were my daughter..."

"Don't apologize," Gerard said. "I can't thank you enough for telling me this much. A drive signature-at least that's not an explosion. I don't know what it means, but... there's a chance."

"We'll keep looking," Parmina said. "The primary mission has to be restoring ansible communication and ensuring the security of our people and equipment, but then-"

"Do you have an estimate on that?" Gerard asked.

"We'll have a skeleton system up, for nonpublic and emergency communications, within another couple of days. Very limited bandwidth. Rebuilding the platforms for full commercial usage will take much longer. How long we won't know until we examine the

wreckage and find out if any of the power units are usable. And we need to find out how it was done-how they destroyed them."

"But you're in communication with your people there now?"

"Spike ansible-yes, but we can't give anyone else access to that. I

have put Ky's name in a priority-one bin, though, Gerry. We've also made it clear to Mackensee that your daughter's welfare is very important to us. If anyone there hears from her-or via any of our ansibles-our security personnel have been directed to pass it straight up to me. You'll have the news as soon as I do."

"Thanks, Lew," Gerard said. "I know you have a lot more on your

mind than one little trading ship-"

"The whole Sabine situation is nonstandard enough that I'd be glad of some good neutral input," Parmina said. "The mercs are upset,

the Sabine government is upset, no one's claiming responsibility for the ansible attack, and now that ship disappearing... It's not just a simple bit of sabotage anymore. I have my own reasons for wanting to find that ship, as well as our friendship."

Something in Parmina's voice left a cold spot, even colder than the rest in Gerard's gut. "You aren't thinking... that Ky was involved... ?"

"No, no, of course not. I don't think she blew the ansibles. For one thing, there's good scan data from before the attack to show that she was docked at Prime's orbital station. She did undock without permission after the ansibles were hit, but other ships did that, too- the orbital station was the next logical target. But ships don't just disappear like that, Gerry. You and I both know that ship beacons are sealed systems intended to work unless completely vaporized, and vaporized ships don't have a drive path signature. Something weird was going on, with her ship as well as the whole system."

Gerard could think of nothing to say. She had been there, alive after the time when he had feared she was dead. She had been alive until a few days ago, for sure. Now... maybe she was alive, even though the disappearance of her ship-or the malfunction of her ship's beacon-suggested something very serious had gone wrong.

"Thank you," he said again, just for something to say. "I'll let you know as soon as we hear anything else. As for general business, I'd say it would be safe to schedule deliveries and pickups within seven to ten days. We won't have public systems back up by then, but surveillance will be full-on. Got to go, Gerry; we're up to our armpits in alligators." The line went blank.

"So is she all right?" Stavros was in the doorway. "I don't know," Gerard said. His voice sounded disgustingly normal, he thought. Inside he felt shaky as jelly, but his voice didn't waver. "That was Lew Parmina at ISC. They're in the system; they have eyewitness and other records that show she was there, and she was alive and well up to the point where the mercs left the system. She was just coasting along, ballistic, full of passengers, with her cargo netted outside, and then-the beacon went off, there's insystem drive residue, and she's nowhere to be found." "That doesn't make sense," Stavros said, frowning. "If she was being pursued she might wish the beacon were off, but-I don't have a clue how to turn one off and I doubt she did. And why didn't she jump out of that mess? She's got a perfectly good FTL drive-"

"Apparently not," Gerard said. "I'm not clear on when it was disabled, or by whom, but apparently all she's got is insystem drive. What she does have is contracts. One with Belinta, to deliver ag equipment-"

"Which explains why she was on Sabine, instead of almost to Lastway," Stavros put in. "Yes. The other is with the mercs, for carrying the passengers they assigned her, the officers of the other ships they interned temporarily. We have a copy of that, via the Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation and the ISC; I haven't looked at it yet." He checked the latest deliveries, and found it. "Here we are. Standard passenger rates for ten days' passage on an assigned course which is the same as that which the mercs gave the ISC, and on which the cargo was found."

"Binding on the firm, then?" Stavros asked.

Gerard winced. If Vatta Transport took over those contracts, it

would be an admission that Ky was dead. And yet, their reputation

rested on prompt, complete service.

"We can't do anything about the passengers," he said. "Not until the ship shows up. But we can reassure Belinta that they will get their cargo, though it may be somewhat delayed."

"Send someone to pick it up in space or reorder?"

"Let's look at the routings... wait a second-" He had come to the last part of Mackensee's message to ISC about the ship and its

captain. "They say she no longer has a Vatta implant-what can that mean?"

Stavros shook his head. "How would they know, unless-" He

looked at Gerry. "They removed it themselves. She must have been

their prisoner."

He would not faint. He would not panic. It would do no good, and she was-she had been-alive, and might still need him.

"Routings," he said, in a voice that sounded nothing like his own.

Together, they called up the present positions and routings of all the Vatta ships within two jumps of Sabine system. Nothing that would work easily, nothing that wouldn't break other commitments. Katrine Lamont was closest.

"We'll do it," Stavros said. "I'll get in touch with Furman-he knows her, I think. Wasn't he captain when she was on that apprentice trip?"

"I think so," Gerard said. He looked at the schedules. "If I ship today on a fast courier, I can send her a replacement implant, and that stack of mail waiting for her; Furman can pick that up at- where's he going to be? Delian II? Tight, but he can wait for it.

We'd still want to confirm that Sabine's stable before we send him in."

"There's a piece missing," Sawvert said. The beacon's capsule lay

open, its components spread on the deck.

"He must have taken it," Corson said. "Paison must have taken it out so he could put it in later."

"Or destroyed it," Ky said. "We know he destroyed part of the

insystem drive control linkage."

"It's small," Sawvert said. "He could just stick it in his pocket-it's about like this"-she pointed at another piece, a slender cylinder about a finger long-"a number five inducer."

"You're sure it's missing..."

"Yes, Captain, I'm sure."

"And I am, too," Corson said. "Everything else looks fine-there's

no sign of anything wrong but the missing part."

Something about the shape tickled Ky's memory. She had seen that

shape before, but not in the beacon... she'd never looked inside the beacon case. Where had it been... ?

"Did you... er... search the bodies after you... shot them?" Sawvert

asked.

"No." She had had other priorities, like getting the ship back under

control and the rest of the hostages safely locked into the cargo

holds again.

"It might be still... in his clothes..." Corson looked sick at this suggestion. Ky felt the same way.

"There's a problem," she said. "We don't have the bodies."

"You-spaced them?"

"I had cargo holds full of you folks, some of you hostile, and a ship

to get under control, and no spare space anywhere," Ky said, trying not to sound defensive. "I couldn't just stick them in the cooler with the rations."

"Maybe he dropped it somewhere," Sawvert said. "Or maybe he

gave it to someone who doesn't realize what it is."

"Maybe," Ky said. She felt certain that it was in one of Paison's pockets, and the dead pirate was mocking her still.

But that wasn't where she'd seen something like that part. Where was it?

"What kind of marks would it have on it?" she asked.

"Marks?"

"Any way to identify it? Stripes or something?" She waved at the disassembled beacon. Some of those parts had color-coding stripes, or numbers.

"Sure," Sawvert and Corson said together. They glanced at each other, and Sawvert went on. "It depends on the manufacturer, but basically it'll have a number and a stripe, probably purple. You don't have a parts store that might have it, do you?"