Quest for tomorrow: Beyond the stars
by
William Shatner


World famous as Star Trek's Captain Kirk, william shatner is now
celebrated as a bestselling author of science fiction adventure.
Beyond the Stars is his twenty-first novel, and the fourth in his
acclaimed Quest for Tomorrow series.

Jacket design by Carl D. Galian Jacket illustration 2000 by Peter
Peebles Author photograph 1997 by Cliff Lipson/CBS Inc.

Harper Prism

A Division of~la.rpcrCo\msPublishers www.harpercollins.com

QUEST FOR TOMORROW

Delta Search

In Alien Hands

Step into Chaos Beyond the Stars

Published by Harper Prism

BEYOND

THE

STARS

QUEST FOR TOMORROW

WILLIAM

SHATNER

Harper Prism

 Harper Prism A Division of HarperCollins Publish

10 East 53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 100225299

This is a work of fiction.  The characters, incidents, and dialogues
are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as
real.

Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead,

is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2000 by William Shatner

All rights reserved.  Printed in the United States of America.  No part
of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
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quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Shatner, William.

Beyond the stars William Shatner.  -- 1 st U.S. ed.

poem.

ISBN 0-06-105118-7 ""

I. Title II.  Quest for tomorrow

PS3569.H347 B49 2000

813'.54--dc21 Visit Harper Prism on the World Wide Web at
http:www.harpercollins.com

DEDICATION AND

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

She defined love.

She was my passion.

I dedicate this book to my beloved.

To Bill Quick, who's become my friend.

INTRODUCTION

Through the first three books of the Quest for Tomorrow series, one of
the main themes has been the destiny of humankind as our species moves
into space.  In the third book, Step Into Chaos, the vision of that
destiny was revealed as the creation of the Omega Point.

The Omega Point theory, first invented and promulgated by the famous
physicist Frank J. Tipler, postulated that humanity would, over
millions of years, gradually expand to fill the entire universe and
become, in effect, a superbrain.

By the finish of Step Into Chaos, young Jim Endicott, bearing the
burden of his mother's gift of encoded DNA, became far more than
human--in fact, he became one with the Omega Point itseK.

He used the infinite power of that entity to set the universe back on
its" proper course by going back in time and changing one simple act:
the coin his mother flipped to decide whether to alter his DNA.

Now, in Beyond The Stars, we return to Jim's tale at another crucial
turning point: the moment when he killed Carl Endicott, the man he
thought of as his father.  In this new universe, Jim doesn't kill Carl.
He kills Commander Steele instead.

The astute reader will notice other differences.  In the first three
books, humanity, constrained by Delta's paranoia and the necessities of
the mind arrays, was not a race of colonizers.

Now humanity is.  When Jim runs from Wolfbane, he flees into a galaxy
throbbing with hundreds of Terran colony worlds; and the greatest
obsessions of the human species are more ex pan vii

sion, more colonies, more people moving ever outward.

What happened to the old Jim, the Jim cursed by his own altered genetic
heritage, dogged forever by his own self betrayals  The universe he
lived in, made a dead end by his own peculiar existence, still
remains--but as an alternate dimension.  When Jim restored the main
universe, he didn't destroy his own first universe, but split it away.
Yet all the universes are the province of the Omega Point, for the
Omega Point is omnipotent and omniscient and omnipresent.  And Jim is a
part of it still.

Does the new Jim consciously know of the Jim he replaced?  For the
answer to that, gentle reader, you must continue on with Jim as he
moves into a universe the same, yet different, as a boy the same, yet
different.  It should be a wild ride.  Enjoy it!

 The wrecked cabin stank of charred wood.  The sun, its morning light
filtered by a scrim of trees, leaked through a drifting haze of smoke.
Jim Endicott licked his lips.  His mouth was dry.  His head ached.  He
could feel his pulse pumping in his ears.

He squatted next to Carl Endicott, the man who, up until a few days
ago, he had believed to be his father, and said quietly, "Can you
stand?"

"I think so.  I'll need a hand."  Carl levered himself into a sitting
position.  He groaned as the crust of blood on his chest split open.
"No.  I can't--" He gritted his teeth and sank back.  Suddenly he
seemed to shrink.

Jim's mother, Tabitha, until that moment seemingly calm despite the
terror she had just survived, suddenly gasped.  "Oh, my God!"  "Mom,
didn't look."

Tabitha knelt next to Carl.  She patted his shoulders, his head, his
chest, as if her frantic touch could somehow heal him.  Her hands came
away streaked with red.

"Mom .... "

I'ab, it's not as bad as it looks," Carl said.  He glanced at Jim.
"Son, help your mother."

Jim put his hand on Tabitha's shoulder.  She wheeled and glared at him.
"Don't touch me!"

Jim pulled his hand back.  "Morn, I--" "You shot him[ It was you,
wasn't it?"  "I didn't mean--"

 "This is all your fault!  If you'd obeyed your father in the first
place--"

"I'abitha!"  Carl's voice snapped like a breaking bone.  She turned
back to him, her lips moving silently, an expression of utter
helplessness on her face.  Jim's stomach heaved.  If there had been
anything inside, he would have puked it up on the spot.

"I... I'm sorry," he said.  He couldn't think of anything else to
say.

I did all this.  I caused it.  My fault my fault my fault....... He
glanced over at the armored shape of Commander Steele's headless
corpse, then quickly looked away.

Carl saw the glance.  "Jim, stop it.  Look at me!"

"Dad, I'm so sorry."

Carl shook his head, as if the apology were trivial, and Jim winced. "I
brought a portadoc," Carl said.  "It's in the large bag.  If the
explosion didn't damage it, I need it."  He paused.  "As for blame,
there's plenty of it to go around.  We can talk about it later, maybe.
But right now, I'm bleeding .... "

A harsh, bright light seemed to explode Jim's skull, cutting through
the film of shock that had leached all color from his world.  The hues
suddenly screamed at him: The crimson blotch on Carl's chest appeared
to vibrate.

Blood.  Too much blood... He turned and ran, not noticing the tears
that streaked silently down his smudged cheeks.

"Hurry!"  Tabitha cried.

Jim lifted the compact square shape of the portadoc away from Carl's
naked chest.  Carl's eyes were closed, his face pale, but his breathing
was steady.  The wound stretched from just above Carl's right nipple
almost to his shoulder, an angry red

 welt now closed beneath a glistening, transparent line of instant
skirl.

Tabitha had pulled all their bags and everything else she could salvage
out of the shambles of the cabin and piled them on the front porch.
Amazingly, the roof of the porch still stood, though the cabin itself
was open to the sky.  She looked up as Jim added the portadoc to the
pile.

"Jim?  I'm sorry.  What I said before, I didn't mean--"

He realized his hands were shaking.  He took a deep breath.  "Morn,
it's okay.  We were all crazy.  Everything was crazy,"

Her face was as pale as Carl's, and now Jim noticed the livid
purple-and-yellow bruise that began high on her forehead and extended
up beneath her disheveled hairline.

He reached toward her head.  She flinched away from him, her own
Fingers involuntarily flying toward the lump.  "It's nothing.  That big
man hit me.  I'm okay."  "Let me look.  At least let the portadoc--"

"We have more important things to worry about.  Your father .. . he
needs medical attention.  Real medical attention.  We have to go back
.... "

As Jim listened to her, he felt something stir deep within his mind.
Something cold, dispassionate, and hard.  It seemed to operate like a
computer, pulling up facts, examining them, weighing them, discarding
some, and generating new facts from old ones.

"Morn.  We can't go back."

She stared at him.  "But we have to.  Your father... "

He glanced at the unconscious man.  "We can't stay here, either, but we
can't go back.  I don't know where we can go.  Maybe he does.  I'd
better wake him."

"Don't you dare!  He's hurt!  He needs rest!"

He was shocked at her vehemence.  Under ordinary circumstances he would
have obeyed her without question.  But that new, cold part of him
wouldn't allow it.  She was too close to hysteria, operating on the
ragged edge of sanity, reacting to emotions he knew she was barely able
to understand.  He couldn't obey her, but it wouldn't do to push her
over the edge, either.  That would only create another problem he would
have to deal with, and he had enough of those already.

"Morn," he said, keeping his voice as gentle and steady as he

 could, "I have to talk to Dad.  Unless he told you what he wanted to
do next.  Did he tell you?"

She was staring at Carl.  "He'll be fine, just as soon as a doctor..."
Her voice trailed off.  "What did you say?."  "Did Dad tell you what he
wanted to do next?"  "Next?"

"Where he wanted to go from here.  He couldn't have planned just to
stay here.  If they found us... "

Involuntarily, his gaze strayed to the three silent bodies arrayed in
contorted positions around the clearing in front of the cabin.  The one
without a head, whom his father had called "Steele."  Another one,
impaled on a jagged tree branch.  The third one, the big man, was
nearly hidden in the underbrush, only his feet protruding into the
clearing.

Two of them were women.  Did it make a difference?

No, that cold part of him decided, it did not.  All three had been
doing their damnedest to kill him and his family.  Now they were dead.
But they had come from somewhere, for some reason, and there would be
more.

There was no point in asking Tabitha about any of it, not when the man
who knew everything was sleeping not ten feet away.  The man he'd
called "father" all his life.

Even the cold part of him cringed away from that.  Carl wasn't his
father, and that was somehow tied in with his own betrayal, and with
these dead killers.  He didn't want to think about that.  It was too
complicated, too frightening.

They had managed to survive the first attack.  But he knew it was only
the first attack, and there would be more.  So they didn't have a lot
of time.  Some, maybe, though he had no idea how much.  But his strange
and surprising father, who wasn't his father, and who had turned out to
kfiow a hell of a lot more about the arts of death than Jim had ever
imagined possible,

might very well know.

"Mom?"

At the sound of his voice she blinked, as if he'd startled her.  "Mom,"
he said again.  He reached out and took her hand.  Her fingers were
cold and felt thin, like sticks coated with ice.  He tugged her up. She
came without protest, evidently happy to be led.  He walked her away,
walked her around the end of the

 cabin, found a soft hummock where the grisly remains of the dead were
no longer visible, and sat her down.  She looked up at him, suddenly
trusting as a child.  For the first time in his life, he realized their
roles were reversed.  He would have to take care of her, not the other
way around.

The thought scared him nearly senseless.

"Jim... is everything going to be all right?  It is, isn't it?"  He
patted her hand.  "Yes, it is.  I promise."  That was the most heroic
thing he did that day.

As he rounded the corner of the cabin, Jim glanced back and saw his
mother sitting placidly on the grass, her expression blank and helpless
and weirdly expectant.  He felt a knot just above the center of his
breastbone, half in his chest, half in his throat, a knot it took him a
moment to identify as terror.  It was odd: He had never thought of
terror as being a physical thing, a cold, almost fleshy mass that
choked him as he forced himself to swallow it.

He went to his father and knelt near Carl's head, then slipped his left
arm beneath Carl's neck and lifted him a bit.

Carl moaned.  His eyes came open.  His gaze was disoriented at first,
but sharpened quickly.

"Where's your mother?."

"I took her around the cabin and sat her down.  Where she couldn't see.
She's not in good shape."

Carl Endicott's gaze went unfocused for an instant.  "Your mother is
one of the strongest women I've ever known," he said softly.  "But this
is too much for her.  Maybe that's what I can't forgive you for.
Causing something that even she can't handle.  That nobody should be
expected to handle."

"As you told me, we can discuss it later," Jim said, after consulting
that new, cold part of himself.  "Right now, I need to know. And don't
lie to me or hold anything back for my own good, because if we are
going to get away from here, I'm going to have to do it.  You're too
sick to depend on."

He looked down at the wound on Carl's chest.  The portadoc had done as
well as it could, but Tabitha was right.  Carl needed more and better
treatment, and he needed it as soon as possible.  How soon that would
be, Jim had no idea.  Out on the edge of his awareness lurked the
unthinkable: Carl might die.

Carl stared up at him.  "You don't know it," he said, "but you just
surprised me.  Maybe I didn't do as bad a job with you as I thought."

"And we can talk about that later, too.  In the meantime, I have to
make sure there is a later.  What are the chances that more of these
killers will come?  You said you knew this Steele woman.  She's dead,
but she came from somewhere.  If more are coming, how quickly?."

Carl closed his eyes.  "Steele liked to do things on her own, but the
man who sent her watches everything.  If he doesn't know what happened
already, he will soon.  And he'll send others."

"Who sent her?"

Carl went on as if Jim hadn't spoken.  'rhere will be a mother ship
somewhere.  It will take them a while to put together a new team and
send it out.  We can't go back to the tube station, and we certainly
can't go back home.  So we'll have to go ahead."

Jim nodded.  "Yes, I thought so, too.  Where are we going?."
"Harmaport."

Jim had to think a moment before he remembered.  That little place.  On
the other side of the mountains from here."

'That's right.  We need to get there.  I have friends."  Carl suddenly
gritted his teeth.  "Jim.  The portadoc gave me enough painkiller to
work under normal circumstances, but this isn't normal.  I need more,
enough to let me move around now.  But that will be too much for me to
function mentally.  I'll be groggy, no use for anything.  I'll be
dependent on you."

"I'd tell you not to worry, that I'll take care of everything, but that
would be a lie.  I don't know what will happen.  But I'll do my best,
Dad."

Carl nodded.  'Then let's hope your best is enough."  He shifted his
weight against Jim's arm.  "Get me the painkiller.  The quicker we get
away from here and get into the trees, the safer we'll be."

Jim felt happy.

They walked along a narrow, rocky path, beneath an arch of bowed green
pines that concealed the sky almost completely.  The path was more an
opening than a path, a trail for things with sure hooves or pads, and
it wasn't meant for humans.

He was burdened with bags strapped down his back.  Carl's left arm lay
heavily across his shoulder.  Carl could not really walk, but moved
along in a halting, looping stagger, his head lolling, his eyes glazed
and empty from the drugs.  Tabitha sup ported her husband on the other
side, and was similarly encumbered.  She'd quit talking long ago, and
her breathing sounded raspy and labored.

Jim was aware of all of this.  He was aware of more: of the
hopelessness of their position, of the danger of death, of the yawning
inner abyss of his own betrayal.  He was terrified, and numb with
grief, and yet he felt happy.  When he realized what he felt, he was
amazed.  Happiness?  For a moment he wondered if he was going crazy.

The trail wound upward, following some secret fold in the land the
animals had sensed but he couldn't.  Now the trees pulled back a bit,
exposing ground stony with loose, dark gray shale, and Carl's feet
suddenly went out from under him.  Tabitha let out a sharp cry as her
ankle twisted.  She stumbled and went to her knees.  Jim listed toward
her as Carl's bulk dragged him down.

"Whoa!"  He barely managed to lower Carl to a loose sprawl on the hard
ground, and then he reached for Tabitha.

"Morn!"

She was sitting, rubbing her left ankle with both hands.  He

 scooted around Carl, who began to hum tunelessly as he stared from
one side of the path to the other, and squatted next to her.  "How bad
is it?"

She looked up at him.  For the first time he saw, magnified by
exhaustion and pain, the free wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.  Had
they always been there?  How little he had observed, how much he had
always taken for granted!  And still that odd, buoyant feeling of
happiness would not leave him, even in the face of new disaster.

"It's not broken," she said slowly.  She didn't sound sure.

"Let me see."  Gently, he pushed the bottom of her pant leg back, to
reveal a streak of discolored skin about an inch wide that began near
the base of her heel and extended up over her anklebone.  The patch was
faintly blue, but darkening as he watched.  Gingerly, he pushed at the
spot where the knob of ankle protruded.  Tabitha drew in a sharp
breath.

"You're right, I don't think it's broken," he said.  "But it's badly
sprained, and you won't be able to walk on it."

Her lips began to quiver.  Without thinking about it, he put his arm
around her shoulder and pulled her close, suddenly realizing how small
she was, this woman who had towered over his childhood.

"What are we going to do now?."  she whispered.

She began to shake, and he squeezed her tighter, until the shaking
stopped.

"Ie portadoc.  I think we can get the swelling down, and maybe make
some kind of cast.  Or I can tear up a shirt, make a splint with sticks
if the machine can't do that.  Maybe enough for you to walk."  He
thought about it.  "Enough to help with Dad... with Carl."

He knew she noticed the way he changed what he said, but she didn't say
anything about it.  That still lay between them, the mystery of mutual
betrayal, but it was either too soon or too late to say anything about
it, and so he was grateful for her silence.

BE ONI) THE STARS

ho ugh it was very fast, the ship wasn't large, and as a consequence
the comm section didn't have its own separate quarters but was merely
two workstations on one side of the bridge, presided over by a chief
petty officer named Hector Martens.  CPO Martens noticed right away
when the link between the ship and Commander Steele's kdll team
vanished, but he wasn't immediately worried.  The ship had come to
Wolfbane System on very short notice, and under strct orders to remain
anonymous.  They had not announced themselves to Wolfbane Ground
Control, and had no intention of doing so.  As a further precaution,
the signal from Steele was being bounced off three Wolf bane weather
sats to the ship, which was maintaining a position on the other side of
the planet from Steele's cur rent location.  All this was unbeknownst
to the operators of those satellites, and so the signal wasn't as
stable as it might have been.

CPO Martens and his crew had been operating twelve on, twelve off, and
he was nearing the end of his shift.  Ship's time made t either very
late or very early, and he was hesitant to wake the eaptatn over
something that could be a minor glitch.  Captain Shelbourne was nearly
as cranky as Commander Steele, and didn't take kindly to being roused
over nothing.

It was therefore almost twenty minutes before CPO Martens realized that
the link had been broken for good, not just the main link to Steele,
but also the backup links to the other two members of Steele's team.
Similar delays ensued while Captain Shelbourne was awakened, while
further checks were made, while orders were requested from Terra, while
orders were received, and while the ship left its orbit and
repositioned itself over Steele's last known location.  All in all, t
took nearly six hours after the communications break for the ship to
reach a stationary holding orbit thirty miles above the ruins of Carl
Endicott's cabin--at which point CPO Martens discovered a further
problem.

"Captain, they're socked in down there.  Heavy cloud cover

 over the entire region, and extending up about three miles."

Captain Shelbourne glanced irritably at her own screen.  "I haven't
gone blind, Martens."  She leaned back in her seat, pursed her lips,
and tapped the side of her chin.  All these were recognized as signs
she was unhappy with the general state of affairs.

"Very well," she said at last.  "Send down some remotes."

The pilot, Lieutenant Baldocker, said, "We could take her down for a
look, Captain."

This earned him a cold glance from the captain.  "You may have
forgotten, Lieutenant, that we are supposed to remain in strict
concealment.  So, unless you have come upon some way that I don't know
of keeping our presence here a secret from

Wolfbane ground radars, I'll have to reject your suggestion."  Properly
chastened, Lieutenant Baldocker subsided.  "Remote comm units launched,
Captain," Martens reported.  'rhank you."

After that, they waited.

The remote communications units, called "floaters," dropped beneath the
cloud cover at five hundred meters, then homed like fat golden bees on
the smoking rubble of the cabin in the clearing.  The infrared
signature if the cabin masked all other signals until the two floaters
were actually on the site and humming busily about ten feet off the
ground.  From that height, the pictures they sent back to the ship were
as sharp and detailed as human eyesight.  Sharper, because these eyes
weren't human.

Captain Shelbourne stared at the large holoscreen floating before her
command chair and began to tap the side of her jaw more rapidly. Unlike
the rest of her bridge team, she knew who had sent Steele and her kill
squad, and she had a fair idea of

 how high up Steele's influence actually reached.  Or had reached,
because the headless corpse lying silently on the ground outside the
cabin was plainly Steele's.  The captain resisted her first impulse,
which was to send notice of the disaster back to Terra immediately, and
waited while the floaters the rest of the scene.  It was during this
that examined process the recording equipment on Heck Campbell's armor
triggered a relay on one of the floaters and zipped the film of what
had happened at least from Heck's viewpoint, back to the ship.

"Privacy shield," Captain Shelbourne murmured, as the film began to
appear on her screen.  After she had reviewed this record of events
three times, she left the bridge and went to her cabin, where she made
an electronic package of all the data she had recovered and sent it to
Terra.

The response came very quickly, so quickly that she knew the decision
must have been made at the very highest level.  Her new orders were
short and to the point, though difficult to achieve: "Pursue and
capture," Terra said.  "Concealment no longer a priority.  Use all
available resources."

Captain Shelbourne shut down her private communications unit and
returned to the bridge.  The orders were clear enough, but how she
would carry them out was not.  Worse, she knew that her career was on
the line.  If she failed in her efforts to pursue and capture," the
black mark would remain on her personnel jacket for the remainder of
her career--which might not be that long a time at all.

She had not liked Commander Steele when she had first met the dour and
forbidding woman.  Now she hated her.  "Lieutenant Baldocker, take us
down," she said.

The pilot recognized the tone of her voice from past, painful
experience, and began the ticklish process of bringing several thousand
tons of space going vessel into a landing on the side of a mountain
without the aid of ground control or any kind of port facilities.  The
task was not unlike trying to park an elephant on a postage stamp.

While Baldocker sweated, Captain Shelbourne said, "Medical Officer.
Prepare to take on three bodies."  The way she said them, the words
sounded more like a curse than an order.

 From his vantage point higher up the mountain, watched the ship
settle toward the cabin below in eerie silence.  It was unnerving that
something so big could be so quiet.  The sharp snap of trees breaking
beneath its weight was the only sound it made as it landed, like a
string of faraway firecrackers going off.

Tabitha squeezed his arm as they saw tiny figures from the ship and
busy themselves in the clearing.

"They came for the bodies," Jim said.

"It's so big," Tab observed.  He could tell from the sound voice that
she was badly frightened again.

"No, it isn't.  That's a corvette, a small ship.  Very fast,

small.  Maybe it's a good thing for us."

"What do you mean?"

"You send a ship out like that because of its speed.

sent it was in a hurry.  So there probably wasn't much Maybe only
enough time to get one kill squad together."

Carl grunted.  They had seated him on a fallen tree trunk, Tabitha was
sitting next to him, holding him up.  As drugged as he was, he tended
to doze off if they stopped She was grasping his shoulder with one hand
and rubbing makeshift splint on her ankle with the other.

"Jim," she said.  She began to cry.

He reached over and slapped her.  Her dry, rasping stopped instantly.
He stared at the red marks his fingers had left on her cheek.

"You hit me.r' she said.  It was the most spirited thing heard her say
in hours.

"And now you're mad.  Good, Morn.  Get mad!  You have to get mad and
stay mad.  You can't just give up, fight it!  Get mad at me, why not?
It's all my fault anyway, right?  I'm just a little sneak, a
disobedient brat.  If I hadn't disobeyed my dad, none of this would
have happened."

"I..."  She looked away, then looked back, her eyes suddenly sparking.
"Yes, damn it, that's true.  Every damned word of it!"

 " The invisible knife buried in his chest twisted again, but he
welcomed the pain.  At least she was fightingagain.

"That's right.  It is.  And none of it will matter if they kill us.
That ship down there.  It may be hard for them to find us.  If they
don't have another kill team set up and ready to go, they have to do it
themselves.  It's not easy to move a ship like that around.  If we can
keep going, maybe we can get away.  But you can't give up.  You can't[
Or they will find us, and then.."  and then... " "I don't hate you,
Jimmy."  The knife twisted again.

"You should.  Come on, let's go."

He took Carl beneath one arm.  Tabitha took the other.  Together they
lifted him and got started again.  Up ahead, the shadowy outlines of a
break in the trees began to show.  Jim hoped it was a pass.  If they
could get to the other side of the mountains, it would be that much
harder for the ship to find them.

They heard a soft roar from below and looked back.  The ship rose from
the cabin clearing and floated straight up until it vanished in the
clouds.

"Hurry!"  Jim said.

He hated himself.  But at least Tabitha was no longer crying.  She was
fightingagain, if only fighting him, and that might be enough to save
her life.  He guessed that was worth it, although the cost was almost
too high for him to bear.

But he would have to bear it.  So he focused on the pass ahead.  Tried
not to think too much about the future because he had more than enough
to worry about in the here-and-now.  One foot in-front of the next,
lift Carl, pull him, and then one more foot, and one more foot again.

He didn't look back to see the four-man recon barge the ship had
off-loaded rise silently into the air, hover a moment, then move
briskly higher along the side of the mountain.

Higher.  Toward them.

 Jim, Carl, and Tabitha made it across the pass just after nightfall.
Dusk had idled the woods with shadows an hour before full dark and made
the going slow.  The pass itself had not been obvious.  The spaces
between the trees had widened somewhat, and there were more rocky
outcroppings, but otherwise the only real indication that the height
had been reached and crossed was that they were moving downhill.

"Mom.  We'll stop now."  He wondered whether to risk using a light, and
decided against it.

She heard him but didn't answer.  She just quit moving when he did and
stood, her head down, Carl's arm lying flaccidly across her
shoulders.

"Come on," Jim said.  "Let's find a place for him to lie down."

"He's heavy," Tabitha said.  "I couldn't have carried him much
longer."

Jim took a deep breath.  Tabitha sounded disconnected, as if they were
talking with each other but no-'[ to each other.  And that bizarre,
buoyant happiness had finally drained out of him.  It had vanished
suddenly, and he knew when and why.  Left with his own thoughts as they
climbed, he'd suddenly seen it for what it was: a false happiness based
on his being the hero of this frightening little play.  He had caused
the trouble, yes, but now he would save everybody.  His mom and dad
would love him again They would forgive him.  Everything would be like
it had been before.  But as soon as he thought about before, every bit
of his happiness disappeared as if it had never been.  Because
nothing

 D

THE STARS

going to be the same again, no matter what he did.  After that, he quit
being happy and became numb.  Now even that was wearing off.  There was
a chilly wind blowing, and the night was dark.  Killers were hunting
them.  He shivered suddenly.

"Against this dead log.  Where the leaves have piled up," he said.
Together they wrestled Carl over and down.  Carl was still
half-conscious.  He groaned as they lowered him.  They had stopped two
or three times to give him more painkiller, but now he was coming out
of it again.  Jim had to override manually the settings of the auto doc
in order to dose him enough to kill the pain.  He wondered if that was
dangerous.  If he gave Carl too much dope, maybe there would be
permanent damage.  To his brain, or his heart.  Jim couldn't remember
enough from his biology studies to know for sure.  It was one more
thing to worry about.

They got Carl settled as well as they could, wrapped in a foil camping
blanket that seemed far too light to keep him warm.  They sat on either
side of him, their arms clasped about their knees, wrapped in their own
blankets.  When Jim looked at Tabitha in the starlight, her eyes
gleamed out of the misty, pal lid shape of her face.

"Well," he said.  "I don't know."

Carl began to snore softly.

That seemed to frighten Tabitha.  She inhaled sharply, raggedly, and
when she spoke, her voice quavered so much he could hardly understand
her.  "... die," she said.  "What?"

"We're going to die."

"No.  No, Morn, we're going to be okay.  Hannaport isn't that far away.
We made it over the mountain.  It's all downhill from here.  We'll be
free."

She shook her head.  "Nothing will be Free.  You're just a boy, how
would you know?.  You don't know anything."

The recon barge floated silently across the tops of the trees.  Light
exploded from its belly like a sheet of lightning.  A voice roared at
ear-blasting level from its loudspeakers.

"Don't move.  You are under our guns.  If you try to run, we will kill
you.  Repeat, do not mover"

 ne hell of a gun for a kid," the man said as he hefted Jim's Styron
und Ritter .75.

The interior of the recon barge was crowded, what with the crew of
three young men not much older than himself.  They had picked up all
the bags, and those were piled around, and they had laid Carl out prone
on the deck, propped against the pile of bags.  Carl was still groggy,
but Jim thought he might be coming out of it a little bit.  From where
he sat, his butt on the floor and his back against a cold steel
bulkhead, he could see Carl's eye lids flutter every once in a while.
Not all the way open, but something was going on there.

"Where'd you get a gun like this?  A kid like you?"  the young man
said.

"It's my dad's."

The young man hefted the weapon again.  "Looks new."

"He just got it."

"Well, he won't need it now.  I guess I'll keep it.  Nice gun like
this, it would be a shame for it to go to waste."

"Is that what you are?  A thief?."

The young man stared at him.  He reached up with his free hand and
tapped the Con Fleet patch on his shoulder.  "You know what this means?
It means I'm a gentleman.  I'm a Con Fleet spaceman first class and
that means I'm not a thief.  You little punk."

"What's wrong with you?  Why are you, doing this to us?"  Jim pointed
at Carl.  "He's hurt.  He got hurt trying to protect us from some of
you gentlemen.  Are you just going to let him lie there?"

The spaceman first class put the pistol aside.  "Just so you know.  I'm
confiscating the gun.  You are a prisoner, so I have that legal right.
To confiscate it.  Nobody's stealinganythingaround here."

"where are you taking us?"  "Shut up."  "what?"

"I told you to shut up," the young spaceman said.  "You're under
arrest.  I don't have to talk to you at all if I don't want to."

"Hey, Carver, leave the kid alone," the pilot said.  The pilot, though
himself still young, appeared to be the oldest of the three crewmen. He
had a small, spiky beard on the tip of his chin.

"What did you say, Hemmings?"

"You heard me," Hemmings said.

"Mr.  Hemmings?  Sir?"  Jim said.  A pilot would have to be an officer.
There was no insignia on the pilot's shoulder, but he would have to be
an officer anyway.

"What?"

"I told you to shut up," Carver said to Jim.  He picked up the pistol
again.  Jim ignored him.  Carver was a bully, and while he might not be
afraid of Jim, Jim could see that Carver was afraid of Hemmings.  And
not just because Hemmings was a pilot and an officer.

The cabin of the small craft was roughly square.  There was only a
single pilot's chair, facing the ship's controls and, above the
controls, the wide, glassy expanse of the forward observation port. To
the left was the communications console, where the third young man was
seated.  He watched his screens and paid no attention to anything
else.

Carver also had a chair, though he was standing next to it.  It took
Jim a while to figure out what Carver did.  The instruments in front of
his seat were uncomplicated, but didn't offer much information.  A
couple of screens and a wide touch pad on a narrow desktop.  Probably
weapons, Jim decided.  Carver had the belligerent temperament of a
gunner.  Since a barge this size wouldn't have much in the way of
weapons, the gunner's console wouldn't be large either.

Jim felt a slight mental pressure coming from his left, as if Somebody
was staring at him from over there.  He looked over and saw that Carl's
eyes were halfway open.  Carl slid his gaze toward the pile of bags
against which he lay.  He licked his lips and blinked, once.

Carver said, "Yes, s/r," to Hemmings.

Jim leaned across, unzipped one of the bags, and reached inside.

Carver swung around, and said, "What?"

Jim pulled out Carl's Styron und Ritter.  75, a well-worn twin

 to the one Carver was now swinging up.  Carl grunted and thee himself
across the deck.  He crashed into Carver's knees.

Jim aimed the .75 and pulled the trigger.

The sound of the weapon going off was like a hammer crashing into a
huge bell.  The air vibrated.  The entire front window the small cabin
vanished as the huge .75 rocket slug smashe through it.

"Hey!"  Hemmings shouted, as the small craft yawed violently.

Carver fell over Carl.  His confiscated .75 went skittering into the
corner, beneath a rack of equipment.  Tabitha screamed.  ,!

Hemmings fought the controls as a vast gush of cold air filled the
cabin.  After a few hectic seconds, he got the craft righted again.  He
brushed a fine dust of shattered high-tensile pl asti out of his hair
and half turned.  "What the hell?"

"If I have to, I'll kill him," Jim said.  He stood up and pointe, his
.75 at the center of Carver's forehead.  Carver, still tanglec with
Carl, looked up at the gaping hole in the end of the barrel wide-eyed
and shocked.

"Don't," he said.  "Please, don't."

"Dad?"  Jim said.

"It doesn't get you anything," Hemmings said.  "You can't fl this
thing.  If you want to get down in one piece, you do it my way.  Put
the gun down."

Carl pushed Carver's legs away and slowly sat up.  His voi was slurred
but intelligible.  "I can fly it," he said.

ey used sticky tape from their packs to tie u| Hemmings, Carver, and
the comm specialist.

"Don't make it too tight," Carl whispered to Jim.  "No need t kill
them.  They can get loose eventually.  Just not too soon."

The three Con Fleet men were arranged around the peri mete of a small
clearing, well away from their vessel.  Jim fmishe

 tap inga gag across Carver's mouth and stepped away.

"Now what?"

"Go in and program the autopilot like I told you.  Then disable the
comm gear."

Jim climbed into the ship and looked around.  With the air-conditioning
system off, the small cabin smelled of sweat.  He went to the pilot's
chair, slid into it, and began to run his fingers across the control
pads.  He programmed the autopilot to take the ship at treetop level
farther to the north and deeper into the mountain range.  He checked a
topographical map and arranged for the ship's last trip to end in a
collision with a tall mountain so isolated it didn't even have a name.
Then he got up, went to the comm system, unlatched the cabinet, and
pulled out handfuls of fiber-optic cable.  That would keep the ship
from automatically broadcasting its position.  Those in the mother ship
would have to track it manually, by radar.  They wouldn't know why it
was heading north and not responding to their signals.

They'd have no choice but to follow it.

"Jim?  Are you done yet?"

He took a final look around, then climbed down and joined Carl, who was
leaning on Tabitha for support.  Carl looked drained and weak, but he'd
summoned up reserves from somewhere.  Jim.  thought he'd be able to go
for a while yet.

"It's ready."  Jim showed him a small remote-control module.  "We can
launch with this."

"Good.  I gave all three of these guys a twenty-four-hour sedative dose
with the portadoc.  We'll have enough time."

"Enough time for what?"  Jim asked.

"You'll see when we get to Hannaport.  Which won't be long.  It's only
an hour's hike down the mountain."

Jim nodded.  He didn't know how long Carl could keep himself together,
but he was glad enough to let go of the responsibility.  He even
ignored the small flare of resentment he felt when Carl, closemouthed
as ever, told him he would have to wait to fred out their plans until
they reached Hannaport.

"You want me to launch, then?"  he asked.

"Yes, go ahead.  I think we're done here."

Jim pressed a button.  The dark shape of the tiny ship rose into the
air, hovered a moment a few meters above the treetops, then sped off
with gathering speed toward the north.

 Carl grunted in satisfaction.  'That'll give them something think
about," he said.

"And it'll give us about two days before they figure out sure what's
gone wrong," Jim said.  "Assuming these guys don't know how close they
are to Hannaport."

"That's enough time," Carl told him.

Hannaport meant nothing to Jim, just a dot on he'd seen.  Now he saw it
from above, as the first morning light streamed down at his back and
illuminated the tiny which was cupped in a bowl of emerald foothills at
the base the mountains.  His first glimpse of the port was from a led
about three hundred meters above the bowl.  There were a dozen large
buildings, their white walls turned pink pearly by the dawn, and
several dozen smaller structures, ably private homes.  The street grid
was regular and even, as the whole place had been built at the same
time from blueprint.

The port itself was a broad expanse of gray concrete that the half of
the bowl not covered with buildings.  A control loomed over the side of
the field farthest from the town.  small ships were docked near the
tower, looking like toys the huge globular shape of a modified'
freighter that the center of the field.  Even this early, Jim could see
a stream tiny cargo sleds moving around the freighter, like ants inga
round an apple.

Carl refused anything but a maintenance dose of because he wanted to
stay lucid.  It was a bad trade-off, because the pain dominated him,
and no matter how hard he tried,

of his mind was occupied with trying to resist it.

"Dad?"

"Urn.  What?"

 e can rest for a while if you want."

"No, there isn't much time."

Off to the right of the ledge a two-lane concrete road snaked down a
shallow canyon.  This early, there were no travelers on it, and the
aboveground grav-rail in the center was empty.

fere's probably a walkway along that road.  It would make things
easier; we could get down quicker."

Carl shook his head.  The skin at the corners of his mouth was tight
with controlled agony.  "No, I don't want to go out in the open until
we have to.  This trail will get us there."

"Okay.  If that's what you want."

Carl's gaze focused on him a moment, then drifted away, searching for
Tabitha.  She was sitting about ten feet away, her expression blank,
her white fingers twisting like entwined worms in her lap.

"If I ... if something happens to me.  The man you want is named Carey,
Nicholas Carey.  I've got his address in my wallet.  Everything's
arranged.  Just go to him, you and your mother, do what he tells
you."

"You're going to be all right."

"I don't know that, and neither do you.  Maybe I will.  But if not,
then you do what I tell you.  This time you do what I say.  You
understand?"

Jim nodded.  Carl exhaled, seemed to gather himself.  "Help me up.
We've wasted enough time."

Jim ducked under Carl's right arm, flexed his knees, and took his
weight.  Carl grunted as Jim lifted him.

He ain't heavy, Jim thought.  He' smy father.

It was a forlorn wish, not a truth.  Not anymore.  But it would do.

 Hiknaport felt bigger than it looked from above.  was fading fast by
the time the path they'd been following them out of the trees into a
Small park.  It was much the sunlight.  A few birds squawked, and bees
that had been engineered for the Wolf bane environment buzzed among
manicured beds of bright orange flowers that had never on Earth.

On the inner side of the park a concrete walking path ended, shaded by
shaggy, dusty pines that looked a lot than the small houses nestled
beneath them.  The air was with their heavy scent and the higher,
sharper smell of the ers.

"Find a public comm booth," Carl said.  "By now our codes are being
monitored."

They reached the end of the narrow concrete path, where intersected
with a broader street.  In the center of the street a small tube
station, and on the apron there, a public beneath a luminescent green
sign.

Carl fumbled in his pocket and brought out his wallet.  gave Jim a
small piece of paper on which a name, address, comm code were written
in his neat, precise hand.  "You Carl said.  "We'll wait here."

Jim settled Carl on a bench at the side of the path.

still silent and withdrawn, sat next to him.  She was doll-like, and
she scared Jim to death.  She'd always been optimist of the family, and
now something inside her seemed be broken.  One more reason to feel
guilty.

Nicholas Carey answered the comm on the second buzz.  voice was low
enough to count as husky, but he enunciated words with immense clarity.
There was something about the way he spoke--a competence that reminded
Jim Carl.  Jim explained the situation and told him about injuries.

"I know where you are," Carey said.  "I'll be there in eight minutes.
Look for a blue ground car

 S

carl sighed.  "Remember, don't argue with him.  Just do what

i belays."

Da,d" I said I would--"

" carl s head tilted to the side and his eyes closed.  Jim reached for
him, caught him as he slumped forward.  "Dad!"

Four minutes later a blue ground car came to a silent halt three meters
away.  Jim didn't notice.  Carl's lips were turning dusky purple, and
his heart seemed to have stopped.

he ground car was an older model, but it was freshly polished and neat
as a pin on the inside.  It was a two-seater with a hatchback opening
into a larger space in the rear.

Nicholas Carey turned out to be in his forties, a tall man with the
beginnings of a gut and heavy, thick muscles that had begun to sag just
a little.  His black, curly hair, touched with gray, had receded enough
to make his high forehead look even more pronounced than it was.  Bushy
eyebrows arched over wide, dark blue eyes, giving his face a
perpetually questioning expression.  It was deceptive.  A careful
second look showed that Carey's eyes weren't questioning at all.  They
were cold and knowing, as if the man had seen too much he didn't want
to see and forgotten none of it.  He wore denim pants and a black
turtleneck shirt beneath a brown-leather jacket, the pants tucked into
ankle-high black boots.

Carey jumped out of the ground car almost before it stopped moving.  As
he did so, his jacket dropped open, and Jim saw the butt of a pistol in
a shoulder holster.  With a swift, graceful econOmy that was almost
magical, Carey crossed the distance from the car to where Carl was
gasping on the bench.

 "Let me," he said, pushing Jim aside and slipping his beneath Carl's
butt and shoulders.  He liked Carl with no effort than he would have
lifted a baby, and Jim realized big muscles weren't quite as soft as
they looked.  The of the ground car slid open as he carried Carl toward
it.  stooped slightly and slid Carl into the rear compartment as
popping a loaf of bread into an oven.

"What are you doing?."  Jim said.  He peered past Carey's shoulders
into the interior of the vehicle.  "Oh," he said.  that... ?"

"A full cyberdoc.  Not the absolute latest version, but good."

There were several silvery machines in the rear.  One of rose and
floated over Carl's chest, painting his face with pink light.  Clear
tendrils exuded from another machine, plunged into his chest.  Suddenly
Carl spasmed, his backing  He relaxed, then spasmed again.  This time
when he lapsed he stayed unmoving, but Jim thought some color come back
into his face, and his labored breathing seemed have steadied.

Carey reached into his pocket.  The hatch door lowered with soft wheep,
cutting off Jim's view.

"I think we made it in time," Carey said.  'There's nothing this
one-horse town any better than what I've got right there.  human doc,
maybe--but you don't want that, do you?"  stared at Jim's taut, worried
expression, then put one big on his shoulder.  "It'll be okay.  I've
seen Carl in worse He's tough.  He's a survivor."

Once again Jim felt that air of tremendous stronger now than what he'd
sensed talking to Carey on comm.  It was enormously tempting just to
relax, mentally back, and let Carey take charge of everything.  But
that would a kind of betrayal, too, wouldn't it?  He'd promised himself
would take care of his family.."  even if it wasn't really his ily.

"Who are you?"  he asked softly.

Carey smiled.  It didn't make him look any friendlier, but softened his
broad, heavy features.  "An old compadre," he said.

Jim vaguely recognized the word.  Some Terran language, English.
Friend ....  Carey paused, as if remembering things he hadn't thought
about in a long time, then shook his head slightly.

"Come on, let's get you foils out of here."  He looked over at Tabitha,
who had come far enough out of her daze to be staring at them with
alarm on her face.  "Fhat your morn?"

Jim nodded.  I guess so.  Maybe.  Hell, I don't know if she is or
not.

He went to her, took her hands--her fingers were still like icy
sticks--and pulled her gently to her feet.  As he did so, he realized
that it didn't matter.  She had been his mother all his life.  Whatever
the truth was, the real truth was all those years when he had loved
her, and she him.  Just like Carl.  Whatever had happened, whatever
awful secrets were now spilling out into the open, made no difference.
He had loved them as if they were his parents, and whatever they really
were, he loved them that way still.

"Come on, Mom.  We're okay now.  We're okay."

" ow do you know my dad?"  Jim asked.

"It's not important," Carey replied.  "A long time ago.  Call me Nick,
why don't you?"

Carl was stretched out on the sofa in the front room of Nick's small
house.  The room had that neat, sterile feel that Jim imagined the
quarters of a military man would possess.  Straight corners, neat
folds, sparseness.  A place for everything, and everything in its
place.

We look messy, Jim thought.  We look out of place here.  We are out of
place here.

Carl breathed softly, a sheet rumpled to his waist, his chest bare.
Elements of the doc hovered nearby.  A single cable stretched from one
of them to his neck, where it merged seamlessly with his skin.  A
monitor, keeping watch.  Guarding him

 against the treachery of his heart.  And in Nick Carey's bedroom
Tabitha curled in on herself like a shrimp, hands together in
unconscious penitence, sleeping on the bed.

"What happens next?"  Jim said.

"You're all going away  As soon as Carl is well enough.  It take long;
he just needed decent medical attention and rest.  He's getting both.
He'll be able to move around better tomorrow.  That's enough time."

Jim thought about the three Con Fleet men lying taped gagged in the
clearing.  Still sleeping from the effects of sedative, but they would
awaken.  Early tomorrow probably.  And then enough time to wriggle out
of their bonds get oriented.  But too much time otherwise.  They hadn't
left spacers any way to use sanitary facilities.  So they'd smelling
pretty bad, and maybe worse by the time they themselves free of the
tape.  They'd be pissed.  Jim smiled at the sad-funny pun.

There was no way for them to communicate with the ship.  They'd have to
walk out on their own, fred civilization, in touch with their ship. ET,
call home.  The thought of that classic vid---one of his childhood
favorites---made him again.

"Enough time for what?"  Jim asked.

"For you to go away."

Jim gestured at Carl.  "I'ell me about that," he said.  "I need
know."

So Nick did.  Most of it, at least.

Nick drove them out to the port in his ground car

sat in the back with the windows smoked to opacity.  seemed to know
everybody.  He drove them through the gate, pausing only for a moment
of cheerful conversation with the

 elderly guard there, then cruised out onto the concrete field itself.
Bypassing the small ships, they drove right up to the huge freighter,
parked beneath it, in the great blotch of its morning shadow, climbed
out, and stretched.

He reminded Jim of a huge cat, luxuriating in strength, in a job
well-done.  Jim helped Tabitha clamber out, then Carl.  Tabitha was
better, but still too quiet, the flesh around her eyes gray and
tired-looking.  Carl was pale, trying to force an air of confidence. He
chose humor, a bad choice.

Looking up at the vast hull arching overhead, at the flaking paint, the
scars, the faded identification signs, he said, "Piece of junk.
Probably won't fly at all."

Then why bring us here?  Jim wondered.  He knew it was only a joke, but
for him, nothing was a joke anymore.

A middle-aged man in grease-spotted coveralls came up to them and
sketched a sloppy salute.  He turned to Carey.

'ihis my cargo?"  he said.

Carey nodded.  "Signed, sealed, and delivered."

"Well, I don't know about that.  I'm the one taking delivery.  It's my
risk."

Something happened to Carey's face.  Whatever it was, it changed the
greasy man's face, too.  Carey leaned forward and whispered a few words
Jim couldn't hear.  The greasy man flashed a nervous smile, showing
yellow, ratty teeth.  "No need for that," he said.  "A man of my word,
a deal's a deal."

Carey paused, let it hang, then nodded.  The greasy man.  let his
breath out.  He smiled again.  "Well, folks, let's get this show on the
road."

Jim stood aside while Carl and Nick spoke quietly to each other, then
shook hands.  They'd been friends once, more than friends.  It was
obvious.  Jim wondered where and when that had been.  More secrets,
more things he didn't know about the man he'd called "Father" all his
life.  He felt something hot sting at his eyes, but it went away
quickly.

A small hover cart floated over.  The greasy man piled their luggage,
what was left of it, in the back, and they climbed on.  The greasy man
drove them toward a rickety boarding escalator that dropped like a
tentacle from the.  belly of the ship.

"Good luck, Nick Carey called out.  Jim waved at him, but couldn't
think of anything to say.  He watched Nick Carey climb

 back into his car, and knew he would never see him again.  He was
right.

The passenger deck of the freighter smelled like boiled onions and
fried fish.  A thin film of grease seemed to cover every metal surface.
There was none of the smartness, the spiff and polish of the great
white ships he'd dreamed about most of his life.

"What's your name?"  he asked the greasy guy who was lugging his bag as
if it weighed half a ton.

"Uh."  Greasy paused, as if he had to think about it.  Finally came up
with, "Sam.  Call me Sam."

"Sure, Sam.  Where are you taking me?"

They were walking down a long, narrow corridor.  Closed, unmarked doors
marched along with them, equally spaced.  They had just finished
getting Carl and Tabitha settled on another corridor, in a small, dingy
cabin.

"Right here," Sam said, as he stopped; turned, and put his palm on the
lock plate of a door.  The door slid aside to reveal a cabin barely
larger than the bunk it contained.  Jim peered inside.  A small
washbasin, no refresher.  Everything old, crude, dusty.  Even some
rust.  Maintenance wasn't a priority here.

"Go on, get yourself strapped in," Sam said.  "Liftoff in ten minutes.
You can get together with your folks when we're off planet."

"And where are we goingagain?"  Neither Carl nor Nick had told him
their ultimate destination.  He wondered if anybody would ever trust
him again.

'rerra," Sam said.  His eyes flickered.  "A couple of stops on the way,
but Terra."

Jim nodded.  Sam was carrying the one bag he'd managed to pack in the
frantic departure from their home.  He watched as

 the man slung it into a space beneath the bunk, then stood and
brushed his hands off as if he'd finished a major job of work.  That
bag was all he had left, that and whatever was inside him.  Whatever he
was now.  He moved past Sam and entered the cabin.

"Low-gee liftoff?"  he asked.

Sam raised his eyebrows.  "You know the lingo, do you?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, yes to you.  Low-gee.  We got liquid commodities for
cargo.  Slosh around.  Take better care of it than we do the
passengers.  As you can see."  Sam cackled at that, amusing himself.

OU "

Jim sat on the edge of the bunk.  "I'hank y , he said.  "I'll be
free."

No, I won't, he thought.

Sam backed out, closing the door behind him.  Jim strapped himself in.
A few minutes later, a huge, soft hand pressed down on his chest, his
thighs.  He closed his eyes and waited.  When the pressure lifted, he
knew he had left Wolfbane behind.  Forever?

When he went to find his parents, their cabin was empty, and they were
gone.

 Tree burly crewmen were draped around Jim like wet:i horse blankets,
but he was still trying to wrap his fingers around Sam's scrawny,
greasy neck.

"Where are they, damn it?  You bastard, what did you do with them?"

Sam cowered against the bulkhead near the bridge gangway where Jim had
found him, his yellow-tinged eyes wide.  "Keep him away!  Don't let him
touch me!"

The ruckus finally attracted some new attention.

"What the bell's going on here?"  a husky voice roared.

Sam whirled, his eyes going even wider.  Then he sketched a sloppy
salute.  Uh, Captain .... "

"I asked a question!"  The tall man stared at Jim.  "You, boy!  Stop
flopping around  Ed, let him

Jim felt one set of bulging arms unwrap themselves from his chest. Then
the rest slowly fell away.  A,t least he could breathe: again. Panting,
he paused a moment, his hands on his knees, then straightened up. 
Ouchl A few more bruises for his growing collection.

The captain moved closer, reached up, and brushed a thumb lightly
across Jim's forehead.  Jim winced.

'lTlat's going to be a shiner, boy.  Now what the hell is this all
about?"  The captain glanced at Sam, then back to the three deck
jockeys.  "You three, go on, back to your stations.  I think I can
handle this--is that right, boy?  Are you done noW?"

It felt like somebody had half crushed his larynx.  The words

::..  hurt coming out.  "Yes, sir.  I guess so."

"Good."  The captain watched the others go, then roared again: "Where
the hell do you think you're going, Mr.  Cavetts?"

Sam froze.

Uh, Captain.  Sorry, I was just--"

"Not another word.  Just get your ass back here."

Even more resemblinga weasel dipped in lard, Sam slunk back.

"Good.  Now.  First, you, boy.  Who are you?"

"My name is Jim Endicott."

"Ah.  Well, Jim.  I'm Captain de Moot.  Jan de Moot."  He stuck out one
large, oddly smooth hand.  Jim took it.  They shook.

"Pleased to meet you," Jim said.

"I don't know if I feel the same way, but at least we're properly
introduced.  Which means you'll now tell me about whatever burr it is
you've got rammed so far up your youthful ass, hmm?

Despite de Moot's gruff manner, there was something about him Jim
liked.  He didn't know him, but he trusted his own instincts.  Given
the events of the past few days, maybe that was a mistake, but "Him,"
Jim said, and pointed at Sam.  "He did something to my parents.  With
my parents.  They're gone, and I want to know what the hell he did with
therrfi!"

Captain de Moot transferred his forbidding gaze to Sam, who seemed to
wither a bit beneath it.  He rubbed his palms across the greasy front
of his coveralls.

"I didn't do anything with them," he muttered.  "It was all arranged
beforehand.  Soon as I got the boy away, they left.  Just like they'd
planned all along, I guess."

He fumbled inside his coverall and drew out an envelope.

"Here," he said.  He handed it to Jim.  "Your dad said to give this to
you after we were in space."

Jim took the envelope.  Sam's fingers left dark smears on one side.

"I'hey left?  You mean they left the ship?  Left me here?"

His mind whirled.  He couldn't get his thoughts around the idea.  They
just left me?  Abandoned me?

He knew he'd screwed up, screwed up badly, but... Did Carl and Tabitha
hate him that much?

"Well, boy, maybe you'd better read that.  I don't know how

 you got aboard, your name isn't on the passenger manifest."  glared
at Sam again.  "But I can guess."

Jim's fingers were numb as he tried to get the envelope

It took him two tries, and he finally just tore the end off.  lifted
the few sheets he found inside and tried to read Carl' neat, steady
script, but it was hard.  Something was in his something liquid and
burning.

Probably some irritant in the air.  He was too old to be crying.

Dear Son,

Yes, I call you that, even though you believe it isn't truth.  Well,
the truth is, I don't know what the truth is.  could be my son.  Or
maybe you aren't.  I just don't know, the reason I don't know is that
I've chosen not to know.

There are tests that could be done.  I haven't had done.  I had my
reasons for this, reasons I'm not going to into now.  But you should
know there is at least the ity I'm your real father.  There's also a
possibility I'm not.

As for Tabitha, she is not your real mother.  Your mother is dead, and
has been for a long time.  You concern yourself with her, although when
you sent genome report to the Space Academy at Solis, you ashes without
knowing.  And you st red up something too, something evil.  Someone
evil.

Jim, if only you'd obeyed me--but that's not worth cussing either.
What's done is done.  Now we all have to with the consequences, and
that includes you as well.

I won't tell you eerything, but you need to know some the things that
happened in the past, so you will why I've done what I've done.  Long
ago, because of mother, I made a deadly enemy out of a powerful man.
man is still alive, and he is probably the most powerful

Lu the CouFederat|on today.  Yon felt a taste of kis power in the
reaction after you sent you genome report.  Ho hesitation, hardly any
time lapse, just a kill team.  I have tried to hide us for most of your
life, and until a few days ago I was successful.  Now that is all
changed.  Changed for the worse, because that man knows not only that I
am still alive, but that you exist.  I would have given anything, even
my own life, to keep him from finding out about you.

Jim, this man will never stop.  He won't stop until I am dead, and he
won't stop until he finds you.  Now he knows, if he had forgotten, that
I am harder to kill than most people.  That won't stop him, but I won't
make it easy for him.  Nevertheless, in the ConFederation, his power is
nearly absolute, and he will eventually find me, I guess.  He would
find you, too, if you stayed.

So I will stay, and give him something to look for.  I don't know how
long it will take, but I guess a while.  I have resources he doesn't
know about, and I will use them.  I have Tabitha to protect as well.

But looking after her, and you as well, it would slow me down, lower
the odds.  And in the end he would have us all.  I can't allow that to
happen.

Tab and I have discussed it.  You have your life in front of you.  If
you remain- in ConFederation territory, I fear it wouldn't be a very
long, or very happy life.  So you must leave.  Go somewhere beyond this
evil man's reach, somewhere he won't think to look.  He will chase me,
and by the time he finds me, you will be far away.

In the short time I had, this was all I could think of.  I know you
must think I'm a monster, but I had no choice.  By the time you read
this, you will be well on the way to your final destination.

Whether I'm your real father or not, Jim, I've loved you all your life
as if I were.  And Tabitha has been the only mother you've ever know,x,
and she loves you that way, too.  However hard this is for you,
remember that it's just as hard for us.  We both love you very much. If
we didn't, we would not have done what we have done.

I've raised you as well as I could.  You are a good boy, Jim, Well,
maybe not a boy anymore.  Now you'll have to grow up

 faster than I anticipated.  I'd hoped for better things, but we play
the hand we're dealt.  You have resources you don't realize because
you're still young.  Use them.  And forget us, because we are gone, and
there is no going back.  Not for me, not for Tabitha, and not for
you.

I love you, Jim.  I always have, and I always will.  Take care of
yourself, son.  Because whether the gene code matches not, that's what
you aremmy son.  Never forget it.  :

Love,

Dad

And, scrawled beneath this in a shaky hand:

Jim, I love you!

Tabitha

Jim realized what he must look like when he saw expression on Captain
de Moot's broad, flat features.  De glanced at Sam.

"Beat it," he said.  Sam ducked his head and scurried looking more than
ever like a potbellied rat.  De Moot back to Jim.  "I take it the news
isn't good, boy?."  he said, gruff voice soft.

Jim ran the back of his hand across his nose and heavily.  "We have to
go back," he said.  "Turn this ship Right now."

The captain blinked, then shook his head slowly.

quick with the orders, aren't you, boy?.  Especially standing another
man's deck?"

Jim blinked.  Suddenly it sank in.  Off to his left was the with the
word BRIDGE painted on it.  He was standing on steel plates, and at his
back was more of the same.  The air reeked of onions and sweat, a
stench alien to his nostrils.  This wasn't home, this wasn't even
Wolfbane.  This was somewhere,i else, and he was right in the middle of
it.  Alone.

"You don't understand..."  he said, shocked to realize how weak and
quavering his voice sounded in his own ears.  He took a deep breath and
tried again.  "My parents, they're back on Wollbane.  I have to go
back, you have to take me back."

But de Moot was still shaking his head.  "No," he said, "it is you who
doesn't understand.  What'd you say your name was?  Jim?  Well, Jim.
This is a freighter.  At the moment you're a stow away, because I don't
have you on my passenger list."  He raised one big hand, palm out.
"Don't worry.  I know what happened.  Sam did some kind of deal, and
there's money in his pocket.  But none of that matters.  I own this
freighter.  It's my business, the way I earn my living.  Do you have
any idea how much it would cost to turn her around and make planet fall
again, just to drop you off?.  When as far as I'm concerned, you're not
even supposed to be here?"

Jim swallowed.  One part of his mind was a whirlwind, battered by the
contents of the letter he'd just read, dodging and ducking amidst the
chattering rubble of everything he'd once taken for granted.  But the
other part seemed above or maybe beyond the fear and disbelief.  That
part was cooler, even ratio hal  It stood back.  It listened.  It
surprised him about as much as anything that had yet occurred, because
he hadn't known it was there.

Was this the way adults thought?  He swallowed again, glad that the
impulse to run to the nearest corner and squat with his arms wrapped
over his head seemed to be passing.

"It would cost a lot of money, I guess," he said.  A lot more than the
cost of your passage," de Moot agreed.  "I

don't suppose you have a lot of money?."

Jim stared at him.  It was a perfectly logical question.  He had no
idea of the answer.  He still had a credit chip, but Carl had Warned
him against using it, said it could be traced.  As far as cash, he had
no idea.  He remembered pack inga few small gold coins from his
collection when they'd left home, but how much could they be worth?

It would probably cost hundreds of thousands of ConFed creds to turn
the ship around, take it back to orbit, launch a landing lighter.

"No," he said.  "I don't have a lot of money."

 De Moot nodded.  "Somehow that doesn't surprise me."  paused, then
suddenly seemed to make up his mind.  "So what we'll do, young Jim. The
matter of your passage between me and Mister Sam Cavetts.  You don't
need to about it."  He rubbed his grizzled chin thoughtfully. "And we
reach our destination, you can try to make arrangements are possible to
return to Wolfbane, if that's you still want to do. Although I have to
tell you, I don't any such arrangements will be possible."

"Really?.  Why?.  I mean, wherever you make planet fall there'll be
some way to get passage to Wolfbane."

"Well, that would be true.  If we were making planet fall we aren't."

"What?  But..."  Jim stared at him, unable to take it any further. 
This was a freighter.  Freighters carried cargo planets.  What else
could they do?

The captain reached out and placed one hand gently on Jimk, shoulder.
"We aren't bound for a planet this time.  My cargo several different
kinds of valuable liquids.  Water,

high-energy liquid fuel.  You understand?"

Jim shook his head.

"Our destination this trip is the Outward Bound," de said.

Jim's mouth shaped the words but nothing came out.  captain nodded.
"That's right.  The colony ship.  I don't what arrangements have been
made for you there, if any.  unless you have the cost of your return
fare, you won't being back on my vessel.  As I said, I run a
business."

His dark gray eyes hardened slightly.  "I'm sorry.  I'm sure
understand.  I'm stretching things as it is.  In other times,

aways were jettisoned."

"But I didn't... "

"Sorry," de Moot said again.  Then he turned around walked away.

 Jim sat cross-legged on his tiny bunk, staring down at the heavy,
glittering pile in his lap.  Once again he ran his fingers across the
greasy metal.  Forty-five of them, each one about two and a half
centimeters wide, half that thick, and seven and a half long.  Each one
of them apparently solid gold.

He had no idea how Carl had gotten them into his pack with out him
knowing, and wondered why he hadn't noticed the extra weight when he
carried--wait a minute.  He hadn't carried the bag.  Sam had been
insistent.  He must have been in on it... no, that wouldn't work
either.  Sam didn't look like the kind of guy anybody in his right mind
would trust with the knowledge of forty-five gold bars.  Certainly Carl
wouldn't be that stupid.

It was aof of money.

Too muclz

And it changed everything.  Jim stared at it, trying to fit every thing
together.  Only now, in retrospect, did he understand how little he
knew about things.  About his life, about his parents' lives, about how
and why they'd lived the way they had, about-about everything, damn
it!

These gold bars, for instance.  He'd never thought of his family as
wealthy, but this was a lot of money.  A lot.  Carl must have had it
squirreled away, ready for use at a moment's notice.  Which meant that
Carl, at least, had not assumed they were safe hidden away in their
small house on Wolfbane, light-years from the hustle and bustle of
Terra.

How much more was there?  Jim picked up one bar, hefted it, let it fall
back into the pile with a dull clunk.  Suddenly, as clearly as he knew
his own name, he knew there wasn't much raore.  This was most of it,
most of the escape money Carl had put aside.  And Carl had sent it with
him.  Knowing this some how made his predicament even more final.

There was no doubt he had enough here to pay for his passage back to
Wolf bane.  Ten passages, maybe even a hundred.

But what then?

 When he got back, they would be gone.  Either the evil man his father
had feared would have caught up with and he'd already seen sufficient
proof of that man's

There had been three armored corpses, two of them headless, the
clearing around the cabin.  If things had gone just a little ferently,
those corpses would have been him and his instead of three killers
trying their best to execute their intentions.

So he might go back only to fred Carl and Tabitha dead though if that
were the case, he doubted he would ever see, even know about, their
bodies.  Or they would have managed successful escape, using whatever
resources Carl had kept himself, and he wouldn't Fred them in that
event either.  either way, if he returned, he'd fred nothing.  Maybe
Nick would know .... No, he'd already tasted that one's mettle.  He was
too like Carl.  He might disappear also, and even if he didn't, if had
told him not to say anything, he'd be as tight-lipped as sphinx.

Which left what?

Exactly what Carl had intended.  Go on, follow the path laid out, take
the gold and use it to start a new life.  A life in new galaxy, because
that's exactly what the Outward meant.  A colony ship, bound for a new
world in the Sector, millions of light-years away from Terran space.  A
ship, a small world in itself, stocked with everything it needed make
the slow, lumbering trip to ... where?  He couldn't remember the name
of the new world.  Not that it was lately important.  Because of its
size, the Outward couldn't use the most powerful methods of travel, not
ripping its gigantic bulk apart.  Maybethat was what Carl counting on.
Once the voyage got under way, the Bound would be cut off from the rest
of the universe.  Oh, doubt it would have a couple of exploratory ships
hidden somewhere, and there would be infra light communication terns,
but in any practical sense the ship would be isolated.

No killers chasing him.  In fact, nobody even knowing who was.  He
picked up the other items mixed in with the gold bars, A dark green
unichip, one no doubt containing his vital medical records, perhaps his
education and training files, all the other

 irfformational baggage anybody picked up as they passed through their
own life.  But the name on the chip wasn't Endicott.  It was James
Evanston.  Evanston... well, that made sense.  Carl had once told him
that if you wanted to change your name, pick something that sounded
like your old one.  Easier to remember.

At the time, he hadn't thought much about it.  But now he realized
there had been many odd nuggets like this one.  Strange bits of
esoteric knowledge no normal sixteen-year-old boy would ever find a use
for.  Not unless he was on the run, hiding from .

A new life.

Jim looked down at the gold, at the chip, at his new life.  Damn it
Carl, damn it Dad.  Damn it!

I hate your.

I love you ....

he freighter was far too big to shake as it docked, but felt a sort of
mass like tremor that reminded him of the quakes that plagued Wolfbane.
A huge movement too gone really to notice, but leaving him with the
disquieting that something big had happened.

The red light on the dilapidated comm panel above washbasin wavered,
then turned green.  He unstrapped sat up, and put his feet on the
floor.  His bag was packed, cache of gold safely hidden in the bottom.
He stared at the bag he waited for someone to knock on his door.

Last chance.  He could buy his way back to Wolfbane, de ringa part of
what his parents had sacrificed so much to him--and then most likely
dissipate the rest in a futile search them.  And probably get himself
killed into the bargain.  Or could do what Carl wanted him to do, had
paid a great price allow him to do.

He could go away.  Far, far away.  To a whole new world, in Doing that
felt a whole lot like cowardice.  Running Abandoning Carl and Tabitha.
But was that really what it His dad had told him many things.  One was
the dictum that wasn't cowardice to run away in order to fight another
And then the idea of abandonment.  Was he abandoning

Or they him?  Or were they sending him away, to save his life neither
one abandoning the other?

Carl had made it plain that was what he thought he was d certainly it
was true, if Carl believed it so.  At least it was true for Carl.

Then why did it feel so much like being abandoned?

If only Somebody knocked softly on his door.  "You in there, boy?" 
"Yes, Captain."

The lock clicked.  The door slid back into the wall with a soft
screech.  Captain de Moot stood there, an unreadable expression on his
wide, flat face.  "You ready?."  Jim nodded and stood up.  "Need any
help with that bag?."

Jim shook his head.  "No, I can carry it."  He reached down and picked
it up.  It took an effort to make the lifting look easy, but he
managed.  De Moot stepped back into the narrow passageway to make room
as Jim walked past him.

"Down to the end, and to your right," de Moot said.

Jim started trudging along conscious of the captain's footsteps behind
him.

"Boy."

Jim stopped, turned.  De Moot eyed him.  "I've thought some about it. I
don't think any of this is your fault.  And there are some programs,
the Red Cross, Traveler's Aid... I could get the money for your passage
out of them, I guess."

"My passage... ?"

De Moot's jaw twitched, a Small, irritated motion.  "You a little slow,
are you?  What I'm trying to say is, if you want to go back to
Woltbane, we'll make planeffall there in about six weeks.  If you want
to go, I'll take you."

Jim stared at him, then slowly shook his head.  "No," he said.  "I'm
not going back."

De Moot opened his mouth, closed it, shrugged.  "Suit yourself."

"Right," Jim said.

 after that, Jim just kept on walking, de Moot behind.  He couldn't
help but look around a little, though wasn't much to see.  He'd spent
all of the trip in his room.  gold was there, and he was afraid to
leave it unguarded.  wasn't sure about Sam.

All his life he'd wanted to go into deep space, and now that had,
everything about the experience was sour and bitter..1 great white Con
Fleet ship, just a rusting, greasy freighter.

heroic quests, just ignominious flight.  No proud family.

No family at all.

However large Captain de Moot's ship was, it was a ship, and not much
space had been allotted for passengers.  passageways were barely wider
than Jim's shoulders, there seemed to be miles of them.  Finally, de
Moot 'rhrough that hatch on your right."

Jim undogged the plain steel door and found himself out into a tall,
echoing space full of light.

"Main cargo transfer bay," de Moot said.  "We're passengers there.
Follow the crowd."

Jim stuck out his hand.  'rhanks, Captain."

De Moot took it, shook once, let go.  "I don't know what's on with you,
Jim Endicott, but good luck.  Fair skies and women."  He grinned.

Jim smiled back.  De Moot was the first man he'd had adult relationship
with, meager though it was.  Just him and captain, no Carl or Tabitha
or anything'lse to fall back on.  skies and willing women.  Suddenly he
realized he liked sound of it.  It was a man's farewell, a spacer's
farewell.  He rummaged in his memories and found what he was looking
for. "Bright stars, Captain," he said.

"Yes," de Moot replied.  "I'hose too."-He nodded, turned, walked away.
Jim watched him vanish back down the passage.  Then he lifted his bag
and stepped through the into the transfer bay.  Across the echoing,
metallic space noisy group of colonists were clustered.  Jim headed

 As he walked, his slumped shoulders began to rise.  Acer auntiness
crept into his stride.  By the time he reached the

, of the crowd and melted into it, he was almost smiling.  Maybe this
wouldn't be so bad after all.

he passage from the freighter to the receiving bay of the

Outward Bound was simpler than Jim had expected.  A few men and women
wearing dark green coveralls organized the restless crowd into a line
and began to shepherd it forward.  Jim found himself about midway back,
shuffling along carrying his bag, then setting it down for minutes at a
time as some unseen problem was unknotted at the front of the line.

After an hour or so, he passed through a large, gasket like flexible
tube about three meters high, and found himself in a chamber with lower
ceilings and less harsh light than the freighter's cargo transfer bay.
The smells in the air changed also.  No more boiled onions, but there
was the faint, formless tang that hinted at lots of people in an
enclosed space not quite large enough to hold them.

Finally, he reached the checkpoint, which turned out to be three more
of the green coveralls, two women and a large, darkskinned man, all
three sitting behind impromptu desks made of aluminum panels resting on
packing crates.  Jim found himself in front of the man.

"Name?"  the man said, without looking up.

Jim had no idea what would happen when he answered.  How far had Carl's
aITangements extended?  He took a breath.  "Jim Endicott."

The man looked up.  He had large brown eyes.  "What?  Speak up, kid."

"Jim Endicott."

The man nodded, lifted a microphone, and repeated Jim's

 name.  Then he looked at Jim again.  "Hang on."

He spoke into the microphone again, waited, then shook head.  "Shit.
Half this roster is screwed up."  He pushed a plate toward Jim's side
of the desk.  "Put your right hand on Jim did.  He realized his heart
was pounding.  The man glanced at a screen on his left.  "First
name?"

"Jim "

"Okay.  Got you.  Jim Evanston, right?"  Evanston... ?  "Uh, yeah.
That's me."  'rhought you said it was Endicott."

"Uh... sorry.  Endicott's my middle name.  Doesn't it say on your
records?"

"Shit.  No, it's not entered.  Like I said, half this roster's less."
He spoke again into the microphone.

"Okay, Jim, it's entered.  You're all Fed up."  The into a box and
withdrew a large envelope.  "Here's your packet.  Rules, regs, keycard
to your dorm and storage you're in with the other single males--and a
bunch of Welcome to the Outward Bound.  Intake's just ahead.  luck."

Jim took the envelope.  Was that all there was to it?

so.  The dark-skinned man had already turned to the next son in line.
Jim lifted his bag and walked on.

Intake was a smaller room, much more crowded.

with the half-bored, half-anxious expression of new strangers in a
strange land, milled around.  The noise level deafening.

Jim pressed forward, aiming for a long counter he barely see against
the far wall, where more clerks busily.  He was trying to peer over the
heaving shoulder of enormously fat woman when somebody bumped him
enough to knock his grip loose from his bag.

"Hey!"

He turned, just in time to see his bag vanishing into the firmly in the
grasp of a bald marl whose shoulders almost as broad as he was tall.

Jim didn't even think.  He flung himself after the thief, realizing
that he was shouting at the top of his lungs.

The man didn't look back, just kept on going,

 through the crowd like a very fast, compact bulldozer.  Jim flailed
along in his wake, bouncing off startled, angry colonists like a crazed
pinball.

"Hey!  Asshole!  Watch it, kid.r'

Jim ignored them, closing the distance step by step, until-As soon as
he landed on the thiefs back, he knew he'd made a mistake.  It was like
belly-flopping onto a mattress filled with bowling balls.  The man's
heavy shoulders jerked once, and Jim went flying through the air.  He
slammed down hard on his left elbow, scrambled to his feet, and waded
in again.

Once again, his father stood him in good stead.  Carl had insisted that
he become proficient in the martial arts, and Jim had trained five days
a week since he'd turned ten years old.  The collision with the deck
had shaken his initial rage out of him, and now he fought with cool,
icy efficiency.  A hand-ax strike to the older man's bull neck that
bounced off with no noticeable effect, a twisting back kick to the
belly that brought a startled oof!"  and then a series of
straight-ahead right and left jabs.

For a second, Jim felt a wild thrill of triumph.  He had landed twenty
or thirty punches, he was a lot faster than the older guy, and then a
hand grenade exploded beneath his jaw.

A moment of intense pain, then whirling white fountains of light, then
darkness, then.."  nothing.

When he woke up, he was lying flat on his back, staring up at a circle
of onlookers.  It took him a second or two to focus, and in that time
he realized that the right side of his face felt as if it had somehow
become a large, numb pillow.  One of the onlookers was the bald man. He
was staring at him angrily, his lips moving.  After another few
seconds, Jim's ears began to work again.  got no idea," the bald man
was saying.  "Minding my own business, and then this young punk just
jumps me."

Jim tried to protest, but his mouth didn't seem connected to his brain.
He tried to speak, but nothing came out.  Another face SWam closer.  A
female face, dark hair, hard blue eyes.  Another green coverall, but
this one with some sort of official patch on the biceps.  A stunner in
her hat!.d.

"You're under arrest," she said.  "Don't try to get up."  The Stunner
in her hand hissed softly as electricity crawled between

 the two electrodes on its business end.

Something clicked, and Jim realized he could speak "He stole my bag!"

He tried to point at the bald man, but as he raised his she raised her
stunner.  He froze, then carefully lowered hand.  "He's a thief," he
said.

She glanced at the bald man, then back at Jim.

"What bag?."  she said.

It wasn't like any of the holovids he'd ever seen.  No prints or
genome-identification samples, no rooms full of cops, no clerks or
paperwork.  They just marched him wide, green-painted corridor, opened
a heavy steel door, pointed.

"I have a right to a lawyer," Jim said.

The blue-eyed woman stared at him, glanced at the skinny man with her,
then made a short, barking sound her throat.  "Kid, do you ever have a
lot to learn.  Get your through that door."

She gestured toward the open door with her stunner.  "Listen, I'm a
citizen of the ConFed, I've got rights."

The woman sighed.  "You can either walk in, or we can you in.  Your
choice."

Jim turned and walked through the door.  It swung behind him with a
dull, heavy thud.  He stood there, waiting his vision to adjust to the
dim light.  The air was rank with stink of unwashed bodies.  Just as he
was beginning to out some shadowy forms in front of him, somebody
laughed.

"A newbie," a voice cackled.  "Welcome to the brig, newbie."  That was
bad enough, but a moment later it got Another voice, deep, masculine,
hoarse.  "Hey, he's mine, assholes.  I think he's just the sweet
st-looking little thing .....  Jim clenched his fists.  He knew about
such things.  Homosexuals were no longer treated as second-class
citizens, stripped of common rights or otherwise persecuted.  Sexual
distinctions no longer existed in the world of the ConFed, though
sexual awareness did.  But it was still a crime to force sex on an
unwilling partner, no matter what the sexual status of either the
victim or the attacker might be.  Rape was still rape.

And the guard had laughed at him.  "A lot to learn..."  she'd sneered.
Was this part of it, part of what he had to learn?

He balled his fists tighter.  Not while I'm still conscious, he
promised himself.

His vision finally cleared.  He was in a room about ten meters on a
side.  On his left was a series of fold-down bunks, three high.  A
dozen of them.  On his right, two 'fresher units that looked as if
they'd been added as an afterthought.  A scattering of rickety wire
chairs, two tables, around which sat several men.  It was from the
table on the right that the laughter had come.  And now, as he turned
to face them, one of the men stood up.  The man loomed over the table
and the other men seated there.  They leaned back, watching him,
expectant grins on their faces.

He was in his forties, waves of dark, curly, grease-encrusted hair
falling to shoulders like gravcar fenders.  His belly bulged over a
thick, chrome-studded belt.  There were tattoos across his scarred
knuckles.  In his right ear, a silver earring shaped like a skull.

He looked like a cliche out of a bad holovid, but he was real.  About
three hundred pounds of reality, Jim guessed.

He stepped around the table and moved toward Jim, smiling to reveal
yellow teeth.  His lips had a liverish tinge, looked like two thin
slabs of raw meat.

You gonna fight me, sweetheart?"  he rumbled, his grin growing wider.
'That's nice.  I like that."

Jim planted his feet and raised his hands.  Liver-lips chuckled and
lumbered forward.

"All right, Honeg.  That's enough."

The voice came from his left.  Jim slid his gaze in that direction and
saw a tall, thin, blond youth, maybe four years older than himself,
lounging spraddle-legged on one of the chairs.  The guy weighed maybe
half of what the gorilla in front of him did.

 No help there.  But when he looked back at the gorilla, gorilla had
stopped.

"Stay out of this," he said.  "Isn't any of your business."  The sound
of chair legs scraping suddenly across the Jim looked again.  Now the
thin youth was standing.  There a lazy elegance about the way he moved.
Lazy... but threatening.

"Hey, Honeg," the young man said as he slouched them.  "Since when did
you start telling me what my was?"

Honeg's gaze, half-hidden behind pouchy bags of flesh, began to skitter
back and forth between Jim and the guy.  And his voice, once thick with
choked anticipation,

sounded thin and whiny.

"Korrigan, look--"

Korrigan, a dreamy smile on his face, reached them.  stopped, looked at
Jim, and then his right eye closed in a wink.

WhacM.

Jim had never heard a sound quite like it.  Sort of a between a meat
cleaver slamming into a frozen roast and cook snappinga stalk of
celery.  Nor did he see the move had caused it.  But the effects were
immediate and obvious.

Honeg staggered backwards, his huge hands going to face, covering the
whole middle of it.  Blood spurted, then through his fingers and
dribbled down his wrists.  His lips contorted into a round oh!  of
agony.

"Uh, uh, uh," he grunted, still stumbling backwards.

of his massive calves made contact with the edge of a chair, he sat
down hard.

The tall, thin youth fluttered his right hand languidly up down, as if
he were shaking drops of water from his fingertips.

"Ooh," he said.  "Ouch.  That hurt."  He looked at Honeg.  hurt my
fingers, Honeg.  That wasn't nice of you."

Honeg let out an amazing sound that was half blubber, half gasp of
terror.

"No .... "

The tall youth stared at him a moment longer, then evidently satisfied.
He turned to Jim and stuck out his hand.

"Hi," he said.  "I'm Kerry Korrigan.  What's your name?"

 "Uon't mind Honeg," Kerry said.  "His brains, such as they are, are
all in his crotch.  I think he enjoys getting himself tossed in the
brig.  It's the only place he can get a date."  Korrigan chuckled
softly.  "How about you?  You don't look like you needed to come here
to improve your social life."

Jim explained how he'd ended up incarcerated.  Kerry listened
attentively, nodding encouragement.  When Jim finished, Kerry
grunted.

"Bald guy?.  That would be Bertie Huff.  He works with one of his
daughters, usually.  Did you see any little blond-haired girls hanging
around?"

Jim shook his head.

"Well, take my word, one was probably there.  Oldest scare in the
world.  He heists the bag, then if trouble starts, passes it on and
stands around looking innocent.  You were suckered from the start, my
friend.  Sad story.  Happens all the time."

They were sitting at the left-hand table.  Some unspoken signal had
passed from Kerry to the others, and everybody had left them alone.
Honeg was laid out on one of the bunks, his friends trying to stop the
bleeding from his shattered nose by ramming bits of shredded pillow
stuffing up his swollen nostrils.

"So there's nothing I can do?"  Jim said.

Kerry leaned back in his chair, the dreamy look back on his face.
"Nothing you can do," he murmured.

Jim heard the inference plainly.  "But there' something you can do?"

Korrigan shrugged.  "Maybe."

"Why would you help me?"

Korrigan tilted his head further.  "You mean do I have designs on your
tender young flesh?  Like Honeg?"  He uttered a short, barking laugh.
"No, Jim, my tastes run in the majority direction, and I don't change
them because of a little bit of brig time.  Not that there's anything
wrong with other preferences, they just aren't mine."  He turned his
head slightly.  "In other words, don't Worry about it."

 Jim nodded.  "Then why?."

Kerry let his chair tilt forward with a soft crash.  He put elbows on
the table, propped his thin, high-cheeked face on fists.  "I like to
help my friends," he said.

"Am I your friend?"

Korrigan turned his head farther, until he was at Jim's face.  His pale
blue gaze was direct, piercing, ing.  He remained motionless for almost
five seconds.  would be up to you," he said.

Jim returned his stare.  Finally, he nodded.

"Okay," he said.  "I'm your friend."

Thirty minutes later, a guard came and whispered to Ten minutes after
that, they were out.  Kerry, it seemed, had connections.

"|Will en's B dorm," Kerry said, with a theatrical his hand.  The room
was the size of a gymnasium.  The which was fitted with a
Venetian-blind pattern of softly light strips, was about ten meters
above the floor.  They stood an entrance balcony halfway up one wall,
looking out over huge expanse of the dorm.

From there they could see the general layout.  The room divided into
dozens of cubicles, somg'large, some smaller.  large cubicle housed a
dining area empty at the moment, filled with tables and chairs, and
food and drink along the walls.  Another area for public 'freshers,
with units surround inga central area that housed a whirlpool bath.  A
third large space housed the recreation ties, including three large
holoscreens, all dancing with images.  The rest of the space was a maze
of individual each one slightly larger than the cabin Jim had used
freighter.

 -Home, sweet home," Kerry said.  "At least for the next couple

" He paused a moment, gazing out like a monarch surhis kingdom.  Then
he clapped dim on the back.  "Come or, Mister Evanston.  Into your
personal chunk of cube heaven.  What's the matter?"

Jim blinked.  "Huh?  Oh, nothing."  Jim realized his new name was going
to take a little getting used to.  He'd missed it when Kerry called him
"Evanston."  Jim Evanston, he told himself.  Remember it.  It's who you
are now.

He followed Kerry into the maze.  After a thoroughly confusing trek
back, forth, and back again, they came to a door in the middle of a
corridor, indistinguishable from any of the other half dozen doors on
either side of it.

"Well?"  Kerry said.  "Aren't you going to open it?"  He sounded
strangely expectant.

"Oh ... right.  The keycard."  Jim fumbled for the envelope folded in
the back pocket of his pants.  They'd returned it when he was released
from the brig.

He opened the envelope and took out the slender piece of plastic.
Pushed it into a matching slot on the door.  The lock emitted, a short,
soft hum and spit the key back out.  When Jim withdrew it the rest of
the way, the door slid open.  As it did so, a movable spotlight built
into the right-hand wall lit up, illuminating the single bunk.

Beneath the bunk was a locked storage space.  To the right, a naITOW
desk, a comm unit with a dark holoscreen, a single chair, and a waste
chute built into the floor.  Spartan, but adequate.

In front of the locker was his bag.  Jim stepped into the room, stared
at it, then turned and goggled into Kerry's grinning features.

"My bag!  How did you... ?"

Jim couldn't be sure--he'd always thought it was a figure of
Speech--but there almost seemed to be a twinkle in Korrigan's eyes.
"Oh, you know.."  things just happen sometimes."

Which was warning enough.  Ask no questions, and be told no lies.
Whoever--or whatever--Kerry Korrigan was, he seemed to have a very long
arm aboard the Outward Bound.

"Go ahead," Kerry said.  "Check it out."

As soon as Jim lifted the bag to his bunk, he knew the gold

 was gone.  QuicMy he opened the bag up and thrust his through the
rumpled clothes and personal effects.  The cloth that had held the
small, heavy bars was gone.  Something have shown on his face.  So was
his .75.

"What's the matter?"  Kerry said.  "It's your stuff, isn't it?"  "Uh ..
. yeah, sure.  It's mine."  What was the use?  The was gone.  And the
gun Carl had given him.  At least he had rest of it.  Clothes, a few
holopics of himself, Carl, Tabitha inter days.  His cherished scale
model of one of Con Fleet ships, reminder of yet another shattered
dream.

To hell with it.  He hadn't counted on the gold in the place, so why
cry over it now that it was gone?

"Kerry... thanks.  I really appreciate it."

Korrigan relaxed.  "Anything for a friend, Jim."  He began back out of
the cube.  "Okay, you probably want to get Listen, I'm in Seven B. Just
ask anybody."

Jim started to repeat his thanks, but before he could Kerry vanished,
leaving only a Cheshire-cat-like vision of dancing blue eyes and wide,
white grin in his wake.

Jim closed the door, then turned around, leaned against and luxuriated
in a moment of silent solitude.  For the first in a week he was alone
and unafraid.

That was when it hit him, slammed into him full force, sent him
stumbling to the bunk where he flopped facedown, shoulders heaving
silently.

Seven days ago he'd been Jim Endicott, with a father mother, a home, a
past, and a future on the world Now he was Jim Evanston, with no
parents, a past he talk about, and a future of utter mystery.

What do I do?  he wondered hopelessly, What the hell do now?

 Jim spent the rest of the day unpacking and putting his things away.
He placed a holopic of himself, Tab, and Carl, taken a year ago on his
previous birthday, on the desk.  He remembered that Tabitha had taken
some pictures of his last birthday party, and was glad he didn't have
any of those.  That party had been the beginning of the series of
disasters that had destroyed his family, his past, his future, and
brought him to this bare, unfamiliar cubicle.  No good memories
there.

When he finished unpacking, he stretched out on his back on the bed and
stared up at the ceiling high above.  There were no roofs on the
cubicles, but anybody trying to climb over the walls would set off
alarms.  He wondered why they hadn't simply gone ahead and enclosed the
cubes entirely.  Then he realized there were most likely cameras hidden
in the ceiling along with the lights.  Somebody would be watching. This
was the young men's dorm, one of them, at least.  He knew his history
well enough.  Unmarried young men were the single most dangerous group
in any society.  No sane leader ever gave them a chance to start
trouble, not if he could help it.  He bet himself that the family
cubicles would be completely enclosed .... In a way, the lack of
privacy was comforting.  It signified limits, rUles, a framework within
which to live.  Somebody would be Watching, but maybe that also meant
somebody would be taking care of him.

Exhaustion thrummed in his bones.  He considered getting up, going to
explore his new home, but the thought of climbing out of

 bed was distasteful.  The thought of everything was distasteful .
life sucked.

His eyelids grew heavy as he considered just how much currently sucked,
his life, at least.  Why had he sent his genotype to the Solis Space
Academy?.  Carl had told him but he had gone ahead anyway.  And now
look.  Could results of his disobedience have been any worse?

He sighed, thinking about it.  Sure they could have.  moment the
chaotic memories of the firefight at the replayed themselves across the
back of his eyelids.  screaming, Commander Steele moving, an impossibly
killing machine, him standing, pulling the trigger of his S&R over and
over again, the deep, bell-like his ears.  Another couple of inches to
the right, and one of.  slugs would have blown a basketball-sized hole
in Carl's When he thought about how close he'd come to killing the he'd
always thought was his dad, his forehead was slick with icy sweat. What
would his life have been like then?.

It was that thought he took with him as he drifted away, it was that
thought that Idled the nightmares that nightmares so awful they might
as well have come from a different universe.  But when he awoke to the
sound of a oringalarm the next morning, he didn't remember any of
terrible dreams.  Not consciously, at least.

Hule of thumb," the cheerful voice behind him "Don't eat the brown
food."

Jim turned, found himself staring into Kerry Korrigan's infectious
white grin, and smiled in return.  "Oh, hi."  He turned to let Korrigan
step up next to him in front of the food penser he'd been perusing with
some puzzlement.

"Brown food," Korrigan repeated'.  "Just check the ho los

 YusVu punch the DISPLAY button.  If the picture is mostly brown,

e it a pass.  Green's okay, pink's usually pretty good, gray is ually
at least edible, if not much better than that.  And orange, of all
things, generally tickles your taste buds right into heaven."  He
shrugged.  "Naturally, we don't see much of the orange."

Jim swallowed.  "What is this stuff they're feeding us?"  "Reprocessed
krill, mostly.  Some soy concentrates.  Vitamins and minerals.  All
very healthy, I'm sure."  Kerry punched a but ton and eyed the
resulting holopic dubiously.  "What do you think?  Would you call that
brown, or orange?"

"Burnt umber," Jim said.

"Huh?  Is that a color?"  Kerry checked again.  "Never mind.  Better
safe than sorry."  He tried several more buttons, until he got a
combination he approved of.  Then he slapped a larger but ton marked
DELIVER.  The machine's innards grumbled a moment, then extruded a sheK
on which rested a plate, a couple of covered bowls, and a tall cup of
dark, steaming liquid.

Korrigan transferred all this to his tray.  "Join me?"  he asked Jim.
"Sure," Jim said.

He finished with his own selection and followed Kerry as he wove his
way through a raucous crowd of young men--the youngest, Jim estimated,
in their early teens, the oldest around twenty-one or two--until they
reached an empty table in the opposite corner.  Unlike most of the rest
of the tables, which were square and seated four, this one was round
and looked easily able to accommodate twice that number.  But it was
empty, though just about all the other tables had at least one diner
busily shoveling it away.

Reserved?  No sign there.  But empty anyway.  He glanced around as he
put down his tray.  Nobody was looking directly at the table, but he
had the oddest feeling that everybody in the room was aware of who was
seated there.

The mystery of Kerry Korrigan was growing deeper.

"You nod out a lot, is that it?"  Kerry said, looking up at him.
"Huh?"

"I asked you how you liked your bunk, but you were doing Your zombie
number again."

Jim felt his cheeks go hot.  "Oh, sorry.  It's just thatqwell,

 everything's so new.  Takes a little getting used to."  He sat
quickly in order to cover his embarrassment.  Kerry must he was an
idiot.

But Kerry just started to dig into his breakfast,

lifting his head, rolling his eyes, and announcing in tones, "Yum,
yurrd My, this is delicious!"

"Oh, stop it," Jim said finally.  "It isn't that bad."  He lifted fork
and examined the orangeish mass balanced on the admit, it doesn't look
like anything I ever ate before, still... "

Kerry laughed.  "Beware of any food that looks about the going out as
it did going in.

"Thanks, nice thought.  And while I'm eating, too."

Kerry grinned and went back to work.

When he was finished, he pushed his tray aside, leaned in his seat,
laced his long-fingered hands behind the back of head, and uttered a
resounding belch.

Jim grunted.  "Didn't your mother teach you any Something happened in
Kerry's eyes.  Jim couldn't tell how, but they changed.  "My mama
wasn't exactly big with teaching skills," he said.

Leave that one alone, Jim thought to himself.  Damn.  seem to do is put
my foot in it.

"You know," he said aloud, "it's hard."

"What's hard?"

'his."  Jim lifted his fork, pointed.  "You."

"MorT,

"Well, not just you, all of it.  I grew up on a little planet, small
town.  Went to school with the same kids all my always pretty much knew
where I stood, what my things was.  Now I don't know anythi.  I'm
feeling my way, I don't even know how to do that.  So if I say the
thing..."  His voice trailed off.

Kerry's expression grew serious for a moment.  "Yeah, I you.  It can be
tough, trying to fit in."  He paused.  "A huh?  Which one?"

"Wolf bane," Jim said.

"Wolfbane?  Never heard of it."

Something wrong with that, Jim thought.  But no, it made feet sense.
ConFed had been colonizing from the very

 Expanding Terra's growing confederacy was the prime objective of the
world government.  There were dozens of little worlds gathered beneath
Terra's skirts, most of them relatively near to the home planet, but
some farther away.  And now Terra was reaching out with a longer arm,
sending out the huge colony ships into sectors far away from her own.
Why should Kerry lwow the name of one insignificant frontier backwater
out of so many?.

Still, something wrong.

"Where are you from, Kerry?."

Once again, that imperceptible change in the way Kerry's eyes looked.
Maybe a trick of the light, but... 'rerra," he said.

Jim waited, but Kerry didn't add anything to the one short word.

'That's it?  Just Terra?"  He paused.  "I came from a planetary version
of a mudhole.  By Terrie standards, I'm a hick, green behind the ears,
crap on my shoe soles."

"Huh.  By Terrie standards, you say?."

Jim grinned.  "Well, maybe by any standards.  But I always wondered
what it would be like to live on Terra.  My dad was from there .... "
No, don't think about that.  "All the great cities, the museums, the
historic places.  Everything shiny and bright.  Things happening."

Kerry's eyelids drooped to half-mast.  "Yeah, lotta things happening on
Terra," he said Finally.  "Not all of them shiny and bright, either." 
He chuckled sourly.  "I used to dream about going to some shitkicker
place like--what did you call it?  Wolf bane?"

Jim nodded.

"Right.  Someplace with a lot of open space, not too many people,
diddy-wop schools where everybody said "Yes, sir," and "No, ma'am'....
"

"You're kidding."

"Not even a little bit," Kerry replied.  The somber expression on his
face said he was telling the truth.  He sighed.  "Someplace

Where you didn't have to fight all the time."

"Fight?"

"Yeah.  Fight for anything.  For everything."

He fell silent, and for a moment Jim saw on Kerry's features

 the hint of a sadness so deep, so uncomforted that it was impossible
to imagine.  He wanted to reach out and pat the boy on the shoulder,
but' Hey

The moment vanished.  Jim looked up to see two more standing next to
the table, each holding a tray.  The stockier of the two, his
expression carefully serious, said, room for two more?"

Kerry didn't say anything, just waved one hand in assent.  two new boys
quickly sat down.  Kerry leaned forward and his elbows on the table.
His mercurial features changed seemed washed with a glossy kind of
tough Friendly, yet distant.

The general relaxing with his troops, Jim thought.

"The one that looks like a chocolate fireplug," Kerry pointing at the
stocky boy, "is Ferrick Autry.  The skinny, one is Darnell Cota.  Guys,
meet Jim Evanston."

Two pairs of eyes--one set dark as raisins, the other bubbling corroded
copper lightly dipped in lead, regarded him.  "Hi," Ferrick said.  "How
you doing?"  Darnell added.  Not shy, but standofftsh, Jim thought.  No
real offered.  Not yet.  Only the possibility of it, because Korrigan
decreed it so.

I'm on probation here.  But probation for what?

"Hi," Jim replied.  He thought about offering his hand, then let it
fall back into his lap.  Having spoken, the two arrivals promptly put
their heads down and began to breakfast into their mouths, ignoring
him.

Kerry watched them chow down, a faint grin flickering on lips.  "Good
guys, Jim.  Real troupers.  Real Stone Cowboys."  He sounded proud as
he said the la[.

Stone cowboys?  Jim wondered.  Is that a description .... something
else?

 Jim finished his meal in silence.  He was conscious of Kerry's frank,
appraising stare.  But since he had no idea what the other boy was
looking for, he ignored the inspection as best he could.  Finally, he
pushed his tray away, only for a moment sadly remembering his mom's
cooking.

"You can have seconds if you want to," Kerry said.  His tone said that
only maniacs or fools would consider the notion.  'rhanks, I'm full,"
Jim replied.

Kerry was still eyeing him.  His frank gaze began to make Jim feel
uncomfortable, even angry.  Who was this guy to stare at him like he
was a piece of meat or something?.  But just as he opened his mouth to
voice his thoughts, Kerry's pale blue eyes shifted away from him.

"Ferrick, Darnell," Kerry said softly.

The other two looked up.  Kerry inclined his head an inch or so in the
direction of the dorm's main entrance.  Jim turned.  On the entrance
balcony stood three young men, all of the same approximate age as those
who surrounded him now.

"Injuns on the horizon," Kerry said.

Ferrick pushed his chair back and stood up.  "I'll handle it,"

he said.  He wiped his lips on his napkin, tossed it to the table.
"Darnell, go with him," Kerry said.

Darnell stood.  The two boys walked off toward the stairs leading to
the balcony.

"What's going on?"  Jim asked.

"Housekeeping," Kerry said absently, his pale gaze riveted on the trio
waiting just inside the entrance.  "Don't be obvious about it, but
watch."

Jim shifted his chair to the side, so that by turning his head slightly
he could keep an eye on the visitors without appearing to stare at them
directly.  He could also see Ferrick and Darnell Weaving through the
tables and approaching the bottom of the stairs.  So could the new
arrivals.  As the two boys mounted the first steps, the trio at the top
shifted into what looked like a pre  arranged formation: the biggest
one in front, the other flanking him.

Evidently Darnell or Ferrick said something, because could see the
larger boy's lips move, though he couldn't anything over the din of the
cafeteria.

Something flashed in the big one's right hand.  Darnell Ferrick stopped
at once, not retreating, but no longer either.

"Shit," Kerry said.  "You'd think the assholes would catch "Who?"  Jim
asked, confused.  "Darnell... ?"

But Kerry was already out of his chair.  "Stay here," he abruptly, then
whirled and began to stride rapidly toward confrontation at the
entrance.

Jim felt his mouth drop open.  He snapped it shut, angrier now.  Stay
here?  Some kind of trouble brewing, the person even close to a friend
he had on the entire ship right into the middle of it, and he was
supposed to stay here?  What the hell kind of friend did Kerry think he
was?  As he sat there, cheeks flaming, mulling it over, the frozen at
the entrance suddenly broke apart.  Darnell, thin wiry, obviously much
faster than Ferrick, took the final steps to the landing in a single
leap.  A moment later lumbered on up and began swinging fists like
small hams.

Jim came to his feet without thinking about it and toward the fray.
Around him the large room fell silent, as battle began to draw
everybody's attention.

Kerry was running when he reached the stairs.  He took three at a time,
bounding up like some tall, narrow human stick.  He blended into the
melee, which was now a gavotte of kicks, fists, grunted curses.

Jim crossed the last of the distance" to the stairs at a run, leaped
the first step, and galloped on up.  The fight at top had separated a
little by the time he gained the top.  was faced off against a smaller
lad who, by dint of speed, was landing blow after blow to Ferrick's
broad, face.  Already his left eye was nearly swollen shut, and
streamed from his nose.  Nevertheless he fought on, blow after
ponderous blow, as if the fists of his opponent affected him at all.
Darnell was in better shape.  He had opponent down and was gleefully
holding his ears and

 the back of his head on the steel floor.

Kerry and the big kid were faced off, both in a half crouch, hands wide
before them in a classic guard position.  Jim didn't understand at
first.  He'd seen what Kerry could do, and the boy opposite him was
nowhere near as big or ugly as Honeg had been, back in the brig.
Although there was something weird going on with the big guy.  He
looked nuts.  His eyes were bugged out, his cheeks red as beets, and a
thin trail of drool leaked from the side of his mouth.  But just
because he looked half berserk Jim couldn't understand why Kerry was
being so cautious.  Honeg hadn't been a walk in the park either, and
Kerry hadn't hesitated then.

Then the big kid moved, and Jim figured it out.  Kerry leaped back,
sweat shining on his face, barely dodging the low, sweeping blow.  The
force of it spun the big guy half around.  His right hand brushed near
the steel rail that guarded the balcony.  There was a sharp hissing
sound, a fountain of white sparks.  Kerry stepped in, trying for an
advantage, but the big kid fell back until the stalemate resumed.

Jim stared at the railing.  It was cut cleanly all the way through!

Monomole knife, Jim thought.  That's what the flash was I saw
earlier.

A monomolecular knife was a simple, deadly little instrument.  It
consisted of a unit about five inches long and as big around as a
broomstick, which contained a battery that generated a static charge
that held a piece of wire exactly one molecule wide, extending stiffly
from one end of the unit.  The wire could be almost any length.
Monomole knives came in all sizes, from units that were effectively
swords all the way down to units with Wires only an inch or two long.
But no matter how long the wire Was, all mono mole knives shared one
essential characteristic: Kept stiff by the static charge, the length
of wire was far thinner than the sharpest standard knives ever made.
The "blade" was only a single molecule wide!  A mono mole knife could
slice butter flesh, or case-hardened steel with equal ease.

Jim estimated the blade on the weapon the big kid held in his right
hand was about two inches long.  Not a sword by any rrleans, but
capable of inflicting wounds two inches deep with no effort whatsoever.
 A belly wound that deep would leave your

 guts spilling out onto the floor, or a quick slice across the jugular
would drown you in your own blood.

No wonder Kerry was so wary!  A single slip could be his Jim froze a
moment, staring at their straining poses.  He'd trained for years in
all kinds of martial arts, against all weapons.  But he'd never faced
the real thing in a real hand fight.  The knot in his belly told him
his body the fatal possibilities, even if he hadn't quite got his
around them yet.

So he didn't try.  Thinkingabout it might paralyze him.  couldn't let
that happen.  Instead, he took a couple of steps running start, leaped
into the air, caromed off the railing, took a rolling fall, and bounced
to his feet behind kid.  He spread his arms wide for balance and then,
full weight of his thighs into the motion, wheeled like on the ball of
his left foot and rammed the heel of his hard as he could into the big
kid's right kidney.

The force of the blow straightened his opponent up gasp of agony.  His
hands lost their defensive position spread wide.  Kerry stepped
forward, his own hands a blur.  again Jim heard the meaty solid thwack!
as Kerry's fist flesh.

The big guy flew backwards as if kicked in the chest mule.  The back of
his head slammed into the steel behind him with a dull crack.  He froze
a moment, as if the wall.  Then his eyes rolled back in his skull.  He
slowly to his knees, then pitched over onto his face.  Kerry bent and
picked up the mono mole unit that had fallen hand.

"Thanks," he said, glancing at Jim who was staring unconscious hulk
before him.  Then he spun around, boy at dancing class, and launched
himself at the rest melee--just as Ferrick finally connected with one
of his haymaker punches.

Two down, and now the third one cowered back as Ferrick, and Darnell
surrounded him.  His face went pale.  he said.  "It's cool.  I'm
done."

Kerry stepped forward.  His right hand darted out, fast striking snake.
He wrapped his long fingers around the boy's throat.  He pushed him
back against the wall and

THE

STARS

his head on the metal a couple of times.  The smaller boy's eyes bugged
out.

"Pepper, you little weasel," Kerry said.  "What the hell you think you
were doing?.  Even with Hump over there"--he nodded in the direction of
the unconscious big kid--"you had to know we'd kick your worthless ass.
B dorm is our turf, and you frigging well know it's gonna stay that
way.  Right?"

He rapped Pepper's skull against the metal again.  "Right?"

"Yeah, sure, Kerry.  B dorm's yours.  Stone Cowboy turf.  No
problemo."

Kerry stared into Pepper's terrified eyes, then suddenly grinned.  He
dropped his hand and stepped back.  "Just so we understand each other.
Go back and tell that asshole Tabazz we do understand each other,
okay?"

Pepper nodded frantically.

"And tell him that if he sends somebody over here with a 'mole blade
again, I'll send the guy back in a box.  And come looking for your boss
myself.  You got that?"

"Yeah, Kerry.  I'll tell him."

"Good.  Now drag this worthless garbage out of here.  It's messing up
my entrance.  And if it stays messed up much longer, I'm gonna clean it
up with your tongue."

Pepper didn't say anything more, just bobbed his head, leaned over, and
began to drag Hump's unconscious carcass toward the hatch.  Kerry
watched for a moment, then nodded.

"Come on," he said curtly, and started down the stairs.  The rest
followed him, Jim bringing up the rear.  He looked back as he reached
the bottom of the steps, but Pepper was already gone.  No trace
remained of the unwelcome guests.

When they got back to their table, Kerry stopped.  "Saved my ass there,
Jim.  Took some balls to go up against a 'mole."

Jim felt himself blush.  He hadn't really thought about it yet.  Now he
did, and his blush turned chilly.  What if he'd jumped Wrong?  What if
Hump had been just a hair quicker?  What if... ?

Kerry looked at Darnell and Ferrick.  "I say Jim's shown us his balls,
and I say they're good enough.  What about you guys?"

Ferrick glanced at, Darnell.  Darnell nodded.  "Yeah," he said.  "Me
too," Ferrick added.

Kerry turned to Jim.  'mere's a few more formalities,

 but.."  welcome to the Stone Cowboys, Jim.  If you want to,

is."

Jim stared at the hands of all three boys, stretched toward him.  He
took a breath and nodded.  "I want to," he and gravely shook each
outstretched hand.

"We'll show you the codes and the hand jive and all the the secret
bullshit later," Kerry said.  "But you're one of us brothers in the
blood."

Brothers in the blood, Jim thought.  Sounds like a game.  Except
somebody could have gotten killed back there.  "It's not a game, is
it?" he asked softly.

Kerry seemed to understand.  "No," he said, equally softly.  not a
game."

Ferrick's face was cut and bruised.  Kerry sent him a visit to the
dorm's auto doc  Jim, still wondering what he'd got himself into,
watched him go.

"What was that all about?"  he asked.

"Not much," Kerry replied.  "D Street Dudes," he added cally.

"Somebody could have gotten hurt," Jim said.  "A knife.  Those are
illegal where I come from."

"But you're not where you came from, are you?  The different here."

"Okay, what are the rules here?"

"For us?  There aren't any," Kerry said.  He paused,

for words.  "I'hat's not exactly right.  There are rules.  A few.  they
only stay rules as long as we can enforce them."

Jim thought about it.  "Might makes right, is that it?"  Slowly, Kerry
grinned.  "Now you're getting it."  Jim shook his head.  "That's
wrong."

"Maybe.  But when has it ever been any different?"

 "So, are the .. . Stone Cowboys the mightiest?  Is that what that was
about?  These Dudes from D Street were testing us?  you?"

"Yeah, pretty much.  Hump's their best fighter.  If he'd taken me,
things would have changed."

"Changed how?.  What things?"

Kerry shrugged.  "Oh, just things.  Changed, you know?."  Suddenly, he
seemed preoccupied.  "You'll figure it out.  Anyway,

listen.  It's time to show the flag."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, the Dudes took a shot at us.  But we kicked their asses.  So now
we show up, rub it in their faces.  We're the Cowboys.  Nobody screws
with us."

Kerry pushed his chair back and stood up.  "Come on, new boy.  We'll
give you a tour, Cowboy style."

Darnell chuckled.  "That's right, Jim.  The way we do every thing.
Cowboy style."

 A generation ship.

Jim was familiar with the general idea: You build a vessel, really a
small world, and start it off on a very with a minimal crew.  A seed
crew, because those first crew hers would have children, and those
children would also l kids, and eventually, many generations later, the
ship full.  Presumably by the time this happened, the ship approaching
its destination.

It was an old concept, one from the dawn of spaceflight, a workable
method of faster-than-light travel was

Now man could move distances in days that once would required
centuries, even eons.  But there were some you wanted to move a lot of
people, you had to go more You couldn't take something the size of
Detroit and squirt hundred thousand light-years in just a jump or two.
The would tear it apart.  So you did it in micro jumps a few at a time,
and you recalibrated after each jump.  Which that a journey from Terran
space to, say, the Taurus could take as long as three Terran years.

Three years is a long time to feed, house, and many people.  So the
generation ships made a comeback.  long-haul ships with a slowly
growing population, but short-time journeyers with a huge population. 
A city ing to uproot themselves and take off for a new world of parsecs
from their previous lives.  "The sort of citizens one reason or
anotherl would take that sort of risk.

 and adventures, yes, but also failures and crooks, misfits and losers
of every stripe imaginable.

Every stripe imaginable.  That was the human cargo of Outward Bound.  A
multitude of people uprooted and rootless, the foundations of their
previous lives shattered beyond repair.  Broken families, dysfunctional
families, the human wreckage of bankrupted businesses, obsolescent
careers, the socially halt, the lame, the discarded.  Their home world
was happy to see them go, happy to put their useless lives to some good
use.  Many of them not happy at all to go, but going anyway out of
fear, out of desperation, even out of legal flat

Such exod uses were nothing new in human history.  Penal ships had
helped colonize Australia for the British Empire, and poverty and
terror had sent the dregs of Europe flooding to the New World for two
hundred years.

Now, as always, another of humanity's great leaps outward was being
fueled from the corroded underbelly of society.  Jim had never seen the
hundred-meter-tall statue in the Terran harbor of New York City, but he
knew the inscription on it well enough: "Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free .... "

Huddled masses.  That was as good a description as any for the Outward
Bound.  He began to understand just how huddled those masses were as
Kerry led him up to the inner surface of the ship.

He'd remained in his room during the voyage to the Outward guarding the
hoard of gold he'd lost immediately on his arrival.  He hadn't watched
the docking procedure from space,

and so had no idea what sort of ship was now his new home.  He hadn't
paid much attention, in his previous life, to the colony 8hips as they
were designed.  He knew only that they were of different types and
sizes, the specifications dictated by the sort of Colonies they were
built to establish.

He knew that the most popular design for a colony ship was a Bernal
Sphere, a hollowed-out globe or cylindrical shape designed to spin so
as to provide Terran-normal gravity along surfaces.

Kerry led his small crew out of B Dorm and into a maze of passages,
steel-wailed corridors all painted the same green.  Most of the walls
were so encrusted with

 layers of crude graffiti it was almost impossible to what their
original color had been.

Darnell reached into his pocket and withdrew a small unit.  In less
than thirty seconds he etched a series of letters on an unmarked space,
sweeping his hand back forth in quick, sure motions.

COWBOYZ ROOLZ!

When he finished, he glanced at Jim.  "Well?  Not bad, There was a
certain crude artistry to his efforts.  The shapes of the letters
throbbed with energy.  Darnell had so much detail and shading the
script looked oddly reminded Jim of hieroglyphs or runes.

"What does it mean?"  he asked the other boy.

"Huh?"  Darnell stared at him as if the answer was obvious.  "Several
things," Kerry broke in.  "It's our mark, first of alli shows we own
this territory.  It means we rule it.  Second means it's our rules that
apply here."  He grinned.  "It's our and we run it our way.  Somebody
doesn't like it..."  :i shrugged.

"Oh," Jim said.  Something more to think about.  Evidently social
structures here were more complicated than he' dined  Then he realized
Kerry and his friends probably even know what a social structure was,
or that they were one.  His knowledge gave him an advantage.  Best to
secret, though.  His new friends might not take kindly to an objective
view of their lives.  And even a small might come in handy down the
road somewhere.

They walked on.  Eventually their corridor debouched larger, circular
area, lined with elevator doors.  Kerry the middle door of three and
pushed button.  A moment the door slid open, and they entered.  Jim
looked up.  The of the elevator car was transparent.  Far overhead he
saw sky.  And clouds.

Jim's mouth fell open.  "Clouds?"  he said slowly.  He get his mind
around it.  "How many.."  how many people this ship?"

Kerry shrugged.  "About ten million," he said.

Ten million people... It wasn't a ship.  It was an entire world.

 "Then it's not really your territory.  Not all of it," Jim said. 
"Not yet," Kerry replied.

he elevator reached the inner surface of the sphere and stopped at
ground level.  The tube containing the car continued up, now completely
transparent above the "ground."  The door opened, and they stepped out
onto a broad plaza made of concrete paving blocks.  The first thing Jim
noticed was the foliage.  There were trees and bushes everywhere, set
into pots, growing from sections cut into the pavement, or planted in
nodding emerald ranks above broad swaths of pool-table lawn.
Moonflowers and trumpet-horns blossomed in popcorn profusion, scenting
the faint breeze with sandalwood and rosemary and dense, drowsy lilac.
Jim took a deep breath.

"Wow .... "

"Yeah, it gets you, doesn't it?  The first time?"  Kerry grinned
cheerfully.  "Best place I ever lived," he added.  "Except for those
freaking dorms.  They're lousy."

They strolled to the edge of the plaza.  Jim kept stopping, just to
look around.  But it was when he looked up that his stomach jumped into
his throat.  He felt a surge of vertigo, though he barely noticed when
Kerry caught his arm and steadied him.

Up, up, up!  For a moment he didn't understand just what it was he was
looking at.  Small, fluffy clouds floated a couple of thousand feet up,
and far above them, the harsh blue-white glare of a sun.

Well beyond the other side of the sun, a dark haze.  He squinted,
trying to make out what that distant panorama might be.  Then, with a
heart-wrenching jerk, it suddenly came into focus.  Roofs!  Thousands
of roofs, multicolored, pink, mauve, light purple, white, tile red. And
streets, some straight, others

 meandering like the veins in a slab of marble.  And .. . sapphire
traceries that connected lakes like scattered cent jewels!

That was when his belly heaved, as his mind tried to pass what he was
seeing.  Except for a few short orbital Jim had never been off planet.
Even his subconscious were keyed to the norms of planetary life.  The
ground down, the sky up.  So when he saw the ground floating above his
head, his mind made the necessary connection,

started sending danger signals roaring along his nervous High in the
air.."  upside down .... Falling!

"Hey.  You okay, buddy?."

Jim swallowed hard, tasted a wad of bile that had into his throat.  He
closed his eyes, shook his head, and

Somebody, Darnell maybe, laughed.  He's got the man.  First-timers, it
always hits that way.  Stand back, probably gonna puke."  He laughed
again.

"You gonna heave, Jim?"  Kerry asked, genuine concern in voice.

Jim kept his eyes closed.  He swallowed again.  No, he going to vomit.
Maybe .... "I'm okay," he said, and took a deep breath.  He opened]
eyes, but didn't look up.  It was too soon for that.  Instead,..
focused on what looked like a six-story apartment complex fronted one
whole side of the square.  Nothing out of the nary about it, a ferro
crete structure painted light blue, windows and glass doors facing out
onto filigreed could have been anywhere on Wolibane, but it wasn't It
inside a spinning tin can trillions of niles from any surface.  That
this building was so ordinary only emphasized strangeness of its
location.

Jim blinked, staring at it, as it finally hit home on some his
awareness had not yet consciously penetrated.  He away from his old
life.  His old life was gone, and he was a new life.  He had severed
all the connections he'd once stood completely and trusted without
thought.  He was alone.

One more member of the lonely crowd.  Just like else on the Outward
Bound.

 "lowU big is this place anyway?."  Jim asked, as Kerry led them into
a street crowded with people.  Small jitney like buses, open to the
air, floated down the center of the street, crowded to the gills with
passengers.  The walks on either side of the jitney track were also
crowded.  People of all shapes, sizes, and ages strolled, ambled,
jogged.  They chatted or shouted or laughed.  They gestured with mad
abandon, almost as if their waving hands, fluttering fingers, and
mobile expressions constituted a voiceless language all its own, a
communication of signs rather than sounds.

Jim noticed out of the side of his eye that as they passed a group of
four boys on the far side of the street, Ferrick raised his right hand
and did something complicated with his fingers.  One of the distant
group immediately responded with a similar gesture.

Secret codes?  Was this the hand jive Kerry had mentioned earlier?  If
so, then those four must also be members of the Stone Cowboys.  He made
a mental note to keep an eye out for things like that.  He still didn't
know what sort of group, or club, or gang he'd joined.  He didn't even
know what Kerry's role in it was.  Or what his own role was supposed to
be.

Hell.  Supposed to be?  Why should there be any "supposed to be" about
it?  Whatever rules he'd once thought he knew, they wouldn't apply
here.  He was on his own.  "Supposed to be" didn't COunt any longer. On
the Outward Bound, kids carried monomolecular knives and tried to use
them on other kids.  Maybe that was what was "supposed to be" around
there.  Or maybe not.  But it wouldn't help to pretend that anything
he'd learned before about the way Wolfbane worked would do him any good
now.  Just the opposite, in fact.  It could get him killed.

He'd thought he knew the proper order of things on Wolfbane, too, and
look where that had gotten him.  He'd assumed he knew What was up with
his own family, his own safe, secure life.  Knew enough to act on his
own, make his own decisions.  Disobey his father.  And so he'd followed
his own flawed under  standing of the world and destroyed everything
he'd thou understood.  There were no safe moorings, no magic key
prehension.  Only a thin veneer of normality over chaos, where one
false step could lead anybody to a final less fall.

Be careful, he warned himself.  Just be careful.  He Kerry was speaking
to him.

"How big?."  Kerry said.  "It's a cylinder four miles thick about
twenty miles long."

Automatically, Jim did the equation and came up result that shocked
him.  The inside of the cylinder wall about 250 square miles!  He
groped for an analogy.  The San Francisco, on Terra, was on a peninsula
and expand.  It held about a million people in fifty square miles. 
made the population on the Outward Bound only twice as as an entire
Earth city!  Dense enough by Wolfbane but nothing compared to Hong Kong
or Manhattan Island.  "Jim?  You're doing it."

He came out of his mental fog with a start.  "Huh?  What?"  "Buzzing
off.  And you look kinda pale again."

He forced himself to grin, though his gut was still almost as badly as
his thoughts.  "Hard to get used to, is managed.  "All... this."

Kerry seemed to understand what he was trying to because his blue eyes
flickered and seemed to go out of focus an instant.

"I bet one thing isn't much different from what you're to," Kerry said
suddenly.

"What's that?"

Kerry pointed.  Up ahead, seated around a table tiny restaurant, were
three girls.  All of' them had turned to them, watching them as they
approached.  One girl--a pretty blonde, waved suddenly.

'he women," Kerry said.  'he pretty little girls.  They're same
everywhere."

Darnell laughed.  "Yeah," he said.  "Crazy.  Every damned of them.  Rip
your heart out, spit on it, throw it on the He sounded strangely proud
of this as he spoke.  "Real Cowgirls."

And he' sproud of that?  Jim thought.

 -Watch yourself, Jim," Darnell added.  "They're gonna love yoU.
Probably never seen green eyes like yours before."

"I'm not worried," he said, trying to fake a confidence he didn't feel.
Did these boys treat their girls as some kind of possessions?  Or some
kind of enemy?.  None of it made sense .... He grinned inwardly,
feeling the sour taste of it in his mind.  His entire life now made no
sense at all.  Why should these girls--or anything else--be
different?

call me Sam," she said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Ooh, Kerry.  Where'd you fred this one?  Listen how pretty he
talks."

Jim took his hand back from her cool fingertips.  Her skin was the
color and smoothness of melted chocolate mixed with warm honey.  He
imagined he could feel a faint tingle in his own fingers from where he
had touched her.  Her voice was rough and raucous and lilting.  It
reminded him of a flock of birds, happy starlings, maybe, conversing
beneath a distant wind.  He put his hand on the tabletop and stared at
the dusty blue veins on the back.  The same color as the soft shadow
that throbbed in the hollow of her throat.  Her brown hair, the same
gleaming brown as the shell of a snail, was a mess.  A confusion of
curls and braids and odd protruding tails with bits of shiny plastic
mixed in.  A don't-give-a-damn magpie's nest perched in an untidy
Sprawl atop her heart-shaped face.

"Would you marry me and have my children?"  he said.  He had no idea if
he was serious or not.  He felt a mild chill as he waited for her
answer.

"Oh, you," she said.  "Silver-tongue devil."

'l'ongued," he said.

"Oowee!  I like that better," Darnell said, laughing.  "Tongued."



He draped his arm over the cute blond girl's shoulder and zled at her
ear.  "How about you, babe?  You want tongued?"

Cleopatra, Jim thought.  He knew Cleopatra had actually ugly, a short
woman with a huge nose, but the idea of was beautiful.  That was what
SamanthacallmeSam like.  The idea of Cleopatra.

"So, will you?"  he asked her.

Lips like, cheITy wine.  It was an old, old line, one he'd in a
classical music class that had otherwise bored death.  But that line
had stuck in his mind.  It made no

Cherry wine?  What color was that?

It was the color of her lips, that's what.  She stopped and looked at
him, really looked.  Her eyes were like bits of ished anthracite,
lightly veined with silver.

"Marry you?"  she finally said.  "No.  But if Kerry says it's i, '"

I guess I could sleep with you."

Kerry let out a giant whoop.  Jim felt his cheeks go felt his ears
begin to glow.  Darnell pounded on the table.

blond girl tinkled like a bell.  Even the phlegmatic allowed himself a
dark, mocking grin.

Jim didn't realize he was standing.  He didn't hear the'

crash of his chair tipping over.  He looked back and forth,

laughter thundering in his ears, and tried to remember get back to the
dorm.  Get away from there, anyway.

Kerry reached for him, but Samantha got to him first.

planted herself in front of him, so close he could feel the radiating
off her body.  She tilted her head up and directly into his eyes.

"I'm sorry.  Look at me.  Okay.  I'm sorry.  You hear me,

was just a joke.  No, look at me.  Don't look away.  You ready for it.
Now you'd like to smack me in the mouth.

ahead.  Smack me."

It all came out so fast it stopped him.  He couldn't move he processed
all the dissonant input.  Her eyes, her words.

smell of her breath, hinting of raspberries.  Her lips.

"No," he said.  "No, I can't do that."

"Then sit down."

'

Somebody had replaced his chair.  He felt the edge of the il against
the back of his knees.  He sat as if somebody had cut strings.  She
looked down at him.

 "I apologize.  You're new around here.  Everybody will take
advantage.  But I shouldn't have.  My firepower is different from these
apes with you.  Too much for you to handle, so it wasn't fair. You
understand?"

"No, but I accept your apology."

Kerry leaned in.  "How about you accept another beer, buddy?.  You look
like you could use one."

More laughter, but kinder.  More inclusive.  He was one of their own.
They'd stung him--she'd stung him, and now they were laughing.  But
with him, not at him.

Somehow, she'd changed all that.

As he watched her go back to her seat, he realized that he'd passed
another test.  But he didn't know what the questions had been.  Or
understand just what answers he'd given.

He didn't know how much longer he could survive this school of hard
knocks.  The education was wearing him out.

what did you think of the girls?"  'hey're girls.  Especially that Sam.
She's really a girl.  Is she your girl?"

"They all are, in a way.  All the Stone Cowgirls are mine."  "Droit du
seigneur," Jim said.  "What?"

"In medieval times, on Terra, it was a custom that allowed the feudal
lord first crack at the women on their marriage night.  Most of them
took money instead, but if they wanted, they could have the bride."

Kerry's jaw dropped.  "Just walk in and take her, with her husband
standing there?  You mean like do the old in and out,

right on the spot?"

"Sure."

Kerry mulled it over.  "No, me and the girls, it's not like that.

But it isn't a bad idea .... " He slapped Jim's shoulder.

more valuable than I thought you were."

"How valuable did you think I was?"

"Hard to say, Jim.  Hard to say.  It's a moving target."  They were
walking down a tree-lined street.  Jim's him they were climb inga hill.
But when he looked back, was rising there, too.  His brain kept telling
him he was stantly in the bottom of a gently sloping valley that rose
before and behind him.  His mind told him that he was around the inside
of a cylinder, but his brain wasn't of that.  Valley, his brain kept
insisting.  Valley.

Of course, his brain also thought he was strolling upside down, four
miles above the woods, lakes, and the other side of the cylinder, ready
to fall headfirst out sky at any moment.

"Okay, if you don't have screwing rights to all the and Sam isn't your
girl, how come she has to ask your permission?"

"I'o sleep with you?"

"Yeah."  He felt uncomfortable talking about it that way.  discussing
Sam in such terms was insulting.  Hell, it was ing.

Even Kerry seemed mildly uneasy with the discussion.  doesn't, really.
It was mostly a joke.  Yank your chain a little what happened.  Sam's a
piece of work.  about our women."

"Pull your heart out, spit on it, that stuff?."

"Uh-huh."

"You say she doesn't really.  So what does she do, "Well, it's sort
of.... I run the Cow, boys, you know?.  Cowgirls, too, when it gets
right down to it.  So everybody keep me informed."

"Informed?"

"In the loop.  If you're gonna do something major, you know about it.
So I don't get surprised or nothing."

"Ah," Jim said.  "I get it.  Because you're the leader.  You care of
everybody, they take care of you."

There you go."

They came to an intersection.  There was no jitney rail the middle of
the streets here.  An occasional bicycle

 doV the center of the road, but mostly people walked.  Jim oticed
that most of the walkers seemed to amble without much purpose, as if a
destination was the last thing on their minds.  Everybody stopped to
smell the roses, of which there were an abundance in the hedgerows that
fronted the lawns on either side.

"How come all the shrubbery?."  Jim asked.  This is a spaceship, not a
greenhouse."

"It's both.  All this weedy stuff pumps out a lot of oxygen.  And soaks
up a lot of carbon dioxide.  Ten million people run through a bunch of
that stuff, both ways."

"Oh.  That makes sense."

"Everything on this tin can makes sense.  The mechanical stuff, at
least.  This damned thing is pretty much self-sufficient.  These big
ones were designed to be self-sustaining colonies in orbit around some
star.  And that's what this will be, eventually."

"A colony?.  I thought we were going out to start a colony."

"We are.  But you don't just dump ten million city folks--Plebs is what
most of us are, and you don't get more city than that-down on some
bum-fragged virgin planet and tell them to start plowing.  The Outward
Bound will take up orbit and start the heavy manufacturing.  Prefab
housing, small factories to make use of the local natural resources,
build farm equipment, light industry, stuff like that."

"Okay, that makes sense.  Do all the heavy stuff in orbit, and just
drop it down the gravity well.  Efficient."

"Yeah, it would be.  If most of the people here weren't total assholes,
it might even have a chance."

Jim stared at him.  "What do you mean?"

"Didn't you hear me say just about everybody was Pleb?"  "Yeah... ?"

"Well, Pleb.  I'm a Pleb, so I know.  Can't find a bunch of more
Useless people in the whole galaxy.  Half of them are wire headers and
the rest are just plain lazy.  Plebs are useless by definition."

Jim thought about it.  "You aren't real big on history, are You?"

'[hat's what I've got you for."

Again, the odd feeling that he was missing something.

Something important.  "Is that what I'm for?"

"Among other things."

"You seem to think you know a lot about me."

Kerry stopped, turned, looked at him.  "Oh, Jim.  You're!  open book,
my friend.  Green as this freaking grass.  But worry.  You've got me in
your corner.  That's all you need.  Yo got a great future with the
Stone Cowboys."

They turned left at the intersection, began working their down a new
street.  This one was less residential.  They pa" several small shops,
places that sold garden implem sausages, holovids, spirit crystals,
beer, cheap clothing, and a place that, as far as Jim could tell,
specialized in inflatable animals.  He wondered if the sheep he saw
floating outside the door was anatomically correct.

"What, exactly, do the Cowboys do?"

Kerry shrugged.  "We're entre---entre per--we're business pie."

"What kind of business?"

"A little of this, a little of that.  Don't worry about it.  I'll fill
in later."

Bingo, Jim thought.

Kerry took a hard right toward a small beer stand.  "Buy brew?."

Just before they entered the shop, Kerry stopped.  When glanced at Jim,
his light blue eyes seemed to have acquire!.  faint glaze, like fine
china.

"I know you're smart, Jim.  Got a lot of education.  Know like that
droit du seigneur shit.  But don't make the mistake thinking I'm a
dummy."  He clapped Jim on the back.  "Jus friendly warning."

Funny, Jim thought.  It didn't feel fndly at all.

"A beer would be good," he said.

 "Where you going?."

Darnell seemed to materialize out of thin air.  Jim stopped on the
bottom step of the dorm stairs.  "Just out.  Take a look around."

"Want some company?."  Darnell was already moving up the steps.  It
wasn't really a question.

"Uh, sure.  I guess."

This time Darnell didn't stop to etch any new graffiti.  He seemed
preoccupied as they rode the elevator up to the surface.

His copper-lead gaze was withdrawn, focused inward.  "Something
wrong?." Jim asked.  "Huh?  No.  Why?."

"I don't know.  You seem like you're not here or something."  Darnell
ran one hand through his dusty blond mop.  His thin features were
stark.  He looked like he hadn't been eating well.  Or sleeping much,
either.

"You know.  Got things on my mind.  Stuff."

Jim waited to see if he'd say more, but he didn't.  They stepped out of
the elevator together onto the plaza.  Jim stopped, closed his eyes,
took a deep breath, then opened his eyes and looked straight up.

The vertigo and nausea hammered at him again, and the Screaming need to
grab hold of something, but he forced himself to keep looking.  Darnell
saw what he was doing.

"Yeah, you have to fight it," he said.  "It's quicker that way.  If You
try to pretend it's not there, it'll keep sneaking up on you."

Jim nodded, swallowing hard.  "How long does it managed.

"Depends.  Some people, just a few good doses, they get to it, and
they're fine."  He chuckled.  "And some never all.  That's what those
things are for."

Jim looked at him.  Darnell pointed at a square green about five feet
tall that rose from the pavement to their 'That's for them."

"What is it?"  A horizontal slot bisected the top of the From the slot
hung a flap of brown paper, like a tongue.

"Barf-bag dispenser," Darnell said.  "If you see somebody leaning
toward one, get the hell out of their way."

Jim nodded.  Then he turned his face up again.

"You gonna do that all day?."

"I think it's getting better.  I know what it is, but my don't.  Not
quite."  He gave it up.  "I'll keep working at it."

"If you decide you're gonna toss your cookies, let me okay?  So I can
duck."  Darnell laughed.

Jim didn't quite catch the humor of it.  Of course, he found anything
very funny lately.  "Which way was that restaurant?"  he said.

"The one where the girls were?"

"Yeah."

This way."  Darnell veered off to the left.  They walked a Darnell kept
sneaking glances at him.

"Something wrong?.  Toilet paper hanging off my ass or thing?."  Jim
asked.

"Nah.  Just never met anybody quite like you.  You look... I don't
know.  Clean, I guess."

"Clean?"

Darnell groped for it, his high forehead furrowed with effort.  "Like
wherever you came from, people cared about There was somebody who
worried if you didn't show up you were supposed to.  Gave you shit if
you didn't brush teeth.  Like that."

"I don't get it," Jim said.

"Nobody ever gave a damn about me.  Anything I did."  "What about your
parents?"

Darnell uttered a short, harsh bark.  "Parents?  You mean two of them?"
He barked again.  "Never did know my old

 did my room, I bet.  She was a wire head did some hookg, more out of
boredom than anything else.  But when she vcas't screwing or jizzing
her brain, she used to take me for walks sometimes.  When I was a
little kid.  And she'd point at every blond-haired mothra-fracker that
came along, and she'd say, "There's your daddy, Darnell.  Wave hi to
your daddy."  And me, the dumb little shit, I'd wave, and she'd laugh
like crazy."  "Jesus."

Darnell's grin was just a little twisted.  "I don't think He had much
to do with it either.  How about you?"

"How about me what?"

"You know.  How'd you end up on this oversize tin can?"

"You mean Kerry didn't tell you what happened when I got here?"

Darnell's eyes flickered.  "Kerry.  No, he doesn't talk much if he
don't feel like it.  And he usually don't feel like it."

"I thought you guys were friends."

"Well, sure.  Of course we are.  But it isn't one of those buddy buddy
things, okay?.  More like.."  hell.  I can't really explain it.  You'll
figure it out."

"That's what everybody keeps telling me.  I'll figure it out.  But what
am I supposed to be figuring out?  What's the big secret?"

'here aren't any secrets, man.  It's all laid out on the table, if you
know what you're looking--shit,r'

Somebody bumped Jim's shoulder, hard.  "Run, you dumb mother RunF
Darnell hissed.  Jim froze, staring into the face of a monster.

he monster was no Honeg in retro biker drag.  He was about six feet
tall, maybe 250 pounds, wearing a conservative banker's suit that might
have been tailored for an armored perSonnel carrier.  He looked like he
could smash bricks with his

 face.  Under the best of circumstances he would have ugly,
frightening guy.  Somebody the bank used to widows and orphans.

He didn't look ugly now.  He looked nuts.  His eyes streaked with pink
and bulged like a pair of hard-boiled e a microwave.  Thin, blue-tinged
lips stretched across teeth like over strained rubber bands.  Purple
tongue neck veins like bridge cables, drool foaming at the corner of
mouth, face the color of radiation burns.  A nightmare with hands like
meat hooks reaching for throat.

"Aargghhh," the monster said.  His right claw

Jim's shirt and tore it away.  He paused, staring at the cloth in his
hand as if it might be skin.  As if maybe he eat it.

"Jesus Christ!"  Jim shouted.

"UrggghF' the monster replied, and reached for him again.  Jim's
paralysis vanished.  He whirled.  Lightning bolts shocked his thighs
and calves as he leaped away.  A clamped on the back of his neck.  He
felt his spine creak, realized that his feet were no longer on the
ground.  thin air, kicking like a rabbit raised for slaughter.

A hammer smashed into the back of his skull.

went loose and gray and silent.  He tried to raise his arms, the
connections seemed to be shorted out.

I'm going to die, he thought.  He's going to kill me .... Darnell
kicked the guy in the back of his right knee.  heard a soft snapping
sound.  Then the guy toppled over.  Jim the ground with a thump that
jarred the cobwebs out of skull.

"Runt."  Darnell shouted again.  He grabbed Jim's right and yanked
hard. Jim got his feet under him and came sprinting.  Twenty feet away
he risked a glance back.  The ster lay on the ground, trying to rise on
his shattered knee falling back.  His lips were streaked with red as he
his left hand.  He looked up, grinned, and spit out a finger.

"OuchI"

They were sitting at the table in front of the restaurant where they'd
met the girls the day before.  Jim had stripped off what was left of
his shirt.  Darnell's fingers prodded gently at the back of his
skull.

"That's a nasty cut, and it's gonna be a real bad lump, too."  He
squeezed the thick muscles where Jim's neck joined his shoulders.  Jim
gasped.

"One solid bruise, man.  You're gonna be stiff as a board."  "What the
hell was wrong with that guy?"

Darnell left off his ministrations, sat down, and lifted his beer.  'he
bleeding's stopped, but you better see a doc when we go back to the
dorm.  There's a reed station on the way."  He gave Jim a worried look.
"We ought to go back now, really.  You don't look so good."

"I don't feel so good."

"All right."

Jim fought back a wave of dizziness.  "But I don't feel like walking
much, either."

Darnell's worried expression grew more pronounced.  "Hey, man.  Maybe I
better get somebody.  You could have a broken head or something.  That
mother popped you pretty hard."  "Yeah, maybe I... "

It was the weirdest feeling.  He knew his lips were moving.  He could
feel them, feel his tongue moving sluggishly against the roof of his
mouth.  Could even feel the faint vibrations of his voice buzzing in
his tender skull.  But he couldn't hear a damned thing.  And there
seemed to be some kind of bright halo around Darnell.  Bright and
growing brighter.  He was perfectly aware of what was happening.  He
was falling forward, sinking Into that light.  Then he wasn't aware of
anything at all.

 Are you gonna live?"  Sam asked him.

Her face hovered above his like a honey-colored moon.  leaned forward
and blurred out.  He felt her lips touch his head.  A kiss of coolness
against the heat.  Then she moved

Kerry's face swam into view.  He looked worried and "The proctors took
that guy down.  Good thing.  They got to before we did."

None of it made any sense.

"What guy?."

"You don't remember?"

Jim shook his head.  Thunder rolled in waves behind his "Hey, take it
easy," Kerry said.  "Doc says you got a concussion."  His blue eyes had
that porcelain sheen again.  screws with Cowboys.  We'll pay the guy a
visit when he

"What happened?"  Jim asked.

Kerry smiled.  "Don't worry about it now.  Doc says you rest, so you
rest."  His grin widened a little.  "Sam will watch That'll be okay,
won't it?"

"Okay," Jim said.

He didn't know how much later, but when he again, he knew it was later.
He was flat on his back, straight up.  He was in a dimly lit room.
Formless shadows printed on the ceiling.  He stared at them and tried
to together.  Something had happened.  He couldn't what, but his head
and neck hurt like hell.  He discovered

 he tried to move.  He groaned softly.

"you awake?"

A darker shadow against the shadows moved above him.  He smelled a
whiff of raspberry.  "Is that you, Sam?

"I'm here, hardhead," she said.  "How you doing?."

*I'm alive.  I think I am."

"You lucky to be that way.  Don't move, now.  You want a drink of
water?"

He ran his tongue across his lips.  His tongue felt swollen, his lips
felt like sandpaper.  "Yeah," he husked.  "That would be nice."

He listened to the clink of glassware, then smelled raspberries
again.

"I'm gonna put my hand under your head.  I'll try to miss the bandage,
but if it hurts, say so."

It did hurt, but he didn't say anything.  He felt the rim of the glass
against his lips, and then his mouth filled with blessedly cool liquid.
He tried to swallow too quicMy and began to choke.

She held him until he stopped.

"Not too much," she said.

He kept at it until she said, "That's enough."  She took the glass away
and gently lowered his head.  His vision had adjusted to the dimness,
and he could make out her eyes gleaming in the faint light.  When she
smiled, he thought of the Cheshire cat.

"Where am I?"

"In bed, dummy."

It was a weak joke, but he found it incredibly funny.  Until he
laughed.

"You just supposed to lay there," Sam said.  "Doc told me not to let
you move around.  And wake you up every four hours or so, make sure you
still got all your brains working."

She was very close, sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning Over him.
He could feel the heat radiating from her body.

"Something's working," he muttered.  Suddenly he realized that he was
wearing only underpants beneath the thin sheet that separated them.

She moved slightly.  He heard a soft gurgle of laughter.  "You don't
look like you're gonna die."

"Oh, God" he said, when he realized just what embarrassing signs of
life she'd noticed.  "I'm sorry."

 "For what?"  she asked.  "My favorite is probably and roses, but as
compliments go, this isn't a bad one."

gurgled again.  "Not bad at all."

"Sam .... "

But she was moving away.  "Get you well first, boy.

see."

Jim closed his eyes and concentrated on getting well.

When he woke again the ache in his skull had sided to a dull throbbing
that was almost bearable.  He himself up against the pillows, wincing
at the pain that:i through his neck and shoulders.  Felt like something
was there.  Defmltely at least a sprain.  He sighed.  Even with it
would take a while before he was one hundred

"You're awake.  Good."

He blinked and waited for the morning fog to little blond-haired girl
with the tinkling laugh was on the side of the small room, next to a
window half-covered lacy curtain.  Sunlight streamed through the
window, out the flowery pattern of a thick carpet.  She was small
kitchen unit.

"You hungry?"  she asked, not turning.

He realized he was starving, and sid so.  She turned and smiled at him.
Still as cute as a button, her hair a smooth cap on her egg-shaped
skull.  Her eyes were indeterminate color that might have been gray or
blue or Her thin, high-arched nose had been broken sometime past and
badly set.  That was strange.  Medical care was sal. It wasn't ugly,
though.  It gave her otherwise features character.  She looked tough
and no-nonsense her cuteness..

Her body wasn't bad, either, Jim thought.  She wore a

se with a frilly collar that exposed the soft curve of her r. Her
jeans looked as if it took her a lot of effort to squeeze into them.
The cuffs were tucked into fake ostrich-skin boots.  She saw him
staring and struck a hip shot pose.  "I'hanks," she said.  "I know I'm
not Sam, but it's still nice of you to notice."

He looked away, blushing, and she chuckled.  "A boy with manners.  I
can tell you, Mister Evanston, you're going to be a big hit around
here."

Evanston.  Damn, it was still hard getting used to that.

"Do I smell waffles?"  he said, his mouth suddenly watering
uncontrollably.

She fiddled with the cooking unit some more, then swung it open.  "Yep.
Hope you like your eggs scrambled, and your sausage in links instead of
pattiesJ

She brought it to him on a tray.  He set the tray on his lap, grateful
that it covered up the customary morning evidence of what Sam had taken
as a compliment.  It was an effort not to ignore the silverware and
shovel the food in with both hands.  When he'd done everything but pick
up the plates and lick them, he sighed and leaned back.  He felt human
again, for the first time in How the hell long had it been, anyway?.

"I'm sorry, but I forgot your name," he said.

She had been sitting on a fat, chintz-flowered chair on the other side
of the room, watching him eat, her expression composed and serious.

"I'hat doesn't do much for a girl's ego," she said.

"Look, really, I'm sorry, but I don't even remember much about what
happened to me."  Then he realized he recalled more than he thought he
did.  A big guy, well dressed, ugly .. . and nuts.  Murderously,
outrageously nuts.

Her face changed.  "Oh, gosh, I'm sorry.  I forgot about that.  Well, I
didn't, but I got all wrapped up playing little miss nursey.  It's
Jenny.  My name's Jenny."

Pleased to meet you again, Jenny.  I do remember meeting You before."

She smiled.  Seen head-on, it transformed her face.  For a MOment,
battered nose and all, she looked beautiful.  Jim grinned back at her.
He couldn't help it.  Nobody could resist that smile.



"Well, look at us," she said.  "Googlingat each other like a couple of
monkeys."

"Googling?"

She laughed.  "I guess I can tell Sam you're gonna live."

"Sam?  Is she here?"

Jenny waved one hand vaguely.  "Oh, she's around where."

"Where is here, anyway?."

A barely perceptible pause.  "The clubhouse.  The i: " club."

He almost laughed, caught himself in time.  Clubhouse.

too much like some hokey holovid, but he doubted if they that way. When
in Rome... "Well, I owe whoever brought me here."

"It was Darnell.  Lugged you into a private cab and you right here.
Then he called Kerry and"--she waved

"we all came running."

They all came running.  They hardly knew him, but he hurt, and they all
came.  No questions, they just came.  He soft glow in his chest.  He'd
never felt anything quite like before.

:

"And Sam?  She came running, too?"

Jenny stared at him, then sighed.  "You've got it bad,

you?"  When he started to reply, she waved him off.  "Never

I'll tell her you're awake."

She headed for the door.

"Jenny."

She stopped, turned, looked at him.  Her eyes glistened.  "]

not so bad-looking, am I?  And I'm a nice girl, really I am."

He didn't know what to say.  "The nicest," he said finally.

She nodded.  "But not like her."  She closed the door her with a soft
click, leaving him to stare at it while he ered how much of an idiot he
was.  Nevertheless, she was

Not like her.  Not like Sam.  Nobody was.

 Jim stayed in bed for two more days.  Both Sam and Jenny kept an eye
on him.  He gave Kerry the keycard to his room and locker, and Kerry
brought back fresh clothes.

On the second day, Kerry pulled a chair close to Jim's bed and sat
down.  The sunlight slanted through the lace drapes and laid a spidery
pattern across his tall blond crew cut.  His blue eyes were hooded in
shadow.

'that guy," Kerry said.  "We're not going to be able to do anything
about him.  Sorry."

The guy?  Oh, that guy."

"Yeah.  He messed you up, we were gonna mess him up."  "Hey, man, you
don't need to do that.  Really.  Somebody said the cops--what do you
call them, proctors?--got him.  Am I going to have to go to court or
something?."

Kerry shook his head.  "No.  That won't be necessary."

There was something in Kerry's tone, a chilly offhandedness.

"I don't know," Jim said.  "I think you're scaring me.  What happened
to the guy?."

Kerry sighed.  "He diedF

"What!"

"It's not a big thing.  Just some half-assed suit.  He went nuts and
ended up in a restraint tank.  And then he hung himself with his
expensive tie."

"Jesus, Kerry.  That's awful.  He's dead?"

Kerry nodded.  "So he doesn't have to worry about us.  He doesn't have
to worry about anything."

Jim had a sudden, terrible thought.  "Kerry?.  What's this restraint
tank?  What's it like?"

"It's just a big holding cell.  Padded and stuff.  For drunks and
rmthalls and wire heads that burn too many synapses and go Wacko."

"He wasn't by himself, then?"

"I don't know all the details.  Probably not, though."

"So he killed himseK in front of witnesses?  Why didn't anybody try to
stop him?"

 Kerry eyed him quizzically.  'his ain't Saint Teresa we're inga bout
here.  The guy was a beast.  Look what he did to be decided to tighten
his necktie a little too much, would want to be the one to stop him?"

"But... they could have called somebody.  Or--" The wouldn't go away.
"Or maybe somebody else was Were... any of the Stone Cowboys in that
tank with him?"

Kerry looked away.  "I don't know.  I guess anything's ble."

"Oh, man, don't tell me that.  Don't say a guy is dead of me.  I don't
want that on me.  Jeez, Kerry.  What a hell thing to do."

Kerry stared at him.  "Look.  We didn't--I didn't--have thing to do
with that guy croaking himself.  Nobody strung up.  None of the Cowboys
were involved.  You get it?  It you; because none of us had anything to
do with it."

Jim locked eyes with him.  Neither moved for several that felt longer
than just seconds.  Finally, Jim looked away.  "All right," he said.

"Okay."  Kerry leaned forward and slapped Jim on the "Doc says you can
get out of bed tomorrow.  Got to take it but you aren't an invalid
anymore.  So that's the end of pounding your pile driver and drooling
all over yourself time Sam walks into your room."

"It's that obvious?  .... "Huh."  Kerry scooted the chair back, then
stood up.  Ran hand through his crew cut.  "Got things to do, man. I'll
get to you later, or see you tomorrow.  Somebody will stick though. 
Somebody's always here."  "Kerry?"  "Yeah, man?"

'rhanks.  Really.  For everything.  And tell Darnell."

Kerry nodded.  "All part of the package, man.  You'rei Cowboy.  All we
got is each other.  Don't ever forget it.  Your will come for payback.
Somebody will need you.  And you'll there for them, just like we've
been for you.  Right?"

"Righk"

"Well, then."  Kerry flicked him a half-assed salute, grinned, and
left.

Jim lay back and closed his eyes.  He thought about the

 for a long time.  He wondered why Kerry had lied to him about it--and
what the lie was.  He thought about Carl, too, and Tabitha.  And about
the mystery man who'd sent killers after them.  He thought about being
alone, and lonely, and afraid.

But the weirdest thought of all was the overpowering idea that this was
all familiar.  That somehow he'd done it all before, or something a lot
like it.  What was that feeling called?

Dj& vu.

 II Jim could think about was Sam.

He thought he heard her name in the popular songs wafted from public
speakers in shops and restaurants.  In he would see her, rush up, and
find some other girl who vaguely looked like her.  The scent of
raspberries on his cereal--he always ordered it that way now--left him
dazed longing.  He kept the memory of the way she'd leaned over nearly
naked body in his mind like an emotional lottery Replayed it over and
over, the rough honey of her voice, laughter.  He went to sleep
dreaming of her, woke wanting and spent his days mooning over her.

He felt foolish as he carefully arranged his time so he just happen to
be in her favorite haunts, but not foolish to stop.  The table in front
of the small restaurant where he'd seen her had become his home away
from the dorm.  He and drink gallons of coffee, hoping she" would show
up.  enough, she did.  She would always pretend surprise at him, though
he was obvious enough about it that Kerry, and Ferrick had made a
running joke of it.

"How many cups is that?"  Kerry said as he pulled a chair from the
table, spun it around, and sat down spraddle-legged.  rested his chin
on the back rung and surveyed the littered top.  "Ten?  Fifteen? 
You're gonna need a kidney and transplant any day now.  All that
coffee."

"Maybe I should switch to decaffeinated," Jim said.

"Maybe you should ask Sam if she wants to sleep with you."

 Jim felt his cheeks go red.  "No, I can't."  "Why not?"  Kerry seemed
genuinely curious.  "I don't know.  I just can't."

Kerry shook his head.  "Why don't you just shoot yourself and get it
over with?"

"It's a thought," Jim agreed.

"Look.  We need to talk."

"About Sam?  I thought we were."

"No, something else.  You remember when I said the Cowboys were a
business?"

"Yeah, sure."

I'hat's what we need to talk about.  The business.  And you, how you
fit in."

"Do I have to fit in?"

Kerry pursed his lips.  "I think so.  You can be a help.  I spotted
that right away about you.  In the brig.  That's why I stepped in with
Honeg.  I thought you had possibilities.  We don't see many people like
you.  Not available, at least."

Jim set down his coffee cup.  The caffeine was fizzing along his
nerves.  He knew he was sweating, but it was only the coffee.  Sure it
is.

"There's so much shit in what you just said I hardly know where to
start," Jim said.

Kerry blinked.  "What?"

Jim spit it out in a nonstop rush, without pausing for breath. Wg-hat
ever you're seeing about me isn't what I'm seeing.  For instance, what
possibilities?  Why?.  And if I am whatever it is you think I am, why
am I available?  And how does all of this mean I should join up with
your business.  What the hell is your business anyway?."

Kerry raised both hands.  "Whoa, slow down."  He leaned forWard. 
"Okay, here's what I see.  You're not a Pleb, first thing.  Second,
you're educated.  You know stuff I don't.  Third, because you aren't a
Pleb, you don't look like one.  You look clean, if that makes any
sense.  You talk different than we do.  Fourth, we need somebody like
that, to handle marketing.  You'd start at the bottom, of course, but
you'd work your way up fast, if my guess is any good.  Why should you
join the business?  Because we helped you, because you owe us, and
because I'm asking you to."  He settled back, but kept his eyes locked
on Jim's face.

"And as for being available--he spread his hands--"what you got going?.
No family, no plans, no nothing as far as i', tell.  Or am I
wrong?."

Jim lifted his cup.  The cup was empty.  Just like else.  Kerry had him
cold, and it hurt.  He set the cup down.

forgot to mention just what your business is."

"Heat, Jim.  We sell Heat."

"What the hell is Heat?"

"It's dope.  That's what the Cowboys do.  We deal dru interlaced his
fingers, cracked his knuckles, and smiled.

how about it, Jim?  You want to become a dope dealer?"

Jim and Sam walked along a side street in an sector, well away from the
residential and shopping areas the crowds were thickest.  Even here
there were trees bushes, and a few scraggly flower gardens.  Her
amazing was concealed beneath a red-and white-checked scarf.  It only
made her eyes look bigger.

"Kerry wants me to deal dope for him," he said.  "I know," she replied.
"I can't do that."  "Why not?"

"Well... it's wrong," he said slowly.  "It's illegal, I think."
"Actually, it isn't.  Not Heat.  Not on board this ship."  They came to
an intersection and paused beneath a oak.  Starlings quarreled in the
leafy branches above heads.  A wooden bench leaned invitingly against
the trunk.  Sam settled herself on the bench, patted the empty beside
her.

"Sit with me," she said.  "We need to talk about this."

He was so conscious of her nearness.  Raspberries.  And g4

 of her lightly freckled breasts beneath her loose white "We sure do,"
he said.

she turned to face him.  She let her left hand fall to rest on his
where he felt her touch through the fabric of his jeans as her fingers
were red-hot.  It was amazingly distracting.  He 8wallowed and tried to
remember what he'd been going to say.

She waited a moment.  She seemed to have some understand of what she
was doing to him, because her faint smile seemed wise beyond her years.
Or maybe, he thought, it was something women automatically knew. Maybe
they were knowing the power they wielded over men.

"So let's talk," she said, and he gave a little mental start.  Drifting
away again.  Come on, focus.

Well, I just think dope dealing is wrong."

"What do you know about Heat?"

He shrugged.  "Nothing.  I didn't ask Kerry."

Her fingers moved.  He tried not to look down.  "It's a sex drug," she
said.  "Are you one of those prudes, those people who don't like
sex?"

Jesus!

She wasn't smiling.  Her expression was dead serious.  So why did it
feel like she was laughing at him?

Because she probably was.

"Uh .. . I'm fine with sex.  I'm very okay with it."  How about you?

For a moment, from the expression on her face, he thought spoken the
last aloud, and he felt the heat rise into his cheeks.  Doinga lot of
that lately, too: blushing.  "Well," she said, "that's good to hear." 
He looked away.

"It makes sex great.  I mean, sex is great anyway, if it's with"- her
fingers moved again--"the right guy.  You know?."

He nodded, feeling like a flounder laid out on the table for gutting.
"And this Heat stuff makes it better than great?"

"Yeah.  I can't explain it.  The only way would be to show you."  He
just about fainted.

The clubhouse was empty.  That was so unusual wondered about it, but
not for long.  He had other think about.

"You've got some of that stuff, that Heat?"

She reached into her pocket and took out a small envelope.  Inside was
maybe a quarter teaspoon of fmepinkish powder.  She shook it, held it
up to the light.  "Yhis

He stared at it as if it were some kind of magic talisman, maybe it
was.  "Do you take it?  Or me?"

"Both of us," she said.  "It works both ways."

"And it makes sex better?"

She pulled off the bandanna and shook her hair free.  holding the
envelope in one hand, she took his hand other, stood up, and led him
toward the door to the where he'd recovered from his injuries.

"There's only one way to convince you," she said .... "Sam, we don't.."
you don't... "

She glanced over her shoulder, a silver light dancing black-ice gaze.
"But I want to," she said.

"Okay."

t wasn't your first time," she said later.

"Almost," he told her.  "I'm not very experienced."

"You did free," she assured him.

He felt absurdly proud when she said that.  In the dim she was a mass
of honey-pale curves and shadows.  "You the most beautiful..."  He
touched her.

"I know," she said.

 The Heat was wearing off.  He couldn't explain, even to him what that
had been like.  Nobody could explain, not unless felt it.  Not unless
they'd shared it.  Fire and ice, a great vaulting of time and space.

"Is it always like this?"  he whispered, watching the pattern of
fingers against her skin.

:. She sounded drowsy, sated, almost complacent.  "Pretty much."  She
sighed.  "It's a little different each time, but you get the general
idea."  i Jesus."

"It's pretty major."

"Yeah," he said, thinking about it.

She waited a while, then said, "So, do you still think dope is a
terrible thing?.  No socially redeeming qualities?  Nothing for you to
get your hands dirty with?"

"You must think I'm a prissy asshole," he said.

"No, I think you just haven't had the same experiences I have.  You
come from a different place, you know?.  A different kind of world. 
Maybe where pleasure is a little easier to fred, and you don't need to
pour it out of an envelope."

He took a deep breath.  "If I joined up, would you be my girl?  "No.
But we could do this again, ffyou wanted to."  "Are you trying to bribe
me?"  "Only ffyou want it."

He reached for her.  "I want it," he said.

you've got ten packs, okay?  The way it works is, you do the deal with
somebody, then you send them to the place you've got one stashed. Never
hold your stash on you.  When you've got the money, you signal Darnell,
and he'll stash the packet for the john to pick up.  That way, if you
get busted with the cash, you don't have the dope."

"I thought this wasn't illegal.

 "It isn't.  Not technically.  Not to use.  But it's illegal to and
illegal to buy it."

"I'hat doesn't make any sense."

Kerry shrugged.  "It's dope law.  Who says it's make sense?  Anyway, if
it wasn't illegal to sell, we'd be business.  I make a lot of
contributions to the right make sure it stays illegal."  He grinned.
"I've got a lot of head."

Jim nodded.  "All right.  So Darnell will stick with me?"  Darnell was
standing at the end of the block, He was a few feet away from one of
the barf-bag When Jim signaled that a deal was done, Darnell would bag
in the dispenser.  Either the john would already know the drop, or if
he didn't, Jim was supposed to direct him without saying anything
actually incriminating.

"And never actually use the word Heat or dope," Kerry!  told him.  "If
a john asks for it like that, walk away.

tape that could hurt you, right?"

"Okay."

"You gonna be okay, Jim?  Listen, I was serious.  You doing this shit
long.  But you gotta start at the bottom, everybody else."

Jim nodded.  "I guess."

Kerry slapped him on the shoulder blades.  "Do your that's it for the
day.  I'll see you later.  If anything check with Darnell."

Jim glanced to where Darnell was standing.  When he back, Kerry was
already several strides away, moving looking back.

Well, Jim thought, my first real job.  I'm a dope dealer.  exactly what
I had planned for the' future just three

Darnell whistled softly.  A woman was coming,

little kid along by one hand.  He watched as she

She reminded him of Tabitha.  A housewife, a mother.  not?

"Mister?  I ain't seen you before.  You new?."

"Yeah," Jim said.

She seemed uncertain.  "Maybe you can help me out?  looking for a
vitamin shop?"

 Ten creds for directions, ma'am," he said, still not quite he was
doing this.

She carried a small tote bag.  Now she rummaged inside, while little
kid stood looking up at Jim.  She brought out a small, copper-colored
chip and handed it to Jim.  He swiped it across his encrypted reader
and handed it back.

: She looked around.  "The directions?"  she prodded.

Jim signaled Darnell, keeping his hand resting discreetly on the side
of his leg.  He saw Darnell nod and move toward the barf-bag
dispenser.

"You want to be careful of those vitamins," Jim said.  Sometimes they
can make you sick to your stomach."  He tilted his head in the
direction of the dispenser.  She turned, saw it, smiled.

"Oh, yes," she said.

That was the first time.  It also marked the first night he began to
have nightmares, but he didn't make the connection fill later.

Late at night, long after the overhead lights in the dorm had dimmed,
Jim lay on his bunk and stared up at the distant ceiling.  He thought
about peer pressure.  In his studies of gang culture, back in a
previous life when he studied such things instead of living them, much
was made of peer pressure.  Now he thought that was probably wrong.  At
least partly.  Because not everybody belonged to a gang.  Everybody
didn't demand that You join a gang.  It wasn't something everybody did.
Or could do.  He had already learned that much.  Kerry made a big deal
of it, that not just anybody joined up with the Stone Cowboys.  No, You
had to want to join, and the Cowboys had to want you.

Peer meant equal.  It didn't necessarily mean like.  He wasn't really
like the other Cowboys.  They were mostly Plebs, raised in a subculture
he had no experience with and understood in the most cursory fashion.
But he was equal to them.

Cowboys came from dysfunctional families, or no families

,

Most of the boys lived in the youth dorms, rootless and nected.  The
gang was their family.

And he had no family either.  He'd once thought he they had abandoned
him.  Oh, Carl could put as pretty a it as he wanted, could even mean
it.  It might even be the that he'd sent Jim away to keep him safe. 
But in the end and Tabitha had left him, no more and no less than morn
had abandoned him.

!"I

A few weeks before, he had possessed a home, a illi past, and a future.
Now he had none of these.  There clear, clean path to the Solis Space
Academy, with his morn dad behind him all the way, applauding his
success,

Now there was nothing but today and, with luck,

if he wanted a family, he would have to find his own.  As it out, it
had found him.

Peer pressure?  No, peer acceptance.  They thought he little
high-and-mighty.  He could see it in Darnell's reserve, and in
Ferrick's more obvious suspicion.

,

But Kerry liked him, and so did Sam.  Like any though, you had to prove
yourself.  Live by the rules.  Do the essary chores.

For some reason that comforted him.  Rules, chores,

obligations, loyalties.  A structure to replace the structure he had
shattered forever.

He wondered if Carl or Tabitha would understand.

not.

And did it matter, if they understood?  He had betrayed but they had
also betrayed him.  Theoints were even,

was alone.  If he wanted a life, he would have to make it for self.  By
himself.  That was his own punishment.

On my own, he thought.  Life was messy.  You did the best could with
what you had.  Peer pressure?  No, more like longing.  He pined for
what the Cowboys could give him.  For

|i balm they offered to his bruised soul.  Friendship, loyalty,

ii'.  ture--and Sam.  How great a price would he pay for this?

anything.

He closed his eyes.  The sense of ddj vu was so strong

 to scream.  Instead, he gritted his teeth and thought of even though
thinking of her made the feelings worse.

No wonder they called it "Heat."

My name is Harry, he thought.  He hung on to it.  The identity.  He
knew who he was.  As long as he knew who he was, things couldn't be
completely gone, could they?.

It was a better life than he'd known back on Terra.  Better than any of
them had known.  He didn't even have to think about that.  All he
needed to do was look around this nice apartment  Bigger than the old
one, plenty of space for Doris and the two kids.  The kids loved the
trees, all the open space.  Eightyear-old Sally picked flowers and
dried them, had fifty or sixty of them frozen in little plastic cubes.
Jimmy had taken up sky kiting riding the big plastic gliders that
looked like batwings, up in the center of the ship where gravity
dwindled to nothing.  Only ten years old, and floating like a bird ....
A better life than they'd had when he was only a tech third grade,
working for Omni Comp Now he had his own section, or would, when the
new colony finally got going.  Something to look forward to .... Damn.
Cryingagain.  The Heat had worn off, at least the first great rushing
fling of it.  That was something new, too.  The Heat.  There hadn't
been anything like that back in SoCal Region Six, North American
Population Unit, Greater Western Hemisphere, Terra.  And he'd always
had a little bit of a problem with that.  He knew he was a man.  Had
two free kids to prove it, didn't he?  But Doris, something about her. 
About the way she was after.  Sort of blah, not really excited.  He
could tell it wasn't everything it should have been.  Good enough to
make kids, but that was really just the mechanicals.  Put the sperm
here and let it run there and nine months later, the magic of life.

There should be more, shouldn't there?  He'd always so.  Some wild
magic in the act itself.  Surely God wouldn't made it so pleasant if
you weren't supposed to enjoy it,

something out of it beyond the technical act of creation?  Face so
slick.  Sticky.  Wet with tears.  Tears?

So dark in the room.  And Doris so quiet.  It had been Even in the
hollow, chilly letdown afterward, he knew it been good.  Maybe the best
ever.  The way she'd loud.  But now it was dark, a red-tinged darkness,
and his was sticky.

Hands sticky.

So tired.  Maybe it would better to sleep now.  Sink the red dark and
never wake up.  Never hear Doris again.

Never.

Oh God, what have I done?

Jim stared at the horror on the big holovid screen recreation room. The
pseudo-leather of the recliner raised of sweat on his back.

The face reappeared.  The man.  His name was Harry.

put the cameras on him afterward, and his expression peaceful.  His
eyes were closed, his' lips slack.  There red streaks like welts down
his cheeks where he'd clawed self.

The newsies panning back, back, to take in what called the scene of the
tragedy.  Jim looked away couldn't stand it anymore.  The forms, two
small ones, larger.  Arranged about the bedroom beneath splashes, as if
some mad demon had taken his crimson brush to the walls.  Some mad
demon.

Harry's face back on the screen.  Except for the claw

 average face.  Receding hairline, broad forehead, a honker of

Regular lips, a blocky chin.  Could have been anybody, for where he'd
gouged out his own eyes.

A guy named Harry.

He hadn't used that name when Jim had sold him two packs "Heat the day
before.  He hadn't used any name at all.

And now he never would again.

"|Wo,l man, that's bullshit, and that's all it is."  Kerry slapped the
table for emphasis.  An old guy and his wife looked up, like startled
birds, from the other table in front of the small restaurant.

"Kerry, I sold him that shit.  Two packs.  He knew all about it, knew
about the barf-bag dispenser.  He was a regular."

So?  There are a lot of regulars.  Who do you think pays the bills,
anyway?"  Kerry tensed, then visibly forced himself to relax.  He
leaned back in his chair.  "So he went nuts.  But there wasn't any
connection."  He shook his head.  "You know how much of this shit we
peddle?"

Jim shook his head.

"A lot.  A of.  If there was something screwy with Heat, this whole
damned ship would be a slaughterhouse."  He leaned for ward again, his
expression intent.  "And here's something else.  I don't want you
talking about this craziness.  Crap like this gets out, it could be bad
for business."

"Bad for business?  I hope to God it would," Jim said.

"You're not listening to me, Jim.  I swear on--" He looked around.  "On
my mother's grave, Heat doesn't have anything to do with this."

"Man, I'm telling you, I sold it to him.  And twenty-four hours later
he goes wackoid and murders his two little kids and his Wife.  And
himseK."

"You may know a lot, buddy, but you don't know much this ship.  You
think he's the first one?"

Jim bit into his croissant, couldn't taste anything, down.  "I don't
know.  So what?  Isn't one enough?"

"There have been others.  Some worse.  You can look in News Net
archives.  But they know what causes it.  Even:' a name for it.  the
Rage," they call it.  It hits Plebs shrinks say it has to do with the
change in environment.  bunch of Plebs out of their cozy little
Plebtowns and stick into a giant tin can and shoot them off into space.
For them, it's quite a shock to the nervous system.  Maybe too of a
shock.  And they go weird.  You've heard about the Psychosis?"

"Sure, I've heard of it."

Kerry said, "I've got to pee."  He stood up and vanished into the
restaurant.

Pleb Psychosis, Jim thought, suddenly uncertain.  wasn't much of that
on Wolfbane, but some.  A few stories.  suddenly went violently nuts
for no apparent reason.  and not often, though he'd heard it was a hell
of a lot Terra.  The experts thought it had to do with bad something. 
Plebs were social leftovers.  They never went they were always given a
decent roof over their heads, an adequate income.  But they had nothing
to do. There was no for them in the dazzling world of high technology,
and been for a hundred years.  Plebs didn't work.  Other experts .; it
was no accident that most of the colonists who went out from the Pleb
class.  Out on the raw, new planets there things a man could do with
his hands alone.  Most of the on this ship were Plebs.  So maybe

"Anyway, I was saying," Kerry saicF'as he sat down, "you'| your head up
your butt if you think Heat is a problem.  Plebs i a problem.  That's
all there is to it."

"Is Pleb Psychosis this violent?"

"Can be.  Some of the riots I've seen.  The crowds pulled apart.  Just
tore them up."

Jim tried to imagine it, and couldn't.  He'd never thought could
imagine what he'd seen on the holovid either.  Never ined anything like
Harry.

He took a deep breath.  "It scared me, man.  Maybe I made

 connections.  Ended up in the wrong place."

Kerry's pale blue eyes picked at his face.  "You did, Jim.  It isn't

Heat."  He grinned.  "It's that some people are just plain

And most of them are Plebs."  His grin was sour.  "Okay," Jim said.

"Then everything's cool?"

"Harry isn't, but..."  Jim sighed.  "It's too late for Harry."  "You
want to send flowers or something?.  To the funeral?"  rhere'll be a
funeral?"  For some reason, he hadn't thought of

"Sure.  What do you think we are out here?  Savages?"  Jim closed his
eyes.  "It's called he Rage," huh?"  "Yeah," Kerry said.  'le Rage."

 hey held the funeral two days later.  There was wreath, white roses
and blue moon flowers from the though their name wasn't on the
ribbon.

Jim stood on the steps in front of the little chapel, a crowd eddying
around him, and watched the caskets go Stainless-steel boxes with
rounded corners, polished to a sheen.  The men and women who carried
them looked like body.  TWo dozen of them, six to a coffin.  Plus the
rest mourners.  A lot of people who cared about Harry and his family.

The pallbearers loaded the steel coffins into a gravcar slammed the
rear hatch.  The vehicle looked as if it had been painted black, not
very well.  A purple glimmer through the sloppy job, and some ghostly
letters: was a hearse today, but tomorrow it would be back on hauling
steel or dirt or something just as dead as what it carrying now.

He sensed somebody staring at him, turned, and elderly woman wearing a
shapeless brown dress, huge handbag, dabbing at her nose with a white
hankie.  eyes were red from weeping.  He started to turn away, but
dropped the handkerchief, and said, "You.  Boy.  Come here."  He
pointed at his chest.  Who, me?

She nodded, the movement so sharp it set her gray caught in a loose
scarf at the back of her head, to swaying.

He edged through the crowd, which was already breaking

 down toward the hearse, until he stood next to her.  peered up at
him, a fierce expression on her face.  There deep furrows at the
corners of her eyes and running down her nose.

She examined him for a long moment.  "Who are you?"  she suddenly. "Why
are you here?"

He didn't know what to say.  I'm a friend."

you aren't no friend of them.  She was my niece, Doris.  I

all their friends.  You aren't no friend of his, either.  He idn't have
any friends.  The filthy murderer."

Jim stepped back without realizing it.  "I'm sorry."

She glared at him.  "You?  Sorry?  What are you?  One of those freaks
that likes to go to funerals?  Like a vulture, feeding off other
people's grief."

"Look, ma'am, I don't--"

"Oh, ma'am.  Listen to him, ma'am.  You talk pretty, boy, but I know
what you are.  I know what Harry was doing.  And he got it from trash
like you.  My poor niece, she wasn't good enough for him.  She wasn't
enough for him.  So he had to use his science.  A pill for everything."
She looked up at him again, her lips drawing back in a snarl of pure
hatred.  "And his pills got him thafi" She wrapped her ancient fingers
around Jim's arm and turned him, digging her nails in.

"Look at him, boy.  Look at them, my poor niece, her innocent
children.r she hissed.  "You did that!  Your kind!"

Jim threw his hands up.  "I didn't--I can't--"

Chills rippled his spine.  He was frozen in her witchy glare.

"I know what you are," she said in a voice that curdled his soul.  "And
I say you did!"

She spit in his face, turned, and walked away.

Jeez Sam, I just don't know.  That little old lady.  horrible.  She
didn't even know me, but she spit on me.  of what she thought I was."

She seemed distant, preoccupied.  Her set expression didn't want to
hear about any of this.  But Jim couldn't stop himself from talking.
There were ugly things around in his skull.  Those four polished metal
boxes, the two little ones.  Harry's face, slack and still, with holes
for eyes.  Harry couldn't stand to look at what he'd so he left it for
everybody else to look at.

Harry the way he'd first seen him, a short, pudgy guying up, looking to
buy his Heat, not furtive at all.  Happy, You the new guy?."  he'd
said, and Jim had nodded.  "Great.  I need a couple, okay?."

"Sure," Jim said, and gave the signal.  Ferrick was stash for him.  Jim
watched him drift toward the penser.

"Got your chip?  It's twenty," Jim told the pudgy little who bobbed his
head as he handed it over.  Brisk and the same time.  A stone
regular.

"You're all set," Jim told him as he handed the chip

"Yeah, yeah, I know," the guy said.  Harry said.  "My to me all the
time.  Never know when I might have to up."  Then he grinned, bounced
two fingers off his a captain boarding his vessel, saluti'g the peons,
and off toward the dispenser.  And the next time Jim , the vid, but
Harry couldn't see him.

"You've got to get over this," Sam told him.  She was in front of a
wide counter, examininga red-and-blue The clerk, a greasy guy with
pimples and a wad of gum slowly in his bony jaws, leaned on the counter
and

Asshole, Jim thought.  "Hey," he said.  "You.  Show me thing, too."

 The clerk lifted his chin, his gaze turning smart-ass.  "Yeah?  you
want to see?"

Jim half leaned over the counter.  For some reason he was that smacking
this wise-ass right in the mouth would make him feel worlds better.
Smacking something, anyway, and this jerk was the closest thing
handy.

The guy must have sensed it, or seen it in his eyes, because he
suddenly raised both hands and took a step back.  "Whoa,

man.  You want a wing, I'll get you a wing.  But ice it, okay?"  "Yeah.
Ice it," Jim said.

"You want any color in particular?."

"Whatever .... "

"Get red," Sam said.  "Red would look nice, with your eyes and hair."

"Hey, what is this?  A fashion show?."

She stopped.  "It isn't gonna be anything if you don't lose that
attitude.  Unless you can explain to me why I should waste a whole
afternoon kiting with a guy who can't do anything but smart mouth me
all day long."

"Is that what this is?  A waste?"

She pushed the wing back over the counter.  "That's it.  Don't call me,
I'll call you."

She was ten feet away before he could think of anything to say.  "Hey,
Sam.  Wait!"

Evidently that wasn't the right thing, because she didn't even look
back, just kept on going, her butt a quivering study in indignation.

"Aw, shit," Jim said.

"Hey, buddy.  You gorma rent this wing or not?"

Jim turned, looked back for Sam, but she was gone.  He looked at the
clerk, who had momentarily stopped chewing his gum.  He scratched at a
pimple instead.  "Women," he said.  "Can't live with them--"

"Yeah.  Gimme the wing.  But not that tracking red one.  The black
one."

"Yeah?  How come?"

"It matches my eyes," Jim said.

"Huh?  Your eyes are green."

"Just give me the damned wing," Jim said.

The clerk got a good squeeze and popped the largest pimple

 on his chin.  He checked the result on the tip of his watched Jim
drag his wing off toward the launch area.

"Everybody's crazy," the clerk muttered.  He wiped his tip on his
pants, then reached into his pocket for a reload gum.

Ouch!  Damn .... " Jim stuck his index finger mouth, sucked, tasted
blood.  The cut was small, but edges of the tiny circuit boards were
the worst.  He'd problems doing the really fine work.

Not that this was even close to ideal conditions.  almost upside down,
his feet up on his bunk, his head under his desk.  He could only work
by the dim glow of light, which wasn't aimed right in the first place.
innards of the comm unit were fairly basic.  Even much by feel as
sight, he was able to find the security Getting it out wasn't
difficult, just painstaking in the quarters.

He took his finger out of his mouth and pulled the tiny!  module the
rest of the way out.  He got himseK straightened down at his desk, and
placed the module in the white sheet of paper.  The paper made for
better contrast, needed all the help he could get.

He opened the compact case of electronics tools.  He'd set for years.
Carl had given it to him.  He took out a small drum pick and leaned
forward, squinting.  Yep.  There hardwired safety interlock protecting
the module's probed it with the tip of the pick, held his breath, then
continued.

It wasn't all that complicated, but it would take a while

 on a colony ship with ten million passengers less a problem than Jim
had supposed.  The reason was )le: Everything was under
twenty-four-seven surveillance.  ship had been built that way.  He
doubted if the original population management.  More likely, it had to
do what the Outward Bound was: a ship in space.  It might be miles long
and four miles thick.  It might have its own weather.  But beyond its
hull was a trillion miles of vacThere were all kinds of things that
could go wrong, in all of unlikely places.  You had to be able to watch
it all the And when you built it from scratch, you could do that.  add
camera cells and feeds to the specs for everything.  hook everything
into a big computer.

The big computer made things even easier.  Hack into it, and you see
whatever it saw.  Which was pretty much everything.  I He put an alert
tag on the files for Kerry, Sam, Darnell, and and then he waited.  He
wasn't sure what he was wait if or, but something.

In the meantime, since he now had access, he began to rum through other
files.  Honeg turned out to be what he looked like: a Pleb of uncertain
background and a long history petty crime.  A brawler, a wire head
participant in three Pleb riots, suspected of several clumsy burglaries
on Terra, convicted of three robberies aboard the Outward Bound before
he got it into his thick skull that he wasn't still on Terra, and
everything he did went into the security files.

Harry Osterlund was a different story, and given what had happened, an
unsettling one.  To start with, he wasn't a Pleb, nor were any of his
family.  He'd worked for a medium-sized rianotech developer on Terra,
and signed up for the colonization effort apparently believing his
future prospects would be better 111 the new colony.  According to his
file, he was probably right: Ills company was participating in the
venture, and he'd gotten alice promotion for signing on.  He wasn't a
wire head didn't even the basic socket for it.  No previous criminal
history, no

 going minor places at minor, but steady, speed.  As he looked.

His tile contained scenes from the bedroom where he'd de red his
equally ordinary family, pictures that hadn't the public holovids, dim
couldn't look at those very long.

He knew one thing: Despite what Kerry had told him Plebs and their
problems, Harry' hadn't suffered

Psychosis or other obvious emotional dysfunction.

just a nebbishanYkind of guy, trying to add a little his sex life.  Yet
something had turned him into a little old lady at the funeral thought
she knew what it was.

Maybe she did.

ey, look, I'm sorry.  I was an asshole," Jim said.  Sam was working a
corner with Jenny.  Jenny was dope and collecting the money, and Sam
was handling drop.  They were using a big concrete pot that held a low
tree.  Very pastoral, Jim thought.  Two milkmaids out country with a
pocketful of drugs.

He'd given it three days for her to cool off, then went

He didn't find her right away and had to ask Kerry

Kerry thought it was hilarious.

"Lover's tiff," he chortled.

"Are you chortling at me?"  Jim said.

"Huh.  I guess I am.  Damn.  I never thought I'd chortle."  "Chortle
this," Jim said.

When Kerry stopped laughing, he told Jim where Sam staked out with
Jenny.  It was up near the agriculture and it really was sort of like
the country.  If you could countryside that had a whole lot more
countryside up in the sky.

 smelled nice and clean, though.  Jim noticed that right a dark,
earthy aroma that reminded him of Wolf bane.

you admit you were a jerk?"  Sam said, but she didn't mad anymore.

was a jerk," he said.  "No doubt about it, a one hundred per erk.  Am I
forgiven?"

blinded him with a smile.  "Let me think about okay," she said.
Okay?."

"Okay, you're forgiven."

It must have been coincidence that a couple of robins in the tree burst
into song just then.  He turned toward the and said, "Where late the
sweet birds sang "

pretty.  Is it some kind of poetry?."  she asked.

Some kind, yeahJ

Her expression grew wistful.  "I wish I knew stuff like that.  They
don't teach Plebs poetry.  They don't teach Plebs anything, come right
down to it."

They'd never talked much about her background.  She'd the subject when
he tried.  He'd checked her fries, but didn't say much.  Mother dead,
father abandoned her at the of ten.  Raised in a creche until she
reached adulthood at

He could have pushed it further with the computers, looking into her
life without her permission felt too much treachery.

i He moved closer, until he could smell raspberries mixed into scent of
the earth.  "Nothing stopping you.  From reading

I mean."  She shrugged.  "I don't read much."

The archived file on her educational records was one of the he hadn't
pushed into.  A little snooping was one thing, but checking on her
school grades was something else again.  The thought struck him: Can
she read at all?

: He had just enough presence of mind not to blurt out the question,
but it w, as a near thing.  He felt a quiver when he realIzed how close
he d come, and covered himself quickly.  I' "I could read them to you.
We could do it together."

She brightened.  "That would be real nice.  Romantic, like."  stared at
him.  "You really are different.  From the other she said.  "I
shouldn't get mad at you."

 "No, you shouldn't."

"No, no," she said.  "It's not like that.  I mean the

You were all messed up about that dead guy.  And bummed about it.  But
I never stopped to think.  Wherever you dead guys, especially tore up
like that, you probably lot of that kind of shit, so it would mess you
up.  The know, they saw the same things I did.  So I probably the same
way I'd act with them, if they started moaning about some dead guy they
didn't even know."

"Dead guys were real common with you?"

She shrugged again.  "Enough.  I lived in a Plebtown."  that explained
everything.  Maybe it did.

He knew he was stepping over a boundary, one he shouldn't cross, but he
had to know.  "Did anybody you?"  he asked.

She tried a grin.  "You do.  Say you do, anyway.  "No, I mean when you
were a kid."  "You mean before the Cowboys?"  "I guess."

She considered it, then shook her head.  "No.  Nobody loved me before I
joined up."

"But afterward."

"Why do you think I joined up?"  she said.

He looked away, hoping she wouldn't notice she'd just his heart a
little, what a life, and she didn't even know.  for granted.  She
looked over his shoulder, and said, "Biz ing."

"Oh, sorry."  He moved away, to give the john some Jenny had been
watching them from a hundred yards so far from the concrete planter,
and she waved.  He and started toward her, but she mooned him off.
Sure.  john would be heading in her direction next.

He turned back toward Sam just in time to see a heavyset woman with
intense blue eyes walk past him fully, nearly running him off the walk
in the process.  She seem to notice, just steamed onward, all her
attention on the concrete pot.  She wasn't a pretty woman by any A
crooked scar about a quarter inch wide tracked from eyebrow down past
the corner of her eye, like a thick worm.  Jim had seen scars like that
Some of the older

 martial arts class had sported them.  They refused to have fed, wore
them as badges of honor.  He doubted the woman thought of her scar as
some kind of Heidelberg memento.  More like the mark of a bad memory of
a bad and somebody's fist.

Sex.  Hot sex.  That was what she was riveted on, march inga miniature
tank toward the stash in the cement pot.  That's they all wanted.  He'd
been there.  He knew.

"How much did she buy?"  he asked Sam.

"Five," Sam said.

"God.  A ton."  Sam smiled.  "Yeah.  She doesn't look it, does she?"

"Hard to imagine."  He paused.  "Most I ever sold at one time three.
Same thing, somebody you'd never think would use that much."

: "I sold twenty-five at one time.  I don't think it was wholesale,

A skinny little guy with bulging eyes.  Personally wouldn't touch him
with your ten-foot pole, but'mshe shrugged--"takes all kinds."

What do you mean, wholesale?"

"K he wasn't buying it for himself.  Planning to mark the stuff up,
resell it."

"You mean like a dealer?  Compete with us?"  "Sure, but not competing.
He pays our price, if he wants to sell it again, he has to charge more.
Where's the competition?  Anyway, if there really was competition,
Kerry would have to do something."

"Something?."

"We'd go to war.  Like we used to with other stuff."

War.  That was interesting.  "You've gone to war before?  The Cowboys,
you mean?"

"Sure.  Over turf, over distribution channels, over women."

She grinned.  "Sometimes just for the hell of it.  You saw it."

"I did?"

"Uh-huh.  Kerry told me.  Hump and some other guys showed tip at B Dorm
looking for trouble."  She glanced at him.  "From

What I hear, you gave them all they wanted."  She pushed against him,
looked up at him.  Her long, brown eyelashes llOved slowly up and down,
almost a parody of the helpless lllaiden.  Except there was a feeling
of truth buried beneath her

half-mocking expression, and his sense of it made absurdly strong,
protective.  Like a knight or something.  Stupid.  But irresistible...
"Where does the dope come from?  We're in deep lion miles from
nowhere."

She stiffened.  She caught herself quickly and relaxed,

felt it.  Careful, he thought.  Watch yourself.

"Something I said?"  he asked.

She moved away from him, turned away so he her face.  "I durmo.  What
do you care, where it comes

"No reason.  Just curious.  I'm selling the shit, after wanted to take
her by the shoulders, turn her gently him, put his arms around her.
Hold her, kiss her.  Without

"You should keep that in mind.  What you're doing.  All doing is
selling it, you know?.  You're a salesman.  Not into agement, if you
understand what I mean.  You worry about ing, not about supply.  Leave
that for Kerry."

"How about you?  Are you in management?"

"You're pissing me off again, Jim."

He could see it.  Her spine had gone rigid, and she look at him.  He
backed off.

"I'm sorry."  He played a chuckle, like putting down a checkers.
"Remember, I'm just some poor schmuck from a family.  Not an honorable
rotten Pleb background."

She flinched, and he regretted it.  His damned mouth.  "Is that what it
was, Jim?  A good family?."  He thought about it.  "Not in the end."

Jim lay on his bunk and yawned.  The alarm he'd Kerry's flies had
beeped him awake about eight bells of the die watch.  He thought about
it as he rubbed the sleep eyes.  One of the weird things about this
world that was

 in space--they'd revived the practice of sounding the different
ship's bells to keep track of the time.  It wasn't anything an actual
bell ringing--more a soft, cooing sound, like huffing gently across the
top of a bottle.  Whoowhoo,

and a pause.  Repeated three more times for eight bells.  It was
o'clock in the morning.

"Enlarge screen," he murmured.  The holovid on his comm unit doubled in
size.  "Brighten," he said, and the picture suddenly became sharper,
clearer.

He didn't recognize where they were, but he could make out Kerry, Sam,
and Darnell easily enough.  They were slinking.  That was the only word
he could think of to describe their careful, furtive movements.

Wherever they were, it was pretty dark.  They moved from vague pools of
shadow to other equally murky passages.  Big, too.  Jim got the sense
they were in some vast enclosed space,

somewhere out of the ordinary.

Location," he whispered.

Numeric coordinates flashed redly in the upper part of the screen.
After a moment, the voice of the computer spoke.  It was a feminine
voice, canned but soothing: "Secondary cargo bay, central launch
from."

Okay.  Jim leaned forward.  Getting somewhere now.  The cargo bays were
where he'd first come aboard.  Huge, echoing chambers, not much used
now.  A few fast ships made the run back and forth between the
lumbering Outward Bound and the planets she'd left behind.  Not many,
though.  There was no need.  The OH was mostly self-sufficient.

But if you were getting some special supplies from outside... "Focus,"
Jim said.  'right on main subject."

Obediently, whatever camera was trained on Kerry narrowed the field
until only his head and shoulders were visible.  In the shadowy light
the veins in his high forehead stood out like ropes.  His jaw was
clenched, moving slightly, as if he was grinding his teeth without
realizing it.

He stopped, looked at something off-screen that Jim couldn't See.  He
raised his hand and checked a small comm unit.  His lips moved.

"Pick up sound," Jim ordered, barely fast enough to catch the last of
it.

"... lockout areas six five nine and six one zero," Kerry Jim's holovid
went dark.  Evidently he wasn't the who knew about the computer that
ran the cameras.  knew where the secondary bay was.  If he hurried, he
there in ten minutes.

He reached for his socks, pulled them on, and hurry.

 Jim could hear voices somewhere up ahead, but couldn't make out any
words.  He was well into the secondary bay, making his way through
dimly lit spaces, past large, shrouded shapes.  Everything there seemed
to be mothballed.

What if it's an orgy?  Everybody getting together to do some Heat?  he
thought suddenly.  I'd look like some kind of asshole then .... He
didn't like to think about Sam that way, but it was a possibility.  He
had to keep reminding himseK that the Cowboys lived different lives
than he had.  Than he still did, mostly.

The hum of their voices rose and fell, rose again.  Sounded like they
were arguing about something.  He stopped behind a cargo hauler that
was covered with protective sheeting and consulted the map in his head.
He was near the center of the bay, and they were a hundred yards on.
Far enough away he wouldn't be able to hear them at all except for the
excellent acoustics of the huge enclosure.

What the hell were they doing?.  There was no reason for any body to go
to the bay.  Just before he'd headed out, he'd checked the docking
records for the day.  No ships of any kind for the last three days, and
none expected for another week.

So if they were meeting somebody, whoever it was wouldn't be coming
from the outside.  Unless... Damn.  No use guessing.  The only thing
was to see for himself.  He glanced around, nerves jumping, then took a
deep, silent

 breath and moved forward.  Up ahead a light crouched lower and kept
on going.

KeITy was waving his arms around in agitation, as shook her head, and
Darnell stood back and looked like he trying to ignore the whole thing.
Jim's curiosity about they were yelling about paled, though, as he got
a look at they were standing in front of.  A good-sized cruiser of
design, four or five hundred feet long, a hundred fifty high;: flare of
light came from an open port on the ship.  Until that had opened, the
ship had been just another indistinct There was a gangplank extended,
and the three Cowboys at the bottom, obviously waiting for somebody.

"This is bullshit!"  Kerry shouted suddenly, then turned from Sam and
crossed his arms over his chest.

Jim still couldn't hear what was going on unless they yellingagain. Sam
was talking to Kerry's back, but her were only an imploring buzz.

Getting closer would be tricky.  He was hunkered behind a low
gray-hauler.  The next hiding place was a twenty yards ahead, across
that much open space; And the light wasn't good, there was some
backwash from the port.  He wouldn't be invisible, if one of them
happened to in his direction.

Have to risk it.  His pulse thudded in his throat as he forward, mental
fingers crossed.

Made it.  He ended up crouched behind a low metal wall separated the
gangway areas from the rest of the waited, breathing hard, until his
heart stopped then peered gingerly over the top of the low wall.  A
shadow moving in the light at the head of the gangplank.  A big

 Kerry and the rest of them turned to look.  "About time," Kerry
said.

The shadow solidified, moved forward with lumbering grace.  Huge, at
least eight feet tall.  Long arms and ... hair.  Brown, sill hair, all
over.  A gorilla-like pug-nosed face, the skin bright orange.  Oddly
familiar--what was that ancient space movie?  A Wokie, Walkie,
something like that .... Except Wokies were a fantasy, and this thing
wasn't.  Not unless fantasies had taken up smoking cigars .... Jesus!
What the hell is it?  It seemed to be wearing gloves, and was carrying
several large, sealed plastic packets.

He rose another couple of inches, straining for a better look.  The gun
barrel that gently touched the back of his neck just about stopped his
heart.

"I've seen your moves, that martial-arts shit," Ferrick said.  "So
don't frackin' move, and I won't have to shoot your ass."

H.e felt like a complete idiot as he walked toward Kerry.  All of them
were watching him, including the Wokie, or whatever the hell it was.
Maybe it wasn't going to be so bad.  Kerry was actually stuff inga
little.

"Hold it," Ferrick said from behind him.  Jim stopped five feet away
from Kerry.

"Listen," Jim said, "it's not what it looks like."

Kerry nodded.  Then he stepped forward, whipping his right hand up so
quickly Jim never saw it coming.  The punch twisted his head sideways
and took his legs out from under him as if his Spine had been cut.  He
hit the deck hard, felt something in his knee twist.

Kerry kicked him in the ribs.  Something gave way there, too.  "No,
no," dim said, trying to bring his hands up.  All that got him was
bruised fingers, as Kerry kicked him again.

"I knew it was you, fracker," Kerry said.  He still cheerful.
"Allalong.  "Thud.  "Frackingasshole.  "Thud.

hell you think I am?"  Thud.  "Stupid?"  Thud.

"Stop it, you'll kill him!"  Sam yelled.

Jim was trying to roll himself into as tight a ball as he He was
focused on a spot of white light deep in the his skull.  The spot was
growing smaller.  But he heard shouted.

Kill me?

The thought echoed, and echoed.  Finally, it faded away.

Waking up involved stages of growing pain.  He he'd left the darkness
because he was aware of darkness.

he felt disconnected, both from the dark behind him fuzzy vague glow
that was rising around him.  It was very

Then he began to hear a distant, pounding roar, like crashing on a
faraway reef.

I,:

The sound grew louder until it was thunder all around thunder that
throbbed in his knee, his head, his ribs hands.  That was when he
realized he had all those things,

they were all damaged, if'

DejA vu surged over him.  He'd been badly hurt before,

where.  Maybe had even died.  Silliness.  If he'd died, how il he be
alive?  But the feeling of familiarity was for ting  Somehow it
whispered to him that he would this, too.

The light came back all at once, almost as great a pain injuries.  His
eyelids came stickily open.  A red film obscured vision.  He tasted
blood in his mouth, moved his lips,

Something wrong with his jaw, too.  The feeling of dj&

:!

"Ungh."

 "He's coming out of it," Kerry said.

Jim flinched.  "Don't hit me again."

Something soft and cool swiped across his eyes, wiped away red haze.  A
faint stinging sensation, the smell of raw alcohol.

Vague shapes began to coalesce in the light.  Sam.  And Kerry, leaning
close, still grinning.  Jim would never think of it as a friendly grin
again.

"I shoulda frackin' killed you," Kerry said.  "I saw you coming from
miles away.  But we lost you there for a while, when you hacked the
computers.  I didn't make you for being good enough to crack the ship's
machines."

Jim tried to look around, figure out where he was.  His neck creaked,
and he gasped at the agony of the movement.  It was a small room, dimly
lit by recessed overheads.  The walls were some sort of dark material
he'd never seen before, and looked soft and padded.  The air smelled
strongly of cinnamon and some other odor, sharp and vinegary, he
couldn't identify.

Aboard the alien ship, then .... He was lying on a bunk that was far
too big for him.  Big enough to holdA huge shadow shifted in the far
corner, moved forward enough that Jim could see a pair of Ping-Pong
eyes gleaming with purple fire, focused on him, glowing above a blue
cigar about a foot long.  Lot of yellowish teeth clenched on that
stogie, too.

He ignored the pain and pushed himself up against the wall into a
sitting position.  He was in his underwear.  A clear plastic cast was
around his left knee.  More clear gunk in a constricting band around
his chest and ribs, and the fingers on his right hand were taped
together.

"What the hell's wrong with you?"  he said.  He felt his jaw make funny
ratcheting sounds as he spoke.  "Ale you nuts, like all those other
psychos?  Is that it?"

"Jim," Sam' said warningly.

"Nah.  I'm not crazy at all.  I told you I saw you coming."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?  Saw me coming?.  Where do you
think I'm coming from?"

Kerry sneered silently, shook his head.  "You probably figured it out
by now, that we're in the computers, too."  He tilted his

head toward Ferrick.  "Iat's our guy.  Doesn't look it, plays those
machines like a virtuoso.  He's kinda the intelligence capability, you
know what I mean?  One of things we keep track of is the newbies.  Run
all the through the ringer, check them out.  And your name with big red
lights and all kinds of bells ringing.

"Huh?  My name?"

"Sure.  What did you think?  Whoever hacked you into the term at the
last minute, there on Wolfbane, didn't have do much of a job.  They
tried to make it look like you'd slated for the colony for a long time,
but you hadn't.  That obvious right away.  dust lfle your name.  I
don't know what' name really is, but it isn't Evanston."  He paused.
"So your real name, dim."?  And who do you work for?  The Authority?.
The... Agency?."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Kerry stared at him, the nasty grin flickering on "Have it your way.
Man, you sure were stupid, though.  I yon might work it out, but you
didn't."

Jim sighed, shook his head.  "You still aren't making sense, Kerry."

"You know a little about the Cowboys.  About me, about we do.  Who I
am.  Didn't it ever occur to you it was a strange, me being in the
brig?."

Jim realized he'd never even thought about it.  But right.  How did the
leader of a powerful gang of drug with connections all over the ship,
end up in a tank brawlers and drunks?

"Ah.  Comes the dawn," Kerry said.  "Of course I was take a look at
you.  And Honeg?  Well, Honeg has a taste for He got his taste
scratched, but good.  le figured a busted was a small price to pay for
a month in heaven."  Kerry at Jim.  "So did I."

They think I'm a spy, some kind of undercover agent.  thought so all
along.  They still think so .... "So what's up now?."  Jim said.  "You
going to kill me

 Now that, Kerry thought, is kind of a weird thing to say.

No denials, no bullshit, just are you gonna kill me?  Like the kid was
expecting it or something.  It stopped him.

Because he hadn't really made up his mind.  The whole secret-agent
thing, it made sense.  Sort of.  But there were holes.  Ferrick had
pulled up Jim's name, mostly because of the way it had been inserted.
Whoever had done the hack hadn't been all that good--or it had been a
quick-and-dirty job.  But if it was the Authority, hell, they owned the
computers.  If they'd done it, it would have been seamless, and Ferrick
would never have seen it.

Almost the same thing with the Agency.  Kerry had grown up in a Terran
Plebtown, and was no stranger to the Agency's shadowy hands.  That
frackin' Delta guy, big mystery man, had his fingers in everything.  A
lot more than the average citizen knew, but Kerry had operated on the
same fringes the Agency kept an eye on.  And if the Agency had done it,
they would have either used the Authority for the work, or brought in
one of their own tame wizards.  Either way, the job would have been a
lot better than it was.  It just didn't add up.  In fact, it smelled
more like a private job, something done in a hurry, slapped together on
the run.

When it came right down to it, he didn't really know what Jim was.
There was even the possibility the job had been made to look crude on
purpose, to throw anybody off, anybody who might draw the conclusions
he already had.

Christ.  The simple thing would be to kill him, but... "I don't like
the simple things," Kerry said.

He watched the kid as he said it.  Jim's chest flattened out a bit, as
if he'd been holding his breath.  So he was scared, which Was the way
he wanted him.  But there was way too much mystery.  How to fred out
for sure?

Kerry moved over, perched his butt on the edge of the huge bed.  Jim
flinched back, a tiny movement, quickly covered, but there all the
same.  Good, A taste of fear never hurt anything.

 "Tell you what, Jim," Kerry said, and patted him knee cast, "we need
to talk.  Get things worked out."  He "Right?"

Jim nodded.

"So now we'll talk, and if I don't like what I hear, I'll cut your head
off."

"Let's talk," Jim said.

Jim said, "If you know anything more, don't tell me.  listen, and see
if everything fits up with what you already

That way, if I don't know, I won't be able to make

Kerry nodded.  "Go on .... "

Then Jim told them everything.  He knew it was

Carl had warned him about the guy who had sent Steele and a bunch of
killers after his family, but what did he have?  If he couldn't get out
of this, it wouldn't about that guy.  These guys would do the job.

Ferrick looked like he wanted to.

"So that's it," he said finally.  "I'he story of Jim how he ended up on
board the Outward Bound."

There was a long moment of silence.  Everybody everybody else.  Even
the alien made a soft grumbling was like watch inga family gathering,
where everybody everybody else so well they didn't have to talk.

Oddly enough, it was Darnell who broke the "Armored battle troopers?
Man, that's crazy."

Kerry raised one hand.  "It sure is.  You got anything to up?"

"I can show you the letter my dad left me.  I wish I could you the
gold, but it's gone."

Kerry glanced away.  "No, it isn't."

"What?"

 "I already told you.  We were on to you from the beginning.

think it was an accident your bag got boosted?  Just check you out,
Jim. And all that gold.  Way too much for what you were supposed to
be." He shrugged.  "We took it.  Just to throw a wrench in the works. 
I've read the letter, too."

He paused, thoughtful.  "It could all be a plant, of course.  But I
don't know.  I've been trying to work it out.  All that other shit,
too.  The picture of your family.  Your cute little spaceship.  Why go
to all that trouble, and then do such a crappy job with the computer
hack?"

""Cause there wasn't any time.  That's all I can think of.  I didn't
know any of this was going to happen."

Kerry seemed to have calmed down a lot.  Chewing on the puzzle had
cooled him off.

"Okay.  So let's say I buy it.  Just for the moment.  Then that raises
a bunch of other problems."

"Yeah.  I know," Jim said.

"Like why were you sneaking around here tonight?"  "Uh-huh."

"Well, why were you?"

Jim picked his words as carefully as he could.  Because I think Heat is
some kind of shit that makes people into crazy killers, and I wanted to
find out where you were getting it."

"That shit.  You're nuts, man," Ferrick said.  He glanced at Kerry.
"Let me do him, man.  This is all bullshit."

The chill in his voice transferred itself to Jim's spine, but before he
could reply, Kerry said, "You really believe that?"  "Yeah.  I do."

Kerry smiled.  "Jim, meet Ur-Barrba.  Ur-Barrba, meet Jim Endicott."

The big alien lumbered forward.  Up close, it was even bigger than it
first appeared.  The cinnamon-vinegar scent billowed from the cigar and
clung to it like a personal fog bank "Jim Endicott," it said, the voice
a guttural roar.  "We get the shit from her," Kerry said.

 Jim sensed that the emotional climate had

Kerry had backed off from his initial anger, though from convinced.
Darnell was a harder read.  Jim other boy wanted to be friendly again,
but needed a son.  Ferrick was the scary one: He didn't like Jim, and
Jim had said had changed that at all.  And Sam?  He was going both ways
at once.  They'd shared Heat counted for something, but not enough.

At least they were all talking.  For the moment.  "I know you've got
this weird bug up your ass Kerry was saying.  "But I already told you.
Plebs are psychosis."

"Harry wasn't "a Pleb.  Didn't wire head didn't do Except Heat," Jim
said.

"So?  Does that mean he can't go nuts?  There's ten people on this can,
Jim.  Not all of them are Plebs.  And them are like totally sane,
either.  Man, how many hear it?  Somebody goes off like Harry, and all
the family say that he was such a nice fellow.  Such a quiet can't
imagine him doing such awful things."

Jim nodded.  It was true.

"Look.  What about that other guy, the one who j no reason?  I saw him
eating his own tracking fingers!  tried to kill me."

"Okay, that's two.  I don't have the benefit of your free reaction,
Jim, but I read stuff.  Even wild-ass stuff like basic tics.  You know
anything about that?"

"Sure."

"Okay.  So what do your stats say about a sample of ten million?"

"I'm not saying I've got proof.  What the hell you think doing crawling
around in the dark here, sneaking after was looking for proof."  He
raised his hands.  "Okay, okay, didn't find any.  But that doesn't mean
it isn't out there.

He took a deep breath, trying to figure it out.  "Maybe

 way.  Using those statistics.  And Ferrick and me."  Ferrick didn't
like that.  Didn't want Jim bringing him in on it.

grunted.

-Sorry, but Ferrick has to be in on it.  "Cause it's computer stuff,
and you wouldn't trust me by myseK, right?"

Kerry nodded.

"So do it this way.  We both go into the ship's computers, each
checking the other.  Kind of a fail-safe."

"All right," Kerry said.  "What does that get us?"

"We look for this kind of stuff.  Very specific.  Psycho crap,
extremely violent episodes involving murder, or that could have ended
up as murder.  Self-mutilation, too," Jim added, thinking about it.
"Harry gouged out his eyes.  That other one ate his own fingers. That's
strange.  It would stand out in the reports."  "And?  If we find stuff
like that?"

"Check it," Jim said.  "Statistics.  If there's an abnormal number for
the population, then we know."

"Know what?"  Kerry asked.  "We know there's an abnormal number.  We
don't know if Heat's the cause."

He was right.  But what else was there?  "I know," Jim said.  "But it
would be a start."

Kerry chewed it over.  "You're honest, at least.  Tell me one thing.
Why would I want to let you do this?  Heat's how I make my living.  How
all of us do."  "I'm gambling," Jim said.  "What's the bet?"

Jim shrugged.  'q'hat you'd kill me if you had good reason.  But I
can't see you slaughtering lots of innocent people just to make a cred.
Not if you know that's what you're doing."

Kerry stared at him for what seemed a long time.  "Okay, you win your
bet.  For now.  We'll do it."  "Kerry," Ferrick said.  "Shut up."

Ferrick subsided.  Kerry glanced at the alien.  "How about you, herbal?
You selling us poison?  Kill all the dirty humans?"

Ur-Barrba had been studying what looked to Jim like a translator disk
of odd design.  Now she looked up and began to rumble

Use the translator," Kerry said.  "Too hard to understand

YOU."

 More rumbles, a couple of gestures with those hu fingered hands.  The
voice came out high and tinny.  run health studies and studies.  If our
product kills it's your problem.  But if it does, we didn't know about
it."  "Fair enough," Kerry said.

"Do you want this shipment or not?"

Kerry considered.  "I'll let you know."

"Forty-eight of your small-time units.  Hours.  Can you my presence
that long?."

KelTy glanced over.  "Ferrick?"

"I'll hack the machines.  Put this bay off-limits.

something.  Nobody's due for a while.  Should work."  "Yeah, you're
covered," Kerry told the alien.  "Forty-eight hours," Ur-Barrba agreed.
IT len I go.

you buy or not."

Kerry turned to Jim.  'here's your timetable, pal.  enough?"

"It'll have to be, won't it?"

"Uh-huh," Kerry said.  "After that, Ferrick gets you."  Ferrick grunted
again.  He liked that part.

"Why do you hate me?"  Jim asked Ferrick.

The stocky boy shook his head.  "Doff't hate nobody.  It the way.  You
got to keep a clear head.  A cool head."  He Jim.  "You don't never
want to kill anybody in hot blood.  If do, then you'll always wonder if
you made a mistake.  And don't want to be wondering about that, not
with killing.  said, it gets in the way."

That scared Jim about as much as anything.  Ferrick's calculating gaze.
As if measuring him for one of those steel boxes.  Once Ferrick had it
worked out in his own that it was the right thing to do, he would kill
Jim in an

 Arid his pulse probably wouldn't even skip a single beat.

Ferrick had a room in the clubhouse.  Jim had never seen it before,
hadn't even known it was there.  Ferrick went through three different
locks, all coded either to his palm or his password, to get inside.  It
was about the same size as the bedroom Jim had lived in while
recovering from his injuries--and where he would no doubt be staying
again to recover from his latest breaks, bruises, and contusions.  He
felt like an old man, stiff and achy, and he moved like one.  He
wondered if maybe he could take Ferrick in a fair fight, then decided
it didn't matter.  It wouldn't be a fair fight, not till he was
recovered.  Besides, he'd already seen Ferrick's gun.  It wasn't
anywhere as big as Jim's vanished.  75, but it would do the job just
fine.

"You know how to use that gun of yours, I guess," Jim said.  Ferrick
nodded.  "I guess."  "Well, we'd better get started."

The room was crowded with home-brewed comm equipment.  Most of the
cases were off, wires running everywhere, infrared data relays, some
powerful-looking bubble processors.  A lot of money involved, despite
the crude appearances.  No wonder Ferrick had been able to keep track
of him.  All the time he'd thought he was being so sneaky clever, the
dark boy had been watching.  And probably laughing at him.  And getting
his mind settled into the cool, calm state he required to kill him.

"What, exactly, are we gonna look for?"  Ferrick said.  "I need to
know, for the search programs."  Ferrick paused.  "Are you any good at
designing code modules?  Tell me the truth.  I'd like to split this up,
make it go faster.  But if you're just playing at it, I'll have to do
it all myself."

"I'm okay.  Maybe better than okay."

"I'll take your word.  Your work was pretty good, using that rinky-dink
dorm comm unit for the hack.  What'd you do, override the hardwired
security module by hand?"

"I thought you guys knew everything already Jim said.  "Never looked at
your room," Ferrick said.  "Didn't ere how you did it, just cared what
you did."  He wandered over to a bank of machines and began to energize
touch pads.  "I just want you to know, up front," he said.

"What's that?"

"I don't believe any of that shit you handed Kerry.  Kerry's

 okay, but sometimes he's a little soft.  Lets the way things to be
influence how he sees things are."  shrugged.  "He likes you.  I don't
give a crap one way or the , What I think is, you're some kind of
agent.  And in the gonna kill you."

dim limped over and joined him.  "We'd better get said.  "How about you
do the search programs, and I statistics evaluation?"

"Suits me," Ferrick said.

Jim lifted a voice tablet and turned it on.  His busted wouldn't let
him code by hand.  "Where's that UrBarrba from, anyway?."

Ferrick kept his eyes on the screen in front of him.  "You need to
worry about that," he said.  "Far as you're may never come up."

"Is that right?"

"Very right," Ferrick told him.

 Tey worked straight through, forty hours without a break.  Jim
plugged anelectrostim into the cybersocket embedded beneath his ear to
keep himself going and drank a lot of coffee.  Ferrick popped some
small green pills whenever he began to flag.  The pills made his eyes
glow like radioactive raisins, and he sweated a lot, but his fingers
danced across his touch pad like a

SWAT team of epileptic ants.

"Bingo," Jim said.

Ferrick yawned.  He hadn't changed his clothes for almost three days,
and it showed.  Smelled, too.  "Bingo what?"  "There's correlation."
"Explain that."

Jim pushed a sheaf of wrinkled printouts toward him.  It was quicker to
scan the annotated paper than bring the interesting bits up on a
screen.

'3"hat stuff I've underlined.  You guys really got your operation
rolling about a year after the Outward Bound was in space, lght?"

Ferrick's exhausted gaze wandered away.  "Could have been."  "It was,
wasn't it?"  Jim felt excitement begin to sprout through his foggy
brain.  "You can see it, right there.  The Outward Bound started off
with six million original colonists from Terra.  It took maybe half a
year to get them all loaded and settled.  You guys came aboard then."

"Yeah," Ferrick mumbled.  "I came up in the third month.  It Was a
mess."

 "When the OH took off and hit five major established co and picked up
another three million or so.  That took a year, but by then you guys
had started putting it tog ethel we've added the last million here and
there, by freighte!

barge.  It's still going on, I guess.  More people coming on b Ferrick
nodded.  "Okay, and so?"

"It's plain as--" Jim was about to say plain as the no your face, but
with Ferrick's magnificent snout... "Plain asl A year after launch, the
Outward Bound had a population of seven million or so.  Adjusting for
population growth, I trathe incidence of reported violent psychosis.
You can't tell m, analysis is bullshit, 'cause I used the numbers you
gave me,

Ferrick rattled the papers, rubbed his eyes, squinted.  "Ok won't argue
the numbers."

"Don't you see it?"

"I'm working, I'm working on it .... " I Jim reached over and jabbed at
a block of print circled in "Right there, Ferrick.  Those kinds of
incidents were stead the first year.  About half a percent of the total
population.  At end of the year they jumped, not just in number, but in
per age.  Startingat the beginning of the second year, they well!  two
percent, and doubled to four by the end of year two, A: hundred percent
increase starting at the end of the first months, then another hundred
percent the next year.  That's h Ferrick.  The rate of increase is
holding steady, too.  We're at end of year three now, starting into
year four, with three t before arrival.  Eight percent of the
population, if your numb are right, experienced a violent psychotic
episode last year."  '

Ferrick's lips moved silently as he traced the numbers wit blunt
finger.  His forehead wrinkled.  "Eight percent?  That's man, that's
weird."

"You didn't give me the numbers for it, Ferrick, but it we be
interesting to run a comparison study.  Between y increase in the sales
of Heat, and the increase in the vi ole over the same time line.
Wouldn't it?"

"If you think I'm gonna give you that data--"

Jim shook his head.  "I'm not asking for it.  Run the num[ yourself.
Then tell me."

Ferrick stared at him.  Something was going on with expression.
Getting softer, collapsing somehow.  Worried...  "I don't have to," he
said.  "I handle the books."  He paused.  "It'S pretty close, Jim."  It
was the first time he'd used Jim's name since they'd caught him. 
Maybe, Jim thought.  So, what do you think?"

Ferrick shifted uncomfortably.  "I didn't have any idea the numbers
were so big.  Eight percent?  People would be yelling.  It would be all
over Ship Net

"Not if the Authority was trying to keep it covered up.  You hacked
their security cores for your data.  Is there any way to compare those
private numbers with the ones they're putting out for public
consumption?"

Ferrick grunted.  "Give me half an hour."

Jim nodded.  "I'm gonna get some shuteye."

Ferrick was back at work.  "Crash in the chair there.  I'll wake you up
when I'm done."

"How come I can't use one of the bedrooms?"  Jim stretched, felt his
cracked ribs protest.  "Man, I'm beat."

"So I know where you are.  Until we get this shit straightened out,
you're still mine."

His voice had gone cold again.  "Okay," Jim said.  "I'll crash in the
chair."

Jim's first clue that Ferrick was really upset was when the Other boy
woke him up by kicking the legs of the chair and dumping him onto the
floor.

Jesus.  Man, are you trying to kill me?"  Jim mumbled, then realized
what he'd said.

Ferrick stood over him, wavinga fresh sheaf of printouts.  His eyes
looked like boiled plums.

"All right, wise-ass.  You got it right.  The Authority has been
doctoring the numbers.  Big-time."

He waited until Jim managed to crawl back into his sea bin ga couple of
fresh bruises..i "So what is pissing you off so much?"

Ferrick slapped the printouts against his thi don't.."  know, damn it!
I thought I had everything figur but..."  He took a deep breath.
"Something's really screva here, man.  Screwed up big-time."  i

Jim wanted to say, "told you so," but decided maybe azl time.  From the
way Ferrick was acting, it might earli another punch in the mouth.  He
settled for, "Why do you pose the Authority is fudging the numbers?"
Ferrick's eyebrows pinched together.  "Who the hell k Keep everybody
fat, dumb, and happy, I guess.  They're a b of stuffed-suit trackers,
their first move would be to cover own ass."

"Yeah, that makes sense.  Maybe they don't know whex coming from. Kerry
tried to tell me it was the ship.  People ing trouble adjusting, and
going nuts.  Maybe that's what think is going on.  And that would be a
threat to the entire at ion  Outward Bound is the first colony ship
this big.  If guessing the problem is caused by so many people crammed
into one small space, they might try to hide it.  Figure it would be a
temporary problem, that it would go away whe finally hit the new planet
and folks start to get back to norn

Ferrick whipped his arm, sent the printouts flying.  " man.  I can do
the numbers as well as you.  If that rate of increase keeps on--it's
already at eight percent, if it keeps doubling for another three years,
that would mean ... Ji Almost two-thirds of the population crazy as
shithouse rathe time we get there."  He paused.  "Which would mea
wouldn't get there.  We'd all be dead."  "*

"Uh-huh," Jim said.  He'd already worked it out, too.  " makes screwing
even more fun.  So in the end, I guess we be really screwed.  What a
way to go, huh?"

"I gotta talk to Kerry," Ferrick said.

"Maybe Kerry should talk to this Ur-Barrba thing."  "Yeah?  About
what?"

"About why she's trying to kill the Outward Bound."  Ferrick's dark
eyes slowly widened.  Comes the light, Jim thought.

 Kerry listened without saying much until they had both

He had a stack of printouts in his lap almost three high, but he never
looked at them.  Just nodded occa and once or twice said, "Go on."

When they were done, he said, "Okay," stood up, and the pile of paper
to one of the desks.  Then he headed the door.  "Okay?"  Jim said.
'That's all?  Just okay?."  "What do you want me to say?."

"Well, for starters, what do you think?"

"I don't know yet."

Jim's frustration bubbled over.  "What do you mean?  We did all the
numbers.  You can't argue with them.  Look at the correlations.  You
didn't even look at them."

"Don't need to.  I know Ferrick's good, and if he says you're good,
then you are, too.  So if you both say there's correlation,

then there's correlation."

"Okay.  And... ?"

Kerry sighed.  "Statistics, Jim.  What's the first rule of statisJim's
brain, hammered by pain, by lack of sleep, by over stimulation by fear,
felt like a wad of over chewed bubble gum.  "I don't get it," he said
slowly.

"Let me help," Kerry replied.  "Correlation doesn't equal what?"

Oh.  Jim closed his eyes.  The mantra had been one of the first things
drummed into him in his basic statistics course.  Causation," he said
tiredly.  "Correlation doesn't equal causation."

Kerry nodded.  "Now you're getting it."  dim thought of the enormous
work he and Ferrick had done to Come up with the numbers.  And now
Kerry was just going to ignore all that?  He couldn't stand it.

"God damn it, Kerry.  You've got to at least look.  You have to.  It's
too important!"

 Even Ferrick looked uneasy.  "Yeah, man," he said.  bets are real.
Something's going on."

Kerry glanced at him.  "I know that.  The question And that's my
problem, not yours."  He headed for again.  "You both look like hell.
Get some sleep, let on it."

dust before he closed the door behind him, he stared at dim.  "You
aren't off the hook yet.  But there.  Stay iced."

The door closed, dim glanced at Ferrick, who was the door in a
bleary-eyed daze.

"Iced," Jim said.  "Stay iced."

Ferrick squeezed his eyes shut.  "What else are we He's the man."

"But if it's the Heat, if it's us killing all those people.  "Shut up,
man," Ferrick groaned.

"Yea-h," Jim replied.  "That's the right answer.  Shut innocent people
die."

"I said shut up!"

He's still mad, Jim thought.  But maybe not so anymore.

Work with it.

Jerry wandered out of the clubhouse, his hazy, his expression
concentrated, deeply thoughtful.  somewhere beneath that expression was
a war.  One part wished that instead of setting Jim Endicott up with
the brig, he'd done that deal just a little differently and big guy
beat the kid to death.  If he'd done that--and he'd side red it--none
of this would have come up.  And it still too late to arrange something
like that.  Though he'd have it to somebody besides Ferrlck.  The
numbers had

 He might do Jim, but he would always wonder.  That a good idea for
the guy who ran the numbers on your operation.  To have him
wondering.

"On the other hand, a different part of him looked at that solu and
turned away.  It was too easy an answer, and Kerry had become the
success he was by choosing the easy answers.

he regretted that.  What did they call it?  He was a contrarian.  He
took the hard way just because it was

: hard way, and screw them all if they couldn't take a joke.  This was
dynamite, though.  If Jim was right, he'd have to down the operation.
And that wouldn't be easy.  Too many depended on it.  The Cowboys were
mostly Plebs.  And got more than money out of dope dealing.  They got
the friendship, loyalty, self-respect.  Without Heat, what were

Cowboys anyway?.  Just another bunch of guys hanging out, power, no
leverage.  So it wasn't as easy a thin gas Endicott it was.  It was
clear-cut for him, black-and-white, right wrong.  For Kerry, nothing
had ever been clear-cut, not for life.

Kerry scratched the side of his nose and looked up as he across the
plaza.  Weather was brewing, a line of clouds looked like a tube of
dirty socks forming in the center of the obscuring the other side.  A
whiff of ozone on the freshen breeze  When it was like this, he could
almost imagine he still on Terra, waiting for the rain.

He shook his head.  Those weren't the best memories either.  Scrabbling
and hustling, fighting and clawing.  Putting together the Cowboys was
the hardest thing he'd ever done.  He'd brought the nucleus up with him
from Terra, where they'd already begun to scratch out a minor presence
in the North American West Coast Plebtowns.  Ferrick, Sam, Darnell,
they'd all been With him from the beginning.

He glanced across the plaza and saw two guys looking back.  Their
fingers moved unobtrusively, a little hand jive.  He gestured in
response, and they went back to work.

Jim had no idea.  They'd kept him away from most of it.  Endicott knew
a few of them, because they'd let him know a few.  The inner circle. 
It Was a balancing act.  He could give them up, cause real hurt.  but
the trade-off was they could watch him, keep him on a



WILLIAM

SHATNER

short leash.  And if he turned out to be what he the beginning, well.
One kid vanishing out of ten wouldn't be noticed.

Jim hadn't been invited to the last initiation ten They'd beaten in
seven new juniors, guys maybe teen.  That brought the total Cowboy
members thousand.  A thousand guys, plus several hundred auxiliary, the
Cowgirls.  Sam ran that, had from the So the whole deal wasn't some
little street-corner fighting society.  It was a big business, a hell
of a And more than a business, a family.  The biggest world, and he was
the big daddy.

Jim didn't understand, because he couldn't.  How know what it was like,
having that much responsibility?.  the hands of the young ones,
slapping them on the they got scared.  Making sure that anybody who got
in some skirmish with another gang was taken care of.  sure the pie got
split up fairly, making sure the the Authority got the necessary
bribes, making sure the vast, sprawling mechanism functioned and kept

Heat was at the very heart of it.  Without Heat, where they be?  Where
would he be?

He strolled on, looking good, looking iced, heading restaurant,
wondering if Sam would be there.  She was talk to, even if he couldn't
tell her everything.  Not couldn't tell anybody everything yet.  Not
until he knew.  He wondered: Could I break it all up if I had to? 
Yeah, he thought, I could.  But I don't want to.

 "hat's up?"  Kerry said, as he scooted a chair away the table and sat
down.  Sam looked like she hadn't been sleeping well.  And Jenny, who
didn't know much about any of this, not unless Sam had told her, and he
doubted that very much, looked worried, too.  So something was getting
out, if only a whiff.  A sense that there was a problem.  If that sort
of shit was getting out, that could be a problem all by itself.
Sometimes it was worse when there was only a hint, some vague thing for
rumor to feed on.  That was when people started to worry about whatever
they felt like worrying about.  And things would get loose and hinky,
and the fighting would start as other gangs,

picked up on it and looked to take a bite out of Cowboy hide.  Not much
time.

"Hey, Jen," he said easily.  "Me and Sam need to talk."

Jenny stood up.  "I was just leaving."  She turned and walked away.

"Bye," he said to her back.

When she was gone, he put his elbows on the table and leaned forward,
until his face was only a few inches from Sam's.  He could smell the
raspberries about her, a fresh, happy making scent.  It had been a long
time since they'd been lovers, but the feelings were still there.  A
little different, smudged and muted now, but still there.

"What did you find out?"  Sam said.

"We could be in deep shit," he replied.

She closed her eyes.  "I was afraid of that."  For a moment she looked
very young, and a little frightened.

If this goes down, I'll see a lot of that, Kerry thought.

"How deep?"  Sam asked.

"Deep enough," he said, and told her what Jim and Ferrick had told him.
She shook her head.

"Ferrick buys into this, too?"

"Yeah.  I think so.  Some of it, at least."

"I don't understand this correlation-causation bullshit."  When he
finished explaining, she nodded.  "Okay.  So just

 because we sell more Heat, and there's more of these things, it
doesn't necessarily mean that the Heat is

"Yeah, that's right."

"But Jim thinks it is," she said.

"Uh,huh.  He thinks so."

She looked away.  "He could be wrong.  But not what you think he is.
Some kind of secret-agent man."

Kerry leaned back.  "I don't know if I think that of me does, maybe. If
there was a real plot to put us biz.  If I wanted to shut down the
Cowboys, this might way to do it."

"You think he's that good?  He'd have to be Agency Authority would
never come up with it, they're not enough."

He chewed that over for a minute.  She was right.  He Authority.  The
fat cats who ran the ship.  They were and they had some smart people.
But not smart that smart enough, at least.  The Agency, on the other
didn't know the Agency that well.  Nobody did.  and on the outside, at
least.  But they were good enough.

"It doesn't fit," he said at last.  "Endicott would have a deep plant,
right from the beginning.  Sixteen years old.  means they would have
had to get started with him a before the Cowboys got going.  Or the
Outward Bound."

"They could have faked his records.  They're good never know.  He came
off a freighter.  We don't know if he's even been on Wolfbane.  He
could have come Terra."

Kerry shook his head.  "We don't know everything and the Agency, but we
know enough.  If they knew that about us, they wouldn't send a
sixteen-'ear-old kid to down.  They'd send somebody like that Commander
told us about, and you, me, Darnell, Ferrick, and the the inside would
suddenly get dead.  Neat, clean, and That's the way they'd do it."

She lifted her cup of tea, sipped, set it back down.  Ran fingertip
across the tracery of damp cup-rings on the

"So if he's not Agency, and he's not Authority, what is he?"  "He's a
problem," Kerry said.

"I know that.  And what if he's right?  What if it is the

 if it's us killing all those people?"  She shook her head.

I don't think I could deal with that."

"I know," he replied.  "hat's the biggest problem.  I don't know I
could either."

"I took the shipment," Kerry said.

Jim's injuries were much improved.  The marvels of modern medical
science.  Improved enough that he came up out of his chair with his
fists balled.

"You what?"

Ferrick shifted in his own seat and said, "Settle down.  Hear the man
out."

Jim glared at him, but after a moment subsided.  "I'm listening

Kerry shot him a glance.  "First thing is, you don't use that tone on
me.  I don't have to.  explain shit to you."

"Okay," Jim said.

"Second thing.  I'm still not convinced.  That's why I took the
shipment.  Ur-Barrba gave us forty-eight hours, and that's all the time
we had.  So I said yes."

"Why?"

"Because," Kerry said patiently "I need more time.  You don't know
what's involved.  Ferrlck does, though.  He understands."

Jim glanced at Ferrick.  Ferrick nodded.  "You saw the numbers," Jim
said, getting hot all over again.  "You know what they

"I need causation, Jim," Kerry said.  "I can't do anything unless I
know there's a real connection."  He fluttered his fingers.  "I could,
but I won't.  That's what I mean."

"You won't.  How many more people are gonna die?"

"I don't know.  If you're right, that depends on how big a stash most
folks have piled up.  Since people tend to use what they

buy right away, I'm guessing they don't keep a lot on h

Jim didn't get it.  "What are you telling me?"

"I said I took the shipment.  I didn't say I was distribu At the
moment, there's something of a Heat shortage streets."

Ferrick's eyebrows jumped.  "That's the first I heard of "It'll start
showing up in your numbers pretty quick.  why I'm telling you in the
first place.  You'll see it first" il don't want you wondering what the
hell's going on."

"Who else knows?"

Kerry shrugged.  "Him."  He nodded at Jim.  "Sam, couple of the others.
You know who."

Ferrick nodded.  "All right."  He thought about it.  "Whal word,
then?"

"Shipment's been delayed.  We don't know why.  It's hapl before."

'hat'll hold, I guess.  Not for long, though."

"No, not for long," Kerry agreed.  "Long enough.  I hope.". Jim stared
at him.  "Long enough for what?"  "I'ests."

"what the hell does that mean, tests?  We already know psychoactive.
The sex thing, that's what it does.  You c analyze the dope and come up
with an answer right away.

"You can analyze some people mith the dope," mildly.

It took a few seconds for it to penetrate, and when Jim's jaw dropped.
"You're gonna test that shit on peop came out of his chair again.  "I
can't let you do that!

Kerry rose to meet him.  "Sit right frackin' back down, assl You don't
have any frackin' choice in the matter."

They faced off, glaring at each other.  "Finally, Jim backed face red,
breathing hard.  "I just don't understand.  What kia monster are
you?"

"One who didn't kill you when he had the chance," Kerry Finally. "Don't
make me think I made a mistake.

Jim collapsed in his chair, shaking his head.  He looked at Ferrick.
"Is there anything you can say to him?"  Ferrick said, "You want to
know, don't you?"  "Not this way," Jim replied.

 Fve days later, a well-dressed man about forty years old up at the
clubhouse and was ushered into the room called his office.  The man had
a short, neat haircut, with gray, was wearing a pretty nice suit that
flattered skinny frame, and a single gaudy ruby ring on his right

"Hamilton," Kerry said, and gestured toward a sofa opposite desk.  "Get
you something, a cola, some Heat?"  He grinned.  Hamilton's muddy brown
gaze jumped away from Kerry when said that, the movement of a startled
water bug.  "No, nothing," he said.  "I'm fine."

Kerry stood up, came around the desk, and perched on the low table In
front of the sofa.  "You don't look Free."

Hamilton reached into his pocket, brought out a data chip,

tossed it on the table.  They both looked at it for a second.  "What's
on it?"  Kerry said finally.

"What you were afraid of," Hamilton said.  "You didn't give me much
time.  I can't say that's a real analysis.  To know for sure,

I'd want to do a complete study, analyze the substance, have three
different cohorts, double-blind the whole thing, but--"

"Yeah, yeah," Kerry said.  "So you don't have enough time to do it
right.  But you had enough time to do it wrong."

Hamilton nodded.  His tongue came out and slithered wetly along his
lips.  "Even the preliminaries are bad enough," he said.  Kerry closed
his eyes.  "Tell me."

"We used ten people.  Volunteers."  Hamilton grinned sourly.  "Not hard
to find them.  Free living, a cash bonus, and all the Heat you can eat?
Shit.  I might have gone for it."

"I know you like your Heat, Hamilton.  But you say might have.  Does
that mean you wouldn't now?."

"It's cumulative," Hamilton said.  "Screws with several different brain
chemicals."  He tapped the chip.  The details are all there."

"Screws with them how?"

"You want the long answer or the short one?"

"Short one."

"It makes people go crazy.  Violent.  Overdoses speed process, and we
overdosed the crap out of those

"And?"

"If we hadn't been watching them every minute,

lost four.  As it was, we weren't fast enough with one of "What
happened?"

"Chewed off all the toes on his right foot.  Spit when we jumped
him."

"Jesus."

"I'm never touching Heat again," Hamilton said.

Kerry rose to his feet.  "First thing," he said.  "Not

You got that?  Not one."

Hamilton nodded.

"I'm serious.  You let this out, you'll never touch again."

"I hear you."  Hamilton's head was bobbing almost as his Adam's
apple.

"Number two.  What about the test subjects?"

"The guy with the toes.  He's still psycho.  Don't know be able to pull
him back or not.  The rest came out of it.  a psychotic fugue.  In the
long term, with enough changes may be permanent..  We haven't seen
them, first episode is usually the last.  They try to kill reach, and
then themselves.  If they can't reach anybody they do themselves."

"Keep them locked up," Kerry said.  "Do what you can one guy.  Money's
no problem, just take care of him."

'that makes me nervous," Hamilton said.  "You tell dead if this gets
out.  But then you tsll me to take good the evidence."

"That's exactly what I'm telling you," Kerry said.  "Take those people
like they were your own children.  And don't whining at me.  Life's
hard, and then you die.  Now get here."  Kerry scooped up the chip as
Hamilton rose and for the door.

"Hamilton?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't frack this up.  You wouldn't want to end up your own brain cells
for damage.  But you will if you mess

 I'll pour an ounce of that crap down your throat and watch own
dick."

tlamilton nodded, Kerry thought he saw him shudder as he the door.

He should, Kerry thought.  We all should.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jerry, Darnell, Ferrck, Sam, and "Jim sat table at the restaurant.  The
sun bounced and jangled tery things in Sam's hair.  Everybody looked
blurry Kerry had bags like suitcases under his eyes.  Jim when the last
time was he'd slept.

"How much are you willing to risk to stop this asked.

"A lot, Jim said.

"Your life?"

Jim thought about it.  Thought about the look on the the guy who'd
tried to kill him.  Who'd spit his fingers Remembered the way the light
had glinted off the two coffins, Harry's dead kids, and the way the old
lady had him, too.  Remembered selling the shit to Harry in the first

Will it come to that?"  he said.

"It could."

"If I have to, then," Jim told him.  II here no other

Darnell was looking at Jim.  He made a soft sound throat.

"What?"  Kerry said.

"I said frackin' hero," Darnell replied.  His voice was bleak
exhaustion.  Jim wondered what Darnell had been doing!  hadn't been
around for several days.

Kerry glanced at Jim.  "I don't know.  Could be.  We'll find guess."

 cocked his head and listened as Kerry told him how he'd it out.  When
Kerry was done, Jim looked at him.  "That's way it has to be?"  Kerry
shrugged.  "Unless you can think of something better."  Jim thought
about it.  "I can't," he said.  So they started.

Jenny ran the day-to-day with the Cowgirls.  Sam met her lunch at
Scalio's, a nice restaurant near Ship's Center, the big buildings were.
The rain had stopped, and the in the middle of the gravity well, two
miles overhead,

breaking up.  Sam couldn't tell if it was natural, or if they'd on some
big fans or something.  Ship's weather was a to her.  She knew they
could control some of it, but not The only thing was, she didn't know
which parts were In the end, she looked at it the way she'd always
looked the weather.  Something that happened.  You lived with it.

"What's up?"  Jenny asked her, after they'd gotten themselves settled
and given the human waiter an order for two of the fancy cocktails that
had a lot of fruit and complicated stir-sticks in them.  The human
waiter was how you knew it was a good place.  Usually they ate in the
cafeteria-style places, or the ones with robot servers that looked like
oversize garbage cans with rubber treads on them.

Sam thought Jenny looked worried.  The rumors had been flying for at
least a week, and Sam hadn't given her number two any help.  Left her
out there flying blind because Kerry said that Was how it had to be.
Everything had to look right for any of it to Work.  Sam wasn't sure it
would work anyway, but she would do her part.  It was a relief, though,
to be able to fill Jenny in on SOme of it.  Maybe after she did, she
wouldn't feel like she was carrying around an ice-cold bowling ball
neighborhood of her heart.  It was scary, knowing about to change.  :

She reached across the table and patted

Jenny's fingers were as chilly as the two drink waiter placed on their
table with an exaggerated, ish.

"You ladies ready to order?"  he asked.  Sam couldn't was sneering at
them, or just in a shitty mood.  His manner irritated her, but she was
a Pleb. Waiters in ritzy places her, and that made her even more
irritated. She mentioning the Cowboys--Heat was big in the re., service
community, they were all real dope decided it wasn't worth it.  Cheap
thrills.

"Give us a few minutes," she told the waiter.  He offered a half smile
that looked about as sincere as prices, then bustled away ..... "What
an asshole," Jenny said.

"Yeah.  Forget him."

Their eyes met.  Sam started to say something, but her drink instead.
Sucked on the straw, noticed it was with salmon-colored lipstick when
she took her lips "Good," she said.  "Fruity tasting."

"Like the waiter," Jenny said, and giggled.  "You think so?"  "Oh,
sure."

Kerry had been trying to teach Sam to act like a years, or if not a
lady, at least less of a Pleb.  Not, explained it, because he didn't
like the way she was because she could go farther if she knew how to
fake the hat stuff.  Some of it was interesting, d some of it blind.
She knew that the kind of bigotry exemplified remark was a typical Pleb
thing, where ancient attitudes been modified to any great extent
because nobody who anything about it cared enough to try.  Plebs were
Plebs, thinking went.  Why bother?

She sucked on the straw until the drink went dry and' straw made liquid
rattling sounds at the bottom of the ice.  cocktail tasted mostly like
fruit juice, but a slow, warm was heating up in her stomach.  It felt
good.  Some of the

,

to leak out of her muscles, and she settled back anded.

-What's going on?"  Jenny asked suddenly.  "You know the are all upset.
Everybody's talking, nobody knows nothing.  there's no dope to sell."

I know," Sam said.  She moved her head back and forth, stretching her
neck, listening to the gristle in there make tiny popping sounds only
she could hear.

"I think there's gonna be some changes," she said.  "Big ones.  Pretty
soon."

"Like what?"  Jenny said, sounding even more worried than before.

"Kerry.  Maybe he's gonna step down."

"Step down?  What does that mean, step down?"

"You know.  Quit.  Leave the Cowboys."

Jenny was silent for a long beat.  "Aw, shit.  You'd better tell me the
rest of it."

Sam leaned forward and did so, some of it at least.  After that, they
drank four more cocktails apiece and ate two aqua-farmed fish platters
while they tried to figure out how to pull it off.

The waiter was really mean, in a snide, hard-topin-down way, while he
served them.  Just before they left, Sam fished in her bag, pulled out
a ten cred packet of pink powder, and left it for a tip.  But after
they got outside, she turned around and went back in.  He'd already
picked up the dope, and he made her pay him fifty creds to give it
back.

He was an asshole, but she didn't hate him.  Not that much, anyway.

he word went out on the streets for two days: top challenge.  Big Tiny
Nero, a fourteen-year-old Pleb from the Atlanta region who weighed 250
pounds, was really excited about it.  As far as anybody knew, Big Tiny
hadn't spoken an word his whole life.  He could hear and understand
just} just couldn't---or wouldn't--talk.  He communicated by ca ted
home brew of hand jive only his closest understand.  His hands went
into fluttering friends explained as much as they knew about a top that
somebody had challenged Kerry to a fight for Cowboys.  That the whole
gang would have to be there, That the winner would be the new leader,
unless gang, by majority vote, overturned the results of the

Big Tiny, a notable brawler already, thought that just fine.  He didn't
worry much about all the other shit had to do, because he didn't know
about it.  He judged his own experience, and he knew if you could take
enemy with one punch, you were pretty hot shit, healthy respect for
physical force.  So if the challenger, it was, could kick Kerry's ass,
then so be it.  However.  turned out, it would be okay with him.

If Jim had known about Big Tiny Nero, he might about the Social
Darwinism he'd learned in classes, about the general proposition that
might He might have recalled his once-naive belief that this practical
or effective way to structure a society, even society engaged in a
criminal enterprise.

But if he was honest, he would admit that grand ries had a way of
disintegrating in the face of reality street.  And that guys like Big
Tiny Nero didn't know any Darwin dude, but they instinctively
understood the a club to the side of the head.  Terran civilization
might be.i ing out toward the stars, but a lot of things about it
changed much in ten thousand years.  "

"Darnell's pretty messed up about this," Ferrick were in his computer
room, both working the computerS!  ting ready for the changeover.  They
were spending so in the ship's systems that whenever they were able to
couple hours of sleep, they dreamed in code.

"Yeah, I guess he would be," Jim said.

"You don't know shit about it," Ferrick told him.

"Oh?"

"No, you don't.  You know what Darnell does?"



Jim shook his head.

"He's Kerry's right-hand guy.  He's the organizer, the politician.  He
makes sure all the sub gangs are set up right.  He handles disputes. He
holds the little guys' hands.  Everybody knows him, they see a lot more
of him than they do Kerry."  Ferrick shrugged.  "A lot of them, the
dumber ones, probably think he's the leader."

Jim felt around the edges of it.  "So he's really important "

he said slowly.

"Yeah, he is.  And you know what he'd have been without the Cowboys?
He'd be shit.  Just another useless Pleb rotting away in some Plebtown
somewheres."  Ferrick looked down at his blunt Fingers.  "And he's good
at it.  I couldn't do it.  Long time ago I tried, but Kerry made me
stop.  He said I scared the younger ones.  I don't know why."

Probably because they'd never seen a stone-cold killer before, Jim
thought.

"Plebs.  They don't get much respect, do they?."

"It ain't "they," Jim.  It's me.  And Kerry, and Darnell, and all the
rest."

"People don't like you, is that it?"  He was still reaching for it. 
"Or they're afraid of you?"

Ferrick shook his head.  "It's more like they don't even know we're
there.  Oh, they do.  They see the Pleb riots on the Nets and they
probably think what a shame it is, but what can you expect?  And then
they flip the channels and go on to something else.  It's not that the
people who run things like us or hate us.  They ignore us.  We don't
matter, because we don't do anything that matters.  Not to them."  He
raised one hand, lowered it, examined his fingers again.  "If we all
went away tomorrow, none of them would miss us for a second.  That's
what all this colony bullshit is, you know.  We're going away Nobody's
forcing us.  But the ships are mostly Pleb.  We're going away 'cause
nobody cares enough to ask us to stay."

"Like the inner-city blacks back in the twentieth century," Jim
mused.

"I don't know much old-time history."

"It doesn't matter," Jim said.

But it did matter.  He just hadn't seen it before.  No reason to,
really.  But the pattern was there, once you knew what to look for.

Marginalization.  If the members of a subclass their essential value to
the system, then they became to the system.  If they couldn't
contribute in some coin term valued--labor, ideas, art, whatever--then,
if the wasn't totally heartless, it might feed, clothe, and but
otherwise it would utterly ignore them.  That was happened to the
twentieth-century urban black the ones left behind when their brothers
and sisters doned the inner cities and fled to the suburbs.  Those
something to offer.

And then the great wheel of technology had spun again, a huge
proportion

Suddenly of the population,

lacked the highly specialized abilities or talents a nical society
demanded, found itself useless to the world coming into existence. They
were the Plebs,

ture united by perceived uselessness, a perception

Plebs themselves shared.  Because everything that the world told them
it was true.

"You didn't have anything to do," Jim said softly.

knew you never would."

"You know what Plebs stands for?"  Ferrick said.

"No."

"When they first realized that there were a lot of able people around,
they set up a system to take care was called "Provide Low-Energy Basic
Systems."  That's got.  Low-energy, and basic, 'cause that's what they
were.  And they were right."

His expression looked like paper, carefully "Anyway, that's what
Darnell's messed up about," he "Kerry gave him something to do.  Now
he's afraid it's all go away.  So he's scared."  Ferrick glanc*d at
Jim, his mirrors of black ice.  "Plebs are always afraid.  That it's
all go away, anything we do that matters."  "Jesus," Jim said.  "That's
harsh."  Ferrick shrugged.  'q'hat's life."

A search program they were running in the innards Authority's main
security database beeped softly, and dropped it for a while.  But
later, after he'd thought on it more, Jim said, "What about you?"

"What about me?"

 "HoW do you feel about this?"

-Better than Darnell."

"How come?"

"I got skills.  I didn't go to no fancy schools, but I understand

If we ever get the colony going, I'll find a place.  Won't much but.
Plebs around, so I'll stand out."  He grinned, a bit twisting flash.
"And I got some other things I'm good at."  Jim thought: like killing.
But how bad was that, when you down to it?  He had always wanted to
become a starship

But the starships fought, and sometimes they killed, And that was too
easy.  The starships didn't kill, any more the .75 Jim had used on
Commander Steele killed by itself.  men were the killers, and that
skill had served them well their entire existence.  Jim doubted the
necessity for it go away anytime soon.  So it was a matter of how some
like Ferrick was used.  Handle him, control him, use him the weapon he
was, and what he did could be turned the good.

He thought he would need somebody like Ferrick.  If he was able to pull
it off.

"What if you could find something besides the colony?.  Some other kind
of work?"

Ferrick's dark gaze sharpened just a bit.  "Like what?"

"There could be something," Jim said.

he public gyms were well equipped, but they were like gyms everywhere.
Darnell and Jim found a small one, back in a leafy suburb, far away
from the center of things.

The place had a pool and weight machines, and a mat room for floor
gymnasts and martial-arts nuts.  Darnell led the way in.  Both boys
were wearing sweats.  The place smelled of dirty socks and body odor. 
Good light streamed in from a bank of high windows  The mats had
yellow streaks on them, and rusty brown spots.

"Nice," Jim said.  "Somebody takes good care of it."  "Probably a
Pleb," Darnell said.  "A Pleb doing They squared off and started. 
Jim's injuries had he felt rusty and out of shape.  It was good just
the punches and the kicks, feel his heart pound sweat running down his
face.

"Uh," Darnell said when they stopped for a break one of the fountains
and let the water splash on his drank some and shook the moisture out
of his hair.

sallow face was flushed.  "You're good," he said.

"I'm not at full speed," Jim told him.

"I wouldn't want to mess with you," Darnell said.  "I studied this shit
all my life," Jim said.  "My dad important.  That I know how to do it.
He never told liked it, so I kept on.  Anybody can learn it.  You know
"Yeah, some," Darnell said.  "I don't know if it's "We'll keep at it,"
Jim said, thinking of the Everything hinged on that.  It had to look
legitimate.  fight.  Maybe not to kill, but he wouldn't spare Wouldn't
pull his punches.  And accidents could be ready for anything.

"Let's go," Jim said.

They went another ten minutes.  Darnell was fast.  He was a natural
fighter, snake-quick and smart.  look like it, but some of the best
fighters Jim had didn't look like it.

Kerry didn't, really.  Though Ferrick did.  But Ferrick really a
fighter.  He was a killer, and there was

They were both blowing hard when they took

"Your dad made you learn this?"  Darnell said.

"Yeah."

"Because of that guy, huh?  The one who sent the you?"

"I guess," Jim said.

"How'd he know?."

"Maybe he didn't.  Maybe he hoped it wouldn't it did, he wanted me to
be ready."

Darnell nodded.  "Must have been hard on him.

 happen, trying to make a life for you anyway.  I wish I had, body
cared about me like that."

turned and looked at the other boy.  He had never of it in exactly that
way.  It hit him like a hammer.  You're right," he said, surprised at
how choked his voice led.

Darnell glanced at his face, looked away.  "Are you crying?."  "Naw,
man.  Just some sweat got in my eyes."

Darnell nodded, got up, ran a towel over his head.  Threw it went back
to the mat and stood there, bouncing in place, hands raised in loose
fists.  You ready?."  yeah."

Jim felt a gnawing sense of urgency as they worked.  Not time left
before the challenge, and it had to be right.  Too at stake to screw it
up now.

he timing was tricky and very delicate.  Kerry and Jim worked on it
together, because everything had to happen all at once.  Like throwing
a jigsaw puzzle into the air and having all the pieces come down
together to form the picture.

Kerry had an enormous amount of street smarts.  He instinctively
understood power relationships, even if he sometimes couldn articulate
them with any precision.  He would, Jim thought, have made a fine
general.

And Jim brought his own skills to the mix, knowledge gained from a
thorough education.  They were in Kerry's office, Kerry Sprawled on the
sofa, staring up at the ceiling, his eyes closed.  Jim wondered how he
could look so relaxed.

Jim was sitting in the fat chair from his recovery room, his feet up on
the low table.  Sam had wandered in a few minutes before, hung out a
little, then left.  The scent of raspberries still drifted in the
air.

 After she left, Kerry started explaining some of he used to keep the
Cowboy operations running used crude words and street descriptions, but
understood what he was hearing, because he'd heard: Kerry was saying
how he never touched the girls street level, restricted himself to a
few private side of the gang.

"Yeah," Jim said, the quotation suddenly floating in ""Hatred, as I
said before, he will most readily engender rapacious and seizing the
property and the women of jects.  These he must not touch.""

Kerry opened his eyes and looked at Jim.  "You dong?  Making fun of
me?"

"No, no.  I didn't say that, I was quoting another guy."  The guy talks
funny."

"Yeah, he lived almost a thousand years ago."

Kerry's eyebrows rose.  "Huh?"

"His name was Machiavelli.  Niccolo Machiavelli.  He book titled The
Prince."

"A thousand years ago?  And he said you should hands off the women?"

"Yeah."

Kerry settled back.  "He knew his shit, then."  "He knew a lot.  He
also said, Then are less offending someone they have cause to love than
have cause to fear.""

Kerry opened his eyes again.  "He said that, too?  shook his head. 
"You say he wrote this stuff down, in a something?."

"Sure.  You want me to download it?  I'm sure it's in library
somewhere.  It's a classic."

'rhey taught you this stuff in school?"

"In ethics class."

Kerry said, "No wonder the Plebs have such a hard time Your average
Pleb figures he can probably kick any Tech's but they teach you guys in
school the stuff we have to learn i hard way.  So we never get it right
the way you people do."

"Hey, they don't teach Machiavelli as the way to do Actually, the
opposite.  He's supposed to be a bad guy."

Kerry eyed him.  "Ethics.  Sure."  He rolled away, spoke to

 "dim.  That guy who sent the killers after you.  You think tie was
studying the Bible or something, or this Mack-whatiat'shisname?"  dim's
eyes widened.  "Out of the mouth of babes."  "That from him, too?" 
"No, it's just a saying."

"Well, I ain't no babe."  He slapped his chest.  "No tits, see.  dim
burst out laughing.  "What?  What?"  Kerry said.

But he read the downloaded copy of The Prince and even printed out a
paper copy of his favorite parts, which he thumbed through whenever he
had a spare moment.  "The old guy knew his stuff, dim," he would say.
"You could learn a lot from him."

"Shit," dim told him.  "Maybe I better introduce you to

Socrates.  For balance."

"Who's that?"

"Another dead guy," dim said.

"Maybe later.  I don't have much time for reading now.  If we screw
this up, we're gonna have a lot of guys as dead as this Socrates.  And
I don't think many of them wrote any books."

"You've got a point," dim said.  He thought of something else that
needed checking.  "When will the ship be there?"

Kerry sighed.  "On schedule," he said.

Jim hadn't expected to be awed by it, but he was.  The Cowboys drifted
in alone or in small groups.  The Cowgirls came gn, too, their usual
bright chatter muted.  The vast space of the Secondary cargo bay felt
like Jim imagined a cathedral would: dim, high, solemn.

Everybody had brought a light of some kind, pencil flashes, laser
pointers, something.  As they settled down, pressing

 together, the last dregs of conversation went silent.  lights began
to come on, thin lances that looked like

Jim stood with the rest of the leaders, at the crowd.  At their back
the high wall of UrBarrba's like a black-steel cliff.  Ferrick had
hacked all the about the secondary bay early in the morning.  As body
in the Authority knew, the bay was empty and alien vessel was, as Kerry
had promised, right on

Kerry glanced at Darnell.  "Is that about all of them?"  Darnell licked
his lips and nodded.

"Okay."  Kerry took a shallow breath, stepped forward rustling shadows,
and raised his hands for quiet.  He that he'd been challenged.  He
explained that it was he'd lost the connection, that there would be no
more ing in.  That brought a collective gasp that sounded winds
hustling over the horizon.

He said that he'd accepted the challenge, and that he wanted them to
recognize the winner as their new said he had no hard feelings about
it, that it was being the rules they all understood.  When he said
that, people nearest him began to stomp on the floor.  quickly spread,
until the deck began to vibrate.

"Challenge, challenge, challenge!"  they chanted.  Jim glitter in the
gloom.  There was bloodlust out there.

Ferrick, standing next to Jim, handed him a package said this was
yours," he whispered.

Jim fumbled with it, unwrapped it.  It was his

Ritter .75.  He slipped the heavy pistol into the waist pants.
'l'nanks," he whispered.

There was a stir in the ranks of the leadership.  It was the challenger
to make himself know.  He stripped off and stepped forward.  His
appearance brought a few cheers and some awkward applause, quickly
stilled.

Kerry stripped off his own shirt as he watched the approach.  "Are you
ready?."  he said, when his foe stood

Jim felt a chill wrap his spine.  It was like some ancient old bone and
blood.  His body knew.  Even at a distance, ing, his body was scared.

Darnell, the challenger, crouched forward, hands front of him, and
nodded.  "Let's do it," he said.

 Jim watched the beginning of the fight, long enough to see all the
coaching he'd done with Darnell hadn't gone to

Kerry didn't look like he was holding anything back.  He moving,
throwing those rattlesnake punches, right, right, right again, but
Darnell was holding up okay.  The smaller boy slipped and dodged, slid
under another punch, and landed a belly kick of his own.

That had been one of the biggest problems.  "If it isn't about nine
hundred ninety-nine percent for real, they'll smell it, He ,r" I had
told Jim.  Some of those guys are real fighters, and they 11 sense a
fake.  I'm gonna do almost my best to kill Darnell, and you know how
that can go.  I miss once, or hit the wrong spot, and I might wipe him
by accident.  Same with me.  He's fast, Darnell.  Catch me in the
throat or something, he might end up doing me.  The point is, we don't
want either thing to happen, him or me.  The idea is we both walk away
from it, or at least crawl.  So you work with him, get him up to speed
on that fancy shit you know."

Jim watched them dance around each other, heard their raspy breath, the
sharp, meaty slap of fist meeting flesh.  Saw blood Start to run,
smelled the sour-coppery odor of it on the thick air.  So did the
crowd. They were screaming now, waving their arms, mirroring the
punches. You could spot the ones with the laser Pointers, thin green or
red lances smearing tiny dancing dots on every surface.

It looked real enough to him.  He hoped the experts watching would
think so, too, or if they had doubts, they'd be enough to keep them to
themselves.

"You ready?."  he whispered to Ferrick.

"Yeah."  Ferrick moved sideways, slipping away from the rest, Jim
sliding in his wake.  Nobody noticed them and that was part of it,
too.

They moved silently down the side of the big bay,

into the shadows.  Jim wore black jeans and a dark red Ferrick was all
in dark brown.  It was the best they could up with for dark-time
camouflage.

"I don't see them," Jim murmured, hanging close to broad back.

"Good.  You aren't supposed to--ah.  Hold it, we're here."

He stopped suddenly, and Jim ran into his bounced as if he'd hit a
brick wall.

"Hey," Ferrick said, not talking to Jim.  "We're on."  Somebody said:
"Let's quit frackingaround and go, Jim was suddenly surrounded by
bulky, jostling Thirty of them, handpicked by Ferrick.  Some of them
were ers, but most of them were killers.  Ferrick knew how

One of them slapped a floppy weight at Jim's chest.

said, the tension making his voice hoarse.  "Better wear won't stop one
of the big blasters, but it'll slow the light down."

Jim nodded, strapping it on.  The vest was a dull, flat and made him
even harder to see.  "Ferrick?  You wearing

"Nab.  I'm the bait, remember?  It would look kinda Those big apes
might not know it's not just a fashion but why take the chance?"

"Yeah, I guess," Jim said doubtfully.  "

Ferrick slapped him on the back.  He seemed happy.

he was, with the prospect of killing something.  "Don't man.  You can't
think about it, you just have to do it."

Good advice.  Jim tried to clear his mind and follow it.  hard,
though.

 Ur-Barrba's ship was buttoned up, almost invisible in the murk.  Only
the firefly jitter of the laser pointers flickering across its steel
hide showed that something big was there.

The ship's gangplank was withdrawn, the port dogged shut.  Ferrick's
little army flowed silently around him, splitting and passing him like
a dark river rushing past a stone.

"You two," Ferrick said, and yanked a couple of guys out of the crowd.
"Give me a hand."

The cargo bay was set up to handle all kinds of vessels.  Some had
their own gangplanks, some didn't.  Ferrick pointed.  "Push it forward.
No, slower.  It frackin' squeaks."  He turned to Jim.  "Damn it, I
forgot to check.  Should have sprayed the rails with graphite or
something."

"Don't WOITy about it," Jim told him.  "It either works or it
doesn't."

Ferrick nodded, then turned back toward the ship, directing the two
with the portable stairway toward the silent ship.  The tall metal
structure struck the hull with the soft thud of padded bumpers.  Jim
watched the rest of the team spreading out, concealing themselves
around the base of the ladder.

Ferrick looked over his shoulder, gestured with his right hand.  You,
too.

Jim bobbed his head and scrambled over to the base of the stairs, hid
himself beneath the risers.  He was wedged in against other sweating
bodies, hot breath murmuring harshly in his ears, the thick, bitter
stink of boys scared enough to fight, to kill, clogging his nostrils.

He licked his lips, pulled the.  75 from his waistband, checked the
loads by feel.  Everything felt right.  But he hadn't stripped the
weapon since the firefight back on Wolfbane.  Unless Kerry had done
something to it, it should be okay.  He wished he knew for sure.  Hell
of a thing, to go into battle holding a weapon you didn't know wouldn't
blow up in your hand .... The heavy steel ladder thrummed as Ferrick
slowly mounted the stairs.  They were well away from the action with
Kerry and

 Darnell, which was still going on.  Cheers and shouts across the room
in waves that echoed and bounced ing themselves in the upper reaches.
The lights made a it, a flickering, gleaming blood sport.  Only someone
very want, who knew what he was looking at, would notice that of the
laser pointers had their spots fixed unmoving on specific spots along
the ship's hull, most of them near the entry hatch.

Observation lenses.  Overamping from the focused several beams of
coherent light, blinding the ship to the hidden beneath the ladder.

Jim had identified the vessel type.  It had been built Hunzzan
shipyard, probably modified for UrBarrba's The Hunzza would sell
military equipment to anybody, enemies.  They didn't give a shit,
figured they could use own stuff better than anybody else, and in the
meantime, not make a cred at it?

Jim raised his hand, checked the tiny face of the into his thumb.  Time
now.  Suddenly the comm bead his right ear hissed alive, and he heard
Ferrick's husky ing.  He couldn't see Ferrick from his own position,
what was going on.  Ferrick was standing right Barrba's front door,
sending recognition codes from a unit.  The aliens might be nervous,
what with all the noise shouting from the fight, and they'd be watching
that.  they'd think it was an accident when they disc low-powered laser
beams had disabled the observation nearest their main port.  And they
knew Ferrick, or at Barrba did.  On occasion he'd picked up dope self.
And as far as the aliens knew, a pickup was on the schedule for
tonight. Jim wondered what thy were making bloody carnival a couple of
hundred yards away.

"Open the door," Jim muttered, not realizing he was out loud until
somebody jammed an elbow in his ribs hissed, "Shut the frack up," into
his ear.  He crouched little lower and waited, breath hitching in his
chest, ing into his eyes.

He felt it before he heard it, a faint vibration that came the ship and
moaned through the steel deck plates.  sharp pop, a sudden hiss as the
hydraulics kicked in, and

 knew the hatch was sliding open, Ferrick stepping forward to block
the port with his own body, give them the four or five seconds that
were all they needed .... Ferrick's voice roared in his ear.  "Move!"

Go go go!"  Jim shouted.

Tey clattered up the steps, Jim scrambling to keep in the lead, his
boots slipping, grabbing on the corrugated metal.  He roared up to the
top and flung himself through the hatch, which was already
half-closed.

A few feet beyond, Ferrick was wrestling with an alien twice his size.
The alien grabbed him by the throat, picked him up, and slammed him
hard against a bulkhead.  Jim saw Ferrick's head bounce, saw him come
down shaking his head, his eyes glazed.

Whirled and found the second alien, big as the first, holding down a
large red button on a panel next to the hatch.  Closing the door.  Jim
brought the .75 up, swept the snout across the alien's broad chest,
pulled the trigger.

A sound like a cathedral bell toll inga single great stroke shattered
the confined space, hammered against his ears like a blow.  The alien's
chest vanished from shoulders to rib cage as the force of the rocket
shell blew him backwards in bloody rags.  The hatch stopped closing.
More Cowboys poured through, whooping, their eyes the color and size of
hard-boiled eggs.  High on adrenaline and fear.

Jim spun back toward Ferrick, bringing the muzzle of the .75 up again.
Saw the alien stagger backwards, holding his belly, saw Ferrick flash a
grin like the wink of an ivory billiard ball as he plunged a
twelve-inch bowie knife again and again .... Jim lunged toward him,
grabbed him.  "He's dead, you killed him, come on," he yelled.



SHATNER

The rest of the Cowboys had slowed, waiting for tell them where to go,
what to do.  Ferrick's eyes lost their sheen and focused again.  The
entry chamber reeked of and the stench of the .75's propellant.
Somewhere ship a siren began to hoot.

Jim yanked a small tablet out of his pants, flicked i examined the
schematic on its little screen.  "Straight he said.  "We'll hit a main
corridor.  We want to go comm facilities and the bridge.  Bridge first,
if we stopped, thought about it.  "This ship has emergency.

doors.  They'll probably try to close them, seal us off."

"Let's go," Ferrick grunted.

A Cowboy piled through the outer hatch and ran Ferrick.  "Here," he
said, and thrust a scatter blaster Ferrick's hands.  The thing was
about as long as a with a ring of barrels like an ancient Gaffing gun. 
ton, dealt an enormous amount of firepower.  Ferrick flicked that
switchblade grin again.  Jim noticed his bloody.  Had he bitten the
alien?

"That's more like it," Ferrick said.  He turned, thrust the team.
Pointed a finger at three of them.  "You three.  here, keep the hatch
open, but douse the lights."

They nodded, split away as Ferrick peered out the turned back to Jim.
"I don't think anybody's noticed all still watching the fight."

Jim nodded.  "We got to get moving."

"Right."  Ferrick brought one hand up, like a cavalry signaling the
charge.  "The rest of you, follow me," he roaredi i mercy!  Kill
everybody."

Jim said, "Hey!  That's not the plan!"

But Ferrick was gone.  A couple of se*onds later, the began.

"Shit!"  Jim said, and took off running.



THE

STARS

It began to fall apart about halfway through.

Ferrick and his gang poured through the corridors of the ship like hot
lava, screaming, leaping, killing.  The carnage was appalling.  The
aliens didn't seem to have much heavy weaponry, at least not the
portable kind.  But some of them did have small energy weapons.  They
were huge, strong as two men, and they used that, too.  Jim passed one
body that looked so strange he stopped for a second, trying to figure
it out.  Then he realized: The head was gone, twisted or chewed off.

He found two more bodies scorched beyond recognition, and another kid,
a small, brown-haired guy, whose face looked like it had been roasted
in a microwave, the skin crusted, blackened and oozing in red-meat
fissures.  The kid was barely conscious moaning and twisting.  Jim, his
stomach lurching, knelt next to him, touched his shoulder, said, "Hang
on, you're gonna be okay, you're gonna be fine."

The kid didn't seem to hear him, and Jim went on, a wad of bile big as
a doughnut choking his throat.  The ship had gone eerily silent, except
for the mournful hooting of the alarm.  Smoke drifted in the corridors.
Shafts of orange light dropped like glowing pillars from the ceiling,
outlined in the haze.  One Terran Pleb kid, his hair hanging in his
face, muttered that the place smelled like a Kansas City barbecue joint
as Jim went past him.

He found Ferrick and several of the others crouched behind a makeshift
barricade, a pile of oversize alien furniture, some equipment racks, a
couple of huge barrels.  He slid in behind Ferrick's shoulder, tapped
him.  Ferrickjerked, turned, stared at him.

"Oh.  Okay," he said.  He sounded vaguely disoriented, not all there,
not connected

"What's going on?  Why did you stop?"

Ferrick gestured with the barrel of his blaster.  "Keep your head
down," he said.  'rhey managed to get one of the blast doors shut.
There's still a couple on this side, and they've got guns.  We've been
pot shotting back and forth."

'That's trouble," Jim said.

"Yeah.  I sent some of the guys looking for another This can't be the
only way into the bridge and the section."

"Hang on," Jim told him.  He pulled out his tablet and

He traced the schematic with his fingertip.  As he felt an odd itch,
like a rash on the back of his neck.  other passages, one an emergency
gangway back to the room, the other a ventilator and cable tube."  He
tapped the screen, read what came up: The ventilator ten inches wide.
No help."

"What about the emergency thing?."

"Fhey'll have it blocked off by now.  Besides, it's only wide enough
for one of them to squeeze through at Just one guy with one of those
hand beamers could against us forever."

"And we ain't got forever," Ferrick said.  "Okay, I was that."  He
glanced forward, chewing on his lower lip.  "We go through there, in
other words."

"Yeah."

Ferrick closed his eyes, thought about it some more,

heavily.  "Okay, then," he said.  "It's trade-off time."

"Huh?  What--"

"Shut up and watch, Wolfbane boy."

"Ferrick, what are you gonna do?"

Ferrick racked the slide on the scatter blaster

"Send a bunch of the guys over the top to draw fire.  either get the
apes."  He lifted the blaster slightly.  "Or I will

Jim stared at him in horror.  The other boy had been hot: he was cold
as ice again.  Jim could almost feel the chill off him, like leaning
too close to the open door of a

"Jesus, Ferrick, you'll kill a bunch of our own people."  "You want
through that blast door or not?"  "We can't--"

"Sure we can.  I can," Ferrick told him.

As Jim groped for an answeresus, I can't let him those guy she felt the
itch again, stronger but still phantomlike.  A ghost itch.  His fingers
moved toward the his neck.  Stopped.

 Oh, frack," he whispered.

What?"

"Can't you feel it?  Like an itch on your skin?"

"What about it?"

"They're starting the engines.  The drive.  But they're still inside
the OB's hull."

Ferrick rose into a crouch, peering forward.  "Then I'd better--" "No!
If they light their torch, they'll destroy the whole colony!"  Ferrick
settled back down.  'that true?"  "Yeah."

"Shit," Ferrick said.

"Shit what?"  Kerry asked.

Kerry looked like he'd stuck his face in a garbage disposal.  He held
his left arm gingerly, at an awkward angle.

"Damn," Ferrick said, sounding as close to awed as Jim had him.  'hat
little fracker really worked you over."  "You oughta see what he looks
like," Kerry said.  "It's over, then?"

"Yeah, it's over.  Darnell sent everybody home after they ratified the
change.  He's the new top-kick now."  Kerry sounded a little sad.  "It
was hard.  There at the end, I could have taken him.  I thought about
it, but--" He shrugged.  "So what's the problem here?  From my
understanding of the plan, it looks like You're a little behind
schedule."

Jim explained about the drives.  They haven't fired them up all the
way.  But they've started the countdown."

Kerry raised up a little, grunted, and peered over the barriCade.
"Huh," he said.  He sank back down, looked at Ferrick.  you know we can
get through that door.  At least those guys in front of it."

"Yeah, I know.  I told him how."  He tilted his head at Jim.

 "So what are we waiting for?"

Ferrick exhaled.  "I was gonna do it, but Jim's right.  It be enough to
Spock them into lighting off their torch.  If think they're all gonna
die anyway, why not take the they pull it off, get out into space, they
can decompress the of the ship.  Turn us all into vacuum-dried
people-jerky."

Kerry thought about it, finally nodded.  "So it's a standoff "For the
time being," Jim agreed.

"Well, it can't stay a standoff for very long," Kerry said.  "What do
you mean?"

Kerry made an exasperated clicking sound.  'nink it genius.  They've
started firing up their drive.  You think our computer hacks are enough
to keep that away from Authority?.  We can make this bay look empty to
the

But we can't hide a tracking space drive clearing its throat here."

"Oh, God," Ferrick said.  "I didn't think of that."

"Yeah," Kerry said.  'rhere's probably an army of steaming for this bay
right now."

Ferrick groaned.  "Oh, shit.  A sandwich."

"Uh-huh," Kerry replied.  "That's right, a shit sandwich, we're the
ones gonna be eating it.  Right in the middleJ

y the way, Sam says hi," Kerry said.

Jim was concentrating on his tablet, pummeling his brain, trying to
figure a way through.  "Urn-huh," he Then, suddenly, he looked up.
"She's not here?"

Kerry nodded.  "She changed her mind at the last Decided to come along
for the ride.  I left her at the entry Didn't want to bring her in till
I knew what was up."

"Damn, Kerry.  You gotta get her out of here.  This whole could blow
any minute."

 Kerry shrugged.  "Get her out where?  If it does blow, it won't
matter whether she's here on the ship, or out in the colony.  We all
eat it, right?"

Jim closed his eyes, shook his head.  "Actually, she might be safer
here.  This frackin' ship is a converted Hunzzan light cruiser.  And
I'm not sure how converted it is.  Got good armor, anyway."

Ferrick had left to recon the situation.  Jim and Kerry had left a
small team to keep the two aliens bottled up in their hidey hole in
front of the blast door, and retreated to a cabin farther back.  They
were close enough they could get back to the action if they had to, but
in the meantime, they could come and go without worrying about somebody
getting his head blown off.

Ferrick walked through the door, his dark eyes shadowed beneath
half-lowered lips.  His throat was bruised and swollen from the first
fight with the alien who'd choked him, and he was stiffening up a
little from being slammed against the bulkhead.  His hair stuck out in
odd places.  He ran his fingers through it.

'hey're out there," be said  "About a million of them.  Got
loudspeakers and rifles and all that shit."

"What are they doing?."

"Not much.  We've got the hatch cracked maybe an inch, just enough to
keep an eye on them.  They keep yelling about giving ourselves up.  I
dunno if they mean us or the Kolumbans."

Jim glanced at him.  Kolumbans.  That was the first he'd heard of that.
He made a mental note, filed it away.

"They probably don't know themselves," Kerry said.  He uttered a short,
barking laugh.  "They must be pissing their drawers out there, trying
to figure out how a deep-space cruiser showed up in their empty cargo
bay."

"Yeah, well, that may be so, but they're gonna stop pissing pretty soon
and try to do something about it."

Jim looked up again.  "You guys would know better than me.  What can
they do about it?"

Ferrick scratched his head.  "Hm.  Hard to say, exactly.  The colony
isn't heavily armed.  Just peacekeeping stuff, you know, like for crowd
control and routine police work.  We weren't set up to fight no wars.
Definitely not against any space cruisers, any how.  That scatter
blaster of mine, that's about as heavy as any thing they got."

 "Huh.  Can't do much against a foot of reinforced armor with that,"
Jim said.  "Not to mention the force shields."

"Well, we don't control the force shields," Ferrick said.  was, I had
to physically cut the hardwiring to the main.

hatch.  Those trackers on the bridge kept trying to open it."  "So how
are you gonna move it, if you have to?"

"I'he old-fashioned way.  Brute force.  Just shove it forth."

Jim thought about it.  "I don't know if we can get a that way, just
shoving it closed."

"So what?"  Kerry said.  "So it leaks a little.  There's both sides of
it."

"Right now there is," Jim agreed.

Ferrick stared at him.  "Uh-oh," he said.

"Yeah," Jim replied.  "It would be a real bitch, but it work. Maybe."

Kerry was shifting his gaze back and forth between suddenly worried
expression on his battered features.  "What are you two assholes
talking about?"

Jim and Ferrick glanced at each other.  "There's one could try," Jim
said.

wish we had our computers," Jim said.

He and Ferrick were arm deep in a cable junction.  ended up ripping out
a big piece of bulkhead to get at it.

"I dunno if they would do any good," Ferrick said.  language
incompatibility, probably."

Jim gestured at the squiggly, serpentine markings on the of wires. 'his
is all Hunzza stuff, their kind of writing," he "I'hey probably
modified all the user IDs to whatever what'd you call them,
Kolumbans?"

 Ferrick nodded absently, his concentration fixed on a junction box
he'd cracked open and from which he was carefully separating
multicolored wires.

"So everything out where they can use it is Kolumban language, whatever
that is, but the hidden stuff is still Hunzzan.  Probably the computer
system, too.  The Hunzzans build good computers, from what I know.  I
studied their code once."

Ferrick turned his head.  'nese Hunzza.  Lizards, right?  One of the
big-time alien powers?  Got an empire or something."  "Yeah, one of
them.  And the Albans."  'hose are the dog boys?"  "Uh-huh."

"I don't guess they told us much about them in school."  He chuckled
sharply, an almost-hysterical sound, and Jim suddenly realized Ferrick
wasn't as icy as he seemed.  "Didn't get that much school, either."

"Well, it doesn't matter now.  Just that the Hunzza are good,

and they sell to just about anybody with money."  "So they sold the
apes this ship?"  "Looks like it."

Ferrick stuck his tongue in his cheek.  "I never give the apes much
thought.  Dealers is all.  The only thing you worry about with dealers
is the quality of the dope.  And whether they try to rip you off."

Jim nodded, reached into the opening, and pulled out another length of
thick, multicolored cables.  'these Kolumban guys honest crooks?"

"Yeah.  Always gave accurate weight.  Showed up when they said they
would, never tried to change the price.  Honest enough."

"How'd you get started with them?  I mean, the dope.  Dealing it. How'd
you make the connection?"

Ferrick looked at him.  "You sure you're not working for some body?
That curiosity of yours."

Jim started to laugh.  It was thin, and stopped after a couple of
seconds, but it was laughter.  Weird.  That you could be deep in the
shit like this, and still laugh.

"Yeah, I'm a secret agent, man.  Hang on a second, I'll get out my
comm, call up the fleet to rescue us."

 "Funny," Ferrick said.

"No, I'm just wondering.  We're all probably gonna sorta like to know
the details of why."

"I don't really know," Ferrick said.  "Kerry came up he never
explained.  You know Kerry."

"Yeah."

They both fell silent, working with the cables.  "You will worK.
Ferrick asked.

Jim didn't look at him.  "A lot of stuff has to go right.  probably no
better at guessing what the aliens might yo.  know one thing.  They
know they're dealing dopel know it's illegal here on the ship, the kind
of they're bringing in.  They won't talk to the Authority they have
to."

"Maybe they can cut a deal.  The Authority won't colony blown up."
...... "Yeah, give them both enough time, they'll probably something
out.  But we don't plan to give them enough

Kerry wandered up, looking as tense and bored as a a face like chopped
hamburger can.  "How's it

"We're getting there," Jim said.

 am, you take a crew and search the ship.  Locate all the food and
make sure it's guarded."

Sam looked tired, a pallid stretchiness to the skin at the side of her
eyes, and two vertical lines incised at the bridge of her nose said she
was scared, too.  But hiding it well, Jim thought, wishing he could
touch her, run his fingertips across her honey colored cheek .... She
nodded as he went on.  "I don't think they can break out of the bridge
area.  We've got their food, and they should be getting hungry pretty
soon."

"They're vegetarians," Ferrick said.  "Nothing but weeds in the
food-storage lockers."

"All the better.  Vegetarians need to eat a lot."

Kerry said, 'rhese are alien vegetarians, remember."

"Sure.  But just because they're aliens doesn't mean they can violate
the laws of physics.  There's less available energy, pound for pound,
in vegetables than in meat."

Kerry lifted his eyebrows.  "Is that so?"

"Uh-huh.  What do you think the meat you eat--like cows and
stuff---eats?  Vegetables and grains, that's what.  You can think of
people who eat meat as eating concentrated veggies."

"Score another useless fact for formal education," Kerry muttered.

Not so useless.  It means we know the Kolumbans will get hungrier
quicker than if they ate meat.  And they're less likely to have a few
tons of hay stored in the bridge for snacks.  That goes

 for those two holed up outside the blast door, too.  They'll l ting
real hungry, real soon."

"All right," Kerry said.

Sam got up and left the room, leaving the three boys They were gathered
around a Kolumban table, too tall for and were perched like small
children on thick printout placed on the chair seats.  The tabletop was
littered with printouts and scraps of paper on which Jim had things as
he thought of them.

His tablet was open in front of him.  He leaned worked the controls,
found what he was looking for.

some more formal education," he said.

"Oh, boy," Ferrick said.

"No, you'll like this, Ferrick.  Lot of killing involved."

Ferrick's eyelids flickered.  A glint appeared in his "Killing?.
Yeah?"

"Uh-huh.  You ever heard of Caesar?"

"Scissor?"  Ferrick shook his head.  "Nope.  What is it, kind of fancy
knife?"

"Not a knife.  An old-time guy from Terra.  Long time spelled out the
name for them.

"He any relative of that Machiavelli guy?."  Kerry asked.  Jim shook
his head.  "But he was from the same except he lived about a thousand
five hundred years Machiavelli."

"Who the hell is Machiavelli?"  Ferrick wondered.  "An old gang
consigliere," Kerry told him.  Ferrick brightened.  "He know his shit?"
"He knew it."

Ferrick looked over at Jim.  "So what about this Another old-time
advisor?"  "

"No, he was one of the greatest generals who ever lived," said.  'hat's
the killing part I told you.  Caesar fought a wars against the enemies
of Rome.  They were known as Gauls.  Barbarians."

Ferrick tasted the unfamiliar word.  "Barbarians?"

"I'he Techs probably think the Plebs are barbarians him.

"Oh.  I get it.  So Caesar killed a bunch of barbarians?

 that help?  Looks to me like we're the barbarians in the current
picture."

-Whenever he won a battle, Caesar wrote down everything about it.  It's
still around.  Even the guys at Con Fleet study his battles.  You learn
about them at the Academy."  Jim paused.  I. wanted to go to the
Academy once.  So I started learning about all this stuff.  To get
ready, you know?."

"I guess," Ferrick said.

"Anyway, I've got every major battle ever fought stored away in my
tablet.  I can look them up.  And this deal here?  With us caught in
the middle?  Caesar fought a battle just like it.  It was called the
Battle of Alesia, and it's one of the most famous fights in human
military history."

"He was caught just like us?  Surrounded on the outside and the inside?
So what happened?"

Jim grinned.  "He kicked their asses.  All of them.  Just like we're
gonna do."

Ferrick looked down at the table, stirred his blunt fingers through the
mass of paper.  "I dunno, Jim.  Some guy from a long time ago when they
fought with spears or whatever.  I don't see how that helps us."

'ractics and strategy, Ferrick.  When you get right down to it, there
isn't a hell of a lot of difference between a spear and a scatter
blaster  You can use either one to kill somebody up close.  You got a
hole through your chest, it doesn't matter whether it got there from my
.75, or your bowie knife."

Ferrick understood that.  "Okay.  That makes sense."

"You need some education, you ignorant asshole," Kerry said, but he
grinned as he said it, to take the sting out.

"Yeah, yeah.  Tell you what.  If this Caesar fracker helps us get out
of this, I'll give it a whirl.  Jim?  You teach me?"

Jim felt a bit of heat kindle in his belly, and thought he might pull
everything off yet.  If he was lucky and good.  Although lucky might
end up playing the bigger role.

"Count on it," he said.

Then he told them about Caesar and the Battle of Alesia.

 A younger boy named Elwood knocked on the of the small storeroom
Ferrick had converted into his post.  "Yeah.  Come in," Ferrick said.

Elwood entered.  He was seventeen, tall, and very getting his growth.
His Adam's apple stuck out and when he talked.  Ferrick had once seen a
nature rid about earth snake, maybe a python, eat inga goat.  The goat
down the python in jerky little jumps.  Elwood's Adam's reminded him of
that.

Elwood had curly hair the color of carrots, cut close side, blooming in
a pile of tight curls on top.  His ears and his nose was a first-class
honker.  It was easy to mate Elwood.  Ferrick had never made that
mistake.  never seemed to get too hot or too cold.  It was hard to just
what he did get.  Ferrick had groped around for finally decided the
best description of Elwood was... Nothing ever seemed to upset him, but
you didn't him interested.  He'd have that alertly placid, interested
expression on his kisser while he sawed your head off.  watching to see
what came out of the hole in your neck.  He', scared Ferrick sometimes.
But he was about the Ferrick knew, besides Jim and Kerry, and he knew
orders.  They'd been noodling around with the idea of teaching him
about computers.  Elwood was interested too, and Ferrick had given some
thought to the transferring Elwood's interest to someth'ling a little
more relative than outright murder.  Not that outright murder a place
sometimes .... Ferrick was stroking the edge of his bowie on a thin
whetstone, one slow, careful scrape after another.  watched for a few
seconds--he liked knives, found them esting--then hunkered down next to
Ferrick, and said, doing a good job."

"Tell me," Ferrick said.

"She's been playing around with that Kolumban shit,

 She defrosted a bunch of it and figured out how to use galley
equipment.  Been trying to cook it so it don't taste as as it looks."
"Is that what that bowl of brown shit was?"

"Yeah, I guess.  Mine was yellow and blue," Elwood said.  "How'd yours
taste?"

Ferrick glanced up from his work.  "Like brown shit."

Elwood nodded.  "I don't think there's no such thin gas yellow and-blue
shit, but if there was, that's what mine tasted like, tOO."

"Did it kill anybody?."

"Nah.  Nobody even got sick, last I heard."

"Good.  Jim said we could eat it okay."

Elwood settled down until his legs stuck out in front of him and his
back was against the wall.  "About this Jim guy," he said, and then
stopped.

Ferrick's knife stopped moving.  "What about him?"  "Uhm, don't take
this wrong, okay?."  "Spit it out, Elwood."

Elwood knit his long, knobby fingers together, stared down at them like
they were of intense interest.  Like maybe he would eat them or
something.

"I know you top guys, you and Kerry, seem to kiss his ass a lot.  But
you know, he ain't even been beat in yet."

Ferrick leaned back, closed his eyes, exhaled, the movement causing his
lips to flap softly together.  Bronx cheer, though he'd never heard of
the Bronx.

"So you think maybe we're dealing too much with somebody we don't know
exactly how strong his loyalties are?  Somebody not a real Cowboy?."

Elwood looked away.  "You the one said it, not me."

Ferrick set the knife aside, began to pull absently on his lower lip.
He'd been afraid this would happen, been expecting it, actu ally, but
he'd hoped not this soon.  Still, now that it had come up, he'd have to
deal with it.

He knew that Elwood wasn't dumb, just ignorant.  Ignorant meant
uneducated, and didn't have anything to do with how Smart you were.
He'd educated himself about computers.  Some other stuff as well,
things he'd decided he should know more about.  So he was still
ignorant, but not as ignorant as Elwood.

 He thought everybody was probably ignorant about a things, though Jim
came closer to not being ignorant, in a eral way, than anybody else he
knew.  Jim, with his and his natural smarts, always seemed to know at
least thing about almost everything.

He tried to think how to explain this to Elwood, who stood his world on
an instinctive level, though not really intellectual level.  Elwood
sort of knew how things should without having much of a clue why they
worked that Ferrick had taken the trouble to learn about the why, at
about some things.  He figured it gave him an Besides, when he was in
the mood, he liked learning made him feel powerful, somehow, to know
stuff other didn't.

It was called sociology.  It was an actual science, like or something,
though he got the idea it wasn't quite as say, mathematics.  You could
add two and two and up with four, but when you tried to do the same
thing pie, the answers were often different.  But allowing for there
was a lot of stuff out there about how people with each other.  There
was even a subset of sociology "gang studies," and he'd spent a lot of
time boning up

So make it a little exam for Elwood.  See whether he ing himsef, or
whether Elwood actually had real

He picked up the knfe again, started stroking.  "Elwood, do you think a
gang is for?"

Elwood blinked.  "Huh?  What do you mean?"

Ferrick gestured with the knife.  "Why do you think exist?  You think
about it, it's sort of stupid, eh?  Bunch stick together, start doing
illegal shit, fight all the time.  the girls, tell their own families
to sere off, at least the who have families.  So why?  How come it
happens that "You're serious, aren't you?"

"As a bullet in the brain, Elwood."

"Ho.  Um, well."  Elwood scrunched his forehead,

Finally, he said slowly, "I was gonna say it's just natural happens.
But that isn't quite it.  The most natural thing is lies.  The way
people stick together.  Morn and Pop and the They're all related, see?
Got the blood.  And the... I dunno.  instincts."

 'qhat's good, Elwood," FelTick said.  "Keep on going."

Elwood warmed up.  Now he was interested, and his eyes, the shifting
gray colors of a spring storm cloud, began to glow.  "So if you take
kids away from their families, which they'd naturally be a part of if
things was normal, then they miss them."

"Why?  Why miss them?"

""Cause you get shit from being with your family."  Elwood looked down
at his hands again.  "Not just like money or food or stuff, okay?.  But
like closeness.  Loyalty.  Uh ... like..."  He stopped, embarrassed.

"It's okay, you can say it," Ferrick told him.  "I won't rank you."  He
snorted.  "I'd be the last one to do that."

"Yeah," Elwood said, his cheeks dusting with pink.  "Love.  Kids want
to be loved, right?  I did.  Didn't you?"

""Course I did, Elwood.  So if you don't have a family where you get
all that shit, the closeness, the understanding, loyalty and.."  love,
what do you do?"

"Maybe you go look for it.  See if you can find it somewhere else."  He
brightened.  "Like the Cowboys."  Abruptly he reached up and slammed
his fist against his chest.  "The Cowboys are my family."

"They are, huh?"

Elwood went on, really rolling with it now.  "Sure.  Even better than a
family, 'cause people understand me.  Everybody's like me, knows the
same shit.  Not like parents, all the time trying to make you do
useless shit, never understanding what life is like."

Ferrick eyed him, surprised to find his own interest ignited.  "But the
Cowboys tell you what to do.  We got rules, you break them, we mess you
up a lot worse than Mommy or Daddy would ever do."

"Sure.  But I don't mind.  Nobody minds.  "Cause it's fair.  The rules
are part of the game, and we all know them.  We all agree to them."

"Some don't.  A few."

"Sure, but there's always assholes.  And when that happens, we kick
them out."

"Just like some kids get kicked out by their own families."  "That's
different."

"Is it, Elwood?  Is it really?."

Elwood's blush deepened.  He thought he'd made some kind of

 mistake, made himself look stupid.  His first reaction mad, but he
looked up and saw FelTick staring at him, Like he was really curious.
So he dug a little deeper, the answer.

"I think so," he said.  "See, you don't get a choice ab family.  You're
born into it, nobody asks you.  Or either, maybe your family would
rather not have you.  gets a choice.  But you have to choose to join
the And .. . the gang has to choose you!"

"Long time ago, in the old cities, some people used : everybody
belonged to a gang because, well, everybody to a gang.  It was the
thing to do.  They called it peer

Elwood stared at him.  "Sounds to me like somebody..i know shit about
gangs, then."

"Oh?"

"If everybody could be in a gang, what would be the would just be part
of the way things were.  Like choice.  Not for you, not for the
gang."

'That's really it, isn't it?  The choice?  And that not body can
choose?  Or be chosen?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's it.  Peer pressure, that's bullshit."  FelTick
shifted.  He'd been leaning slightly forward, intently, and now his
bruised back protested.  He trying for a more comfortable position.

"Well, I'll tell you a little secret, Elwood.  It isn't shit."

"Sure it is.  You know it."

"Not after you make your choice.  Not after you get gang  There's more
than a thousand Cowboys.  And most body follows the rules.  How come
that is?  What keeps line?"  "

"Well, people like you, Kerry, Darnell.  Maybe a little kicking here
and there."  He grinned.  "You know I've share with my own crew."

"But could me or Kerry kick everybody's asses?"  shook his head.  "Not
hardly.  We don't need to, though.  somebody starts acting like an
asshole, breaking the everybody will kick his ass.  "Cause everybody
agrees rules, and agrees we should all follow them."

 -Uhm yeah.  I guess you're right.  I never thought about it that way
exactly."

"That's peer pressure, Elwood.  Peer means equal.  Your equals put the
screws on you if you mess up.  And in the Cowboys, first thing is,
we're all equal.  We're all Cowboys."

Okay."

"Which is why Jim makes you nervous.  Or did you know that already?"

Elwood gave his head a little puzzled shake.  "I don't follow."

The first thing you said about him was he hadn't been beaten in."

Well, yeah.  And it's true, ain't it?"

"Sure.  But Kerry and me, we aren't bothered.  We deal with the guy.
You trust us, right?  So how come you still got a bat up your butt
about it?"

""Cause you treat him like one of us.  Like a real Cowboy, and he ain't
one.  Not yet."

"Ice out, Elwood.  You ain't wrong.  In fact, you're right."

It surprised him.  "I am?"

"Course you are.  You may not know"--Ferrick tapped his own
forehead--"up here, exactly why, but you are right."

So tell me."

""Cause Jim hasn't chosen.  Kerry chose him, so the Cowboys chose him,
but Jim himself hasn't made his own choice.  It's not two ways yet. And
until Jim accepts our own rules, goes through the initiation, gets
beaten in, whatever, he's not a peer.  He's not an equal.  He's not a
Cowboy.  And until he is, you're right not to trust him."

Elwood fell silent.  After a while he looked up.  "Do you trust him,
Ferrick?  From what I hear, you guys are depending on him pretty
heavy."

Ferrick had stopped whetting his blade.  Now he started again, the
steel making slow scritching noises against the stone.

"I trust him for some things," Ferrick said slowly.  'he things he
knows about."  He looked up, and for a moment his eyes were very cold,
like raisins after a frost.  "But trust him like a Cowboy, like family,
like a brother?.  He knows a lot of shit, but he doesn't know about us.
Not really.  So, hell, no, I don't trust him that Way!"

 Ferrick gave the blade a final vicious swipe and grinned, and
somebody who didn't know him might thought it was a cheery expression.
But Elwood knew him.

"And I won't, not until I've personally busted him mouth a couple of
times, and he's an official, Cowboy."

"That's good enough," Elwood said.

"Better be," Ferrick replied.  "It's true."

Elwood left a couple of minutes later.  Ferrick mumble something just
beyond the doorway, talking to body, then Kerry walked in.  He stood
for a second, down, grinning at him.  Then, slowly, he raised his began
to clap, his grin growing wider.

"What the frack's that for?"  Ferrick asked.

"I stood outside, couldn't help listening to your little Ferrick's gaze
darkened.  "Yeah?  You got a problem

I said or something?."

"No, no, not at all.  You surprise me sometimes, Kerry came over,
squatted.  "You really do."

"Why?.  "Cause I'm not a total dumb-ass all the time?  you, Kerry."

"Hey.  I didn't mean it that way.  You were right.  Not really
understands the .. . dynamics .. . of something Cowboys, but you got it
down."

Ferrick bobbed his head, still not sure whether to be pleased.  "All
right."

"But you left out one thing, and I'm curious.  Whether it on purpose,
or hadn't thought about it."

"What's that?"

"For us, for you and me--and for Elwood, too,

184 "

 might not quite have it figured out yet--there ain't any more
Cowboys.  The Cowboys are dead and gone for us, they belong to Darnell
now.  I don't know what we are, but we aren't Cowboys.  Not any
longer."

"I know," Ferrick said.

"But you didn't say anything to Elwood.  How come?"

""Cause it don't matter.  We may not be Cowboys, but if we get out of
this shit we'll be something.  We'll still be a gang.  And the same
rules will apply."

Kerry eyed him somberly.  "Will they, Ferrick?"

Ferrick looked up in surprise.  "What the hell are you saying,
Kerry?"

"Something you should consider," Kerry replied.  "Something you should
think about."  Then he tapped him once on the knee, nodded, got up, and
left.

Jim's brain felt like somebody had spread it out and gone
roller-skating on it.  They were into the third day of the standoff
now, and he'd made all the adjustments he could think of.  He hadn't
mentioned it to Kerry and Ferrick, but Caesar had known a couple of
other things, too: the main thing being that in a battle, no matter how
good your plans were, you could always count on something going wrong.
Which wasn't much help, unless you knew exactly what one thing would go
wrong, and you never did.

Their plans to take the ship had foundered on one insignificant item:
The Kolumbans had managed to get a blast door closed with two of them
on the wrong side of it.  So until they removed those two, they
couldn't just rip the wall open over the control panel and open the
door from the outside.

One little thing, and it had screwed the whole deal.  He'd spent

 the last three days coming up with a different way.  Who have thought
he'd need a good cook to make the new work?

The good cook turned out to be a pudgy,

named Hunky.  Hunky had a button nose, watery hazel and an earnest,
peering look to him, like he was always about to ask a question. But he
had a way with cooking, a natural talent.  He could just smell
something and have a pretty idea if it was any good.  He was a little
out of his depth Kolumban recipes, though.  After try inga couple of
ideas, told Sam it wasn't working.  Early this morning Sam had Jim.

"But I don't know much about cooking," Jim said.  "No, but maybe you
can figure out this Kolumban found something that looks like recipes in
a computer galley, but I don't know for sure."

"Oh.  All right, I'll take a look."

Now he, Sam, and Hunky were all gathered around a terminal as
impenetrable squiggles danced across the

"Can you read this shit?"  Sam asked.

"Nah.  Neither can my tablet."  Jim waved the small unit, established
an infrared relay between the tablet and the terminal, but without a
Kolumban database, the tablet translate.

'rhen we're screwed," Hunky said.  He was sweating.

ley was the warmest place on the ship.

"Maybe not," Jim said, running his fingers across screen touch pad of
menus.  "Well, okay.  Look there," he tered.

"What?"  Sam said, peering over his shoulder.  'rhose are Alban
characters.  Let's see'eft they've got translator function built in."
He fiddled with the controls a tapping one icon, then another, and
finally the entire changed.

'rhere we go," he said.  "Wait a minute."  He switched to tablet.
"Okay.  This may not be perfect."  A printer the terminal whirred into
action, then spit out a sheet of plasticized paper.  Jim picked it up,
looked at it, nodded.

"They use smart type.  Just tap the corner of the paper you want a new
recipe.  Like I said, it may not be

 been translated from Kolumban to Alban to English--but Sam says
you're a talented guy, Hunky.  You'll figure it out."

Hunky's plump cheeks turned the color of ripe strawberries.  "She did?"
he said, his voice rough, husked with wonder.  He wouldn't look at
her.

Oh, Jesus, Jim thought.  She's got another one in love with her.  He
felt some sympathy, but it was tempered with a certain jealousy.  He
slapped the other boy on one meaty shoulder.

"How soon can you come up with some stuff?."

Hunky was holding the sheet in one greasy hand, scanning it.  This
looks pretty simple.  I think I know what most of the ingredients are. 
We've been through this galley pretty good."

"If you run into any markings you can't understand, let me know, and
we'll try the dual translation thingagain.  Cook up something that
smells good, Hunky."

Hunky nodded.  "This afternoon be okay?"

"Yeah.  That would be great."

Jim wondered if Caesar had ever hinged an entire battle on something as
un warlike as a delicious-smelling home-cooked meal.

Maybe not, but if he'd had to, he would have dealt with it.  Not many
people understood, but that was the real lesson Caesar taught. Whatever
it was, deal with it.

 n the morning of the fourth day, Kerry woke and said, "Something's
happening with the Authority.  inter come."

Jim sat up, blinking, his back aching from the he'd cobbled together
out of some cargo rugs they'd mouth tasted like a pigeon graveyard:
Thank God you die from morning mouth.

"Come on, come on," Kerry said, snapping his imgers vously.  "This
ain't nursery school."

Jim climbed to his feet, groaned, ran one hand through that felt like a
nest of greasy straw.  "What are they doing

Kerry was halfway out the door, He paused, looked shoulder.  "I think
they're getting ready to fire on the ship."

"Slow down, wait for me," Jim said.

Ferrick was waiting for them at the entry port, with a of three heavily
armed boys.  He scowled, cradling his terblaster as he squinted through
the inch-wide opening

 left when they pushed the outer lock shut.

"Anything new?."  Kerry said, as he and Jim came up.

"No.  They're still milling around out there, screwing with that cannon
thing."  He stepped back from the door and motioned for a very tall,
extremely thin boy to take his place.  "Keep an eye, Elwood.  If
somebody gets too close, shoot them."

Elwood nodded.  Jim thought he looked like a jug-eared geek, like he
couldn't hurt a flea.  Then he looked again.  There was something
unsettling about Elwood's mild gray eyes, a weird calm that didn't fit
the tension of the moment.  He looked like he might find shooting
somebody, or a whole lot of somebodies, quite interesting.  In a
detached sort of way, like stepping on bugs.

Jim moved up next to Elwood and took a look.  About two hundred yards
away were gathered half a dozen blue-uniformed proctors, in front of
maybe a hundred uncomfortable rankers who looked way out of their
depth.  Breaking up fights or cleaning up after accidents was one
thing.  An alien ship appearing out of nowhere was another.  They all
stared nervously at the ship, as if it might blow up at any moment.

Hell, it might, Jim thought.

In their midst was a square, squat, aluminum-colored shape with a
heavy, bell-shaped barrel.  The wide end of the barrel was aimed
directly at the door--to Jim, it was like looking down a chrome-plated
well.  He stared at it a long moment, trying to figure it out.

"You should have got me up," Jim said, as he and the other two
retreated several paces from the door.

"The doofus we had watching the door didn't notice anything out of the
ordinary until they started yelling at us with a loud hailer," Ferrick
said, disgusted.  "By the time he sent somebody for me, and I sent for
Kerry, and Kerry had, a look for himseK..."  He shrugged.  "You know
the drill.  Screwups all around."  He shook his head.  "Too late to
worry about it.  What do we do now?."

"First thing, we stay cool," Jim said.  "I'm not sure that thing is
really even a cannon.  It doesn't look like one.  Kerry, you said you
had a pipe into the proctor armory.  They have any cannon?"

Kerry shook his head.  "But they've had three days, and they've got all
the manufacturing capability in the there.  Maybe they built one."

"Yeah, I guess they could have.  But it can't be a You're not gonna get
through a deep-space hull balls at it.  No matter how fast you toss
them."

"Huh," Ferrick said.  "That's right.  I never thought of "Don't get me
wrong," Jim said.  'rhey probably cobbled thing together, unless that
thing is a total fake that's posed to scare us out."

"Fhat'd be pretty stupid, even for proctors," Kerry said.

"You said they were yelling something through a Anybody think to record
it?"

"I doubt it," Ferrick replied.  I'll go get the kid who

He rubbed his chin.  "He's not the hottest chip in the unit, though."

Jim waved him off.  "I'That's okay.  It doesn't really knew they'd make
a move eventually, counted on it.  So the thing to find out is if this
is their move.  And what kind of they think it is."

"What are you gonna do, just ask them?"  Kerry said.  "That's usually
the easiest way, yeah," Jim replied.

areful," Ferrick told Elwood.  "Watch those trackers," Elwood nodded,
edged back from the door a bit, leveled heavy-duty battle laser at the
widening opening.  Ferrick him, the huge barrel-snouts of his scatter
blaster also targets beyond the door.

"Open it just wide enough for them to see me, and for get in and out,"
Jim said.  "If they're gonna shoot at us thing, whatever it is, let's
give them as few targets as we can.V

"The main one being you," Kerry said.  "You sure you go?  It really
ought to be me."

 "If we're gonna negotiate, the more respect we get, the better off we
are.  They know you.  Far as they're concerned, you're a crook.  Hell,
you probably been paying off half those guys out there."

Kerry spread his hands.  "What can I say?  A little more than half,
actually.  Of the honchos, at least."

"You said I didn't act like a Pleb, or sound like one.  Maybe that will
be an advantage.  A small one, but something."

"I think those guys want to shoot somebody, and they won't be real
concerned about your social standing if that somebody turns out to be
you," Kerry observed.  "I'hey gotta be going nuts by now."

Jim quirked his lips.  "So let's give them something to really worry
about."

Kerry slapped him on the back.  "I'm behind you one thou sand percent."
He paused, grinned as he gauged the distance from the ship to the
proctors.  "And about two hundred yards."

"Good enough," Jim said.  "Let's see what they have to say."

Almost twenty-five hundred years before Jim found himself surrounded
from the inside and the outside, Julius Caesar had faced a similar
situation with the great Gaulish leader Vercingetorix, whom he'd pinned
up in the fortress town of Alesia.

Jim had known of the battle, but hadn't really studied it until he
realized just how many similarities there were between his current
situation and the problems the first of the Caesars had faced--and
dealt with.

He doubted if many people had ever heard of the great Julius
Caesar--the man who had made his own name come to mean "leader"---or
especially of his finest military moment, at Alesia.  The aliens
wouldn't know Caesar, and it was a fair guess the proctors hadn't
studied him either.  Worse for them.

They hadn't pulled the lock-door quite wide enough,

had to turn sideways to get past it.  As soon as he got other side,
standing on top of the mobile boarding ladder, as if he'd moved into
the center of a naked target.

The Authority had brought up lights, lots of them, powered spotlights
that gave the dark steel walls of the washed-out look; they'd turned on
all the banks well.  The whole vast area looked like the biggest stage
world.  Jim felt as welcome as a cockroach on a wedding

Two of the half dozen blue uniforms gathered around non had a lot of
silver braid on their shoulders.  As soon stepped out onto the boarding
stairway and looked them, they began to yammer rapidly at each other.
got red in the face and waved their arms around before reaching some
sort of agreement.  The larger of the two, an tuous bald man with a
gray fringe and a pitted nose who like a debauched preacher, out of
place in a military left the group and lumbered hesitantly forward
until he few feet away from the bottom of the stairs.

He held a holocube in his hand.  He looked down at it,

Jim, then back down.  "James Evanston," he said finally.  'hat's me."

"No, it's not.  We've figured out that much.  What we figured out is
who you really are."  "Okay," Jim said.  "Got me."  "So who are you?"

Jim shrugged.  'That's not the real problem, is it?"  He waved one hand
toward the alien ship at his back.  problem, right?  What's your
name?"

The question threw the preacher-genial off a little.  He used to asking
questions, not answering them.  He blinked.

call me Colonel Brian," he said.

"Call me Jim."

Keep pushing him.  Don't let him think, Jim told himself.  "Yes, uh,
well."  Colonel Brian's gaze wandered, as if he'd gotten for a moment
why he was there.  He caught himself started over.  "Listen, whoever
you are--"

"---Jim," Jim said.

"--uhm, yes, Jim.  All right.  Enough of this.  You are to

 that ship immediately and surrender to the Authority, you and the
rest of your gang.  Surrender to me.  The aliens aboard the vessel,
too.  Whoever they are."

"It doesn't matter, does it?  Who they are?  Who I am?  I'm not the
problem, this ship is.  The aliens want to leave, and you've got their
ship locked in."

"We can do something about that," the colonel said.

"You'd better think about it before you do anything.  What do you think
the situation is?"  Jim asked.

"Well."  Brian jerked a thumb in the direction of the small army of
Authority proctors drawn up behind him.  "We've got you outnumbered,
for one thing.  And surrounded."

Ah, Alesia, Jim thought.  But he didn't say it, just nodded.  "That's
true," he agreed.  "But that's sort of like saying you've got a
hydrogen bomb surrounded and outnumbered, isn't it?"

The colonel's face seemed to take on a slightly greenish tinge in the
harsh lights; he licked his lips and cleared his throat.  "Maybe so.
We've been monitoring the radiation from the drive.  But if you try to
light that torch while you're in this bay with the entry locks closed,
you're in the middle of the bomb, too.  And you don't look suicidal to
me."

"Appearances could be deceiving," Jim said.  "You ever think of
that?"

Colonel Brian flipped his hand back and forth.  "If you're going to
kill yourselves--and us along with you--then there's nothing we can do.
Nothing to talk about.  I might as well give them the order to shoot
you now, and take our chances."

"Yeah, that would make sense.  If we were both that suicidal.  But what
if I told you that we aren't in control of the ship.  Of its drives?
That we're, ah, caught, in the middle, so to speak."

The colonel's eyes bulged slightly.  He looked at Jim, then at the
ship, then back to Jim again, his returning gaze now colored by a
certain horrified fascination.  "Is that so?"  he said.

"Yeah, that's so," Jim told him.



WILLIAM

Wlat's going on?"  Kerry said when Jim came inside.

"With them, the Authority?.  I don't know.  I don't think they know.  I
shook that fat guy up, though, told him we in charge of the ship.  He
thought maybe we should let come in, let them handle the aliens.  And
surrender ourselv course.  He promised us light terms in the brig.
That's what said, light terms."

"Colonel Brian," Kerry snickered.  "I know him."

"Yeah, he gets real nervous whenever your name comes

"He should.  I've been doubling his Authority paycheck since I came
aboard.  He's director of public security."

"What does that mean, exactly, director of public securi

"Head cop and chief bagman," Kerry said.  "He collects bribes for the
rest of the bigwigs,"

"So the last thing he needs is you getting arrested in a deal he can't
sweep under the rug?.  Something where the temptation for you to spill
your guts might become overwhelm Huh.  I bet your term in the brig
would be real light.  Just you croaked in some unfortunate accident."

"Something like that.  I hadn't quite thought of it that way, from his
point of view, me getting suddenly dead wouldn't bad deal at all.  For
him, at least .... " Kerry said.

"Probably the rest of us, too.  His idea of the best sol ut would be if
we all died resisting arrest

"Well, we're gonna resist," Kerry said.

 Ferrick was halfway into another wall they'd ripped down in a
corridor that had been badly torn up in the initial attack.  Insulation
billowed from the ceiling and hung down like gray Spanish moss.  The
pungent odor of burnt plastic and fire suppressant hung heavy in the
air.  Somebody had found a couple of portable emergency lights and
focused them on the hole in the wall, giving the whole scene the flat,
chill glare of an operating room.

"Any luck?"

Ferrick, stripped to the waist, pulled out of the hole.  His face was
streaked with grime, his hair a gooey mass plastered flat on his large
skull.  He swiped at his eyes, sniffed, wiped his nose on the back of
his arm, shook his head.  "Nah.  I thought we could tap into their comm
by cracking the hardwiring, but whatever they're doing, they aren't
using the ship's interior systems.  Hell, maybe they're tapping Morse
code on the hull or something."

Jim stuck his head in the cavity, peered around at the tangle of
scorched wiring, shook his head.  "What a rat's nest.  What do you
think?  Worth keeping at it?"

"Probably not," Ferrick said, shaking his head.  "But it would be nice
to know what the apes are saying to the Authority.  If they're talking
at all."

"Unless the Authority opens up the bay and lets them go,

their choices are somewhat limited," Jim said.

"So are ours," Ferrick said dourly.

Jim clapped him on the shoulders.  "Don't give up yet.  Remember
Alesia."

"Huh.  I never heard of Alesia before you brought it up."

"Well, let's hope the apes and the Authority haven't either."

A deafening clap of thunder rolled down the hallway, a shock wave so
powerful it sent them both staggering.  Jim went to his hands and
knees, head down, shaking his head.  His nose began to bleed.

Ferrick grabbed him by one arm and dragged him to his feet.  "Come on,
let's go," he said.  "It's started."

 y the time Jim ran into the galley, he had self together.  Sam, her
hair and eyes wild, was ladling some hot green sludge into a pair of
large bowls, i

Hunky steadily piled onto oversize plates something and smelled like
runny pig shit.

"What was that?"  Sam yelled.  "I felt it, then Kerry came running in
and told us to get everything ready."  Jim groped for an answer.  The
explosive force, the sound .. . he remembered something.."  got it. 
The must have built a sonic cannon," Jim said.  "As long shields are
down, the hull will actually amplify the It won't kill us, but they can
rattle us around like blender."

As if to punctuate his thought, another blast came through the ship. It
felt to Jim as if somebody was pair of anvils over his eardrums. Sam
dropped the bowl working with, scattering the foul-smelling gunk all
deck.

"Shit!"  She whirled.  "Hunky, is there more soup?  No?  we'll split
the big bowl into two smaller ones and hope She looked at Jim.  "I'm
sorry."

Jim patted her shoulder.  "Nothing ever works said.  "It's not really a
sit-down dinner.  All they have to be do is see it and smell it."

Sam looked down at the mess on the floor and wrinkled nose.  'lney'll
be able to smell it, anyway

Ferrick stuck his head around the corner.  "Sam!  Move it!  Kerry's at
the front lock.  He wants you to meet him paused.  "Plug your ears with
something.  The noise is worse i there."  "

"On my way," Jim said.  Ferrick pulled back into the

Jim heard him racking the charger on his scatter blaster as he raced
away, a harsh, metallic sound.  A killing sound.

Sam headed for the door, a bowl of sloshing alien sludge, her arms. She
stopped, leaned over, gave Jim a peck on

 cheek.  "Don't worry about me, I'll be free," she said breathlessly.
-And you be careful."

Jim started to reach for her, but she spun away and was gone.  "You be
careful too, Sam, he yelled after her.

Hunky pushed past him and vanished.  Jim stood in the silent galley as
a wave of paranoia more devastating than the sonic blast washed over
him.  What if it didn't work?  What if he'd Racked up totally?.

A lot of innocent people might be dead, that's what.  Ten million of
them.

A third sonic boom, this one not quite as painful as the first two,
jarred him out of his funk.  He took a deep breath and started to
run.

Jim came skidding around the corner into the front airlock, where
Ferrick and Elwood were taking potshots at the proctors outside.

Ferrick looked up when he arrived, nodded a terse greeting.  Jim sucked
in some air, and said, "What's going on?"

'rhey've got two more of those sonic cannons set up," Ferrick yelled.
He was talking loud, like a deaf man.  'hey're n-ing them off one after
the other.  If you feel a really solid jolt, it means they've fired two
of them at the same time."  He grimaced.  "I can't wait for them to do
all three."

Elwood paid them no attention, except to say, "Better keep back unless
you've got protection.  It's enough to scramble your brains head-on."
He didn't look up from the gunsight of the high-powered battle laser
resting against his shoulder.

He was wearing a bandage of some thick, absorbent material wrapped
around his head, covering his ears.  He pulled the trigger twice.  The
sound of the laser was like someone burp inga buzz saw.  Elwood's
demeanor was about as Jim had figured it:

 no emotion on his features beyond a calm interest in was doing.  He
might have been watch inga fascinating episode instead of what he was
actually doing: holes in the deck plating two hundred yards away.

"He's right," Ferrick bellowed.  "Here."  He handed Jim set of head
wrappings.  "Sam rigged these up out some Velcro fastenings.  Just wind
them around pretty snug.  They'll hold.  You got earplugs?"

Jim shook his head.

'rake these.  They're made out of wax.  Just push them Jim followed the
directions, just in time to ride out sonic boom.  Though the plugs and
wrap muffled it, it strong enough to push him back.  Elwood swayed,
vibration had fully dissipated, he began firing the laser again.

"Good man, Elwood.  Steady," Ferrick roared, but sounded as if he was
speaking in normal tones.

Jim peeked over Elwood's shoulder.  The masses of had vanished.  He
could see what looked like heads then ducking back down, at makeshift
barricades set up far side of the bay, as far away as they could get
from the The sonic cannon were closer, also masked behind junk steel.

"We're not doing much damage," Ferrick said.

blaster spreads too far at that range.  But nobody out much of a hurry
to rush this frackin' door."

"How long can you keep it that way?."

Ferrick shrugged.  "Until they get a sharpshooter good to pick us off
through that opening.  One with enough stand up and let Elwood and me
shoot at him while he us."  His lips drew back from very white teth,
like a inga concealed razor.  "It'll be a while, in other words."

"Okay.  Soon as you get the word, really start burning Shake them up.
Get them fn-ing those sonic cannon for they're worth.  Make it plain
they aren't getting through door, no matter what they try, till they
take you out."

"We'll let them know, Jim.  Ain't none of them gonna run right into a
scatter blaster

Jim nodded.  "I'd better get going."

 He paused, stuck out one hand.  "If it doesn't work out, Ferrick,
it's been nice knowing you."

The other boy grasped his hand, squeezed, nodded.  "Gotta say one thing
about you, Jim.  Life has a way of getting interesting with you
around."

He hefted his scatter blaster licked his lips, nodded.  "We'll hold
them," he said.  "Long as you don't take forever on the rest of it."

"We won't," Jim said.

you got it done?"  Jim asked Sam.

"Yeah, we made six bowlsful.  You think it will be enough?"

"I hope so," Jim said.  He peered into one of the bowls filled with
sticky goo, wrinkling his nose at the stink.  "Whew."

"I know.  Maybe it would be better to take our chances."

He took her hands.  Her fingers felt cool; but not cold.  She didn't
seem frightened.  He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.  "No,
it wouldn't.  I don't know how long the vacuum will last, but trust me.
You wouldn't want to test it.  Not without a suit."

"All right," she said.  "I think we've got enough plastic sheeting
There are only six ventilator openings, and we've pasted all of them
shut.  Take a look."

She led him over to the nearest wall and pointed up at the ceiling.  A
square vent a foot on a side had been covered over with a thick plastic
sheet glued in place with the adhesive mixture

"Phat goop won't dry, but it's sticky enough to hold the plastic in
place," Sam observed.

"Don't worry, then.  When the rest of the ship decompresses, the air
pressure here in the galley will press the plastic even

 tighter against the holes.  Same thing with the doors.  They pretty
tight seals in the first place.  Smear them good with gunk, and they
oughta be airtight, too.  At worst, they won't very fast.  Enough time
for us to know, one way or the other."

The galley was filling up with most of the Cowboys taken part in the
initial raid.  Only a few would remain Jim watched them as they ambled
in, cracking jokes, chatting.  Cool as penguins.  They had to be
scared, but weren't showing it.

"You'll be okay," he said to Sam, as they walked toward main entry.

She touched his shoulder.  "I want a kiss.  If we don't..."  voice
trailed off.  Suddenly she took him, pulled him close.  her lips on
his... She wore a crooked smile when she stepped back.  "Not best final
clinch," she said.  "But not the worst, either."

Jim took a breath.  "I promise I'll do better.  Later."

She moved him gently out the door.  "If there is a later," said softly,
"I'll let you try."

She closed the door, leaving him staring at the other side.!  moment
later he heard a liquid brushing sound, as they on their makeshift
sealant around the edges.

"God, Sam... "

A huge sonic blast boomed down the corridor and sent spinning.  When he
picked himself up, he could taste the running from his nose down across
his lips and chin.  A more of those, and he wouldn't be good for
anything at all.  :

 "areful,"P Kerry hissed.  "Keep your frackin' head down.  Just push
them out as far as you can."

He and a dark, slender, almond-eyed boy named Saranji were using long
metal poles to push the bowls of steaming alien goodies out across the
no-man's-land before the blast door that led to the bridge.

Jim crouched behind their hasty barricade, watching.  'l'hat's good
enough," he said.  "Either they will or they won't.  If they don't,
then we have to do it the hard way.  Ferrick's way."

Kerry and Saranji dragged their poles back, leaving the bowls and
plates about halfway between their position and the makeshift alien
defense nest by the far door.

Kerry pulled out a hand laser.  "It would be a shame," he said, "to go
through all this if they'd gotten really hungry and croaked.  Haven't
heard anything from them in a long time.  "Course we haven't poked
them, either."

"What are you gonna do?"  Jim asked.

"Poke them," Kerry said, as he rose into a half crouch and fred a
fusillade of sizzling beams at the door.

As soon as he stopped fn-inga pair of bright purple blasts came blazing
back at him.

"That answers that," he said.

Jim nodded.  "Okay.  You ready?.  Saranji, everybody?"

Saranji ran his tongue across his lips, nodded.  Kerry blinked.  "Hell,
I was born ready.  Do it."

Jim took a small two-way dedicated comm unit from his pocket, raised it
to his mouth.  "Ferrick?"  A tinny reply, short and sharp, crackled
softly in the air.  Jim glanced at Kerry.  "Here we go," he said.

He brought the communicator up again.  "Hit them," he said.



lwood and Ferrick must have really stirred up proctorsF Jim yelled.
:::i

Kerry didn't bother to answer.  The proctors were luring trio of sonic
cannon one after the other.  It was like being inside a bell getting
the crap slammed out of it by John the steel-driving man.

Pull back now?."  Kerry mouthed.

Jim nodded.  He put his lips close to Kerry's ear, trying to himself
heard through the protective headgear.  "Let them go, he said.

Kerry raised one hand, waved it in a circular motion.  and the other
two boys with him rose, crouched, scuttled After a moment Jim and Kerry
did likewise.  Jim risked a backward as they pulled out.  He thought he
saw an orange face peering out at him.

They pulled up just around a bend in the corridor and kered down,
grimacing as the sonic bombardment rose to skull-banging crescendo.

"Now what?"  Saranji asked.

"Now we wait," Jim told him.

 Kindra, of the clan At, stared at the steaming bowls and plates only
a few feet away.  "Ur-Barbba says they're a compassionate people," he
muttered.  "Evidently they can cook, too."  He was half out of his
mind, feverish and weak.  In his condition, it didn't seem strange that
the inexplicable humans had put out a food offering and then run
away.

Gallup, also of the clan Ar, was foaming at the mouth, faint with
hunger.  Neither of the Kolumbans had eaten in four days.  Ar-Gallup
was close to death.  Ar-Kindra, his branch brother, was not much
better, though he was still able to move about, still had some of his
wits about him, though starvation fog had dulled him.  He fought the
fog in his brain now, tried to force himself to think.

"It's probably a trick," he said.

Ar-Gallup groaned.  "I don't care," he said.  "If I don't get food, I'm
going to die.  You, too," he said, trying to raise himself.

Ar-Kindra soothed him back down.  "Our tree brothers don't care.  If
they did, they would have let us through the door.  We could have made
it if they'd opened up and given us covering fire."

Ar-Gallup shook his big head back and forth.  "Prop me up so I can see.
Whatever that horrible thunder is, it's driven those humans away.  Who
knows when they'll come back?  Get the food, branch brother.  With food
we can hold out longer.  Without it, we'll die soon."  He grunted,
trying to hitch himself closer to their barricade.  "I'll try to shoot
them if they come back."  "It still smells like a trick."  "Poison?"

"Maybe," Ar-Kindra said.

"Then we die.  And if we don't eat, we die.  But how would they know
what would poison us?  They don't know our metabolism.

They couldn't be sure.  Would they be that reckless?"  Ar-Kindra
thought about it.  "I don't know."  "Get it, branch brother. 
Please."

Ar-Kindra nodded.  He helped Ar-Gallup lean against the barricade
stretched his hand out, positioned the laser pistol.  pull the
trigger," he said.  "Don't worry about trying to hit thing.  The blast
itself should be enough cover for me to back."

Ar-Gallup nodded.  Pink foam was drooling from the his mouth.  "Hurry,"
he whispered.

Ar-Kindra took a deep breath, nerving himself, gripping own laser more
tightly.  Then he lunged around the and headed for the food.  The
sudden movement and, overbalanced, he fell.  Got up, kept on going, his
skin ering beneath his pelt in anticipation of the human's guns.
nothing happened.  He reached the first bowl, plunged into its steaming
contents and, ignoring the burning sucked down several mouthfuls.

"Ar-Kindra .... "Ar-Gallup whispered behind him.  It took enormous
physical and mental effort for pull his snout out of the bowl.  He was
accustomed to nearly a sixth of his great weight a day, just in order
to normal energy levels.  Four days of starvation had turned into a
gigantic bag of bones, with his skin hanging off him oversize, badly
fitting clothes.  He felt barely strong enough to the large bowl, but
he did, and headed back to the barricade.  handed the bowl across.
Ar-Gallup took it, dropped his it, moaned at the heat, but didn't stop
slurping.

Ar-Kindra lurched around, went back for the rest of it.  The bowls were
filled with pookub, the plates with Both tasted pretty much as they
should have.  Ar-Kindra, gourmet, put down any difference to the fact
that humans cooked them.  Probably used recipes from the galley, he as
he gnashed and snarled and-swallowed.  But it was rich filling, and as
he and Ar-Gallup licked he plates and clean, he thought maybe they
might live after all.

Then the Heat began to hit them.

 The sounds were audible even over the proctors' cannonade  A thin,
high-pitched snarling that cut through the air like a bloody knife.

"I'm gonna take a look," Kerry shouted.

"Keep your head down."

Kerry nodded, already creeping forward on his hands and knees.  He
bobbed around the corner, ducked back, then looked again, slower this
time.

dim rapped him on the shoulder.  "What?"

Kerry stood up, hefted his weapon.  "See for yourself," he said, and
stepped out into the main corridor, dim, Saranji, and the others
followed.

The two a/lens had rolled out of their enclosure, scattering plates and
bowls.  They looked like eight-foot-tall scarecrows draped in hairy
rugs as they swayed back and forth, grappling with each other.  One of
them still held a hand laser, but he had forgotten about it, falling
back in his frenzy on older skills of tooth and claw.

They yowled as they tore at each other.  Jim stared, awestruck at the
violence of their battle.  Kerry was frozen, too, They glanced at each
other.

"It hits them quicker and harder than it does us," Jim said.  "God,
yes," Kerry breathed.  "You guessed it right.  From the gloves they
always wore, and the way they vacuum-sealed the packets.  They were
afraid of it."  He looked back at the two screeching, spitting aliens
Then he raised his laser.

"No!"  Jim said.  'qhey're helpless."

"We don't have any time," Kerry answered.  "And one of them has a gun."
Then he cut them both down, with no more emotion than if he'd been
swatting flies.

 et that cover plate off," Jim said.

They'd pushed the two scorched alien corpses to the the corridor, out
of the way, then pulled their makeshift cade back from the blast door.
Now Jim and Kerry stood the control panel.

Kerry glanced at him, then quickly punched every the panel.  Nothing
happened.

"Don't bother with that," Jim said.  'rhey've turned it off t the
inside.  We need to get the panel off, short-circuit the wiring.  And
they have to know we're doing it."

Another series of booms thundered through the ship.  flinched.
"Jesus."

"As long as the Authority is still pounding us, they're inside.  And
that's the way we want it.  Let's get burning."

Kerry raised his laser pistol, set the aperture on hairline, and began
to etch a groove around the edge outer panel.  Saranji handed Jim
another pistol, and Jim his own efforts.  Thirty seconds later, the
metal turned red, yellow, then white.  It began to hiss and drip.

A muffled hooting sounded beyond the blast door.

"They know what we're doing.  They know we're through," Jim said.

Suddenly his skin began to itch.  A quiver ran up his He glanced over,
saw Kerry looking back at him.  was pale as uncooked dough, the skin at
the corners of his pinched.

'rhey're firing up the drivej Kerry said.  "Here we go."

"One way or the other," Jim replied, and turned back to work.
"Hurry."

 Colonel Brian bounced up for a quick look, then slammed back down as
one of Elwood's sizzling bolts nearly parted his balding skull.

"Frack!"  The bay had turned into chaos.  The chuckachucka chatter of
Ferrick's scatter blaster had done as much damage to their nerves as
Elwood's focused sharpshooting had to their barricades.  Brian, along
with the other proctors, was wearing proper headgear, and so the
continuous bellowing of the sonic cannon hadn't bothered them much.  He
tried to imagine what it must be like inside the ship, and shook his
head.

Lieutenant Hasbendorffer, commanding the detachment of proctors, edged
over from his own outpost.  "What do you think?"  the lieutenant
said.

Hasbendorffer had a sanctimonious air about him that Brian had never
much liked.  The slender little man with the black crew cut worked out
every day, and Brian thought that he was the source of the jokes about
Brian's weight that made the rounds with uncomfortable regularity.
Those jokes had the same sneering tone Brian believed he detected in
Hasbendorffer's own speech, which Brian thought often verged on the
insubordinate.  Not that the lieutenant allowed his selfrighteousness
to interfere with taking his own share of the Cowboy loot.

What the hell was going on with those people?  This Jim what'shisname,
where had he come from?  And why had the Cowboys shut off the flow of
Heat?  And this alien vessel... Brian had told his own people to go
over the hacks in the Authority computers.  There were so many it
looked as if some of the Cowboys had taken up virtual residence in the
main cores.  But the pattern was plain.  This ship, or one like it, had
visited the colony many times, and each visit had been carefully
concealed by altering the computers themselves.  The computers were a
weak point that nobody had figured.  They made a perfect cover for the
alien visits.  And those visits, once his own experts had analyzed the
pattern, correlated perfectly with upsurges in

 the supply of Heat, so the aliens were probably the source of dope.
But what had gone wrong this time?  Why was the still here?

So many questions.  Too many.  And no time to fred

Not everybody in the Authority was on the take.  If this much longer,
the danger of his own corruption being would rise exponentially.  And
he had enemies, powerful roles, who would know how to use the
knowledge.  They destroy him.  Maybe it was time to think about making
his unscheduled departure .... "We're not gonna be able to kill those
trackers," he to Hasbendorffer.  "We can't even get past that airlock."
He nervous fingers across the top of his head.  "Damn.  Why the
Authority stock a few mobile battle platforms in armory?"

When Hasbendorffer replied, for once he didn't sound cilious, he just
sounded dazed.  "For what?  To blast holes in colony walls?  Nobody
ever thought ... Christ, Brian, Hunzzan warship there."

Colonel Brian didn't keep up with galactic politics--or tary
capabilities--as well as Hasbendorffer did.  what the tenant said
stunned him.

"Hunzzan7 Jesus, you think those are Hunzza aboard?"  "Hell no.  If it
was, if that was the Hunzzan navy there, just send out a squad of
marines and go through all Hasbendorffer waved one hand at the huddled
molten steel through your guts."

Colonel Brian shuddered faintly.  Neither the thought Hunzzan space
marines, nor Hasbendorffer's vivid imagery, very reassuring.

He shook his head.  "We're gonna have t'let them go."  "Leave those
assholes out there doing God knows what?  you crazy?  With what they
know, they've got our balls in back pocket."  : "Yeah, yeah, but
what--"

Brian stopped, a look of horror suddenly blooming on pasty features.
"Did you feel that?"

Lieutenant Hasbendorffer looked like he'd swallowed a egg.  Oh,
God--"

mt hey firing up the drive again," Brian finished.

 feels like somebody dipped my nerves in poison ivy!"

"What are we gonna do?"

Colonel Brian started knee-walking toward the portable shielded comm
unit.  "What the frack you think I'm gonna do?  I'm gonna open the
tracking bay doors!"

The air outside the blast door reeked of fried metal, of scorched
Kolumban, of human sweat.  Kerry had his arms around Jim from the back,
bracing him against the bulkhead while he worked on the wiring behind
the melted faceplate.  The other three boys, clutching their weapons,
watched tensely.

"Damn, I can't tell," Jim said.  "They may have shorted out the whole
damned thing from the other side.  Or we may have melted something when
we cut our way in."

Kerry gritted his teeth.  The Kolumbans were still running their main
drives through the ignition checklist, bringing the massive gray
thrusters up to full ready status.  The electronic blowback, rippling
invisibly through the ship, made Kerry feel as if he'd been dipped in a
nest of fire ants.

"They're gonna blow us outta here, or blow us up, one or the other,"
Kerry said.  "Better hurry."

Jim sliced open the edge of his right hand on a piece of sharp metal as
he reached for a new batch of wires.  Blood from his nose had crusted
on his lips and chin.  Sweat flooded into his eyes, burning like hot
off.  And he itched.

"I'm going as fast as I frackin'--"

The ship shifted.  A moment later they felt the entire vessel vibrate.
It was a different sound than the sonic cannons, sharper, heavier.  As
if in response, the cannon fell silent.

"They're opening the bay doors," Jim breathed.  He swiped at his eyes,
spattering his face with fresh blood.  "Better hang on."

"You got it figured out yet?"

 "No," Jim replied.

'rhen we're gonna be--"

"--hang on," Jim said again.

Kerry grunted with effort as the ship lurched, then lifted what felt
like full-grav thrust.  He staggered, but he hung on.

That was the first thing, the sudden onrush silence.  They'd grown so
used to the bellowing roar of the cannon that when it ceased, they
stopped and stared at other, stunned.

"We're out of the bay," Kerry breathed.

Jim unwrapped the protective gear from his head.  His rang, a weird
tinnitus caused by the cessation of noise, hangover.

"What?"

"I said--" Kerry stopped, unwrapped his own skull,

head.  "Sorry," he said, in a normal tone.  "Still yelling, I

The motion of the ship had steadied out.  Somewhere in distance
something clanged, heavily.  "What was that?"

"Don't know," Jim said tensely.  "If they're gonna do it,

do it now."

"Decompress the ship."

"Yeah, like killing rats.  That's what they probably figure for, rats
infesting their ship.  So blow the air out on our side this door and
sweep the bodies out later."

Another clang, and then a sudden, sighing hiss.  Kerry ively gulped in
air, though there was as yet no change in the pressure.  His already
pale features turned color of fresh paper.

"We're not gonna get that damned door open in time," he Jim reached
down, grabbed the butt of the .75, and the big hand weapon from his
belt.  "Yes we are," he said.

 He stepped back, pushing Kerry out of the way.  "If they've frozen
the circuits, that's what's holding the door shut.  So if there aren't
any circuits anymore---"

"Just do it," Kerry hissed.  "Shoot the damned thing."

Jim nodded, lifted his pistol, aimed, and pulled the trigger.  The
vast, bell-like tone, louder in the enclosed space than anything the
sonic cannon had achieved, blew them all the way across the room.  The
guts of the control panel vaporized in a white flash, half-blinding
them.

Jim recovered first, blinking, shaking his head.  He couldn't hear
anything.  But the greasy smoke billowing from the panel told him
everything he needed to know.  Instead of hanging in the air, it was
flowing with increasing speed back down the corridor like a ghost being
sucked down a drain.

"Iliey've got a lock open somewhere," Jim said.  "Hope you like
breathing vacuum.  Remember what I told you."  Then he flung himself at
the blast door.

Ferrick and Elwood pushed at the front airlock, trying to shove it
closed, trying to shut the last half inch of clear space.  Air roared
past them, tugged at the wrappings on their heads, made an odd,
low-pitched whistling sound, like blowing across the neck of a bottle,
as it rushed out into the vacuum of space.  "Push, damn it," Ferrick
grunted.

"I'm pushing," Elwood replied, his voice odd, high, and frightened

"Push harder, then."

"Did I ever tell you my worst nightmare?  Had it since I was a little
kid.  That I drowned, that my lungs fill up with water, and I couldn't
breathe .... "

"Shut up," Ferrick said.  "Just frackin' shut up."

And the wind roared.

 Push, damn it, push!"  Jim yelled.  He felt his ears the air pressure
lowered.  Like climb inga mountain,

higher and higher, the air getting thinner Except at the of this
mountain there was no air at all.

Suddenly his nose was bleedingagain.  He ignored it.  bloody hand
slipped, and he almost fell.  He steadied and grabbed the long
emergency bar set into the middle of blast door.  It was the only
leverage they had.

Kerry grunted, saving his breath, and pushed.

Now a low, moaning sound Idled the chamber and rise higher.  Like
holding the neck of a balloon and letting the out.

"Remember, don't take a deep breath.  Empty out your

If we get full vacuum, and you've got air, your chest explode!"  Jim
said.  "Exhale and keep your mouth open to equalize the pressure.  That
will give us a few more secondsI"

"Yeah, yeah .... "

Jim bit his lip, tasted more blood.  His vision was black at the edges,
and white dots had begun to dance in center of things.  The world was
dimming out.  His skin stretched, tight.

"Exhale!"  he shouted, but it came out as a squeak, audible.  He felt
Kerry's breath hot on his neck, blowing out.

Full vacuum came like a fire on the skin, like a thunder in ears.  Jim
closed his eyes before all the moisture boiled off eyeballs.  They had
maybe thirty seconds, and then the inside their bodies would begin to
vaporize, and cells explode .... Push push push push push, .. .

He felt the sound through his palms.  Had to, because didn't travel in
a vacuum.  A soft, gritty scrape, then The blast door gave the tiniest
of hitches, and he felt scrape, longer this time.

Push]

A sharp, grinding scream as the door, frozen in place



IO

almost four days, finally began to slide in its tracks.  And kept on
sliding, sliding, sliding all the way open.

Oxygen rushed out from the other side, a vast torrent of precious air,
filling the corridor, filling the ship.  Jim staggered, his chest
heaving.  He felt Kerry hanging on to his shoulders, heard him
gasping.

"Uh, huh.  Huh!"

Kerry hugged him, squeezed like a drowning man clinging to the last
life preserver.  Hell, he was a drowning man.  Had been.  "We made it,"
Jim said.  We made it."

He almost blacked out, but kept enough of consciousness to see the
first huge form come rushing up from the other side.  Saw the laser
pistol in the big ape's hand, felt the incandescent knife of coherent
light sizzle past, a finger away from his skull.

He lifted his .75.  He was weak.  It felt as if the pistol weighed a
hundred pounds.  Another laser blast hissed by, a foot over his head.
More huge shapes appeared, screaming some sort of ululating battle cry.
 He felt Kerry yank him back from the door, out of the line of fire.

"Here they come," he yelled.  "Everybody, here they comet"

l:n the end, it wasn't much of a fight, dim shot the first

Kolumban down the corridor, and the .75's rocket shell blew the big
alien back almost ten yards.  Kerry stepped up, a laser in each hand, a
twisted grin on his face, Fn-ing like some old-time gunslinger at the
O.K. Corral.

Saranji and the other two added their own Firepower.  The aliens might
have put up more resistance, but they'd been weakened almost as much by
starvation as the two they'd marooned on the far side of their blast
door.  And they were heavily outgunned, especially when Ferrick arrived
with his scatter blaster and Elwood with his battle laser.  ,.

 "We have to hold that door, we can't let them take it

Jim said to Kerry as they advanced.  "As long as we have it, can't
decompress the ship."

Kerry saw a flicker of movement at the far end of the raised one laser,
fired.  "They won't take it back," he said

Ferrick came running up, followed by Elwood.  Their were bright red, as
if they'd been staked out on some beneath a burning sun.  Their skin
was blistered, already beginning to peel.  Vacuum burn, Jim thought. 
But he was never glad to see anybody in his life.  Without thinking, he
Ferrick in a bear hug.

"Uhf.  Let go," Ferrick grunted.

"I see you made it," Jim said.

Ferrick nodded.  "Yeah.  Barely.  We both blacked out.  But got the
airlock shut.  When the air came back, so did we."  Jim shook his head.
"Too close.  Way too close."

Ferrick shrugged.  "Close enough."  He glanced over at "Elwood thought
it was interesting."

"I did," Elwood agreed.  "You're an interesting guy, Jim.  I

I like that."

"Yeah, sure," Kerry said.  "Enough with the love poems, Jim?  The
engine room, right?"

Jim took out his pad, brought up the schematic of Hunzzan vessel, and
showed it to Ferrick.  "There's another between us and the bridge, but
it isn't a blast door.  We crack it easily enough if they try to hide
behind it.  But engine room's on this side, and there's a backup set
for the ship.  Ferrick, I showed you how to override the controls?"

FelTick nodded.  "Don't worry about it."  He hefted his "Come on,
Elwood.  Got some more interesth shit for you."

Elwood stared at him calmly.  "Interesting is good," he said.  Ferrick
rounded up four more Cowboys from the crowd had arrived from the
galley, and they all set off, whooping yelling.

"I missed all the fun," Sam said.

Jim jumped, whirled.  "Sam!"

"Uh-huh, that's my name."  She was smiling at him.

He wrapped his arms around her, crushed her to him,

 raspberry scent filling his nostrils, working its dizzy magic on his
brain.

Unlike Ferrick, she didn't push him away.  After a long moment he
released her, stared into her eyes.  "I was so afraid," he whispered.

"It was boring, in a way.  Nothing happened.  There was this weird
whapping sound when the air pressure dropped outside, and all the
plastic shields flattened out against the ventilator ducts.  But there
wasn't much leakage."  She grinned.  "I was more worried about dying
from the stink of all those sweaty boys."

A mind picture floated into Jim's skull, the small galley packed solid
with terrified Cowboys, their bowels and perspiration glands all
working overtime.

"I'll bet," he said.  "Must have been horrible."

"I hate to interrupt you two," Kerry said.  "I'rue love is always so
touching."  He tapped Jim on the shoulder.  "But there are a few minor
details.  Like however many Kolumbans are still holed up in the
bridge."

"Okay.  Just a second," Jim said, and turned back to Sam.

"Is that what it is?"  Sam said softly.  'rrue love?"  There was a
luminous light in her eyes.

Jim leaned forward, put his lips on hers.  "I don't know," he murmured.
"But I'd like to find out.  What do you think?"

"I think I already told you," she answered.  "I like learning new
things."

"Come on, come on, let's go," Kerry said.

Jim kissed her again, and then they went.

 e largest space on the Kolumban ship was the cargo hold, and they all
gathered there.  Jim, Kerry, Ferrick, Sam stood in the center of a
loose semicircle of the rest who sat cross-legged or sprawled on the
deck.  Maybe forty, estimated.  Two had died in the initial attack on
the ship.  He scratchy, persistent guilt about that, one that wouldn't
let alone.

His fault.  It had been his plan, all of it.  And it was still on,
though nobody, not even the other leaders, knew that it.  And wouldn't,
not until it no longer mattered.  He didn't how long that would be.

It was a restive crowd, all male, young, cynical.

and ignorant, but not dumb.  Ferrick had called them the best i what
they had, and then added, with a bitter tang on the tail his words,
although that probably isn't the definition of you'd use, Jim."

Ferrick would be a problem.  He still wasn convinced, never would be.
But that wasn't his fault.  Jim couldn't him for it.  Ferrick was what
he was.  And he'd worked hard become better than what he was.  Most of
all, despite

Ferrick was his friend.  Could he betray him, after everything?. 
Should he?

The kids in the audience coughed, chattered, laughed, biting comments
out of the side of their mouths.  This wasn't leaders dictating to the
troops.  This was equals, some happened to be more equal than others.

 He wondered if he could change that.  He knew he would try.  Because
if he couldn't, then the rest of his plan wouldn't work.

Secrets.  Secrets that felt like treachery.  He wondered if he would
ever be able to tell any of them the whole story.  Sam, maybe, someday.
And maybe not.

"Let's get this show on the road," Kerry muttered.  "Those assholes..,
look at them."

"But they're our assholes," Ferrick said.

"Yeah, that's true."  Kerry turned to Jim.  "I'll give them a general
rundown.  Some of them still don't know the real details,

and there's a lot of rumors.  Then we'll decide what to do."  "Okay,"
Jim said.

Kerry nodded, then stepped into the center of the semicircle and raised
his hands for quiet.  After a moment or two the hooting died down. "Yo,
Kerry," somebody at the back yelled.  "Big dude!  Cowboys forever!"

Kerry grinned, nodded, waited it out.  When he had silence, he told
them all about it.  About what Heat really was.  About where it had
come from.  About his suspicions why the Kolumbans had brought the dope
to the Outward Bound in the first place.

"They weren't trying to make money," he said.  "They were trying to
kill the colony."

A rustling mutter swept through the crowd.  Attentive faces looked up,
waiting for more.

"How do you know that?"  Elwood said.  He was seated near the center of
the circle, his own squad around him.

Kerry shrugged, turned, motioned for Jim to come forward.  "Ask him,"
he said.  "He's the one who figured it out."

Jim took them through the rest of it, step by step.  "When we realized
that Heat was deadly, knew what it would do to the ship, knew it would
eventually kill us all, we knew we had to do something.  But what?
Cowboys depended on dealing the shit.  Everything we did was based on
it.  We had to stop it, to stop dealing Heat, but we had to do it so
the Cowboys survived.  Kerry had too many connections with the
Authority, so he couldn't keep on leading.  That's what the challenge
was all about, to set up the Cowboys in a different wayt To start over.
But then we had to go."

From the rear, a derisive hoot.  "What's this we' shit, kemo sabe?  You
ain't no Cowboy."

 Jim nodded.  "Maybe not.  But it doesn't matter.  You either.  Not
anymore.

Another shadowy rustling, this one sharper, more "What you mean,
asshole?  We're Cowboys.  Cowboys are ever!"

Oim shook his head.  The Cowboys are back on the Bound.  Darnell has
them now, you saw it.  Kerry lost the lenge, and now the Cowboys are
Darnell's gang.  You to go back, join up again?  I bet the proctors
would like to you.

More mutters.  They knew they were outcasts.  But it quite sunk in yet.
It had started as an adventure.  Take over alien ship, hijack it.  Now
it was becoming permanent.  real.  Some of them didn't like it.

Jim rode over them.  "Look, we did it, and now it's Elwood, you asked
how we knew for sure about Heat, about I Kolumbans wanting to destroy
the Outward Bound.  Why no choice."

He turned, nodded at Ferrick.  There was a stir at the door, and then a
huge figure, shepherded by two armed entered, lumbered forward until it
stood silently j ring.

"One survivor," Jim shouted.  "She locked herself in a and waited till
the fighting was over.  Then she

KeITy, because she knew him.  And she told him what she She told him we
guessed right, that Heat was designed to humans nuts.  Kill them.
Destroy them.  Destroy us!"

He pointed.  "Meet Ur-Barrba.  One of the Kolumbans designed Heat in
the first place!"

The mutters grew to a roar.  "Kill the apeI',

Jim shook his head.  "No, there won't be any more

Barrba surrendered.  She's told us what she knows, and even bigger than
what we thought.  She gave us the answer our biggest question--why? Why
would some aliens we heard of try to destroy a Terran colony ship?"

He paused, letting it sink in.  Predictably, it was Elwood finally
responded.  He sounded interested again.

"Okay, tell us.  Why?"

"They were hired," Jim said softly.  "Paid to do it.  By alien race.
Called the "Communers."  The Communers

 them to design the dope, gave them human specifications, DNA samples,
everything they needed.  And the Kolumbans did it.  They'll keep on
doing it.  We captured one ship.  Now we've got to take on a whole
planet!"

Elwood stood up.  'hat's ridiculous.  We're just kids.  Plebs. 
Cowboys. How are we going to deal with a planet full of orange apes?"

Jim stared at him.  "I can show you how," he said softly.  "If you're
interested."

Elwood stared at him for what seemed a very long time.  Jim felt it
hanging in the balance, wondered what he would do if Elwood shot him
down.

Elwood shook his head.  "You got balls, I'll say that.  Okay, I'm
interested."

Everybody chewed on it some more, but after Elwood, it was pretty much
decided.  When they voted, made it official, Jim felt a darkness rise
from his mind, turn golden, vanish.

He'd won.  For a while, at least.  He stood and faced them again, this
time with Ferrick, Sam, and Kerry standing with him.

It felt like a moment, a big one.  Felt even more like one when Elwood
slowly began to applaud.  When everybody else joined in.

Almost everybody.  The voice from the rear shouted a final time, as the
applause faded away.

"What about the Cowboys?"  it shouted.  "What about the gang?."

Jim glanced at the others, then faced the group at large.  "We aren't a
gang anymore," he told them.  "We're a crew.  We're a starship crew."

Kerry stepped forward.  "And the first order of business, crew members,
is the most important."  He raised his hands for quiet, so they could
all hear.

"The fIrst thing we do," he said, "is choose our captain.  The captain
of the free starship EndeavorF

They liked it.  Even Elwood smiled.

Kerry waited until the cheering died.  "And then we're gonna go kick
some alien butt[ Are you with us?"

Jim listened to the fresh round of cheers ringing in his ears.  He had
them now.  The plan was still on track.  But for how long?.

I guess I'm about to fund out, he thought.  And with the

thought came the remembering whisper, the deja vu, the knowledge that
came from within, that he had been in a like this, done this, known
this.

Overwhelming, perfectly certain, but formless, without

Just the knowing--I've been here before.

But where?  When?

The moment passed, and he went on.

"You're smiling," Sam whispered.

"I must be happy," he told her.  And it wasn't a lie.  He was.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Humankind has always been a traveling race, a race of adventurers and
colonizers.  It is no accident that, come what may, one of the abiding
dreams of the human consciousness remains the vast realms of space and
our eventual role there.  Nobody doubts that we plan to go.  The only
questions are when, and how.

There is a wealth of books that try to answer both questions.  For the
best, see:

The High Prontier by Gerard K. O'Neill, 1976, Bantam Books/ SSI
Press,

ISBN: 0962237906

Colonies in Space by T. A. Heppenheimer, 1977, Warner Books,

ISBN: 0446815810

Toward Distant Suns by T. A. Heppenheimer, 1979, Stackpole Books, ISBN:
0449900355

The Millennial Project by Marshall T. Savage, 1992, Little, Brown &
Company, ISBN: 0-316-77163-1 and 0316771635

Space Colonies edited by Stewart Brand, 1977, Penguin Books,

ISBN: 0140048057

2081: A Hopeful View of the Human 'uture by Gerard K. O'Neill, 1981,
Simon & Schuster, ISBN: 0671242571 Space Trek: The Endless Migration by
Jerome Clayon Glenn and George S. Robinson, 1978, Warner Books, ISBN:

The High Road by Ben Bova, 1981, Pocket Books, ISBN:

A Step Further Out by Jerry Pournelle, 1980, Ace Books, ISBN:

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology, 2nd ed.  by Kenneth
Garland, 1989, Orion Books, ISBN: 0517574278

SHATNER

There is also a plethora of information on the World Wide

Web.  Start with the wonderful

Space Settlement FAQ, written and maintained by Mike Combs.  The
bibliography above is taken in part from that FAQ, as well as the web
sites listed below:

Space Studies Institute: Founded by Gerard O'Neill, this non, profit
organization funds research into space manufacturing.

Features the SSI slide show and several good articles.

http: www.ssi.org

Space Settlement'.  Web page maintained by Al Globus, pictures pictures
of space habitats.

http: / / www.  has.  nasa.gov / NAS / Space Settlement/

The Living Universe Foundation: Founded by Marshall Savage.  author of
The Millennial Project.  Dedicated to expanding life space.

http: www.luf.  org/

The PERMANENT Web Site: PERMANENT is an acronym Program to Employ
Resources of the Moon and Asteroids Near Earth in the Near Term.  This
web site goes into deeper detail many of the subjects of this FAQ.

http: www.  permanent  com

Island One Society: Group emphasizing the political freedom that may be
possible in space habitats.

http: www.islandone.  org/

National Space Settlement Design Competition: Academic con.

test for students to design their own space habitats.

http: / space.  bsdi.com index, html

The Artemis Society: Devoted to a return to the moon with an emphasis
on commercial development.

http: l lwww.asi.org/

Moon Miners' Manifesto: Required rca'ing for all prospectors.

http: www.  asi.  org/mmm/mmmhome, html

The Space Frontier Foundation: Pushing for the opening of the high
frontier to the average citizen and cheap access to space.

http: / / www.  space-ffontier.org /

Military history might seem an odd subject to call a science, but that
is exactly what it is, a division of the larger classification military
science.  In our day and age, where high-tech smart

THE

STARS

bombs send us video pictures before slamming into their targets, one
could wonder what value the battles of Julius Caesar might hold for the
warriors of the future.

Quite a bit, actually.  As Robert Heinlein and many others noted, for
all the glitz and glitter, one still has to take the ground and hold
it.  For that you need battle tactics, and almost nobody has done
better at it than Gaius Julius Caesar, though two thousand years have
come and gone since he conquered the Gauls and noted in a phrase
learned by every school-age Latin scholar that "Omnia Gallia in tres
partes divisa est."  (All Gaul is divided into three parts.)

Alesia is generally considered to be Caesar's finest military hour. For
an excellent, though fictionalized account, read:

Caesar: A Novel by Colleen McCullough, 1997, William Morrow &
Company;

ISBN: 0688093728.

For another approach, this one delineating six of the greatest generals
of history--Caesar, Alexander the Great, Ulysses S. Grant, Horatio
Nelson, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Georgi Zhukov--see:

The Great Commanders: Alexander Caesar Nelson, Napoleon, Grant and
Zhukov by Phil Grabsky and David G. Chandler, 1995, TV Books Inc; ISBN:
1575000032.

Street gangs, even, or especially, those involved in the drug trade,
have highly evolved, complex social structures.  For further
discussion, see:

Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang by Albert Kircidel Cohen,
1971, Free Press; ISBN: 029-05770-1

Chinatown Gangs: Extortion, Enterprise, and Ethnicity (Studies in Crime
and Public Policy) by Ko-Lin Chin, 1996, Oxford University Press;
ISBN:

0-195-10238-X

Always Running: LA Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. by Luis J. Rodriguez,
Reprint edition, 1994, Touchstone Books; ISBN:

8 Ball Chicks: A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangsters by Gini
Sikes, Anchor edition, 1998, Doubleday; ISBN: