Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 08 - Under Twin Suns

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"I'LL BUY YOUR SHIP, CAPTAIN HELLFIRE," JANJA SAID ALMOST FORMALLY.

Now it was the turn of all three to stare at the diminutive girl-woman with the almost white hair

and impossibly steel-pale eyes; native of a pre-technological planet; former slave; formerly

Corundum's...companion, then Hellfire's; always her own. A woman of a mere twenty years who

hated the constant Fry setting of Hellfire's stopper and who kept hers on One because she did not

like killing, or even violence; who had killed again and again, in defense of self and in revenge.

Janja, once Janjaheriohir of pastoral, perhaps idyllic Aglaya.

Janjagiaya, pirate.

SPACEWAYS

#1 OF ALIEN BONDAGE

#2 CORUNDUM'S WOMAN

#3 ESCAPE FROM MACHO

#4 SATANA ENSLAVED

#5 MASTER OF MISFIT

#6 PURRFECT PLUNDER

#7 THE MANHUNTRESS

#8 UNDER TWIN SUNS

PLAYBOY

PAP€RBACKS

SPACEWAYS *8: UNDO! TWIN SUNS

recording means or otherwise without prior written permission of the publisher.

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada by PBJ Books, Inc., formerly PEI Books, Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 82-81997.

ISBN: 0-867-21204-7

First printing November 1982

Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.

-Great Britain's Reverend Dr. Dionysius Lardner, mid-XIX century

Space travel is utter bilge.

-Great Britain's Astronomer Royal Dr. Richard Woolley, 1956

A: All planets are not shown. B: Map is not to scale, because of the vast distances

between stars.

SCARLET HILLS

Alas, fair ones, my time has come. / must depart your lovely home- Seek the bounds of this galaxy To find what

lies beyond.

(chorus)

Scarlet hills and amber skies,

Gentlebeings with loving eyes;

All these I leave to search for a dream

That will cure the wand'rer in me.

You say it must be glamorous For those who travel out through space. You know not the dark, endless night Nor the

solitude we face.

(reprise chorus)

/ know not of my journey's end Nor the time nor toll it will have me spend. But / must see what I've never seen And

know what I've never known.

Scarlet hills and amber skies, Gentlebeings with loving eyes; All these I leave to search for a dream That will cure

the wand'rer in me.

-Ann Morris

"They were undoubtedly the weirdest bunch I ever seen come off a spacer, I swear."

"Tell me, Jahl. Go ahead, describe them, please. What did you see?"

"Uh, don't get me wrong, Inspector. They was all Galactics, I mean. Humans, I mean. Except the Jarp, of course. But

everybody accepts Jarps."

Stevedore Jahl waited, but the official across the table just kept staring with Those Eyes. Emotionless eyes.

Hooded, unreadable eyes like brown rocks, flat as a snake's eyes.

Inspector Snake-eyes, Jahl thought.

The recorder light was off. Jahl knew the little thing responded to a voice, starting instantly and shutting itself off

when the voice subsided. Jahl gave it another sidelong glance, and swallowed.

"Right," the stevedore said, and just had to watch the glo-red light on the inspector's recorder. It flashed hot red at

the single word, then went dull orange. It seemed to return Jahl's stare, waiting. Staring like a cat. Like the inspector, all

blank-eyed. It made Jahl nervous. Better to handle and load machines than have them give you blank looks and wait

for you to talk to them!

Jahl wanted to scratch, down in the coverall crotch, and refrained only with an effort of will. Holy cess! This was

the first time Jahleh Ord had ever face-to-faced with The Gray Organization! It made Jahl feel nervous as a hust in a

mosque.

Or as a stevedore on space station Soljer, having to talk to the superest of super-spooks: TGO.

"Right," Jahl said again. "First, the ship." The recorder's light went bip . . . blip, blip-bip.

"Would you stop looking at the light on my recorder and tell me your story, Stevedore First Ord? Try to relax!

You're getting out of work talking to me, but I didn't come here to settle down with you for life."

That didn't make Jahl relax, but it did promote a grin. "No. No, Inspector. Uh no uh the ship-" And there went Jahl's

eyes again, straying in the direction of that damned blinking machine.

The inspector heaved a sigh. "The thing just makes you uncomfortable, doesn't it. All right then, Jahl. I've got a

pretty good memory. We'll just dispense with it. There." An un-uniformed sleeve rustled as the TGO investigator shut

the recorder off completely, and even handed it to Jahl. "Here, you hold the flainin' thing. Let's just talk, Jahl."

"Oh, I, uh, I'm s-thanks, Inspector. I do feel better. That little light just . . . you sure it's all right not to record? You

won't get in trouble or anything, will yer?"

The smile was tiny. "I won't get in trouble, Jahl, and neither will you. Promise. Tell me about that spaceship."

Jahl heaved a deep sigh and was visibly more re-laxed. Good, the inspector thought. Everything Jahl said would be

recorded on the biochip contained in one of the decorative slubs of contrasting thread in this blouse, anyhow. The

circuits were unbelievably tiny, far tinier than the ones in any imaginable microproces-sor. And it was pure organic, a

little (! smaller than little!) cluster of synthetic molecules. 13

With TGO, the ends justified the means, whatever the end result was, and whatever the means

necessary to reach it. The crude blinker-recorder had been a deliber-ate trick. Far better to make a

nervous witness even more nervous, then relax the poor bug by heroically removing the apparent source of

the nervousness. And recording every word and sound anyhow.

"Well, Inspector," Jahl said, almost leaning back, face loose, "that ship wasn't much to look at. Not at all.

Not what you'd call a sleek spacer, yer know, or even a good-looking one. Not at all! A relic. A real

homely spaceship. An old ram-scoop, see, the kind of spacer they call the duck-billed plastipuss of the

spaceways. Been painted pretty recent, but that ship has took some hard knocks since then. Been bunged

up and neglected since then. I mean, a paint job of dull orange and pinkl What kind of colors is that for a

spacer, anyhow?"

The inspector had gone back to being Snake-eyes again. Might as well have been named Basilisk.

Proba-bly not, Jahl mused-but who knew what kind of names TGO people had? No one ever saw TGO

people. You just heard about TGO. The Gray Organization! Jahl didn't know anyone who'd ever seen one.

This one hadn't given a name, and a stevedore on space station Soljer wasn't about to ask!

That's the way this inspector looked and stared, though. Like that lizard on "Captain Starstrider," Jahl's

third-favorite non-interactive weekly holovision program. A basilisk, off some planet called Saiping. (But

the in-spector wasn't Saipese, either. Jahl had seen them. They were mostly sort of old-gold colored.)

Jahl cleared a dry throat, wishing for an everchil pak of pop.

"So the ship come in and was cleared. No sweat. I seen it on the scope. Onscreen. I was on break and

Farg let me up in the Security tower with him, so I could

watch people come off all those ships that've been just all over. That ship come in and was cleared, and berthed.

Grappled in. Airlocks linked and sealed and navel tun-nel opened, into the station."

The inspector nodded encouragingly. Unwise to let this brainless Joser relax too much. But try to rush someone like

Jahl Ord and blow a good interview. / hope it's going to be a good interview. I could be doing something more

interesting- like picking wax out of my ears.

"Then, here come the first person off that ship. I stared. I had to stare! I just kept on staring-my pop even went flat!

She was black, Inspector, that first person out of the navel tunnel off that ship. Blacker'n your hair or mine. I mean her

skin shined purple under the station's overheads, I swear!"

Jahl paused to shake a black-locked head in recollec-tion while the inspector made another encouraging nod.

"But then there was her hair. Yaller! I swear! I mean yellow! Yellow as a as I mean real bright yaller, Inspec-tor. On

top of that shiny purple-black skin! Like-I mean black, Inspector!"

Basilisk-eyes nodded solemnly. Showed all the emo-tion of a packing crate.

"She came out of that navel tunnel and sort of sidled to her 1-her right. My left. She was wearing a black vest, just a

vest, arms bare except for a flashy bracelet, and a bright red halter. Just a band across her, uh, around her breasts.

They weren't, uh, tiny either, if yer know what I mean. Then she had on a pair of bright yellow pants. Those

low-waisted ones called tummy-teasers, fit tighter'n skin. Tight to the knees I mean tight, and wide at the bottoms.

And she wore a stopper. Low, on her right thigh. Way she was letting her eyes wander around, she looked like she

knew how to use it. Uh-just my impression, you understand."

"You say her eyes were wandering around? On feet, or sort of slithering? Or on stalks?" 15

"Huh?"

The inspector sighed and shook that close-cropped head. "Never mind, Jahl. Sorry. She looked competent and her

gaze was shifting, conning the station. Looking for trouble. Watchful."

"That's what I said, right. Firm." Jahl nodded. Was there something wrong with saying that weird-looking woman's

eyes wandered? Hell, Farg's were popping out and wandering right between her legs, and he'd said so.

"Uh-since this is official, let's don't say she was looking for trouble. She was watching out for it, all right?" Jahl

waited for the inspector's nod, then: "Then came the next one. Another woman. Real short, this one, and real pale. I

mean pale. Her skin, her hair- almost white, I swear-even her eyes. Like water or something. Sort of blue gray."

"You saw the color of her eyes from the Security booth?"

"It's up so the Securityman on guard can see, Inspec-tor, and I've got good eyes, firm."

"Were her eyes wandering, Jahl?"

"You-are yer making fun of me, Inspector?"

"Sorry, Jahl. Of course not. And she also had large-ish legs with large muscular calves."

Jahl stared. "You already know?"

"No, no." The inspector actually smiled, and ges-tured. "First you described someone who is celldyed, because

people don't come that black, and not with yellow hair at all, and parents wouldn't do that to a child. So she's had a

chromatic cyto-engineering job. Secondly you described an unlikely combination even for a celldye subject, and so I

would suppose she was an Aglayan. Is."

"An Aglayan." Jahl looked as if a fly could have walked around on one eyeball without the stevedore's noticing.

So this was what made a TGO inspector-good listening and good guessing! "Pos, she had thickish legs for her size,

and big calves."

"An Aglayan," the inspector said nodding. "A non-tech planet, on the Protected list. The only pale race in the

galaxy-so far. And short, with good legs. Most of them are, uh, slaves."

"Oh. Oh-high-gravity planet, hmm? Anyhow she wore a stopper too. She had on a pair of black tights, boots, and a

tunic-white. A white tunic, pos. About the only color that wouldn't contrast with her skin! She come down the ramp

and sort of sidled to her left. Never glanced at the black one. Watched the station. They was each maybe three meters

from the mouth of the navel, on either side of it. Watching. Cool and flat-eyed. Just looking, keeping watch. With

stoppers on their hips. Or their thighs, rather."

The inspector knew that "navel" was space station slang for the access tunnels that extended from the station's

perimeter into the airlocks of the ships berthed outside. They were secured airtight and called umbili-cals. Stationers

turned that into "navel." Gods knew what turned "platypus" into "plastipuss." Just igno-rance, the inspector

assumed.

"Suspicious," the inspector said. "Wary characters. So you watched them."

"Shit, I was already-excuse me."

"I've heard that word." The smile was subdued, but encouraging.

"Uh, firm. I watched them. And here come the third weirdo. Now him I recognized!"

"A man this time! And someone you recognized on sight?"

"I mean I recognized what that shader was. Is. An Outie. From Outreach. They all dress wild, you know? Big

wide-brimmed hat. Bright yaller shirt, real blousy-sleeved. High-necked-a Saipese shirt. But he was an Outie. With a

big fancy flashy belt buckle and blue tights-I mean blue, royal blue-and yaller boots. And, uh, an air about him. Like

he owned the station. Cool, 17

very cool. I remember thinking how swell of him, Captain of that ugly old ship, to have two women as security guards!

Really unusual and good-shaped women, so he could just walk out that way. Like a real shah or a clan-chief."

"All right. That does sound like an Outreacher-and he is. His name is Trafalgar Cuw."

Jahl said, head cocked, "Falger Q?"

"Firm. Did he wear a stopper, too?"

"Pos!" Jahl nodded very positively. Jahl obviously had a fine mental picture of Trafalgar Cuw, who the inspector

knew very well was not the captain of that ship, or any other. "Tall man. Good build, rangy. Nice looking too, just . . .

uh, like an actor, yer know?"

"Theatrical. And garishly attired."

"Right. And wearing those wild clothes like I said, too. He walked straight ahead, toward Spoke H-the ship's

berthed in H-2-and then I couldn't see him."

"Out of your vision, you mean?"

"Right. Firm."

"Walked to the mouth of the spoke," the inspector said, leaning back, eyes shuttered, "and turned to face the ship.

Back against the wall-section beside the spoke-tunnel's mouth. Eyes on the mouth of the-I mean, gazing at the mouth

of the umbilical. Also ready, and covering. Very cautious people. Then what, Jahl?"

"Then here come the next one. The tall skinny woman. Hair like copper or prass. Eyes like rocks or pieces of

mahogny. Almost black. Thin, I mean, that one. Even her mouth. All angles, that woman. Pale purple tights on her legs,

making 'em look longer and thinner. Black boots and a black military-like tunic that just made her look thinner. But .

. . there was a look about her. Mean, I think. She looked like trouble, you know?"

"I do know, Jahl. A stopper, of course."

"Right. A stopper on her hip. The right hip-I spot-ted that because it looked so different from the others.

She checked her, uh, guards?-and looked back up the ramp toward the ship. Called out something, I think. And here

come the Jarp."

Jahl paused, got nothing from ole basilisk eyes, and went on. "A Jarp. Bright orange with hair like the red on a kid's

toy, big round eyes."

"I know what Jarp looks like, Jahl," the inspector said. The voice was pleasant but the lips were firm and the

eyes-unchanged.

"Sorry, Inspector. Jarps do look pretty much all just about alike, don't they."

"They say that about us Galactics, but go ahead."

"The Jarp was carrying the two satchels. Go-bags. They looked stuffed. It wore knee-boots, red, and red trunks,

and a white halter that looked just obscene. I mean, you know Inspector-Jarps. Bulges above and below."

"Two breasts," the inspector intoned in a bored voice, "and a penis. And a vagina, not to mention one each ovary

and testicle. Just so. A Jarp, from Jarpi. Cinnabar, a.k.a. 'Raunchy,' former slave of course, wanted for nothing except

being on that ship. Captain Hellfire's ship."

"The skinny one. That woman captains that ship!"

"You're a marvelously perceptive person, Jahl," the inspector said, in a voice dry as the Great Sekhari Desert. "Fifth

off the ship: a Jarp, carrying two go-bags. Stuffed. And ..."

"Heavy looking bags, from the way it carried 'em. It stood there while the skinny one-excuse me, the captain-went

to talk with the black one. Facing out and looking all around, both of 'em. Watching. Then the black one went back up

the ramp and into the ship. Onto the ship, I mean."

"It's a celldye job and she ordered it herself. She's a master ship handler named Quindaridi."

"Quinda-all right. Master ship handler, huh?" 19

"Believe it. Then wh-"

"Can't go by appearances, can yer!" Jahl shook a rakishly capped head. The cap was the same orangey-tan as the

stevedore's coverall. "I mean, you don't look like what I always thought a TGO inspector looked like, even."

"You probably don't look like a stevedore either, Jahl. But come on, you didn't even know TGO had inspectors, I'll

bet! Then what happened?"

The inspector checked a large, squared-off wristchron on a smallish wrist. It was a not-so-subtle reminder.

TransGalactic Order was big and busy. They'd been at this inquiry for twenty minutes and so far Jahleh Ord of planet

Jorinne had said precious little.

Only assaulted my ears and linguistic sensibilities, the inspector thought. This Joser has all the brain power and

education of a gravel road. All the imagina-tion of an undershirt.

Which of course made this Joser perfect for the job Jahl held. Cargo-handler on space station Soljer

syn-chronously orbiting planet Jorinne, which in turn or-bited stars Payne and Humason, or tried to orbit them.

The Jorinner-Joser-was good for this kind of in-terview, too. Just the facts. Facts and a few amusing opinions,

without speculations or embellishments. This exercise and the recording would be used in TGO's training, sure. An

inspector got a bonus for that.

This wasn't really difficult for the inspector, who was also a Joser-or had been born such. And who knew that all

men, women, persons, creatures, things were not born equal-and that even if they were, some over-came that debility.

Most don't. Good! Stevedores are necessary. Are we TGO inspectors?

"I seen-saw that Outie start toward the skinn-the captain, and it was right then that the two others come into my

view. Out of spoke-tunnel H, heading for their

ship in the berth next door, H-l. And then the SolSecs moved in, out of nowhere like, and them two put up a fight!"

"The two newcomers heading for Berth H-l, you mean."

"Firm!"

"By coincidence," the inspector said for the benefit of the busily recording biochip, "the ship berthed be-side the

notorious Satana of the infamous Captain Hellfire belonged to the minor smuggler Karmal Pak."

Jahl said, "Uh."

The inspector scratched one stiff-looking green-bloused sleeve. "By coincidence, Pak and his crewmember Whiel

came back from The Barber Shop, station Soljer's bar and lounge . . . just as Hellfire and company alighted from

Satana. Sometimes I think that if it were not for coincidence, Jahl, very little of import would ever take place!" The

inspector paused, making a mental note to substitute "and TGO" for "Jahl," later. Perfect train-ing tape! "So Pak and

Whiel were accosted by your station Soljer Security-SolSec-and reached for their weapons.

"And . . . now do think carefully, Jahl, and tell me what took place then, and I do mean just who did what."

The three Soljer Securers, one of each sex so far as Trafalgar Cuw could see, popped up in their spiffy green and

blacks as if by magic. The two they accosted hit the deck, drawing as they went down. Real pros at taking care of

themselves, Trafalgar Cuw thought, even while he was feeling relief. The SolSeccers weren't here for him and his

companions, several of whom were perfectly capable, both in mental set and expertise, of wiping out every SolSeccer

on Soljer!

They had come close on Mott-chindi's space station . . .

Meanwhile the two suspects squeezed their stopper 21

grips so fast that the leader of the security squad was still mouthing ritual detaining phrases when she was hit by a

Number Two stopper beam. That meant Dance, on Jorinne and most places; the dangerous knockout Two setting was

used on stoppers manufactured out in the galaxy's boonies.

(Weird that most of the galaxy had been settled from ships Out There, on the spiral arm where Urth/Homeworld and

Hawking were, so that the Galaxy Center area was called the Farther Reaches!)

One of the other SolSeccers was hit by the same beam, and he and his superior lurched into the weird, ugly little

shuffle-dance almost in unison.

The third member of the security squad used his stopper-set on One, policer regs-on Whiel.

Oh wonderful, Trafalgar Cuw thought. Messy. A and B put the Freeze-Dance on C & D, while E zaps B! You need

a program to know who's doing what to whom!

It could get a lot messier than that, he knew, with darling twitch-jerk Hellfire around. Only semi-competent as

captain and a certified psychotic, so far as T. Cuw of Outreach was concerned. If Hellfire had a philosophy, it had to

be When in doubt, shoot]

"Captain!" Trafalgar yelled. "please! Do nothing! Go your way! No Three-beams here, please! Please Captain-into

the spoke!" Then, "Janja, we don't dare ignore this, because here we are, and the bad guys are getting the better of

the good guys. Put a Two on the blue shirt, will you?" So we bad guys can help out the good guys ...

His bright yellow sleeve had rippled and rustled with his gestures; Janja's bright yellow-white hair bounced as she

dropped to one knee. Her stopper was coming out, and she held it before her in the professional's two-handed grip

she had learned from Quindy. She directed the almost invisible beam-One, not Two setting-on the man in the blue

shirt. Karmal Pak.

Trafalgar kept moving. He entered that frozen tableau whose members concentrated only on each other, and he

ended the impasse by giving Pak a yellow-booted kick in the right tricep.

Trafalgar never'drew his stopper. Karmal Pak dropped his, releasing the SolSec leader from the neural disrup-tion

beam. Without pause, Trafalgar squatted fluidly. He used two fingers, just here, poking Pak as if casually. The

smuggler sagged and flopped, unconscious.

That was easy. Karmal's sidekick was even easier. He gave up.

Janja bolstered her stopper and stood up, trying to look casual. These Josers weren't going to be quite sure what

had happened and maybe Satana's crew could just ease quietly out of this. The two satchels clutched by the

Jarp-Cinnabar-contained enough ex-otic jewelry to make them all rich. At least so they assumed, and the problem was

that they certainly had no bill of sale for any of it!

Discussing all those Knorese gauds with security or any other kind of policers wouldn't be all that much fun.

Especially since proof of ownership was impossi-ble without opening a large and squirmy can of worms. Knor was an

unknown planet. Unknown, at least, to anyone save the five people of Satana, and Knor's own tiny population of

diminutive slavemasters.

Besides, onboard Satana. were two weird, non-sentient entities that were unknown, uncleared, and doubtless both

valuable and confiscable for "research and study." Finally there were the Knorese. Two extremely unusu-al,

presumably undisguisable and extremely non-Galactic aliens never before seen by anyone in the galaxy.

All in all, this was a profoundly rotten time to get involved with station security!

Yet Trafalgar had been right. They'd had to do some-thing. Otherwise they'd be worse than suspect for not having

helped out the law-and every one of them 23

armed. Janja wondered idly: maybe if she tried faking a heart attack or going into labor or something they could all

hustle along to Medical and leave security to do its job here, without questions that might prove embarrassing!

Meanwhile Trafalgar stood tall, empty hands uplifted, flamboyantly full sleeves blousing downward. His large-eyed

gaze was directed at the security squad's leader. She was blinking, obviously unsteady. Getting herself together after

having been made to imitate Sainvytus, whoever that ancient dancer had been.

Trafalgar Cuw was a man who saw women as women, rather than as co-representatives of that demeaningly

desexing term, persons. This one looked pretty damned female, he thought, even in her emerald green uniform- with

lamentably baggy pants blousing over black boots- complete with black belt and shoulder-boards. And the black

beret perched not quite jauntily atop her glossy dark brown curls.

"Glad to be of service," he said, turning a sweet and ingenuous smile on her and her companions.

He was very good at that. Immediately the trio of emerald-and-blacks doubted their own comprehension, even

memory of what had just taken place. This boyish, theatrically gesturing fellow with the open, disarming smile-a hero?

No, no! He couldn't have accomplished what all three of them had botched. (Could he? No, no of course not!)

"What'd these dogs do?" he asked, in the same wide-open way. Still smiling, still wearing that wide-open face. No,

of course this fellow couldn't be compe-tent at instantaneous decisons, action, and violence.

"You don't need to know," one of the SolSeccers said.

"Don't be such a prick, Sarp," his superior told him, and Trafalgar blinked, then shot Sarp a swift odd look. Sarp

didn't look offended or resentful; he looked shamed and hang-doggy.

Aha, Trafalgar Cuw thought, ole Sarp likes more than just the looks of his superior! Well nyah nyah to you . . .

prick.

"These are notorious smugglers," the squad's leader said to the man from Outreach. "And I think we owe yer some

thanks, spacefarer."

"Name's Trafalgar," he said, sweeping off his eleven-gallon hat and executing a bow, hat sweeping across before

him as if he had stepped out of the ranks of the King's Musketeers of a distant era on a distant planet. Or out of the

movie version of Dumas's version of those mousquetiers, anyhow. "And I hardly did any-thing-your man Sarp there

had one of 'em in a Freeze beam as fast as they put the Dancer on you and-him."

This tune Trafalgar's gesture was hardly so sweep-ing; that SolSeccer looked even hang-doggier than Sarp.

(Sarp was blinking, looking both surprised and pleased at this odd rainbow-clad man's nice words about him.)

"We just arrived. Just happened to be coming out of our ship, you see," Trafalgar said, gesturing back at the H-2

umbilical without looking at it. "Didn't know our lives were going to be endangered the instant we set foot on Soljer!"

A tiny bit of intimidation never hurts, he thought, continuing to look just oh-so pleasant.

"Our thanks anyway, sir. I'm Cosi, Sergeant: Station Soljer Security."

"My pleasure, Sergeant Cozy."

Wearing a quite pleasant face because it was hard not to, in the teeth of his nice-guy look, she glanced around.

Trafalgar didn't. He was afraid to look to see whether Hellfire had made herself scarce as he had urged.

He hoped that she was surreptitiously watching from within the long tunnel that was Spoke H of the docking

station's twenty in-use spokes. They all fed out here to the torus's perimeter from the hub of the big wheel in space,

where the shuttleport would be located. Along with Sergeant Cosi's CP, the offices or booths of vari- 25

ous offplanet factors-and some onplanet ones as well, with some advertisers-exhorters and probably a

procurer or three, too. Also Customs, Medical, Decontam, and surely a lounge as well as a restaurant of

some sort. There would also be a room of electronic involvement-games, Trafalgar assumed.

His mental state would be greatly enhanced, as a matter of fact, if he could only know that Hellfire was

in there pitting herself against a dragon or Saberserkers or something. Unfortunately he was quite certain

that she was not.

"Your ship's just in, then," the sergeant said, look-ing past him curiously at the shortish woman with the

almost white hair.

"Firm," Trafalgar told her. "That's Janja. Spacefarer First, and Compatrician Second," he said, promoting

Janja. "Our First Mate is still on the ship. The Jarp is Spacefarer Second Cinnabar."

"Umm."

She remembered then to direct Sarp and the other SolSeccer to put detaining cuffs on the two

smugglers. She bade Sarp remain here: "We'll have to go in and check the ship again, and put a seal on its

lock."

Sarp nodded and she spoke to her wristchron, which was either a recorder or a commlink, presumably to

her command post. Trafalgar watched-and Listened- attentively.

"Situation in hand. Suspects resisted and are detained. One subdued, one surrendered. Securer Khiade is

bring-ing them along."

She looked at Trafalgar across her wrist, which she lowered slowly before speaking again: "The Jarp is a

member of your crew, then?"

"Pos, Sergeant. Its name is Cinnabar. Sin-uh-bar," he repeated, when Cosi frowned a little. "But it's not

my crew. I'm not captain. She's already gone along on her business." His accompanying gesture was not at

all flamboyant and was as a matter of fact rather vague.

Peeping out at them from the tunnel inside the spoke twenty or so meters away, Hellfire smiled. She eased her hand

away from her bolstered stopper. Some kind of fellow, this Trafalgar Cuw! (She glanced back, saw no one else in the

spoke, and eased her stopper's setting down to One.)

She certainly hadn't started out liking the Outie-a man who practically forced himself on her and onto her ship.

Never mind that he had saved her beans and her life at the same time; she had saved his life too.

She had learned to like him. She had to like him. The man was competent and charming, and there was no way

around it: he had saved her ship and thus all of them, several times. On Copperdock, Mott-chindi's space station, and

on Knor, which should be named Zamharir: Cold Hell. He had pretty much taken charge back on Knor, during their

escape from Survival while she was . . . debilitated. The charming rainbow of a man was as competent as he was

mysterious, and attractive.

Not that attractive men were of any interest to Cap-tain Hellfire of Satana.

This time she was doing her best to be cool, taking advice for once, now that she was (almost) sure that she was

going to be rich. And he and Janja had everything in hand. Why, these station spooks actually owe us one! She was

glad she hadn't got involved. No doubt SolSec and planet Jorinne's authorities preferred the two smug-glers as

captives, to the random molecules Hellfire's stopper would have made of them!

She was a bit subdued these days, too, after her enslavement and sexual use by the stern masters of Knor.

The Knormen's drug had kept her quiescent, cowed, even a willing participant. In restrospect, the knowledge of

what they had done to her was doubly worse for Hellfire than for Janja and Quindy, because Hellfire 27

was a lesbian. She owed Janja, who had slain Hellfire's Knorese "master."

And I owe Trafalgar and Quindy a punch in the crotch for not getting the coordinates of that piggish slaving

planet when we redshifted it! Oh if only I hadn't been . . . debilitated. I'd go back and blow up the whole

damned furbaggin's sisterslicin' place!

Now she glanced again at Cinnabar, who had the satchels full of magnificently-wrought, gemstone-rich jewelry

they had "liberated" from those swinish slav-ing Knormen.

Come on, Cinnabar! Get away from there!

Hellfire backed a couple of paces and decided to start ambling on along the spoke toward the station's center, the

hub. She could have the shuttle schedule checked out and down-transport arranged before the others got here.

Booda's bones, do we ever have a lot to do, on Jorinne!

In the airlock of Karmal Pak's ship, Sergeant Cosi put out a restraining hand. "Just a minute, Sarp." She lifted her

wrist and spoke.

"Cosi here, onboard Pak's ship. What's the name of the ship that just berthed next to it?-in H-2?"

Trouble, Cozy?" her wristchron asked. "Or just suspicious?"

"Uh-huh. Give me the name of the ship, Trigger."

She waited, worrying her lower lip with the edge of her overbite, staring at nothing, thinking. Then:

"Just berthed. Spacer Satana. Captain Naysan commanding."

"Uh-huh. Captain 'April,' hmm? I thought I recog-nized this group of strangles! The captain's name isn't Naysan,

Trigger. It's Hellfire. Tall very thin woman with hair the color of prass and the disposition of a grunjok. Sound

familiar?"

"Uh-"

Cosi smiled. Of course not. The dispatcher just had a job. Cosi was a serious policer. She was career-minded and

she did her homework. She'd make prefect or take it to court for a competency test! Chances were that not even Prefect

Havern knew about these people. He didn't study the incoming reports and warnings the way Cosi did. The grunje just

studied the sergeant he called "dec-orative" and "my Cosi."

"Hellfire of Satana," she said, rolling her eyes in Sarp's direction, "wanted in connection with the Delventine raid

months back, and a few charges on Mott-chindi-good old planet Macho. She's very, very dangerous, Trigger. And

right now she's either right around you someplace there in the hub, or on her way down to see what kind of hell she

can raise on Jorinne! Or ... still in Spoke H on her way to ... get the prefect on!"

"Not here, Cosi. On break. Not here at all, I mean."

While he has three of us on a detain-and-seal? Cobs, what a fart he is-and after the super-competent rascal I just

met, too! Sergeant Cosi's eyes narrowed and she edged her teeth along her lower lip while she pondered, and tried to

plan.

"All right. Listen, Trigger. She's quick to draw and quick to fire and word is she seldom takes her stopper down off

Three. Brags about it. Extreme caution with her, understand."

"Understood. Are yer sure-"

"Of course I'm not sure! I've just seen three people that left Macho onboard Satana with Captain Hellfire, pirate,

though. And it's a lot of coincidence to put three of the same description on another ship with the same name."

"Umm. Damn. Still fifteen minutes till I go on break."

Cosi rolled her eyes. "Won't work. We can't wait. Listen, I've got an idea. Try this, Trigger, and maybe we can catch

ourselves a real galaxy-wide outlaw, a killer 'stead of a nitty li'l pair of snot smugglers." 29

"I'm recording, Cosi."

Cos! nodded. Oh, sure he was. If I'm wrong, the tape will pin it all right on me and blow me out of here. I'll be

back onplanet and lucky to get a job as someone's nightwatch!

She sighed. All right then. She had to take the chance. She started outlining her plan, as hastily as she

had contrived it. Then the sergeant told the dispatcher to move.

It seemed a bit odd and maybe even untoward, but Hellfire really couldn't take offense. And for once she was only

mildly suspicious. Medcheck was medcheck; scanners were scanners, and this round-faced little fel-low in the pale

green med-service smock was after all little more than a clerk, doing his job.

"Detectors just flicker a bit, to be honest, Captain," the medical scanner-tech said with notable politeness. "That's

all. But we'd really appreciate it if you'd in-dulge us, Captain."

She sighed at the imposition, and yet she almost smiled. Such a nice, almost apologetic fellow! "Think I may be

harboring a bug or two, hmm? Well, I'd hate to take it down onto Jorinne with me. Starting epidemics really isn't my

mission in life."

He made an embarrassed little gesture. "Ah, it's probably nothing, Captain. We keep the scanners pretty sensitive,

and sometimes I think they may be set too high. But . . . well, I hope you don't mind the inconvenience."

Nice of him, considering that there really wasn't any choice and both of them knew it. That was a part of why he

impressed her so. He didn't have to be so polite. His authority came from the Medical Director

30 31

and penultimately the Station Supervisor-and ultimately the government down onplanet. He could have given her a

crisp "Go Strip and put in your two minutes in Decontam, Cap'm; looks like you're carrying a mi-crobe and all it

might do is wipe out Jorinne's entire population."

And she'd have to go through Decontam, or back to Satana and the hell away from Soljer, Jorinne, and this system.

Which was exactly the choice open to her now.

She felt good. All those Knorese gems so intricately set in gold and silver made her feel good. Not because she was

particularly fond of decorating herself with such gauds, but because of the wealth they promised.

Maybe it was worth all the hell on Cold Hell, since it would make her wealthy and thus truly independent. She was

crowding thirty now, and aware of it. Certainly six years of piracy had not made her anything approach-ing rich. Those

years had, on the other hand, kept her tense, lean unto skinniness; and kept threatening to prevent her from reaching

age thirty. And she hated tension, and decisions.

Therefore she smiled and nodded. Maybe all clerks weren't rude dummies, after all! Maybe.

"Right. No peekin', now!"

He seemed to take that seriously, with embarrass-ment. "Oh, no, Captain-"

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