a strike which would surely be fatal. Would crush the man's skull, wherever it landed. The ogress was obviously skilled in hand-fighting, but the skill was almost superfluous. Does an ogress need to be a martial artist? The fist itself, for all that Berry could see it belonged to a woman, looked as big and deadly as the head of a mace.

But, she stopped the strike. Barely, thought Berry, just barely. Then, a second later, the ogress shook herself like a dog shaking off water. Clearing away the rage, satisfied now with just letting the Scrag slump unconscious to the floor.

When she turned away and looked down at Berry, her face went through a transformation. The glittering pale eyes softened, the hard face even more. Rage faded from the cheeks, leaving them their natural color-very pale flesh slightly tinged with pink, almost a pure albino. It was a somewhat exotic skin color, coupled with those facial features.

Within seconds, the ogress was gone. Gone completely. Just a big woman remained. Very big, and easily the most powerful-looking woman Berry had ever seen in her life. And-in that moment, at least-easily the most beautiful.

"Damn," she said. "Princess Charming, to the rescue. If I weren't heterosexual, I'd be demanding a kiss." She started giggling, a little out-of-control. Then, staring down at her ruined clothing, giggled even louder. "The hell with a kiss. If you were a guy, I'd be tearing what's left of this off myself. See if I wouldn't."

The woman smiled-gorgeous smile-and reached down to take Berry's hand.

"Sorry, but we're both out of luck. I've got my kinks, but they're fixated on men."

She lifted Berry easily to her feet. "One man in particular," she muttered.

"Which one?" asked Berry. "I'll put in a word for you."

The woman's lips quirked in a wry little smile. She started to make some sort of riposte, but stopped. Then, to Berry's further surprise, her face softened still more. Berry suddenly realized that the woman was not really that much older than she was. In her late twenties, perhaps, no older than her early thirties-and in that moment, she looked even younger.

"Would you?" she asked softly. "My name's Thandi Palane. I'm a lieutenant in the Solarian Marines and…" Now she looked downright shy. "I've got a really bad crush-really bad-on a spy. Not even a Solarian one. And I've got no idea what to do about it."

"Let's see what we can manage."

Berry was feeling better and better. She'd often been approached for help whenever someone had a difficult personal situation to deal with. Despite her youth, people just naturally seemed to trust her-and her judgment-and she enjoyed helping them out. "Whose spy is he?"

"Republic of Haven."

"Oh." Berry would have shied away, then, but the challenge appealed to her. "We'll probably have to keep it quiet from my father, mind. Whatever help I can give you. He finds out… Anton Zilwicki generally detests Peeps almost as much as he does slavers-oh."

She'd suddenly remembered that she was supposed to be "Princess Ruth." Her father was Michael Winton.

Lieutenant Palane's grin was just as dazzling as her smile. "Your secret's out, Berry. In selected circles, at least."

Instead of being relieved, Berry was suddenly swept with anxiety. "Oh, hell-I forgot. How's Ruth? Did she-"

"She's fine. A bit bruised, apparently, but nothing worse."

A voice came from the entrance of the duct. "How much longer this chit-chat, kaja? It's cramped in here."

Berry turned… and froze. The features of the person in the duct opening were those of another woman, true. But Berry could also recognize the rather distinctive features in that face. She'd seen them before, skulking in Chicago's warrens.

Scrag!

Anton had told her, once, that the Ukrainian biologists who'd shaped the original genotype for the so-called "Final War" had possessed their own version of racialist fanaticism. A type of pan-Slavism which was really no different, except for the specific template, from the Nordic obsessions of the Hitler gang of an earlier century. So they'd selected, among other things, for facial features which matched their image of the "ideal Slavic type." And then, like the fanatics they were, had locked that appearance into the genetic code. The end result was a breed of people who, centuries later, could usually still be recognized by someone who knew what to look for.

"Relax," said Palane. "She's not a Scrag, any more. She's-ah-an Amazon."

The Scrag-former Scrag, whatever-flowed into the room with almost as much ease and grace as Palane had done earlier. The Amazon planted hands on hips, beamed down at the bloody and battered Scrag, beamed at Berry.

"All is well, yes? So now, kaja, can we please go?We're all sick of these miserable ducts."

On their way out, crawling through the ducts and dragging the Scrag behind them, Berry-interested, as always, in anything-asked one of the Amazons what the word "kaja" meant.

Yana, that was. Berry had learned all of their names within a short time, without giving it any thought. She had a knack for getting people on her good side, and you simply couldn't do that if they remained nameless. The ultimate rudeness was the expression: Hey, you.

After Yana explained, Berry chewed on it for a while. Then, said to her:

"You're going to have to come up with a different way of handling things. With other people, I mean. Appearances to the contrary-often enough, I admit-human beings really aren't wolves."

"Hard to tell the difference," muttered Yana. "Why didn't the idiots design these duct vents to open from the inside, anyway? But, yes, I know you're right. We all do. But… so far, our kaja is the only other human being we trust. It's been hard enough for us to even accept other people as really human in the first place. So what else can we do?"

A moment later, apparently, Lieutenant Palane had had enough. Berry heard her snarling voice from up ahead in the ducts. "Damn these idiots! Give me some leg room. They can pay for fixing it themselves, since they were too stupid to build it right in the first place."

WHAM! There followed the tinny sound of a vent cover-much the worse for the experience, no doubt-clattering on the floor of a main corridor. Berry winced a little. Her mind had no trouble imagining a powerful ogress' foot hammering right through thin metal, shearing away bolts like so many pins.

"Kaja!" grunted Yana, with deep approval.

"There's more than one kind of strength," Berry said quietly.

Yana grunted again. "Prove it."

"I have no idea where we are, Victor. Could even be Tube Epsilon, for all I know."

"All right, then. Just stay put, Thandi. We've got the security guards reorganized, and there are teams searching all of the tubes you could have reached. They'll find you within a few minutes. Unless you've got some medical emergency-?"

"Nothing that can't wait. Scrapes on everybody, especially Berry-ah, the Princess. And the Scrag's in piss-poor shape, of course. But he won't bleed to death, and for the rest, who cares? Let the bastard suffer."

"She's still 'the Princess' for public consumption, Thandi. Let her know that too, would you? If she wants approval from someone other than me-which would hardly be surprising, seeing as how Manticore and Haven are still technically at war-I can have her talk to Ruth Winton herself." He glanced at the young woman standing next to him. "She's right here, in fact."

"Hold on a second." A bit of time went by. "No need. Berry-ah, the Princess-says your reputation precedes you. I'm not sure she meant that as a compliment, mind, but she's not going to argue the matter. 'The Princess,' she stays."

"Good. We'll talk later. Right now…" He could see Walter Imbesi coming through the door of the suite in the space station which they'd turned into an impromptu command center. Not the Imbesi suite-Walter had felt that would be impolitic-but one of the luxurious suites reserved for special guests of The Wages of Sin. Luxurious enough, certainly, to make Victor uncomfortable.

Walter gave him the thumbs up.

"Okay, Thandi, I've got to go. I just heard that the Mesans and Flairty have arrived at the station."

"This, I want to see. I hope I get there in time."

Victor disconnected, feeling suddenly empty and sad. And I hope you don't get there in time, Thandi. It's… not going to be something I'd want you to remember me by.

But the sadness faded quickly, leaving only the emptiness. And the cold, icy soul of a man who would carry through his purpose, whatever that took. Victor recognized the iciness, since it had come over him before, and more than once. As before, never sure whether to welcome it or fear it.

"Bring them to the main gaming hall, since it's still cleared of people," he commanded. And it was a command, not a request. Time and place and proper lines of authority be damned. In the here and now, Victor Cachat was running the show.

Imbesi didn't seem in the least inclined to argue.

"You're calling the shots."

Victor wasn't surprised, really. He found it hard to accept himself, but he knew just how intimidating he could be when he put on what he thought of as "the act."

Or was it an "act"? he sometimes wondered. Never sure if he really wanted an answer.

He rose. "Princess, I'd appreciate it if you and Professor Du Havel would remain here. As we discussed, you need to be ready to talk to Captain Oversteegen as soon as he arrives."

Ruth nodded. Victor headed for the door, picking up the hand pulser lying on a side table. "Have them all tied in chairs, Walter, in a semicircle. I want all of them to be able to see each other."

"That's not normal interrogation technique." But before he'd even finished the sentence, Walter's eyes were sliding away. "Never mind," he added quietly. "As I said, you're calling the shots." He began murmuring the orders into his throat mike.

On their way-the gaming hall was some distance-Walter added a note of caution. "The three ruling families are all here now, Victor, and they'll be present at the scene. Not just representatives, either. Jack Fuentes, Alessandra Havlicek, Tomas Hall-they took their own shuttle to get up here."

Victor ignored the implied warning. "What's the news been, down on the planet?"

"Biggest headlines in years, of course. Princess of Manticore Abducted! Manpower Suspected! Slaughter in the Gaming Halls! A Manhunt in The Wages of Sin! What you'd expect."

"That's fine. Perfect, actually-as long as there's no awkward specific details."

"No, nothing." A bit defensively: "We've got a free press here, but 'free' and 'careless' aren't the same thing."

Victor's face twisted into a little grimace. He could remember a time when Cordelia Ransom, the former head of the Peoples' Republic of Haven's so-called Public Information Service, would have said something quite similar. Today, under President Pritchart's lean-over-backwards methods of rule, the Havenite press was starting to look downright "yellow-journalish." Victor wasn't sure if the new press was any more truthful and accurate than the old one, truth be told. But, at least, it no longer marched to the beat of a single drummer.

One of his mentor Kevin Usher's favorite little saws came to him. It's not a perfect universe, Victor. That doesn't absolve us from the responsibility of making it better. Just remember that it'll never be perfect-and, if you're not careful how you do it, trying to make it so just makes it worse.

"I wasn't criticizing, Walter," he said softly. "Really, I wasn't."

If the Erewhonese press on the planet below was being somewhat constrained, no such constraints were being placed on the ambassadors of either Manticore or Haven.

"What do you mean-you don't know if she's still alive? She's the niece of Queen Elizabeth, for the sake of God! If she dies… All diplomatic hell will break lose, you morons! Let me talk to either Fuentes or Hall or Havlicek!"

The trio being mysteriously unavailable, the further shrieks and threats of Manticore's ambassador to Erewhon, Countess Fraser, were inflicted upon one of the government's lesser officials. But he bore up under the strain fairly easily. Like all Erewhonese, he'd grown sick and tired of the arrogance and contempt with which the High Ridge regime dealt with their "allies."

Sick and tired enough, finally, to just break off the conversation. Which was easy to do, since the Manticoran ambassador hadn't even bothered with the courtesy of a personal visit. Just called him up, as she might to berate a servant.

"The fact that she's a princess doesn't make her immortal," he said bluntly. "As for the rest, we're doing the best we can. And I will remind you-how many times has it been, now?-that so long as Congo remains in Mesan hands, you can expect the worst. Good day."

The ambassador from the Republic of Haven did make a personal visit-and even had enough sense to come to the suites in the Sudswhere Erewhon's real power elite was to be found, rather than call on the pack of officials in the far more modest-looking "Palace of State." But he, too, was sent packing-just as quickly, if more politely-by one of Jack Fuentes' close associates. One of his adopted brothers, as it happened.

"Sorry, we don't know anything yet."

"Sorry, but neither President Fuentes nor Alessandra Havlicek nor Tomas Hall are available."

"Sorry, we don't know where they are." Here, a modest clearing of the throat. "Havlicek and Hall, you know, are simply private citizens-who don't have to account to the government for their whereabouts. Erewhon is a free star nation, after all."

"Sorry, yes, I know it's all very inconvenient."

"Sorry."

Jabber, jabber, jabber. The long-suffering adopted brother reflected that Haven's Ambassador Guthrie, while he was less arrogant than Countess Fraser, was also a lot more long-winded and given to pointless verbiage.

Finally, though, even Guthrie managed to get to the point.

"Yes, Ambassador, I understand that. Whatever might be the involvement of certain citizens of Haven by the names of Victor Cachat and Virginia Usher-and all I know is what you do, what's in the press, that they seem to have somehow been caught up in the mayhem in orbit-they are simply here as private individuals and their actions do not in any way reflect upon, or reflect-or even refract, if that will make you happy-the policies of the government of the Republic of Haven. And now, we still have a crisis on our hands. So, good day."

On the bridge of HMS Gauntlet, Captain Michael Oversteegen was having a face-off of his own with Erewhon's authorities. But, in his case, the exchange was at least civil. Partly, because Oversteegen wasn't being arrogant and overbearing; but, mostly, because-polite or not-Oversteegen had considerably more power at his immediate disposal than did Countess Fraser.

All the power of a heavy cruiser, to be precise. And one which, though hopelessly outweighed by the sheer mass of the Erewhonese fleet in orbit around the planet, had a well-deserved reputation in that part of the galaxy for being deadly in naval combat. True, in the encounter which had earned her that reputation she hadn't triumphed without suffering horrendous casualties of her own. But that fact, far from reassuring the Erewhonese, simply added extra caution. Michael Oversteegen had already proven once that he would not flinch from what he perceived as his duty simply because of a ruinous butcher's bill.

"I say again, Sir," Oversteegen stated firmly at the image of the Erewhonese admiral in the bridge's display screen, "that I am not questionin' Erewhon's jurisdiction in the matter. But I will also be damned if I intend t' stay here simply twiddlin' my thumbs." He gave a cold glance at another display, this one showing the tactical situation in the vicinity of The Wages of Sin. "If that so-called 'freighter' so much as starts warmin' up its impellers, I shall see t' it that it's so much vapor. Be sure of it, Sir. You may choose to play the fools, but I shall not."

The admiral began to say something, but Oversteegen-the first time he'd been a bit rude-chose to override him. "Enough, Sir. All due respect, you know and I know-anyone but a complete imbecile knows, and I do hope you fire the imbeciles you've had workin' on your so-called 'orbital security'-that that 'freighter' has no business bein' there. It's part of the plot, whatever the plot may be. What is certain, is that Manticore will be no part of it. If the Princess dies, such be fortune. The Star Kingdom and the House of Winton will grieve, but they will not fall, or even shake. Indeed, Sir-I know the woman personally, she's a relative of mine-Queen Elizabeth would be the first t' condemn me for allowin' her house t' be used as a hostage against her nation."

Again, the admiral began to speak, and, again, was over-ridden-but, this time, not by Oversteegen. Someone-someone with impressive authority-had simply overridden the Navy's broadcast with their own.

Oversteegen found himself staring at a man he didn't know. Which didn't necessarily mean very much, since-again, he cursed them silently-the High Ridge Government had not seen fit to provide him with the in-depth political background he'd requested when he'd been sent him on this deployment.

Fortunately, Oversteegen had very good Communications and Tactical departments.

"This signal's coming from the space station itself, Sir." Lieutenant Theresa Cheney said. The com officer tapped a query into her panel and shrugged. "It carries their normal Navy protocols and signal encrypt, though, so it's definitely government sponsored."

"Betty here has him IDed, Sir," Commander Blumenthal put in, and nodded to his assistant.

"That's Walter Imbesi, Sir," Lieutenant Gohr said. "He's officially nothing in the government, but he's more-or-less the recognized head of the Opposition. Which, as I told you, works a bit differently here on Erewhon. And since I'm pretty sure Fuentes and Havlicek and Hall were on that shuttle that docked not long ago, I think you can figure he's speaking for all of them. They'd be using him as their 'cutout.' "

Oversteegen absorbed all that with one part of his mind while he listened to Imbesi's opening words with the rest. Imbesi was, thankfully, brief and to the point. Oversteegen's never-too-lengthy patience was by now strained to the breaking point.

"If I'm understandin' your proposal correctly, Mister Imbesi, you want me-me personally, yes?-t' come aboard the space station? I'm sorry, Sir, but I would be derelict in my duty were I t' abandon my command at a time like this, when-pardon my bluntness-we may be on the verge of hostilities."

Imbesi sighed. Then, with a little ironic smile: "Your stubbornness is not simply a matter of reputation, I see. That's a compliment, by the way. All right, Captain Oversteegen. Can you be certain this exchange can't be unscrambled by anyone on that freighter? Or anyone else, for that matter?"

Oversteegen's eyes narrowed, and he glanced at Cheney, who nodded vigorously.

"We're usin' Alliance technology here, Mister Imbesi. On both ends," Oversteegan said, turning back to the face on his com… and careful to substitute "Alliance" for "Manticoran." Imbesi would probably notice his choice of adjectives, but one had to be polite. Especially with an ally who was already pissed off with one's government.

Again, his eyes moved to the tactical display. And an ironic little smile came to his own lips.

"I imagine those Solarians have an inflated notion of their own technical abilities-and what is a Solarian flotilla doin' in this system, anyway?-but I can assure you that not even they stand a chance of eavesdroppin' on this exchange."

Imbesi nodded. "All right, then." His smile widened and became, oddly enough, even more ironic. "Let me introduce you to someone."

A moment later, a young woman's image came into the display.

"Hello, Michael," she said, and Oversteegen frowned. The face on his screen was obviously Berry Zilwicki, yet there was something about that voice… something he couldn't quite put his mental finger on.

"Pardon me, Ms. Zilwicki," he said, after a moment, "but I don't believe we've been formally introduced."

"No, you and Berry Zilwicki haven't," that maddeningly familiar voice agreed. "But I'm not her. I'm Ruth Winton, Michael."

Oversteegen stiffened. As a distant relative of the Queen (and one who had been in much better odor at Mount Royal Palace before his relative had become Prime Minister), he was one of the very small number of people who had actually met the reclusive princess. Who didn't look much at all like the young woman on his display. But the voice, now… He strained his memory, and his frown deepened.

"That's… an interestin' announcement, 'Your Highness,' " he said a bit slowly. "Under the circumstances, however, I trust you will agree that it behooves me t' be certain that you are, indeed, who you claim t' be."

The girl smiled. "Of course I agree. Unfortunately, I don't have any secret code words and-" Her smile faltered abruptly. "-I'm afraid none of my protective detail have survived to verify my story." She inhaled deeply, then shook herself. "All I can offer is that I do remember we were introduced once, though I can't remember anything about the occasion except it was big, and formal, and boring beyond belief."

Oversteegen's memory of the event was far better, naturally, since it wasn't often that a relative as distant as himself was invited to a royal family gathering.

"It was the christenin' of your cousin Robert, Your Highness," he said, and the face on his screen flashed another brilliant smile.

"Oh, very good, Michael!" she congratulated. "It most certainly wasn't Robert's christening-I was home with the flu that afternoon. But now that you've jogged my memory, I recall that it was my cousin Jessica's christening, wasn't it?"

Oversteegen felt himself relax, and he cleared his throat. "So it was, Your Highness. I take it that reports of your abduction were, ah, somewhat exaggerated, then."

The princess shook her head. "Not all that highly, Captain. They did, in fact-yes, it was Masadan fanatics, that part's all true-abduct Berry Zilwicki, whom they thought was the princess."

Oversteegen didn't need Lieutenant Gohr to explain what was now obvious to him, but that didn't keep the lieutenant from muttering under her breath. "Zilwicki! Him and his tricks! He must have switched the identities of the girls and-oh."

The captain fought down a smile. It wasn't often that his ATO lagged behind his own calculations.

"Oh," Gohr repeated. "The Queen must have been part of the deception from the beginning. We're swimming in deep waters here, Sir, if you'll pardon my saying so."

"Deep waters, indeed," Oversteegen murmured.

Princess Ruth continued: "But the thing is, you see, they didn't really manage to abduct her either. Because-with some help from-oh, lots of people-she escaped. She's quite safe, at the moment. And now-"

Oversteegen suspected that he was witness to an unusual event. Princess Ruth seemed at a loss for words. Something which, he was almost certain, happened very rarely to the young woman.

Where military protocol seemed no longer quite applicable-and with Manticoran diplomatic niceties in the complete mess which High Ridge and his crew had left it-Oversteegen decided to fall back on old-fashioned aristocratic chivalry.

"Would you like me t' come and pay a personal visit then, Your Highness?" A quick glance at the tactical display. The freighter was giving no signs of life at all. "So long as you can assure me-"

The princess' loss of words was momentary. Firmly, even regally: "Yes, I would, Captain. And I can assure you there will be no-what did you call it?-outbreak of 'hostilities.' " Her slender jaw set. "Not the kind you meant, anyway. Forget that freighter, Captain. That slaver ship, I should say, because that's what we're sure it really is."

The princess glanced aside, as if studying someone not visible in the display image. Her jaw seemed to tighten further, and she almost hissed the next words.

"I shall be very surprised, Captain, if any guilty party on that ship is alive for very long. If they are alive, they'll certainly be in custody-and might very well wish they were dead."

Oversteegen now found himself as curious as he was relieved.

"You must have met some interestin' people lately, Your Highness. I do hope you'll see fit t' introduce me. In any event, I'll be over as soon as my pinnace can bring me. We'll consider the matter a family visit."

He cocked an eye. "Armed, or unarmed, Your Highness? And with or without a military escort? Naturally, I'd normally come unarmed and unescorted into your presence, on such an occasion."

Princess Ruth's smile was now royal graciousness personified. "Oh, I don't think arms will be necessary, Captain, other than your own personal sidearm. As for an escort, I'd simply recommend your ATO. That's Lieutenant Gohr, I believe. Betty Gohr. My-ah, Captain Zilwicki-has a high regard for her."

"Done, Your Highness."

The image vanished, and Oversteegen glanced at Gohr. The lieutenant's face looked simultaneously pleased and-very, very apprehensive.

"I don't know Anton Zilwicki, Sir!" she protested. "How the hell-sorry, pardon the language-how would he possibly know me?" Almost wailing, now: "I'm just a lieutenant!"

For some peculiar reason, the young officer's distress cheered Oversteegen up immensely.

"Deep waters, indeed, Lieutenant Gohr. Though it's said, y'know-granted, mostly by a lot of disreputable rascals-that Captain Zilwicki is the shrewdest fish in those waters."

Chapter 28

As it happened, Thandi did get there in time. When she entered the main gaming area of the space station, Berry and her women in tow-they'd left the mangled Scrag in the hands of security guards, to be given medical attention-she saw that the huge hall had been almost cleared of people. Except for five people sitting at a table some distance away, everyone was gathered in the center. Two of the gaming tables had been pushed aside to make for an open space perhaps ten meters in diameter.

Thandi couldn't really see who the five people were, at the table to the side. Three men and two women, but beyond that she couldn't make out their faces. The hall was very dark, except for the spotlights shining down in the center.

"It's so dark,"Berry whispered, glancing up at the ceiling far above. Thandi couldn't tell exactly how far above, because the ceiling was pitch black.

Four men were sitting on chairs in the center of the hall. More precisely, they were shackled to the chairs: ankles to the chair legs, and their arms cuffed behind the back rests. The chairs were arranged in an arc, covering perhaps a third of a circle. Enough of an arc, Thandi realized at once, to enable them to see each other easily.

She recognized those men, of course. Their faces, unlike those of the people at the table to the side, were brightly lit by the spotlights.

Flairty, who was now one of the few survivors of Templeton's original group of Masadans and Scrags.

Unser Diem, the roving troubleshooter-ha! Thandi jeered silently-talk about trouble!-for Jessyk Combine; and, effectively, Mesa's chief representative in the Erewhon system.

Haicheng Ringstorff, who was officially a "security consultant" but was, in reality, Mesa's strong-arm specialist in the area.

Thandi studied him for a moment, through slitted eyes. She knew Ringstorff was suspected by Lieutenant Commander Watanapongse of having been responsible for a number of major crimes over the past couple of T-years, including:

– the presumed massacre of two thousand religious colonists headed for the planet Tiberian;

– an upsurge of piracy in general in Erewhon's galactic region;

– the destruction of an Erewhonese destroyer sent to investigate;

– and the ensuing attack on the Manticoran cruiser Gauntlet sent to investigate the disappearance of the destroyer.

That last attack had gone awry, mainly because the captain of the Manticoran cruiser had proven to be ferociously more competent at his trade than the pirates who attacked him. It remained unclear exactly how pirates had managed to get their hands on naval cruisers in the first place, but Thandi had heard Watanapongse speculate that they'd probably gotten them from Technodyne Industries of Yildun.

TIY's reputation for shady dealings wasn't quite in the same league as Jessyk's or Manpower's, but it was fairly impressive in its own right. Yildun's location, roughly a hundred and eighty-three light-years from Earth, put the A1 star almost exactly on the boundary between the ultra-civilized core planets of the original League and the more recently settled systems whose attitude towards things commercial (and sometimes military) remained rather more bare-knuckled than the satisfied worlds nearer the League's heart. Yildun was far enough off the main sequence to have no habitable planets, but the system was rich in asteroids and contained the second oldest known wormhole junction in the galaxy. It had only three termini, including the central junction, yet that had been more than enough to turn it into a central hub for shipping. Industry had followed, exploiting the incredible natural wealth of the system's asteroids, and, over the centuries, TIY had become one of the SLN's primary builders, with an in-house R amp;D division which enjoyed an enviable prestige.

TIY was also one of the trans-stellars which had vociferously protested the technology embargo the League had slapped on the belligerents in the Manticore-Haven War. Which might have had just a bit to do with its habit of occasionally disposing of the odd modern warship under questionable circumstances. It was rumored that the Yildun yards routinely built five to ten percent more hulls than the SLN had ordered and either kept them off the books completely or else "lost" them in a maze of paperwork which eventually deposited them in some very strange places indeed. And it was a demonstrated fact-no rumor, this!-that dozens of warships TIY had purchased "for reclamation" had ended up in the hands of third and fourth-tier navies (and sometimes pirates).

Of course, "losing" four almost-new Gladiator-class ships to a single customer would have been something of a new record, even for TIY. But given the whispers that Mesa and Yildun enjoyed a much closer relationship than either was prepared to admit officially, TIY seemed far and away the most likely source of the vessels.

Wherever they'd come from, there'd been very few survivors from the four pirate cruisers. Enough of their personnel had been captured on the surface of the planet Refuge, in the Tiberian System, however, for interrogation. And said interrogations had, apparently, provided evidence which suggested Ringstorff had been in overall charge of the affair. Unfortunately, the evidence hadn't been enough to bring any charges. And since Ringstorff enjoyed the official seal of Mesan approval and protection, he had to be handled with kid gloves, even on Erewhon.

Thandi suppressed a harsh laugh. Kid gloves! In point of fact, she noticed, the man who was standing at the very center of the tableau-Victor Cachat, not to her surprise-was putting on a pair of gloves at that very moment. But they weren't kid gloves. Whatever substance they were made of, they were dead black in color; and the slow, careful way Cachat was fitting them on his hands was somehow incredibly menacing. Traditionally, she remembered reading somewhere, executioners always wore gloves to carry out their trade.

The fourth man shackled to a chair was George Lithgow, Ringstorff's chief lieutenant. Also someone suspected of the foulest crimes. And also someone who enjoyed Mesa's approval and protection.

Berry's thoughts must have been running tandem to Thandi's own. The girl whispered again:

"I think Mesa's line of credit just ran out. Who's that guy standing in the middle?"

"Victor Cachat," Thandi whispered back. "He's-well, he's from Haven, although he's supposedly just here on a private visit."

Berry Zilwicki's jaw sagged. "But… I met him. This guy doesn't look… oh. I guess he is the same guy. But he sure doesn't look the same as he did at the funeral."

The girl studied Cachat for a moment longer. Then: "He looks maybe fifteen centimeters taller, fifteen centimeters wider-I don't remember his shoulders being that broad-a lot older, and… oh, Jesus." The next words came in a whisper so low they could barely be heard: "I really feel sorry for those guys."

"I don't," hissed Thandi.

Their whispers must have been louder than Thandi thought, because Cachat turned his head to look at them. There was no expression on his face. In fact, Thandi could barely recognize him herself. The pale features under the spotlights were the same, true, but the eyes now seemed like black stones, and the face itself no longer seemed square so much as a block of marble.

Cachat's eyes met hers. Still, there was no expression on his face, no sign of any recognition, or sentiment, or… anything. There was nothing. It was like staring into the darkened eyes of a statue-or a golem.

Cachat's head swiveled away, bringing the eyes back to bear on the men shackled to the chairs. Despite their immobilization, the four of them tried to lean away from his gaze. Even the religious fanatic Flairty seemed to shrink like a slowly deflating balloon. Thandi could only imagine how menacing those black eyes must seem at close range, when you were their actual target.

"He's really a pretty scary guy, isn't he?" whispered Berry. "I remember Daddy telling me that once, even though… well. He did save Helen's life. Mine too, maybe. It's hard to understand."

For a moment, Thandi felt a vast gulf opening between her and the girl beside her. And, boiling out of that gulf, the magma of raw fury. She understood Victor Cachat in a way that Berry Zilwicki never would-no pampered rich bitch ever would-and-

She drove down the rage and sealed the gulf. Forcefully, and feeling profoundly guilty as she did so. For all that Berry was now dressed like a princess and consorted with one, Thandi reminded herself that the girl had not been born into privilege. Watanapongse had sketched the girl's biography for her. In most ways, in fact, Berry's life had been even harder than Thandi's own. Or Victor's. Berry had just managed, somehow, to come out of that life with apparently none of the hatred and anger which had played such a role in shaping people like Thandi Palane and Victor Cachat. How'd she'd done so was a mystery to Thandi, but she realized in that moment-it came to her with a genuine sense of shock-just how unusual a person the girl truly was. Like a human diamond, untouched-unscratched, even-by a universe full of cruelty and indifference. As if, where other people specialized in skills and talents, she'd simply specialized in sanity.

She felt Berry's hand sliding into her own, and gave it a little squeeze.

"I'm pretty sure this is going to get ugly, Berry," she whispered. "Do you want us to leave?"

"No," came the soft reply. "There's no point in running from things." The girl's face was creased with a little smile. "Besides, you make one hell of a terrific big sister."

Thandi felt a glow inside. The feeling relaxed her, and she resumed her study of the rest of the scene. Victor Cachat was… Victor Cachat. She would deal with that, or she wouldn't, but whatever happened it could be put off for some future time.

Other than Victor and the prisoners, there were eight men and three women at the center of the hall. Those were standing back a bit, facing the prisoners but leaving a space for Cachat. They were a peculiar mix.

The three women, she knew: Inge and Lara, whom she'd left behind to follow Flairty; and Ginny Usher.

Inge had no expression on her face, but Lara seemed very pleased with the whole situation. Thandi couldn't figure out why, until she saw the look which Lara bestowed upon a man standing not far from her. The look combined a sort of hard affection, none-too-veiled lust, and amusement. It bordered on being downright predatory.

The man himself seemed a bit nervous-more than a bit, after he spotted Lara looking at him-and Thandi once again had to stifle a laugh. Her Amazons, she knew, had their own notions of proper courtship ritual-which usually came as a severe shock to the males at the receiving end. Thandi didn't really approve, but… it was hard not to find a certain poetic justice in the thing. Thandi had run across some ancient mythology in her studies. She was quite sure that the fellow was feeling like Europa would have felt if she'd been a man named Europe instead, and the great beast whose lustful eyes were upon him was a giant cow named Zeusa.

She was a bit puzzled, at first, by the object of Lara's intentions. Whoever the man was, Thandi was sure he was a member of the Audubon Ballroom. Traditionally, the Ballroom and Scrags were the bitterest of enemies. But…

In its own way, she realized, it made sense. Lara's subculture, of which the woman had shed some but not all the attitudes, had always prized a capacity for violence. And however much the Scrags had hated the Ballroom, they'd also feared them. They might sneer at other "sub-humans," but those who were the lowest of the low had demonstrated often enough that they were the equal of any Scrag when it came to sheer mayhem. So it was perhaps not really so strange, that once Lara realized she'd have to find a man from somewhere other than the ranks of the Scrags, she'd find a hard-core Ballroom member… quite attractive. Thandi wouldn't be surprised if a number of her Amazons started making similar attachments.

Ginny Usher, on the other hand, seemed unhappy. Ginny's face, so expressive when Thandi had met her before, was now still and cold. Thandi wasn't sure why, at first, since the former Manpower slave would hardly be upset at seeing the four men shackled to chairs come to a bad end. They weren't simply the "representatives" of genetic slavery-they were the direct instruments of the evil itself.

But then, seeing the way Ginny was gazing at Victor, she understood. Ginny Usher didn't give a damn about Mesan goons-had even, if not perhaps to the same extent as Berry, managed to put her past life behind her. But she did care, and deeply, about the young man standing in their midst. And was probably wondering-as Thandi had sometimes wondered, about herself-how often a human being could assume a role before the role itself became the reality. Before a man, or a woman, became the golem of their own creation.

The eight men standing there, Thandi didn't know. But she was almost certain they were all from the Audubon Ballroom. Then, suddenly, she knew for sure. Cachat must have given some unseen signal-or perhaps it had simply been prearranged once he finished donning his black gloves.

All eight of them-with Ginny following suit a second later-stuck out their tongues at the men shackled to the chairs. Stuck their tongues way out, exposing the Manpower genetic markers.

The curtain rises. Thandi's thought was more grim than amused. We begin with the baddies in a very desperate situation. Manpower bigshots and goons, bound and helpless, surrounded by their victims. Eight of whom are killers dedicated to their destruction.

Victor Cachat lifted the pulser out of its holster.

And a very desperate situation just got worse.

Way, way, way, way worse.

Haicheng Ringstorff didn't doubt it at all. The black eyes staring down at him-then moving slowly across the faces of Diem and Lithgow and Flairty-seemed completely empty. It was like being stared at by a void. The pale, harshly cut face had no expression Ringstorff could detect beyond, perhaps, a certain clinical detachment. They weren't even the eyes of an executioner. Just the eyes of a man conducting an experiment, the end result of which was a matter of indifference to him. Whether positive or negative, it would be simply data to be recorded.

The voice, when it spoke, was the same. Nothing. Just words, sounding like surgical instruments.

"Here's how it will be. I require certain information from you. The information would be useful, but not essential. With the information, I can proceed with my existing plan. Without it, I'll need to develop another one."

The square shoulders shifted a little; it might have been a shrug.

"I'm very good at developing plans. Still, getting the information from you would save me some time and effort. Not much. But perhaps enough to keep you-some of you, or just one of you-alive. We'll see. I can't say I care, one way or the other."

Ringstorff could see Diem's face just as easily as he could the others. Lithgow's face seemed frozen-just as Ringstorff suspected his own did. The fanatic Flairty was glaring, although the glare was a washed-out sort of thing. Diem, on the other hand, was obviously on the verge of sheer panic. His eyes were swiveled as far over as they could be, staring at the five people sitting at the dark table some distance away. Ringstorff had spotted them himself, almost as soon as he'd been hauled into the room and forced into the chairs by security guards, although he'd never been able to recognize any features. The guards had departed, then, leaving it to the Ballroom terrorists to finish the work of shackling them.

"What the hell are you doing?" Diem shrieked. "Goddamit, I know you're Erewhonese, whoever you are! Imbesi-are you there? Why are you letting this maniac-"

There was the sound of a pulser firing, and the side of Diem's head was suddenly shredded. It wasn't a fatal wound-not even an incapacitating one-but his left ear and a goodly chunk of his scalp was now gone. Blood began spilling down his shoulder.

"I require information, not prattle."

Ringstorff's eyes jerked back to the man with the black gloves, and saw him lower the pulser. Perhaps a centimeter or two. The hand holding the weapon seemed as steady as a statue's.

"Prattle again, Unser Diem, and you are a dead man."

Diem stared up at him, his eyes wild and open, his face showing all the signs of shock. Other than being gory and disfiguring, the wound wasn't really a serious one. But Ringstorff knew Diem was a stranger to personal violence. Unlike Ringstorff himself-and Lithgow and Flairty-Diem was a man who committed his violence at one step's remove. He'd certainly never experienced mayhem visited upon him.

"Who the hell are you?" he whispered.

"Just think of me as the man who will be killing you, and very soon." The pulser in the hand made a little sweeping motion. "You'd do better to give the surroundings a good look, than to ask pointless questions. This is where your life ends, Diem. At the moment, I'd give it a ninety percent probability. If you don't control your panic, the estimate goes to one hundred percent. And the time frame drops to seconds, instead of minutes."

Ringstorff was amazed at the complete indifference in the man's tone of voice. He'd always thought of himself as "hard-boiled," but… this guy…

What demon's pit did they dredge him up from, anyway?

"First, I require the security codes to the Felicia III. It's possible my estimate is wrong, and the Felicia is not a slaver in the employ of the Jessyk Combine. In that case, of course, you won't know the security codes and will be useless. All of you will then die immediately. Beyond that-"

Again, he made that minimal shoulder twitch. "But there's no point wasting time with what might come 'beyond that.' We probably won't get there anyway."

He paused, and gave them all that slow, sweeping, empty-eyed examination.

"I have neither the time nor the inclination to use interrogation drugs or torture. Neither is really all that reliable, nor do I see where it's necessary. All that's necessary is for me to establish clearly in your minds that I have no respect at all for your lives, and will kill any of you without a moment's hesitation."

He raised the pulser, aimed, fired. A hole appeared between Flairty's eyes and the back of his head exploded. Flairty's body rocked back and forth for a moment in the heavy chair, and then slumped in the shackles.

"I believe that's now been established." The voice still had no tone at all. "But in case it hasn't-"

The pulser swiveled again, to come to bear on Diem's head. "Do I need to make another demonstration?"

Suddenly, a woman's voice interrupted. Ringstorff found that even more startling than the killing of Flairty. He'd forgotten anyone else in the universe existed except the terrifying monster in front of him.

It was the slave woman. "He will do it. Don't ever think he won't. He'll kill every one of you, and never blink an eye." The words were hard and bitter. "God, I hate you bastards. For that, more than anything."

Ringstorff didn't doubt her for a moment-and he was not a religious zealot. The words practically spilled from his mouth.

"I don't have the codes-neither does Lithgow-but Diem does." He swiveled his head and glared at the Jessyk Combine's representative. "Give him the codes, you fucking idiot!"

But Diem was already talking-babbling, rather. The man with no name had to quietly threaten him again, in fact, before Diem could slow down enough for the codes to be recognizable. Then he repeated them twice, each time more slowly, while the slave woman made a record.

"It seems you'll all remain alive," the man said. Much as a chemist might record the results of a minor experiment. "For a time. I'll require more information later."

He turned his head and spoke the next words to the Ballroom killers. "Take them out of here-give Diem some medical treatment, nothing beyond the minimum-and lock them up. If any of them gives you any trouble, kill him. The further information they can provide would be useful, but certainly not critical."

Moments later, rough hands were manhandling Ringstorff-still shackled, though no longer to the chair-toward one of the exits. It was all Ringstorff could do not to burst into hysterical laughter. Never in his life, not once, had he imagined he would be grateful to fall into the hands of the Audubon Ballroom. But he'd have welcomed the Devil himself, in that moment, if he'd just get him away from that empty, cold, human-shaped void. That golem.

The Ballroom killer who was hauling Ringstorff away was the largest of them. A great hulking brute, showing all the signs of a slave bred for heavy labor. Ringstorff felt like a child in his huge hands.

His voice was of a piece, heavy and hulking. "Quite a fellow, isn't he?" The chuckle which followed was even heavier. "And if you're still wondering if he's really a demon-oh, yes, indeed, he most certainly is. Though I will say he's gotten a bit less maniacal. The last time I saw him do this, he slaughtered a dozen of you swine."

"What's his name?"choked Ringstorff. For some reason, he needed to know.

But no answer came. Just another heavy, hulking chuckle. And so Ringstorff, as he was hauled down the corridors toward whatever fate awaited him, had plenty of time to reflect on the fact that falling into the hands of the Audubon Ballroom was really not all that much of a blessing.

When the prisoners were gone, and it was all over, Thandi looked down at Berry. The girl's face still seem composed, although the little hand in her own was clutching it rather tightly.

"You okay?" she whispered.

Berry's face made a little whimsical twitch. "I certainly didn't enjoy it. But, yes, I'm okay."

Her eyes came up to meet Thandi's. They were green eyes, but seemed darker in the dim lighting. Thandi was surprised to see what might be a twinkle in them.

"Don't tell me. Is that the spy you've got a crush on?"

Thandi didn't say anything, but the answer must have been obvious from her expression. Berry puffed out a breath; then, she made a little shrug. "You are one kinky lady. On the other hand…"

The girl studied the figure of Victor Cachat with eyes that seemed much older than her seventeen years of age. "On the other hand… yeah. If you could trust him, I could see where you'd feel safe around him." She looked back up at Thandi. "And I can guess that you'd care about that. A lot."

Thandi's returning squeeze of the hand was powerful. Powerful enough, in fact, to make Berry wince.

"Sorry. I forget my own strength. More than that. I hate having to watch it all the time. And, yes, Berry, you're right. It probably is kinky, I don't know. It's not even so much that I need a man I feel safe around, as one that I know feels safe around me." Her dark eyes moved to Cachat, who was still standing silent and still at the center of the room, as if lost in his own thoughts. "Not even a monster woman is going to screw around with him."

She was startled to feel Berry's hand jerk out of her own. Even more startled, when Berry reached up and slapped her.

"Don't ever say that again!" The girl was genuinely angry, the first time Thandi had seen her be anything other than calm and composed. "Nobody calls you a monster to my face, not even you. Is that understood?"

And that was the most startling moment of all. The way that such a small girl, glaring up at a woman twice her size and many times her strength, could command such instant obedience. As if she were a princess in truth.

"Yes, Ma'am. Uh, Berry."

Chapter 29

From the dark table, Jack Fuentes watched Victor Cachat walk over to the two women who'd entered from the other side of the gaming hall, and observed the recent events from that vantage point. That would be the Solarian officer, and the Manticoran girl she'd rescued.

"This is awfully rough, Walter," he said hesitantly. "I'm not sure-"

To his surprise, Alessandra interrupted. "Oh, piss on it! I think it's time things got rough."

Jack and Tomas Hall both turned to stare at her. Tomas seemed as surprised as Jack was. Of the three of them, Havlicek had always been the most gingerly in her approach to the Mesa-Congo problem. And even more gingerly, in the way they dealt with Manticore.

The woman who headed the powerful Havlicek clan and was one of Erewhon's three triumvirs was scowling. Oddly, perhaps, the harsh expression made her seem more attractive than usual. Jack thought that was probably because it was so rare to see any expression on her face. A face which, besides, had been so often reshaped by biosculptors that Fuentes thought of it less as a "face" than a permanent mask.

But there was no mask, now. Alessandra was genuinely angry and determined. "I know I've been urging caution all along. But that was just because I couldn't see a good way to strike them down without exposing ourselves. Don't you see? This kid is it. Right out of the old days. Lei varai barbu. Sure, he's not of us-he's a Havenite. But this is no time for screwing in-round."

Lei varai barbu. Jack Fuentes thought about it, for a moment. Alessandra was using an ancient slang term, from the hybrid patois of their gangster ancestors. Like most such expressions, the exact translation was rather meaningless-"the true bearded one"-but the connotation was precise. The one you went with, when the family's life or honor was at stake. The one who might die in the doing, to be sure, since fortune was a fickle thing. But would neither flinch, nor hesitate, nor cry in pain or fear. Not ever. And who, even if he failed, would strike such terror in the family's enemies that they would never forget the penalty to be paid.

Jack saw Tomas Hall's expression undergo a change, and knew that further argument was pointless. And, not more than a second later, felt the same change in his own heart and mind anyway.

Alessandra's right-and Walter was right all along.

Piss on it. This is now a matter of honor. Let it go any further, and we might as well just admit we've become Manticore's lackeys. Sitting up like poodles, begging for scraps from the baron's table. Taking a pat on the head for a gesture of respect.

"All right, Walter," he growled. "It's a go. First, tell us what you need. Then-"

He and Havlicek and Hall exchanged quick glances. Clearly enough, they'd let him take the lead.

"Then, give us your terms."

There was always this to be said for Walter Imbesi, Jack thought. He was too reckless in his policies, too much the gambler, but he was never anything other than gracious when it came to the rest.

"Terms can be discussed later, at our leisure. Believe it or not, I feel no burning need-not at the moment, anyway-to turn this into a quadrumvirate." He nodded deeply, almost a bow, and added an ancient expression of his own. "Maynes uverit, banc etenedu."

Tomas grunted, approvingly. "Hands open, table wide." Loosely, that meant: Let's take care of pressing business, and we'll worry about the divvy later. There'll be plenty to go around.

"Good enough," said Jack. "And for the moment?"

Imbesi didn't reply immediately, taking the time to study Cachat again. By now, Cachat had reached the two women and was discussing something with them.

"I'm not sure," he replied. "First, we all need to stay in the background." He gave Alessandra a glance of sly approval. "Lei varai barbu, indeed-but part of the purpose of such, after all, is to save the family by taking the fall himself. If need be, of course, which we hope it won't. But… who knows?

"Beyond that, I think we just ought to keep giving Cachat the reins. He was lying, you know-stretching the truth, at least. He really isn't a planner. If he were, this scheme of his would have collapsed already, from the complications. He's just a genius at improvisation. So let him keep improvising."

Havlicek grunted her own approval. "Like I said: lei varai barbu. Break in the door and see what that leads to. Good enough for me. If nothing else"-the scowl had faded, and was now replaced by a truly savage smile-"he'll scare the daylights out of Manpower and Mesa and the Manticorans and everybody else who's been shitting on us. You can be sure of that."

After Fuentes, Havlicek, and Hall rose and left the table, sliding out the back still covered by darkness, Walter Imbesi turned to study his niece. Naomi was not looking her usual insouciant self, to put it mildly. In fact, she seemed on the verge of nausea.

"He doesn't seem cute, any longer?"

Naomi's quick headshake was a minimal thing, as if she were afraid that an expansive gesture might trigger off the nausea.

Walter saw no reason to push the issue. He wasn't really surprised. Naomi had led a much more sheltered life than she liked to think she had. An affair with a "foreign secret agent" was romantic, flashy, daring, risqué. Sleeping with a cold-eyed man who could blow out another man's brains with nerveless hands was…

Something quite different.

He shrugged mentally. People have their limits, and Imbesi had never seen any reason to push them beyond it. All that usually accomplished was simply ruining them within their limits.

"Go on home, then."

She was gone in a flash, insofar as the term could be used at all in such a great and gloomy hall.

Standing alone now at the center of the hall, Ginny watched her go. She was no more surprised than Walter. But far less charitable about it.

"Go, you worthless bitch," she hissed softly. "Run back to your kennel."

She turned her back on Naomi's departing figure and studied a different woman.

This one, on the other hand…

"So what's next, Victor?" Thandi asked. "When do you want me to board the Felicia?"

His face still seemed like something made of marble. She was almost surprised to see the lips move.

"Not for a number of hours, yet. At least twelve, maybe eighteen."

Her surprise overrode her concern. "Why that long? I'd think you'd want to keep pushing."

"Keep pushing with what, Thandi? Sure, you could probably keep driving ahead. But everyone else-including me-needs some rest. Besides, we've got a lot of groundwork that needs to be laid. It doesn't do us any good to take the Felicia before we're ready to do anything with it. The truth is, so far as that goes, we could wait for several weeks."

She was trying to follow his thoughts, and failing completely. "What are you talking about? You've already got the incident you need. Templeton's mania did for that. All you've got left to do is grab the Felicia and be able to show the universe that it is in fact a damned slaver and…"

Her words trailed off. Victor's face was still expressionless, but there was something gleaming in those dark eyes.

Berry spoke up. "You're planning way ahead, aren't you?"

"It'd be more accurate to say that I'm jury-rigging ahead. But, yes. Something the princess said-Ruth, I mean, the real one-made everything fall into place. That's why I asked her to get that Manticoran captain over here. She should be talking to him soon."

However mature she might appear at other times, at that moment Berry looked all of seventeen. She was practically clapping her hands. "Oh, that's nifty! Is there a part for me to play too?"

Thandi saw the gleam in the dark eyes brighten, and felt her own heart sinking.

"Victor, you can't be serious." Almost desperately: "I can take that damn ship alone, if I have to. With the codes-I'm an expert with a skinsuit in open-space maneuvers, and that's not a warship with military-grade sensors. They'll never spot me coming-I can enter through any one of… God, it's a merchant vessel, there must be dozens of ports. From there-I can take weapons this time, too-I'll only be facing half a dozen Masadans and Scrags and a ship's crew that by now is probably pissing in their pants anyway. They're meat, Victor-and I'll plop 'em right on your table. Dressed and boned."

"I don't want them," he said harshly. "We need the ship, Thandi. More than that. We need it, to all appearances, still under Masadan control-and for weeks. There's no point in having a Trojan Horse if you haven't got the men to fill it with. And that'll take weeks. The Ballroom is scattered all over the place. Even leaving aside the fact that it's going to take days anyway to talk the Manticorans and your preci-ah, Captain Rozsak-into their end of the deal."

She shook her head, trying to clear the confusion. "What are you talking about? And what the hell is a 'Trojan Horse'?"

She'd seen Troy mentioned, in one of the books she'd read. But her knowledge of ancient history and mythology was really pretty spotty.

Apparently, though, the term meant something to Berry. The girl's eyes were very wide. "I get it now," she whispered. "You want me to keep pretending to be the princess, and get over to that ship… but then… Oh. Of course. It's obvious."

Her own eyes were now gleaming. Thandi's heart sank deeper and deeper.

"It's perfect!" Berry almost squealed. "You'll have a classic 'tense standoff.' God, the press will have a field day! They'll come running from every star nation around, slobbering all the way. The Princess of Manticore, still a hostage even though most of the fanatics died in the attempt-yeah, that'll work, dead bodies will make anything seem plausible and you sure left a lot of dead bodies lying around-but where does Captain Oversteegen… ? Oh, sure!"

This time, she did clap her hands. "He's perfect!Just the kind of stiff-upper-lip Manticoran nobleman who will be damned, Sir! if he'll let a bunch of lousy slavers and pirates hold the Star Kingdom to ransom, but-he is my distant relative, after all-well, okay, the real Ruth's-and so he won't really want to pull the trigger. So…"

At that point she began to falter a bit, but Thandi could see the rest. She didn't have Berry's quickness of thought, perhaps, but she did have a much better grasp of military affairs.

The look she bestowed on Cachat was completely hostile. She had to restrain herself from striking him with her fist.

"You cold-blooded bastard. You'd use this girl-she's seventeen, Victor-just to buy you time so you could pack that ship full of your damn Ballroom killers and then-yeah, swell, the deal is made-the Felicia is finally allowed to go to Congo where supposedly the 'Princess' finally gets released from captivity. God damn you, Cachat! They're maniacs! What'll happen to her in the meantime? Weeks she'll be trapped in there with those-"

Cachat's eyes weren't gleaming now. They just seemed… pained. And Berry was actually glaring at her.

"Oh," Thandi said.

"Oh," she repeated. She felt like a complete idiot.

But at least Berry wasn't glaring at her any longer. "It's okay, Thandi," she said, patting her arm. It was a bit like a kitten patting the arm of a tigress, granted. But Thandi still appreciated the gesture.

Especially when she saw the pain still in Victor's eyes.

"I am sorry," she said softly. "I wasn't thinking. All you need is to get Berry over to that ship, and for them to let her in." A further realization came to her. "That's why you insisted I keep that one Scrag alive, isn't it? But also told me I could hammer him as hard as I wanted. All the shuttle's viewscreen will show those pirates is the Princess and a mangled but still alive Scrag coming over. Probably with Berry here making the call, desperate because she's alone in a craft she can't handle. They let her in-what else can they do, with a Manticoran cruiser ready to turn them into vapor?-and while they're being distracted…"

"You'll be there already," Berry said. "Just like Victor planned. I'm sure that was part of his plan, all along. Wasn't it, Victor?"

He didn't reply, but Thandi had no doubt at all that he had planned it that way. Why wouldn't he? She knew by now that he was genuinely brilliant at this kind of thing.

There was no reason to keep the pirates alive a second longer after the princess made the crossing. The weeks-long "standoff" which followed could be faked easily, so long as Thandi had gotten onto the ship secretly-which Victor would know, before he let Berry make the crossing. Except for those involved in the plan, no one else would realize that there were no pirates left alive on that ship-and hadn't been, from the moment Berry Zilwicki set foot on it.

It was so obvious-and would have been obvious to her, except…

Except for the memory of a cold-eyed man shooting another in the head, just to terrify three more into giving him what he wanted. The same man who had, ruthlessly, stood by and watched instead of intervening before Templeton's gang murdered perhaps three dozen Manticoran soldiers and Erewhonese civilians, in order to further his own plans.

Victor nodded, very stiffly. "Walter Imbesi has already seen to it-at my request-that Felicia will continue to get garbled news account from this space station indicating that a long-running and desperate struggle has ended with a standoff in one of the tubes. That will keep Felicia immobilized, since by now Templeton's men will have established control over there and they certainly won't do anything until they discover what's happened with their leaders and the other fanatics. That buys us the time we need immediately. Other than that, there's nothing more to be done now except convince Captain Oversteegen of his part in the affair. Which I, a citizen of Haven, am hardly the person to do. Hopefully, Princess Ruth will manage the business."

He gave Berry a gaze that was much warmer than the one he'd given Thandi. "I would appreciate it-so would she, I imagine-if you could give Princess Ruth a hand. By all accounts, Captain Oversteegen is a stiff-necked man." He jerked his head backward, pointing to Imbesi. "Walter can show you the way."

He looked back at Thandi. The sense of hurt was gone, replaced by pure iciness. "So I'll get some sleep. I suggest you do the same. We're all likely to need it, in the day ahead."

He started to turn, but paused. Then said, very softly and without looking at her:

"I am indeed cold-blooded, Lieutenant Palane. I make no apologies for that. I wouldn't apologize even to those courageous Mantie soldiers who lost their lives, much less you. I'm sorry they died, but-being blunt-I'm a lot sorrier that ten times as many Manpower slaves die every day, year in and year out, while the universe stands by, clucks its tongue, and does exactly nothing to stop it. That doesn't make me a monster, who would…"

He seemed to choke for a moment. "Yes, I'll risk her life. But no more-look at her-than she'd risk it on her own. No more than those soldiers were willing to risk their lives when they volunteered for the Queen's Own Regiment. But to think that I'd-I'd-drag her like a sacrifice to an altar and sharpen the blade for the priests…"

He said nothing further. Just turned and walked away. Within seconds, he'd left the hall.

"Oh, hell," Thandi muttered, her heart lower than ever. "I really blew it, didn't I?"

"Don't be silly," Berry scolded. "It's just your first lovers' spat. You accused of him of being an inhuman fiend, and he got a little miffed. No big deal."

Berry left then, to have Walter Imbesi show her where to find Princess Ruth, Professor Du Havel, and Captain Oversteegen. Thandi remained behind. Staring at nothing, at first. Then, staring at the only other person left in the huge room. Ginny Usher, who gazed back at her with eyes that didn't seem much less hostile than Victor's.

It took Thandi a minute to make her decision.

Fifty-nine seconds, dithering over a lifetime's disappointments, foul compromises, and crushed hopes. One second, to cast all that experience aside.

She strode over to Ginny. "Show me where he's staying."

"Well, it's about time. I was starting to get worried."

But Ginny was smiling by the time she finished the last sentence, and already tugging Thandi toward the exit.

"He'll be so thrilled to see you! Oh, yes, he will!" Ginny waved a scolding finger. "Don't let that lousy fish-eyed stare of his fool you for a moment, you hear! It's just an act. Well, sort of. But underneath it all-okay, way underneath-he's got the hots for you way more than he ever did for that no-good rotten-"

Chapter 30

"-highly doubtful, Princess Ruth. I grant you, the Cherwell Convention would give me-"

The speaker broke off and cocked an eye, seeing Berry come into the room. The tall, narrowly built officer in the uniform of a captain of the list in the Royal Manticoran Navy looked dismayingly like a much younger, far more athletic version of the Prime Minister of Manticore. His limbs had that look of the Janviers of High Ridge-as if they were somehow too long for the rest of his body-and she felt her heart sink at the very sight. But then she saw his eyes. Dark eyes, yes, but nothing like the half-slitted, perpetually calculating ones the Prime Minister showed the rest of the world. They were the eyes of a man unprepared to take anything from anyone, but they were also clear and thoughtful.

The corner of the captain's mouth ticked with sardonic humor. "And this, I take it, is the supposed 'Princess Ruth.' " He rose and bowed politely, with all the ease and grace of a man born and raised in the highest circles of the Star Kingdom's aristocracy. "Captain Michael Oversteegen, here. Delighted t' see you none the worse for the experience, Ms. Zilwicki. Don't appear t' be, at any rate."

Listening to the man's aristocratic drawl and speech mannerisms, Berry was glad that she'd taken time to quickly change before coming to join Princess Ruth and the captain. She strongly suspected that beneath the suave exterior, Oversteegen had all the unconscious attitudes of a Manticoran nobleman, who simply wouldn't have taken seriously a girl who appeared before him in tattered rags-no matter that the rags were of the most expensive material, and that she had a reasonable excuse for their state of disrepair. Appearances were appearances. Captain Oversteegen's own uniform was immaculate.

The lieutenant had risen also. The tall man turned to her and waved a languid hand. "May I introduce my assistant tac officer, Lieutenant Betty Gohr."

Rather than bowing, Lieutenant Gohr stuck out her hand in a rather abrupt gesture. She was smiling politely, but there seemed to be some sort of uneasy question lurking in her eyes.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," she said. Then, almost blurting the words: "But I'd like to know how your father knows about me."

Berry's eyes widened. "I have no idea, Lieutenant Gohr. But I'd assume it's because you're either very good-or very bad-at intelligence work. My father makes it a point of keeping track of these things."

Oversteegen chuckled. Although, to Berry's ears, the sound reminded her more of the snort of an aristocratic horse. A high-pitched, sharply ended little neigh, as it were.

"Very good, then," he pronounced. "The lieutenant certainly wouldn't fit the alternative description." He bestowed a sly smile on Gohr. "I believe you may rest easy, Lieutenant."

The little question was still in Gohr's eyes, but she no longer seemed uneasy. "Damn snoops," she muttered.

She'd probably not meant the words to be overheard, but Berry had acute hearing. She grinned and said: "Yup. That pretty much describes my father to a tee. Damn snoop."

With as much in the way of sophisticated aplomb as she could manage, Berry slid herself onto the couch next to Ruth. "And don't think I haven't started worrying about what will happen once I get myself a boyfriend. Gah. Bad enough my father's a snoop-he's also a very good one."

Feeling rather proud that she'd managed to seat herself gracefully-not easy, given the fancy clothing she was wearing-Berry segued forward smoothly. "But I believe I interrupted things. You were saying, Captain?"

Oversteegen had resumed his seat. Before continuing, though, he cocked an eye at Ruth.

"Berry is entirely within my confidence, Captain." She nodded toward the man seated on her other side. "As is Professor Du Havel. You may proceed accordingly."

Oversteegen hesitated before he spoke again, but not for more than a second.

"Very well. As I was sayin', Princess, I think it's extremely doubtful that the Manticoran ambassador here would give her sanction to your proposal. Whether I could proceed without it…" He shrugged. "Probably. If I were convinced it was the proper course to follow, I would certainly do so. Let the consequences be what they might."

Ruth smiled. "A comment which my aunt Elizabeth made recently might interest you, Captain." She nodded toward Berry. "The comment was made to her father, in fact. 'I believe I can trust a man who isn't afraid of being on the beach when he has to.' "

Oversteegen returned the smile with a wry one of his own. "Indeed. I take your point, Princess-but you still have t' convince me that it would be a good thing t' do in the first place. The Queen's not here, after all, and whatever decision I make has t' be made quickly or there's no point t' it at all."

Ruth began to open her mouth, but Oversteegen raised his hand slightly, forestalling the words.

"The issue's not the idea itself, Princess. Truth be told, leaving aside the undoubted charm of Congo becomin' a planet run by slaves, I can see at least two other advantages t' it."

He held up his forefinger. "First-bearin' directly on my duties here-it would make anti-piracy work far easier. No pirate in his right mind-much less a slaver-is goin' t' be playin' around in a stellar backyard with ex-slaves on the loose and armed. Especially when-let's not even pretend otherwise, shall we?-those slaves will be largely led and organized by the Audubon Ballroom."

Oversteegen held up a second finger. "Moreover-and provided such a slave planet remained politically neutral-it could provide a very useful neutral port in the region." Grimly: "There's no tellin' what armed clashes might erupt in this region in the future, but so long as Congo remained neutral and in ex-slave hands, at least any new outbreak of hostilities wouldn't produce the usual rapid upsurge in piracy."

Ruth was starting to look pleased, but Oversteegen's next words erased that.

"Which brings me t' my chief concern, Princess-and that's the role bein' played in all this by the Havenite secret agent, Victor Cachat."

Berry saw Ruth start to speak, then hesitate. She had no doubt that the princess had been about to argue that Victor Cachat was not really a "secret agent," but…

Fortunately, Ruth had the good sense not to advance the proposition. Seeing as how, to anyone as obviously knowledgeable as Captain Oversteegen, it would have been absurd.

Instead, Ruth just said, a bit curtly: "Elaborate, please."

"I'd think it was obvious. Cachat is certainly tryin' t' use this episode t' advance the interests of the Republic of Haven in Erewhonese space. Interests which are just as certain t' be inimical t' those of the Star Kingdom."

Ruth nodded. "Yes. Of course he is. Specifically, I'm quite sure-and so are you, I imagine-that he hopes to use the episode as a lever to pry Erewhon loose from its alliance with us. Possibly even to work them into an alliance with the Republic of Haven. Which, as you say, would be very inimical to our own interests. If nothing else, even if the current truce leads to an actual peace treaty, Erewhon could provide the Havenites with a tech transfer of almost everything which now gives us a military edge over them."

"Exactly."

"And so what,Captain?" demanded Ruth. "Whether or not Cachat can manage to pull it off, how do you think we could forestall him by not participating in his project? The problem we face, putting it crudely, is that Cachat has effectively boxed us in. He's got us trapped between two jaws of a vise."

Her own jaws tightened for a moment. "You're constrained by military protocol from saying it out loud, but I am not."

It was Ruth's turn to hold up a forefinger. "Jaw number one. Thanks to the idiocy of the High Ridge Government's foreign policies, Manticore's reputation here on Erewhon is now the equivalent of mud."

Her thumb came up. "Jaw number two. Regardless of its possible ramifications, Cachat's proposal with respect to Congo is something which we simply can't oppose on its own merits. If we do so-"

She brought her thumb and forefinger together, like a pincer. "-if we do so, we'll simply look even worse than we do at present. Once again, the Star Kingdom will demonstrate to the Erewhonese that we'll roll over their interests for the sake of our own-and our own interests, just to make it worse, are really the product of our own stupidity and arrogance."

She dropped her hand and almost-not quite-glared at Oversteegen. "In short, Captain, if we fail to assist the Erewhonese in Cachat's plan, we run the risk of making the political situation even worse. Whereas if we help Cachat…"

She let the thought trail off. After a moment, Oversteegen sighed.

"Yes, I understand. Whereas if we help Cachat, we might at least minimize the damage."

Du Havel interjected himself into the discussion for the first time. "More than that, really. Don't forget the need to think in the long term, Captain. Manticore's governments come and go, but what remains is the dynasty. It will be no small thing, I believe, if nothing else, if you demonstrate here and now that the honor of the House of Winton is not made of the same tissue as the unprincipled schemes of Baron High Ridge. That might mean nothing today-or next year-but history is properly measured in decades and centuries. Like prime ministers, alliances come and go as well."

Oversteegen cocked his head, then squinted at Ruth. "Ah. Do I take it, Princess, that you have some proposal for a member of the dynasty t' become directly involved in the affair? In the line of fire, as it were?"

Ruth did her best to look innocent, but…

Good as she was, Berry thought, she was still only twenty-three years old. Oversteegen wasn't fooled for a moment.

"As I thought," he gruffed, sitting up straight. Any trace of aristocratic languor was quite gone. "Whatever else, Princess Ruth, I can't possibly agree t' allowin' a member of the royal house t' put herself at risk. The idea's positively absurd. T' begin with-"

Berry resigned herself to a long evening.

When Ginny entered the suite, Thandi trailing behind her, Victor was sitting in a chair by a table, staring at the suite's display screen. The screen, filling most of the far wall, showed nothing more than a view of the stellar neighborhood looking outward from Erewhon-a view which was grand enough, but as bleak as it was cold.

He didn't turn his head when they entered. Indeed, for all Thandi could tell he was oblivious to the sound of the door opening and closing.

"Figures," muttered Ginny. "Leave it to Victor Cachat to sit in the most uncomfortable chair in a luxury suite."

Still, he didn't look their way. "And why are we in this damn thing, anyway? I didn't ask for it."

"I did," stated Ginny forcefully. "And you've got a guest, so stop grousing."

Thandi realized Victor had had no idea anyone had entered with Ginny. Given the man's usual sensitivity to his environment, that alone was enough to make clear that he was immersed in a black depression.

He turned slightly. When his eyes fell on Thandi, they opened a bit. Then, narrowed. And then, within a second, he was staring back at the display.

"What is she doing here?" The words were spoken in a tone of voice just about as cold as the interstellar void shown on the screen.

Thandi felt herself shrivel, and started to turn away. But Ginny slapped her arm, as a mother might slap a child, stopping her in mid-turn. And then-to Thandi's utter amazement-marched over to Victor and gave him a gen-u-ine, down home, motherly box on the ears. No affectionate pat, either. This was a real whap!

Victor jerked with surprise, his hand flying up to the side of his face.

"Don't act the asshole around me," Ginny growled, her face tight and angry. "She's your guest because I told her she was. Make me a liar, Victor, and you can figure on using your ears for cauliflower soup."

She turned to Thandi and, in that lightning manner which Thandi still found hard to follow, was all sunshine and good cheer.

"Do come in," she cooed. "Victor is delighted to see you. Aren't you, Victor?" The last sentence was spoken through the same cheerful smile, but the temperature in the words plunged to somewhere not far above zero degrees Kelvin.

"Uh. Yeah, sure. Come in-uh, Lieutenant Palane."

Ginny raised her hand for another box on the ear. Victor hastily amended: "Thandi, I mean."

Hesitantly, Thandi took a few steps forward.

What the hell am I doing here? This is crazy! The man is furious with me-can't say I really blame him-and I ought to just-

"I'll be going then," announced Ginny brightly. "Now that the two of you are off to such a good start."

Matching deed to word, she walked past Thandi and was through the door-closing it behind her-before Thandi could think to protest.

She stared at Victor. He was staring back. After two or three seconds of that, Thandi jerked herself together.

To hell with it. To hell with him, for that matter. Pride and dignity, girl. Well… dignity, anyway.

"I apologized once, Victor. I'm not going to do it again. Take it or leave it."

His face was frozen for a moment, set in the same bleak expression it had held when she came in the room. Then, the expression faded into one of simple melancholy and he looked away.

"Never mind, Thandi. Apology accepted-and I should extend you an apology for being such a prick about it. I'm sorry. It's just…"

She could feel her warmth toward him coming back. Pouring back, more like.

"Yeah, I know. It's just that you wonder about it yourself." She moved over and perched on the wide armrest of a chair not far from him. "Think I don't? In order to get where I am today-which isn't really such a great place, anyway-I had to do a lot of things I'm not happy about. Some of them still make me a little sick, and all of it makes me wonder about myself. Wonder a lot, sometimes."

He nodded. Still, looking melancholy. Thandi realized that, whatever his other strengths, Victor Cachat wouldn't be very good at handling his own self-doubts. He'd ignore or deny them, most times, and positively wallow in them when he couldn't.

The knowledge warmed her up still further. Quite a bit further, in fact. In that constant self-analytical way of hers, Thandi was simultaneously able to recognize two things. First, she had a serious case of the hots for Victor Cachat. Serious. More so than anything she'd felt since her first boyfriend, long years before. Second, she thought she finally understood the reason for the attraction.

The realization made her chuckle, very throatily. That chuckle. The one which, like that smile, had a rather dazzling impact on men.

Victor was no exception. He was back to staring at her, but this time with an expression which had little resemblance to the barrenness of outer space.

"Leave it to me to save myself for a devil with a heart of gold," she murmured. "Kinky, kinky, kinky."

She rose from the armchair, almost lazily, and began unfastening her tunic.

"Why don't you give your demons a rest, Victor? We've all got demons, you know. What makes us human is how we handle them."

She was starting to come out of her clothing, moving as quickly as she always could when she wanted to. Her voice was husky, throaty-she'd made her decision and was letting the heat of it pour through her.

"So how about helping me with my demons, for the rest of the night? I'm willing to bet this suite has a huge bed. We'll need it."

He was very wide-eyed, now. His head was partly turned away, as if he was trying not to stare but… couldn't move his eyes, which had a life of their own.

Still, he tried to rally some humor. "I suppose resistance would be futile, huh? How could I stop you from ravishing me?"

She felt like magma; her boots finally off and the rest of it peeling away. Her laugh was huskier and throatier than her voice.

"As it happens, Victor, my inclinations run entirely the opposite direction."

She was completely nude. Two steps and she plucked him out of the chair like a baby. Then, carried him into the bedroom, dropped him on the bed, and more or less poured herself next to him.

"Pardon the role reversal," she gurgled, starting to run her hands over him. She didn't need to help him get out of his own clothing, since Victor was now handling that just about as fast as she'd done.

"Did it ever occur to you that a lady weightlifter might get sick of it?" she whispered, caressing and kissing. He was nude himself, within seconds. His body was hard and muscular, as she'd known it would be. Not as hard as hers, at any moment except this one. But in that moment, finally, she felt completely soft; more than she'd ever been able to feel in her life, and was reveling in it. Soft and open, almost boneless.

Her hand slid down and discovered, to her delight, that every part of Victor was exactly the opposite.

"Oh, God, yes," she hissed. "Just take me."

Chapter 31

By the time Oversteegen left their room, Ruth's face was drawn and haggard. An observer who didn't know the princess as well as Berry did would have assumed the distress resulted from Oversteegen's adamant refusal to agree to Ruth's proposal.

But Berry did know her friend-very well, by now-and was not surprised at all to see her burst into tears the moment the Manticoran captain closed the door behind him. Du Havel was obviously startled, but Berry had been expecting it.

Ruth was one of those people whose initial response to any situation is to act, doing whatever is needed right now. It was a valuable trait, in a crisis-Berry had it herself, if not to the extreme degree Ruth did-but also one which took its toll thereafter, because acting now, decisively, all too often required one to push one's emotions aside. A person could do that… for a time. But not forever. In the end, the price of decisiveness had to be paid, and that price could be high. Especially for someone like Ruth, who lacked Berry's capacity for self-analysis.

She put her arm around the princess and hugged her tightly. "S'okay, Ruth."

"It is not okay," Ruth half-sobbed. "I feel like such a traitor."

The word "traitor" seemed to burst the dam wide open. Ruth started sobbing uncontrollably, and her own arms slid around Berry, clutching her tightly. Almost desperately.

Berry caught a glimpse of Du Havel's face. The professor's expression had gone from surprise to understanding-ah, of course; she's finally reacting to the horrible bloodshed-to, once again, surprise and incomprehension.

"Traitor"? What is she talking about?

Berry was a little annoyed with Web, but not much. In truth, Ruth was such an odd person in so many ways that Berry didn't think anyone but she herself would really understand what the young woman was feeling at the moment.

Well… except for one other person, perhaps. By now, as close as their friendship had become, Berry knew a lot about Ruth's history. And that of her family.

"Your mother would have done the same," she murmured. "Don't think she wouldn't have, Ruth."

The princess kept sobbing. "I liked Ahmed Griggs," she choked out. "Once-once-he got over being so stuffy. And-and-"

The next words came almost in a wail: "And I really liked Laura and Christina! I can't believe they're all dead!"

Berry had been extremely fond of Sergeants Hofschulte and Bulanchik herself. Lieutenant Griggs had been too unbending for Berry to warm up to him much, though she'd had no doubts of his devotion to duty. But Christina Bulanchik had had a warm personality-as had Laura Hofschulte, who'd also possessed a sense of humor as quick and ready as the reflexes which had kept her fighting to the end, after seeing to Ruth's own safety.

Berry's own memory of the savage and terrifying gunfight was mostly one of blurred confusion and sudden terror. But she knew she'd always remember Laura Hofschulte's last moments alive, which Berry had witnessed while crouched under the gaming table.

First, the sight of Hofschulte on one knee, something in the sure set of her stance making clear that the pulser rounds being fired by the sergeant were going home. Then, the stance crumpling, and the horrible sight of Laura's lifeless eyes staring sightlessly at Berry after the sergeant's body fell to the floor-with the body of her last assailant collapsing next to her.

"That bastard," Ruth half-hissed; half-sobbed. "That stinking fucking murderer. I can't believe I'm-and I didn't even hesitate!"

It was obvious from the expression on his face that Web was now completely confused. Berry wondered, for an instant, how a man so very intelligent could also be so obtuse.

But she only wondered for an instant. Berry had her own memories of what life was like, when you were one of the universe's unwanted and despised. There were certain inevitable results, one of which was a very stripped-down moral code and precious little in the way of "fine sentiments."

"He's not a 'murderer,' Ruth," she said softly. "That's neither fair nor accurate, and you know it as well as I do."

"He could have stopped them! The lousy bastard!"

Berry said nothing. First, because there was nothing to say-Cachat could have prevented the horrendous loss of life. Most of it, anyway. He could have certainly given enough warning to keep the Queen's Own from dying.

But, mostly, she said nothing because she knew that wasn't what was really upsetting Ruth. The princess would weep over her dead, to be sure, and find a clean anger at the man who had allowed it to happen. But that wasn't what had left her so completely shaken. It was the fact that, with no hesitation, she had allied herself with Cachat afterward.

Berry saw Web's face clear up. Finally, he understood.

"Oh."

Yeah, Web, she thought sourly. "Oh." Ruth may have her mother's genes, but she's been a princess all her life. How did you THINK she'd react, when it finally caught up with her?

"Oh," Web repeated. He rubbed a hand over his short hair, sighing. "Ruth…"

The princess raised bleary eyes toward him. Du Havel sighed again, more heavily. He gave Berry a glance of appeal, but Berry just shook her head. Let Du Havel handle this part of it. Berry's job, for the moment, was just to provide comfort.

"I really wouldn't beat myself too hard," Web said softly. "Given where you're coming from, Ruth, it's to your credit you're having this emotional reaction now. But it's also to your credit-at least from where I'm coming from, anyway-that you had the initial one. Right when it all happened."

Now Ruth was the one confused. "Huh?"

Web's normally kind face was set in hard lines. "Look, Princess, I'll be blunt. I understand someone like Victor Cachat a lot better than you do. I had nothing at all against Lieutenant Griggs and his detachment-in fact, I was rather fond of Sergeant Hofschulte myself-but I had nothing for them, either."

He gave Berry another glance. "It's Berry's father's attitude toward the Crown. He doesn't blame the Queen of Manticore for the stupid things her ministers do in her name, but neither he nor Cathy Montaigne give her any credit for them, either."

Ruth wiped tears from her eyes and raised her head from Berry's shoulder. Berry was almost amused, really. It was in the nature of Ruth Winton that any kind of challenge would get an immediate rise from her. Emotions, be damned-you can wait!

"Explain that," the princess commanded, almost snapping the words. "I heard Captain Zilwicki say the same thing to Berry the day we met, but I don't understand its bearing on what you're saying!"

Web shrugged. "Why am I, or Victor Cachat, supposed to place the life of a Manticoran soldier-or the life of a wealthy Erewhonese tourist-above the life of a slave?"

His face was now hard as stone. "And why, for that matter, should you?Do keep in mind that Lieutenant Griggs-and Sergeants Hofschulte and Bulanchik-were at least given the right to volunteer for their potentially dangerous assignment. Ask any of Manpower's slaves-like the thousands and thousands on Congo, whose work is almost guaranteedto take their lives within a few years-if anyone ever gave them that right." He nodded toward Berry. "Or ask her if, when she was born, anybody ever asked her to volunteer for a life in Terra's warrens. Or ask your mother if anyone ever asked her to volunteer for a life as a Masadan female chattel."

He snorted derisively. "God, I love the 'fine morality' of the wealthy and powerful. You'll spill tears over your own, in a heartbeat. And then never even look twice at people below you, whose lives are ground under every day, day after day, year after year. Such are beneath your contempt, aren't they?"

Ruth jerked herself out of Berry's embrace and sat up straight, wiping away the last of the tears with a quick, angry hand. "That's not fair, Web!"

Du Havel gave her a level gaze. "No, as a matter, it's not fair-applied to you. Very unfair, as a matter of fact. And I know that's true because of the way you reacted immediately, once you understood that Cachat was up to something."

Ruth stared at him. Web's stony face suddenly creased into a little smile. "Do keep that in mind, Princess of Manticore. The very same behavior that now has you flagellating yourself for being a 'traitor' is, in fact, the behavior that makes a former slave of Manpower find himself inclined to trust a princess. And it's not often I feel that way, I can assure you. I normally trust people in high places about as much as I'd trust a serpent. On that subject-slaves have long and bitter memories-I'm really not much different from Jeremy X, when you get right down to it."

Ruth turned her head and stared at Berry. Berry smiled, and shrugged.

"What he said. And, when you get a chance, I really think you and your mother should have a talk about it."

Ruth's lips quirked. "My mother. Is that the same one my father's been known to refer to as the one member of the dynasty, in some five hundred years, who could teach the House of Winton what 'cold-blooded' really means?"

"Yup. Your mother, the murderess."

"Pirate too, I believe," said Du Havel cheerily.

Ruth looked back and forth from Web to Berry. "I still don't feel good about it. And Cachat's still a bastard."

"No one's asking you to feel 'good' about it, Princess," pointed out Du Havel. "As I said-given where you're coming from-the emotional reaction is inevitable. Um. Probably be a little scary if you didn't have it, in fact. But don't let that reaction blind you to the reality. Victor Cachat may or may not be a 'bastard.' I don't know the man well enough, frankly, to have an opinion of his personal character one way or the other."

He leaned forward in his chair, hands on his knees. "But here's what I do know. While everyone else has spent years pissing and moaning about the horrors of Congo-and doing precisely nothing about it-Cachat is willing to kick over the whole stinking mess. So I'm really not too concerned about whether his hands are clean. Seeing as how I'm not impressed at all by the fine velvety gloves everyone else has been wearing."

"And you think this is all because of his fine, high principles and ideals?" Ruth challenged in return. "The man's a Havenite agent, Professor. A Havenite agent. As in, an agent of a star nation with which Manticore happens to still be at war." She met his eyes unflinchingly. "He may very well be willing to 'kick over the whole stinking mess,' but I doubt that you're naïve enough to believe that that's why he came to Erewhon in the first place!" She snorted bitterly. "If you are that naïve, I assure you that I'm not."

"No, I don't suppose it is," Du Havel conceded. "But does that change the practical consequences of his arrival?"

"From my perspective, it certainly does," Ruth said flatly. "Don't get me wrong, Professor. I hate the notion of slavery about as much as anyone who was never a slave herself possibly could. As you say, my mother had a little experience with the institution, and she never pulled any punches when she described her experiences to me. And, yes, Cachat is willing to do something about Congo, which should be counted in his favor. But you heard what Oversteegen and I just finished arguing over. And what if the captain's right to have reservations? What if Cachat does succeed in detaching Erewhon from the Star Kingdom and actually swings it to Haven? And we end up back actively at war with Haven? And Erewhon hands over all the tech advantages which let us win the last round? Do you have any idea how many thousands-how many hundreds of thousands, or even millions-of Manticorans may be killed as a result? How many Graysons? While you're being so morally high and mighty, Professor, and telling me how right I was to support Cachat's crusade against Congo, remember that I have no special, individual responsibility to Congo. Or to you, for that matter."

Her eyes were hard, now, and Du Havel reminded himself that whatever her origins, this was a princess of the House of Winton. And that the House of Winton, unlike all too many royal dynasties throughout history, still took its responsibilities as seriously as it did its privileges.

"I do have a responsibility to those Manticorans," she went on now, "just as I did to Lieutenant Griggs, and Laura and Christina. A direct, personal responsibility. And if I were meeting that responsibility, I'd be doing everything I possibly could to stop whatever Cachat is trying to accomplish, not getting behind it and helping the bastard who let my security detachment-my detachment, Professor, the people I did have a personal responsibility to-be slaughtered when he could have prevented it. And don't you dare tell me that he couldn't have, or suggest that I should put his high and noble anti-slavery principles above the debt I owe my own dead!"

Du Havel opened his mouth, then paused and cocked his head. He considered her thoughtfully for a moment, and a part of his mind noted her anger and decided it was probably a much healthier reaction than her despair had been. But that wasn't why he paused. No, he paused because she was right, he realized.

"Why didn't you oppose him from the beginning, then?" he asked after a moment, instead of what he'd been about to say, and Ruth sighed.

"Because I couldn't," she said, in a tone which mingled bitterness with something else. She gazed down at her hands, examining them as if they were a stranger's. "Because like I told Oversteegen, between him and the damage that idiot High Ridge has already done to our relationship with Haven, the best I can do is try to minimize the consequences of whatever it is he's up to. I certainly can't stop him, and if I try, I'll only make the fresh damage worse. So the only pragmatic response available to me is to dig in to help him, instead. To salvage what I can in terms of credit for having recognized my Star Kingdom's-or, at least, my family's-moral responsibility to do whatever we can to end the problem of Congo."

"Solely because of Realpolitik and pragmatism, Your Highness?" Du Havel asked softly, and she looked back up quickly. It was odd, really, how such a pudgy man could have such an eagle's gaze.

"Is that all it was for you?" he pressed. "Political calculation? Oh, you're right, of course. My own analysis matches yours almost exactly, although I'm sure you're more intimately familiar with the local political, diplomatic, and military parameters of the entire situation. But is that the only reason you supported him so quickly?"

She looked back at him steadily for several seconds, then shook her head.

"No," she said softly. "I almost wish I could say it were, but it isn't." She inhaled deeply. "As you say, whatever else he may be up to, he is willing to do something about Congo. And if he manages that, the consequences for Manpower and the entire institution of genetic slavery…"

She shook her head again.

"My people are already dead," she said even more softly. "I can't bring them back. But if Cachat can pull this off, then maybe I can at least make their deaths mean something."

"Precisely," Du Havel said. "And that's my point. A point you obviously already understand perfectly-intellectually, at least. I'll even concede all those other points, all those other responsibilities. But the bottom line is that right here and now, you can't do anything about those. You can do something about your other responsibilities, though. The ones that everyone has-like the one to do whatever you can to fight something like slavery."

He snorted harshly, and his expression hardened.

"That's the perspective of an ex-slave, Your Highness. Obligation and responsibility weave complicated nets, and your net is as complicated as they come. But, like all Gordian knots, there comes a time when the only alternative is to cut through all the twists and turns and constrictions. And in this instance, the sword doing the cutting is brutally simple. All that remains is for you to look inside and see if you have the guts-and the integrity-to pick it up and swing it.

"So what's it going to be, Princess?Are you going to keep flogging yourself over your so-called 'betrayal' of your 'morality,' or are you going to be one of those rare upper crust types who isn't afraid of getting her own hands dirty? Personally, I hope you keep trusting your own instincts."

Ruth looked down at her hands once more, now folded in her lap.

"You two would make really lousy psychotherapists," she pronounced. "Aren't you supposed to be… you know. At least a little sympathetic?"

Berry thought Web's response was exceedingly uncouth. "Why?" he demanded. She herself was already giving Ruth another warm hug.

"Don't be a bastard, Web," she growled, squeezing Ruth more tightly for just an instant.

"Why not? I am a bastard." He stuck out his tongue, showing the genetic markers, pointing to them with a stubby forefinger. "Thee? Nod a wegaw pawent in thide."

He withdrew the tongue. "Nope. Neither mother nor father recorded, to give me a proper upbringing. Just 'J-16b-79-2/3.' That's me. A bastard born and bred."

Ruth managed a chuckle, of sorts. "You don't have to be quite so smug about it."

"You certainly don't," chimed in Berry firmly. She tightened her arms around Ruth's shoulders. Berry understood Web's attitude, well enough-Cachat's too, for that matter. She even shared it herself, to a degree. But she also thought both of them had a tendency to err in the other direction; a tendency which, pushed too far, could become every bit as ugly as the callous indifference of the high and mighty.

"It's kind of a screwed-up universe," she whispered into Ruth's ear. "We just do the best we can, that's all."

Ruth was back to sobbing again; or, at least, trying to stifle the sobs. But Berry could feel her head nodding. Quite firmly, in fact.

She found that very reassuring. Especially combined with the sobs.

"I really like you a lot," she whispered. "And I know Laura and Christina did too. They told me, once."

There was no stifling the sobs now. Nor should they have been stifled. Berry just maintained the embrace, while giving Web a meaningful glance.

He didn't mistake the meaning of that glance. Okay, bastard. You've done your job. She'll be fine in a few hours. Now get the hell out of here.

He was on his feet and heading for the door at once. No professor, not even Du Havel, was that absentminded.

Chapter 32

Commander Watson greeted Oversteegen as he stepped onto Gauntlet's bridge.

"Sorry to disturb you, Sir," the XO said, "but I thought you'd better take a look at this." She gestured at the display screen.

"What is it?" Oversteegen came over.

The XO pressed a button, bringing up a display. "It's a recording of a broadcast made less than an hour ago by Countess Fraser. The first official statement on the kidnaping by our ambassador."

Oversteegen tightened his jaws. From the look on Watson's face, he wasn't going to like what he was about to see.

By the end, in fact, he was downright furious. The first two-thirds of Fraser's statement he could have accepted, more or less, as meaningless diplomatic prattle. But the Manticoran ambassador hadn't been satisfied with just leaving it at that. Instead, at the end, she'd placed the blame squarely on Erewhon:

"… outrageous that the Princess' guards were slaughtered, in the middle of Erewhonese security…"

"She is aware that almost two dozen Erewhonese security guards were also murdered by Templeton's gang, isn't she?" grated Oversteegen. The XO, recognizing a rhetorical question-and the seething anger behind it-made no reply.

"… entirely Erewhon's responsibility, and the Star Kingdom of Manticore will hold its authorities responsible for the well-being of the Princess. Furthermore-"

That was the point at which Oversteegen reached out a long finger and ended the recording. The gesture had something of the finality of an executioner pushing a red button.

"Get me the Manticoran embassy," he said. "I'll take the call in my cabin."

Within seconds after Oversteegen entered his cabin, an embassy official was on the screen. Someone named Joseph Gatri, who apparently bore the resplendent title of Third Consular Assistant, or some such.

"I'm afraid the ambassador isn't available at the moment, Captain. Is there something I-"

"Tell Deborah that if she's not 'available' in-" His lips peeled back in a smile that was indistinguishable from a snarl. "-exactly one minute, there will be royal hell t' pay."

The Third Assistant Whatever stared at him. "But, ah, Captain…"

Oversteegen was studying his watch. "Fifty-five seconds. That's also, by the way, a measure of the time left in your probable career. Get Deborah, you nincompoop!"

Countess Fraser appeared with less than ten seconds remaining in Oversteegen's deadline. She did not look like a happy woman.

"What is it, Captain Oversteegen? And I would appreciate it if you'd stick to the proper formalities."

"Get screwed, Deborah. You're one of my multitude of cousins-God must have been a bit absentminded, there-and every bit as incompetent as your whole branch of the family usually is. What in God's name do you think you're doin'? Our relations with Erewhon were bad enough already, without you addin' a completely gratuitous public insult t' the mix."

She drew back angrily. "You can't-!"

"Talk to you this way? The hell I can't. And answer my question!"

The countess' lips tightened. Then, suddenly, what might have been a sly look came onto her face.

"Oh. I see. You only met her once, as I recall, so you probably don't remember."

"What are you talkin' about?"

It was a sly look. "Ha! You've been duped, Michael. The Erewhonese are playing us for fools. Trying to, rather, but I found them out. That so-called 'kidnaped princess' is nothing of the sort. I've met Princess Ruth-and she was on broadcast blabbering about her adventures. They must have used nanotech to change their appearances, but the voice was a giveaway. The girl those maniacs grabbed is the other one, the Zilwicki girl."

Oversteegen shook his head. Not in disagreement, simply in order to clear it. The ambassador's thought processes made no sense at all.

"I fail t' see what relevance that has t' the issue-assuming it's true, which I won't argue. What differencedoes it make, anyway? Regardless of which girl Templeton and his maniacs attacked, we have no business insultin' the Erewhonese over it."

Now, Fraser managed to combined slyness with exasperation. "Oh, for pity's sake, Michael! I didn't make that statement in order to hurt the feelings of your darling little Erewhonese. I did it simply to get us-you, to be precise-out of an impossible situation. If the girl Templeton grabbed had been Princess Ruth, we'd have had to get her out no matter what the cost. As it is-"

She shrugged. "Hopefully, of course, no harm will come to the Zilwicki girl. But it's not as if it really matters to the Star Kingdom, does it? And whatever happens-thanks to my statement-it will be the Erewhonese and not us who take the blame for it."

Oversteegen stared at her for perhaps five seconds. His sheer anger was gone by the end of that time, replaced by something very close to weariness.

"I will leave out of all this the petty consideration that we're talkin' about the life of a teenage girl. I realize that's a matter beneath your contempt. I will just take the opportunity t' tell you, since I don't believe I've ever done it before at one of our family gatherin's-not precisely, I mean-just how brainless you are, Deborah. Truly brainless. Not simply stupid. Bar-ain-less. As in: brains of a carrot."

"You can't-!"

"You imbecile! First of all, the entire inhabited galaxy will most certainly hold us responsible for our own actions-or inaction-in this episode. But it really doesn't matter, Deborah. It certainly won't matter t' you, that's for sure. Because if Anton Zilwicki decides you were responsible for his daughter's death, I can assure you that the man won't be in the least impressed by your official lack of responsibility. He's a rather notorious fellow, don't you know? Not given, so far as I can see, t' much in the way of respect for his betters."

He reached out a finger to the control panel. "This conversation is ended, since it was obviously pointless t' begin with. I will remind you, Madam Ambassador, that as the senior naval officer in the system, I am obliged to 'coordinate' with you but am in no way under your authority. So, Deborah, consider us havin' 'coordinated'-you are a cretin and I told you so-and I will attend t' the Queen's business."

He pushed the button and the display vanished. Then, after chewing on the matter for perhaps five seconds, Oversteegen got in touch with his com officer. "Lieutenant Cheney, be so good as t' get me Berry Zilwicki. You'll be able t' find her through the station's central com. Put the call through t' me here, please."

Within a minute, Ruth Winton appeared in the display.

"Yes, Captain?"

Oversteegen cleared his throat. "Ah. Ms. Zilwicki. How nice t' see you again. I simply called t' let you know that I've changed my mind. Please feel free t' apply your, ah, special skills t' the task we discussed, and call upon me whenever you find it necessary. Have a good evenin'."

Ruth managed-barely-to refrain from issuing a war whoop. The enthusiastic manner in which she slammed open the door to Berry's bedroom in the suite probably made up for it. Obviously, Berry thought dryly, the princess had come fully to grips with any demons which might have spring from her decision to support Cachat's efforts.

"Let's go!" she hollered. "Oversteegen changed his mind! We're on!"

Fortunately, Berry had just finished changing into casual wear. So Ruth didn't do any actual damage to the tough and practical fabric, as she hauled her companion through the suite toward the door leading to the corridor.

"Okay, okay!" Berry protested. "I'm coming." She glanced at the door to Du Havel's bedroom. "What about the professor?"

"Let him sleep." The princess had her through the outer door. Once Berry closed it, Ruth let her go and started trotting down the corridor. "What happened?" Berry asked.

"Damfino. Somebody must have really pissed off the captain, though, from his expression." She turned her head, giving Berry a cheerful grin. "Don't think I'd particularly want Oversteegen mad at me, I can tell you that. He's a throwback, you know. Rumor has it that he's the reincarnation of his great-grandfather-mother's side-Orville Suderbush. Man fought something like fourteen duels. All but three ended fatally. Not a scratch on him."

She was around the corner and piling into an elevator.

"Where are we going?" Berry was starting to pant a little. Again, she made a vow to start an exercise program.

"See Cachat and Palane, what else? They're the ones who'll be running the show, for the next few days."

The elevator deposited them in a slightly less opulent-looking corridor. "I think Cachat's in Suite Klondike 45," Ruth muttered. "Should be right around this bend… ."

Her estimate was correct. But the proof of it caused the two girls to draw up short for a moment. Ginny Usher was lying on the corridor floor, right in front of the door to the suite. Sound asleep, apparently.

"Hm," murmured Ruth.

" 'Hm' is right," whispered Berry. "I think we ought to-"

What she thought went unspoken, since Ginny opened her eyes at that moment. Gave them a sharp look, then, apparently satisfied they posed no problem, stretched and sat up. She reminded Berry of a very good-looking cat.

"What's up?" Ginny yawned.

"We need to talk to Victor," replied Ruth.

Ginny shook her head. "Not a chance. He needs some, ah, rest. That's why I'm camping out here, to make sure nobody disturbs him."

She said the words placidly enough, but it was obvious to Berry that she'd be immovable on the subject.

Ruth had apparently reached the same conclusion. "Okay, then. We can probably start with Lieutenant Palane instead. Do you know where we could find her?"

"Sure." Ginny hooked a thumb at the door against which she was now leaning. "She's in there with Victor. Resting. I use the term a bit loosely, you understand."

Ruth and Berry stared at her. Ginny grinned.

"So there's not a cold chance in Hell I'm letting you in there. Forget it. I don't care if you're on a mission to save the galaxy. The galaxy will just have to wait."

Ruth and Berry stared at each other.

"Oh," said Ruth.

Berry was more loquacious. "Oh. Yeah."

Ruth sighed and leaned against the wall of the corridor. Then, sighing more heavily, slid down until she was sprawled on the corridor floor. "Damn."

Berry sat down next to her. "Look on the bright side. At least they'll be in a better mood in the morning than they were just a little while ago. Well. I hope, anyway."

A noise came through the door. There were no distinguishable words. Berry had an image of a tigress in heat, howling mezzo-soprano passion.

"Oh," repeated Ruth.

"Much better mood," said Berry firmly.

Ruth shook her head. "Yeah, sure, but… Damnation, we have got to start making plans."

Ginny was now giving them a quizzical look. "Plans for what?" She held up her hand. "Never mind. I can figure out the gist of it. Victor Cachat lunacy. That being the case, why wait for the madman? I'm sure the two of you can make up a crazy scheme all on your own."

Ruth and Berry peered at her. Ginny's grin was back.

"Try Grand Suite Sutter's Mill 57," she suggested. "Two floors down. That's where most of Thandi's wrecking crew is spending the night. They could probably serve you as a sounding board. And if they can't, I'm sure the Ballroom maniacs could. By now, I suspect most of them are there too."

Ruth lunged to her feet. "Great idea!"

Berry rose also, but was less sanguine. "Uh. Uh."

"Oh, don't worry about it," said Ginny. "That's a huge interconnected suite, with a central salon about the size of a tennis court. Most of the actual orgying will be taking place in the bedrooms. I'm sure you can find somebody who'll talk to you."

Berry was less sanguine than ever. "Uh…"

But Ruth had her by the collar and was marching her down the corridor. "Don't be a prude," she said firmly. "They have orgies all the time in Mount Royal Palace."

Berry gaped at her.

"Well." Ruth's face was firmly set, in the way a youngster's will when she's making pronouncements about subjects she knows absolutely nothing about. "Not my aunt, of course. But I'm sure the servants do."

"Not like this, I bet," chortled Berry under her breath, after one of Thandi's Amazons let them into the suite. Yana, that was. The two girls were following the woman into the central salon, doing their best to ignore the fact that she was nude and seemed utterly oblivious about it.

"Someone to see you," Yana said lazily, to the two people sprawled on a couch. "I assume it's you they need to talk to, anyway. Sure as hell isn't me, since by now Donald ought to have his energy back."

Yana headed for a nearby door, smiling. It was an odd sort of smile, combining ease with anticipation. As she opened the door and slipped through into the room beyond, Berry caught a glimpse of a large man raising his head from a pillow. She had to stifle a cackle. The man's expression was priceless. Anticipation combined with… something not too far from sheer terror.

"What's up, girls?" asked the woman on the couch. That was Lara, also nude, and more or less draped over another man. Berry wasn't sure, but she thought that was the one known as Saburo X. He was wearing exactly as much in the way of clothing as Lara, but seemed much less insouciant about it all.

Berry was at a loss for words. Fortunately-or otherwise-Ruth wasn't. Although Berry noticed that the princess kept her eyes firmly fixed on the opposite wall as she rattled off the nature of their mission.

When she was finished, Lara lifted her head and looked up at Saburo. "You want to deal with this, or not?"

Berry suspected the man was sardonic by nature. His smile on this occasion certainly was.

"Amazing. You're actually asking me something?"

Lara grinned. "What are you complaining about? Just think how much scheming and plotting I saved you."

"True enough." Saburo ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. Then, spoke very softly, in words which Berry overheard but were obviously addressed to Lara alone. "I'm not sure this is going to work, but… if it does, it'll be because we give each other plenty of room. Agreed?"

Lara's answer amounted to a purr, accompanied by an affectionate stroke along Saburo's thigh. "Sub-human or not, I could really get used to you. Yes. It's agreed."

She rose quickly and padded over toward another door. "We'd better get dressed, then. You want that crap you had on, or will you settle for one of the resort's luxury robes?"

"Robe'll do." Saburo turned his face toward Berry and Ruth. "Give us a moment, will you? Lara could probably manage it-being a superwoman and all-but I'm just not up for first-class plotting and scheming in the raw."

"No problem," stated Ruth firmly. Berry didn't think the little squeak in her voice detracted much from the dignity of the moment.

She herself said nothing. She felt silence would be sufficient. After all, she wasn't the member of a royal house perched in the middle of a wild orgy between sub-human terrorists and maniacal superwomen. She was just-

"Daddy's gonna kill me," she hissed. "I'm dead. Dead-dead-dead."

"He'll never find out," Ruth whispered back.

"Yes, he will. Anton Zilwicki finds out everything."

"That should do it," Lieutenant Commander Watanapongse said. The Solarian naval officer leaned back in his chair in the space station's central com room and glanced up at Walter Imbesi. "It's your call, of course."

Imbesi stared at him for a moment; then, for a longer moment, stared at the control panel. He was tempted to ask-very tempted-how it was that Watanapongse had enough of Abraham Templeton's voice recorded to have put together the message he had. In less than two hours after arriving at The Wages of Sin.

For that matter, Imbesi was tempted to ask how Watanapongse had managed that, as well. Just about the only way the lieutenant commander could have gotten to the space station that quickly was if he'd been standing by a shuttle down in Maytag.

Walter suspected that he had been, in fact. But…

Best to leave the questions unasked. See no evil, hear no evil, etc., etc. If I get the results I want, I'll let the rest of it pass.

"Go ahead," he commanded. "Send it."

Watanapongse nodded and pressed the control. "This will go out on the Masadans' channel. Which-ha!-they think is still secure."

Walter listened carefully, as the recording being sent out was played back in the com room's audio outputs.

It was Abraham Templeton's voice-so, at least, the Solarian officer claimed; Walter himself had never heard the Masadan speak-sounding broken and strained. As if the man saying the words was badly injured and exhausted.

"Hosea. Solomon, whichever's there. [Sharp intake of breath, as if from a stab of pain.] Gideon's… dead. Most of us're dead. I'm not long. We've got the bitch. [Long pause, vague sound of gurgling breath. Maybe a sucking chest wound.] It's a stand-off, here. They can't get to us without… [Another sharp intake of breath, accompanied by a soft moan.] Killing the slut. Told them I would. They're backing off. [Another pause, shorter. The next words were forced, as if the speaker was running out of energy.] Hold tight. Twelve hours or so. We'll have a deal. Let us go if we keep the bitch alive. [A sudden, low cry, as if Templeton was fighting down agony.] Just hold on. Twelve hours or so. We'll be coming over."

Watanapongse flipped a control, and the voice cut off. "And there it is. That should do it, all by itself. But I'll keep monitoring the channel, and put together something else if it looks like we need it."

The Solarian leaned back in his chair, looking pleased and relaxed. "Piece of cake. All you and I have to do now is just let the-ah, what's the word? The 'wet work specialists,' how's that? Let them do their business. Eighteen hours from now-sooner, probably-it'll all be over except the waiting."

Walter nodded. "That'll be tricky, mind you. Trying to keep something like this secret, for weeks."

Watanapongse was polite enough not to sneer outright. "With the tame press you've got? Piece of cake."

Imbesi scowled. "Not the press I'm worried about. Sooner or later, you know, Anton Zilwicki's going to hear about this and come back. Then-"

"Enlist him in the scheme. Tie him in."

"Well, yes. That's the plan. But what if he doesn't feel like being enlisted?"

Watanapongse said nothing. But Imbesi was pleased to see the smug look vanish from his face.

Chapter 33

Victor woke up quickly and easily, as he always did, alert to his surroundings. Normally, this would be followed within seconds by him rising from the bed and beginning the day's activities.

This morning, however… was unlike any other in his life.

For starters, the moment he stirred, the arm around his chest and the leg draped over his thighs began to tighten. Granted, the motion was gentle, the limbs were supple, and the skin was silky smooth. It was still like being held by a python.

The feel of those anaconda muscles brought back to him in a flash everything that had transpired in the course of the night. The very long night. For a brief moment, Victor gave thanks that Thandi Palane enjoyed being sexually submissive. If she hadn't, he'd probably be a corpse. "Dominating" her had been like a mortal "dominating" a goddess-a feat which was only possible because the goddess willed it herself.

And that, of course-given Victor's capacity for self-reproach-was the main thing which held him paralyzed. As episode after episode from the night before flashed through his mind, he began to plunge into an abyss of guilt and remorse. The problem wasn't that he'd acceded to Thandi's wishes. Deeds were simply deeds, after all. Victor had committed acts far worse-by many orders of magnitude-than anything he'd done the night before and, more or less, shrugged them off afterward.

But that was because he hadn't enjoyed them. Whereas…

I'm a pervert, he thought bleakly.

He probed his memory, trying to find some particle of distaste; some instant of hesitation; one single point where he'd paused-just for a second!-before wallowing in the sheer pleasure of it all.

Nothing.

Face it, freak. You found the whole thing completely thrilling. Best sex you ever had in your life-ever dreamed of-not that you've had all that much sex to compare it to, but still…

Pervert! Admit it, Cachat! You loved every minute of it! Every second!

Gloomily, he started dwelling on this or that remembered moment. Each and every one of which had made him ecstatic. Within seconds, his gloom deepened. He was getting erect again.

And there's the proof of it. You swine.

Thandi was awake herself now. Her lips pressed against the back of his neck, open, her tongue starting to work. The same tongue which figured quite prominently in a number of those remembered flashes. He was completely erect even before her hand found him.

"Dream lover," she murmured. The anaconda body writhed, pulling Victor on top of her. Resistance would have been futile, not that Victor tried. Quite the opposite, in fact-and the gloomiest moment of all came when he saw how avidly he discarded all melancholy and plunged back into rampaging lust.

He did, for an instant, try to tell himself he was just being "very energetically passionate." The instant lasted perhaps a nanosecond.

The worst of it came when it was over. Thandi was a very verbal lover, and once his passion was spent, Victor was able to look past his moral qualms to face the underlying reality. Even more than the goddess body, it was that mezzo-soprano voice which thrilled him. He remembered something his father had once told him, in one of those occasional periods of lucidity when he wasn't drunk.

Son, you'll know you're in love when a woman's voice settles into your spine. Trust me on this one.

Victor had doubted him, at the time. Which seemed wise, given that his father's inebriate advice and observations were usually suspect. He didn't doubt him any longer.

"What are we going to do?" he whispered into her ear. Then, a last shred of his rigid moral code exerted itself, and he tried to leave her a way out. "If we're not careful, this could… you know. Get serious."

Thandi's hands slid under his armpits and she lifted him away from her. Not far, just enough to see his face clearly. The ease with which she did so went a long way toward quieting his remorse. Whatever helpless-female, bodice-ripping fantasies Thandi might have-okay, Victor admitted, he had, too-he was reminded that any man who actually tried to rape the woman would be lucky if she just maimed him.

Something of those thoughts must have shown in his expression. Thandi chuckled, and a smile spread across her face. That smile. The one which, along with her voice, put the goddess body in the shade.

"Don't be silly, Victor. We both enjoyed it-lots and lots-and who cares about the rest? Fine, it's a little kinky. Big deal. I weigh one hundred and fourteen kilos-"

Victor winced. Thandi laughed aloud.

"Good thing I like being on the bottom, huh? And if I say so myself, there isn't a lot of it flab. I once lifted well over twice my body weight-two hundred and fifty kilos-in a clean and jerk. Not to mention that I have black belts in four separate martial arts; I'm an expert with most edged or blunt weapons; and I'm a crack shot with any kind of projectile or energy weapon, as well. So give your tender conscience a rest, will you?"

The smile spread into her pale, hazel eyes. Victor was lost, and he knew it.

"As for the 'serious' business," she continued, "speak for yourself. From my point of view, that advice is maybe, oh, six hours late."

She held the smile, and the warmth in her eyes, allowing Victor to find the exit if he wanted to.

But he didn't-and took comfort in the fact that he never even considered it. A freak and a pervert, he might be, although he was beginning to suspect that Thandi's cheerily amoral view of the matter was probably a lot saner than his own. But he was not a faithless one. Never that.

"I'm crazy about you," he said quietly. "I have no idea what we're going to do about it, but… there it is. Crazy or not. There it is."

Her eyes were watery. "Thank you, Victor," she whispered. "Just for saying it. Yes, it's undoubtedly insane. I don't care. For once in my life, I'm going to do something just because I want to."

She lowered him, and the long kiss which followed was a quiet thing. They'd both purged enough passion and lust over the past hours to allow for that. Just… quiet. A promise, not a prize.

They were eventually interrupted by someone knocking on the bedroom door. The courtesy was pointless, perhaps, since Ginny barged in less than two seconds later.

"Victor, you look better than I've ever seen you," she pronounced. "Thandi, you're a gem. And now, I'm afraid, the two of you have to get moving. The whole thing's coming apart."

Victor was up and already starting to dress. Thandi, likewise.

"What's happening?"

"The station just got a transmission from the Felicia. Your attempt to stall for time didn't work. Templeton's people say they're going to blow it up if we don't transfer the Princess over there within two hours. The transmission was received by every news station on Erewhon, I might add."

Victor pursed his lips. "They moved faster than I expected." He gave Thandi a guilty glance. "I guess we probably shouldn't have-"

"Finish the sentence and you're a dead man," growled Thandi.

"And I'll feed your corpse to the scavengers," Ginny chimed in immediately. "They've got really nasty ones on Erewhon, too, I hear. Some kind of giant worm-more like a centipede-starts by burrowing into your intestines and working its way out."

She shook her head. "Fair warning, Thandi: your new boyfriend's capacity for self-recrimination is just about bottomless."

Thandi smiled, as she began putting on her boots. "I noticed. On the other hand, I believe I can do something about that. Made a good start on it last night, that's for sure." She glanced at Victor, the smile becoming sly. "Look at him, will you? Blushing! The same man who ravished me-again-less than an hour ago. He wasn't blushing then, Ginny, I can tell you that."

Victor was quite sure his face was pink. Beet red, probably. It suddenly dawned on him that Thandi was going to be as bad as Ginny, when it came to teasing.

"There I was, begging for mercy-among other things, I admit-and did he care? Ha!"

No, she was going to be worse.

"Have you had a chance to do any window-shopping here yet, Ginny? I'll bet a place like this has a great leather shop."

"Got to," agreed Ginny. "Soon as we get a chance, we'll find out." Thandi was on her feet, now. Ginny cocked her head and examined the tall woman standing in front of her.

"Chains too, I think. You'd look fantastic in chains. The barbarian princess, at the mercy of her conqueror."

Thandi grinned. "One of my favorite fantasies. In fact-"

Desperately, Victor tried to change the subject. All the more desperately, because of the sudden vivid image which came to his mind. Thandi; nude; chained; helpless. He was having trouble getting into his pants.

"What was the exact wording of the message-"

Thandi drove right over it. "-I'm thinking I'll have to get Victor some kind of whip. Nothing heavy-duty, of course. I'm not really a masochist, I just like to play at it. But I've seen those cute little velvet things. They couldn't do more than sting a bit."

The anaconda body writhed briefly. "Oh-please!" Then, she grinned at Victor. "Something wrong with the pants, sweetheart? Want some help?"

He tried to glare at her. But wound up just laughing.

"I'm ruined," he proclaimed.

"About time," said Ginny. She turned and headed toward the front door to the suite. "You'd better have those pants on in five seconds, Victor, or you'll be ruined in public. I'm letting everybody in."

She gave him ten seconds. Just enough time for Victor and Thandi to emerge from the bedroom and close the door behind them. Victor's pants were on by then-not that it made much difference. Modern styles for men's casual wear ran on the tight side. He might as well have been wearing a codpiece.

Hastily, as Ginny opened the front door, Victor flopped into a nearby armchair and crossed his legs. Moving less hurriedly, chortling all the while, Thandi eased into an armchair next to him.

Princess Ruth was the first one through, already talking as she entered the suite.

"Everything's set." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Even Jiri finally agreed I had to go with you. So don't even bother arguing the point, Thandi. He's your superior officer, after all."

Lieutenant Commander Watanapongse was the next one through, followed closely by Berry. Seeing the frown on Thandi's face, the Solarian intelligence officer shrugged.

"It's not actually an order, Lieutenant Palane. But I've been working with Princess Ruth for the past several hours, and the truth of it is that she's a better hacker than I am. And I probably need to stay behind on the station, anyway, in case anything needs to be coordinated with Captain Rozsak's flotilla."

Thandi shook her head, her frown deepening. "What are you both talking about? You left out a few sentences there."

"Oh." Ruth looked surprised. "Sorry. The assault you'll be leading on the Felicia. You're the only one who's really an expert on deep space skinsuit maneuvers, except maybe Jiri, but we figured we could slave everyone else's controls to yours. I probably wouldn't need it, myself, since I've played vacuum polo since I was eleven." She grinned. "One advantage of being out of the succession-Palace Security doesn't have heart failure whenever you want to do something fun. But if you want to slave my controls, too, I won't argue the point. Besides, your Amazons are so prickly that if they see me being a good little girl, they'll be easier to handle."

Again, Thandi shook her head. "I'm still panting for breath, trying to catch up. You're proposing a mass assault? Me-and you-and my whole unit? I'd just been thinking of a solo operation." A bit stiffly: "I can assure you that I won't need any help against that little pack of carrion-eaters."

Watanapongse smiled. "Probably not, Thandi-if you could find them, once you got into the ship. But that's not going to be simple, and you know it. The interior layout of any five-million-ton commercial vessel, especially for a hybrid passenger-freighter like this one, is too complex-and big-for any boarding party to keep straight without at least a detailed set of plans. But this is a slaver, so it's virtually certain her layout doesn't match the rest of her official classmates anymore. And even if it did, there'll be an elaborate set of internal security measures to penetrate."

He nodded at Victor. "The codes he got are only the general Mesan codes for ship entry. The internal security codes will be specific to each vessel, and there's no way of finding them out without getting on board and hacking into the ship's computer." Now, he nodded toward Ruth. "She can do it, I'm sure she can, and while she's at it, she can pull out a complete schematic of Felicia's blueprints for you, too. The girl-sorry, young woman-is a whiz with security programs. Just to prove it, she cracked the codes of The Wages of Sin inside half an hour. The toughest ones of all, in fact, the ones which govern access to the hidden security scanners in all the rooms and suites in the station."

The Solarian officer's smile grew lopsided. "A bit flamboyant, you ask me. I certainly wouldn't have violated your privacy that way."

Victor and Thandi both froze. Princess Ruth looked exceedingly uncomfortable. "Look, sorry. It was just the suite number I remembered right off. I switched off after-three seconds, at the most."

Berry giggled. "What a liar. More like three minutes."

Victor rubbed his face. "Ruined," he muttered.

"Don't be silly," Berry stated firmly. "First of all, I made sure Ruth erased everything. Second of all, even if I hadn't, the worst thing you'd face is hordes of female admirers. It was… Ah. Impressive."

"Hordes of dead female admirers," muttered Thandi. She gave Ruth a look which was not filled with admiration. "You ever do that again, girl, and I will introduce you to a new word: regicide."

Ruth looked suitably abashed. Insofar, at least, as a young woman of her temperament ever could. "Not sure that's right, actually. 'Regicide'-I think-refers to a ruling monarch. But"-she hurried on-"that's okay. I'd just as soon avoid princessicide too. I really didn't mean any harm. I just had to prove to Jiri I wasn't bragging."

Thandi transferred the look-not-filled-with-admiration to the Solarian intelligence specialist. "Superior officer or not, Commander-"

"Have no fear, Lieutenant Palane. My lips are sealed." Watanapongse's smile was now very lopsided. "I've also seen you in a full contact court, remember? And I've never had any problem keeping my priorities straight. Staying alive comes a long way ahead of gossip."

He took two steps and eased into the couch across from Victor and Thandi. "So let's get back to the subject." He tossed his head toward Berry and Ruth. "While the two of you were-ah-indisposed, we fleshed out the plan. Lieutenant Palane, you'll lead the skinsuit assault on the Felicia, with the Princess and your Amazons slaved to your controls until you reach the ship. Once you get in, you'll be in command-and you'll have your special unit along, as well as Princess Ruth to provide you with tech assistance. We figure you should be able to reach the bridge within two hours."

He made a face. "We'll just have to hope that's enough time. But I'm afraid there's no way around the fact that Ms. Zilwicki-still posing as the Princess-will have to transfer over to the Felicia within the hour. I don't think anybody doubts that Templeton's maniacs will make good on their promise."

Victor scowled fiercely. "That was not part of the plan. Like you said, they're maniacs. We can't leave Ms. Zilwicki in their hands for hours before she's rescued. No way."

"It's either that or watch eight thousand people get vaporized," Berry said bluntly. "You do what you want, Victor Cachat. It really doesn't matter, because the decision is mine and I already made it."

Thandi's eyes were wide. "Eight thousand?"

"Yup. As part of their broadcast, Templeton's men showed interior scans of the Felicia. The bastards have that ship packed to the gills with people. All of them genetic slaves from Manpower's breeding station on Jarrod. Tech and heavy labor varieties, mostly. Congo uses up slaves like firewood."

All that, the seventeen-year-old girl said in a level, even voice. The words which came after seemed to have no tone at all. "They won't kill me, Victor. Not right away, for sure. The worst that'll happen-fairly standard practice for Masadans-is that I'll get raped. I've been raped before. I'll deal with it afterward, well enough. It beats eight thousand people being murdered. So there's nothing to discuss."

Victor stared at her for a few seconds. Then, nodded. The gesture was more of a sign of respect than agreement.

"All right, then. But you're not going alone. I'll go with you."

"Are you nuts?" protested Berry. "What's the point? They'll kill you right off."

"No they won't." Victor's face had a little lopsided smile of its own. "Not after I let it drop that I've got critical information for them. Which I'll refuse to divulge, of course. And our anti-drug immunization programs are even better than Manticore's, so they'll have to fall back on torture. That'll have the added advantage of distracting them from you."

"What 'critical information'?" demanded Princess Ruth.

Victor shrugged. "Who knows? I'll figure out something in the next hour. Biggest problem I'll have is posing as your… tutor, whatever. Somebody who insisted on coming with you. My Nouveau Paris slum accent is hard to disguise."

"Just roll your 'r's a bit," suggested Watanapongse. "And toss in some French words here and there. Havenite patois will work fine, since they won't know the difference anyway. You can pass yourself off as a scholar from Garches."

Seeing Victor's puzzled expression, he added: "It's a planet in Ventane sector. Dirt poor, but settled originally by idiot intellectuals. Their major export crop is half-baked nannies with delusions of grandeur."

Thandi was staring at him, her face tight. "Victor… I'll get there as fast as I can, but… ."

He gave her a smile. Then, deciding that discretion was pointless anyway-certainly in front of an audience which had been watching them in flagrante delicto, excelsior-turned it into something of a leer. "One of my father's favorite sayings, you know: 'turnabout is fair play.' Although I do hope you get to me before they wear out the leather and start pulling out the iron stuff."

Chapter 34

"This isn't going to work," Berry said quietly, as she studied Victor.

The words didn't seem to register on him for a few seconds. Victor just kept staring at the viewscreen, watching the image of the Felicia III slowly grow larger. Then, his eyes still seeming a bit unfocused, he swivelled his head toward her. He and Berry were sitting in the first two seats in the small shuttle, with Lieutenant Gohr and three Marines from the Gauntlet sitting in the shuttle's four other seats. Because the front row of seats faced backward, Victor and Berry were looking straight at the Manticorans.

"We can still turn back," he said. "All you have to do is say the word."

"I didn't make myself clear. I'm fine. The reason it's not going to work is because of you."

Victor frowned. Berry looked at Betty Gohr.

"I ask you, Lieutenant: does this man bear the slightest resemblance to a tutor for a royal princess?"

Lieutenant Gohr chuckled. "About as much as a falcon resembles a mouse. She's right, Officer Cachat. I was just thinking the same thing myself."

Victor shrugged irritably. "I'm not putting on the act now. Once we get aboard-"

Gohr shook her head. "Not a chance. If you were just going to be playing that role… maybe. I don't know how good an actor you are. But not even the best actor in the galaxy can play two parts at once. And the problem is that you're also preparing yourself for torture. Steeling yourself enough to stand up to at least two hours of it. Whatever it takes to give Lieutenant Palane the time she needs. And you'll give it to her, won't you? I don't much doubt you're one of those rare people who'll withstand torture until you simply lapse unconscious."

Victor repeated the irritable shrug. "I have a high pain threshold, that's all. Fourth highest ever recorded at the People's Republic's StateSec Academy, in fact." His lips twisted briefly. "Yes, that was part of the training. I understand they've dropped it nowadays, since Saint-Just was overthrown. Not sure if I approve or not, to be honest."

He still didn't understand, Berry realized. She and Gohr exchanged a glance. The Manticoran lieutenant took a breath, and continued.

"Look, Officer Cachat, as it happens-"

"Call me Victor."

"Victor, then. As it happens, I'm something of an expert on combat psychology. I did some research on the subject while I was attending London Point. And also some research on… interrogation techniques." Victor's eyes widened slightly.

So did Berry's. She knew that London Point was the promontory of Saganami Island where the Royal Manticoran Marine Corps ran one of the toughest finishing schools for small-unit combat commanders in the known galaxy. Her father Anton had once told her about it. So what, precisely, had a Navy officer been doing there?

Gohr obviously recognized their curiosity, but she only shook her head and continued. "I even published a couple of articles in scholarly psych journals. And," her mouth twisted wryly, "one in the Naval Proceedings, as well. That one got a bit wider readership, unfortunately."

She shook her head again, and her expression smoothed back to one of professional concentration.

"The important point is that, first, I know what I'm talking about, and, second, that I'm not talking about technical details like pain thresholds. I really don't think you understand what an unusual human being you are, Victor."

He scowled. "I'm not following you. Other than my personality quirks-everyone has them-I'm no different from anyone else." Harshly: "As a Manticoran, you'll probably disagree. But I recognize no distinctions of breeding or birth. There are no supermen in the world-nor any sub-humans, either."

She scowled right back. "Give me a break. And give your Havenite ideology a rest too, while you're at it. I wasn't suggesting you were either 'above' or 'below' the normal standard. But what you are-you do recognize the reality of human variation, I hope?-is a very unusual type of person. What's sometimes called a 'natural killer.' "

Victor looked away, not in shame but simply in suppressed anger. His scowl had faded; his mouth turning down in an expression of contempt.

"Thank you very much. I imagine it comes easily to a Manticoran naval officer to sneer at people like me. Not that you haven't turned thousands of people into so much molecular gas. Or won't, if you haven't already, when given the order. My killing is done up close-but it's only measured by the handful. Unlike your mass slaughter. How very ethical of you. Easy enough, when your murdering is done antiseptically, by pushing a button from a distance measured in-"

"Victor!"Berry half-shouted, loudly enough to break him off in mid-sentence. When Victor's eyes went to her, she shook her head.

"I don't think that's what she's getting at. And, anyway, it's rude of you to interrupt her."

Victor turned to look at Gohr. The Manticoran intelligence officer had a crooked smile on her face. "Victor, I wasn't making any moral distinction. I was just trying to explain that-yes, you're right. It is easy, relatively speaking, for people, with some training, to kill other people at a distance. And most people can manage to do it in person if they're in the grip of a powerful emotion like rage or terror. What we do, essentially, when we train infantry soldiers is train them how to harness and discipline those emotions. But the number of people who can kill up close, calmly and cold-bloodedly… There aren't very many, Victor, and that's the truth of it."

Victor started to say something, but she pressed on.

"I said I'm not making any moral distinctions-or judgments-and I'm not, because it would be stupid. Not to mention hypocritical as hell. Sure, people like you can be monsters… but so can the 'kill at a distance' crowd. It's not a matter of having a taste for it; it's simply a matter of being able to do it, and from what I've seen of you, you don't seem to enjoy it one bit, even when you know it's completely necessary.

"But the same kind of mentality that lets you do that is also one that can face torture with relative equanimity. What you might call clinical detachment, applied to yourself. Absolutely confident that you can stand up to the pain for quite some time before breaking. Most people can't do that either."

"What's your point, Lieutenant?"

"My pointis that being able to do either one can't be combined with acting the part of an intellectual airhead. There's a direct connection-it's not simply 'psychological,' it's profoundly physiological-between your conscious behavior and your emotional symptoms and behavior. Or, to put it another way, you can't remain steadfast and courageous-or ruthless-while you're trying to act otherwise. Certainly not on your level of capacity. That's why-"

She gave Berry a somewhat apologetic glance. "I know how you got those security codes, Victor. Berry described what happened to me. Do you really think you could have intimidated those men so easily if you'd been acting?Not likely. You terrified them because you were exactly what you told them you were-a man who'd kill them instantly and unblinkingly. And it showed. If you'd been on medical monitors, I'm sure your pulse rate and blood pressure wouldn't have so much as blipped."

Lieutenant Gohr turned to the view screen. The Felicia filled it now, looming over the shuttle like an alloy cliff.

"We're almost there, Victor. There's still time to turn back. But whatever you decide, give up the plan you've got. It'll never work. Within two minutes after we come aboard, the men in that ship will understand-instinctively, if you will-that they just let a wolf into their cage. They'll kill you, Victor. Don't think they won't. Out of fear, if nothing else. They'll never believe a word of your story."

"She's right," chimed in Berry.

Victor took a deep, long breath. Then, to Berry's relief, nodded abruptly. "All right. We'll go with my other plan."

Her eyes widened. "What other plan?"

Victor smiled thinly. "The one I just came up with. Three seconds ago."

The shiver and hollow clang of the shuttle docking into one of the Felicia's entry bays echoed through the little craft.

"No time to explain now," he said, rising. "Just follow my lead. Say better, my improvisation."

I will never, ever, ever, ever do this again, Thandi thought grimly. For perhaps the twentieth time since they began their EVA, she'd been forced to correct their course due to one of her Amazons. Goddam stupid so-called "super"-women. Why can't they just act like limp sacks of potatoes? If a princess can do it, they should be able to as well. The idiots!

Ironically, Ruth Winton-the one Thandi had worried about ahead of time-was proving to be the only one of her companions who wasn't giving her any trouble. The princess was doing exactly what Thandi had instructed all of them to do-absolutely nothing. Just ride along in their skinsuits as if they were comatose, allowing Thandi to control their course with the SUTs' slave circuits.

Alas, her Amazons still had more than a trace of that old Scrag sense of superiority. Whatever you can do, I can do better. Hence their continual, aggravating-downright infuriating-attempts to "help" Thandi.

Fortunately, they didn't have any control over their actual thrusters. Thandi had insisted on completely slaving the controls for the Sustained Use Thruster packs strapped over their standard-issue Marine skinsuits, much to their disgust. Good thing she had, too, she now realized, or this entire jury-rigged expedition would have wound up scattered halfway across Erewhon's orbit. But the Amazons were still able to make Thandi's life miserable by their "helpful" assumptions of whatever body positions they thought were needed. The end result was a course which consisted of a series of little jerks instead of the smooth, continuous trajectory which Thandi could have easily managed with Ruth Winton alone.

Not for the first time, Thandi regretted the fact that they had no way of knowing exactly what sort of off-the-books sensor capability might have been built into the Felicia. The odds were overwhelming that she had the off-the-shelf sensors of most commercial vessels. Which was to say, not a hell of a lot.If that were true, the Erewhonese Navy could have delivered her team to the ship aboard one of its stealthed assault boats without any worries. But if it wasn't true, if Mesa had given their slave ship upgraded passive sensors without mentioning it to anyone, they'd be almost certain to spot even a stealthed boat at this absurdly short range. And if the terrorists aboard her did that, there would instantly be eight thousand dead slaves-and two more people who had somehow become enormously important to one Thandi Palane.

Which was why she was essentially towing a long line of pods, all connected with a single, fiber optic-cored tether, instead of using a nice, convenient boat. Which still wouldn't have been that bad, except for the fact that these "pods" were so-called superwomen wearing SUT-equipped skinsuits, each and every one of whom-again, she left Ruth out of her general damnation-insisted on behaving like an intelligent pea in a pod. With just about the vegetable results you'd expect.

Never again!

They were very near the Felicia, now. Thandi started to decelerate, wincing at the prospect of trying to control her charges as they "helped" her again. Slowly, one after another of them slid past her, as they maintained their previous velocity. On the plus side, none of them was clumsy, so there was no risk of collision. On the minus side…

Fortunately, the fiber optic tether gave her a completely secure link to her team's SUTs, and her gloved fingers flew over the panel on her chest, tapping in commands which overrode the Amazons' assistance before it could cause outright disaster. Equally fortunately, Thandi's com was switched off at the moment. She and her team could have chattered away with complete security, once again because of their connecting tether, but Thandi had insisted on com silence anyway. She did not need any distractions while she piloted-attempted to pilot-her Amazons to their destination. At the moment, however, she had an added and entirely different reason to be grateful that her com, like theirs, was temporarily locked down. Since no one could hear her, she was able to give full and verbal vent to her fury-in a stream of profanity which, had it been broadcast, would have peeled the paint off a superdreadnought-when the final approach to the slaver turned into just the tangled-up mess she'd feared it would be.

But, finally, it was done. Not with grace, granted. Thumpety-thump-thump-thump-thump-etc., ending with only Thandi herself landing on the Felicia's hull with silent and springy ease. (Although she did note that Princess Ruth came surprisingly close.) Fortunately, it made no difference. The five-million-ton mass of the ship would have been impervious to collisions which smeared the bodies across the hull, instead of just leaving half of them sprawling. The tiny vibrations which resulted would simply go unnoticed inside the ship, in much the same way a mountain would ignore the clumsiness of inexperienced climbers on its flank with lofty indifference.

Done. Thank God. She'd even managed-somehow-to land them all within a short distance of the personnel hatch they'd selected. Ruth was already unhooking herself and moving toward it. As they'd agreed, the Manticoran princess would do all the code work.

Now that it was over, Thandi's exasperation vanished within seconds. All that was left was a deep regret. She'd been so preoccupied that she hadn't been able to keep an eye on the progress of the shuttle taking Victor and Berry to the ship. By now, it was too late. The shuttle would have docked already, somewhere out of sight around the curve of the gigantic hull.

So, she'd not gotten the glimpse of Victor she'd wanted. Her last glimpse, quite possibly. It would be typical of her life to have finally fallen in love-just in time to have her man killed a few hours later.

She shook off the dark thought firmly.

You'll have something to say about that, woman. Not to mention-

A grin finally came to her. A savage one, true. But it was enough to dispel all gloom and get her combat instincts back into their usual full and furious shape. When all was said and done, the new man in Thandi's life wasn't really all that easy to kill.

To put it mildly. There were advantages to having an alpha male for a boyfriend, after all-especially that one-even leaving aside Thandi's little kinks and foibles.

"That's her signal," said Watanapongse, sitting at one of the com stations in the control room of The Wages of Sin. "The strike force has landed."

He gave the display screen in front of him a look of grim satisfaction. "Fanatics, meet Thandi Palane. A Masadan's worst nightmare."

Standing by the shuttle's airlock, Betty Gohr gave Berry and Victor a last inspection. She held a pulse rifle, as did the Marines, in case the Masadans tried a last-minute double cross in the arrangement they'd negotiated. The deal had been simple: the Manticoran princess and one companion-both unarmed and wearing simple, tight clothing-in exchange for the Masadans holding off on their threat to blow up the Felicia. Further arrangements to be negotiated.

The Manticoran lieutenant was not happy about it, especially the clothing. Berry Zilwicki, like the real Princess Ruth she'd been transformed by nanotech to resemble, was not a beautiful girl by any stretch of the term. But she did have the kind of healthy, youthful prettiness which was perfectly capable of arousing any normal male's libido-the more so because her figure was set off quite well by the close-fitting jumpsuit she was wearing. The Masadans had insisted on clothing which couldn't possibly disguise any weapons. Unfortunately, the jumpsuit didn't do any better at disguising Berry's female characteristics. Given the Masadan reputation-a well-deserved one-for sexual predation…

"We can still call this off, Berry," she said abruptly, almost blurting out the words.

Serenely, the Zilwicki girl shook her head. "Don't be silly. I'm sure it'll all work out as well as possible." She shrugged. "And if it doesn't, it's just one or two lives measured against thousands. Please open the hatch, Lieutenant. Now, if you would."

For a moment, Gohr was disoriented. So were the Marines, judging from the alacrity with which they obeyed the girl's order.

And an order it was, however politely stated. No member of the House of Winton in its long centuries could have surpassed that regal assurance. The fact that Berry Zilwicki was an impostor simply didn't seem to matter.

Gohr's own reflex was automatic. "Princess," she replied, coming to attention. The Marines did likewise, as the hatch opened, bringing their pulse rifles halfway to the present arms salute.

Only halfway there, of course, because this was a possible combat situation. But the first in-person view the Masadans at the other end of the short connecting boarding tube got of Berry was of young woman they'd been told was Princess Ruth, with her Manticoran escort showing all the respect and deference you'd expect them to provide a member of their royal family.

It never once crossed their minds that it was all an act. How could it? In that moment, it was no act at all.

A princess came across. Somehow, she even managed the awkward transition from the boarding tube's weightlessness to the ship's internal gravity without losing her royal composure for an instant. Even the Masadans stepped half a pace back.

"She's in," Lieutenant Gohr said softly into her com, as soon as the hatch closed. The shuttle's pilot was already beginning to disengage from the Felicia. The lieutenant, like the House of Winton itself, belonged to the Second Reformation Catholic Church. "May the Virgin in Heaven watch over her."

Receiving the signal, Watanapongse grunted. Like most officers in the Solarian Navy, he was a hardboiled agnostic. "The 'virgin' be damned, and 'heaven' is in another universe. That girl's got something way better, in the here and now. Hell's Pure Bitch is coming-and she's not more than a kilometer distant."

"A kilometer full of corridors and compartments like a maze," Imbesi cautioned, "not to mention a spider's web worth of security barriers."

Watanapongse didn't seem impressed. "Hell's Pure Bitch, I said. There's a reason, you know, that Captain Rozsak wanted that Marine officer on his staff, once Colonel Huang brought her to his attention. She's not even thirty years old, but with her record-and decorations-she'd have been put on the fastest possible track and probably even been a major by now, if she didn't come from an OFS planet. You watch."

At the moment, as it happened, Berry Zilwicki's fate was in the hands of a young woman who, if not a virgin, wasn't really all that far from it. Like most young people in most royal families in history, Ruth had labored under a degree of chaperonage she'd often found exasperating. The fact that the Winton dynasty put all its youngsters through extensive sexual education and training made it downright frustrating-because the dynasty was just as careful to keep an eye on their children avoiding premature emotional entanglements. A lot of theory, and… not all that much in the way of practice. In a modern society whose members were usually sexually active by the age of sixteen, the fact that she was twenty-three and as inexperienced as she was-though not in the least bit naïve-was a source of considerable disgruntlement.

"And I'll be just as easy," she muttered, as she broke the security code on the entry hatch within fifteen seconds, "when the right young fellow comes along." Sourly: "Assuming I can get away from the eagle eyes of my mother and aunt."

She watched the hatch swing smoothly open. Pleased, by her easy success in the actual deed at hand; frustrated, by the symbolism of it all.

"What was that?" asked Thandi. There was a trace of amusement in her voice. Ruth had forgotten that Lieutenant Palane had restored the com circuits.

"Nothing," she said, flushing a little.

Her embarrassment increased when one of the Amazons chimed in.

"Must be man trouble. You want help, girl? Just say the word, and I'll hold him down for you. Help you get him up, too, if he's pretty enough."

Thandi led the way, gliding into the entry with a gracefulness that the Manticoran princess still found a little shocking, coupled to such a large and powerful body. Even in a skinsuit, in deep space maneuvers, Thandi Palane reminded Ruth of a two-legged tigress.

"This is no time for sexual fantasies," the commander of the strike force stated firmly. Sternly, even.

An odd little gurgle seemed to echo in the com circuits, as if several voices at once had just managed-barely-to suppress laughter.

Ruth was one of them. She'd seen Thandi at her fantasies, after all. And while she hadn't watched for the three minutes Berry had accused her of, she'd certainly not watched for a mere three seconds, either.

It had been… impressive.

And now, in its own way, also reassuring. Ruth made the transition from weightlessness to the ship's gravity field with the grace of someone who'd participated in deep space sports since she was a young girl. But since she'd followed directly behind Thandi, she'd watched the Solarian Marine officer make the same transition with something that went far beyond "grace." The sight, coupled with the one Ruth had gotten of Thandi at play, brought a different predator to mind.

If she's skilled and experienced enough, a human can be graceful passing through an airlock on her way to an assignment with violence. An anaconda simply pours herself through.

Chapter 35

"I strongly suggest you keep your eyes on me."

Another man might have hissed the words, or half-shouted them, or… somehow, tried to make them emphatic. But Victor Cachat simply stated them. In the same cold and empty way in which Berry had seen him, the day before, state to three men shackled to chairs that he was going to kill them if they didn't do exactly what he wanted. Now.

The voice had pretty much the same effect on the Masadans assembled on the Felicia's bridge. Their gaze, which had been focused on Berry herself, was now firmly riveted on Cachat.

"Ignore the girl," he continued, in that same tone of voice. "She is now irrelevant to you-provided she isn't harmed in any way. Have her taken out of here and put in with the cargo. She'll keep there, well enough, while you and I discuss whether or not we can reach a suitable arrangement. Your lives-and your purpose-now depend entirely on my good will. My purpose, I should say. My 'good will' is nonexistent."

Some part of Berry's brain which remained capable of calculation registered Victor's use of the callous word "cargo." That was a term which only Mesans and their underlings used to refer to the shipment of human slaves. Very subtly, it was a signal to the Masadans that, in some way or other, the grim man staring at them through flat and dark eyes shared at least some of their attitudes and thought processes.

Mostly, though, she was just fascinated. Mesmerized, even-as the Masadans now seemed to be. They'd only been brought onto the bridge half a minute since by the three Masadans who'd taken them into custody. And, already-despite being unarmed and to all appearances at their mercy-Cachat was wrapping the Masadans around him. It was as if a human black hole had entered the room.

On a purely personal level, Berry was immensely relieved. The last thing she wanted was to have Masadans focusing their attention on her. The Masadan version of the Church of Humanity Unchained was indeed, as the Graysons claimed it to be, a heresy. Not so much in terms of religious doctrine, as simple human morality. Patriarchal religions were nothing new in the universe, after all. Most of the human race's major religions had contained a great deal of patriarchal attitudes-and still did, as witness the fact that almost all of them routinely referred to God as if "He" were naturally male. (She and Ruth had once enjoyed a pleasant few minutes of ribaldry, trying to visualize the size of The Almighty's penis and testicles.)

But the Masadans had twisted patriarchy into what could only be called a sick perversion. However stern and autocratic they might be, "fathers" were not rapists. And it was essentially impossible to describe Masadan doctrines-and practice-toward women as anything other than sanctified rape. A bizarre and bastard concoction, made of equal parts lust and misogyny, all of it dressed up in theological gibberish.

Until Victor spoke, every Masadan's eyes had been on her, not him. And that wasn't half as bad as the "weapons inspection" one of them had put her through almost as soon as she came aboard the Felicia. The man's hands groping her body-as if that skin-tight outfit could have concealed so much as a penknife-had left her feeling half-sick and clammy.

"And who are you to be giving orders here?" demanded one of the Masadans. Hosea Kubler, that was, one of the two pilots and the one whom Watanapongse guessed was now the leader of the small number of survivors in Templeton's gang. Kubler was red-faced with anger, but his voice had a slight tremor in it-as if the man was deliberately trying to work up a rage in order to overcome his own intimidation.

Cachat bestowed the flat-eyed stare upon him. "I'll show you who I am. More precisely, what I am."

He glanced around the bridge. Other than the Masadans, there were four other men on the bridge. All of them, unlike most of the Masadans standing near the center, were seated at various control stations. From their uniforms, members of the Felicia's actual crew. Only one of them, judging from the uniform, was an officer.

They all looked petrified, as, indeed, Berry was sure they were. Cachat was bad enough-but he came on top of having had their ship taken over by religious maniacs who were announcing to the galaxy that they were quite prepared to blow it up if their demands were not met.

"Where's the control for destroying the ship?" Cachat demanded. As if guided by a single will, the eyes of all four crew members went to the one Masadan seated at a station. More precisely, to a large button on one side of the panel in front of him. The button had the vague appearance of being something jury-rigged, not to mention-Berry almost giggled at the absurdity of the melodrama-having been painted bright red. A very recent and rather sloppy paint job, in fact.

"That's it? Fine. Push the button."

Kubler's mouth was open again, as if to begin a tirade. But Victor's last three words caused it to snap shut.

The Masadan seated at the control, on the other hand, was almost gaping. "What did you say?"

"You heard me clearly, you imbecile. I said: Push the button."

Now, the Masadan was gaping.

Cachat didn't move a muscle, but somehow he seemed to be almost looming over the man by the red button. His spirit, rather. Like some dark and terrifying hawk stooping down on a rabbit.

"Are you deaf? Or simply a coward? Push the button. Do it now, you self-proclaimed zealot!"

The Masadan's hand began to lift, involuntarily, as if he were falling under Cachat's spell. Finally, Kubler found his voice-but his face was no longer red with fury. It was quite pale, in fact.

"Don't touch that button, Jedediah! Remove your hand!"

Jedediah shook his head, half-gasped, and snatched the hand away.

Cachat turned back to Kubler. His lips were not actually twisted into a sneer, but somehow he managed to project one simply with his eyes.

"Zealots. How pitiful. Don't think for a moment that you can possibly intimidate me with a threat of death. You know who Oscar Saint-Just was, I presume?"

Kubler nodded.

"Delightful. An educated zealot. Let me further your education, then. I was one of Saint-Just's closest associates. Secretly hand-picked by him-one of only five such-to serve at moments when any sacrifice was called for. And I was the first to volunteer, when the traitor McQueen launched her insurrection, to take the codes into her headquarters and blow it up myself if the remote controls failed in the purpose."

He made a minimal shrug. "As it happened, the remotes worked. But don't think for a moment I wouldn't have done it."

He swiveled his head to bring the large red button back under his gaze. This time, his lips did twist in a slight sneer.

"How impressive. A big red button which can destroy eight thousand people. The button in Oscar Saint-Just's command center was a small white one. When I pushed it-yes, he allowed me that privilege, in light of my volunteering to go in-I destroyed perhaps a million and a half people in Nouveau Paris along with McQueen and her traitors. There was never an exact body count, of course. With numbers that high, it hardly seemed to matter."

He brought the gaze back to Kubler. The slight sneer was gone, but the dark eyes looked like bottomless pits.

"Ask me if I lost a moment's sleep over it."

Kubler swallowed.

"The answer is: no. Not so much as a second's sleep. Everyone dies sooner or later. All that matters is whether they die for a purpose or not. So I say again. Take the girl out of here so we can begin our negotiations, or match your zealotry against mine. Those are your only options. Obey me, or push the button."

There was silence, for a moment.

"Decide now, Masadan. Or I'll go over there and push the button myself." Cachat lifted his wrist-watch. "In exactly five seconds."

Less than two seconds later, Kubler snarled at one of his subordinates. "Get the slut out of here, Ukiah. Put her with the cargo. Take one of the heathen crew to show you the way."

Ukiah let out a sigh. He gave a hard glance at one of the crew, who rose from his station with alacrity. The man was clearly even more relieved than Ukiah.

Berry, on the other hand, was not relieved at all. Ukiah was the Masadan who'd subjected her to his leering "weapons inspection"-and she was sure it was a long way to the "cargo."

But Cachat stifled that instantly, also. His snake-cold eyes were now on Ukiah.

"You've already pawed the girl once, zealot, despite the fact that not even a cretin could believe she might be concealing a weapon-and despite the fact that you gave me no similar such 'inspection.' Do it again and you are a dead man. Lay so much as a finger on her, and the first demand I will advance in my negotiations will be your bowels fed to you. Yes, I know how to do it while still keeping a man alive. And you will eat your own colon, don't think you won't."

He shifted the cobra gaze to Kubler. "That demand will be nonnegotiable, of course. His bowels, shoved down his throat-or push the button."

Kubler's fear and rage finally had an outlet. He took three quick strides, drawing his pulser, and literally hammered Ukiah to the deck. The butt of the weapon opened a large gash on his forehead and left him completely dazed.

"I told you to keep your hands off!" Kubler shrieked. He aimed the pulser. For a moment, Berry thought he was going to shoot the man as well. But, barely, he managed to restrain himself.

Seething with rage-but still careful, Berry noted, not to aim directly at Cachat-Kubler turned on another Masadan. "You take the whore to the cargo, Ezekiel. And don't touch her."

Hastily, Ezekiel complied. Within seconds, Berry was being taken off the bridge.

"Ushered" off, rather. Again, she had to restrain a giggle. The Masadan and the crewman were being careful-oh, very careful-not to get within three feet of her.

She gave Victor a last glance over her shoulder. But she could read no expression at all in that face. It was like trying to scrutinize a plate of steel.

Berry gave him silent thanks, anyway. And, in the minutes which followed as she was led-ushered-to the slave compartments, found herself simply wondering at the mysteries of human nature.

She wondered, first, if Victor had been speaking the truth when he told Kubler he'd pushed the button which destroyed half the city of Nouveau Paris.

She didn't think so. Victor was certainly a good enough liar to be able to pass it off as the truth. On the other hand-

With Victor Cachat, you never know. If he thought it was called for by the demands of his duty…

She wondered, second, what Victor was going to do next. Berry had no idea-not a clue-what sort of "negotiations" he intended to conduct with the Masadans now that she was out of the way. Whatever it was, she was sure it would be a doozy, thought up on the spot. If Victor Cachat suddenly found himself cast down into the lowest pit of the Inferno, Berry had no doubt at all he'd be improvising a plot against the Devil before he'd finished brushing off the bone dust of sinners.

Mostly, though, she found herself wondering about Thandi Palane.

Not whether Thandi would get there in time. On that subject, she had no doubt at all. She just found herself, again, wondering at the quirks of human nature. What does she see in him, anyway?

She decided to ask her, when she got the chance. It was none of her business, true. But since Berry had decided that Thandi was another big sister, it was her simple obligation to help the woman sort out her own feelings.

The thought cheered her up. Berry was good at that.

Once Berry was off the bridge, Victor began to speak. The few short seconds had been enough for him to jury-rig the outlines of his scheme.

If you can call something this ramshackle a "scheme," that is. Pray to whatever might be holy, Victor, that these people are as stupid as they are maniacal.

"Your original purpose is null and void. Templeton is dead-both of them, Abraham as well as Gideon. The six of you here are all that survive of your group, other than two of you who were injured and are now in captivity."

Quickly, he scanned the little group of religious zealots, confirming his original assessment that all of them were Masadan.

"Both of them are Scrags, by the way. I leave it to you to decide whether you'll try to insist that they be released from custody and returned to you. Personally, I don't care in the least."

"Who are you?" demanded Kubler.

Victor smiled crookedly. "A good question-and one I've been trying to keep people from asking for some time now. My name is Victor Cachat. I'm an agent from the Republic of Haven's Federal Investigation Agency, supposedly here to determine what happened to a shipload of Havenite religious refugees who disappeared on their way to Tiberian. What I really am, however, is a loyal member of the revolution and someone determined to restore the principles of Rob Pierre and Oscar Saint-Just to my star nation. I had to leave Haven, because I knew that soon enough the investigators of the new traitorous regime would uncover my true loyalties. So when the chance came, I volunteered for this mission to get myself out of Havenite territory."

Shrugging: "I could care less what happened to a pack of social deviants, who would have been arrested sooner or later anyway under a sane regime. As it happens, I do know what befell them. You-or the Ringstorff sociopath you've been working for-had them all murdered."

He paused for a moment, giving them another quick inspection. "The moment I realized what was happening here, I saw a way I could advance my own project. Since I'd already managed to work my way into the good graces of the Erewhonese authorities-ha! talk about a pack of carrion-eaters trying to avoid responsibility-I was able to convince them to let me accompany the Princess and negotiate for them."

What a lot of babble! A moron could spot the holes in the logic.

But he let no signs of his uneasiness show. And, as he pressed on with his nonsensical prattle, consoled himself with the thought that Masadan religious fanatics-other than their real expertise at mayhem-were fairly hard to distinguish from morons, when you got right down to it.

"I can get you out of here, Kubler. All of you. If you insist, I can probably get your two Scrags back also. But you'll have to agree to do it my way-and give up any plan of using the Manticoran princess for anything other than a hostage to ensure your safe passage."

"Safe passage to where?"

"The same place I imagine you were planning to take her in the first place-Congo." Victor scowled, looked around for a chair, and eased himself into a nearby control station. He didn't give the control panel itself so much as a glance, not wanting to make the Masadans nervous that he intended to meddle with the ship. He simply wanted to shift the discussion to one between seated people; which, in the nature of things, automatically defuses tension.

Once seated, he ran fingers through his stiff, coarse hair. "I imagine Templeton's plan was to blackmail the Mesans there into providing him with shelter. Frankly, I'm highly skeptical that would have worked under the best of circumstances. This whole affair is going to have Mesa-especially Manpower-shrieking with fury. Not even Manpower is arrogant enough to want to infuriate the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Certainly not in a way which will make it very difficult for their normal Solarian protectors to provide them with much of a shield."

Kubler, hesitantly, had taken a seat himself. Victor gave him a level gaze.

"That's the reason I insisted-and will continue to insist-that the girl be handled delicately. Harm her in any way, Kubler, and you're likely to bring down the Eighth Fleet on Congo-possibly even on Mesa itself."

One of the Masadans tried to sneer. "Be serious! No way-"

"Really?" demanded Cachat. "Were you there when White Haven cut half the way through the Republic of Haven?" After a silent pause. "I thought not. Well, I was-attached as a commissioner to one of the Republic's superdreadnoughts before our fleets were routed. So I wouldn't be too sure White Haven couldn't cut his way through a goodly portion of Solarian space in order to turn Mesa into a slag heap if the whim struck Elizabeth the Third. The Solarian Navy is vastly overrated, in my opinion. But it hardly matters-because you can be sure and certain that the Mesans themselves will have no desire to run the risk."

His expression became slightly derisive. "For what? You? What are the six of you-all that survive-to the Mesans, that they should accept that risk? Even if Templeton had survived, I doubt they would have agreed. With him dead…"

He left the thought hanging. To his relief, he saw that all the Masadans were too preoccupied with their own extremely dire predicament to be spending much thought on the contradictions and just plain silliness in Victor's prattle.

He glanced quickly at his watch. Five minutes down. One hundred and fifteen to go, assuming Thandi can do it in two hours. Glumly: Which I doubt.

His thoughts grew less glum, hearing one of the other Masadans suddenly blurt out some words. Solomon Farrow, that was, the second of the Masadan pilots.

"In the name of God, Hosea, he's right-and you know it. You've told me yourself, in private, you had doubts about Gideon's plan."

Kubler glared at him briefly; but, Victor noted, didn't argue the point. Instead, after a moment, Kubler shifted his eyes back to him.

"All right, Cachat. What's yourproposal?"

Hallelujah. Just keep prattling, Victor.

Chapter 36

Within ten minutes after entering the Felicia, Thandi was thanking whatever gods there might be for the fact that Ruth was with her. Without her, the stealthy attack would have turned almost instantly into a straight-up boarding assault-with no possible end except the destruction of the ship. Thandi was still quite sure she could have defeated Templeton's gang-even had she been alone, much less with the Amazons at her side. But so what? The religious maniacs would have simply blown up the Felicia once they realized they were overmatched.

The problem was simple, and one which Thandi should probably have foreseen. Lieutenant Commander Watanapongse had, after all. Granted, Watanapongse had a lot more experience dealing with slavers than Thandi did. Marines simply weren't called for when dealing with slavers, except under rare circumstances. Slaver crews were too small to put up any significant resistance, once they were overtaken by a military vessel. So, they usually surrendered outright.

Although… that depended on the identity of the arresting vessel. The navies of most civilized powers subscribed to the theory that the slave trade constituted an offense against humanity. The Solarian League had certainly taken that position for centuries, and had pursued an official policy directed toward its eventual eradication for just as long. The Solarian approach was based on an entire network of interlocking bilateral treaty agreements with its independent neighbors, coupled with bureaucratic fiat within its own territory or that under the jurisdiction of the OFS. Since it would have been extremely difficult to get a significant number of independent systems (especially those already keeping an uneasy eye on Frontier Security) to agree to allow the SLN to police their space on any pretext, the treaties in question were negotiated on a basis which granted the SLN authority to intercept slavers flagged to the independent systems only outside the smaller nations' territorial space. And although League law equated slavery with piracy for its own citizens, which made it theoretically punishable by death, the fact was that the Solarian League had never executed a single slaver whose ship had been seized under one of the treaties. Solarian nationals had-on rare occasions-been sent to prison, sometimes for quite lengthy sentences. But the League as a whole was too "enlightened" to actually impose the death penalty, even in relatively extreme cases.

In the case of those who were not Solarian nationals, the options were even more limited. The ships themselves were impounded and destroyed, but since the other parties to many of the treaties didn't equate the two crimes in the same fashion (officially, at least), the most the League could often do was return "alleged" slavers to their systems of origin for trial.

Over the years, however, slavers had discovered that there were some exceptions to that nice, safe arrangement. Specifically, there were the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Republic of Haven. Manticore's implacable hostility to the genetic slave trade had been a part of the Star Kingdom's foreign policy ever since the days of King Roger II, whose youthful infatuation with the Liberal Party of the day had left its mark in several ways even after he assumed the throne. The original Republic of Haven had been just as disgusted by the practice, and even the People's Republic, for all its myriad faults, had retained that disgust and a hostility which fully matched that of Manticore. In fact, the one solemn interstellar accord to which both star nations were signatories and which had remained in effect throughout all of the tension and even outright hostilities between them was the Cherwell Convention.

The provisions of the Cherwell Convention were quite simple. All signatories to it endorsed the equation of slavery with piracy… and prescribed the same punishment for both. It was the most stringent of all of the League's anti-slavery treaties, and, unlike any of the others, it was multilateral, not bilateral. All of its signatories agreed that the naval forces of any of its signatories had the right to stop, search, and confiscate merchant vessels transporting slaves while sailing under the protection of their flags. And, even more importantly, that they had the right to try the crews of those confiscated vessels for piracy.

Despite the official provisions of the Cherwell Convention, the rigor with which it was enforced in practice varied widely from one star nation to the next, even among those who had officially signed onto it. Both the Manticorans and the Havenites were ruthless about it, and the death penalty was often applied immediately to slavers caught in the act. Even if the slavers were not executed, they were invariably sentenced to much longer prison terms than was the Solarian norm.

By and large, the Andermani Empire tended to follow the same policies. On the other hand, the Silesian Confederacy's treatment of captured slavers and pirates was a sour joke in the starways. The Confederacy had signed the Cherwell Convention only under the threat of Manticoran military action during the reign of Queen Adrienne, and as often as not, the criminals were released almost immediately by a corrupt governor.

The Solarian League's practice varied a great deal, depending primarily on the specific unit which made the arrest. More precisely, on the political connections which that unit had with one or another of the various power blocs in the League. Some captains, those who were effectively in Mesa's political pocket, were as notorious as Silesians for releasing captured slavers. Others-Rozsak being one of them, especially since his assignment to work with Governor Barregos in Maya Sector-enforced the available penalties with as much harshness as possible.

At one time, the standard response of slavers about to be overhauled was to jettison their "cargo" into space and then try to use the absence of slaves as proof of their innocence. In order to put a stop to that practice, the star nations who had signed the Cherwell Convention had adopted the "equipment clause" first proposed by Roger II. In effect, the equipment clause stated that any ship equipped as a slaver was a slaver, whether she happened to have a "cargo" aboard at the moment or not.

Many of the Cherwell Convention signatories, including the Andermani Empire, simply seized the ship and sent its crew to prison when exercising the equipment clause in the absence of actual slaves. The Star Kingdom and the Republic, however, had adopted the official position that a slaver crew found without a living cargo would be immediately tried for mass murder and, if convicted, executed by the same method: ejection from an airlock without benefit of space suit. Death by decompression was… pretty horrible.

Nor was it possible to conceal the fact that a ship was a slaver. That was what the "equipment clause" was all about, because the nature of her "cargo" was such that any slaver had to be designed differently from a normal cargo hauler or legitimate passenger vessel. The old shackles and chains of the slave trade on Earth in pre-Diaspora days might no longer be needed, but the design of the ships themselves, with their multitude of security measures to forestall any slave revolt, was simply impossible to disguise.

That was true even leaving aside the peculiar design whereby hundreds-sometimes thousands-of unwilling human beings could be ejected into space. It would be impossible for a small slaver crew to physically manhandle thousands of people into airlocks. So, the ships were designed to flood the slave living compartments with powerful (but not lethal) gases, forcing the slaves into large cargo holds where the big bays could be opened to space.

That design was somewhat obsolete, now, at least anywhere near Manticoran or Havenite space. Too many Manticoran and Havenite captains had started the quiet practice of immediately executing any slavers found aboard a ship equipped for that kind of mass murder-whether the "cargo" was still alive or not. The official rules be damned. Even the occasional Solarian captain in those regions, barred from such direct and forceful action by his own government's policies, had adopted the policy of handing the crews of such ships over to the closest Manty or Havenite captain. After all, both the Star Kingdom and the Republic were treaty partners, weren't they? What happened to criminals after being duly delivered into the custody of one of the local governments was hardly the arresting captain's business, was it?

And, besides, the method of execution was such poetic justice.

As it happened, the Felicia did have the design which enabled the crew to jettison its cargo. That much was obvious to Thandi within five minutes. There could be no other explanation for the number of large cargo holds they passed through after entering the ship. Empty cargo holds, with very wide bays-and with no passageways connecting to them wide enough to move large items of cargo.

Clearly enough, Princess Ruth understood the purpose of the peculiar design. Her thin face was tight with anger.

"We'll fix that," she muttered. A moment later, moving with the sureness of an expert, she had the panel removed from the nearest instrument console and had her own mini-computer plugged into it. Ignoring Thandi's hiss of warning, Ruth's fingers started working the keyboard.

Shortly thereafter, the princess unplugged her unit. She didn't bother replacing the panel.

"Those won't work any longer. The bastards can't jettison anybody. And I disconnected the controls to the gas units, while I was at it." She glanced at Thandi's skinsuit. "The gas wouldn't bother us, of course, but if the slavers released it-"

She didn't need to finish the thought. Wincing, Thandi nodded. The gases used to drive slaves into the jettison holds were only technically "nonlethal." More precisely, they were nonlethal so long as the victim could move away into cleaner air. Trapped in compartments with no way to escape, most of the victims would die eventually. And die horribly, too, in an even worse manner than being jettisoned into space. Slavers themselves wouldn't voluntarily kill anyone that way, because they'd have to clean up the multitude of corpses-not to mention vomit and other excreta left behind. But in these circumstances, if Templeton's gang got desperate enough, they might do it as part of their suicide pact.

"Can you disconnect whatever setup they've got to blow the ship?"

Ruth shook her head. "Not from here. I'm willing to bet that they've jury-rigged their own, independent system to do the job. Most slavers aren't real big on suicide, you know, so I doubt Felicia came equipped with a scuttling charge. If Templeton's thugs did rig their own system, it's certainly a stand-alone I can't access. And even if Felicia did have one already in place, getting to it from the outside would be virtually impossible. In a number of ways, slavers are built more like warships than cargo ships. That's especially true with their electronics. The ship control, security, and environmental systems are kept separate, instead of all being connected to a central computer. It's less efficient-much less-but it also gives you a lot more in the way of safety and internal security."

One of the Amazons shook her head. "Why here? On a slaver, I mean. They don't have large crews-it'd cut into their profits. It must be awkward as hell having to operate that way."

"You're forgetting the nature of the 'cargo,' " Thandi said with a frown. "Material objects don't resist their handlers with anything more than inertia. Livestock, not much more than that. But when you're trying to haul unwilling human beings somewhere, you've got the added problem of a 'cargo' that might revolt."

The Amazon still seemed a little puzzled, and the princess smiled crookedly at her.

"You're making a common mistake. Yana, isn't it? Most people think of Manpower slaves in terms of the types which are most notorious-sex objects, or heavy labor and combat types. But the truth is that modern slavery has to fit a modern economy. Even on a hellhole like Congo, most of the labor is highly mechanized. And computerized. Sure, the slaves designed for that work have been given a minimal education, and one which carefully steers clear of training them in any of the underlying principles. Still and all…"

Ruth pursed her lips. "You've all met Web Du Havel, I think-or know who he is, at least. He's a J-line, which is Manpower's most popular, uh, 'product.' Low-level technical workers, what you might call 'sub-engineers.' " The princess nodded at the panel she'd just been working on. "You think a man like that-some of them, anyway-would have any real problem figuring out how to crack into a ship's central control unit? Sure, they'd probably set off alarms doing it-that's really where all my extra training pays off-but so what? When people are desperate, they're not going to worry about the fine points. If nothing else, once they gained access to the central computer they could probably make sure the slaver crew went to Hell with them."

Yana's frown had been deepening as Ruth talked. "Damnation, Princess. If that's how it's set up, how do we disconnect the charge without taking the bridge, first?"

"We don't," Ruth said grimly. "And now that I've seen the setup, I'm pretty sure that is how they've done it. So." She gave Thandi an uncertain look. "Can we still manage it, Lieutenant?"

The Solarian officer gazed at her for a moment, then gave her a grin. Well, a widening of teeth, anyway. It was more like a shark's grin than a human's. That was all the answer she gave. All she needed to, really.

A moment later, Thandi and Ruth were moving down yet another passage, the Amazons in their wake.

Less than five minutes after leaving the bridge, Berry found herself ushered through a heavy-and heavily locked-entry hatch. "Ushered," in the sense that Ezekiel and the slaver crewman stepped back once the hatch was unlocked and slightly opened, and urgently motioned her to pass through it. Both of them seemed very nervous, and both of them had pulsers in their hands pointed in the direction of the hatch. To all intents and purposes, they looked like men ordering a sacrificial victim into a chamber full of demons.

Seeing no alternative, Berry pulled the hatch open a bit more and stooped through the opening. She had to stoop, because the hatch was unusually low. Obviously enough, it had been specifically designed to make it impossible for more than one human being at a time to pass through it-and then, not without some difficulty.

As soon as she passed through, the hatch was slammed shut behind her. An instant later, she heard the locks closing.

But she really wasn't paying much attention to what was behind her. She was far more concerned, at the moment, with what surrounded her.

She was in a smallish compartment, not more than five meters in any dimension. Which was crowded, at the moment. Eight men and five women, all of them armed with jury-rigged bludgeons-very primitive; torn strips of clothing weighted down with something-and all of them looking as if they were ready to tear her limb from limb.

Hurriedly, she tried to think of something to say to forestall her imminent destruction. But the effort proved needless. Not more than two seconds after she entered the chamber, one of the women gasped and exclaimed:

"It's the Princess! Herself!"

This was no time for complicated explanations. Berry drew herself up in as dignified a pose as her ridiculous skin-tight clothing permitted. She tried to put the same dignity-what a laugh!-into her voice.

"Yes. It is I."

Victor was getting desperate. Not at whether he could keep stringing along the Masadans-he was now quite confident of doing that, for at least another hour-but at how he was going to explain it all to Kevin Usher afterward.

Assuming he survived, of course.

Well, boss, then I broke another of your rules and made an already too-elaborate scheme still more elaborate by swearing to them that you were part of the conspiracy to overthrow Pritchart. But were hamstrung because you couldn't trust your own security people any longer and that-of course-is why you told me, when I got sent to Erewhon, to keep an eye out for the possibility of hiring Masadans. "Best wet work men in the galaxy," you said to me. "Look how they almost managed to nail that bitch Elizabeth and did manage to nail her tame Prime Minister."

Sure, they swallowed it. What do you expect? It wasn't even their vanity, just…

Dammit, boss, they're CRAZY. They really BELIEVE human affairs are all guided by deep and dark conspiracies. They see two dogs sniffing each other, they see Satan at work. So why shouldn't they believe in a deep and dark conspiracy which-just maybe, and with their backs to the wall-might save their own hides?

Gloomily, he could foresee Usher's sarcasm and ridicule. Still more gloomily, he tried to figure out how to respond to the next question.

"Yes, that makes sense," allowed Hosea Kubler. The leader of the surviving Masadans rubbed his chin. "But let's leave aside, for the moment, the manner in which we'd penetrate President Pritchart's security. First things first. How do you propose to get us free of this situation? As you said yourself, the Mesans won't be enthusiastic about providing us with asylum on Congo."

"To say the least," snorted Victor. "But that's only because they don't want the heat coming down on them. They'd be perfectly happy-delighted, in fact-to let Congo be used as the route through which to pass along an assassination team against Pritchart."

"Why?"

Victor took a deep breath. The way a man will, about to dive off a cliff into what he hopes is deep water.

"Well…" He put on his most ferocious glower. (Which, he had been told, was quite ferocious. And so it seemed, judging from the reaction of the Masadans around him.)

"I'll have to relax security a bit, here. I warn you, though-the slightest lapse on your part…"

The Masadans actually shrank back a little. It was all very odd. Victor had glowered at himself in the mirror, quite often, when he was displeased with his own lapses. But he'd never-alas-noticed himself shrinking back.

"Pritchart's a traitor, but she does have a few principles left. Theisman, now-the admiral who led the rebellion and is the real power today in Haven-his treachery has no bottom. The swine has agreed secretly to form an alliance with Mesa. Turn the whole Republic of Haven into a fertile new territory for Manpower slavery and exploitation. It was when my leader Kevin Usher made that discovery that he realized we could wait no longer-"

I'll never hear the end of this. "Wonderboy" was bad enough. Once Kevin finds out-maybe I could lie-no, not a chance, Ginny'll weasel it out of me, she always does-

The thought of Ginny's sarcasm almost made him shudder. Still, he pressed on fearlessly. Not much else to do, really, once a man has taken the plunge and he's sailing through the air.

God, I hope that water's deep. Really deep.

"-set himself up like a Pharaoh of old, with Manpower's bribes filling his coffers. He'll make Nero look like a saint. Whatever's left of Haven's moral fiber will be gone within a few years, the whole population given over to idleness and debauchery. The Revolution has to be saved before-"

Working their way through the passages wasn't as bad as Thandi had feared. On this, at least, Watanapongse had been wrong. The simple logic of the slaver ship's semi-obsolescent mass jettisoning design precluded complex internal passageways. The slavers couldn't afford to have slaves being driven to their death by poison gases die along the way from simply becoming lost.

So, the passage layout was simple and straightforward. Nor was there any doubt where the slaves themselves were kept. Every corridor was lined with hatches which obviously opened into the slave quarters.

The problem was opening them.

More precisely, the problem was that Thandi had no choice but to do so. She'd have preferred-this had been the plan all along-to bypass the slave quarters altogether. From a purely military standpoint, the slaves would just get in the way. Better to leave them locked down and release them after it was all over. Even then, Thandi hadn't looked forward to handling the chaos which was sure to result.

But now-

"You're sure you can't open it?" Thandi glared at the hatch at the end of one of the passages. That hatch, clearly enough, did not lead to one of the slave chambers. It would, instead, allow them to penetrate closer to the areas of the ship restricted to the crew; and, eventually, to the bridge.

Ruth joined Thandi in glaring at the recalcitrant hatch.

"Can't," she grunted sourly. "There is no electronic control for that hatch, Lieutenant. It must have a purely manual mechanism for opening it-and the mechanism is on the other side."

Ruth's technical expertise didn't extend to metallurgy, and unlike Thandi, she was no Marine. But even she could tell that the hatch was made of battle steel. It would have taken forever to burn through that thing, even if they'd had the proper equipment. Which they didn't.

"This is taking paranoia to new limits," she growled. "Not even warships have purely manual hatches."

Thandi was almost grinding her own teeth, but she snorted in bitter amusement.

"Warships don't worry much about mutiny, Your Highness. Not enough, that's for sure, to do something like this."

"You're right." Ruth shook her head in disgust and closed her mini-computer. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant. But there's nothing for it. I don't think we've got any choice except to go through the slave quarters."

Ruth swiveled on her haunches and studied a hatch a few meters down the corridor. That one, unlike the one she and Thandi were squatting before, was of a standard design. Not very heavily built, for one thing. And, more important, with the tell-tale instrument panel not far away which would provide her with access to the locks.

"Weird design," she murmured. "But it all makes sense, in a way. At least, if you can think like a sociopath. They aren't worried about slaves breaking into most of the ship, after all. What can they do"-she nodded toward the manual hatch-"assuming they can't get access to the passages leading to the ship's control areas?"

She glanced up at the ceiling and spotted the vents immediately. "If the slaves do succeed in breaking out, they just get gassed and jettisoned. A big loss of profit, sure, but they really can't threaten the ship itself."

Thandi looked at her watch. "We've already used up an hour and half, most of it spent wandering these passages trying to find one that gives us access to the bridge. We can't delay any longer." She scowled at the hatch leading to the slave quarters. "As you say, 'nothing for it.' We'll have to go through the slave quarters, however much that delays us."

She sighed heavily. "I hadn't counted on this. And who's to say we won't face the same problem there?" She poked a stiff finger at the offending hatch. "Why wouldn't all the hatches leading to the bridge have the same manual-only design?"

Ruth shook her head. "That's possible, but… I'd be surprised. Keep in mind that these passages-and the hatches that lead to them from the control areas-are used very rarely. Except for emergencies, probably only twice each voyage. Once to load the 'cargo,' and once to unload it. Whereas the hatches-probably just one hatch-leading directly to the slave quarters would be used by the crew every day. Manual-only hatches are a real pain in the ass. It wouldn't be that hard to make a single electronically controlled hatch pretty much fool-proof."

She glanced down, with great satisfaction, at the mini-computer in her hands. "Fool-proof from slaves, at least. Who can't possibly afford the kind of equipment a princess can-and you don't want to know how loud and long my father howled when I told him what I wanted for my birthday. This thing is worth more than its weight in gold. Uh, considerably more."

Thandi was puzzled. "Why would the crew need regular access to the slave quarters? Once they're locked down-oh."

Ruth's faced was pinched and hostile. "Yeah. 'Oh.' You're dealing with the scum of the universe here, Lieutenant. It's one of the perks of being part of a slaver crew. All the sex you want-any way you want it, with anybody."

Angrily, she rose and stalked over to the other hatch. The Amazons, despite being much larger and more muscular women, gave way before her instantly. The expression on the princess' face was truly savage.

Ruth had the panel open and began working on her computer again. "Well, not exactly," she muttered. "They'd have no interest in most of the slaves. But a large shipment is bound to have some of the pleasure lines included. They'd be kept in a special quarters not far from the entry hatch."

Thandi squatted down next to her. "How do you know so much about it?" she asked.

Ruth kept working. "I hate slavery. Always have. Imbibed it from my mother's milk, probably. She was a slave too, you know. Not exactly the same kind as Manpower's, but close enough. And the two things I always study a lot are the things I love and the things I hate."

The quick fingers paused at the keyboard. "That's odd…"

She looked up at Thandi. "I was going to disconnect all the surveillance equipment in the slave quarters. More precisely, set the records to just keep recycling on a two-hour interval so we'd be able to move through there without anyone on the bridge knowing we've arrived. But-"

She looked back down at her computer. "The slaves must have already gotten loose. All the surveillance equipment in the slave quarters appears to be have been smashed."

Thandi pursed her lips. "That'll make our life easier in one respect-but it also means it'll be chaos in there. Damn."

"Well, it's all done except the last, then. It's your call." Ruth tapped one of the keys lightly. "Once I punch in this last command, the hatch opens and we're in the middle of them. A madhouse, probably, even if Manpower hadn't packed this ship with twice the number of slaves they'd normally be hauling."

Thandi didn't hesitate. "Do it."

The hatch slid aside. Thandi was through it in a combat crouch. Not wanting to inflict mayhem on panicky slaves, to be sure, but still prepared to do it if necessary. Time was running out for Victor and Berry.

She stayed in the crouch, for several seconds. But that was simply due to surprise.

"Welcome," said the smiling man who greeted her. He was wearing the very utilitarian garb provided for slaves in transport. Nothing much more than a jumpsuit with no pockets, and cheap sandals on his feet. A dozen other men and women were crammed into the same small chamber. Most of them were perched on the chamber's four cots, which were stacked two deep on either side. They must have been forced to share the beds.

Thandi stared. She was almost gaping. All of the slaves were smiling. And not one of them seemed even surprised-much less panicked.

"Greetings," he repeated. "The Princess told us you'd be coming. Let me take you to her."

Chapter 37

Within half an hour after being forced into the slave quarters, Berry had managed to adjust to the…

Surreal situation.

There was no other word for it, really. By then, she'd discovered that the slaves had not only seized the slave quarters and held them for a day, but had even managed to jury-rig a government of sorts. They'd been able to do so, for two reasons:

First, the Masadans had killed over half the slaver crew, including most of the officers, in the course of seizing the ship. That, at least, was the best guess of the slaves' steering committee-based on admittedly sketchy evidence. But their estimate matched the number of crewmen Berry had seen on the bridge.

She did the arithmetic herself, and came up with the same basic conclusion. There'd been just four crewmen on the bridge, including only one officer. Allow for perhaps another officer and two or three crewmen still alive in the engineering compartments. There'd been only four Masadans on the bridge also, which left two unaccounted for. Assuming that Kubler would have put them to oversee the surviving crewmen in the engineering compartments, that meant that in the course of seizing the ship the Masadans had wound up killing about two-thirds of the crew. Including, presumably, the captain.

No wonder the Masadans aren't trying to control the slaves any longer! They CAN'T.

Nor, she realized grimly, did they really need to. There was no way for the slaves to break out into the rest of the vessel. And unless they could do so, they simply couldn't threaten the ship itself or the men running it. What they could do, they had done-taken control of the slave quarters and gotten themselves organized.

After that… nothing. Just wait, and probably die when the Masadans decided to blow the ship.

"How did you find out about me?" she asked, early on.

The slave named Kathryn, who seemed to be presiding over the steering committee, issued a harsh little laugh.

"They told us."

Kathryn gestured at a piece of surveillance equipment suspended on the wall of the compartment which the steering committee had seized for itself. A former mess compartment, judging from its accouterments. There wasn't much left of the surveillance gear, beyond smashed pieces hanging limply from brackets.

"We wrecked most of the surveillance equipment early on, so they couldn't monitor what we were doing any longer. But we left the equipment intact in a compartment not far from here so we'd still have a way to negotiate with them if we needed to. Not long after that, one of the new people-the 'Masadans,' you're calling them?-got in touch with us. We think he simply wanted to calm us down. The gist of what he told us was that they'd seized the ship, they weren't slavers themselves-and they'd either free us eventually or kill us all by blowing up the ship."

Juan, another member of the steering committee, snorted sarcastically. "Of course, we told him we didn't believe a word he was saying. Why should we? So, after a few minutes, another Masadan came on-said he was the leader, a guy named Kubler-and explained to us that he was going to use a Manticoran princess as a hostage. I guess in order to prove his point, he showed us some footage of you."

He gave her costume a quick, smiling scrutiny. "You were wearing a lot fancier clothes, then. Standing in front of some kind of mansion shaking hands with…"

The words trailed off. All nine members of the steering committee seated at the mess table in the center of the compartment were now staring at Berry. So were the dozen or so other slaves standing around nearby.

"Was that really the Countess of the Tor you were shaking hands with?" Kathryn asked quietly. Her tone was almost awestruck. "And was that really W.E.B. Du Havel standing next to you?"

Berry's eyes widened. "How do you know who-?"

She bit off the words. It was already obvious, just from the quickness and efficiency with which the slaves had organized themselves over the past day, that she'd drastically underestimated their sophistication. She really didn't know that much about the inner workings of Manpower's genetic slavery, she now realized, especially from the vantage point of the slaves themselves.

Juan smiled crookedly. "What? Did you think we were all foot-shuffling illiterates? Something out of the history books?" For all that he was obviously trying to keep any anger out of his voice, Berry could detect the traces of it.

"This is the modern galaxy, Princess," he elaborated, shaking his head. "Even the combat and heavy labor lines have to know how to read and write. And most of us are trained for fairly complex work. We have to be, whether the scorpions like it or not."

Scorpions. She'd now heard that term at least a dozen times. It was the way the slaves referred to their Manpower overlords.

Kathryn waved a hand, indicating the members of the steering committee. "Several of us belong to the Audubon Ballroom, Princess. The Ballroom's been organizing slaves for at least ten years now."

Seeing the unspoken question in Berry's face, Kathryn also smiled crookedly. "How do you think? Some of us-I'm one of them, so's Georg over there-volunteered to let ourselves be recaptured. So we could start organizing on the inside of the scorpion nest."

Berry tried to imagine the degree of courage involved. That… she could do. But she knew she could never-not in a lifetime measured in centuries-match the sheer hatred that lurked under the terms.

Scorpions. In their nest. God help Manpower if they ever fall into the hands of their slaves. They'll be as merciless as demons.

Can't say I blame them any, of course.

Berry cleared her throat. She had to remind herself not to tell them that "the Countess of the Tor" was, in point of fact, her mother.

"Yes, that was she. Except she's not a countess any longer. She gave up the title so she could run for a seat in the House of Commons. And, yes, that was Web Du Havel standing next to me."

"Good for her," grunted the one named Georg. "She's always been the best of the lot, in the Anti-Slavery League. My opinion, anyway. Not sure what I think of Du Havel. We're all proud of him, of course, but… I think he's something of an appeaser."

"Let's leave politics out of this, shall we?" suggested one of the other slaves, a stocky man somewhat older than the rest. Berry had been given his name, but couldn't quite remember it. Harry, or Harris-something like that. The man gave Kathryn and Georg a somewhat frosty look. "We're not all members of the Ballroom, I'll ask you to remember. Personally, I think very highly of Professor Du Havel."

Kathryn raised her hand in a pacific gesture. "Take it easy, Harrell. Georg wasn't trying to start a debate, I'm sure. We can leave that for another time."

"Assuming there is one," muttered Georg. He glanced at the shattered surveillance equipment. "Easy enough to break that. But unless we can figure out a way to break into the rest of the ship, we're so much meat waiting for the slaughter."

Berry cleared her throat. "Uh. Are you sure we can't be spied on, any longer?"

The response she got was a lot of rather unfriendly looks.

Right. Stupid question. "Scorpions," remember? They probably spent two hours crushing every little functioning piece they could find.

"Never mind," she said hastily. "The point is… well. I'm not actually a captive here. Well. I mean, yes, I am-right now. But there's an assault team on its way to deal with that. The real reason I came over was to serve as a decoy. Keep the Masadans preoccupied-me and Victor, that is-while Thandi and her women take them out."

She stopped, suspecting her account fell somewhat short of coherence.

"Who's 'Victor'?" Georg demanded immediately. Suspicion didn't exactly "drip" from the words. But it did seep noticeably.

"Victor Cachat. He's an agent-of some kind, I haven't figured out the details-for the Republic of Haven."

Kathryn's eyes widened. "I know him!"

The other slaves fixed their gazes on her. Kathryn shrugged. "Well, not exactly. I wasn't there myself-where it happened-but I was on Terra at the time. So I never met him personally, but Jeremy X told me about it afterward."

That was apparently enough. Most of the slaves sitting at the table had wide eyes, as did several of the ones standing about.

"Him?" asked Georg, a bit shakily. "The guy who massacred all those Scrags at the Artinstute?"

Berry had to bite her tongue. She had been there. Close by, anyway, even if she hadn't witnessed the killings herself. But her sister Helen had, and had given Berry a detailed description of it later. She hadn't realized that the incident had become so famous among Manpower's slaves-although, now that she thought about it, it was hardly surprising that it had. That day in Chicago-the so-called "Manpower Incident" which had begun with Victor Cachat's killing spree in the underground-had seen the wholesale destruction of Manpower's headquarters on Terra, as well as whatever Scrags the Ballroom had managed to get their hands on throughout the city. Which had been several dozen of them, by all accounts.

The butchery had been great enough, her father had told her a year or so later, to eliminate almost entirely the Scrag presence on Terra. Anton estimated that the survivors-which was most of them, he thought-had emigrated afterward to other planets. It had undoubtedly been one of the Audubon Ballroom's greatest triumphs-and a story which any Manpower slave would cherish.

But, again, Berry had to remind herself that she was "Princess Ruth"-who'd been several hundred light-years away at the time. So, she tried to act as innocent and naïve as she could.

"Yes, I believe that's correct. Him."

Whatever suspicions might have existed were clearly gone, now. It was as if the name "Victor Cachat" were a magic talisman. It was a bit disorienting, at first, until Berry realized that over the past few years she'd fallen into the habit of looking at the universe through Manticoran eyes. To her, more than anything, "Victor Cachat" was an agent of the Republic of Haven-and hence, basically, an enemy.

But the war between Manticore and Haven meant little to Manpower's slaves. And, even if they were inclined to take sides in the affair, she suspected they'd be more likely to incline toward Haven. True, the Star Kingdom had a better reputation than most, when it came to the issue of genetic slavery. In fact, Manticore had signed onto the Cherwell Convention almost forty T-years before the Republic had. It also had the prestige of being the homeland which had produced Catherine Montaigne, who was perhaps the Anti-Slavery League's most glamorous leader. But, against that, there was the fact that Manticore was ruled by an hereditary aristocracy-something which was bound to rub the wrong way against people yoked into a harsh caste system-whereas Haven had a reputation throughout the galaxy for being a bastion of egalitarianism.

The fact that the Havenite regime under the Legislaturalists had been even more dominated by its own hereditary elites than the Star Kingdom, or that under Pierre and Saint-Just it had also been a bastion of savage political repression… simply wouldn't register very much on most slaves. Nor, Berry admitted frankly to herself, would they have cared much anyway. She'd lived herself, all of her life until Anton and Helen rescued her, under the conditions of "personal freedom" which were supposedly enjoyed by Terrans. In the real world, what that meant if you didn't come from "the right people" was that your life was sheer misery. The only freedom she'd ever enjoyed had been the freedom to starve.

She understood more clearly, now, something Web Du Havel had said to her in the course of their long journey to Erewhon. Berry had no passionate interest in political theory, true-but, on the other hand, she found almost everything pretty interesting. So she'd been a willing enough participant in Web's discussions with Ruth. (The princess, of course, being a veritable addict when it came to politics.)

"It's just a fact, girls, like it or not. Make someone live under a yoke like an ox, then don't be shocked and surprised when he turns into a rampaging bull when he breaks free. You were expecting the milk of human kindness? You'll get the same charity and mercy you gave him. The lash repaid by the sword, or the noose, or the torch. That's the way it is. Study any slave rebellion in history, or any uprising of serfs against feudal lords. Kill the master, kill his family, burn his house to the ground. Right off!"

"You sound as if you approve," Ruth had said, half-accusingly.

" 'Approval' has nothing to do with it, Princess, speaking professionally. That's like accusing a doctor of 'approving' of metabolism. Metabolism is what it is-and sometimes it can be downright horrendous. Learn to look truth in the face, Princess. Most of all, whatever else, learn not to avoid it with circumlocutions."

He shrugged. "As it happens-again, speaking professionally-I don'tapprove. But let there be no misunderstanding between us. My disapproval has nothing to do-nothing-with any qualms about the fate of the slaveowner." His eyes, normally warm, were icy. "Any man or woman in today's universe who participates voluntarily in the practice of slavery has thereby automatically forfeited any claim they had to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. That's my attitude, and it's the attitude of every slave or ex-slave I ever met. You'll never see me shed a single tear over the killing of a slaver. Not one."

He drew a deep breath. "However, that's neither here nor there. The reason I disapprove is because of the effect on the slaves. Because there's another clear pattern in history, and one with precious few exceptions." Grimly: "Successful slave rebellions-or any kind of government set up by former slaves, even ones which didn't require an outright rebellion-almost always turn out badly, soon enough. Within a generation, you wind up with a new tyranny which, while it doesn't follow the same genetic lines, is every bit as brutal as what it overthrew."

"Why?" asked Berry.

"Because all the odds are against the slaves. The ex-slaves, I should say. They come into power ill-trained to use it, and accustomed to brute force as the only way to settle anything. And, usually, in conditions of extreme poverty and deprivation. All in all, just about the worst possible culture medium for the emergence of a tolerant and genuinely democratic polity. Not to mention that, nine times out of ten, the ex-slaves immediately find themselves under attack by hostile outsiders-which means they become a garrison state, almost at once, and a garrison state is inevitably going to be autocratic."

He ran fingers through his short, stubby hair. "It's one of the many little bitter ironies of political dynamics. What a slave rebellion needs most of all, right away, is the thing it's least likely to get: a breathing space. A period of a generation or two where the new state it sets up can relax a little. Work out its own customs and traditions for resolving disputes short of the knife-and feel enough in the way of stability that it can afford to do so. Instead of, almost at once, being compelled to surrender authority to an autocrat. Who is likely, mind you, to be quite an impressive leader-and, while he's alive, often does far more good than harm. But the problem is that after he dies…"

Ruth knew far more history than Berry did. "Toussaint l'Ouverture… and then you wind up with Duvalier and the Ton Ton Macoutes. Yeah, sure, Spartacus was a hell of guy. And since he wound up being executed, his historical legacy is untarnished. But what if he'd triumphed?What would Spartacus Junior have looked like?"

"Exactly," Web had replied, sighing. "It's a problem-as you can imagine-I've spent most of my life wrestling with."

"Come up with any answers?" Berry asked.

Web chuckled. "Oh, sure. I figured the answer out years ago. The problem is that the odds of ever getting it are… slim, to say the least."

Ruth and Berry tried to pry the answer out of him. But Web had refused, smiling. "Not a chance. You'd both think I was crazy."

Kathryn's voice brought Berry back to the present.

"Where's Victor Cachat now?"

Berry stared at her, suddenly realizing that her little sketch of the situation had been… yes. Incoherent.

"Oh, sorry. He's on the ship." She nodded in the direction that she thought-although wasn't sure-was the location of the bridge. "He's trying to keep the Masadans distracted while Thandi-uh, that's Lieutenant Palane of the Solarian Marines-leads a strike force into the ship through one of the entries."

The wide-eyed stares were back. "The Solarians?"Georg was squinting suspiciously again. "Solarians are all a bunch of two-faced-"

"No politics!" snapped Harrell. He was glaring at Georg. "I also happen to think quite highly of Hieronymus Stein, even if you don't. And what the hell gave you the right-"

" 'No politics,' you said, Harrell," growled Kathryn. "Good advice. Follow it yourself."

Harrell's mouth closed. After an instant, he grunted something halfway between an apology and a simple acknowledgment.

Kathryn was clearly the leader of the group. She now growled at Georg: "And I will remind you, Comrade, that the Ballroom has never officially denounced the Solarian League. Whatever you-or I-or Jeremy X, for that matter-might think in private."

When she turned back to Berry, she smiled. "Still and all, it is a bit odd."

Berry tried to figure out how to explain. That was hard to the point of impossible, for the simple reason that she herself had only the fuzziest notion of exactly what the Solarians were maneuvering for.

Get Web to give me some lessons, she told herself firmly. Right after I start exercising. Oh, yuck.

She fell back on simplicities. "Well… Thandi's from Ndebele. I don't think she's all that fond of the Solarian League herself, when you get right down to it, even if she is a lieutenant in their Marine Corps."

Again, a word proved to be a magic talisman. The name of a planet, this time, rather than a man.

"Oh. Ndebele." That was from Georg. Even he seemed mollified. "They get it almost as bad as we do."

One of the other slaves, who hadn't spoken yet and whose name Berry couldn't remember, barked a little laugh.

"What do you mean, 'they' and 'we'?" she demanded. She bowed her head and ran fingers through very blond, very kinky hair. "Where do you think I got this pelt from, Georg? My upper-crust ancestors?"

Her laugh was echoed by others. Looking around, now that she knew what to look for, Berry could see Mfecane genetic traces in the faces-not to mention the size and musculature-of several of the slaves.

"How soon can we expect this Lieutenant Palane of yours?" asked Kathryn, bringing things back to the business at hand.

"Oh. Well… knowing Thandi, I'd say sooner than you think," she said, then paused, considering exactly how to broach the next little point it had suddenly occurred to her needed explaining in light of Mesa's personnel hiring practices.

"What is it, Princess?" Kathryn asked, gazing at her shrewdly, and Berry sighed.

"It's just… well, Thandi's assault team's members aren't Marines like she is."

"They're not?" Kathryn and Georg both frowned.

"No," Berry said, then shrugged. Best to take the hurdle in a rush, she told herself firmly. "She's got her own people-sort of her own, private little unit. Very much undercover and off the books, I think. But the point is that all of her other team members are, well, Scrags."

"Scrags?!" Kathryn hissed, and Berry saw her sudden fury mirrored in more than one face. She could literally feel the hatred rising about her, and she started to shrink back. But then, to her own surprise, her spine stiffened and she raised her chin.

"Yes," she said flatly. "It would be more accurate to call them ex-Scrags, actually. 'Amazons' is what Thandi is calling them now, and they're busy trying their best to grow into the new role she expects of them." The "Princess" chuckled suddenly. "Believe me-you don't want to disappoint Thandi. Not if you know what's good for you!"

Kathryn looked a bit more mollified, but not a lot, and Berry shrugged.

"You have my personal assurance that Thandi's Amazons will do exactly what she tells them to… and that they have their own personal reasons to hate Mesans and-especially-the Masadans aboard this ship every bit as much as you do. For that matter, they've already saved my life from other Scrags aboard the space station." She paused, considering that last sentence, then shrugged again. "Well, actually, they helped Thandi do it and sort of held her coat for her while she kicked the crap out of the Scrag in question barehanded."

Kathryn gazed at her for a few more moment, then barked a sharp, sudden laugh. It was not at all a pleasant sound, but it seemed to have banished any lingering reservations about the nature of the assault party, and she started giving orders. Within seconds, most of the onlookers were gone, hurrying to spread the word through the slave quarters.

"Okay," she said, turning back to Berry. "That'll avoid any possible immediate problems. But then what happens? Assuming that your Lieutenant Palane-and Victor Cachat-manage to take the ship back from the Masadans." She made a little sweeping hand gesture, indicating all the slaves. "What happens to us?"

Berry started to explain. Within seconds, the feeling of surrealism was back in full force.

Being a "princess" is weird enough. Being a "prophetess" is even weirder.

Chapter 38

"All right, Prin-uh, Berry," Thandi said, quietly but firmly. She rose from her squatting position in front of the hatch, where she'd been watching Ruth at her work. "Now you get your butt out of here."

For a moment, Ruth looked mulish. Smiling, Berry hauled her away from the hatch.

"Leave it be, 'Berry,' " she whispered. "You are not trained as a commando."

As reluctant as she might be to break away from the action-it was obvious to Berry that, deny it however she might, Ruth had been having the time of her life-the Princess didn't really put up a struggle. The young royal was adventurous, true, but she wasn't downright insane. She'd already done what she needed to do: break the codes which would enable Thandi to open the hatch leading to the bridge without setting off any alarms. From here, it would be all mayhem and fast-moving havoc. As relatively athletic as she was, Princess Ruth had no chance at all of keeping up with Thandi Palane and her Amazons. She'd just get in their way, and she knew it.

Berry guided her toward the hatch on the opposite side of the small chamber, which led back into the slave quarters.

"Damn," Ruth muttered. "You know as well as I do that once my aunt finds out about this…" She made a face. "I'll be lucky if she ever lets me out of my own suite in Mount Royal Palace. Till I'm dead or she is."

"Hush," whispered Berry, nodding meaningfully toward the hatch she was starting to open. "And don't forget that you're still me and I'm still you."

Ruth nodded. She and Berry had managed a quick, whispered consultation after Thandi and her assault team had been welcomed into the slave quarters. They'd both agreed that it would be best to keep the masquerade going.

That had been Berry's suggestion, and she still felt weird about it. There was actually no reason to maintain the subterfuge, from the standpoint of the Masadan enemy. Those enemies would either be dead in a few minutes or they'd all be dead when the ship exploded. So why keep up the rigmarole?

But the simple fact was that-

Weird-weird-weird.

– by now, Berry had established a peculiar position among the slaves. The combination of the news she'd brought and her assumed identity as a "princess" seemed to settle their nerves. She'd noticed that the steering committee, which had been in continuous-and often raucous-session since they'd learned of the plans for Congo, was now often turning to her to serve as something in the way an informal court of final appeal.

Weird-weird-weird.

Still, it seemed to work. The steering committee's members were all strong-willed, were by no means all personally fond of each other, did not necessarily share the same political opinions, and had little experience working together-not to mention that the committee itself had been slapped together in the press of circumstances. Even with Kathryn's generally sure leadership, tempers had gotten frayed.

But, they'd never snapped-and not least of all because, very quickly, Kathryn had started using Berry as a calming agent. It didn't even matter so much what Berry said or didn't say in the disputes. As a rule, she said as little as possible, being mainly concerned simply with keeping everybody calm.

It was simply who she was. Or, rather, was supposed to be.

"Princess." What was it, Berry wondered, that gave that term-a fake term, as it happened-such a peculiar magic?

Ruth had seemed to understand it immediately, when Berry tried to explain.

"Oh, sure," Ruth whispered. "It's 'cause your authority doesn't derive from anything really legitimate. Might be better to say, from an arbitrary legitimacy that stands outside of the hurly-burly. Monarchy's really a silly business, when you get right down to it-but don't you dare tell Aunt Elizabeth I said so. I'm going to be in enough trouble as it is."

The two girls shared a conspiratorial glance around the mess compartment. Fortunately, all of the slaves were still completely preoccupied by the presence in their midst of Thandi Palane and her Amazons.

"Amazons." When Thandi and her women had first entered the mess compartment being used for the slave headquarters, Berry had been sure there'd be a brawl right then and there, despite her own efforts to prepare against it. Any slave of Manpower would have immediately recognized the tell-tale genetic traces on the faces of the "Amazons," and within two seconds, prepared or not, they'd been like so many dogs facing off in an alley with their hackles raised and their fangs bared.

Scrags. The self-proclaimed supermen who had, for several generations now, served Manpower as its bully boys. It was enough to be a "Scrag" to be under sentence of immediate death, so far as any member of the Audubon Ballroom was concerned.

Fortunately, Thandi's glower had intimidated everyone for just long enough. And a very intimidating glower it was, too, coupled to that fearsome physique. Berry had made an immediate private vow to make sure that Thandi remained her "big sister." Had given that priority, in fact, precedence over her vow to start exercising and taking political lessons from Web Du Havel.

(It had been an easy vow to make, of course. Being on close personal terms with Thandi Palane did not fall into Berry Zilwicki's definition of oh, yuck.)

Just long enough-for Berry to pitch in and capitalize on her own earlier spadework to settle it all down.

"Thandi!" she'd exclaimed, leaping from her seat and practically hurling herself into a embrace. Then, quickly, disengaging the embrace and hurling herself upon the nearest Amazon.

"Yana! S'great to see you again!" Disengage; embrace another-quick, quick, quick.

"Lara!"

"Hanna!"

"Inge!"

Lara even had the presence of mind to exclaim "Princess Ruth!" when she returned the embrace. Granted, the woman's grin tended to detract from the solemnity of the occasion.

Still, it was enough. By the time Berry resumed her seat, if nothing else, she'd muddled up the slaves' automatic reactions to the point where immediate mayhem was ruled out. And, thereafter, she was relieved to see that Kathryn had the good sense to continue using Berry as her combination sounding board and social relaxant.

Did it more than ever, in fact. Berry suspected that Kathryn was even more relieved than she was at the way things were remaining reasonably harmonious. And she was beginning to understand, concretely and not abstractly, what Web Du Havel had meant when he explained the political pitfalls awaiting newly liberated slaves.

Like open wounds, all of them, she thought. Never being given enough time to heal before being lacerated open again. Be nice to each other, boys and girls. Oh, and here's another crisis. More salt to rub into your bleeding flesh.

Too, there was this: Berry was by nature a very empathetic person. So, within a short time, happening almost like a gravitational attraction, she found herself emotionally identifying with the slaves and their predicament. Not the immediate one-Thandi Palane would either save their lives, or she wouldn't-but with the very uncertain future which faced them all.

"Freedom." A splendid word, especially in the abstract. A sanctified and hallowed one, even, when the person uttering it has no immediate prospect of escaping bondage. Like a mantra, or the name of a saint whispered in prayer. But once it loomed as an imminent reality…

Freedom to do what?

Starve? What does a slave do, when he or she gains her freedom-having been bred and trained to do nothing except a master's bidding?

Historically, the answer had generally been bleak. "Freedom" meant the freedom to fight over the scraps-or sell yourself back into another form of bondage, to someone who would give you the scraps from his table.

And so, in the time that followed, Berry was almost oblivious to her friend Ruth, perched nearby on a chair a little back from the central table where the deliberations and arguments took place. She was much too intent on the discussion itself, bending all her will and attention to the task of keeping it steady and as relaxed as possible.

Ruth, on the other hand, was not oblivious to her. She was fascinated, actually, watching Berry at the table. She'd come to cherish Berry's friendship, but realized now that-like everyone-she'd never really thought of Berry except in terms of friendship.

Now, studying her friend in action, "on her own" as it were, Ruth Winton applied to the task all the intent scrutiny and thought of which she was capable. Which was a great deal, indeed. Ruth had not been boasting when she told Thandi that she always studied the things she loved and the things she hated.

Here, she could do both at the same time. It did not take her long to reach a conclusion, and she resolved to raise it with Web Du Havel at the first opportunity.

The opportunity to do so would come, not long after. That didn't surprise Ruth, knowing Thandi as she did. Du Havel's reaction, on the other hand, did surprise her. Astonished her, in fact. She'd been expecting either a long lecture on girlish folly or a simple sneer of disdain.

But, he simply grinned. "Join the club, Ruth Winton. There are now two of us in the universe who are crazy."

This is crazy, thought Thandi. Pure lunacy.

She tried her very best glower on the Amazons.

"Are you all insane?" she hissed, hooking a thumb toward the bend in the corridor. She was trying to speak as quietly as possible while still being forceful-a difficult task, to say the least.

"If the schematics Ruth pulled out of the ship's computer are accurate, we're less than fifteen meters from the bridge."

As she whispered, Thandi continued stripping off all of her gear except her armored skinsuit itself. Now that she had been able to size up the tactical situation concretely, she'd decided speed was the key. She'd make the assault armed only with a hand pulser. Thandi was an expert with just about any kind of handheld weapon, but she was particularly proficient with sidearms.

"There's only one hatch leading into it," she pointed out. "How in the hell do you think you're going to pull off a 'mass charge'? And what's the point, anyway, beyond giving the bastards a lot of targets? If it can be done at all, I can do it alone."

It was no good. Great Kaja or not, the Amazons seemed to think there was a matter of honor at stake. And they were making clear that they would stick to it. Grimly, Thandi realized that no matter what she said-even if she threatened them-they would just follow her anyway.

"All right," she muttered. "But you will still do it my way, understood? You follow me onto the bridge. If a single one of you tries to push ahead of me… I'll break her neck, I swear I will."

The blood-curdling threat was met with grins.

"No problem, kaja." Lara nodded with exaggerated obeisance. "You may lead, so long as we may follow."

The last sentence had the flavor of ritual about it. Thandi realized that she knew very little, when all was said and done, of the strange subculture the Scrags had developed in their long centuries of social isolation. Given their obsessive preoccupation with "superiority," however, she suspected that they'd developed-to a very high degree-a sort of human equivalent to the dominance rituals of pack animals.

A wolfess will respect the preeminence of the alpha female in the pack, true enough-so long as her own canines are acknowledged. And nobody tries to suggest she's actually a rabbit with pointed teeth.

Thandi chuckled. "Maybe Berry can civilize the lot of you. I give up. All right, then. My plan is about as simple as it gets."

Thandi had already used a Marine spy-eye to peek around the bend-nothing more than a very thin and flexible optic cable attached to a tiny viewer. There was no guard stationed at the hatch, and the hatch itself was unlocked. So she assumed, anyway, since the tell-tale light above it was green. Unless slaver ships followed a different protocol than any other ships she'd ever encountered, she'd be able to get through it within a split-second.

"As soon as I start, Yana, you give the signal to Inge."

Yana nodded. She'd been appointed the one to stay in communication with Inge and the three Amazons who'd gone with her. Their job was to take out the men in the engineering compartments. Thandi had delegated that job, since she had the personnel to carry out both assaults simultaneously. The Masadans wouldn't have jury-rigged a blow-it-up-now switch in the engineering compartments in addition to the one she was sure they'd set up on the bridge. There would have been no reason to, and two switches more than doubled the chance of an accidental explosion. The Masadans were fanatics, but they weren't careless.

The men in the engineering compartment could still blow up the ship, true. But not quickly, with all the safeguards that would have to be removed. That was assuming the Masadans could even do it at all, without having to force the slaver crew to do most of the actual work. They certainly couldn't do it before Inge and her women had them all down and dead.

The real problem-the only problem, so far as Thandi was concerned-was the possibility that one of the Masadans on the bridge could reach the suicide switch before she killed them all. That was the reason she'd planned all along to lead the assault on the bridge. She could move faster than any of them.

Faster still, she thought sourly, if I didn't have to worry about a bunch of honor-besotted cretins insisting on stepping all over my heels. Oh, well. Just move even faster, Thandi girl.

The thought was sour enough to impart an acerbic edge to her final orders.

"As for the rest of you, just come after me and do what's needed. I warn you-even one of you steps on my heels and slows me down, I'll break her neck. See if I don't."

The only answer was so many grins. Thandi snorted, came out of her crouch like a tigress out of ambush, and was around the bend.

There never was any danger the Amazons would step on her heels. The point of honor having been satisfied, the women were sensible enough to understand that Thandi would just be hampered if they crowded her too close.

Which they couldn't have done, anyway. They hadn't witnessed the killings in Tube Epsilon, only the aftermath. So the Amazons had never really seen her moving at top speed.

They did now, and even they were astonished. The Amazons weren't halfway down the passage before Thandi was through the hatch leading onto the bridge. All that came crowding on her heels was a shrieking cry of adulation and triumph.

Great kaja! Kill them all!

For the past hour, Victor had been keeping an eye on that hatch. A corner of his eye, rather, since he couldn't afford to make his interest obvious.

By now, he was feeling bleary-eyed. Not so much from the strain of trying to watch something without actually doing so, but from the mental strain of keeping what had become a completely absurd concoction of lies and half-truths and sheer gibberish from collapsing under its own weight.

A collapse which, he was quite sure, was imminent. Even the Masadans, as prone as they were to conspiratorial paranoia, were now obviously suspicious.

"That does not make sense, Cachat," said Kubler, almost growling the words. He didn't quite heft the pulser in his hand, but the hand did twitch. "In fact, not much of anything you've said in the past-"

Kubler's head exploded.

Despite the watch he'd kept upon it, Victor never did see the powered hatch snap silently open. Neither did anyone else. All of their attention was focused on the obviously growing tension between him and the senior Masadan. Which made the sudden carnage erupting in their midst even more horrifying and stunning.

For a split second, like all the Masadans, Victor simply gaped at the demon flowing onto the bridge with a pulser in her hand. Then-he'd planned this all through, which they hadn't-Victor was up and moving.

There was no need to push Kubler aside. Thandi's first shot had done for that. First three shots, in fact. Somehow, she put them all into Kubler's head without so much as scratching Victor.

She was still firing, not from a marksman's crouch but striding forward onto the bridge and blazing away. She was moving so fast she seemed to flicker. Stride-stride-stop-fire; stride-stride-stop-fire. Three-round bursts, every time, as the pulser in her hand picked out targets like a machine, or one of the legendary gunfighters from ancient films Victor had seen.

Bad films. Silly ones, where the hero takes on a saloon full of cutthroats and never misses a single shot.

Victor almost cackled, as that absurd image flashed through his mind in the middle of his desperate lunge to do the one and only thing he was concerned about.

Get that bastard AWAY from the switch. Die in the doing, if need be-but GET HIM AWAY FROM IT.

Later, he would realize it all happened within a few seconds. At the time, his lunge toward the Masadan by the suicide switch seemed to take an eternity. Sailing through the air, at the last, his only purpose in life to tackle the man and take him down to the deck before he could destroy them all.

Victor felt a moment of elation, then. The Masadan had been as shocked as any, by Thandi's sudden and unexpected assault. Victor could see the determination beginning to congeal in the man's face, as realization replaced surprise. But even a Masadan does not commit suicide without a moment's hesitation-and he no longer had that moment. Victor would reach him in time, and no matter how he struggled, Victor was quite sure he could overpower the man. Certainly with the force of his lunge to give him the edge.

And so he did. But no overpowering was needed. By the time he brought the Masadan out of his seat and onto the deck, he'd tackled a corpse. In the final split-second, he saw a snarling fanatic face disappear in an explosion of blood, brains, and very tiny splinters of bone.

Yet another three-round burst, he realized, then grimaced as he drove headfirst into the expanding cloud of gore which had been a man's face. And then, as he sprawled onto the floor atop the dead man, Victor was mostly just puzzled. How had Thandi managed that-without, again, putting a scratch on him?

"Idiot,"she muttered, hauling him to his feet by the scruff of the neck. "Biggest damn problem I had was trying not to kill you. Worse than the Amazons."

But he didn't miss the love in the voice, or in the smile that faced him when he finally saw it.

"I'll try to remember that," he croaked. Piously: "Never interfere with a professional at her work."

Then he smiled himself. He had no trouble doing so, despite the carnage on the bridge, or even the blood coating his own face. Other men might have quailed at the prospect of falling in love with a woman who could kill eight men in half as many seconds.

Not Victor Cachat. Perhaps oddly, he found it quite reassuring.

Chapter 39

When Web Du Havel first entered the former mess compartment which had become the semi-official headquarters of what the Felicia's ex-slaves were now calling "the Liberation," he went unnoticed. Ruth had taken him there, with no other escort, since he'd insisted he wanted no fanfare. Web wanted to be able to observe the proceedings, for as long as possible, before his identity became known. Thereafter, he knew, he would inevitably be drawn into the center of things.

About that, Web had very mixed feelings. On the one hand, he knew full well that for the Liberation to have any chance for long-term success, he would have to play a leading role. In a very real way, he'd been preparing himself for it all his life since escaping from Manpower.

On the other hand…

The exercise of power, in itself, held no attraction for him. Rather the opposite, actually. By temperament, he was far more inclined toward a scholarly approach than an activist one. He enjoyed the detachment that position gave him, and knew he was about to lose it-probably for the rest of his life.

Still, duty was duty. From that same detached and scholarly viewpoint-almost a clinical one-Web understood that the same personal characteristics which made him shy away from a leading political role would also make him a valuable asset to the Liberation. More so, perhaps, than his actual expertise in the theory of political dynamics. Theory was one thing; practice, another. History was full of scholars who, risen to power, had made disastrous political leaders.

Web understood the reasons for that, also.

First, intellectuals usually tried to force things into their theoretical framework, reluctant to accept that no theory could possibly encompass all of reality. Certainly not when dealing with a phenomenon as inherently complex, contradictory and chaotic as human political affairs. Theory was, at best, a guide to practice, not a substitute for it. That was something which any experienced, practicing politician understood instinctively, but which came with difficulty for people whose lives had been spent in the cloisters of academia.

Second, because scholars attracted to power were as prone as politicians to all the vices of power, while sharing few of its virtues. From long experience, Web knew there was perhaps no form of politics which could be as petty, vicious, unrelenting and pointless as academic infighting. Fortunately for the universe, in the vast majority of instances, the scholars involved didn't have the power of star nations and modern weaponry at their disposal.

But give such a scholar thatpower…

Web's face twisted into a grimace. He had a well-integrated personality, and wasn't really worried that a brutal despot lurked beneath the affable surface of the man known as "W.E.B. Du Havel." But, as much as anything, that was because he'd planned for such an eventuality-in broad outlines, if not in detail-and had long since decided he would make sure he was never given the temptation in the first place. Or, more precisely, surrounded himself with checks and barriers which made the temptation a moot point.

He'd come here, quietly and with no fanfare, in order to study for himself the first-perhaps the most important-of those prospective checks and barriers. And was able to do so, for several minutes, before he was finally recognized. The compartment was so packed with ex-slaves observing the proceedings that Web was able to squeeze himself into the crowd with no notice. He was wearing better clothing than most of the slaves, true, but already a number of them had been able to exchange the pathetic garments provided by Manpower for the still-utilitarian but far superior jumpsuits being sent over quietly from the space station. Ruth was noticed, a bit, but by now-almost a full day after Cachat and Palane had seized the Felicia-she was a familiar figure to the ex-slaves.

He found the crowded conditions a bit amusing, actually. The members of the steering committee-now renamed the Liberation Committee-were barely able to fit themselves around the table at the center of the compartment. From the scowls on several of their faces, Web suspected they were none too happy about it, either.

Sooner or later, they'll have to start meeting in executive session. No way to really conduct practical political affairs in the middle of a mob. But… not now. Now is a time for establishing legitimacy, pure and simple. That's Moses and the prophets. The rest can wait for the commentary of the scholars.

Besides-

Web chuckled. The one thing that made the press at the center manageable for the Committee was that the worst of the press wasn't surrounding them, in any event. The heaviest clustering of the crowd took place around a smaller table, located just a few meters away. Where sat a very young woman-not much more than a girl, really-listening carefully to something being said to her by five ex-slaves seated at the other chairs around the same table. As Web watched, Berry said something. He couldn't hear the words. But from the immediate looks of satisfaction which came over the faces of the five ex-slaves-and that of most of the ones hovering in the immediate vicinity-he was sure she'd made some small pronouncement regarding the logical handling of some immediate and probably petty problem. Not an order, but simply a calm, reasoned, practical suggestion.

Which, of course-coming from her-had all the force of a pronouncement by Solomon. All the better if it came from an open, young, warm girl's face instead of the face of a stern patriarch. Authority, still, but with all the lurking menace of authority leached away.

Ruth echoed his chuckle. "She's perfect," she whispered.

Web exchanged a smile with the young Manticoran princess who had become, in effect, his co-conspirator. Lunatics of the galaxy, unite-even if, so far, there are only two of us.

So far.

It was Berry who spotted them first, and forced Web to surrender his life.

"Web!" She sprang from her chair, and was over to him in an instant. Managing, somehow, to clear a way through the crowd without actually pushing anyone aside. A moment later, he was enfolded in her embrace.

He made no attempt to stint that embrace. Quite the opposite. As Web Du Havel bade farewell to a scholar's existence, he embraced the new one with good cheer.

And why not? The girl in his arms was enough to bring good cheer to anyone.

"Your Highness," he intoned.

He could hear Berry's little laugh against his cheek. "So solemn!" she whispered. "Silly fakery, I'll be glad to be done with it. It's just me, Web."

Her embrace tightened. So did his. Like a man cast into the great ocean might embrace a flotation vest.

"Your Highness," he repeated.

He was surprised, at first, to find himself weeping. Then, the still-remaining intellectual's part of his mind-that part which would always remain-understood the phenomenon. Not so odd, really, that even a scholar should find his emotions swept into theory, when that theory takes on real flesh and blood. Truth and illusion, in politics, were not such distinct categories. More precisely, had a way of transforming into each other.

So he maintained the embrace, and let the tears flow freely. Knowing that, in the years to come, this moment-observed by all in the compartment-would enter the legends of the new star nation.

Soon enough, to be sure, scholars of the future would debunk the whole business and rambunctious youth would turn the debunking into criticism and even, here and there, outright scorn and rebellion.

So? By then, the generations would have done their work. A nation, once established and secure, can afford to laugh at itself-even jeer and ridicule. Must do so, in fact, from time to time, to retain its sanity. But it can only do so from the vantage point of maturity. Coming into birth, a new nation needed certainties as much as any infant. A mythology of its own creation, never mind that the bits and pieces were taken from anywhere.

Scrap metal, molded and beaten into plowshares and swords-and custom.

"Your Highness," he repeated yet again.

In the hours that followed, as the Committee suspended its deliberations and the compartment was given over to what amounted to a seminar on political affairs, Web built upon that moment as best he could. The process was a bit difficult, given that he had to remain in the world of abstractions.

That, for the simplest of all reasons: authority without power is an abstraction, and Web had no illusions that any amount of symbolic manipulation could substitute for sheer force. Counterbalance it, yes-even complement it, where necessary. But substitute for it?

Not a chance. And he made that clear, very early on.

"I am not prepared to discuss-or even speculate-on what might be the best form of government for us to adopt," he said firmly, in response to a question raised by Harrell. "Nor will I be, until Jeremy X arrives. Which, as I told you, should be fairly soon. Jeremy, as it turns out, is currently residing on Smoking Frog-and word has already been sent there of the new developments, via one of Captain Rozsak's courier ships. So I expect Jeremy to arrive in Erewhon within ten days. Two weeks, at the outside."

He almost laughed, then. Out of the corner of his eye, Web could see the expressions on the faces of Berry Zilwicki and Ruth Winton, who were seated nearby. Anton Zilwicki was also on Smoking Frog, and he'd be getting the news too. Berry's face had all the apprehensiveness you'd expect of a teenager anticipating a truly volcanic reaction from her father when he learned of her latest escapade.

If anything, Ruth's expression was even more apprehensive. Anton Zilwicki, after all, was an even-tempered man. Ruth's aunt, Queen Elizabeth, on the other hand, had a truly ferocious temper-and she'd be getting the news not all that much later than Anton. A courier ship had also been dispatched to the Star Kingdom, bearing messages from both the Manticoran ambassador to Erewhon and Captain Oversteegen. Ginny Usher had left the system as well, returning on the Havenite courier ship to take a report to her husband and President Pritchart.

Oh, yes. Within a few weeks, both young women were going to find themselves at the center of an interstellar firestorm.

But, at the moment, Web had more pressing business to attend to. Squelching another firestorm, before it got started.

Of the nine members of the Committee, three were members of the Audubon Ballroom-Kathryn, Georg, and Juan. All three of them, hearing Web's words, visibly relaxed. They hadn't been precisely hostile at the reception given to Du Havel by most of the ex-slaves packed into the compartment, but they had been more than a little reserved. In the case of Georg, almost openly suspicious.

Web wasn't surprised. That was a predictable political reaction, and one which had occurred innumerable times in human history. The revolutionary grunts in the political trenches, who'd suffered most of the casualties, being unceremoniously pushed aside when the self-proclaimed Big Shots arrived.

Sometimes, they were forced to accept the situation. More often than not, however, what followed sooner or later was what Web himself had referred to several times in various of his writings as the "Kerensky Fallacy." Which could be summarized in the notion that power derived from position, legitimacy from titles; or, in philosophical terms, as the political variant of the Platonic delusion that reality was the shadow of abstractions.

To the same degree as the Ballroom members relaxed, others did not. The older man named Harrell, in particular-the one who'd raised the question-was visibly disturbed.

He began to speak, in a somewhat heated tone of voice. "Simply because Jeremy X is the best-known-most notorious, rather-"

"That's beside the point," Web interrupted, forcefully. "It doesn't matter how well known Jeremy is. He could be a shadowy figure completely unknown to the public at large, and it would make no difference. What matters is the reality. And the reality is this: for at least two decades, it's been the Ballroom which has carried the brunt of the battle against Manpower. Disagree as much as you want with their tactics. I've often disagreed myself, and in public. So has the countess-Catherine Montaigne, I should say, since she's given up her title. So have any number of individuals and organizations prominent in the struggle against genetic slavery. That doesn't change the equation of power. No government of former Manpower slaves set up against the will of the Audubon Ballroom has any chance at all of remaining stable. None. You might as well ask me to make you a snowman in Hell."

Harrell was still glowering. Web pressed forward. "Nor is it simply a matter of raw power. It's also a matter of legitimacy-as we define that term. Whatever disagreements or reservations any slave has with the Ballroom-whether freed or still in captivity-all of them must acknowledge the Ballroom's courage and dedication. Must acknowledge it, even if at the same time you criticize their tactics. To do otherwise is to accept the slavemaster's limits-to accept, tacitly, the master's definition of what is and is not 'acceptable' and 'legitimate.' Which is nothing but a yoke."

When he needed it, Web had quite a fearsome glower of his own. He used it now, stinting nothing.

"Under no circumstances. Not so long as I breathe. Whatever government is set up by ex-slaves must have the acceptance-the publicly visible acceptance-of the Ballroom. Not simply to reassure the Ballroom, but-perhaps even more!-to assure the universe that we will accept no slavemaster's limits!"

A cheer filled the compartment. No small cheer, either-nor was it by any means confined to those members of the Ballroom present. Even Harrell himself, hearing the matter put in such a manner, nodded his head.

"No limits," Web repeated, "set by anyone except ourselves. Allow an outsider to tell you what is and isn't acceptable, and you have sold your birthright."

Again, a cheer, and louder still. Web allowed it to ring through the compartment for a moment. Then, his glower faded and was replaced by his usual affable expression.

"Mind you, that doesn't mean we can afford to ignore tactics. I imagine I'll be having plenty of sharp exchanges with Jeremy once he arrives." He shrugged. "No matter. He and I have had them before, plenty of times. But that's just a family quarrel. All families have them, and get through them well enough. But woe unto the family that allows one of its members to become labeled a 'black sheep' by outsiders, and tries to obtain legitimacy by denying its own blood. 'Legitimacy' gained at such a price isn't worth it-nor will it last, in any event."

Harrell still seemed uncertain, but it was clear most of his outright hostility was gone. Fading, at least. He turned to look at Berry.

"What's your opinion, Princess?"

Berry was startled. "Mine?" She looked around, confused. "Well… I really don't think it's my place to tell you-any of you-what you should do."

Kathryn burst into laughter. "What else have you been doing, since you got here?"

Berry looked embarrassed. But Kathryn's laugh hadn't been sarcastic, as she immediately made clear with a smile. "I'm not complaining, Princess. At least half the people who've been coming to you to settle a dispute were sent over to you by us in the first place. Just to get them out of our hair, if nothing else. And the truth is…"

Kathryn glanced at Harrell. "The truth is, I'd like to know myself. What is your opinion?"

Berry gave Web a look of appeal. He understood at once that the appeal had far more to do with the girl's identity than her opinion.

Why not? It's going to have to come out sooner or later. I'd intended to wait, but…

He cleared his throat. "For reasons which will soon be obvious-tactical reasons-what I'm about to say is not for public consumption. By which I mean the public outside of the thousands of us on this ship."

He saw no reason to rub their noses in the fact that control over the Felicia itself-including the communication equipment-was still in the hands of Cachat and Palane, so the ex-slaves had no way of using the coms anyway. Everybody knew it, even though all the lockdowns had been ended. Many of the ex-slaves had visited the bridge, by now, and had been greeted cordially. Some of them had even begun to fraternize with the Amazons, especially after Saburo and Donald and the other Ballroom members from the space station had come over on the first sled and they saw the obviously intimate relations which they'd established with the former Scrag women.

That had been… a bit shocking to them, at first. But, like most oppressed subcultures in history, Manpower's genetic slaves were not given to hoity-toity fussiness about such things. Soon enough, the Amazons had moved from the category of enemy to that of simply exotic.

"The fact is," Web continued, nodding first at Berry and then at Ruth, seated next to her, "that we've been engaged in a subterfuge here. For complex reasons of state which I don't feel at liberty to discuss at the moment"-that oughta to do it, he thought smugly-"the woman you know as 'Princess Ruth' is actually Berry Zilwicki. And the real Ruth Winton has been passing as Berry Zilwicki."

Everyone in the compartment was now ogling the two women. Most of them looked a bit cross-eyed.

So did Berry and Ruth, for that matter.

"Oh, yes, it's quite true." Du Havel chuckled as heartily as he could manage. "It's quite confusing, really. I find it almost impossible myself to keep them straight any longer."

Ruth-bless her heart!-chimed right in. "That's because Berry really makes a much more believable princess than I do. I don't have the temperament. Really, I don't. Not at all."

Kathryn was the first to speak. To Web's relief, her tone seemed more curious than anything else. It certainly wasn't hostile.

"Berry Zilwicki. I realize now that I hadn't given that much thought. You're Anton Zilwicki's daughter, correct? Not his natural daughter. That's 'Helen,' as I recall. But the girl he found in the Loop? The one who'd been surviving in the underground with her little brother?"

Berry nodded. She seemed a bit pale, but otherwise composed.

"A mutt from Terra's slums, in other words." Kathryn's smile was an odd thing. Wintry, it might have been called-except there was no coldness in it at all. "I rather like that, now that I think about it."

Juan grunted. "Yeah, me too. Besides, it doesn't matter. Whichever is which, these are the two young women who risked their lives to give us our freedom. You can't ask for more than that, not from mutt or princess or anyone in between."

He gave the packed compartment a gaze which was something of a challenge. But, clearly enough, not a challenge which anyone was inclined to take up.

"Good enough," he said. He brought his eyes back to Berry Zilwicki and studied her a moment. "Yeah. Anton Zilwicki's daughter-Catherine Montaigne's, too-and a mutt from the warrens. And, sure as hell, no slouch herself. Good enough."

Later that night, as they relaxed in the quarters of one of the former crew which had been given over to them, Berry expressed her relief to Ruth.

"That went better than I thought."

Ruth tried not to look smug. It was difficult. "Yup."

" 'Course, the real hell to pay is going to come when Daddy and your aunt find out what we've been up to."

Ruth didn't have any trouble not looking smug, now. None at all.

"We're dead," she moaned. "Dead."

"Don't be silly," Berry countered. "It's much worse than that. We'll both be confined to a cloister somewhere. You watch. Chateau d'If, I'm talking about."

"It's the modern universe!" Ruth tried to protest.

"Sure is," agreed Berry, gloomily. "Makes it even worse. Prolong will keep us alive for centuries. You watch. Chateau d'If, if we're lucky. Probably be something like Devil's Island. For centuries."