continued to exist for one brief moment in the corona of the nearest star before being broken down into basic subatomic building blocks. Neither of them felt like working. Erin checked Mother's orbit, made sure that she was clear of any strays from the belt, said, «I'm going to bed.» «Drink first?» She shook her head in negation, went to her quarters, showered, put on a lacy nightgown and threw herself down onto the bed. The elation of victory over dangerous odds was gone. The stimulation of facing deadly danger had left her drained. A storm of melancholy submerged her in guilt. She slept. She awoke with Mop pawing at her hand and making begging noises. «What? What?» she asked. Mop leapt to the floor and ran to the door, which she'd left ajar so that he could perform his duty of keeping an eye on both her and Denton. He whined and ran back to the bed, jumped up, pawed at her leg, ran to the door. Fear came to her. «Something wrong, partner?» she asked, as she ran out onto the bridge. Dent was sprawled in the control chair, head thrown back, mouth open. He was snoring. Mop leaped up into his lap and whined. «He's just asleep,» Erin whispered. Mop pawed at Denton's lax hand. There was a strong smell of brandy. «And a little drunk,» she said. Denton said, «You're wrong, lady.» «It talks,» she said. «I'm more'n a little bit drunk.» «Good for you.» He opened his eyes. They were red, as if he'd been weeping. «Come on,» she said, «I'll help you get into your bed.» «Let's go fin' some more people to kill,» he mumbled. «Denton—» » 'Cause you seemed to enjoy it.» «You and the horse you rode in on,» she said, turning to go back to her cabin. «I killed me a woman and I killed me a man,» he said, «an' 'en I scooped 'em up and put 'em in their little ole spaceship and zapped 'em into a sun.» She turned. Huge tears were running down his cheeks. She went back to him, put her hands on his face. «Would you rather it had been you and me?» «Me? Maybe. You?» He looked at her with eyes that wouldn't quite focus. «Never you, Erin. Never you. Beautiful Erin.» She took his arm. «Come on, buddy. You're going beddy-bye.» «Pretty Erin,» he mumbled, leaning on her shoulder. She knew that she could never hoist him onto his elevated bunk. She guided him to her bed. He fell onto his back and dragged her with him so that she landed atop him. «Had to do it,» he said. «Had to kill 'em. They woulda killed my Erin.» «Hush,» she said. «Go to sleep.» His eyes opened wide. «I never killed anyone before.» «Hush. I know.» «It hurts.» «I know.» «I didn't want to kill them.» She kissed him lightly on the lips. He tasted of brandy. «I know.» «Did you want to kill them?» «No,» she said. «Do 'at again.» «What?» «This,» he said, pulling her face to him. He did not kiss like a drunk. His arms were strong. She did not resist as he rolled her onto her back and let his hands discover that her nightgown fell away with a simple tug at a tie around her neck. She helped him undress, for she, too, had faced death and had delivered death, had seen the color of blood and had smelled the odor as it gave an entirely new dimension to the recycled air aboard the Murdoch Miner. But there was more involved than the age-old desire of a man and a woman to affirm that, after being near death, they were alive. After the first cooling of mutual passion she lay with her head on his shoulder and watched him sleep. When he moved in the middle of the night she, too, awakened quickly. When he whispered his love to her, she could almost form the words to answer him. Dent was awake and about the next morning before Mr. Mop decided that it was high time for Erin to get out of bed. Mop licked her nose and made urging noises in his throat. Erin groaned, sat up, reached for the cover, for she was nude. Then she remembered and made a disgusted face. She went directly to the shower. Demon was eating breakfast when she went onto the bridge. He didn't speak, but his eyes were questioning. For a moment her face was grim, and then she remembered the taste of him, the feel of him, the goodness of being in his arms. No, she could not regret what had happened. «Hi,» she said. «Hi, yourself.» She went to him, kissed him. «You're not angry,» he said. «Should I be?» «I wasn't sure. Your bed. I remember you said that you thought a bed was as personal as underwear.» «I'm very careful about lending my underwear,» she said. «I'm even more picky about sharing my body.» His face turned red. She laughed. «Erin, I—» «If you apologize, I'll slug you,» she said. «But—» «Hush,» she said, closing his mouth with hers. Mop, wanting to get into the play, leapt onto Denton's lap, stood on his rear legs, and tried to lick them both in the face. «Now look, you hairy little monster,» Denton said, «you can sleep on my bed and sit in my lap, but when it comes to sharing my girl with you—» CHAPTER NINE Once again they had made love. Mop, who had been banished to a spot
under the bed, waited until all was still to sneak quietly to lie at Erin's feet with his head against her leg. She patted her hand on a spot by her side and the little dog came to snuggle there, sighing in contentment as she let her hand rest lightly on him. A living ship in space is never silent. Servomechanisms hum quietly. Relays and thermocouples click as they do their work vigilantly. The life-support system mutters contentedly to itself. The sounds were familiar, so much a part of life that Erin didn't notice them until the hums, the clicks, the muttering ceased to be mechanical and seemed to become a confused babble of voices. She stiffened. Mop, feeling the change in her, lifted his head. «It's all right,» she whispered. «I'm just getting a bit space happy.» It was time to find a nice deposit of a certain yellow metal, top off Mother's cargo, and drain the big generator while making blinks as fast as they could be punched into the computer. She wanted to be past the Dead Worlds before laying by to charge. She longed to be near human populations on civilized planets where sleek, converted military spaceships did not sneak up and disgorge killers. She could not understand the words, but the voices were there. She told herself that it was all in her mind, pulled Mop to her, and hugged him. Denton slept on, making a soft little buzzing noise. Was it censure she sensed in the garbled voices? She angrily rejected it. She had defended her life. She had killed only to keep from being killed. The voices faded. «Space happy,» she whispered to Mop. Aside from the comforting, familiar little sounds made by Mother's housekeeping, it was quiet. Erin closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but her lids flew open when Mop suddenly stiffened and came to his feet. «What?» she asked. He jumped down from the bed, ran to the door, and scratched. With chills chasing each other up and down her spine, Erin pulled on a robe and opened the door to the bridge. Lights came on. A quick check of critical instruments showed that Mother and the computer were healthy. «What?» she asked. Mop ran here and there as if looking for something. «You're scaring me, you little poof.» She sat in the control chair and ran a quick systems check. Everything was humming along nicely. Feeling very foolish, she activated Mother's rather primitive biological sensors. Cold, empty space seemed to laugh at her as the sensors registered—nothing, blankness, the void. Before going to bed they had positioned Mother over a good vein of ore in solid rock. She went to the mining room and began working. With luck, three more days of digging would fill the ship's cargo areas. She could feel the slight vibrations as the biter scraped against rock. No more voices. Mop had climbed from her lap to a space just behind the controls for the mining equipment. Now and then he opened one eye to watch the movement of her hand. When the vein of gold-carrying ore was exhausted, she looked at the clock. She'd been at it for eight hours. It was almost time for the scheduled work period to begin. She secured the equipment, went back to the cabin. Denton slept on as she showered and dried herself. She reached for a nightgown, shrugged. The need for modesty was gone. Thoughts of man and woman together heated her as she knelt on the bed and looked at his sleeping face. She smiled as she noted that the light coverlet was tented over his manhood. She eased herself under the sheet and moved with stealth to position herself, eased down, down, sighing. She sat very still for a long time before he turned his head to one side and made a sound in his throat. She began to move, put her hands on his shoulders, shuddered with pleasure as he awakened and thrust upward. After a timeless period of fusion she lay beside him, pleasantly expended, warm, core-soft. «I was having the damnedest dream,» he said. «Umm.» «There was this city, this fairyland city, and people were flying in panic and screaming—» «Running away?» «Flying,» he said. «As in, like, birds?» «Yep.» She shivered, remembering the voices. «And I was there and not there, because at the same time I was in a great room, like a courtroom but more magnificent, and someone was saying that defiance of the law leads to ruin.» «Ah, guilt feelings,» she said. «As you are fond of saying, you bet your sweet ass.» He held her close. «Two more days,» she said. She thought it best not to admit that she, too, had experienced remorse. «And how many more trips after that?» «Well, if you want to be poor, with only a million or so, we can turn the whole thing over to X&A when we get to Haven with this load.» «Haven?» She knew the intent of his question. The ship that they had blinked into the sun had been a Haven ship. «It would look suspicious, since I sold my first load there, if I went anywhere else.» He nodded. «All right. But I've never been a good liar, Erin.» She brushed his thick hair back from his forehead tenderly. «I don't think anyone will question us. If Murdoch Plough sent that ship after us, he wouldn't dare ask questions, for that would be admitting that he knew his men tried to kill us.» «As always, you're probably right,» he said. «But let's not make that decision right now. We've got a few weeks of travel before we get to Haven.» He held her close and was quiet for a long time before he said, «They had golden skin.» «Who?» «The people in the dream.» «They were suntanned?» «Bronzed. Golden.» «Make up your mind.» «I wonder what caused it.» «What?» «The blowup. Whatever it was that shattered a planet.» She shivered again, remembering Mop's actions and her own feeling that there was something out there in the asteroid belt. «Did they know? In my dream the sky was fire. I could sense the fear.» He shook his head. «Wow. To know that you're going to die—» «Everyone knows that. « «Yeah, we all know we're going to die someday. But to know that you're going to die in a matter of—what? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Days? How much warning did they have? And to know that
