me a little and, if I don't deliver, then you collect from those who paid Pendance to get me.' He added casually, 'How far is the other ship?'
'Not far.'
'You know who is in it?'
'A cyber. I heard him on the radio.' She frowned as she considered his suggestion but he had narrowed her field of choice. To return now to Pendance would be to invite acid in the face. To sell Dumarest would be to lose the chance of an intriguing adventure. To do nothing would be to go against her restless nature. 'You bastard,' she said. 'You cunning bastard. You tricked Pendance and stole his ship and now you want to use it for free. Well, why not?'
'A crew. We've got an engineer if you can talk Craig into it as you promised. Maynard might act as our captain but what about a navigator?'
'You've got one. Me. The finest in space.' She smiled at his expression. 'I mean that-or haven't you ever met a woman who's good at anything outside of a bed?'
'Words aren't deeds. How soon do we reach that other ship?'
'Why? What's the interest? We're not going to hit it.'
'Wrong. That's just what I want to do.' Dumarest forced himself to be patient as he explained. To emphasize the danger was to sow the seeds of potential panic, to minimize it would breed carelessness. 'Pendance is back in Zabul. I tried to gain time so as to get clear but he'll want to radio the other ship. You got in first so they may suspect a trap or decide to play both sides. We are closest so it will be logical for them to keep the rendezvous and jump us as soon as they get the chance. We have to prevent them from doing that.'
'Or?' She answered her own question. 'They'll pick up Pendance and his men and come after us. With a faster ship and a full crew they'll trail and catch us for sure. When they do-' She broke off, thinking of the engineer and his ruined face. 'What do you want to do, Earl?'
Smash the other ship from space, destroy the poison it contained, wipe the threat from the universe as he would rid his body of a venomous insect. Instead he had to compromise. To make do with what he had.
She nodded when he explained. 'We'll need Maynard. I'll talk him into it while you take care of Craig. He'll help you get things ready if you handle him right. But hurry, man, we've got less than an hour!'
Craig was thick-set, stocky, a man who carried his brains in his hands and the marks of Pendance's anger on his face. The skin was blotched, oozing with sores, tissue stretched like thin red paper over the bone, a clownlike mask from which blue eyes gleamed beneath shaggy brows. His hair was rust-colored, short, bristling in angry spikes.
Looking around the hold he said, 'That's about the best we can do, Earl. To gather more will take time we haven't got.'
'You've done well, Jed.'
'Maybe.' Craig lifted a hand as if to rub his chin then, remembering, lowered it to his side. A thwarted gesture he felt he should explain. 'It's the sores. Touching them makes it worse.'
'They can be treated. The rest too.'
'Sure.' Craig looked at his hands. They were broad, scarred, the tips of his fingers spatulate. 'I guess you wonder how I let them get away with it. Pendance, I mean and the acid. Did Ysanne tell you about it?'
'Briefly. Not the details.'
'He was in a rage and when he's in that state he'll kill as soon as breathe. The generator-well, never mind that now. I'd done my best but it wasn't good enough and he threw the acid. I'd been cleaning a component and it was standing on the bench. Maybe he didn't know what was in the beaker.'
'Maybe.'
'Or maybe I'm just trying to fool myself. Is that what you think?'
'It's none of my business,' said Dumarest. 'We all do odd things at times-act the fool, the idiot, the amateur.'
'The coward?'
'That too at times if there's no other choice. Or to seem to act that way to those with no right to judge. At times to be brave is to be dead. A smart man recognizes the situation, waits his chance then, when it comes, takes his revenge.'
'Like now.' Craig straightened his shoulders, his pride restored. 'Maybe he'll remember what he did after we're through.'
The captain and the cyber now waited in the ship ahead. Dumarest wondered if even now he was assessing the situation, extrapolating the probabilities and arriving at a prediction of what could happen. He hoped not; the chances were small enough without a trained and calculating mind making them less.
He looked at what had been gathered in the hold; the piles of scrap, the supplies left by the mercenaries, old tools, sections of metal cut and fashioned into jagged scraps. Items small enough to be handled and heavy enough to contain a respectable mass.
From a speaker Ysanne said, 'We're getting close, Earl. You'd better get ready.'
'Is everything under control?'
'Of course.' Her voice held amusement and something else; an emotion close to euphoria, the intoxication of the senses now sharpened to a fine pitch. One he recognized. 'Don't worry about this end, just concentrate on your own. I'll give you the timing.'
To Craig Dumarest said, 'We'll suit up now and loosen the hatches. Make certain your line is secure.'
They both checked and then there was nothing to do but wait. Dumarest could hear the sound of the engineer's breathing in his speakers, a soft susurration which could have been static or the rustle of a woman's clothing. Ysanne? She was with Maynard and he wondered how she had gained the man's cooperation. With lies, he guessed, a tale acceptable to a drugged mind. With smiles and promises and the warm allure of her body. Such a woman would stop at nothing to get her own way.
'We're in contact,' she said from the radio. 'They want to talk to Pendance.'
'Tell them we left him back in Zabul.'
'Why?'
'We want to make a special deal. Use your imagination but don't lie unless you have to.'
Lies would warn without need and the cyber would be wary as it was. He must know where Pendance was but would also be aware of the greed which drove men into strange paths.
'I don't think they're buying it, Earl.'
'Be open. We'll come to a halt and they can check. What can they lose?' He added, 'Don't be too polite. You have what they want and let them know it. How much longer?'
'Minutes now. Stand by.'
'Stand by the hatches, Jed.' Dumarest took up his position, conscious of the prickling of his back, the tension which always warned of danger. Automatically he checked his line, the instruments within his helmet, the position of the assembled debris. The enemy lay outside. 'Ysanne?'
'Seconds now before we drop the field.' A pause, then, 'On three, Earl. One! Two! Three! Now!'
The hatches swung open beneath the engineer's hands, space filling the frame of the structure, the bulk of the other ship almost dead center. Good aiming and even better navigation but there was no time to assess the skills of the pilot and the girl.
'Now!' snapped Dumarest. 'Now!'
He threw his weight against a heap of scraps and thrust them into the void. More followed, sacks which broke to spill their contents, containers tipped to spread their loads, all the items collected, the rubbish and pieces and unessential furnishings of the hold and workroom. The mass spread into space, carrying with it the momentum of the ship-which was aimed at the vessel lying dead ahead.
Surprise was their only asset. Given time the ship would move, run from the hail, find safety in its Erhaft field, but Dumarest had given them no time. The ship they were expecting had arrived, killed its field to coast to the rendezvous. The mass of debris was masked by its bulk, the scanners of the other vessel unable to isolate the fragments.
'Up!' snapped Dumarest. 'Up and away!'
The picture framed in the open hatch changed as he was obeyed. Stars replacing the ship, the widening hail heading toward it. A rain which hit the vessel, tearing into the hull, perforating it, ruining the scanners and creating
