About 10 cms by 20 by 20, with a slightly concave top. It was packed solidly among other containers of myriad shapes, sizes, and colors. He vaguely remembered the crate as being full of class-C luxury goods.

A diverse collection.

The small case was half out of its assigned spot, indicating that the would-be thieves had discovered it just as he'd arrived. He entertained brief thoughts of leaving it untouched. Mal had had occasional dealings with Rose in the past. The old man had accrued a certain amount of power. Although on a major planet he would have to strive to be noticed, on Repler he could wield a definite amount of heft. He stayed just the right side of legal, meaning he paid taxes.

Mal was a little surprised when the small box opened with the merest touch of the laser. It might be a trick. One device many people used to protect valuables was not to protect them at all but to give the impression of their not being valuable. Once the initial cut was made, the plastic rolled back easily enough. A sturdy case of some silvery metal was revealed beneath. He lifted it out of its plastic casing and held it up to the dim warehouse lighting. It was attractively engraved, although clearly machine-cut.

The decorative etchings cut into the metal were recognizably Largessian. A modest thing, certainly.

Hardly worth the expensive and highly illegal efforts of two men to recover secretly.

There was a simple combination lock and snaplatch on the box. He could have used the laser, but if it proved necessary to repair the box a simple break would be easier to explain than a weltcm. The latch snapped on the third tug, just as he was beginning to fear that it was stronger than it looked and that he might have to use the pistol after all. The cover sprang back to reveal ten bottles of a slightly greenish cast. Each bottle of cut crystal was filled with a different colored powder. On the inside of the box cover was a printed key, It located the bottles below and gave their contents in thranx, terranglo, symbospeech, and formal largo:

These special spices have been carefully selected by the professional staff of Sirial Foods, Inc., Lo add exotic and tasteful seasoning to any organic vegetable dish with o cellulose content al at least 90%.

Exceptions and/or maximum recommended servings for .. .

There followed a comprehensive list of races and species, with specialized information for each spice printed inside a small booklet resting on top of the bottles. This went into detail on which being could consume what spice and in what quantity, with effects varying from unappetizing and mildly corrosive at worst to aphrodisiacal at best. The mufti-lingual instructions indicated that the contents were marketed over a wide section of the Commonwealth and perhaps even outside it. If the machined box was any indication, the spices were a high volume item. But that didn't jibe with its being shipped as a luxury good.

Still, maybe the old man was primates fat Largessian spices and wanted to insure their arrival.

He tasted the contents of the fist jar, after first consulting the book to make sure it conceited nothing likely to take his feet off. The dark-maroon granules had a sweet-sharp tang, an intriguing cross between ground black pepper and white mint.

Mat considered what to do. Obviously be could sit and taste spice all night. That led nowhere. One fling he was still curtain of: Neither of the two men he'd surprised was a mad gourmet chef out for condiments, which would be the case of the green bottles contained nothing but apices. While attractive, the metal case was clearly in no way valuable-although alloys could be deceiving. Still, it was likely that whatever Rose was so desperately concerned with was tied in with those spices. If there were drugs present, he'd do well to atop tasting.

There was another possibility. The "key" might contain some sort of coded message. Well, Rose could cry for that. Mat tucked the box under his arm. He'd give the stuff to Japurovac and see what she could come up with.

He took a step to his left and several square meters of floor nearby exploded in haze and superheated dust. He dove behind the nearest stack of containers, rolled, and came up running. He dodged down canyons of mining machinery, around monoliths of fresh fruit ziggurats of preserved fish. He knew what had happened. Clearly, the two thieves hadn't been alone. The sore-armed escapee had returned with friends. No wonder he'd been willing to talk! Now he was out to see that his garrulity was rectified. Mal didn't think he'd find the little man especially forgiving.

Pity you're such a peaceable chap, old man, or you'd be carrying a decent gun of your own. Still, the laser he'd borrowed was nasty enough at close range. He paused abruptly behind a far corner and waited. A dim figure came tearing blindly around the bulky equipment, gun at the ready. Mal hastily remembered to readjust the pistol for a killing beam, took careful aim, and fired. The red light cut through the man at waist level as though he was a cartoon drawing and continued past to sear a black spot on the plastic cases behind him. The figure looked down at itself for several seconds, dumbfounded, and pitched forward onto the ferroconcrete floor. Mal looked at the tool in his hand with more respect. It was a good deal more powerful than its size hinted at.

Two more figures poured around the corner. They spotted the body and reversed their direction with admirable rapidity. They would move after him much more cautiously now.

He ran again. Another pile of crates went up in crackling smoke far to his left. He had them shooting at shadows now. Sooner or later, however, someone would slip behind turn and fire at a shadow that wouldn't be so insubstantial It was up to him to put that meeting off permanently, if possible.

His knowledge of the floor plan of the great building was superficial at best. Ship-masters didn't stoop to supervising storing procedure first hand He knew that there should be several small personnel entrances spotted around the enormous expanse of metal and plastic, however. Warehousing permitted little flexibility in construction; they rarely varied except in size from port to port. The same lack of variance also told him that none of the personnel entrances would be left unlocked at night unless operations were proceeding. It happened that tonight the nearest new cargo was light-minutes off. He doubted that his pursuers would be so stupid as to permit him to slip unnoticed out the main entrance.

Zig-zagging constantly, laser at the ready, he made his way unevenly to the closest section of walk There was a door there, ell right. It was locked, all tight.

He turned the laser to pencil thinness and began cutting around the circular automatic lock. If nothing else, that ought to alert the port police to the presence of intruders. Obviously the watchman had been taken cafe of. There was the chance that this alarm was tied in to the one at the main entrance, in which case it would have been rendered useless when the thieves cut the main one. Not that the police would arrive in time to save his own skin, whatever the sass.

It was slow work, damnably slow! The high-intensity pistol was built to cut packing plastic and maybe people, both of which wets considerably softer than bomb-proof plating. The metal glowed, began to drip lazily down the side of the door. Much too slow. Tridee skate smashed in such doors with the same ease that they dispatched assassins via clever verbiage. Hammurabi was considerably stronger than any tridee star and valued the bones in his shoulder. Doors were usually as unyielding as curtain women.

He wasn't going to cut through in time.

As a last resort, he would put the Pistol to the open case and threaten to melt its inexplicably valuable contents to an aromatic puddle.

They continued to fire wildly and often, behind him. Maybe he'd gotten them so confused that they thought he'd slipped behind them and had started shooting at each other. That thought gave him enough respite to relax slightly.

Three men appeared in the shadow of a towering processing tank, newly arrived from Wolophon III.

The lock was barely a quarter brunt through. He pressed his back to the door and shoved the muzzle of the warm pistol into the case, thumbing the beam to wide fan. The gun was hot from continuous use.

The men came closer, stopped. One detached himself from the group and walked up to Hammurabi.

"The locals won't like it if you go around burning holes in their government-issue buildings, Cap'n, you shouldn't mind my saying so."

Hammurabi flicked the pistol to Safety, stuck it in his pants pocket.

"You're a fine First Mate, Maijib Takaharu, but how tire Devil did you happen to come looking for me?"

Takaharu made a gesture to his two companions. They moved off silently among tire stacked crates, presumably to insure that if any of the intruders remained, they would not be in shape to offer argument.

The First Mate looked up from his full meter and No thirds. He carried a slim Hornet-VI needle thrower.

"Why, don't you remember, Cap'n? Since that night four months ago on Form III, when you put six of the local finest into the native version of a hospital with assorted contusions, broken limbs and other souvenirs, defamed the statue of a local hero, and otherwise did not endear yourself to the local populace, you gave me a standard order to follow. The local magistrate fined you-

"Don't remind me." Hammurabi winced. His rare drunks were difficult times for him. He couldn't understand why the crew persisted in bragging about them at every planetfall. It was getting so he couldn't walk into a bar before the owner or tender called frantically for the cops. Doc Japurovac, with fine insect logic (also, she was a little romantic), labeled them heroic. Mal thought they were merely embarrassing.

"You told me that if you didn't check in with Ben or myself by midnight local time, I was to grab a few of the boys and come hunting for you. Knowing your habits, it wasn't hard to trace you, sir. Also, strangers find you easy to remember. A number of them recalled seeing you enter the port grounds."

"I think I'd have preferred to have gone bar-hopping, this time. One more question, First."

"Sir?"

Hammurabi rubbed the side of his jaw where a flying splinter of molten plastic had struck him. He held out the open spice case.

"What do you know about cooking, Maijib?"

Circuits were enclosed in metal which was embedded in ceramic which was enclosed by the metal-that-was-not-cold which floated near something at the edge of emptiness.

The Machine was old, but purpose was retained. For the first time in cons it had cause to shift electrons with reason. The computer, which was so fat in advance of what then were called computers that it deserved another name (but we will call it computer), began making decisions as though today were yesterday's yesterday. It was designed and equipped to handle only one Problem. To that end it was capable of making several billions of individual decisions in order to arrive at one solution.

None of them covered the present difficulties.

The Machine finally was able to revolve the multitude into Two Actions. First, it began to follow the Problem, which was moving away, and it began to search out a way to awaken the Guardian,

It was all a question of stimuli.

"Well, little Japurovac, what do you find?" Hammurabi asked the ship's Pram; physician.

The diminutive female incectoid looked up at the Captain, her usually pretty face a red moon nightmare.

The ferocious aspect was caused by the special goggles she wore. They included built-in analytical equipment and sensors, not to mention special magnifying lenses for compound eyes. Japur cocked her head to one side, curious.

"Tell me, dear Captain. If you are so keen to have these substances analyzed, why do you not convey their to the customs offices in Rapier City? The facilities there me far in advance of what I have to work with here."

"I hope the answers you give rue show more insight than that question, Doctor. You're too shrewd a got to miss something so obvious."

"I did talk to Takaharu, in fact, but I wanted some confirmation from you. Keep your carapace on! I've done what you requested. Not at all surprised someone tried to kill you for these bottles."

"Several someones. At least one man has died because of them already. Have you really turned something up? Or are you just putting me off because you couldn't find anything?"

Japurovac drew herself up to her full meter and a third, truhands and hand-feet assuming a posture of mild outrage. Whether insult or flattery, Japan was more susceptible than most to either.

"I shall choose to ignore that. Of course, if you don't wish the efforts of my poor labor..."