Harris could be strikingly inefficient when pressed against his will. But driven now by pique, and a morbid desire to humor Jensen until the young officer screwed himself through the folly of his own arrogance, the pilot donned his headset and applied himself to the navigation console.

    The probe launched with a minimum of kick. No trail showed on the monitors. Satisfied only momentarily, Jensen hastened off the bridge to don his uniform before his coveted data started to arrive.

    Harris bided the interval by plucking loose threads from the cuff of his coverails. Upon Jensen's return, he had fallen asleep in his headset, his large hands loose in his lap, and his mouth open with snoring.

    The Shearborn's officer in command spared no attention for annoyance. Tracking monitors showed the relay probe carving a wide parabola around Cassix star. The moment the light flashed green on the signal board, Jensen reached without ceremony and stripped the headset from his pilot. Harris woke with his customary hair-trigger reflexes and banged his head on the bulkhead as he rocketed out of his chair.

'Damn you,' he growled at Jensen.

    Finding his fanatical commander absorbed by the new transmission, Harris stalked off to the galley.

    He came back after an interval, munching a dessert bar. Jensen had already assembled details enough to confirm MacKenzie James's assessment. Harris stopped chewing as his senior recited the facts.

    Trouble had found opening because the fleet which normally patrolled Cassix had been pared down to one ship, in support of the offensive at Dead Star. That cruiser had fallen to skip-runners who by long-range design had kidnapped the director of research's two infant daughters from an earlier raid on a passenger vessel.

    'A straight-forward case,' Jensen reported, 'except for their bent for terrorism. The bastards killed the director's wife to prove themselves capable. The two little girls they hold hostage will be spared, provided the staff at Cassix surrenders a working prototype of the new laser weapons system.'

    Harris stood for a moment, crumbs from his snack falling unnoticed down his chin. For once his blue eyes were direct. 'Who hired the talent for this? Indies? Junk freighters

I50