Corundum turned and eased onto his back. With his hands on his hairy stomach he lay there, deep-breathed, expelled and held, held, held . . . inhaled as he sat up again, hands on stomach. A good stomach, Corundum's. A nice heavily haired chest, Corundum's, with nipples a woman could get her teeth into.

He came down to turn onto his side, toward Janja. His hand moved to lie on her pubic bulge, which was p.r.o.nounced and (spa.r.s.ely) white-furred.

"Silk, pure silk," he murmured appreciatively, as he had before, again and again.

She drew a deep breath, exhaled in a sigh, and covered his hand with hers. That nice gesture also kept his fingers from moving. Most people had inhibited the growth of hair below the face; it was simple bioengi-neering or a simple later process-by-choice. It was nice that she and Corundum had their hair, and that each appreciated the other's.

"Corundum, my education is lacking." She spoke to the ceiling.

"Horrors! Dare Corundum ask in what way?"

"May we be serious?"

86."So early in the day and so naked! Very well then." He returned to his back and pushed up the small toggle beside the bed. The deeps.p.a.ce abyss vanished. The ceiling became a mirror. They looked up at each other looking down at each other. "Perhaps you would be kind enough to draw the sheet over your best parts."

Despite her stated desire to be serious, Janja gave that only a moment's consideration. Then she pulled the multi-hued paisley topsheet of Jahpurese satin up over her head. She heard him laugh, and she grinned, under the sheet.

"A point well taken indeed!" he said, chuckling. "How could one choose the best parts of the divinely molded Primeval Princess?"

She uncovered her face, smiled upIdown at him, and let him see her face go serious. She looked at his best parts in their nest of hair and wanted to reach over and fondle or at least pat. She did not. She wanted to talk, not start another of their superb s.e.xual sessions.

"One of the things I was studying on Franji was TGO."

"Ah," he breathed. "The Gray Organization."

"Umm." The mysterious and seemingly amoral order-keeping body named TransGalactic Order was more commonly called The Gray Organization. TGO claimed to work for the good by doing bad. In Aris-totelean terms, that mixed black and white. TGO was gray, as They had grayed Janja. She had killed. She had set morals aside as being less important than Purpose.

She said, "It told me about Arti-uh, Arti-some-thing Muzuni." She paused to let him supply the name: "Artisune," and went on. "It looked as if he was on his way to becoming a sort of galactic dictator. He was collecting 'protection' from many sources, including whole planets. A bribe to keep from being 87.raided by Muzuni's pirate fleet of nineteen ships. Then he and those nineteen ships simply vanished."

"Apparently," Corundum said quietly, without his usual underlying note of satiric amus.e.m.e.nt. "It gives one to think that TGO possesses a spectacularly extraordinary fleet and power, does it not?"

"A preposterous fleet!" she agreed, and he squeezed her leg in an expression of pleasure at the term. In love with words, Corundum was. "At the same time, I learned that piracy is not only dangerous but a back-breakingly difficult . . . undertaking. It is inclined to be unprofitable and even "harder than straightforward hauling."

"One would hardly expect edutapes to extol its virtues, would one? Edutapes are subject to TGO approval, surely. However, piracy as a trade seldom leads to the wealth-laden retirement so many desire or even foresee. Indeed, it more often results in early demise."

"You are not dead and you seem . . . prosperous, Emery."

He chuckled once again at the nickname she had devised for him. A form of corundum, emery was a hard abrasive, used for polishing. "Averages include but do not allow for the occasional brilliant member of any occupation, Milady Janja. Obviously Corundum is brilliant. Still . . . perhaps he inherited wealth or once achieved it and continues because his primary focus in life is his own pleasure, and this life pleases? Another we both know is called Captain Cautious. Yet Corundum truly takes few chances when that which is at stake is life itself!"

"I was not asking how you stay alive. We have just committed an act of piracy-by the way, what is the punishpient?"

He flipped his fingers. "Oh, loss of eyes, long imprisonment, death. One or all of those." The slightly sneering vocal smile was back, to indicate his contempt for the unthinkable horrors he stated so easily.

"Oh, is that all," she said, feeling a wave of goose- 88.flesh and glad the topsheet prevented him from seeing. "You knew Captain Ota had TZ. You must have been to the planet where he got it, and you must have left about the same time he did. You could have hauled the same cargo he did-the legal cargo, I mean. Therefore, you must have an informant there. That tends to indicate that you pay people on many other worlds to keep you informed of ... certain things. And that is expensive."

"Milady has a very good mind," he said. "And further, uses it."

"A very good mind for a girl off a 'Protected, undeveloped' planet also called 'backward and barbaric'? -for an ex-slave?"

"No, for anyone at all. Milady Primeval Princess . has no reason to be defensive. You manifestly know that the galaxy is full of people who may or may not have minds, but who do not think. You think, Janja. You reason. Corundum is not sensitive about being a pirate and called murderer. You must not be sensitive about being from a planet called barbaric, or a former slave. After all, you effected your own manumission! Remember that I surmised your ident.i.ty as that slave who so spectacularly ended her slavery on Resh? Even then you commented that Corundum had his sources. He does-and a vaunting ability to add two and two and arrive at the accepted mathematical answer, rather than the silly answers that are the games of the 'scientists.'"

He stopped, or paused. Janja said, "Please do continue."

"If one's reasoning seems to lead to a paradox or a statement of contrariety, a contradiction, one has probably reasoned from one or more false premises."

"Try that on me again, lover."

He rubbed the side of her thigh. "If your conclusion is unsound or seems to be, check your premises. Corundum was not on the planet from which Ota departed. Corundum was far, far away-we had just 89.left Franji. The message was sent from Ota's origin to ... interestingly . . . Murph! Ota would have been in a great deal of trouble, on Murph! Further, when his ship at last reaches Murph's moon, Dot, the Murph policers will be most disappointed."

"Captain Ota was set up? Why? By whom?"

"Perhaps Corundum does not know everything. Still, tetrazombase is illegal even for policer use. If it were seized, however, from a smuggler such as Ota . . . why then a policer force would have a large and long-lasting supply on hand, wouldn't it!"

"Why, that's positively evil. He was being trapped!"

"Perhaps doubly. The word also came to Fire-dancer. Is it possible that legal officials were tricked into making an arrangement with legal officials on Murph, and using Ota-in order for Firedancer to receive the word and come into possession of a couple of kilos of TZ-without charge?"

She came up on one elbow. "Corundum! How deliriously devious! Is that the way it happened? You were behind it all?"

He could not resist palming one of her bared, enticing b.r.e.a.s.t.s and drawing fingers and thumb out along the cone, lingeringly. His smile was one of lazy mockery; a Corundum smile. "Was I?"

She jerked his hand from her. "d.a.m.ned nasty mocking evil pirate! Hmp!" She flopped back into the supine position and dragged the topsheet up to her chin. "All right. Perhaps Ota was being trapped. Perhaps policers set the trap. Perhaps you instigated it-and certainly profited from it! All right. Then how did we find him in the vastness of s.p.a.ce?"

"Ah, a ringing poetical phrase, that," he said, for Corundum was unable not to chastise the users of cliches. He loved saying, with sonorous portent, "into . . . the . . . gathering dusk" and "he turned on his heel," and rolling his eyes-after which he held his nose. This time he winked at her overhead reflection.

"Like many freighters not owned by corporations or 90.wealthy combines, Ota's ship is not equipped with capability to enter subs.p.a.ce, in defeat of an ancient postulate stating the inability of objects to exceed the speed of light. Long ago our ancestors found a way to circ.u.mvent that troublesome 'rule.' Otherwise we should never have peopled so many planets, and created what it pleases us to call an intragalactic civilization. Now. Here, near the galaxy's center, stars are many and close together."

"Proximitous," she said, happily pandering to his love of words.

"Indeed! Thus even though many freighters move at sub-light speeds, cargo may be hauled at profit. In months, not years. Hence: Captain Ota. Corundum knew his point and time of departure, and his destination, and knew that Ota would not be stopping save in the event of emergency. A direct run to the system of Murph's sun. so far as any runs can be direct in such a crowded meadow of stars."

"We followed him. popping in and out of sub-s.p.a.ce?" Janja's eyes were bright and her brain was at work, greased and smoothly running at the game of second-guessing.

"No. Corundum and Jinni played a most interesting game. In leisurely manner, you will recall, we popped over to Ghanj and purchased some clothing and toys for you-and me, be a.s.sured."

"Even though you like me best naked."

"No, Corundum probably likes you best in the black skinnt.i.te and highboots-and in that swishy garment that is yards and yards of polyweave and yet clings to your every salient curve in the manner of a cloying lover."

She smiled, snuggled, felt it safe to pat and rub, just a little, his best parts. Swiftly she said, "Please go on about finding Ota."

"Shameless tease! We also, by the way, turned a profit on Ghanj-and discovered a buyer for a certain illegal substance."

91."TZ!" She practically clapped her hands in delight at his cleverness.

"TZ," he said, with a sort of horizontal nod. "Then we departed, still in manner leisurely, and entered sub-s.p.a.ce. As you know, we have popped in and out a number of times. We were searching for Ota."

"In what you call this meadow of stars and planets, a single s.p.a.cer is smaller even than a needle hi a haystack!"

He paused to chuckle. "So. And how would you find a needle in a haystack?"

She thought a moment, and then she shocked even Corundum. "a.s.suming that I really wanted that needle, it would be more valuable than the hay. I'd merely burn the haystack."

He showed that he was shaken by the piercing solution, the ruthless one still called Gordian. "Musla's holy Eyes and Prophet-what a mind!"

Realizing that she had thought of something he had not, Janja showed him a smug smile-a Corundum smile. "And your solution, lover?"

"To begin with, it was in the earliest part of the twenty-first century when a certain individual employed a computer and a cybernetic rake, and found a needle in a haystack in 7.19 minutes." He paused, and after a moment he chuckled. "An eloquent silence, proclaiming that such information is irrelevant. Janja, pragmatism deals with the practical and a.s.sumes that thought exists to direct action.. An advanced form is called enlightened self-interest, which means simply intelligent selfishness. Self-few-ness is manifestly stupid and innately self-destructive."

"Does this concern Ota's ship or am I going to have to jump up and down on your stomach?"

He laid a staying hand on her thigh, letting her feel its strength.

"Corundum is a pragmatist," he continued. "He uses those tools available to him. Corundum acts as he must. My primary concern is me. You," he said, point- 92.ing to the Janja looking down at him from the ceiling, "are your primary concern and your thoughts lead to shockingly direct action. We are pragmatists, Janja."

Strange, she mused, that I never thought of pragmatism as an ugly word, until now. Yet she knew that she was complimented.

"Back to the needle in the haystack, Milady Janja. Corundum had these givens. The ability to leap about, which Ota did not. Knowledge of his time of departure, estimated time of arrival, probable course, and maximum velocity. The knowledge that his old ship is a ram-scoop, not solar-photonic. The ion exhaust of a ram-scoop ship with a double-P drive radiates a great deal of 'noise'-electromagnetism. Sensitive instruments perceive it as entirely different from the magnetic field surrounding suns and most planets. Firedancer is equipped with the best and most sensitive instrumentation and systemry. QED."

"What? Cue-ee-dee?"

"QED-we found Ota. We plotted probable areas and checked them until we detected an EM field that was probably a s.p.a.ceship's. We then had only to come in closer to read and confirm him." He allowed himself a satisfied smile, and said, "Are you not hungry? Anxious to aid the water recycling facilities?"

"Are you weary of telling me how truly brilliant you are?"

"Ah, how Milady knows me!"

"What I want to know now is how all this is to be profitable."

"Milady, among all these stars power is the cheapest possible commodity. The cost of a s.p.a.ceship is prodigious. The cost of moving and maneuvering in s.p.a.ce is minuscule. Aside from the fact that Corundum serves his own pleasure, the machinery for the miners on Dot is to be paid for on delivery. Since it cost us nothing, we will charge them less than the stated price, less than they expect to pay. They will ask no questions. Everyone is happy. Perhaps the machinery can 93.be said only to cover our costs: overhead. The TZ, then, is pure profit. Everyone is happy. Except the police officials on Murph, who will be awaiting Ota's arrival ... in two months."

"And except Ota."

"Be a.s.sured that his crew is not unhappy!"

"I suppose I see. It does seem that being a merchant captain is less trouble and far less dangerous, in this sort of ... business. With your mind, you could-"

"-Worry the same but about things Corundum does not care to worry about! Being a merchant captain lacks the excitement-which you have just called danger. They are the same, to some of us. It has been so throughout the history of humankind. Still"- he smiled-"there will be a Corundum shipping line," he said, almost dreamily. "Ships of red and blue- ruby and sapphire. Corundum."

Corundum revels in excitement, danger, calling himself wicked names others had better not dare in his presence . , . and dreams of legitimacy! Janja considered that for a time, scratching idly. "But then-why aren't you stealing whole ships? That would be easy!"

"And isn't that thought exciting to you, Milady pirate!" Corundum laughed aloud. He rose on an elbow to look down at her with ridiculously ingenuous eyes. "But that would be evilly dishonest!" He watched her roll her eyes, and he smiled. "To take merchandise is one thing; there is plenty. To take a man's means of earning his livelihood-that is another matter!"

And what, she thought, about taking his life with such relish?

"Besides," Corundum said, running his hands over the mounds in the topsheet over her chest. "Besides, let a few ships be seized and one might apply the impetus to unite the shipping lines, and policers. To start them seriously seeking pirates, with true a.s.siduousness! Who can forget Artisune Muzuni?"

94."Deterrent!" she said in a flash of revelation. "That's why TGO removed him so mysteriously; the memory of his disappearance-with nineteen ships!-is a constant deter-uh!"

She felt the unpleasant sensation as they again entered subs.p.a.ce.

Suns, live and collapsed, did exist in subs.p.a.ce. It was not truly somewhere else beyond the rainbow or the yellow brick road. Here, far in toward the center of the galaxy's ever more tightly coiled spiral, suns living and dead were plentiful. If SIPAc.u.m could not dodge one in subs.p.a.ce, it "knew" it and kicked out to cruise past at sub-light speeds. They had just done so, avoiding another of the trillion-plus non-sentient dealers of death in the galaxy. She and Corundum had been too occupied with brain stimulus and talk and each other to pay attention to the s-s entry warning. On automatic to convey them to the little fourth moon of Murph, SIPAc.u.mIJmni had returned them to sub-s.p.a.ce for another long jump. The ship was no longer a ship. Its crewmembers were no longer people. They were on the Tachyon Trail. There was no "subs.p.a.ce" or the old dream of "hypers.p.a.ce"; still, humans had learned to defeat Einstein and infinity. What they saw was subjective. To an outside observer they were . . . un.o.bservable.

As Firedancer conveyed them at unholy velocity, Corundum flipped away the topsheet. He brought his mouth down on Janja's breast.

In subs.p.a.ce! she thought, still experiencing disori-entation and the bit of nausea that always accompanied this reduction to mere particles. The man is both mad and insatiate-uh! "Uh-ummm," she sighed. She watched her hand glide up his hair to the back of his head. Watched her other hand strive to reach his small tight b.u.t.tocks. Felt bis moving tongue and began to writhe, moaning.

Far out, in s.p.a.ce, far in toward the hot, bright galactic center, they moved at never-conceivable speeds and 95.were every nanosecond an instant away from spectacular death. And he did just what men had been doing for centuries and eons, in war and in peace, in danger and in safety. He sucked eagerly swelling nipples into his mouth and bathed them with saliva. His tonguetip moved and moved, a flickering serpent over the tips of erectile flesh. It felt good, good, and muscles and nerves tensed throughout every centimeter of her body. Squirming, she gained his b.u.t.t with her hand. She nibbed, squeezed, began a light rapid smacking while he feasted on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She felt him squirming, felt his slicer growing against her thigh, and she knew her cleft would be ready for it when it came in, centimeter after centimeter of hard flesh. Slicer slicing into stash was ancient as the race. Slicing in s.p.a.ce was centuries and centuries old, very old hat indeed. Slicing in free-fall, in null-G, had come first, before the employment of spin to create artificial shipboard gravity. But . . . smiling, squirming, moaning, rubbing and slapping, Janja wondered just how common this was-slicing in subs.p.a.ce!

6.

Oh Time! Of all the dwellers here below You elevate only buffoons or fools.

The Perfumed Garden of Shaykh Naf zawi Long and long ago the honorable word selfishness had been weakly distorted into enlightened self-interest. Long ago nervous cretins had subsumed and vampiri-cally drained the study of history into a husk called "social studies." It was not strange, then, that the euphemism for guns (weapons; armaments) should no longer be any of those terms: "Stand by defense systemry."

"Standing by DS and ready, Captain."

"Ship Coronet! You are locked to our docking station in synchronous...o...b..t of Sekhar! We read your armaments unb.u.t.toned."

The first voice had been Jonuta's. The second, that of his loyal crewmember Sakyo. The third, oncornm: Sekharstation Control, shocked. The fourth was Jonuta again: "You read true and well, Control. When menaced, 96 97.we unsheathe our claws. We have prior clearance to depart Sekharstation. Release us."

Pause. "We are ordered to detain you, Captain. You are directed to shut down your ship's defense systemry."

"Sekharstation, record and ponder this reply: No."

A longer pause followed that astonishing answer. People did not speak thus plainly; people did not respond so to faceless Authority! "Captain! You cannot mean this. Any firing of weapons here would endanger the entire station-our equilibrium! The very planet, Captain."

"Understood," Jonuta said, sweating but showing only strength in act and words. "Station is essential to planetary livelihood. All incoming traffic. All profitable exports and essential imports. Understood. Also understood that firing here might nudge Sekharstation -you-out of orbit. Surely it would not fall to become a fireball on atmospheric entry though, would it?"

"Captain-"

"I have transacted business on Sekhar and wish to redshift. Sekhar has profited by my presence. Now release us and remove those cyber-searchers you have hanging around our airlock. They represent a threat. So does forcibly holding my ship. A threat is a form of violence. We meet threat and violence with violence."

Beside him in the con-cabin of Coronet, Kenowa, too, was sweating. That little b.a.s.t.a.r.d Arsane had the six slaves and had left the de-glitcher with them, along with two bulky packs. For the lady, he had said. He had departed, smiling. They had prepared to lift away from Sekharstation, Sekhar, and this system. And then clamp. This "request" to tarry and subject the ship to search by those sensor-loaded robots ... it had to have stemmed from Arsane er-Jorvistor. Had he planted something in one or both of those packs to get Jonuta and company in trouble as thieves or smugglers or both?

Perhaps; more likely their unauthorized possession of the TDP was itself a crime. The devices were Sek- 98.gov-controlled and sold only to policers and fat shipping corporations. Arsane had his merchandise, and by now he had the six slaves well concealed. Slaves were not illegal on Sekhar.

Now Arsane er-Jorvistor would get his TDP back, the slimy sisterslicer.

Jonuta did not like violence or even making waves. He avoided force, priding himself on his preparedness and cleverness. Best never to kill, he said-unless it was necessary. In that case kill and kill and begone.

This time Jonuta could think of only one trick. Ordered to pause, he had gone icy and begun this deadly bluff while locked by tractor field to Sekhar's...o...b..ting s.p.a.ceport. Now Jonuta stood-he who exercised twice daily did not sit at con, but stood-and appeared to be relishing the confrontation. He appeared ready to blow away Sekharstation Control, Sekharstation, and indeed wreck the city below if he were not released unmolested.