"Daddy, you're not eating." ''I'm not very hungry, dear. You may have my roll if you like."

"No; you eat something and drink your juice. You have to keep your strength up. No telling when we might eat again, and anyway we want to be alert for any chance of escape."

Her, father did not say anything, but his expression gave her to know that he considered any thought of escape pure foolishness.

The jet dropped down through the clouds and landed on a square of concrete near a small town on the edge of a desert. Ari could see brown desolate hills in the distance and the white stucco buildings of the town like bleached bones in the sun. Squat, bushy-topped palm trees and low dusty shrubs stood off away from the landing field like forlorn travelers awaiting transportation that never arrives. There were no human passengers or greeting committee that Ari could see on her side of the plane.

Someone popped the hatch and the cool interior of the craft was assaulted by warm dry air from the desert. Then, one by one, all of the occupants disembarked. Ari and her father stayed in their seats until Tickler came back and told them to get out. They emerged from the plane and walked a few paces along the concrete landing pad.

"Stay in sight!" Tickler called. But other than that admonition no one seemed to pay the least attention to them.

Hocking and his assistants withdrew to the far side of the pad to confer with a group of five or six men in black and white kaftans, fuel smugglers, no doubt. Ari thought she saw a camel's head moving among the shrubbery a little way off.

"I wonder where we are?" Ari whispered to her father. "And what's going on?"

"Does it matter?" The resignation was so strong in her father's voice that Ari spun around and faced him, gripping him by the arms.

"Daddy, tell me. You're hiding something and I have a right to know. It's my neck, too. Don't think you're protecting me by not talking. It's too late for that, and besides-I'm a big girl now."

Her words brought him back. He looked at her and blinked, as if recognizing her for the first time since the ordeal started. "Of course, my dear," he said gently. He looked around and saw that they were unobserved. "I'll tell you all I know and what I guess " He paused and looked at her once again.

"Is it about Spence? Tell me. I won't be spared the details no matter how it hurts."

"Spence? Oh, no. I mean, yes-it started there. At first it was him, but not anymore. He doesn't matter anymore, not really."

"Doesn't matter?"

"They told me he'd kidnapped you, that he and Adjani were stealing advanced technology secrets to sell, and I don't know what all. I thought I was helping you, Ari. I never dreamed…"

"I don't understand. Why did you believe them. Didn't you know-"

"No," her father said curtly. "I… I had to believe them. I had no choice."

"Daddy, who are these people? What do they want from us?"

He turned sad and bitter eyes on her. "It started almost a year ago. He came to me"-a jerk of the head indicated Hocking"and said that there were people who would pay handsomely to know the truth about your mother. I was afraid-I couldn't let that information out. It might have ruined my career. The board elections were only a few weeks away. There had been some mumblings of dissatisfaction among the more conservative board members; my reappointment was by no means assured."

"What did he want?"

"That was the odd thing. Only to come aboard Gotham and observe, he said. We made a deal: I would let him come on board-no questions asked-in exchange for his silence about Caroline. I didn't see him after that. He stayed out of sight."

"Didn't you wonder what he was up to?"

"I didn't want to know! After the elections I forgot about him, put him out of my mind."

"He was there all the time. Spence was right." "Spence knew about him?"

"Spence saw him once and had me try to find out who he was. Of course I couldn't; there was no record of him anywhere."

Director Zanderson passed a hand in front of his eyes. "I've been such a fool! Now everything's gone."

"What do you mean? We're not finished yet, not by a long shot."

"What difference does it make?" He returned to his whining tone. He looked at her again with eyes showing white all around. "Don't you understand? They are taking over control of the Center! The space station will be theirs."

"Impossible!"

"Far from it. Gotham is totally self-sufficient now. It's quite possible. No one would even know."

"But GM would find out eventually and they'd put a stop to it.

"By then it would be too late. With only a slight modification of the thrusters the station could be moved anywhere in the solar system-the whole galaxy!"

"They'd go after it. They wouldn't just let it go."

The elder Zanderson shook his head wearily. "Remember, the only craft capable of traveling that far is the transport Gyrfalcon, and it's based at the station. It could be years before another craft of that kind could be readied. By that time the station could be hidden somewhere in the asteroid belt or beyond. Why, Gotham would be a true space colony; it could conceivably go anywhere."

The thought of a thing so huge hiding out in plain sight in the empty openness of space seemed ludicrous to Ari. But then, the universe was a very big place.

"What will they do with us?"

"I don't know. I suppose we'll be useful to them until they have secured control of the Center. Then… who knows?"

"We've got to do something. We can't just give up hope."

"There is no hope."

"Daddy, we can't just let all those people up there become slaves to this madman. We've got to do something. We've got to try."

"It's too late. It's already happening."

"It is not too late," Ari said harshly. She took her father's arm and shook it hard. "Spence is still out there and free. He knows about them. He'll try to find us and free us."

"It's too late. He won't know where to start looking-we don't even know where they're taking us."

"He'll find us." She gave her father a knowing look. "Spence has as much at stake in this as anyone else, maybe more. And I have a pretty good hunch where we're headed and where he'll start looking."

… THE GUNSHOTS DID NOT wake Spence; it was the bullets themselves-rattling through the rusted hulk of the sedan like lethal hail-that snapped him to attention.

The moon was nearly down-the darkest part of the night several hours before dawn-and perfect for an ambush. The goondas had been waiting for the sentries to slip off to sleep before creeping out from hiding in the jungled hills. The attack, swift and professional, caught everyone off guard.

Merchants ran screaming into the night. The horde of barefoot followers scattered in every direction, not knowing where the shooting was coming from. The soldiers fired off quick bursts with their M-16s and someone-perhaps one of the merchants, more likely one of the outlaws-blazed away with a submachine gun.

The scene erupted in such confusion Spence could not be sure who was shooting at whom when he dived out of the back seat of the car onto the road. He collided with the crouching figure of Adjani.

"Ooof!" he said as he went down.

"Stay down!" Adjani pressed his shoulder to the ground. "Where's Gita?"

"I don't know. When I woke up he was gone. The shooting seems to be coming from those trees across the road."

Spence looked and saw that Adjani was probably right. A thin white trace of smoke drifted from the tops of a stand of tall trees about thirty meters away; a running line of bullets kicked up little clouds of dust as they ripped along the length of the caravan. A few bodies lay motionless between the trees and the line of vehicles, but whether these were dead, wounded, or just keeping down and out of sight he could not tell. He feared the worst.