"Who's coming?"

"We just got word by ansible. Flavor is on her way through, fast-transit, with something urgent.

If you want a lift, I'm sure they'll have room for you."

Favored-of-God, nicknamed Flavor, was the Terakian's fast courier . . . and the family's most advanced recon vessel, loaded with the best scan equipment money or influence or trickery could obtain. "There she is-" one of the techs said, pointing to the display board. A bright splash on the screen meant something had come through the jump point at max vee, and the color shift meant she was making a dangerously fast approach.

So whatever it was, the Fathers were willing to let everyone know they had some urgent chore in hand. Usually Terakian ships moved in the same stately arcs as any other commercial carrier, never showing all their capacity unless they ran into trouble.

"What's his ETA?" Goonar asked.

"At this rate? Under twenty hours."

Twenty hours . . . so why had his father told him to leave downside immediately?

So he would be gone before word of Flavor's arrival got to the surface? So perhaps Kaim wouldn't connect the two? So there would be no transmissions to the surface which Kaim might intercept?

Goonar sighed. While the station had a perfectly comfortable lodging house for transients, and he had more than enough credit to use it, he knew-without even asking-that his father expected him to stay in the office. In the off-duty bunkroom for low-level staff, with its hard narrow beds.

"I'm going over to Spotted Lamb for lunch," Goonar said. "If anyone wants me."

He was almost through with dessert-honeyed figs stuffed with chopped bitsai nuts-when the call came. A tightbeamed packet for him from Flavor.

Adhem, the office manager, gave him a look, which Goonar had no trouble intepreting. He wasn't that senior in the family; he was just another of the young men moving up through the ranks . . .

so why was he suddenly in the office at just the right time for the appearance of Flavor on a fast run, and why was he getting this packet, instead of someone more senior? He was moving up, not down or sideways, because he knew better than to give Adhem any information at all.

Flavor's commander met him at the hatch and threw her arms around him. Laisa, Basil's sister, had the same dangerous energy as her brother. As Goonar's chain of command went through his uncle, so Laisa's went through Goonar's father.

"You're coming with us," she murmured in his ear.

"That's nice," Goonar said, detaching himself. "Basil says to give you his love."

"We're fuel-and-go," Laisa said. Goonar nodded, and went through the hatch ahead of her.

In the next few hours, he briefed her on what he thought he had learned from Kaim and the more accessible data channels.

"Here's what you don't know," Laisa said, when he was through. "There was a distant family member captured with the Elias Madero-a young girl, Hazel Takeris. Some seventy years ago, a Terakian boy fell in love with a Chapapas girl-"

"A Greek!"

"Yes, from Delphi Duetti. Of course both families disapproved, so they changed their names-called themselves Takeris. Had lots of children, in defiance of everyone, including six boys, who continued the habit of defying parents by becoming perfectly ordinary merchant crewmen who married late and had few children. This girl is his great-granddaughter-her father was a son of the second son-and his wife died young, leaving him with one daughter. He was killed by the NewTex that boarded Elias Madero, and the girl captured."

Goonar listened, trying to find some connection with the news he'd brought from Kaim. Laisa went on.

"At the time we heard about the ambush, we didn't know that. The original connection's name was off our books. Then Aunt Herdion saw a news report and thought the newsie had misspelled Terakian.

You know what she's like-she got on the com, all ready to chew bones. They gave her all the information they had, just to get her off their backs. Shortly after the rescue, when the newsies reported Hazel's survival, she barged into the remaining Takeris family discussion of Hazel's future, and insisted on having a say. In fact, she was all set to adopt the girl herself. They're not too happy with her, but they're also not rich, so her offer to pay for Hazel's education sweetened the deal."

"Yes, but what does this have to do with rejuvenation drugs and rejuv psychosis?"

"Not much-but you need to know that, to understand some recent decisions by the Family Council, which will affect everything from the contracts we take to the way we select crew. The Family Council hadn't paid much attention to your report from Zenebra about the NewTex saboteurs there, but now they consider that the NewTex forms a possible serious threat to Terakian Shipping specifically, because of the way we have been casual about picking up replacement crew. And because you and Basil caught that agent on Zenebra. There's also concern about spies in shipping agents' staffs. They're convinced that the raiders knew about the Elias Madero's deviation from its filed flight plan."

Goonar snorted. "I'd say half the merchanters who work in that area know about that shortcut."

"No more. At least, not Terakian ships. We're restricted from anything but green-lined routes-"

"That'll put paid to our fast-courier service-"

"Yes, but we won't be subject to piracy. At least not that kind of piracy."

"So-what about this rejuvenation stuff? I still think we need to suck some data off the financial ansibles-"

"We have. I'm not sure what it all means, though." Laisa handed him several cubes. "That one's from Benedictus, and this one's Caskadar three weeks ago. We'll suck it again on the way out."

"Where are we going?"

"Where God and the Fathers will. I haven't been told yet."

Goonar settled down to data analysis. While the price of rejuv drugs had bounced up and down with every rumor of contamination or scarcity, the price of the raw materials had been growing . . .

slowly at first . . . since the Patchcock mess. Somebody was buying the stuff, in quantity. Rejuv drugs used some of the same raw materials as many other pharmaceuticals, but some were unique to that process. He highlighted them-the prices rose steadily. So . . . somebody was buying, and presumably using the raw materials to make the finished drugs, for which they had-or expected to have-a market.

He kept digging, paused to eat, slept awhile, and woke to Laisa's call. "We have the new squirt."

He rubbed his eyes and groaned. "And a destination, O beauteous one?"

"Marfalk."

Marfalk. An obscure world; he'd heard the name but knew nothing about it. "How long?"

"Eight days, about."

"I'm going back to sleep."

But he didn't sleep; the new data he hadn't seen kept him awake. Finally he rolled out of the bunk, muttering curses in four languages, and punched it in.

"You didn't tell me you intercepted a memo," he said to Laisa over the shipcom.

"You were sleepy," she said.

"Not now." It had been encrypted, but Flavor's systems were designed to handle all the standard commercial encryption schemata. Under the first level of encryption was another-as usual, simpler.

The decryption machine made short work of that, too. Then, finally, the code. Goonar looked at it, and let his mind freewheel. Whose code was it? Something about it looked familiar . . . then it came to him. Conselline senior family branch. His breath came short. "Laisa . . . do we have a code chip for Conselline senior branch?"

"Not on board. Is that what you think you've got?"

"Looks like it. We can start running it past the other chips, but I'm betting on that one." He tipped his head one way, then the other. The Conselline memo looked almost readable as it was, but he knew that was deceptive. Nothing was ever that simple. Then the pattern popped out at him, as if someone had outlined words in red ink.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

CASTLE ROCK.