Fingers moved, keyed, moved, depressed another key or set of keys. Firedancer strove to obey. To dodge leftward, then to hurtle straight ahead along 130.

Dot's shallow curve toward the indigo horizon that loomed so close. Corundum's fingers spidered and he muttered to his Jinni and Flredancer did her best to edge rightward, to hurtle upward. And all the while Janja only breathed, working at it, and thought how incredibly strong this man was. The strength of the spirit and the calves that held him erect while all this weight tried to press him flat!

And all the while that strange crisp voice threatened, bade, cited authority and regulations and "guidelines," ordered the straining ship to cease striving and freeze. The comm-signal ovals were a pair of constantly flashing beacons, their rosy light as warm as the words were cold.

"Brace," Corundum snarled, and let himself collapse into the chair behind it. He had only to unlock his knees. The crushing hand of inertia supplied the motion.

He slammed into the chair-as Firedancer slammed down onto Dot. He had left off striving and allowed his ship to be slammed down onto the satellite's surface by the policers' paired pinner beams. Pins, that now immobilized the insect. Or the arachnid, Janja thought, considering the way Corundum's fingers had looked on the keys.

Hing got himself to a position approaching safety. Janja felt her abdomen and chest pressing against her seatbelt. Corundum was examining a ca.s.sette, nodding, preparing to inslot it.

"Get flat, Hing," he said, in a small voice. He in-slotted the guidance ca.s.sette.

Janja did not know which it was, what it instructed the ship to do. She learned only later. She heard the noises and felt the violent lurches, the return of ma.s.sive weight. Corundum had made the next-to-last-ditch effort, the very last ditch being Forty Percent City.

The ca.s.sette he inslotted commanded SIPAc.u.m and Firedancer to actuate every outwardly aimed weapon in a mad blaze of firepower; to lift off at the very limit of human ability to bear the acceleration-and at the 131.

same time to channel power into a traction field at the nearest s.p.a.ceborne object.

That happened to be the MDE ship.

Convinced that she was dying as surely as if she lay beneath a herd of rampaging elephants, Janja heard yelling voices and knew none emanated from Firedancer. The attackers were thrown into confusion. At this moment only Corundum was sure of specific purpose.

His voice seemed a dying engine full of gravel, and it seemed to take a great part of infinity to form its command to Jinni.

"Cu-utt . . . trrra-a-acct-chun fff-fieeeelll . . ."

A moment later Firedancer continued to rush torna-dically at the Murphs.p.a.ce policer ship, now pushed by acceleration but not pulled by its tractor field. Stars were points of light and more; the MDE ship was beginning to resemble a wall in s.p.a.ce.

"Elu-u-ud-de . . . o-ob . . . jec . . . t-t . . ."

That was less easily accomplished, so close was the racing Firedancer to the other craft. Yet the command was carried out. In that violent, tight swerve away from fiery catastrophe. Janja blanked out, with an ugly sound hi her ears. It was the sound of Ring's head striking something-whatever he had been hurled against.

Blasting weaponry had disrupted the policecrafts' fields while ma.s.sive thrust had slammed Firedancer into s.p.a.ce from a little satellite that had no gravitational pull to fight, and Corundum's tractor had made sure that his ship raced at the MDE s.p.a.cer. A desperate burst from the TGW ship missed astern. It plowed into Dot's surface to mildly spectacular effect. At that, someone was mighty wide awake on the RT-Quad Janissary. Awake, and thinking rationally, and acting on it.

The Janissary began swinging, rapidly, as Firedancer rushed at the MDE craft. Onboard, the Murph crew must have been close to panic and frozen by it or nearly. They had also had a tractor beam on them while a madman raced toward them. They neither eluded nor activated defense systemry.

132.

The TGW ship did ...

And Firedancer obeyed Corundum's painfully rasped command to avoid crashing into the Murphs.p.a.ce craft. Firedancer made that violent, just-short-of-impossible swerve just as the TGW Janissary's weapons sent searing energy at her, unstoppable energy . . .

And the TGW ship destroyed the MDE one.

No one heard that destruction. No one heard anything other than oncomm yells, and a single scream. The flash of light was very bright. Stars seemed to dim as the Murphs.p.a.ce Defense & Enforcement s.p.a.cer emulated a nova.

Then the yells ceased. The MDE s.p.a.cer and her crew did not exist.

"Re-du-u-ussse p-ow . . . errr . . . two-oo z-zeer-r o-o-oh perr . . . cennnt . . ."

s.p.a.ceship Firedancer shuddered. King bounced off something else without a moan. Janja, almost conscious, felt an upward lurch and gasped a breath, for that had become - possible again. Corundum's hands stretched forth again. He depressed, again, the keys that gave him control of the ship. On the console, the hot scarlet lights faded to orange and began winking out. Not all of them.

"Janja! Get that ca.s.sette out. Crew: Report!"

Bearcat's reply came weakly.

"Control of DS to you," Corundum told him, glancing at Janja, who wallowed loosely hi her chair. "Stand by to fire. Janja!"

"Fi-Captain . . . yes, Captain." Bearcat; reluctant but efficient.

Corundum's hand swept out to hit a vertical rectangular key. The slot popped open and out came the course guidance ca.s.sette like a rude tongue. It had done its work. Janja stirred.

"Janja! Janja!"

"Captain?" Bearcat, wondering about Janja.

"Stand by DS! Stand by to fire!"

133.

Janja heard. She snapped back fast and clawed herself into an erect sitting position. Mind and body melded, functioned. She was an ent.i.ty, that fast.

"Janja! Janja! Inslot seven-zero. Inslot ca.s.sette seventy."

"Right, Captain."

At her voice and movements to obey, Corundum sighed audibly. Other matters wanted his attention; demanded his attention. The TGW ship was still there. He gave his attention to Jinni, to Firedancer, to TGW.

Janja found the proper course guidance ca.s.sette. She checked it to make sure-reddish waves were coming and going inside her head-and thrust it into its slot. Lights flashed. SIPAc.u.mIJinni was instructed to enter subs.p.a.ce at the first possible instant, with warning if possible. It was possible; this was one of those tunes when within seconds a bell dinged.

"Now, you rotten b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," Corundum muttered. He completed his ship's arc, aimed it at the TGW craft, and braced. "Fire fire fire!" His voice was a shout.

Janja blinked. The TGW was onscreen-on several screens. It was not firing. It was not trying to give chase. It was as if everyone onboard was frozen in horror, the horror of having accidentally destroyed the other policercraft. Or perhaps someone was being relieved of command, or a suspected computer was being pulled. Whatever the case, Firedancer was seconds away from whipping them all along the Tachyon Trail and the enemy was not making anything like a hostile move, and Corundum had just ordered- Bearcat fired and fired and fired and suddenly the TransGalactic Watch s.p.a.cer was a sheet of yellow and then a ball of cornea-searing white and then it was no longer there, for almost at the instant of the Janissary's destruction Firedancer and everything onboard was converted to tachyons and was safe, "in subs.p.a.ce."

Just as safely as it would have been had Corundum not vindictively ordered the deaths of those crew-members on the TGW s.p.a.cer.

9.

Nosce te ipsum: "In order to know yourself, it is necessary to have gone through frequent alternations of happiness and un-happiness, and that's something you cannot give yourself."

Stendhal Just before its death off the satellite called Dot in System Aristarkos, TransGalactic Watch s.p.a.cer # 809-QJ, got off a message via coherent light-beam. An a.s.sortment of relay stations batted it on, zig-ging and zagging around the geothermal noise of the many, many enormous generators at galaxy center; those generators were called suns. The message fled along energy beams to headquarters: TransGalactic Order.

She was pretty, and pretty short, and her hair was a shocking shade of pale. It was pretty short, too. Her eyes were unbelievable. No one had eyes the color of twelve centimeters of water in a pan whose bottom was pale blue. No one caused children's eyes to be changed 134.

135.

to such a hue and no one chose to be cell-dyed to that color. Hers had to be celldye, nevertheless. It was weird-and striking.

She wore black. The knitted shirt fitted snugly, with a stiffened stand-up collar once called mandarin. The ring-pull zipper was flashy, of silveron, and really worked. Its sem-wide silveron track ran most interestingly from collar to ... a matter for conjecture. It flowed right down into the tight black stretch pants. Their belt was linked by a round silver buckle big as a Jarp's eye. Another ring-pull zipper ran down the front of each pant leg until it vanished into snug black front-zip boots. Platform soles and heels were of quiet-soft rubbron.

Pants and boots appeared to be of refulgent leather and were more likely of its manufactured look-alike, equhyde.

She could not be called white; no one could. She was, however, lighter of skin than anyone else in the lounge called the Loophole. A stopper was bolstered on her right hip, lowish. It was slung there by means of an attention-demanding semicircle of silvery links. The silver flashed; the black leather or equhyde gleamed as ever such stuff did.

Her nails were unpainted. She wore no jewelry or makeup except around the eyes and to strengthen pale brows. She'd have been striking even if she were not in company with the tall lean man who also wore fitted black, and a crimson sash and a stopper.

His jumpsuit of stretch velvet was pocketed, as her clothing was not. (She wore a chocolate-colored pouch on her left hip.) In contrast with hers, his eyes were black as a pirate's reputation. A pair of hard, glittering onyxes set in his good-looking head.

He saw people he knew, in the sprawling bar called the Loophole, and he introduced her to them, Janja, he called her. They called him Captain, or Corundum, or both. More than one of the others also bore the t.i.tle "captain."

136.

The Loophole was a fascinating place. The walls were set with chunks of the planet's ancient scoria. They were the remains of dead volcanoes that were now stupendous slag piles. Once they had ruled Thebanis; now they reared in conical death to brood sullenly over past glory. Each piece of scoria was stucco-rough with a thousand thousand facets, and the ashy slag of them was jet- and green-tinged here and there with an impossible electric blue and dots of angry scarlet. A halo of ever-moving lights hi the ceiling turned each ragged, pocked piece of slag into an individual light show, all atwinkle as if alive with multicolored iridescence.

At the long room's far end, two steps led up to another level. A fenced alcove. The porch-like area housed two big tables and a small one. Booths and couch and chairs surrounded them. More chairs were drawn up, with attendant noise.

The quite young couple at the smaller table soon decided to depart and find a place on the lower level. Corundum bought, for his friends. Drinks were extruded from the panel in the wall beside the table. On the couch beside Corundum, Janja tried to remember eight new names.

They talked and laughed and drank, telling stories and sharing reminiscences. The Loophole's spectrum of winking, living light turned the eye of each into a reflection of the stars, and flashed weirdly from the optics of Captain Corundum.

A number of other patrons in the Loophole bar in Raunch of planet Thebanis did little but listen while trying to appear not to be listening. Some of those people in the rear alcove were famous, or infamous. Listeners heard s.n.a.t.c.hes of good stories and some ridiculous or plain dumb ones. They heard the names of faraway places and a dozen or more planets. They heard of the personally beheld light of stars they had never heard of. They heard allusions and shocking almost-statements about lawlessness and violence, but 137.

little of real substance. Nothing indicting. Even the proudest of law-flouters practiced some discretion.

"Aglay-ya, you said? Did you say Aglaya, Zhanzha?"

"I did. Can't you say 'Janja,' Dignis? Why do so many people have so much trouble p.r.o.nouncing my name?"

"Must be because none of us ever went to Aglaya," fat Shieda said, and the others laughed as at a brilliant joke. Shieda immediately looked embarra.s.sed, and he was not dissembling.

Shieda was a man who avoided making waves. The carnous man of the long ringleted hair and shining shirt of canary yellow was in the people business. Such men knew of Aglaya, which was Protected so poorly by policers obviously not really trying to put a stop to the business of trading in people. Shieda sold a goodly number of people, but he bought few. He was a slaver. He called Janja "Yanya" and his iridescent cerise sash erupted the dark grips of two stoppers.

s.l.u.ttish pink-haired Althis laughed so hard at his words that her mighty meaty jelly-jiggles of breast nearly churned their way out of her bodice, which appeared to be molded of frozen purple light and was cut very low. The better to display big meaty jelly-jiggly mounded warheads and a necklace of cerulean and chilly green stones that flashed and glittered like starfire. The necklace plunged into her cleavage, which was deep, dark, and roomy. It accommodated the necklace as if it could accommodate an arm. Doubtless it had, several. She wore eye-offending heliotrope pants tight enough to show a pimple. Nine elliptical cutouts ran down each outer leg. Neither of those pant legs would have formed a sash for Shieda. Althis was only a little taller than Janja, perhaps because Shankar's gravity was 1.39 standard. Her crystalline sandals propped her up on six-sem platforms with sixteen-sem heels. That was nearly the distance from her wristbone to her elbow.

Janja of Aglaya thought that Althis of Shankar was 138.

a tacky wh.o.r.e ten minutes away from being badly overweight, and Shieda a thrice-overfed idiot. The ringed-planet tattoo on his cheek, in blue, added nothing. He was sipping at a tall pla.s.s of Alive, a Theb-anian mineral water supposedly drawn straight from a long-deceased volcano, with a twist of errus and a bit of lemon. Althis's drink was a purple-well, lavender -concoction called an Aldebaran. That had been the name of an orange member of a binary, back before the stars had all been renamed, even those with Arabic names. It looked awful. Fitting, Janja thought.

She also thought that over-plump Dignis of Thebanis had the eyes of a rude fifteen-year-old and the instincts of a rutting swinger-the primate tree-dwellers of Ag-laya. As for lean but paunchy Vettering-he was so ugly and truly ignorant, thinking himself clever as only an ignorant, cultureless peasant could, that he deserved none of his success.

(It was considerable. Vettering now commanded three s.p.a.cers. They hauled things, some legal. He had begun as a fetch-and-carry for some years-dead captain and had shown an uncanny ability for being at the right place at the right time. Dressed like a Ghanji lord, Vettering did. Wore a little mustache that was a perpetual sneer. Althis was his woman and the necklace he had given her was real. Rahmanese sapphires and jade and the strange ice-emeralds of the world named Havoc. He wore a big bracelet just as gaudy and about as expensive. Diamonds, in two colors alternating: lemon, and the hue of Janja's eyes. Cloth-of-gold encrusted his wide-shouldered, laced-front vest in an Arabesque pattern that looked formless until one realized that it aureately spelled out "Vettering" again and again.) The woman called h.e.l.lfire was known to be competent. The trouble was that she was a b.i.t.c.h and an obvious ex-gutterbrat from some back alley of Lanatia. Deadly competent, was Captain h.e.l.lfire. She too commanded a s.p.a.cer. Satana, she called it. A "merchant- 139.

er." Sure. The same kind of merchant as Corundum, that was thin, sharp-faced h.e.l.lfire with the hair and voice of bra.s.s.

Only the hair of her head was dyed or cell-dyed. Her thick brows and lashes remained their natural color, which was just as jet as her dangerous eyes.

This galactopolitan group contained a Jarp. If it had a name, no one used it; they all called it Raunchy and it obviously took no offense. It was as sweet-looking as all Jarps. Huge round eyes and almost pointed, elfin chin. It affected a very full-sleeved white blouse under a high, tight, brocaded jerkin or singlet of scarlet, black, gray, and gra.s.s green. And brown leather pants. Raunchy was the first Jarp Janja had seen that dressed to minimize its b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It hardly left off looking at her and she wished its big round eyeb.a.l.l.s would fall out.

"They don't use as good a brand of Port in this as they do on Franji," Althis remarked, regarding her purplescent drink with hauteur.

The two locals were called Pacy and Pearl. Only they seemed not to be armed. (Not too pretty likely, in Raunch of Thebanis.) They were "with" Shieda, both of them. Except that Pearl was interested in the Jarp and apparently fascinated with Corundum. She did not have to keep her leg there, where it pressed his long black-sheathed one. Pacy's foudroyant black hair was pulled back to reveal really dainty ears from whose lobes depended five links, each, of delicate gold-hued chain. Pearl wore a blue Terasaki coil over her own hair, with almost matching cerulean lip makeup, and Theban dimple-scars. Pearl looked eighteen.

Ten of them at that rear-set table, and surely enough armament to stand off the entire local policer force, if need be, or even a gaggle of Thebanis's neo-fundamentalist flagellants-who were too much for the local policers.

Nine stoppers and the other thing Shieda wore; it fired explosive darts. Five knives that showed. Three 140.

rings big enough to cut. Dignis's was a double, and too obviously designed for striking blows rather than decoration. Too, Janja had no doubt that the long straight pin of h.e.l.lfire's replica of an ancient brooch, silver with a lovely multihued head of opal and sh.e.l.l, was a dagger. Probably poisoned. Corundum had already told her that Vettering never took off his gloves. They were loaded in the knuckles, both of them.

A charming group, and getting noisier on alcohol and a couple of other substances. Shieda had dropped a blue capsule in his otherwise harmless pla.s.s of Alive. Janja was not charmed. She was a year off Aglaya and only a few months out of slavery. Nevertheless she felt socially conscious tonight, unaccountably superior. Slumming. Surrounded by slime. Including Corundum? She was beginning to think so.

(Shieda said something to Pearl and she answered with something he did not like and his stiffened fat thumb practically buried itself in the side of her breast. She lurched, paled, and subsided. No one said anything. Everyone affected not to notice. Shieda sipped. Pearl's leg drifted away from Corundum's. A moment later she compulsively finished her drink. Theban gin-'n'quinette.) Corundum, Janja mused. Her companions began to fade as she went inside her head. That was the trouble. Corundum. She was no longer happy and she'd have been no happier in company considerably more couth. She could think sneerily of Althis as the woman of peasantly insufferable Vettering. His wh.o.r.e. Austerely, she could consider Pearl and Pacy as wh.o.r.es, too. Beginners. Local opportunists. Willing to do whatever Shieda wanted of them in return for what the seven-ringed wig-wearing bucket of lard could provide.

(Vettering was telling a story involving the momentous discovery of a "new" populated planet. His elaborate gestures attracted the eyes of the others. Corundum availed himself of the opportunity to slip 141.

a red into his and Janja's drinks. It was better than harmless; it was an antintoxicant. Clever, clever Corundum. Althis was rubbing Vettering's leg, high up. A-liens, Vettering kept saying, dragging out the first letter. A-liens. Galactoid. Felinoprimates. A-liens! It was momentous, highly important, and Janja pretended to be interested because she should be. She wasn't. Not just now. Her own thoughts wanted her.) What, she mused, was Janja? Was she more or less than ship's girl of Firedancer? Sure, she was captain's girl. Corundum's woman. His exotic "white"-haired pet, fitted out by him in black to complement his standard onplanet attire. He wore her too, proudly. As a bauble in this murkily lit dive with its scoria-studded walls and mean-beat sawblade music or "music" and outlaw clientele.

What else am I? How am I better or more than Althis?

That thought was no source of cheer. Janja's happiness was in decline along with her self-esteem and her hopes.

She who had been Janjaheriohir of Aglaya had pride, much pride. She had retained it during her capture and imprisonment and her s.e.xual use on Jonuta's ship-by bis crew, not by Jonuta. (But on his orders. After she had so proudly challenged him and sneered at his rutting intent, he had cloaked himself in pride and he had foregone raping her.) She had remained relatively insouciant and definitely proud throughout her owned servitude to the former High Priest of Gri and his son, of Resh. She had kept her Aglayan pride, her Janjan pride, when she had fled and schemed and taken abuse and stolen and tricked and fought to get off Resh, and then off Franji. She had retained her pride when the library edutapes on Franji told her that her Aglaya was a barbarian world of no known value save for its big orchidlike flower, the phrillia. She schemed to leave Franji to get to Qalara. Qalara. For Qalara was all she had known about Jonuta, then. She had naively 142.

thought that since he was from there, she would find him there.

That seemed years ago, and it was across light-years. But only months had pa.s.sed. . . .

She had been delighted, elated to join with Corundum against Jonuta. In quest of Jonuta. To search him out, and find him, and repay him for her murdered lover and her disrupted life and her slavery. To stop Jonuta forever!

Now the elation was gone, and even happiness, and her self-regard was staggering. Now she felt compromised. Her pride was become evanescent mist, because her conviction was, and her purpose. Joining Corundum had not been necessity. Staying with Corundum was not necessity, either. Never mind how much she enjoyed their times in bed-their hours and hours in bed. His "Primeval Princess" indeed!

Never mind her growing realization that this pirate was close to the opposite of her former owners, Sicuan and Chulucan of Resh, who had been genuine pathological s.a.d.i.s.ts.

In quest of Qalara! In quest of Jonuta's death!

She had joined Corundum to further that purpose.

Her Purpose, which she might mentally capitalize. To go after their common enemy together and to rid the s.p.a.ceways of Captain Cautious, dealer in people. She had looked upon it as an alliance almost holy. Righteous warriors with a Mission! An honorable name applied to a bond for the taking of vengeance that was truly justice.

Instead she had become Corundum's woman.

Corundum's Woman, and she was no longer so charmed by him. Oh, the genius and the courtliness remained. He had the manners and style of what he called the "court of the Sun King," and he remained charming. And charmed, too, with his Primeval Princess.