negative. I guess Soong figured that with our Phasewave out of business, Comm isn't important enough to waste his muscle on."

Well, either the Comm-man knew his business or he didnt Now he brought Ferenc Szabo on the circuit Barton gathered that Bearpaw had filled the besieged man in on any developments he hadn't known already. Now Perenc said, "Hi, Barton. All right; things are about the way I had them figured, but it's better to know than to guess. I'm safe enough, for now; they can't get to me in here. Not without a lot more men than I thinfc 'Soong can muster. But I may have a little trouble getting out"

He'd made one try at it. he said, but no luck. They had him boxed, all right.

"We have to get you free," said Bearpaw, "and start thinking how to retake the ship. Any minute now, S^ong could reverse course and lock it, under code. I cant imagine why he hasn't, already."

Ferenc laughed. "Because I locked the damn course myself, and changed codes when I did it. Soong couldn't break that in ten months, let alone ten days, and that's all he's got." Barton waited; the man would tell -it without needing a question. "We're locked into match and orbit.

a planet I spotted on my last watch. Would have told you today, but all this mess came up. It's definitely a no-return stop, even for Opal. So stop worrying."

Stop worrying. Beautiful, Barton thought. Well, Ferenc was all right-plenty of food, and all. And Soong, Barton gathered, had his original quarters armored against any- thing his guard-boys could find to use now. Maybe he'd been more paranoid, all along, than anybody realized.

Fine. But Barton wished that he could stop worrying.

After a little more talk, Bearpaw signed off fast; Barton guessed he had company of the wrong persuasion. Perenc was sure he had enough data to guarantee that his no- return planet was livable; Barton wished he could bqfr te

AfiR V^'

488.

that. He said so. "From this far out, how can you be

sure?"

"I sent a high-G drone on an expendable fly-by.

Launched it as soon as I made the sighting. What its

pickups show-"

Under his breath. Barton used strong language. How

many more gadgets had Group B kept to itself, that nobody told him about? And when would one of them trip

him up?

Three quick buzzes came over the line; Barton guessed

they were Bearpaw's warning that the circuit was being ' monitored, so he signed off fast. At the end he heard a few words in a woman's voice. Did Ferenc have a roommate

now? He asked Limila.

"Had you not heard? The tall, fair woman, named

Racelle." Yen, Barton knew who she was; hadn't met her directly, though. The thing he remembered noticing was the way she moved, like a lazy tiger. He had a hunch the laziness was deceptive; in that case, the two would make

a good team.

And Bearpaw had mentioned that she was the only

woman who had managed to avoid carrying one of the Children to term. "I don't know how she did it, and the miscarriage nearly killed her. But that one. Barton, is something special." Which, from one who obviously ad- mired his own ship-wife as much as Bearpaw did, was real

praise.

Now Limila said, "I do not know if they have ship- married, as is the custom here, or not." She smiled, "On Snip One, things were not so formal, were they?"

"No." Barton thought about it "I think what it is, maybe, is that with so many more people, like they have here, they need some formalities. To keep things from getting too scrambled." And with a few established cus- ' toms to curb him. Barton thought, maybe Terike ap Penn wouldn't have got so badly out of hand.

But that was fuel down the pipe. Now Barton stood.

> "Going to take a little walk," he said. "See if I can find

my sleep-gun."

He wore a loose jacket over his jumpsuit, to hide the ^-hing if be found it, and a belt inside to hang it on. With no trouble he found the landing where he and Bearpaw had been cornered, and began working his way down. He had no idea where gun or Shield might have landed;-be'd

489.

tossed them without looking, and other noise had cov- ered any sound of impact below. Descending, level after level, he felt less and less hope; either the items/had been picked up or had fallen far enough to smash them.

On the gun. though, he lucked out. There it lay, in the corner of a landing far down the ship, with only a couple of chips out of the butt. He saw the marks where it had struck and dented the railing, then skittered. He couldn't test it to be sure, but the test-indicator lights said it would work. So he clipped it to the belt, closed his jumpsuit, and kept looking.

His Shield harness had taken the full drop; when be picked it up, things rattled inside that never had before.

If only he'd thought to turn the thing on before he threw it! Too late now, though. But in case somebody aboard might be able to fix the device, he tucked it inside, also.

And began the long climb.

Something new had been added; twice, he was stopped by armed guards who hadn't been there a half-hour ago.

When he told them where his quarters were, and that he was going there, they let him pass. For a moment he thought the second one was going to try to search him; as Barton braced himself for action, he wished to hell he'd stashed the gun a little more accessibly instead of quite so well hidden from view. But the man waved him off, and Barton saved his sigh of relief until he was out of earshot

Finally he reached quarters. As he entered, he heard Ren Bearpaw's voice on the intercom. Calm, the man wasn't.

** . . . make any difference; I'm not saying-anything a listener wouldn't already know. Anyone who doesnt re- alize the Others are behind Soong just hasn't been paying attention. So Lisa and I wanted to go confer wi^h-with someone who's studied them more than most. And- that conference we didn't want tapped, so it had to be in per- son. You see?"

"Yes," said Limila, at the same time looking over her shoulder toward Barton. "Ren? Barton's here now." '

"Oh, good. Should I start over?"

Barton gave Limila a quick kiss, then said. "You wanted to go talk with somebody about the Others; I heard that much. Anything before that, I need to know?"

"I guess not Well, we started off to see, uh, our col- league; we didn't get there. It was all of a sudden

490.

ville-guards at all the bottlenecks. If you didn't have a pass from Soong, the guard called in to somebody, and unless you're headed for your duty station and on sched- ule, you go no place but home to quarters."

"I noticed," said Barton. "They sure mounted this op- eration in a hurry." ;