Garamond crowded on to the stubby shuttlecraft with Aileen and looked forward. The door between the crew and passenger compartments was open, revealing the environment of instrument arrays and controls in which the pilots worked. A shoulder of each man, decorated with the ubiquitous Starflight symbol, was visible on each side of the central aisle, and Garamond could hear the preflight checks being carried out. Neither of the pilots looked back.

“Sit there,” Garamond whispered, pointing at a seat which was screened from the pilots’ view by the main bulkhead. He put his fingers to his lips and winked at Chris, making it into a game. The boy nodded tautly, undeceived. Garamond went back to the entrance door and stood in it, waving to imaginary figures in the slidewalk tunnel, then went forward to the crew compartment.

“Take it away, Captain,” he said with the greatest joviality he could muster.

“Yes, sir.” The dark-chinned senior pilot glanced over his shoulder. “As soon as Mrs Garamond and your son disembark.”

Garamond looked around the flight deck and found a small television screen showing a picture of the passenger compartment, complete with miniature images of Aileen and Chris. He wondered if the pilots had been watching it closely and how much they might have deduced from his actions.

“My wife and son are coming with us,” he said. “Just for the ride.”

“I’m sorry, sir — their names aren’t on my list.”

“This is a special arrangement I’ve just made with the President.”

“I’ll have to check that with the tower.” There was a stubborn set to the pilot’s bluish jaw as he reached for the communications switch.

“I assure you it’s all right.” Garamond slid the pistol out of his jacket and used its barrel to indicate the runway ahead. “Now, I want you to get all the normal clearances in a perfectly normal way and then do a maximum-energy ascent to my ship. I’m very familiar with the whole routine and I can fly this bug myself if necessary, so don’t do any clever stuff which would make me shoot you.”

“I’m not going to get myself shot.” The senior pilot shrugged and his younger companion nodded vigorously. “But how far do you think you’re going to get, Captain?”

“Far enough — now take us out of here.” Garamond remained standing between the two seats. There was a subdued thud from the passenger door as it sealed itself, and then the shuttle surged forward. While monitoring the cross talk between the pilots and the North Field tower, Garamond studied the computer screen which was displaying flight parameters. The Bissendorf was in Polar Band One, the great stream of Starflight spacecraft — mainly population transfer vessels, but with a sprinkling of Exploratory Arm ships — which girdled the Earth at a height of more than a hundred kilometres. Incoming ships were allocated parking slots in any of the thirty-degree sectors marked by twelve space stations, their exact placing being determined by the amount of maintenance or repair they needed. The Bissendorf had been scheduled for a major refitting lasting three months, and was close in to Station 8, which the computer showed to be swinging up over the Aleutian Islands. A maximum-energy rendezvous could be accomplished in about eleven minutes.

“I take it you want to catch the Bissendorf this time round,” the senior pilot said as the shuttle’s drive tubes built up thrust and the white runway markers began to flicker under its nose like tracer fire.

Garamond nodded. “You take it right.”

“It’s going to be rough on your wife and boy.” There was an unspoken question in the comment.

“Not as rough as…” Garamond decided to do the pilots a favour by telling them nothing — they too would be caught up in Elizabeth’s enquiries.

“There’s a metallizer aerosol in the locker beside you,” the copilot volunteered, speaking for the first time.

“Thanks.” Garamond found the aerosol container and passed it back to Aileen. “Spray your clothes with this. Do Chris as well.”

“What’s it for?” Aileen was trying to sound unconcerned, but her voice was small and cold.

“It won’t do your clothes any harm, but it makes them react against the restraint field inside the ship when you move. It turns them into a kind of safety net and also stops you floating about when you’re in free fall.” Garamond had forgotten how little Aileen knew about spaceflight or air travel. She had never even been in an ordinary jetliner, he recalled. The great age of air tourism was long past — if a person was lucky enough to live in an acceptable part of the Earth he tended to stay put.

“You can use it first,” Aileen said.

“I don’t need it — all space fliers’ uniforms are metallized when they’re made.” Garamond smiled encouragingly. The pilot didn’t know how right he was, he thought. This is going to be rough on my wife and boy. He returned his attention to the pilots as the shuttle lifted its nose and cleared the ground. As soon as the undercarriage had been retracted and the craft was aerodynamically clean the drive tubes boosted it skywards on a pink flare of recombining ions. Garamond, standing behind the pilots, was pushed against the bulkhead and held there by the sustained acceleration. Behind him, Chris began to sob.

“Don’t worry, son,” Garamond called. “This won’t last long. We’ll soon be…”

“North Field to shuttlecraft Sahara Tango 4299,” a voice crackled from the radio. “This is Fleet Commodore Keegan calling. Come in, please.”

“Don’t answer that,” Garamond ordered. The dock behind his eyes had come to an abrupt and sickening halt.

“But that was Keegan himself. Are you mixed up in something big, Captain?”

“Big enough.” Garamond hesitated as the radio repeated its message. “Tune that out and get me Commander Napier on my bridge.” He gave the pilot a microwave frequency which would by-pass the Bissendorf’s main communications room.

“But…”

“Immediately.” He raised the pistol against multiple gravities. “This is a hair trigger and there’s a lot of G-force piling up on my finger.”

“I’m making the call now.” The pilot spun a small vernier on the armrest of his chair and in a few seconds had established contact.

“Commander Napier here.” Garamond felt a surge of relief as he recognized the cautious tones Napier always employed when he did not know who was on the other end of a channel.

“This is an urgent one, Cliff.” Garamond spoke steadily. “Have you had any communications about me from Starflight House?”

“Ah… no. Was I supposed to?”

“That doesn’t matter now. Here’s a special instruction which I’m asking you to obey immediately and without question. Do you understand?”

“Okay, Vance,” Napier sounded puzzled, but not suspicious or alarmed.

“I’m on the shuttle and will rendezvous with you in a few minutes, but right now I want you to throw the ultimate master switch on the external communications system. Right now, Cliff! ”

There was a slight pause, during which Napier must have been considering the facts that what he had been asked to do was illegal and that under Starflight Regulations he was not obliged to obey such an order — then the channel went dead.

Garamond closed his eyes for a second. He knew that Napier had also thought about their years together on the Bissendorf, all the light-years they had covered, all the alien suns, all the hostile useless planets, all the disappointments which had studded their quest for lebensraum, all the bottles of whisky they had killed while in orbit around lost, lonely points of light both to console themselves and to make the next leg of a mission seem bearable. If he and Aileen and Chris had any chance of life it lay in the fact that a spaceship was an island universe, a tiny enclave in which Elizabeth’s power was less than absolute. While in Earth orbit the ship’s officers would have been forced to obey any direct order from Starflight Admincom, but he had successfully blocked the communications channels… A warning chime from the shuttle’s computer interrupted Garamond’s thoughts.