Kenowa did not know whether he was sweating or not. Probably.

What was growing irrevocably in her mind to trouble her most was the positively awful question: Was Jonuta bluffing?

And whether he was or not-what if Sek authority called his bluff?

"We read you as Jonuta, captain of Coronet,'' Sekharstation Control said after a long pause, and added "trader." Oh, for a tape of what had been said during that pause after Jonuta's ultimatum!

"Correct. Do you have a name?"

If so, the voice of Sekharstation preferred not to give it, presumably to preserve the "authority" it felt that anonymity provided: "Captain Jonuta, You cannot be serious! Weapons! At a s.p.a.ceport! We propose merely a routine check."

"I look upon it as a hostile act and attempted IRS," Jonuta said.

99."Captain!" the shocked voice came back. "We are AuthorityI"

"Me too."

"As const.i.tuted Authority of planet Sekhar, we propose a routine check of s.p.a.ceship Coronet," the reply came, as if perhaps a return to cold and arrogant anonymity, that magical word Authority, might gain its ends. The clerk sitting at Sekharstation Control was supposed to cow people. It had always succeeded before. This was too incredible. What was wrong with this Jonuta person?

Jonuta had more shocks in store. "I respect authority, when it is respectworthy," he said, and with seeming calm added, "You are a liar. There is nothing routine about this. I did business with Sekhari citizen Arsane er-Jorvistor-stop interrupting, clerk!-and the swine has slipped something mcrirninating onto Coronet. Now he has paid someone to detain me and worse. Bribed someone, you understand. Your superior, perhaps, nameless Control? Your superior's superior, perhaps? I am to be boarded, searched, found guilty of something false, and detained or worse. That is the official exercise of unwarranted power and intimidation: IRS. Also called 'piracy.' Well sir, I refuse."

"Captain-"

"Believe me, Sekharstation Control," Jonuta thrust in, still with seeming ice in every vein. "We shall not open for the piratic boarding you suggest. We-"

"-piratic! Captain! We are the LawI"

"Not mine.

"Captain, you will proceed to-"

Jonuta closed comm, counted seven, opened comm. "We will not admit your robots or you either. If they attempt to gain entry by violent means, we will resist violently. Obviously it would be stupid to do violence on mere cyber-searchers! Our first target, Control, is you. Release us."

"Captain! We-"

"Shutting off comm and manning guns. Program- 100.ming SIPAc.u.m to commence firing and breakaway attempt in sixty seconds. Mark." Jonuta flipped the toggle with a sweaty finger. "Set our sensor-reading of their tractor field on Visual, Kenny. Give us an alarm when it releases us."

"Jone-"

"We're not going to be boarded, Kenowa. We're not going to become prisoners on this skungeball world. I gave that creature sixty seconds to try to do him a favor. Think of the marvelous feeling for him if he makes a decision, accepts responsibility once in his life! We have to push and keep pushing. I'm sure they're calling in a ship or two to tangle with us a few seconds after we're released from this d.a.m.ned station. Inslot Ca.s.sette six-three bee, but don't activate it. Be prepared to shove 63C in ... and to activate."

Jonuta's course guidance ca.s.settes were prepared by Jonuta. Ca.s.sette number 63B ordered SIPAc.u.m and other systems to prepare the ship for subs.p.a.ce transition and take her in to defeat infinity with only a single ping as twenty seconds' warning. Sixty-three cee was considerably more serious and was last resort. Sixty-three cee seized everything and rammed the ship into transition phase with no warning, within ten seconds after its actuation. s.p.a.cefarers had a name for that desperate action, aside from jam-cram. They called it "Forty Percent City."

The probability of survival of such an unprepared subs.p.a.ce entry was just above seventy, percent with (undefined) damage. Probability of survival intact was 59.7731-to-infmity percent. What remained was a 40.2269 percent probability of ... non-return.

If those ships that had jam-crammed onto the Tachyon Trail had survived (somehow, somewhere), no one knew it, for none of them was seen again. Less than a year ago the pirate captain, Tomo, had been desperate enough to go Forty Percent City. Tomo's ship had departed the s.p.a.ceways with Tomo and all hands. He was presumed destroyed; extirpated.

101.

"Jonuta," Kenowa said, obeying. "What-what if- what if they-"

"Hold it," Jonuta said. "I'm busy. Sakyo: do not fire. Hold on target but do not fire under any circ.u.mstances unless I say 'Fire, Sakyo.' Shig: stand by to lay a one-second burn on the base of the controller's bubble, one meter above its stem. Forty-four seconds remain." He heaved a sigh and half-turned to lay a hand on Kenowa's shoulder. "You know I won't endanger an entire planet by wrecking or downing a whole station." He saw the sagging lowering of her shoulders and knew he was watching the release of a great deal of tension. She had not been sure.

"I couldn't do it, Kenny. No, if that controller doesn't act or someone doesn't tell him to, a one-second flash with- the ten-megawatt laser will go right through the con module. That should convince them what a ruthless monster I am. It may also scare that fobber into slapping off the tractor field he's pinning us with."

"We-we'll never be able to return to Sekhar!"

"You never wanted to, did you? Booda's eyes, who does?" He was watching the chronometer. "Shig! Hit the control module with spotlights, all power!"

Digit after digit spun past on the decaseconds gauge; seconds jumped while Shig doubtless threw a real scare into the controller by making him think a multibeam. laser was right on him.

"But-Jone! What if they-mightn't they-"

Jonuta said, "No, Kenny. They won't use armaments. They have that much sense-someone has to have. Not up here on Sekhar's one station." He wiped his palms on his long scarlet coat. "Eleven seconds remain, crew. Nine. Eight." He jerked his head and Kenowa felt the droplet of sweat that flew from him. "Six. Open comm, Kenowa. Five. Stand by to fire," he rapped sharply, for the benefit of the reopened communications link with Sekharstation Control. "Three. T-"

102.

The alarm sounded and a panel flashed turquoiseI white, turquoiseIwhite. Coronet was freed to go. TurquoiseIwhite, turquoiseIwhite. Tractor field lifted. Three armed, wheeled cybers zipped away from the vicinity of the airlock. Freefall prevailed. Kenowa swallowed heart, stomach, and a sour taste.

"Inslot ca.s.sette thirty-nine! Redshifting repeat red-shifting."

Kenowa, breathing with her mouth open, had the ca.s.sette ready. She double-checked its number because she knew she was barely functioning. A nod, and she pushed it into its slot with a sweaty hand. Sixty-three bee floated above the slot. SIPAc.u.m was ordered to crank up and depart Sekhar.

Coronet shuddered and began a familiar vibration. Kenowa s.n.a.t.c.hed 63B out of the air before it gained weight under acceleration and fell.

"Guess we won't be needing thirty-nine anymore," Jonuta muttered, watching his console.

Anxious to say anything at all in this release of tension, Kenowa suggested, "Maybe we can sell it." That was facetiousness. She a.s.sumed that she would be ordered to give the ca.s.sette the usual treatment of superseded tapes. She would wipe it, then record music on it. An unnecessary double procedure. Captain Cautious intended to provide his carefully prepared guidance ca.s.settes to no one.

"Stand by 63B. Stand by. Stand by. Offstation, all! Stand b-oh s.h.i.t. Shut down DS! Off spotlight!"

"Defense systemry shut down, Cap'n," Shig reported, obviously relieved. "Congratulations, Captain."

"Shut down, Captain," Sakyo reported. Disappointed?

"Antic.i.p.ate subs.p.a.ce entry." Jonuta tapped two keys. SIPAc.u.m advised that Coronet was clear of Sekharstation.

"Captain Jonuta, you are considered an enemy of Sekhar and we will report it."

Jonuta's face went stormy. He banged in a key and the comm mike swung to his face.

103.

"Register and record! Complaint lodged by Qalara-citizen Kislar Jonuta, captain, Coronet. Follows: Sek-harcitizen Arsane er-Jorvistor set me up by means of a bribed Sekhari official. I have no notion what he put on my ship. I do refuse to be set up by a desperate individual of a desperate planet. My congratulations to controller on-con, who refused to give its name, for its responsible decision in terminating piratic clutch on Coronet. Request foregoing be sent to TAI, TOOI TGW, Qalara, Resh, Tri-System Accord, Shankar, Franji, Panish, Jahpur, Jasbir. Jonuta out for good."

Snick. Communications ended. Good riddance.

"T'lood'l wheet-trr-ee-eed'l-l-leet!"

"Booda's eyes! Dammit, Sweetface, turn on your d.a.m.ned translator!"

"Sorry, Captain," the Jarp's translated voice said. "Two ships closing. Both on intercept trajectory. Captain."

"Odtaa," Jonuta sighed.

Kenowa looked up at him. He had acronymously expressed the ancient lament: One d.a.m.ned Thing After Another. Yet already he was responding decisively to this new d.a.m.ned Thing: "Inslot 63B. All: subs.p.a.ce entry as soon as SIPA-c.u.m finds a hole to take us through. Usual twenty-second warning. Stand away from the guns and hold onto your stomachs."

"Klee'ee'eed'l-aoot't!"

"Sweetface, dammit-"

"Sorry, Captain. Not me. That was Tweedle-dee."

"Uh."

The Jarp that Sweetface had named Tweedle-dee was a halfwit Sweetface had showed up with, on Resh. ItIsheIhe was still onboard. That was against Jonuta's good judgment, but he felt empathy for Sweetface, and he did, after all, forbid the possibility of s.e.xual activity among Sweetface, Sakyo, Kenowa, and Jonuta. (His with Kenowa was another matter. Captain's prerogative.) He could only hope that Sweetface soon tired 104.

of Tweedle-dumb, as Kenowa called it. Now Jonuta knew he had erred in agreeing to Tweedle-dee's presence on Coronet and eventually trouble would result. Jonuta was for calling the second Jarp "Argon"; the creature didn't react with anything or anybody. Except Sweetface. An inert element.

"We're being scanned," Kenowa said, having replaced guidance ca.s.sette 39 (Depart: Sekharstation: Jonuta's Way) with 63B. She racked 39 without thinking. The rack was a better place than any, until Jonuta decided what to do with it. "One of those ships has tractor capability."

"Armaments showing on bandits, Captain," Sakyo reported. "Man DS stations?"

"No."

"Captain: suggest we leave defense systemry off but let 'em track," Sakyo suggested, "so those bandits will notice."

Jonuta repeated, "No. No hostile act. With my words on record Sekhar may decide to wipe and forget the events of the last ten minutes. If we fire on a policer, though, or stir up one with a nervous dee-esser onboard-"

"SIPAc.u.m has compared emissions, blip-silhouettes, and EM fields," Kenowa reported. "Both approaching ships are Sekhari policers."

Had an inexperienced person been onboard-Verley of Sekhar, for instance--she might have been dizzied not only by the rush of events and Jonuta's seeming cool ability to cope, but by the terminology she heard.

Kenowa had reported that Coronet's SIPAc.u.m-directed cybernetic detectors, constantly on the alert, indicated that they were being snooped upon. Explored by electronic scanning devices mounted in the two oncoming ships. Those same detectors indicated that one of the "bandits" on their screens was equipped with systemry to seize Coronet in an electronic attraction field: a tractor "beam" that operated just short of the level of molecular bonding. All three s.p.a.cers 105.

were equipped with automatic tracking equipment for their DSIdefense systemryIguns, of course, as only idiots would rely on humans to aim and fire in s.p.a.ce. Sakyo had suggested that he actuate his DS trackers so that the guns would remain leveled menacingly at the other craft, though without firing. The threat would be implicit and constant. That Jonuta forbade, lest one of the policer ships have an inexperienced or nervous person in charge of DS. "Dee-esser" for DS-er was current euphemism for "gunner" all along the s.p.a.ceways.

Next SIPAc.u.m recorded the emissions of the other ships, and the shapes and sizes of their radar silhouettes or blips, and the electromagnetic fields created by their engines. Those SIPAc.u.m compared with its microfile storage, and found that the combination of such "signatures" was peculiar to the s.p.a.cecraft employed by Sekhar World Defense: Sekhar's policers. This news Kenowa announced to Jonuta: "My my," Jonuta said. "Fifty percent of their entire s.p.a.ceforce!" He opened his dramatic coat on which the double row of flashy pra.s.s b.u.t.tons was purely decorative. He wiped sweat off his forehead. "How important we are!"

"Coronet. Coronet. Sekhar Security SSS-four-zero here. Captain Berbistor oncomm. You are not repeat not cleared to leave Sekharstation and must be considered outlaw. We will fire repeat fire."

"No you won't, Sek-Sec ship number four," Jonuta said, ignoring the "zero" the Seks had added to make their four-ship force sound more imposing. "We are too close to your only station. Can it withstand the mini-nova if you blow this ship-or we do? We will not repeat not fire because we are not repeat not outlaw, but traders who refuse to be set up by your planet's, criminal element." Come on, SIPAc.u.m, he was thinking. Find us a hole!

"Captain Jonuta, we are law enforcers. We do not decide. We enforce. There is no use trying to reason with us. Break off flight and return to Sekharstation One."

106.

Pinng. It was the twenty-second warning. Just now a voice p.r.o.nouncing full pardon and amnesty for all Jonuta's transgressions would not have sounded more beautiful.

"Keep your distance, Sekhari Security Ship Four Million," Jonuta said, drawling to drag it out. "We are about to take a ride on the Tachyon Trail."

Ten seconds remaining.

"Stand by to fire," the comm said, because the Seks weren't kept busy enough to be all that experienced, and because Captain Berbistor simply forgot to b.u.t.ton off before he issued the ill-advised order.

"Don't shoot!" Jonuta yelled fearfully into the mike. Kenowa looked sharply up at him. His chesty voice had positively squeaked. "Coronet," he went on, "all crew stand by to return to dock! Cancel subs.p.a.ce entry." That, in the same desperate tone, was also shouted into the communications mike linking them with SSS-40 and presumably the other ship as well. Their blips were getting mighty large onscreen.

Both Jonuta's apparent panic and his words were sham. Inasmuch as he had not touched the override switch, SIPAc.u.m continued to obey the directing ca.s.sette. Inasmuch as it had taken him eight seconds to make those breakdown noises, SSS-40's Captain Berbistor didn't get much said.

"Very wise, Coronet,'' his surprised and relieved voice said. "We will follow you in. All w-"

The voice was gone with the onset of the eerie sensation. Stomachs lurched and every nerve in every body onboard felt as if it had gone to sleep. Ears popped. Tingles beset them all. Jonuta released a lot of breath, trying to do it slowly. His heartbeat was imitating a pulsar and he knew he had just vanished off all screens. He no longer existed. He had been reduced to that tiniest of motes called a tachyon. Many tachyons.

Coronet was on the Tachyon Trail; in subs.p.a.ce, streaking right through Einstein's Law.

107.

Captain Berbistor, along with Sekhar, was . . . somewhere else. Captain Cautious, rather incautiously and close to the edge this time, had done it again.

Jonuta's hand was heavy on Kenowa's shoulder. To their subjective perception, they existed unchanged. He killed the outside link and the mike swung away. Onship comm links remained open: "Sweetface to the con," Jonuta said.

He heard a whispered t'eeetle and knew it was Tweedle-dee. Thought itIsheIhe and Sweetface were going to make it in subs.p.a.ce, huh? Tough. Their captain was drained.

Kenowa's hand came up onto his. "D'you think there's danger in those bales Arsane brought on?"

"Maybe a snake or a Sekhari scarlet sand-scorpion. Nothing that's going to foul up the ship, no. I'll even bet the TDP works."

"How can we be sure?"

"Pretend we don't have it available until we have it tested on Franji. And installed." He blew out his cheeks as he gusted air. "Whoof. Booda's smile, what a lot of trouble and hard work it is, being self-employed."

Kenowa was smiling. Good! She liked Franji, where Jonuta was presumed to be some sort of wealthy heir to something or other. "I don't want to bother with those packages now, either," she said. "Sweetface is taking the con?"

"Sweetface certainly is."

"They won't be happy about that, Sweetface ana Tweedle-dumb."

Jonuta's anger rode his voice in crimson waves of heat. "Too d.a.m.ned bad! I need relief."

"Good. Ready to go and get out of those sweaty clothes?"

He grinned. "Pos! And into a shower instead."

She smiled, squeezing the hand on her shoulder. "What shall we get into then?"

"You," Jonuta said.