Executioner has gone looking elsewhere.

The glare of the fireball fades. I check the temperature. It's falling slowly. Maybe a degree a minute. The minutes tramp away on the feet of snails.

The destroyer got no message out, but that treacherous probe remains.

The first hunter hypers in an hour later.

A dozen men have recovered sufficiently to resume work.

Several more are gone forever.... The Commander commences a new ploy. He calls me, says, "Program

the Eleven bird for maximum straight-line hyper fly." Piniaz hasn't recovered. For the moment I'm

in charge.

The new arrival is moving away from us, into the nether reaches of the system. Westhause hits hyper and runs.

Five minutes pass. Fisherman reports, "She's turning, Commander."

"Very well. Weapons, stand by to launch. Mr. Westhause, stand by to Climb."

The minutes roll away. The hunter gains slowly. "She's close enough, Commander," Canzoneri says.

"Thank you. Weapons? Ready?"

"Aye, Commander." I quickly hammer orders to the missile. The destroyer will recognize the fake if the weapon tears away too fast.

"Ready, Mr. Westhause? Go, then."

I launch. My surroundings ghost. The Commander directs Westhause onto a new course. This should work. It's a new trick.

The missiles can run for hours in hyper. I programmed its translation ratio high. Hopefully, we'll get a good start before the destroyer gets close enough to unravel the deception.

Fearless Fred will roar like a wounded bull when he hears about this.

The Commander no longer gives a damn what Command thinks. He wants to bring his people home alive.

We drop back to norm as soon as the destroyer has time to pass the limits of detection. We drift for hours, on minimum power, still venting heat. That's a laborious process. We can't use the energy weapons for fear of giving ourselves away. The hunt should be gathering again.

Normal cruising temperature feels incredibly cold. I'm in pain when it hits a pre-Climb level.

We have twenty-three men effective when, after three hours, the Commander takes us up again.

We leave three men behind, buried in space, eulogized and mourned only after the vessel is safely

in Climb. Picraux and Brown from Ops, and Alewel. They were luckier down below.

"It's criminal," Fisherman mutters. "Out the garbage lock. It's criminal."

"You maybe want to keep them aboard?" Yanevich demands.

Fisherman doesn't answer. Heat and bacteria would work horrors during an extended Climb. The

bodies got a gross enough start as it was.

I remember that story about the Commander who insisted on coming home with his dead.

Funny. My threshold for smell seems to adjust as the ship grows more fetid. Our atmosphere is only

mildly annoying, though it would gag somebody plucked off a ranch on Canaan.

Lieutenant Diekereide has been running Engineering while his boss is indisposed. Varese recovers

suddenly. With a howl. "Get out of the fucking way, Diekereide. Goddamnit, Commander, what the fuck did you do to my CT stores? You jackass..."

"Shut your mouth, Varese. Thank me for the chance to bitch."

Varese succumbed early. The more thoughtful Diekereide kept himself in action by donning our one

remaining suit and using its cooling capability.

The squabble goes on. Pure stress talking. Will the Old Man press it? He'll have the evidence on

the Mission Recorder. Varese is insubordinate. I take no notes, wanting nothing on paper that might be subpoenaed.

"We're down to a cunt hair over four hours of Climb time," Varese rages. "With that and some luck,

we'll only get our asses blown off, not baked."

Yanevich takes over for the Old Man. "Be glad you're alive. Now tend to your knitting. Don't give me any of your shit. Understood, mister?" - Varese has sense enough to shut his mouth. He sulks instead.

Time to get some sleep.

I waken with a heightened sense of fatalism. I'm not alone. The CT is practically gone. The

missiles have flown. The graser could be one shot from failing. The other energy weapons are unreliable. Only the magnetic cannon can be used for any length of time. We won't show much in a fight.

I paid my dues. I hung in there. I did my job while the others fell. I can be proud of myself.

Maybe they'll give me a medal.

We're still a long way from home. It'll be a tough, hungry trip. Then we'll have to run the steel curtain around Canaan. Do we have enough CT?

In Weapons everyone is at war with the mold. "Looks like a victory for mold," I say to a slightly

shy Kuyrath.

"Got a good hold this time, sir. The paint's ruined. Some of the plastic, too." He tears the protective wrapping off a roll of electrician's tape. Two empty cores lie beside him already. "Had to let it ride, though."

"Yeah. What can you do?"

"Wouldn't it be the shits if this crap did us in? I mean, they gave it their best shot. The

Executioner. But the Old Man pulled us through. So we got mold. What do you do about fucking mold?

You can't outthink it."

"It would be an ironic end," I agree. And don't count the other team out. They're still looking,

my friend.

Piniaz drifts over. "Understand you did some first class shooting, Lieutenant."

"Uhm." His attitude has mellowed. "It really happened? Seems like a dream."

"You took notes the whole time. Interesting. I put them in Bath's hammock for now."

"Don't remember any notes. Be like reading somebody else's report." I snort. "Gunners. No respect

for anybody but the fastest draw."

Piniaz frowns, perplexed. "I was offering the olive branch, Lieutenant. I didn't figure you'd bite my hand."

"Sorry. Thanks. Just lucky, I guess. What's happening?"

"We lost them. Or they let go. Something funny about it, if you ask me. Shouldn't have been this

easy."

"Maybe it wasn't."

"They had to know our CT was about gone. That gets them excited." He shrugs. "The Old Man will

take what they give him."

"For instance?"

"First we make an instelled beacon. Let Command know we're alive."

"Uhm. Think Tannian will be disappointed?" Sometimes I think he wants us dead.