a decade, ever to obtain the premier marksman's rating, but this once pride did not prompt his temper. The mission chronometer by his elbow advanced another fraction. A margin of minutes remained if the Shearborn was to foil the kidnappers.

    The problems ahead were formidable, as Harris was quick to point out. 'You can't hit that small a target without an attitude adjustment. Shearborn's still tumbling, remember?' The pilot slashed a finger beneath his chin in graphic pantomime. 'We break cover, and the little girls die. We're shot down the second we fire our gravity drives.'

    Jensen made contingency for that. 'We wait,' he said, an intensity about him that Harris had never seen. 'After station personnel cable the plans up to the terrorists, the kids start down in the capsule. We stabilize our attitude then. Surprise will be in our favor. I shoot out the linkup. The kids and the charge are in freefall but recoiling away from the break in the line. Station personnel will reel the babies in, bet on that. And with an enabled charge drifting back toward its point of origin, the skip-runners will have their hands full cutting loose that trailing cable. That gives maybe ten seconds for us to blast their ugly presence out of space.'

    'Clever.' Harris scratched his chest in that thoughtful manner his drinking cronies would have recognized for a warning. 'But your range is extreme. You haven't allowed for drift, or for the proximity of Cassix's star. Gravity will pull your shot off target.'

    Jensen reached out, gently smoothed the wing insignia on his pilot's coverails. 'That's where your part comes. You'll plot my aiming point. If my shot were treated as an exercise in drive ballistics, you and that computer would have no trouble getting it right.'

    Harris felt sweat spring beneath his collar. The accuracy required would likely be past the limits of the technology. Though the more brilliant pilots did such things in the course of test-flight emergencies, this was another matter. A man had no business risking the lives of two little girls to instinct, the reflexive style of hunch which routinely carried a badly drawn design through without mishap. Harris had no grounds - but his wilder nature was piqued. Here was a daredevil stunt like no other; if he pulled it off, there would be accolades.

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