the place was emptying out. The three guys at the bar got up and left first, one by one. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the guys in the booths heading for the door. No big rush, but within a few minutes they had all walked out. On tiptoes.

I said nothing, but soon enough Sam realized we were alone.

“What happened?” he asked Belinda. “We chased everybody out?”

She shook her head. “Rock Rats worry about strangers. They prob’ly think you’re maybe a tax assessor or a safety inspector from the IAA.”

Sam laughed. “Me? From the IAA? Hell, no. I’m Sam Gunn. Maybe you’ve heard of me?”

“No! Sam Gunn? You couldn’t be!”

“That’s me,” Sam said, with his Huckleberry Finn grin.

“You were the first guy out here in the belt,” said Belinda, real admiration glowing in her eyes.

“Yep. Captured a nickel/iron asteroid and towed her back to Earth’s orbit.”

“Pittsburgh. I heard about it. Took you a couple of years, didn’t it?”

Sam nodded. He was enjoying the adulation.

“That was a long time ago,” Belinda said. “I thought you’d be a lot older.”

“I am.”

She laughed, a hearty roar that made the glasses on the back bar rattle. “Rejuve therapy, right?”

“Why not?”

Just then, a red-haired mountain strode into the bar. One of the biggest men I’ve ever seen. He didn’t look fat, either: just big, with a shaggy mane of brick-red hair and a shaggier beard to match.

He walked right up to us.

“You’re Sam Gunn.” It wasn’t a question.

“Right,” said Sam. Swiveling toward me, he added, “And this young fellow here is Garret G. Garrison III.”

“The third, huh?” the redhead huffed at me. “What happened to the first two?”

“Hung for stealin’ horses,” I lied, putting on my thickest Wild West accent.

Belinda laughed at that. The redhead simply huffed.

“You’re George Ambrose, right?” Sam asked.

“Big George, that’s me.”

“The mayor of this fair community,” Sam added.

“They elected me th’ fookin’ chief,” Big George said, almost belligerently. “Now, whattaya want to see me about?”

“About Lars Fuchs.”

George’s eyes went cold and narrow. Belinda backed away from us and went down the bar, suddenly busy with the glassware.

“What about Lars Fuchs?” George asked.

“I want to meet him. I’ve got a business proposition for him.”

George folded his beefy arms across his massive chest. “Fuchs is an exile. Hasn’t been anywhere near Ceres for dog’s years. Hell, this fookin’ habitat wasn’t even finished when we tossed ’im out. We were still livin’ down inside th’ rock.”

Sam rested his elbows on the bar and smiled disarmingly at Big George. “Well, I’ve got a business proposition for Fuchs and I need to talk to him.”

“What kind of a business proposition?”

With a perfectly straight face Sam answered, “I’m thinking of starting a tourist service here in the belt. You know, visit Ceres, see a mining operation at work on one of the asteroids, go out in a suit and chip some gold or diamonds to bring back home. That kind of thing.”

George said nothing, but I could see the wheels turning behind that wild red mane of his.

“It could mean an influx of money for your people,” Sam went on, in his best snake-oil spiel. “A hotel here in orbit around Ceres, rich tourists flooding in. Lots of money.”

George unbent his arms, but he still remained standing. “What’s all this got to do with Fuchs?”

“Shiploads full of rich tourists might make a tempting target for a pirate.”

“Bullshit.”

“You don’t think he’d attack tour ships?”

“Lars wouldn’t do that. He’s not a fookin’ pirate. Not in that sense, anyway.”

“I’d rather hear that from him,” Sam said. “In fact, I’ve got to have his personal assurance before my backers will invest in the scheme.”

George stared at Sam for a long moment, deep suspicion written clearly on his face. “Nobody knows where Lars is,” he said at last. “You might as well go back home. Nobody here’s gonna give you any help.”

We left the bar with Big George glowering at our backs so hard, I could feel the heat. Following the maps on the wall screens in the passageways, we found the adjoining rooms that I had booked for us.

“Now what?” I asked Sam as I unpacked my travel bag.

“Now we wait.”

Sam had simply tossed his bag on the bed of his room and barged through the connecting door into mine. We had packed for only a three-day stay at Ceres, although we had more gear stowed in Achernar. Something had to happen pretty quick, I thought.

“Wait for what?” I asked.

“Developments.”

I put my carefully folded clothes in a drawer, hung my extra pair of wrinkle-proof slacks in the closet, and set up my toiletries in the lavatory. Sam made himself comfortable in the room’s only chair, a recliner designed to look like an astronaut’s couch. He cranked it down so far, I thought he was going to take a nap.

Sitting on the bed, I told him, “Sam, I’ve got to call Judge Myers.”

“Go right ahead,” he said.

“What should I tell her?”

“Tell her we’ll be back in time for the wedding.”

I doubted that.

Two days passed without a word from anyone. Sam even tried to date Belinda, he was getting so desperate, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with him.

“They all know Fuchs,” Sam said to me. “They like him and they’re protecting him.”

It was common knowledge that Humphries had sworn to kill Fuchs, but Amanda had married Humphries on the condition that he left Fuchs alone. Everybody in Ceres, from Belinda the barmaid to the last Rock Rat, thought that we were working for Humphries, trying to find Fuchs and murder him. Or at least locate him, so one of Humphries’s hired killers could knock him off. Fuchs was out there in the belt somewhere, cruising through that dark emptiness like some Flying Dutchman, alone, taking a strangely measured kind of vengeance on unmanned Humphries ships.

I had other fish to fry, though. I wanted to find out what was on the chip that Amanda had given Sam. Her message to her ex-husband. What did she want to tell

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