"Back up a little," Tambu said thoughtfully. "Who are these informants that make up a network?"

"Almost anyone who has information about shipments and an eye for easy money. When I say 'inside sources,' I'm talking about people within the corporate structure of the outfit shipping the cargo out. It could be a shipping clerk, an accountant, or a secretary. Sometimes the information comes directly from upper management when they want to cash in on a little insurance money."

"So you get your information from the shippers themselves?" Tambu asked.

"Some of it," Ramona corrected. "Sometimes it comes from corporations out to sabotage a rival's shipments. People working at the spaceports themselves are good sources. We even get tips from receiving merchants and corporations who don't want to pay the full price of a shipment."

"I see," Tambu said, pursing his lips. "It sounds as if you have a lot more information than I imagined."

"And you aren't about to let us go until you've pumped it all out of me. Right?" Ramona scowled.

"Actually, I was thinking along different lines. How would you like to come to work for me?"

She held his gaze for a moment, then turned away.

"If you insist," she said flatly. "But you drive a hard bargain. It's extortion, but I don't really have much of a choice, do I?"

"Of course you have a choice!" Tambu thundered, slapping his hand down on the desk hard enough to make it jump with the impact.

Ramona started, taken aback at this sudden display of temper, but Tambu recovered his composure quickly. He rose and began to pace about the room.

"Forgive me," he muttered. "I suppose you have every right to think the way you are. It serves me right for trying to be so cagey instead of laying my cards on the table from the first."

He stopped pacing and perched on the edge of his desk facing her.

"Look," he said carefully, "it's been my intent all along to offer you and your crew positions in my force. I need experienced people-particularly people with experience in space combat-to man my ships. What I don't need are a bunch of sullen animals who think they were blackmailed into serving and who will jump ship or turn on me at the first opportunity. That's why I was saying I'd let you go instead of turning you over to the authorities. If you or any of your crew want to sign on, fine. If not, we'll let them go. Now do we understand each other?"

Again their eyes met. This time Ramona's expression was thoughtful, rather than guarded.

"I'll talk to my crew," she said at last. "For my part, though, the main hesitation isn't money... it's position. I worked a long time to get where I am, captaining my own ship. In all honesty, I'm not sure how content I'd be working under someone else again. Still, if you let me go, I'll probably end up crewing again for a while. I just don't know. I'll have to think about it."

"What if I offered you a position as captain of your own ship?" Tambu asked.

Hope flashed across the girl's face for a moment.

"I don't want to sound suspicious again," she said carefully, "but that sounds a little too good to be true. You capture a pirate ship and crew, then offer to turn them loose again intact? What's to keep us from going back to business as normal as soon as you turn your back?"

"For one thing, your crew would probably be divided up among the available ships under various commanders. For another, we'll probably be operating as a fleet for a while, which would tend to discourage independent action. There is also the minor detail that I plan to be on board your ship."

"That sounds to me like I'd be captain in title only."

"Not at all," Tambu assured her. "It's my plan that the captains under my command have complete autonomy on their ships, providing, of course, that they stay within the general guidelines I set forth for them. I envision my own position to be more of an overall coordinator for the entire force. I suspect that if all goes well, that will occupy my time to a point where I will have neither the time nor the inclination to bother with the operational details of a single ship-including the one I'm on."

He uncoiled from his perch and seated himself at his desk once more.

"My decision to travel on board your ship is to enable myself to more readily obtain specific information from you rather than to imply any distrust. That is actually the answer I should have given you in the first place. I'll have to trust you, as I'll have to trust all my captains. If I don't, the force hasn't a hope of success."

Now it was Ramona's turn to rise and pace as she thought.

"Just how large a fleet are you envisioning?" "I have no exact figure in mind," Tambu admitted, "but I expect we will grow well beyond the three ships we have currently."

"My crew isn't big enough to man even these three ships," she pointed out.

"I know. We'll have to do some additional recruiting. I'll want your advice on that, too."

"Aren't you risking trouble using ex-pirates for crew? I don't mean with mutiny, I'm thinking more about your reputation."

"My crew might object a bit, at first, but they'll accept it. If not, they can be replaced."

"I was more concerned with reactions from the people you'll be dealing with outside the force. I'm not sure how the merchants will take to being protected by the very people who were stealing from them not too long ago."

"We already have a solution to that." Tambu smiled. "We'll change the names of the ships and crew. That way no one outside the force has to know anything about your past. In fact, there's no reason for anyone to know within the force, either. Your crew doesn't know anything about my crew's background or vice versa. There's no reason they should be told, just as there's no reason we should have to give any background information to the new recruits."

"It'll sure make recruiting a lot easier if the new people don't have to admit to any past indiscretions." Ramona admitted. "Even though God knows what we'll get as a result. It's a little like the old French Foreign Legion."

"It's not a bad parallel. I don't really care what the crew did before they joined, as long as they toe the line once they're under my command."

"Discipline could be a problem," Ramona observed thoughtfully. "You know what would really be effective?"

"What's that?"

"If we made you into a real mystery figure. An omnipresent power with no face." Her voice grew more excited as she warmed to the idea. "You know how superstitious crewmen are. You could become a kind of a boogey-man. It could work against the ships we'll be fighting as well as within our own force." "And just how would we accomplish that?" "Hell, we've got a good start already! My crew is already spooked by the way you popped up out of nowhere and blitzed our ship before they could even get a shot off. All we have to do is keep you out of sight, and they'll do the rest. Sound doesn't travel through space, but rumors do. The myth will grow on its own. All we have to do is give it room."

"It won't work." Tambu shook his head. "The one thing I do insist on is meeting each person who's going to serve under me. I have to know who and what I'm commanding if we're going to be effective."

"Do it over a viewscreen. If you keep your sending camera off, you can talk to them and observe them to your heart's content, and all they'll see is a blank screen. As a matter of fact, that would help to build the mystery. Everyone would form their own impression, which means they'll talk about you among themselves trying to get confirmation." "I'll have to think about it."

"Now is the ideal time to start," Ramona pressured. "Right now, the only ones who know what you look like are your crew and myself. If you wait, then you'll have to try to get cooperation out of the combined crews as well as any new recruits. The sooner you start, the easier it will be."