"I don't know if you'd-but if you'd-I mean, if we could get you a ship, Dan . . . and then the

children wouldn't get hurt-"

"You mean trade the chillens for a ship? You'd do that?"

"Yeah, of course. It's children we're talkin' about."

"A whole ship-a ship that actually works?"

"Of course." Cavallo glanced up as someone leaned over and handed him a pad with Mindy Cricket II scrawled on it.

"I dunno. We'd need supplies."

Cavallo dared a grin at the major, as he flicked the mike off. "They're gonna take it," he said.

"Now if they don't cross us-and there's some of them I'm pretty sure won't-where's that ship docked?"

It had taken another twelve hours of ticklish negotiation before the children were reunited with frantic parents, the NewTex terrorists were finally aboard the Mindy Cricket II, and the little ship lurched away from the station with her usual grace.

"You didn't really have to do anything," Sarknon said. "She's not goin' to get 'em anyplace real fast."

"Especially not now," Cavallo said. He had applied the bricks of LUB to best advantage. Mindy Cricket II wouldn't make it to jump distance in one piece. Two hours out, a safe distance from the station, and she'd blow. "We don't need that kind of scum wandering around causing trouble." He stretched, and grinned at the major. "Guess I'll go finish the shopping now, if it's all the same to you."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

R.S.S. GYRFALCON.

"Jig Serrano to the captain's office . . ." Barin tapped his code into the wall-hung unit to signal his receipt of the message, and turned to the sergeant of the compartment.

"I'll finish this inspection later," he said. "And I expect you'll have done something about those lockers." The lockers had been unlocked, and Barin had already found three major discrepancies.

"Yes, sir!"

All the way upship, he wondered what he'd done. He couldn't think of anything, and Major Conway had actually complimented him the day before.

Captain Escobar's clerk gave him no warning glances, just smiled and waved him through. Barin came to attention and waited.

"Ah . . . I thought you'd like to know you have pay." Escobar handed a data cube across to him.

"Sir?"

"Apparently your . . . dependents . . . have found honest work somewhere. They're off Fleet's hands."

"Where are they?"

"Some colony world. Apparently Professor Meyerson and that Lone Star Confederation diplomat found them a place, and someone paid their colony shares. Also paid off at least part of what Fleet spent on them, and HQ has forgiven the rest. So you have pay again. I suppose this means you'll be marrying?"

Barin felt himself go hot. "I-hope so, sir."

"From one fire into another. Better give your family time to get used to it. Have your parents

ever met Lieutenant Suiza?"

"No, sir. But now that I'm getting pay again, if I could get a little leave-"

"You'd get married."

"No, sir, not right away. I'd get her together with my parents, though."

Escobar considered. "You have plenty of leave stacked up. Tell you what-figure out a time that will work for your parents and her, and I'll do my best."

"Thank you, sir."

R.S.S. NAVARINO.

"You have mail, Lieutenant." Esmay wondered what it was this time. Her last mail had been a stiff notice from Personnel advising her that she should have informed them before accepting appointment as a Landbride, and that any request for a variance would have to work its way through the chain of command in her sector, then at Headquarters.

A cube from Barin. That had to be better than something from Personnel.

Her heart soared as she read it. Out from under the responsibility for all those women and children. Getting paid again. He'd talked to his parents; they wanted to meet her. He could get leave-what about her? He was sure he could enlist the senior Serranos to aid in bending the restrictions about Landbrides. . . .

She, too, had accumulated leave time. Surely it would be possible to meet for a few days, even a week. Somewhere private-she didn't mind meeting his parents, but she wanted at least some hours alone with Barin.

COPPER MOUNTAIN.

Although Fleet's Copper Mountain Training Base, named for the red-rock formation of the original landfall, had become the generic term for the entire planet, Fleet had other bases where neither mountains nor red dust were in view. Most NCO training courses, though reached by shuttle from Copper Mountain, were actually dispersed to other facilities on the same continent: Drylands, in the northern plains, Camp Engleton in the coastal swamp, Big Trees far to the west. Permanantly assigned school staff had their own recreational areas which students never saw: the long sand beaches far east of Copper Mountain where the carnivorous hunters of the deep had been carefully fenced away. Eight Peaks Mountain District, which offered far more than eight peaks, though the rest of them weren't quite eight thousand meters.

Among these lesser-known bases were the Stack Islands facilities. Rising almost vertically from the cold waters of what someone had unimaginatively called Big Ocean, the old volcanic plugs of the Stacks had been engineered into even more forbidding shapes than time, wind, and water had created. The Stack Islands group had three Fleet bases altogether, two for research (biomedical and weapons) and one to supervise the confinement of its most dangerous criminals.

That proximity was no accident; although the Grand Council knew nothing about it, research into neurobiology used prisoner subjects, some of whom emerged from the program with new identities.

But the proximity was on a planetary, not local, scale: though less than an hour by aircar to either of the other Stack Islands bases, the prison was distant enough to keep its prisoners secure. The research bases were only a few kilometers apart, on neighboring stacks, but the prison base lay at the east end of the group, out of sight from either and far beyond swimming distance,

even if water temperature and sealife had not intervened.

The security personnel at Three Stack, as the prison base was colloquially called, made no attempt to prevent prisoners from committing suicide; it was the general feeling that suicides saved everyone a lot of trouble. So little attention was paid to preventing escape attempts that were certain to be fatal. Prisoners could jump off the cliffs into the cold water if they felt like it; if they survived the fall, and the numbing cold, they were easy prey for the native sealife, which in these latitudes was toothy and voracious. Although guards patrolled the corridors and exercise courts, and the base's aircars were carefully guarded, no regular watch was kept on the cliffs.

Commanding such a base did nothing to advance an officer's career, and most loathed brig duty. For a few, however, Stack Islands Base Three offered exactly the milieu in which they flourished.

Corporal Gelan Meharry, second-shift guard at Three Stack, wondered what it was about his new commander that bothered him. Prison COs were invariably bent in some way-Tolin had been soft, slovenly, entirely too fond of his own comfort, and easily handled by the senior NCOs-but this Bacarion person was clearly not bent that way. What had she done, to get sent here? A tour at a high-security brig was no disgrace to the enlisted security force, rather the contrary, if nothing went wrong, but . . . he had an uneasy feeling about her.

After the change-of-command ceremony, his immediate superior, Sergeant Copans, dismissed the second shift to eat and prepare for their shift. Gelan racked his ceremonial staff, and changed from his dress to his duty uniform. As always, he made sure that his gear was perfectly aligned in his locker before heading for the mess hall. Then he checked his bay in the barracks. Sure as vacuum, that new commander would pull an inspection, and he intended his unit to pass.

On the way to mess, he stopped by the base data center, and called up the Officers' List. At least he could find out about his new commander's official biography. Her image on the screen showed her with the insignia of a lieutenant commander-she hadn't had her image updated since her last promotion. He scanned the notes below. Top quartile in the Academy, so she wasn't stupid. Command Track with her junior duty on a series of front-line craft. As a major she'd done the usual rotation in staff, this time on a flagship, the Dominion. There she'd seen combat, though from the staff viewpoint.

What was it about Dominion? He should know that name . . . he scrolled to the flag's name.

Lespescu. Bacarion had been on Lepescu's staff? In the engagement where Heris Serrano refused to follow Lespescu's orders, and by so doing won the battle but lost her command? Gelan clamped his jaw, hoping his expression had not changed. Thanks to Lepescu, Serrano's crew-including his oldest living sib Methlin-had been tried and imprisoned. Bacarion deserved a prison appointment, he thought sourly. She deserved to be a prisoner, really. He had not seen Methlin since her release, but he'd heard all about it. Lepescu was safely dead, but this Bacarion . . .

He switched off the unit, smiled a careful smile at the clerk in charge, and went to lunch with a gnawing pain in his belly. Partway through the meal, he stopped eating abruptly, with his fork halfway to his mouth. What if this wasn't punishment for Bacarion? What if she had wanted this assignment? What if she, like Lepescu, wanted to play games with prisoners?