It was a flying iron jungle. The streamlined ship had been preferred by mankind since space travel had been but a dream. Even now designers felt more comfortable enclosing everything inside a skin capable of generating an all-around defensive screen.

Even the wildest imaginings of novelty-hunting holo studios had never produced a vessel as knotted and strewn as this mass of tangled kitten's yarn.

BenRabi's astonishment was not unique. Silence died a swift death in that room.

"How the hell does that bastard keep from breaking up?" someone demanded.

"What I want to know is, how do you build something like that without a crew from every holonet in the universe turning up?"

Someone more technically smitten asked, "Ship's Commander—what sort of system do you use to synchronize drives? You'd have to have hundreds on a ship that big. Even with superconductor or pulse laser control systems your synch systems would be limited to the velocity of light. The lag between the more remote units... "

BenRabi lost the thread. Another surprise had jumped on him wearing hobnailed boots on all four feet.

He was aboard a ship he and Mouse had studied from the surface of Carson's. She was a typical interstellar vessel of an obsolete class now common only among the Rim Run Freehaulers.

A similar vessel had appeared in the hologram. It was approaching the harvestship.

The surprise was in their relative sizes.

The starship became a needle falling into an expanding, cosmic ocean of scrap. The service ship retained its holo dimensions. Danion swelled till she attained epic proportions.

Moyshe could not begin to guess her true dimensions. His most conservative estimate staggered him. She had to be at least thirty kilometers in cross-section, twenty thick, and sixty long. That was impossible. There were countries on Old Earth smaller than that.

And stretching far beyond the dense central snarl of the ship were those spars spreading silvery sails and nets.

Did she sunjam on stellar winds?

She couldn't. The Starfish stayed away from stars. Any stars, be they orbited by settled worlds or not. They stayed way out in the Big Dark where they could not be found.

The whole thing had to be a brag show. Pure propaganda. It just had to be.

He could not accept that ship as real.

His normal, understandable operation-opening jitters cranked themselves up a couple of notches. Till that ship had declared itself he had thought he could handle anything new and strange. Change was the order of the universe. Novelty was no cause for distress.

But this mission held too much promise of the new and unknown. He had been plunged tabula rasa into a completely alien universe.

Nothing created by Man had any right being so damned big.

Light returned. It drowned the dying hologram. BenRabi looked around. His jaw was not the only one hanging like an overripe pear about to drop.

Despite prior warning, everyone had believed themselves aboard a harvestship. Cultural bias left them incapable of believing the Fishers could have anything better.

Moyshe began to realize just how poorly he had been prepared for this mission. He had done his homework. He had devoured everything the Bureau had known about Starfishers. He had considered speculation as well as confirmed fact. He knew all there was to know.

Too little had been known.

"That's all you'll need to know about Danion's outside," the Ship's Commander told them. "Of her guts you'll see plenty, and you'll have to learn them well. We expect to get our money's worth."

They had the right to ask it, Moyshe figured. They were paying double the usual spacer's rates, and those were anything but poor.

The man talked on awhile, repeating the security officer's injunctions. Then he turned the landsmen over to ratings, who showed them to their quarters. BenRabi's nervousness subsided. He had been through this part before, each time he had boarded a Navy warship.

He got a cabin to himself. The Seiner assigned to him helped settle him in. From the man's wary replies, Moyshe presumed he could expect to be aboard for several days. Payne's Fleet was harvesting far from Carson's.

Once the man had left and benRabi had converted his barren cubicle into a Spartan cell, he lay down to nap. After looking for bugs and spy-eyes, of course. But sleep would not come. Not with all the great lumpy surprises his mind still had to digest.

Someone knocked. Mouse, he guessed. The man never used a buzzer. He made a crochet a means of identification.

Yes. It was Mouse. "Hi," he said. "I'm Masato Iwasaki. Oh. You're in Liquids too? Good." He stuck out a hand. They shook.

"BenRabi. Moyshe. Nice to meet you." Silly game, he thought. But it had to be played if they wanted people to believe that they had just met.

"You wouldn't happen to play chess?" Mouse asked. "I'm looking for somebody who does."

He was addicted to the game. It would get him into trouble someday, benRabi thought. An agent could not afford consistent crochets. But who was he to criticize?

"I've been up and down the passage, but I haven't found anybody."

No doubt he had. Mouse was thorough.

"I play, but badly. And it's been awhile." It had been about four hours. They had almost been late to the spaceport because of a game. Mouse had been nervous about liftoff. BenRabi had been holding his own.

Mouse prowled, searching for bugs. BenRabi closed the door. "I don't think there are any. Not yet. I didn't find anything."

Mouse shrugged. "What do you think?"

"Broomstick all the way. Strictly from hunger. We're riding the mythical nova bomb."

"The woman? Yeah. Pure trouble. Spotted a couple McGraws, too. You think she's teamed?" He dropped onto the extra bunk.

"I don't think so. Not by choice. She's a loner."

"It doesn't look good," Mouse mused. "We don't have enough info. I feel like a blind man in a funhouse. We'd better fly gentle till we learn the traffic code." He stared at the overhead. "And how to con the natives."

BenRabi settled onto his own bunk. They remained silent for minutes, trying to find handles on the future. They would need every advantage they could seize.

"Three weeks," Mouse said. "I can handle it. Then a whole year off. I won't know what to do."

"Don't make your reservations yet. Marya... The Sangaree woman. She's one bad omen. Mouse... I don't think it's going to work out."

"I can handle it. You don't think I want to spend a whole damned year here, do you?"

"Remember what that character said down at Blake City? It could be the rest of our lives. Short lives."

"Bah. He was blowing smoke."

"Ready to bet your life on it?"

BenRabi's head gave him a kick. He was not sure he could take much more pain. And this compelling need...

"What's the matter?"

"Headache. Must be the change in air pressure."

How the hell was he supposed to work with his body in pain and his mind half around the bend? There was something to be said for those old-time sword swingers who did not have to worry about anything but how sharp their blades were.

"We'd better hedge our bets, Moyshe. Better start planning for the long haul, just in case."

"Thought you could handle it."

Mouse shrugged. "Got to be ready for everything. I've been poking around. These Seiners are as bad as us for special interests. They've got coin clubs and stamp clubs and Archaicist period groups... The whole thing. They're crazy to get into the past. What I was thinking was, why don't we start a chess club for landsmen? We'd have a cover for getting together."

"And you'd have an excuse to play."

"That too. A lot of Seiners play too, see. Maybe we could fish a few in so we could pump them socially." He winked, smiled.