"You got a stuffed bear I could buy?" I asked him. "I always wanted one of those."

"Im fresh out, McGill. Now, why dont you get out of my way so I can show you the weapon?"

"What weapon?"

He rolled his eyes like I was the biggest moron this side of the Moon.

"The squid weapon! What do you think Ive been talking about?"

"Why do we need a squid weapon?"

"I can see Im going to have to spell this out for you. Youre not going to use the detonator in your pocket to blow up this ship. Youre going to use a squid mini-missile pod instead. Theyre a little hard to program, but Ill show you how."

"We dont have time."

"Sure we do. The Nairbs will mark you down as a no-show, sure. Then theyll up the charges-but they wont report it in to the Core Systems. Not yet. Not until theyve decided on their next step. Nairbs arent fast. What bureaucrat is?

I had to admit, he had a point there.

"When you dont show up for your execution," he continued, "theyll just grind along down the path theyve set. That will buy you the time you need to take the initiative."

He actually had a squid missile pod in his ship. I couldnt believe it. Id never seen so many stolen devices in a single place-not since Tech World. This made me realize something.

"That pile of junk hidden above the fountain back on Tech World-that was your stash, wasnt it?" I asked him.

He flashed me a grin. "Yeah. You were robbing me, not the Tau. Does that make you feel any better?"

I shrugged then smiled. "Actually, it does."

I examined his collection of equipment. Claver called the stuff "trade goods," but I knew a pile of smuggled contraband when I saw it. If the Nairbs had ever seen fit to come aboard his ship and have themselves a private inspection, hed have been permed right off. I filed that tidbit of information away for the future.

"Youll take this pod, see," he told me, showing me a strange-looking contraption with a ma.s.s of missiles loaded into it. The thing looked like a peeled pomegranate, packed with cl.u.s.ters of explosives. "Set it down next to their engine core, activate it manually and direct it to unload its full magazine into the reactor all at once. Boom! You catch a revive, and all our problems are solved."

I stared at him. "Where are you going to be while Im doing this?"

"Flying out of here."

My eyes narrowed. "Why the h.e.l.l should I trust you on this?" I asked, lifting my hand inside my jacket. "Ive got the bomb business covered."

"Listen, the squids will take the blame this way, I guarantee it. I dont want Earth wiped any more than you do. I need to trade with someone, dont I? These missiles are loaded with radioactives from the squid star systems. Radioactives are made inside the guts of stars. The Galactics can trace them to their source of origin. The signatures will match up to the squids, and theyll take the blame when the investigation comes.

"All right," I said, pretending to be doubtful. "I guess it could work."

Claver looked relieved, but a few seconds later as we unloaded the missile pod and stood in the pa.s.sageway, he frowned at me. He looked at my jacket again. Id taken my hand out of there to help with the bulky pod, and it must have looked kind of deflated. Following his gaze, I reached into my pocket again and grasped my chocolate bar like it was a shiv.

"Where is your bomb, anyway?" he asked. "On the engine core? When did you plant it?"

The hint of suspicion in his eyes tipped me off. My thin, pathetic dodge was beginning to unravel in his mind. I was surprised it had taken this long. I was only wearing a light infantry uniform, after all. There was no way I could be carrying a bomb on me. A detonator, sure, but not a bomb. And I hadnt had time to plant anything in the Nairb engine room. Anyone who could count should be able to deduce that.

"Of course," I snapped. "Ive got the bomb on the core already."

He held out his hand. I glared at his offending fingers, which he used to make grabbing motions.

"What?" I asked, tensing up.

"Give me the key, McGill. Thats what you have in your pocket. Theres no way you could have reached the core and planted anything down there without the key."

Claver was talking about the Galactic key, of course, the artifact that allowed the Mogwa to break any of the technological locks their subservient races invented. Now I understood the look in his eyes-it wasnt suspicion about the bomb, it was greed for the key.

"Come on," he said, "dont let something so valuable be blown up with the ship. Give it to me."

"All right," I said, pulling my hand out of my jacket at last.

Claver watched, hungrily. His eyes were fixated on my fist.

Instead of receiving an invaluable artifact, he caught my knuckles in his face. At the last second, as my punch slammed home into his nose, he must have realized he was looking at fingers wrapped around a chocolate bar, not a Galactic key, a detonator, or anything else. The baffled look on his face was priceless to me. His greed transformed into confusion and disgust.

But then my big fist nailed him, and he reeled back. He slumped on the deck outside his ship. Behind him was the open hatch full of his piled up, stolen junk.

I picked up the missile pod and heaved it onto my back. There couldnt be much time left to try to pull this off. Fortunately, the gravity on the ship was set for Nairb comfort everywhere aboard, or I couldnt have budged the missile pod. As it was, I was grunting and heaving with it on my back. I must have looked like Atlas holding up the world.

The first obstacle I met up with was a serious one. Heading down the main pa.s.sage way, I ran into two Nairbs. They were humping along, looking for all the world like a pair a green seals on a beach. They chattered at me in irritation then switched on their translators.

"Beast, you will put that object down and explain yourself."

"Beast, huh?" I asked him. "Thats what you really call us, isnt it? Well, its time to show you I am a beast."

I put down the missile pod with a grunt then walked toward the Nairbs. They didnt get it, not until the last moment when I slammed their two heads together.

Now, Id only planned to crack their skulls together and knock them out. Id forgotten, unfortunately, that Nairbs come from a low-grav world. They had thin skulls-about the thickness of a sheet of cardboard and not much tougher. Their skulls fractured and gushed on the deck.

Looking down at the mess, I realized I was committed now. Using one of the dead Nairbs flippers, I was able to pa.s.s through the hatch to the bridge.

I thought about the engine room, I really did, but I didnt think it would work out. There was no telling how many obstacles might be down there. I didnt know the layout of the ship, and I didnt have a lot of time before the Nairbs got smart and employed defensive systems to put me down. Claver had probably known this, but hadnt cared. Hed just wanted to get the h.e.l.l away from me and see me dead.

I sealed the hatch to the bridge behind me. I managed to disable the override controls from the inside. Fortunately, Empire design mandated that control systems be universally workable for as many beings as possible, so I had no trouble operating them.

Steering the ship would have been difficult, even so, if I hadnt had such an easy, unmistakable target to aim for. Adjusting the helm and locking in the course, I engaged the engines, full thrust. This caused everything aboard to tip and roll to the back of the chamber it was in. I was pinned to the rear bulkhead for almost a minute before I managed to get crawling again.

Id almost blown it. If I hadnt been able to move, my whole plan would have been for nothing. But Im a strong man, and crawling isnt as hard as it sounds, even under three Gs of centrifugal force.

When I reached the missile pod, I engaged it, overriding every safety symbol that popped up, and ordered all the missiles to fire at once.

There was a timer-a short one-that ticked down for a few seconds. What were the Nairbs doing all around the ship during their last moments? Probably, theyd been caught and squished flat by crushing G-forces. I dont know. h.e.l.l, they might have all died by now, their hearts unable to pump under this much weight.

I rolled onto my back and looked toward the big display on the forward wall of the bridge. The central star of this system, Gamma Pavonis itself, loomed huge and white-hot. That had been my target, the star itself.

My lips curled back from my teeth, and I tasted metal. That was from radiation poisoning, I knew.

Thats all I can remember now, because I died at some point after that, and my memories of those final minutes are lost forever.

Its just as well, I guess. Whether I blew up or burned up, it couldnt have been much fun.

-39-.

There was a posse waiting for me when I was reborn. They werent there to throw me a party, either.

"Thats it," the bio specialist said. "Hes a good grow-not that it matters."

A collar was clamped onto my neck. That was a new one. An honest-to-G.o.d collar, like I was some kind of beagle.

"What the h.e.l.l...?" I croaked, but that was all I managed to get out before I was roughly hauled off the table.

When you first return to life, your senses dont always work right. For me, the world was a swimming blur, like I was in an underwater universe full of bright lights and barking voices. No one seemed happy with me, I gathered that much.

"I dont see why we bothered to revive this piece of s.h.i.t again," said someone. I didnt recognize the voice, but it was rough, male, and p.i.s.sed off.

"Hes screwed the lot of us, thats for sure. Were supposed to take him down to detention. The bra.s.s wants to know exactly what happened for intel purposes. If he wont talk, were to use any means necessary to get a full confession."

"Good enough for me."

Naked and collared, I was hauled through some steel security doors and handed over to a pair of hard-eyed guards. They dragged me into another room and threw me into a chair. My wrists were clamped down to the arms of the chair-which turned out to be shiny, cold, stainless steel.

By this time, I had a reasonable level of control over my body, so I kicked the guy who was trying to clamp my ankles to the chair legs. I caught him right in the jimmy, and he grunted unhappily.

I enjoyed the moment, but it was probably a mistake. They punched me for a while until one of them called it quits, pulling back the red-faced guy Id nailed earlier.

"Give it up, Bill. Thats what he wants. If you give him an easy out, h.e.l.l avoid talking entirely."

Huffing and snorting with rage, the man named Bill stepped away.

They were both from Legion Solstice. That didnt bode well for my immediate future. Like Ive said, Solstice people were a hard-bitten lot, like those from Varus. No legion man really likes a guy from another legion. It was always easier to mistreat someone from a group that you saw as a rival.

I mumbled something through broken lips. They splashed my face with water so I could speak intelligibly again.

"Whats that, Varus?" Bill asked.

"I said: you boys are a couple of prime p.u.s.s.ies."

This amused them. "Whys that?"

"Strapping down a fresh revive and beating on him for fun? Ive always heard thats the kind of thing that gets a Solstice man hard in the morning, but I didnt want to believe it."

For some reason, my words troubled Bill-but not the other guy. The other guy laughed and sneered. "You know what you did? You screwed Earth out of spite. The Empire will never stand for this. Remember what they did to the squids back on Dust World?"

"I sure do, I watched it."

They nodded like they already knew that. "Well, theyre going to do the same to Earth once they find out you drove one of their ships right into the local star!"

"But I didnt."

They shook their heads in disgust. Bill leaned over so he could look me in the eye.

"Really?" he asked. "More denials? Simply saying you didnt do something isnt going to wash, McGill. Weve heard about you from your own officers. You wrecked the Nairb ship just to screw all of us. Well, now its payback time. First, were going to find out exactly what you did, second by second, while you were aboard the Nairb ship. Then, were going to perm you good."

"What if I dont feel like talking?"

Bill got up and walked away, but then the other guy came close and gave me a grim smile. "This isnt your first time around, McGill. Weve already killed you six-no, was it seven times now?"

"Something like that Randy," Bill said. He twisted his lips in thought. "Might be seven. I think it has been seven, in fact."

For the first time, I felt a chill go through me. I couldnt remember any other lives or deaths at the hands of these two, but I knew they might have had the storage backup of my mental engrams turned off.

Could these two goons really have revived me and beaten me to death seven times? What was going to make them stop?

"Let me talk to Centurion Belter," I said. "She knows me. Ill tell her my story."

They sighed. "Thats not going to wash," Bill said. "Never has, never will. You tell us what happened, and then well finish you nice and clean. But if you dont give us the truth this time, itll go badly-all over again."

I was in a quandary now. My heart was racing like it hadnt been since the revival. It was one thing to be dragged around and beaten. Id experienced plenty of that in my life in the legions. But to hear about my former abused selves-and to know I was about to repeat their fate-I didnt like it and wanted to change the outcome this time.

But how could a man out-think himself? I had to a.s.sume all the immediate dodges had already occurred to past McGills, and theyd failed to impress. The only thing I could come up with was something that I knew and my past selves hadnt, that this was my seventh time around. Maybe I could use that.

"Seven was always my moms lucky number," I said. "You p.r.i.c.ks have mammas, dont you?" I looked at the one called Randy, the meaner one, thoughtfully. "Well, maybe not you."

"Youre going to insult us?" Randy asked in return, shaking his head. "Youve gone down that road. I have to admit, you can come up with some good insults when you want to."

I didnt have an answer. I was breathing hard and testing my bonds. They held me firmly. Steel clamps were good for that.

Randy straightened up and sighed. "Well, we already know where your sensitive areas are so we might as well get started."

He moved around behind me, which freaked me out a little. I couldnt crank my neck around far enough to see what he was up to. The other guy, Bill, put his b.u.t.t on a table and crossed his arms.

"We know your back isnt that much of an issue for you," Randy said, almost like he was talking about a group project we were all involved in. "Some men dont like a kidney punch, but you suck them right up."

He was right, and that made me feel a bit sick inside because it meant he really did know me.

"Yes, lets speed this up," I said. "Just to check, you already know about Claver, right? That he had a small smugglers ship docked with the Nairb ship?"

"We know about that," Bill said while Randy fooled around behind my back, rattling metal objects. "At least weve heard that lie before."

"How do you know its a lie?"

"Because Claver has already communicated with us. If hed been left unconscious in a docked ship, he wouldve been dead like everyone else aboard."

"Okay then. I can only a.s.sume he escaped."

"Fair enough-the trouble is he hasnt verified one word of your story. He was never on that ship, McGill. He doesnt have mini-missile pods or anything else. Hes shown us pictures and cargo rosters. Your lies have already been disproven."