The handler thought about it, frowning. It was a mistake to trust the stranded, they would do anything, promise anything to get away. But this one seemed different. If he had the money and would be willing to pledge himself it was a good opportunity.

"I'll have to check."

"Must you?"

"The captain has to know." The handler was regretful. "With the hold sealed we ride close and there's no way to keep you out of sight. But don't worry, I'll speak up for you." His thumb and forefinger made an unmistakable gesture. "Just figure what it's worth and see me an hour after dark. You can bribe your way from the compound if you have to."

"I'll be here," said Dumarest. "Do your best for me and you won't regret it."

At the Queen of Jaquline he was met with a scowl.

"Get the hell away from here!" The officer was red-faced, thick-set, impatient. "I've had enough of you thieving swine! You whine your way aboard, beg for a cheap passage, promise the universe then rob the ship of all you can."

"I want-"

"You'll get a mouthful of broken teeth if you argue! Shen! Hammond! Come and take care of this stinking beggar!"

The third ship was the Sleethan, a trader loading crates. Dumarest helped to stack them in the hold and then, when the overseer wasn't looking, slipped past him and into the vessel. The captain was of a type he'd met before.

"Passage?" Kell Erylin rubbed thoughtfully at his jaw. "You can pay?"

Dumarest showed the man some money. "Where are you bound?"

"Zakym." Erylin sucked at his teeth. "How come you helped to load?"

"I needed the exercise." Dumarest met the shrewd eyes. Like all traders the captain was more interested in making a profit than worrying about codes of morality. "And I didn't want to advertise my leaving. Harald's an odd world, Captain, as you know. I've a rooted objection to wearing a collar."

A hint which would explain his appearance, his need to escape. For Erylin it seemed to be enough.

"We leave after dark. Be here an hour before then and-"

"No." Dumarest jingled the coins. "I want to stay aboard, Captain. To settle in, you might say. I'm willing to pay extra for the service."

Erylin held out his hand and frowned as he saw the amount.

"A third in advance," explained Dumarest. "The rest when we're in space. Don't worry, you'll get it."

"If I don't you'll breath vacuum." The captain's tone was as hard as his eyes. Jerking his head he added, "Take cabin number three. Help yourself to food if you want it. Chagney's in the salon."

Chagney was the navigator. He sat sprawled in a chair, foot resting on the table, a cup of basic in his hand. He watched as Dumarest helped himself from the spigot and sipped at the liquid. It was sickly with glucose, thick with protein, flavored with citrus and laced with vitamins. A cup would provide a spaceman with energy for a day.

"Hungry?" The navigator tipped something from a bottle into his own cup. "Here, a little of this gives it more body."

It was brandy and Dumarest tipped the bottle, taking far less than it seemed.

"So you're going to ride with us," said Chagney. "To Zakym. You know it?"

"No."

"A small world deep in the Rift. A crazy place or maybe it's the people who are crazy. We work the area; Zakym, Ieldhara, Frogan, Angku-small profits and plenty of risk. You've ridden traders before?"

"A time or two, yes."

"Then you know how it is." Chagney helped himself to more brandy. Lifting the cup, he said, "A toast, friend. To the afterlife!" His smile was bleak. "You don't think I should drink to the next world? Hell, why not? There's little enough in this one."

And for him less than most. The man was dying, his body ravaged by an internal parasite picked up on some distant world. Soon it would eat its way to his brain but, before that, if Erylin had any sense, the ship would have a new navigator.

"If we can find one." The engineer was a squat man with the body of a toad and a sponge-like face meshed with a tracery of broken veins. "Chagney knows his way around the Rift and we'll have a hard time replacing him. Who wants to work on a trader?"

Usually the ruined, the desperate, those with skills but with reputations long-vanished and with nowhere else to turn. Men willing to take risks with old equipment and worn engines. Scraping a living by sharing in the meager profits. Some, Dumarest had known, were well run and well maintained. The Sleethan wasn't one of them.

It was undercrewed; the engineer filling in as handler. There was no steward. The corridor showed signs of dirt and neglect. The decks were scuffed and the air held the sour taint of faulty-conditioners. The cabins matched the rest.

Dumarest closed the door, threw the simple catch and stripped off the rags and tatters which covered his own clothing. The bunk held a thin mattress, the cabinet was empty, the water from the faucet little more than a trickle into the bowl. He let it run as he stripped then washed himself down, using a sheet from the bunk as both sponge and towel. Dressed he opened the door and looked outside. The corridor was deserted. The cabins to either side were empty but in the one beyond the nearest to the salon he found some clothes hanging in the cabinet. A steward's uniform together with a medical kit containing some basic drugs and antibiotics. With it was a hypogun loaded with quick-time.

Laziness would account for the clothing; the steward, dead or deserted, had left traces which had yet to be disposed of. The kit was standard equipment as was the hypo-gun. Once on their journey it would be used, the drug injected with a blast of air to slow the metabolism; the chemical magic of quick-time slowing the metabolism so that a normal day would seem a matter of minutes only. A convenience to lessen the tedium of journeys.

Back in his cabin Dumarest settled down on the bunk to wait. He had done all he could. The false trail at the Ergun would provide a distraction if one was needed. He wouldn't be missed from the compound. Within an hour now, he would be away from Harald and safe into space.

He dozed a little, waking to the throb of the engines, the thin, high, wailing of the generator as it established the Erhaft field which would send them across the void at a multiple of the speed of light. The wail was ragged, too loud, the audible signal lasting too long before it lifted into the ultra-sonic to be heterodyned into harmlessness.

But the noise didn't matter. The ship was up and away and Dumarest felt himself relax. A moment only, then he tensed as someone knocked on the door.

"Who?"

"Fatshan." The engineer cleared his throat. "Open up, man, it's time for quick-time."

Dumarest frowned, reaching for his knife as, with his other hand, he released the catch. The panel flew open and the engineer cried out at the sight of naked steel.

"No! Don't! I couldn't help it! I-"

He broke off as a hand thrust him to one side. In the corridor now stood a tall figure wearing a hatefully familiar robe.

As Dumarest lifted the naked blade Cyber Broge said, "Drop it! Drop it or I fire!"

The laser in his hand was small, a sleeve-gun, but just as deadly as any other weapon at this range. It could sear and burn and slash like a red-hot blade. Dumarest knew that, if he moved, it would sever both his legs at the knees.

Chapter Seven

Khaya Taiyuah was a tall, lean man with a hooked nose and sunken eyes which, normally like turgid pools, now blazed with the urgency of his errand.

"Lavinia, we have no choice. Unless Gydapen is stopped he will ruin us all. The Pact must not be broken. If it is then what will become of life as we know it?" Somberly he answered his own question. "War, death, destruction, the ruin of Zakym. The work of our ancestors wasted because of the greed of one man."