Captain Jellico looked up at his cargo master, determined not to show any of the exasperation he felt. up at his cargo master, determined not to show any of the exasperation he felt.

"So you're saying that I-S cargo master cut in and took your deal?"

Van Ryke's white brows formed a line of perplexity in his face. "I wish it were that simple," he said. "I don't think Mdango cut in on us-I think that Tapadakk offered her my deal, but did it in such a way as to make it look like I-S pulled the deal out from under us."

Jellico let his breath out slowly. "Any idea why?"

Van Ryke lifted his hands. "If I knew that, I could have done some fast talking and saved it. He's been most apologetic, but only over the com. I can't seem to get to him to agree to see me in person. But it's only been an hour; for Kanddoyds, that's an impossible rush. What I want to make certain of is if he's suddenly changed his mind and doesn't want to deal with us at all. If so, why?"

"Has Mdango or any of her crew been talking us down?"

Van Ryke rubbed his chin thoughtfully. It would be the most obvious explanation. The Queen Queen had run afoul of Inter-Stellar ships in the past, and despite the fact that the had run afoul of Inter-Stellar ships in the past, and despite the fact that the Queen Queen was only one ship, and I-S was a huge Company, big Companies were made up of human beings, most of whom were as loyal to their Companies as the was only one ship, and I-S was a huge Company, big Companies were made up of human beings, most of whom were as loyal to their Companies as the Queen's Queen's crew were to the crew were to the Solar Queen Solar Queen. Jellico knew that there were plenty of people in I-S who might like to see a bit of revenge taken for the Queen's Queen's wins over some of their colleagues. wins over some of their colleagues.

"I don't get the impression they've heard anything about us at all," Van Ryke said slowly. "I think their ship, the Corvallis Corvallis, has been making runs in totally different lanes than we've been used to. No one in our crew has reported any negative encounters, or even any comments, from their crew up in the recreation areas-and we humanoid Traders stand out up there, so it's not like they couldn't find us if they half tried."

"All right," Jellico said. "Then we'll rule out malice-at least on the part of I-S. Now, what about Tapadakk?"

Van Ryke sighed. "It is possible, except it wouldn't make any sense. We spent four solid days dancing around in their interminable negotiations, and I can't believe even a Kanddoyd would spend all that time for nothing. He seemed eager to deal; our cargo isn't all that tempting, but he's got a surplus of mosaic works of various sorts that we could move pretty well back in Terran space, where they are rarer, and he did have two or three buyers set up in a complicated ring. He just seemed to be waiting for us to get our papers on Starvenger Starvenger and wind up our registry business." and wind up our registry business."

"That was yesterday," Jellico said.

Van Ryke nodded. "Tapadakk and I finished our talk about the time Thorson and Shannon left registry yesterday, with our papers in hand, so we know it's nothing to do with that. Anyway, that's about the time we set up today's meeting. Then an hour ago, I get this com message-just before I'm to leave for our meeting to accomplish what I hoped was the last stage of negotiation-and he ups and tells me that he's not good enough, his goods aren't good enough, he's desolately and abjectly sorry but our exalted trade would grace another cargo better, et cetera et cetera. I thought I'd go over and try to get him in person again."

Jellico nodded. "Right. Do what you can. We're running out of time."

Van Ryke nodded and walked out.

Jellico leaned back in his chair and glared at the various calculations Wilcox had printed out for him. Then he tabbed the intercom. "Ya."

"Captain?" came the comtech's voice.

"Progress?"

"Still working-I have some algorithms roughed out that might be what we need."

"Keep at it."

"Right, Captain."

They both cut the connection. The hoobat let out a sudden metal-rending shriek, and Jellico grabbed his chair to anchor himself and reached to give the cage a swat.

"Fnerble," Queex squawked, settling down happily as the cage rocked and bounced.

"Just what I was thinking," Miceal Jellico said grimly.

Karl Kosti leaned back in the padded seat and stared out at the long tubes of the Kanddoyd buildings. He rather liked the crazy curves and angles, the strings of lights. He was in a good mood. His muscles ached from a good workout in heavy grav, and he had an excellent meal before him, and something interesting to look at. It entertained him to figure out how to power this habitat and the buildings inside it.

It would have been nicer if he could have eaten in decent grav, but the gym for Traders was down in Shver territory, a rare concession. Of course they wouldn't have food places there. The Shver didn't like outsiders, and they didn't like public eating. Plain, straightforward. Karl rather liked the Shver. He preferred them to the gyrating, buzzing, clacking Kanddoyds who talked in such convoluted sentences it was like their mouths were full of mush. The Shver said exactly what they thought, or they kept silent. He appreciated that-and he also liked them as sparring partners in the gym. For once he didn't have to worry about going easy on his partner, for they massed a lot more than he did. He liked that too. Few humans massed as much as he, and fewer of those were anywhere near as strong.

He tabbed the heat button on his bulb of spiced wine and sipped, enjoying the pleasant tang on his tongue, and the warmth down his throat. His eyes stayed on the buildings as, gradually, the chatter of the spacehounds around him resolved from white noise into individual words.

"... hijackers," someone said.

Hijackers? Karl didn't want to look-ordinarily he despised gossip, but that subject would get anyone's attention.

"I wonder how much credit it takes to smooth that one over," a woman said. Her voice was sharp.

"Kind of makes you wonder what registry is worth, don't it?" a man's voice grated. "Knowin' you can get a quitclaim, free and clear, on someone else's ship?"

"Eventually," the woman said, "the New Hope catches up with 'em. You gotta believe that."

Another man laughed. It was an ugly laugh. "Yeah, I like that," he said. "Sanford Jones holds out his hand in welcome-you ship with him for eternity."

"Sometimes," the first man said, "it's a right fine thing to help old Sanford get that crew real quick."

"Yeah," the woman said. "As quick as the crew aboard the hijacked ship got sent to Jones."

Karl had forgotten the Kanddoyd buildings and his mental calculations of energy production. Who were these people? Seemed as if they were talking not just generally, but specifically-and if he understood them right, they were working up to taking someone out.

He looked around, and to his surprise saw three faces watching him.

A woman, short gray hair, big brown eyes narrowed in a mean look, and the strong arms of a cargo wrangler, stared right at Karl, and said, "Patrol might look the other way, but we don't."

The tall, dark-faced man on her right side said, "If Trade Authority won't do something about jacking, then it's up to Traders to keep our name clean."

The man on the left, a squat fellow with red hair and the characteristic powerful upper torso of the Martian colonist, twisted his thin lips in an ugly grin and said, "I'd certainly think twice about fouling the air around honest spacers, if I had bloody hands."

Karl glanced to his own left, and to his right, and he realized that the white noise had completely stopped, that everyone in the place was watching.

The woman said, "Seems like when we're done, we ought to rename that ship, too, shouldn't we? How's Solar Scum Solar Scum? Or better, Killer Queen!" Killer Queen!"

Karl realized they really were talking about him him. A chill of shock twitched along his muscles, followed by anger. Hot, glorious anger.

"You talk about the Solar Queen Solar Queen," he said, "you clean up your mouth."

"Then you better clean your hands, jacker," the man on the right fired back.

"Say that again," Karl warned, "and I'll have to clean up your mouth for you."

The woman threw her bulb into the recycler and crossed her arms. "Is 'bloody killer' and 'pirate' nicer?"

Karl didn't answer. There were times when you talked, and there were times when talk would be worthless. He flexed his hands and launched across the table, aiming at the nearest wrangler's throat.

Jellico swung himself up from his desk and hit the door control. Outside his cabin Sinbad strolled, tail high, licking his chops. Since he wasn't coming from the direction of the galley, Jellico wondered where the cat had been begging. With delicate grace Sinbad descended to the lab level, and Jellico followed. He glanced around swiftly when he stepped in. The only person in view was Craig Tau.

Jellico looked down into the sterile chamber the two medics had rigged for Alpha and Omega. One of the cats was batting at a little toy; the other was busy licking her fur. Sinbad hopped up to stare at them, sniffed, then turned away and with a flick of his long tail vanished outside the hatchway again.

"How are Alpha and Omega?" Jellico asked Tau.

"Check out," the medic said. "Whatever hit the crew, it escaped these cats. They are completely clean. We could let them out today, if you want."

"Wait," Jellico said.

Tau nodded, obviously comprehending immediately: better to keep them tanked up until the mystery of their home-ship was solved. Tau looked down at his desk and said, "Want an update on the other matter we've discussed?"

"Any changes?"

"Nothing, really."

"It can wait," Jellico said; the last thing he wanted to think about now was long-term effects of strange substances they had encountered on earlier runs. There was too much to think about right now.

The medic turned back to his work, and Jellico backed out the hatchway, stopping when he heard voices coming down the ladder well.

"... getting into my garden and eating all the fruit." That was Frank Mura, and he sounded angry.

Jellico frowned. Whatever had gotten the quiet, controlled Frank upset was something he'd better know about.

"I can assure you that we have not let the cats out," Rael Cofort's voice came, calm and emotionless.

"If it's not the cats, it's someone human," Mura said. "Someone who should know better. All they have to do is ask-no one has accused me yet of short-rationing the Queen's Queen's crew, not in all the years I've served on her." crew, not in all the years I've served on her."

"Do you think it's possible," the woman said slowly, "that someone got hungry when you were off-shift-or on leave?"

"I haven't left the Queen Queen and I don't intend to," Mura snapped. "The sooner we blast away from this trash can the happier I'll be." and I don't intend to," Mura snapped. "The sooner we blast away from this trash can the happier I'll be."

"I promise to keep my eyes and ears open," Cofort said.

Jellico started up the ladder then. A moment later he heard the galley door hiss shut. Rael Cofort appeared at the top of the well, saw Jellico, and backed into the mess so he could finish ascending. He followed her in.

"More things disappearing?" he asked.

She gave a nod, and leaned against a bulkhead. "Food, mostly. And he's also angry because little odd bits of gear have been strewn about here and there." She absently tucked a loose strand of gold-highlighted hair back into its coronet.

Jellico looked away, wanted something to do with his hands, so he drew a hot bulb of jakek. "Runs a clean ship. Matter of pride," he said.

Cofort gave a nod, then bit her lip.

"What's on your mind?" Jellico prompted.

She tipped her chin back toward the galley. "Frank. You know he hasn't been off-ship-"

Jellico said, "Right."

She sighed. "Well, it's obvious he is disturbed by the Kanddoyds. Not surprising, given their looks and the parallel destruction of homelands. And it would be easy to dismiss his annoyance at the little things going wrong on board as hostility against Exchange..."

"But you think that's a mistake?"

She gave her head a quick shake. "I don't know what to think. I really like the cylome, and personally, I find the Kanddoyds I've met to be congenial, and even the Shver-those who are willing to talk to Terrans-are interesting. But I get a sense that there's something askew here."

"Like?"

She shrugged. "I can't really say. Different things-even Mura's missing food. Then there was the way the com center closed up on Dane and Rip so suddenly yesterday."

"You don't think they'd overstepped their boundaries?"

"Not those two," she said with obvious conviction. "I have to admit I've been waiting around here for them to return from today's check-maybe it's just my imagination."

Jellico grinned. "So you've been watching your chrono too?"

A swift flush of color rose in her cheeks, and she grinned back.

For a moment his mind emptied of everything but the curve of her lips, and the merry gleam in her eyes. Did she feel it too, this compulsion like the iron for the magnet?

It was a relief when, this time, she was the first to turn away.

Tang Ya looked again at the numbers on the computer screen.

He'd found it the day before, and had been working ever since, as yet without saying anything to his crewmates. Tang Ya liked to have all his facts at hand before going to the captain and facing Jellico's curt, but always penetrating, questions.

Sleep tugged at his eyelids and the back of his neck seemed to be on fire. He glanced at the array of crushed jakek tubes at the side of his console, and felt a distinct wish for something stronger-like Crax seed.

Though once he handed this data off, his job would not end, and he would not have the luxury of the recovery time a bout with Crax seed required.

Instead, he had to rely on his own adrenaline. So again he typed in the dates.

Computers, of course, had no emotions, nor did the script reflect the operator's emotions unless the operator manipulated the fonts to that end.

Somehow, though, it seemed strange for the bare text to appear in the same bland alphanumerics, picked for their clarity, as more nominal calculations. Still, there it was, the mute evidence at last that something was badly askew here. Unless the comparative timetables for all the registered planets were wrong-which had not happened yet, in all the years he'd used them-the Starvenger Starvenger had officially been abandoned eighteen months ago, Terran Standard. had officially been abandoned eighteen months ago, Terran Standard.

A year and a half ago.

A year and a half ago the ship was declared abandoned- leaving aboard two cats who, if Craig Tau was to be believed, had been abandoned no more than ten weeks.

He cleared the screen once again, and this time called up the coded log from the Starvenger's Starvenger's hydrogarden. He'd worked at this during spare moments while he was on duty, and during some of his own free time, but he'd felt no strong compulsion to decrypt that log. hydrogarden. He'd worked at this during spare moments while he was on duty, and during some of his own free time, but he'd felt no strong compulsion to decrypt that log.

Now he felt different.

A little energy flowed into him again. He flexed his hands, swung his arms, and performed the isometrics he'd been taught as a child. He sensed he was on the verge of something... if he just kept at it.

"I need more compute power," he murmured, tapping into the ship's computer. He wished he dared to reach through the line connecting the Queen Queen to Exchange's compute arrays, for he knew he'd solve the dilemma if he just had an enormous pattern-search space. But he hadn't, which required him to be clever. to Exchange's compute arrays, for he knew he'd solve the dilemma if he just had an enormous pattern-search space. But he hadn't, which required him to be clever.

He called up the holding matrices he'd set going, and nodded with satisfaction. The genetic neural algorithms he'd bred up had been patiently probing for hidden patterns in the organization of the other computer-and it looked like they were settling toward a solution. He had to know how it was set up first before he could work on decoding it.

Then he glanced at the corner of his screen. The little icon he'd set up as a measure of progress shimmered suddenly, then snapped into a line.

A moment later the screen below flickered, and ordered ranks of alphanumerics appeared. It was still in some kind of code, but he knew how to break codes. The biggest problem had been finding the patterns that would give him clues to the unfamiliar computer's organization.