"There's something over to starboard," Brack said, raising his eyes from the screen to squint through the plas-glas snout bubble of the drone.

Tallav flipped up the call switch. "Must be Odis. We're halfway to Crown. Tallav calling fishboat. Tallav here. Fishboat. Answer!"

"You're in the ship?" Surprise and relief colored the voice of the respondent.

"Sharkey? What are you doing midocean?"

"Between the storms and the whales, I'm lucky to be anywhere," the man snapped. "You don't see them on your screen, do you?"

"We've spent hours scanning the coast for you," Tallav interrupted, angry but relieved at finding his mechanical genius. "You've got the only seaworthy boat and the Investigator and I—"

"Investigator?" Sharkey's voice was sharp.

Brack elbowed Tallav back from the speaker.

"Brack here. I have reason to believe that the pirated radioactive iodine is still on this Crown Lagoon the P.A. has been telling me about. I intercepted a message arranging a contact point on the southern shore of a lagoon, only the reception was faulty and I missed the entire message. Do you read me?"

"Yeah, I read you, Investigator Brack."

"Good. Now, can that fishboat of yours make it back to Crown Lagoon. You realize, of course, that we must pick up the iodine before the pirate can retrieve it. Another fishman, named Odis, is presently believed to be in the vicinity of the lagoon."

"Odis, but…"

"Can your fishboat accompany us?"

"Yeah, if you can keep those fardling whales off my back."

"We cannot permit that iodine to fall into the wrong hands, now can we?" Brack cut across Sharkey's complaints, more threatening than suggesting, Tallav thought.

"No, we can't," Sharkey agreed flatly. "Good man. Now, how fast can that fishboat go?" "Long as those squalls don't hit us, as fast as that air bubble you're in." And, as they watched, they could see the fishboat rise slightly from the water on its hydrofoils, then take off in the plume of spray that arrowed northeast by east.

Before Brack could speak, Tallav banked the drone and poured on power to follow.

"Would they send another Investigator?" Odis asked Murv when Okker's transmission was completed.

Murv shrugged, grimacing. "It's possible. This has taken a lot longer than predicted. And, with the credit embargo and no ships touching down at Shoulder, I haven't been able to send in a report. They might think I'd been drowned here. Now, with Shahanna to identify the Welladan contact, we can finish this up in no time. First we've got to get this treasure safely to Shoulder." He patted the iodine cube.

"The traitor is Sharkey," Odis said gloomily.

Murv laughed. "I'm not sure of anything. Remember, I thought it was you and you thought it was me, and then we both suspected Shahanna of being the pirate."

"Yes, but your Okker said Sharkey was still missing," Shahanna reminded the men, "and when he'd last heard from the P.A., they'd given him up for lost and were heading here."

"Try Okker again, direct, Odis," Murv urged, glancing up at the clearing skies.

"Another squall between here and Shoulder," Odis reported after several minutes of fruitless calling.

"This planet's fardling weather is… is…" Murv broke off.

"Don't mind me," Shahanna suggested with a grin, "but shouldn't we leave here while we have a chance?"

She pointed to the fringe of dark clouds on the western horizon.

"Okay. I'll check my boat," Murv said.

"I'll wrestle this down the hill again," Shahanna volunteered with mock forbearance.

"I'll see if there's anything left of my ship, but I doubt it," Odis said with resignation as he started south down the rocks.

"I can give you a hand part of the way," Murv offered, grinning at Shahanna.

"If you think you can keep up with me." She grinned back.

"Sharkey! The cube's on the rocks on the lagoon shore. Just where the contact said it would be!" Brack roared through the speaker.

"Oh, oh," Tallav gasped feebly. "However did it survive the storm, unprotected like that!"

"You're seeing things. Brack!" Sharkey roared back. "You're seeing things, I tell you."

"Like your whales, I'm seeing things. You fladding fool, it's clearly visible. Are you through that passage yet?"

"How'n hell could I be beaming to you if I weren't. I'm surfacing!"

"We're landing," Brack countered.

"I'm not sure I can land on that," Tallav said, unable to see any likely surface on the tumbled rockscape.

"You'd better. I don't think I altogether trust this chief engineer of yours," Brack muttered betweeen clenched teeth, his eyes never leaving the cube, white against the black lava on which it sat. "In fact, I find it definitely suspicious that he knew such a convenient channel into this lagoon which even you, as Planetary Administrator, didn't know existed."

"Yes, but… how could he possibly… I mean… ."

"There's a flat space big enough for this thing."

"ltd be so much easier for Sharkey. After all…"

"Land!"

"Good heavens, he's here already," Tallav exclaimed as he set the drone down on the flat-topped slab that was scarcely larger than the drone's landing feet.

"What do you mean?" Brack followed Tallav's gesticulations and saw the figure emerging from the water, heading toward the cube. "How'dya get out of this thing?" he demanded, fumbling with his tunic.

Tallav reached across him and flipped up the hatch release. Brack, his eyes on the figure, suddenly froze.

"That's not Sharkey!"

Tallav looked. "No, it isn't, is it. But who… and—" Tallav broke off, staring at the Investigator. "How would you know what Sharkey looks like?"

"Get out, Tallav," Brack ordered and turned his hand weapon on the startled man.

As the two men emerged from the drone, the figure on the shore reached for the cube and grabbed it, then started off, up the slopes with more speed than either observer thought possible.

"Halt!" Brack shouted and lobbed off a shot after the fleeing figure.

A fishboat broke surface, its hatch flipping open for the flying exit of a man. He also began to shoot, three short cracks, splitting rocks just ahead of the fugitive. The man turned and began to descend as fast as he had climbed in the direction of the fishboat, heading obliquely away from the men by the drone.

"You see," Brack shouted at Tallav, "there's the pirate! We must intercept."

Tallav's previous doubts were swept aside by the urgency in Brack's voice, and he didn't hesitate to follow the man down the torturous escarpment to the beach. Brack paused, whipping off a few shots in the hope of slowing the pirate, but he was closing the distance to the fishboat faster than they could jump down the rocks.

"Be careful of the iodine," Tallav jabbered when the pirate started to use it as a shield.

The man flung the cube into the water and dove in after it, pushing it ahead of him toward the fishboat. He was urged on by Sharkey, who was running down the ventral fin to assist.

When Shahanna, winded and half-blinded with watery eyes, grabbed the shock-webbing for a final heave into the waiting man, she got her first look at his face.

"You're not Murv. You're…" and she grabbed the cube back, frantically kicking out and away from the fishboat.

"Give me that thing or I'll blow you out of the water," Sharkey snarled.

"Shoot and you'll destroy the iodine."

Shots whistled over Shahanna's head, and Sharkey backed behind the flaring dorsal fin. Shahanna heaved herself away from the fishboat and began treading water halfway between both contenders. She used the buoyant cube as a head shield.

"I'm Tallav, Planetary Administrator of Welladay," the shorter of the two men on the shore yelled at her. "Come ashore. If you turn yourself in, I promise you immunity."