"Thank you," said Heller. "Any data you have on current ship condition is required."

"Yes, sir. I am fine, sir. How are you?"

"Fine," said Heller. "Is that end of data on ship condition?"

"There is another datum on hold in the eighty-fifth idling memory. I will give you that, sir. Two locational bugs were installed in me, one on the nose, the other on the tail, while I was idle."

"Ho, ho," said Heller. "So that's how the assassin pilot found me. Is there any sign of the other flying cannon?"

"I have no ships on my screens, sir."

"Very good. Take over control. Stay alert for the second ship. Proceed at low speed toward the coordinates of the black hole earlier recorded from the telescope. Don't make sudden divergences from course. I will be working inside and outside of the ship."

"Yes, sir. I am engaged on controls now, sir."

We began to move in relation to the scattered debris of the flying cannon.

Heller pointed at me and told the cat, "Watch him." He then went to a locker and began to get out a pressure suit. He inspected it with care and then he put it on.

He got some tools, a paint brush and paint squirter. He went into the airlock and closed it behind him.

I could hear his magnetic boots clumping on the hull, the sound carried through the metal. Then I got an awful start. His face appeared on the other side of the viewport, looking into the flight deck.

People in space helmets always look so unearthly, it makes one think of monsters. And to me, Heller was a monster anyway. He had plotted ceaselessly to do me in, he had murdered in cold blood the Antimanco crew, he had just shaken me up like dice in a cup with his insane, suicidal attack on that assassin pilot and here I was, chained to a pipe like some wild animal, completely at his mercy.

I must think of something and do something to get myself out of this. It would only be justice to do Heller in. Somehow I must still accomplish it. I was pretty certain that I could.

After about half an hour he came back in through the airlock and got out of his pressure suit.

He came back to the flight deck. He had two objects in his hand. He tossed them at me and they rattled against the bulkhead. "You knew those bugs were there, I am sure," he said. "Sitting on that secret could have cost you your life."

"I didn't think it was important," I said. "The fact that you have taken these off won't prevent the second pilot from finding us. They can spot the spacial turbulence of your drives. The moment you go near that planet again, the other one will pick us up." I had a sudden wild idea. "Why not just deliver me to Voltar?"

I scarcely dared breathe, watching him. If I could con him into taking me back home, I would be free and clear. Lombar Hisst hated him and Lombar, unbeknownst to Heller, now controlled even the Emperor.

"You're the least of my worries," said Heller. "I've got other things to do. I've got to get ready for this black hole."

I shuddered. That could be dangerous. "What do you care about this planet Earth anyway?" I said. "Why don't you just go home and forget it."

"It's a pretty planet," said Heller. "If I don't complete my mission, it will become uninhabitable. In another century or less, it will be so chewed up it won't even support life. Don't you care what happens to five billion people?"

"Riffraff," I said.

He raised his eyebrows. "Well, I guess one sees in others what he finds in himself," said Heller.

I seethed at the insult. Didn't he realize that he was talking to the future Chief of the Apparatus? Oh, I'd get even with him before this was over!

He opened a door into the engine rooms and propped it back. From where I was chained, I could watch him. He was doing something very peculiar indeed. On Voltar, an enormous spare time-converter drum had been put in the tight space. They had even opened the top of the hull to get it in. He had a wrench and he was working at the entry port into the huge drum.

The sign clearly said it mustn't be touched, that it would blow your hand off if you even reached in. And he was unbolting it.

"You'll blast us apart!" I shouted.

He didn't pay me any heed at all. He got off the big plate and calmly reached in!

I flinched as I waited for his arms to disintegrate.

They didn't.

He was pulling out a large object in wrappings. He carried it to the pilot deck and stripped it.

A LASER CANNON!

Oh, the sneaky Devil! That wasn't a time-converter spare at all! It was simply a way to put aboard equipment and hide it from the view of everyone.

He opened some plates in the overhead. He slid the laser cannon on to already prepared mounts. He shoved its nose into a forward space that would open if it fired.

He went back and got a second device. I did not know what it was. He bolted it in place beside the cannon.

"Why didn't you install that before we had to fight the assassin ship?" I wailed.

"Oh, these devices aren't cannon, exactly," he said. "They wouldn't have done much to that ship."

I blinked. They certainly looked like cannons. He was connecting them up to a set of controls on the panel that resembled firing controls.

He fastened down the plates in the overhead and the two devices were no longer in view. Then he went back to the drum and began to take out what looked like the slats of a dismantled cage. He carried these to the airlock, where he stacked them up. He added some other items to that pile. Then he put the cover back on the drum.

He closed up the engine rooms and sat down at the telescope eyepiece.

"Now that," he said, "is a very nice primordial black hole. Corky, speed yourself up and get your scanners going on target object. Input all data into banks and calculate."

The tug did a forward surge.

"Are you going to shoot that black hole?" I said. The man was clearly insane. "It would drink up every round. You might even shoot us through the thing into another universe!"

"Oh, those devices up there aren't for the black hole. I'm just getting things ready," said Heller.

What was he up to? If I had some clue as to his plans, maybe I could make him do something so I could get him.

"Well, what do you need a black hole for?" I asked.

"Fuel," said Heller. "Cheap fuel. They'll need hardly any oil when I am done."

Oh, Gods, he was going pell-mell to do in Rockecenter! Didn't he realize that any solution to the energy problem would ruin the Rockecenter monopoly? I certainly had to think of something that would WORK!

"You hungry?" he said casually, I thought he was talking to me and then I realized he was addressing the cat.

"Meow," said the cat.

"Keep an eye on the prisoner, Corky," said Heller.

I railed at my shackles. First I was being watched by a cat and now I was being guarded by a robot tug! Was there no end to this calculated program of degrading me?

I could hear Heller down the passageway. "Now, this is the chief mate's room," he was saying to the cat. "You're promoted. Here's your pan so you can relieve yourself. And here's your pillow. Here's your water bowl and here's your dish. Now, would you like a can of chicken or a can of tuna? All right, tuna it is."

I heard him then in the crew's galley, getting himself something to eat. He came back after a while, sipping at a canister of hot jolt. The cat came back, licking his chops. That did it.

"Aren't you going to feed me?" I said.

"I didn't know that riffraff deserved to eat," said Heller.

"You're insulting me," I said.

"I didn't think that was possible," said Heller, calmly sipping his hot jolt.

Rage burned in me. "According to regulations, prisoners must be fed!"

It worked. He handed me the hot-jolt canister.

I tipped it up.