

## STRANGLEHOLD

## a Captain Hesperus Adventure

## Blaze O'Glory

Smashwords Edition

Copyright Blaze O'Glory 2012

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0

Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit

**creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/**

Thanks to Captain Hesperus, Ali, Cim, ClymAngus, George, and everyone on the Oolite BB

aegidian.org/bb/

_Stranglehold_ is based on the universe of _Oolite_ by Giles Williams, _Elite_ by Ian Bell and David Braben, and draws on numerous contributions by the Oolite community.

Based on a likely story.
Captain Hesperus, a grey furry feline from Orrira, took another heaving gulp of the stale atmosphere. The air on board the _Dubious Profit_ was sour and warm, ripe and rancid, and oxygen levels were critically low. The scanner blurred and swam in front of him as he struggled to pinpoint the powerful warship that was hunting him down. It was, he reflected bitterly, all Rus's fault.

*

"It's your own fault, Hesperus," said Rus, the _Dubious Profit_ 's engineer, when the problems with the atmospheric reprocessors first began. He glowered at his captain across the narrow, stained table that dominated the merchant vessel's cramped messroom. "You're a shifty, penny-pinching shyster with a cavalier attitude towards proper procedures, and you're more concerned with your own pockets than you are with the welfare of your crew. I didn't think it was possible for you to surprise me any more, let alone shock me, but this – this really is something special, even by your low standards."

"It is a simple, straightforward business deal," said Hesperus. "All parties gain. This is the fundamental basis ..."

"Fundamental basis, my eye," shouted Rus. "It's _wrong_ , Hesperus. Do you even know the meaning of the word?" Cords stood out on the engineer's thick, blue-scaled neck: he thrust his head down, jabbing the stubby horn on the end of his nose forward. "It's exploitation, pure and simple."

Captain Hesperus was master and commander of the _Dubious Profit_ , a battered Python-class cargo hauler of uncertain provenance and vintage. Like all merchant captains, he was a keen student of the body languages displayed by the myriad species and cultures that made up the Co-operative. A tic here, a twitch there: a cocked ear, inflated sac or arched antenna could be worth percentage points on any trade. Rus's body language, thought Hesperus, was more basic than most – and with a limited vocabulary, all negative. The engineer came originally from Inera, a rich, heavily industrialised and technically sophisticated world, whose blue lizardlike inhabitants were noted for their aggressive trading strategies and enthusiastic pursuit of profit. Hesperus regarded them, on the whole, as a talented and admirably acquisitive people. Rus, though, did not fit the general profile of his species. Although skilled as an engineer – his ability to keep the _Dubious Profit_ running made him an indispensable member of the crew – he displayed a baffling cynicism regarding the cut and thrust of trade. Deals and counter-deals, wrestling profit from the hands of another, the wild dance of opportunity that was to Hesperus the heartbeat of civilisation – Rus affected disdain for it all. Except, Hesperus thought sourly, when it came to extracting his own shares from the _Dubious Profit_ 's voyages.

"Sploition, yes, the fat reptile talks a true!" A voice squeaked out from a ventilation grille tucked just below the ceiling of the _Dubious Profit_ 's compact mess. "We are sploited, we demand!"

Rus, whose head had jerked somewhat at the phrase _fat reptile_ , rose to his feet. "I am going," he said, "to oversee the running of the ship's engines. This is my _job_ , for which I _earn_ a _wage_." He spoke slowly, aiming the words at the grille. "You," he said, stabbing a finger at Hesperus, "sort this out. It's not hard to do." He strode from the room, bulling his way past Stepan, the ship's Erbitian navigator.

"Hey, um, Captain," Stepan said, sidling through the doorway and scratching at his matted chest-fur, "is there something wrong with the air? There's like this funny smell ..."

"Yes, Stepan," said Hesperus, "there is something wrong. The atmospheric reprocessors—" he peered up at the grille through slitted eyes "—the atmospheric reprocessors are on strike."

There was a chittering noise from behind the grille, a hint of something small and scuttling. "Strike, yes, we strike, down tools! No more air, we pay less rent!"

A second voice butted in. "No, foolish! Fat reptile say money move toward us, say Hespus pay rent to us."

There were a series of dry clicks and rattles. "No, you foolish! I to talk, you to listen ..." The voice ended in a sharp whistle, followed by a prolonged bout of clattering punctuated with shrill epithets of a coarsely anatomical nature.

Hesperus pawed at his face, tugging on his whiskers. Why, why could Rus not keep his pronged snout out of other people's business? Several months ago Hesperus had found himself in a dead-end system, short of two crew and with an onboard environmental system that teetered constantly on the verge of total failure. He was required by Co-operative law to carry a minimum crew compliment; by necessity to maintain life support on board the _Dubious Profit_ ; and by nature to achieve these ends at minimal cost. It had been his good fortune to discover two small crustacean lifeforms, of limited means and lacking, perhaps, in mental acuity; it had been a masterstroke to entice them aboard the _Profit_ and to convince them to set up quarters inside the environmental system itself, where they could provide it with the constant care and maintenance it required.

A masterstroke indeed: the environmental system was a simple onboard loop ecology, recycling atmosphere and waste via a hydroponic air-plant that scrubbed out CO2 and provided the ship with oxygen, algal proteins and clean water. It was not hugely efficient, but it was cost-free and very, very basic. The two crustaceans had proved themselves more than capable, even going so far as to express delight with their new "farm". They pruned and tended to the air-plant, kept the filters clean and free from obstructions, and only ate a moderate amount of protein, topped up with galley refuse and occasional sproutings of the air-plant itself. It was an ideal situation, a perfect situation, until Rus ruined it by telling the two atmospheric reprocessors (as they were listed on the ship's articles) that not only were they entitled to receive a wage, they also didn't have to pay for their room and board.

This last objection Hesperus really couldn't understand. He had levied a nominal charge only, far below any normal passenger rate and with practically no margin at all; moreover, he would only have actually presented them with their bill if they had ever shown a desire to leave the ship. Rus, however, had spoken on the subject at length, and at some volume, and now the two atmospheric reprocessors were refusing to operate the air-plant, demanding a renegotiation of their contract. Their timing was acute: the _Dubious Profit_ had recently departed the Eronona system bearing a cargo for which Hesperus lacked proper paperwork. Consequently, the ship would attract unwelcome attention from Co-operative law enforcement at any main system station in the regional volume. Time – and distance – would take care of that, eventually, so the _Dubious Profit_ had just embarked upon what was intended to be a series of long-range witchspace jumps, where they would avoid the spacelanes, skim fresh fuel from the stellar winds and carefully recycle their supplies: but without an operational air-plant, Hesperus and his crew might well expire before the fickle interest of the authorities died away.

Hesperus drew a deep breath, tasting the unpleasant taint already in the air. He hoisted up the corners of his mouth, and cocked his head towards the grille. "Gentlemen," he said.

There was no answer: just the sound of struggle from behind the bulkhead, mixed with rasps and high-pitched curses. Hesperus closed his eyes, his lips moving silently; then he strode forward and banged his hand against the wall. "Gentlemen!"

The noises ceased abruptly. Two pairs of cerulean blue dots, minutely faceted, peeked down from the shadows. "Hespus! You come to talk us money?"

"Gentlemen," said Hesperus, smiling up at the grille. "Let me ask you a question. What is money?"

The blue dots bounced up and down in agitation. "Money we want!"

"Well, yes, naturally – but for what purpose? What is money actually _for_?"

There was a scrabbling from behind the bulkhead, and the dots blinked slowly, slightly out of sequence.

Hesperus paced back and forth, one hand raised. "Money is merely a token – a symbol, if you will. We exchange these symbols with each other in an effort to gain things which we want. It is _the things we want_ which are important, not the actual money. Money itself is – is merely desire, frozen in time. By _spending_ the money, we thaw out that desire, unleash its potential upon the universe, and win for ourselves those things we truly seek."

The blue dots gazed down at him, rapt.

"So, gentlemen, reason tells us that only foolish people want _money_ ; the wise look instead to gain those things to which they actually aspire, to which mere money can only ever be a passport." Hesperus clasped both hands behind his back, and rocked on the balls of his feet.

There was a long silence. The blue dots swivelled back and forth. "The fat reptile said Hespus would talk."

"But he talks a true: money-stuff is cold and hard."

"Some is not: some has bright pictures!"

"Foolish!"

Hesperus rapped his knuckles on the bulkhead. "Gentlemen; gentlemen, please! Let us return to basics. Let us identify those things which you actually want. You like food, for instance?"

A chorused reply: "Yes! Food we like!"

"And warmth, and comfort, and security?"

"Yes, yes! These we like!"

"And are you not warm, comfortable, secure and well-fed, here aboard my ship?"

"Ye–es ..."

"Then you have no need of money! You are free from its tyrannical grasp! Oh fortunate people, you are satisfied in all your desires. Truly you must be the two happiest individuals in all of Creation; I envy your contentment."

Two pairs of blue dots danced back and forth; two multilegged forms capered behind the grille. "We have what we want?"

"Undoubtedly," said Hesperus, nodding.

There was a long string of hisses, chitters, clicks and squeaks. Hesperus maintained a fixed smile, eyes wide.

"We go now; we talk your talk between us. Decide later."

"Take all the time you need, gentlemen," said Hesperus. "If I am not mistaken, the cook has put some fresh scraps in the galley recycler; that will give you something to chew on, while you think things over."

*

The air on board the _Dubious Profit_ had grown musty, and sat heavy in the lungs. Rus coughed, and kneaded his two large fists together on the messroom table. "You couldn't just do the right thing, could you, Hesperus? You couldn't just pay them some sort of salary. Oh no, you're too clever for that. You must be the cleverest idiot it's ever been my misfortune to meet."

Hesperus pulled himself upright in his chair, and offered Rus a wounded look. "As I recall, the problems with the reprocessors didn't start until after you felt it necessary to interfere ... in any case," he continued, as Rus's shoulders acquired a dangerous hunch, "I assume that we are all agreed: their new demands go beyond outrageous, and indeed knock upon the door of the wholly unfeasible."

"Aach! Phht!" Rus coughed again, and scraped his long, black, pointed tongue with the back of one hand. "Fah. Shipping under one lunatic is bad enough; two lunatics is logarithmically worse. I'll say this much for you, Hesperus: at least you can sometimes keep a slender grip on reality."

Hesperus's gambit with the recalcitrant reprocessors had not so much failed as backfired. Convinced that they already possessed all that they desired, the crustaceans had taken a logical step forward, and conceived of new desires, as yet unfulfilled.

The more than two thousand inhabited systems of the Co-operative embraced a large number of cultures, with wildly varying levels of sophistication. While a few advanced species pushed and probed at the furthest limits of science, most hovered around a technological mean that had harnessed starflight – or were at least capable of grasping the concept. Some planetary systems, however, were still – societally speaking – just emerging from the primordial ooze. Hesperus suspected that his crustacean crewmembers were of this latter sort. They spoke Lingo, the pan-stellar trade language, well enough, albeit with a limited vocabulary and errant syntax, but it was increasingly apparent that they had little or no idea where they were, or what, indeed, was going on around them.

After considering Hesperus's arguments, the reprocessors had concocted new demands. They did not want money, no: but they wanted the interior of the ship to be painted yellow; they wanted both to be addressed as Captain and, perhaps or, to be supplied with some form of ceremonial headgear (both creatures had become particularly excited about this point, and their Lingo had rather broken down); and they wanted to be taken, immediately, to "the Great Pool, by the Middle Rock". All efforts to discover where these might be had proved futile; in fact it was not clear whether the Great Pool and Middle Rock were real physical locations, or were instead part of some religious cosmography to which the two crustaceans adhered. The fact that the _Dubious Profit_ was currently in witchspace – inside a wormhole and, technically, not part of any universe except that which was contained within its own patched hull – was of no interest to them. They were in a magic vessel, whose colour displeased them; they wanted rank, and (perhaps or) some outward sign of the same; and they wished to journey to an uncertain destination at an unknown location. When these demands were all met, they would once again permit the air to flow.

First Hesperus, then Rus, had attempted to reason with, then to cajole, and then to threaten the reprocessors, to no avail. When Hesperus had reached up and pounded at the grille with a reaming tool, the two crustaceans had scuttled back into the bowels of the ship, and taken refuge within the flooded sections of the hydroponics unit. To reach them there would require berthing the ship within a pressurised drydock, opening the hull and at least partially dismantling the atmospherics. To make matters worse, the _Profit_ 's current destination, the Lerela system, was an agrarian backwater with few natural resources and scant sophistication. Even if Lerela's main station could offer the necessary facilities, such an extensive repair would provide ample time for the Co-operative's lumbering legal bureaucracy to catch up with the _Profit_ – and with her captain.

The quality and quantity of breathable air was diminishing. Rus had cobbled together some rudimentary carbon scrubbers, but one thing was clear: the _Profit_ would have to find a friendly station, and soon.

"Well, that should be easy – oh no, it isn't, is it? I'd quite forgotten. There's a bounty on our heads." Rus's fists opened and closed spasmodically, and his eyes were bloodshot. "How did that happen again? Oh yes: because our esteemed captain – you, Hesperus – couldn't resist buying up that load of red wango on Eronona. Of all the stupid, greedy ..."

"And you will get your not inconsiderable share of the profits!" snapped Hesperus. He paused, and smoothed his whiskers. "In any case, it was an innocent mistake. Acting in perfect good faith, I bought a shipment of white bakha root."

"White bakha root, yes, but any fool could see they were all riddled with corzae, and bursting with wango!"

Hesperus flapped one hand. "I am a simple merchant captain, and freely own that botany is not my strong suit. I had no idea the cargo was contaminated when I bought the shipment."

Rus choked back an oath. "No idea? Only an idiot would have paid that price for clean bakha anyway: the stuff is all but inedible. Even Stepan wouldn't touch it."

"Nonsense!" said Hesperus. "Bakha root is a useful exerciser for the jaws, and an important source of starch."

"Bah! I saw you sniff the _outside_ of the first canister. We had to practically peel you off the ceiling. I swear, Hesperus, I ..." Rus clawed at the air. His lips curled back to expose a long mouthful of sharp, interlocking teeth, and he took a deep, hissing breath – then coughed and snorted in disgust. He ground his fists against the sides of his head and groaned. "Look. First things first. The bounty will expire, but not before we do ... we have to get the _Profit_ into dock, and I'd rather pay a fine than suffocate. What d'you think we'd be looking at?"

White bakha roots, when infected with the corzae symbiote, produce large quantities of intoxicating spores – commonly called 'red wango', 'woof-woof', 'hop-to-heaven', and other jocular names. As a strong, multi-spectral euphoriant, the trade in corzae spores was strictly limited, in Co-operative space, to licensed merchants. Hesperus, unfortunately, did not hold such a license. Rubbing his jaw, he ran through some mental calculations as to the possible financial penalty, allowing for the quantity and potency of the cargo, and for his own reputation. He grimaced, flicked a dry tongue across his lips and named a figure. Rus recoiled.

"What? That much? That would break us – even if we got a good price for the wango ..."

Hesperus shook his head. "If we dock before the Co-operative alert on us lapses, it would simply be impounded. Maybe we could ..." He frowned. "Well ... no. Perhaps not."

"What?"

"It's just ... I happen to know of one station in Lerela space where we're not likely to encounter any, um, official attention."

Rus leaned forward. "Oh? Oh. Oh, hang on, what are you ..."

"It's nothing bad, ah, nothing terrible; it might not be my first choice for a port of call, but it would keep us off the Co-operative's scanner, for the time being. It's an independent station, owned by – well, by an old friend of mine."

"Why does that not fill me with confidence?" Rus slumped back in his chair. "Would this 'old friend' be anyone I might have heard of? I struggle to picture you hob-nobbing with anyone rich enough to own their own shoes, let alone their own station."

Hesperus lifted his chin. "I possess a wide circle of friends, across all levels of polite society," he said, folding his hands in front of him. "If I have not shared any of them with you, then perhaps I have had my own reasons for that omission. However, current circumstances being as they are, I will be delighted to introduce you to my very dear and close colleague, Mr the Haute Sherman Sunderling."

Throughout this debate, Stepan had been sitting staring vacantly at the wall, probing the depths of one ear with his little finger. Now he jerked upright in his seat. "Sherman Sunderling?" he said.

"Er ... yes," said Hesperus, glancing at the unkempt navigator. "Mr the Haute Sherman Sunderling, yes. I—"

"Do you know his partner?" said Stepan, leaning forward, his little finger raised but forgotten.

"Um ... his, ah, his partner, yes, I know her – in fact I, I introduced her to him: Arae, a competent pilot and ..."

"I can't believe it!" cried Stepan, his eyes wide. " _You_ know Mad Arae? And Sunderling, the notorious Sherman Sunderling too?"

"Oho!" said Rus. "This begins to make more sense, I must say!"

Stepan bounded from the room, and returned moments later clutching a dog-eared printed book with a cheap plastic cover. "Here it is! _Blood and Plunder_. Back-to-back with _Slaughter Station Six_. It's, like, it's a factual account. 'The True and Terrifying Exploits of the Galaxy's Greatest Villains' series, there's loads of them." He slapped the book down on the table. The vivid cover illustration looped endlessly through a few seconds of animation: a backdrop of apparently exploding stars, framing a blonde human, conspicuously female, dressed in a form-fitting pressure suit – although numerous large rents and tears had quite destroyed its airtight qualities. In one hand she wielded a serrated cutlass of novel design: in the other she brandished the severed head of an unidentified insectoid species, from which dripped a vibrant green ichor. Her blue eyes were wide and gleaming, and a manic rictus grin almost split her face in two.

Hesperus prodded the book with one finger. "Really, I don't think ..."

"No, no," said Rus, "I want to find out more about your social circle." He scooped up _Blood and Plunder_ , glancing at the cover and shaking his head. "Mammals," he tutted, folding it over to read the text inside. "Oh, this looks _interesting_! 'The True and Terrifying Exploits of Mad Arae, the Terror of Telaan. An unexpurgated account of the horror and destruction, savagery and unnatural lusts visited upon the universe by this beautiful but deadly deviatrix, lover and chief lieutenant of Sherman Sunderling, the infamous Black Dog of Lasoce. Readers of a nervous disposition take note! In our unflinching pursuit of truth, all the sins of this alluring criminal virago are herein described in frank and forthright terms, and we make no concession to propriety.' My my." Rus licked a finger, and turned the page. "Chapter one. 'Thrusting—'"

Hesperus snatched the book from Rus's hands. "Claptrap, balderdash, and sheer absurdity!" he said. "Stepan, I am shocked. Is this how you spend your free time, reading this vulgar yellow trash? Have you no charts to study, no astrometric protocols to memorise?"

Stepan, a wounded expression on his hairy face, grabbed the book and smoothed the cover flat. "I'm just trying to learn about pirates ... you know, so, um, I know not to do the things they do?"

"Look, Hesperus, leaving Stepan's private recreations to one side—" Rus gave a small shudder "—it's quite clear that your friends are criminals. I'm hardly shocked. I'm not even surprised. But before I'm formally introduced I would like to know: what sort of criminals are they? And roughly where do they lie on the 'charming rogue–psychotic killer' axis?"

Hesperus drew himself upright. "It is true that when I first met Arae, she had got herself into a bit of a scrape ... nothing serious, merely some petty transgression: and in any case she was rather young, and in rather, ah, reduced circumstances. I myself played a small part in extricating her from those difficulties and finding her a position in Mr Sunderling's organisation. She proved herself to be a very capable pilot; Sunderling – Mr Sunderling took quite a shine to her and I believe that she has risen to become a valuable and trusted assistant."

"Really?" said Stepan. "The book says that Sunderling bought Arae as a slave, from some lowlife dealer ... ah. Oh. Ooh."

Rus cocked his head towards Hesperus, and flickered his nictitating membranes, twice. "And just how did you introduce your friend Sunderling to this ... female, Hesperus?"

Hesperus stared long and hard at Stepan's neck. He flexed his fingers, breathing slowly. Several seconds passed before he answered. " _As I said_ , the young lady had fallen into difficulties. To be precise she had been sentenced, for some minor indiscretion, to penal servitude. Recognising her talents, and moved by her misfortune, I intervened, and was able to put forward sufficient financial incentives to persuade the court to release her into my custody. Shortly thereafter – as I said – I was able to introduce Arae to Mr the Haute Sherman Sunderling, a business associate; he likewise saw in her a great deal of potential, and provided her with the opportunity of gainful employment. As a gentleman he of course compensated me for my trouble, and so all parties gained from the outcome."

"Mmph," said Rus. "You bought some juvenile delinquent at a court auction, and sold her to a bigger crook for a profit. No, please," he held up one hand, as Hesperus began to huff and blow, "we're short enough on oxygen as it is. What about him, this Sunderling, 'the Black Dog of Lasoce'?"

Hesperus frowned, and cleared his throat. "Ah, perhaps, ah – perhaps Mr Sunderling himself may have shaded the edges of the law from time to time, but as you know, Lasoce is a, a confused and fractious system, and sometimes necessity might drive a man ... in all candour, given the Co-operative's obstinate hostility towards free trade, I find it incredible that any merchant ever manages to turn a profit and stay within the bounds of all their pettifogging regulations. However, _however_ ," Hesperus continued, as Rus rolled his eyes, "I have found Mr Sunderling to be both unfailingly polite and scrupulously honest in all my dealings with him. He has a reputation for, ah, an unpredictable and erratic temper, and I would not wish to disturb him with our problems ... but there will be no need for that. Sunderling's station is well equipped for repair work—" here Rus made a grunting sound "—and is _entirely legal_ , recognised by the various planetary authorities in the Lerela system and, ah, acknowledged by the Co-operative."

"Oh. One of _those_ ," said Rus. "Wonderful." He shook his head, regarding Hesperus from beneath knotted brows; then he sniffed, snorted, and scowled. "Auch. It's not as if we have a choice, is it?"

*

Long, slow hours meandered by, as the _Dubious Profit_ drove on through the wormhole: a tiny bubble of reality within the ocean of unexistence that was witchspace. The air inside the cramped living quarters grew yet more stale. The two mutinous crustaceans were oblivious to promises, persuasions or threats. Being largely aquatic in any case, they had retreated deep within the flooded hydroponic chambers, from whence they used a communications tube to issue occasional irksome new instructions and demands. These random communiqués formed a nagging backdrop to a voyage that grew ever more unpleasant, as the ship's chronometer doled out time in meagre rations.

When the _Profit_ finally broke back into reality, emerging into Lerela space, oxygen levels had sunk alarmingly. Even with Rus's emergency carbon scrubbers running at maximum, warning lights were nagging at Hesperus all across his command console. His tiny control room was even more cramped and stuffy than usual: as well as Stepan in the co-pilot's seat, Rus had crowded in behind them – "To see what we're getting ourselves into," he said. Hesperus felt a cool wash of relief as Stepan located the independent station's beacon, situated on a long, lonely orbit, slanted off the system's ecliptic plane. Hesperus eased the _Profit_ 's nose around and settled her on course.

A mote swam into view, a speck, a tiny dot pinned against the blackness among the blazing stars. The station was a scarred, potato-shaped asteroid, hollowed out by generations of miners. A little over four klicks in diameter, it had been given a lazy axial spin to provide a degree of centrifugal gravity for the inhabitants inside. A small docking port, marked with a winking green light, was just visible at one of the asteroid's rotational poles. Two shabby spacecraft drifted nearby: a Cobra Mark I – an antiquated light trader, verging on the obsolete – and a Sidewinder, a small, agile fighter, although this one looked to be many years past its prime. Cautiously, Hesperus pinged them with the _Profit_ 's IFF. Both were tagged "Offender". Rus grunted, but made no further comment. The occupants of these ships were wanted criminals. Under the Co-operative's crude legal system, which struggled to encompass the conflicting laws and customs of over two thousand systems, "Offender" could signal any number of things: murder, piracy, smuggling, violation of docking protocols ... Hesperus was not immediately concerned. He knew that the _Dubious Profit_ , too – due to his trading in tainted bakha root – would be displaying the same tag.

A third ship slid out from the dock. A Boa this time, larger, and newer too: a substantial modern merchant vessel, bigger than the _Profit_ by some margin. Hesperus raised an eyebrow: such ships were seldom seen around these kinds of ports of call. The Boa dipped away, diffident; the Cobra and the Sidewinder eased into escort formation behind it. The Boa's engine pulsed, and the two smaller ships matched velocity. A tiny spark lit up on the Boa's nose, then almost instantaneously ballooned into a glowing sphere, electric blue, alight with frantic energies: the mouth of a newly opened wormhole, swallowing the merchantman completely. The smaller ships cruised forwards, and flew straight into the seething globe of actinic light, to vanish in splashes of short-lived exotic particles. Gradually the wormhole entrance shrank, pressed back down again into the quantum foam by the remorseless expansion of the cosmos; finally it winked out of existence, leaving no trace behind. Somewhere outside our universe, that Boa was caught inside a tiny pocket of physics: and eventually – all being well – it would pop back out again into reality, in some other nearby star system. The Cobra and the Sidewinder, too, were now also tucked into their own private folds of being, bound for the same star as their parent ship.

Hesperus slowed the _Profit_ to a safe regulation speed, and laid a course for the docking port. He thumbed the communicator. "Ahoy, station, ahoy, station. This is Python the _Dubious Profit_ requesting clearance to dock, over."

The communicator popped and clicked, then issued an answering hail: "Ahoy, Python _Dubious Profit_ , this is traffic control, we see you; you're on the beam, five by five."

The ancient surface of the asteroid swelled on the _Dubious Profit_ 's viewscreen. A rash of domes blistered the grey regolith around the port, washed an intermittent sickly green by the pulsing beacon. The rough walls of the docking bay loomed over them, and the comms crackled again: "You're clear and easy, so come on in. Slot yourself in bay three and we'll get the dockmaster to you, soon as we can scrape him up. Welcome to our happy home. Welcome to Stranglehold."

"Oh, lovely," said Rus.

*

Bay three was still hard vacuum, and Hesperus and his crew were left to wait nearly two hours before Stranglehold's dockmaster drifted out to inspect the _Dubious Profit_. While they waited, Hesperus had ducked into his cabin, closed the door behind him, and dialled the combination of the strongbox built into the bulkhead. Opening it, he packed a slim wallet with a variety of coins, a few thin strips of bullion, and some low- to middle-value gemstones. Outside the mainstream, many merchants preferred rare-metal specie to Co-operative credits, and gold and precious stones often traded at a premium. He drummed his fingers against his chin, then added a small twist of metal foil, containing a generous pinch of red wango, which he tucked into the back of the wallet. As a sample or as a gift, it made good business sense to spread a little happiness – and this twist carried quite a lot of happiness, right there. He closed and locked the strongbox, and carefully strapped the wallet to the underside of his left forearm, before changing out of his baggy, single-fit flightsuit. He emerged from his cabin wearing soft black moleskin trousers, cinched at the knees with pinchbeck buckles, and tucked into elastic-sided boots of glossy chestnut leather. His jacket was a dark bottle-green, with a high black collar where his trader's pips were picked out in enamelled gold. Around his waist gleamed a belt of flexible silver links, supporting a short ceremonial sword, and on his head he sported a slim twixtear cap of black felt with a proud stiff peak and a brave red hackle.

"Remember," said Hesperus, as the airlock cycled, "in these ... kinds of places it is important always to project an aura of confidence, prosperity, and authority. Above all else, _respect_ is the prime currency here." He twitched his collar into a more pleasing configuration and leaned nonchalantly against the cockpit door.

The airlock gasped open and the dockmaster, a sag-faced human male sealed inside a grimy pressure suit, stepped on board. He carried an environmental monitor which he scrutinised at arm's length, one eyebrow raised.

"Looks like you folks have an issue with your atmospherics ... youse are a little light on the old oh-two, there, chief." His voice twanged high and nasal from his helmet speaker, as he waggled the monitor's illuminated screen at Rus.

Hesperus pushed himself forward. "I am Captain Hesperus, master, commander and owner of the _Dubious Profit_ ," he said. "You can address your remarks to me. And I am aware of our, ah, issues with the atmospherics. In fact, I require the use of your pressurised drydock facilities, to effect some running repairs."

The dockmaster raised his other eyebrow. "Hum. Drydock, eh? Have to square that one with the boss. Quarantine protocols, all that ..."

"I am a close and highly regarded friend of the station owner," said Hesperus. "Ah ... nevertheless I would be grateful, my man, if you could expedite this service for us." He ran the ball of his thumb casually across the tips of his fingers.

The dockmaster's eyebrows slumped back down to make a single thick and furry line. "Ah well, chief, normally I'd be happy to oblige – but the boss has asked to see you first, in person."

"Oh, ah, um," said Hesperus. "In person, you say? Well, usually, of course, I ..."

The dockmaster grinned, exposing a mouthful of broken teeth stained red with betel-juice. "You got no cause to worry, now," he said. "The boss perked right up when your ship showed on the dial. Laughed, even. That's a good sign, likely. Maybe you're still a close-guarded friend, hey?" He slapped Hesperus on the shoulder.

Hesperus wound his fingers together, his eyes dancing left and right. "Ah. Good. Excellent, excellent ..." He lifted his cap, smoothed down the fur on his scalp, and took a deep breath of the _Profit_ 's tainted air. "Well," he said, replacing his cap, "it will be my pleasure."

"Grand, grand; you suit up, and mind your fancy hat; I'll take you over, and I'll rattle up the boys to fuel you on account, how's that sound?"

"That," said Hesperus, hoisting a sickly smile onto his face as he sidled into his pressure suit, "would be most kind. A true example of the, ah, the solicitous hospitality for which Stranglehold is so rightly famed."

Hesperus and the dockmaster passed through the _Dubious Profit_ 's airlock, emerging into the near-weightless vacuum of Stranglehold's outer bay. The dockmaster leaned over and touched his helmet to Hesperus's.

"You okay to jump? Or you want a tow?"

Hesperus, more offended by the implication that he was unused to zero-g than by the dockmaster's familiarity, did not deign to reply. He scanned the rough rock walls, quickly locating the hatchway which led to the station's interior; with one kick he pushed away from the _Profit_ 's hull and sailed across, turning neatly half-way and cushioning his landing with an easy flexing of his legs. The dockmaster arrived a few moments later, grabbing a stanchion to steady himself. He and Hesperus passed through the station airlock and emerged into a bustling stockroom. A drifting cluster of cargo canisters over by one wall provided an indication of the gravity afforded by the asteroid's spin: at the outer levels it might be noticeable, but here at the core it was fractional at best.

Hesperus unsealed his helmet, and took a first cautious sniff of Stranglehold. In the stockroom the air was pungent: aromas of exotic foodstuffs, wines and spices brought from half a hundred star systems, pierced by the tang of hot mineral oils, larded with alien musks and body-odours ... and beneath it all the faint burnt flavour of carbonaceous chondrite. Heady, rich, and invigorating, especially after the foul soup he had been forced to inhale aboard the _Profit_. He felt his confidence returning: commerce, transactions, _trade_ pulsed through the station. This, he thought, was his kind of place. Hesperus had remembered Stranglehold as a seedy anchorage of last resort, a host to the poorer sorts of smugglers, thieves and fences: now it had the hum and bustle of a regular port of call.

Hesperus hung his pressure suit in a locker, before smoothing a few stray creases from his clothing and adjusting the angle of his twixtear cap. The dockmaster popped his own visor, a sour waft rising from the opening; one more addition to the medley of smells in the stockroom.

"Your appointment with the boss is at eighteen, sharp," the dockmaster said, as Hesperus synched his chronometer to station time, "in the good ship _Fractal Sacrifice_ , in the private bay at the other end of the station. You got yourself a couple hours to kill, so feel free to take a wander. Trading floor's _that_ way, bars and joyjoints _that_ way ... we's even got a casino that's no more'n averagely bent, should you take a fancy to the hazards."

"Ah, thank you," said Hesperus. "I believe I will peruse your mercantile facilities ..." The dockmaster grinned at him again, his teeth redder than his gums. Hesperus wondered if he was waiting for a tip. It was often hard to judge local protocol, in these smaller stations: sometimes people were offended by the offer, sometimes by its absence. Facing equal risk, he chose the path marked out by economy: he nodded politely, and passed through the portal to the trading floor.

*

Stranglehold's trading floor was situated towards the exterior of the asteroid, where the rock's rotation provided a modicum of artificial gravity. The space had been greatly enlarged since Hesperus had last visited, and he could see evidence of ongoing operations to extend it still further. Clearly, business was on the up and up. There was a marked difference in the clientèle, too. Gone were the squalid plots marked off by spraybomb paint, guarded by shifty thugs and littered with random scatterings of looted goods and scavenged flotsam. In their place were long rows of tidy booths, each specialising in their particular commodities, with samples arrayed to best effect to catch a discerning customer's eye. True, many of the traders possessed a certain raffish air, and merchandise which on a Co-operative station would have been tightly regulated were offered openly for sale with no restrictions; but even here, he felt, any disagreements as to price or provenance could be kept within the bounds of civil discourse. Hesperus always preferred negotiations where threats and violence were not part of the consideration. Clearly, Sunderling had developed a sense of business acumen since last they met; Hesperus made a mental note to compliment him on it later.

In the meantime, he intended to enjoy this opportunity to examine the available wares, and perhaps to snare a clever trade or two. Here, a Tiriusri merchant squatted, slit-eyed and smiling, before a range of cargo canisters, with samples of the rare earths and ores that they contained exhibited in ceramic dishes and transparent flasks. There, a tall Gerebian raised her long-fingered hands in a gesture signifying acute distress – although she wobbled her large horned head in amusement as a fat human pitched a price too low for the delicate moth-wing silks that floated and shimmered in the booth behind her.

Hesperus was in no hurry; a rich field such as this one deserved his full attention. Close study of stock and sellers alike could often pay dividends. Whiskers twitching, he strolled around the trading floor, smiling amiably but allowing no-one to catch his eye. A few minutes of observation showed that many of the cargo canisters stacked neatly up were often more than usually battered and abraded. Canisters, of course, led rough-and-tumble lives, and were often knocked around by careless hands on ships and stations; but here were more than just scrapes and dings, and on more than a few Hesperus could spot signs of scorching which had not been entirely buffed away. This confirmed one suspicion, at least: Sunderling may have added a veneer of legitimacy to his operation, and successfully wooed a thriving population of merchants to take up residence in his station, but at least some proportion of the goods on sale had almost certainly been acquired through the explosive destruction of their original owners.

Still, though, goods obtained without financial outlay could often be purchased at advantageous discounts; a prospective buyer might hope to wring a deeper concession from the seller than would otherwise be possible. Hesperus adjusted his internal calculations accordingly: this was a buyer's market, to be sure. Unfortunately, this meant that his own cargo – the twenty-two tonnes of prime red wango – was devalued here. Stranglehold's market was, for now at least, glutted with intoxicants and narcotics of every description: in one aisle alone, Hesperus was offered everything from bales of tobacco and jameson weed to exotic concoctions of za blossom extract, fermented groal milk and ten-year wiseberries.

He wandered around the trading floor, peering and scrutinising, weighing and considering, lost in a whirl of profitable possibilities, until finally his happy reverie was interrupted by the presence of a sour, animal reek, accompanied by an unattractive blend of grunts, coughs and whimpers. Located at the back of the floor, next to the extractors, was a clutch of slave pens. Hesperus tutted, and glanced downwards: slave pens often leaked unpleasant effluvia, and he didn't want to spoil his boots. He looked up again: numerous anatomies hunched and huddled within the pens; eyeballs of varying colours and designs regarded him dully. Hesperus frowned: a depressing sight, to be sure – a wise decision by Sunderling to tuck the pens at the back of the marketplace. Hesperus's appreciation for the man's business sense rose another notch.

Sunderling! His appointment. Hesperus checked his chronometer: he would have to hurry. Successful businessmen, and successful pirates, should not be kept waiting. He stepped carefully over a suspicious-looking stain, scuffed the soles of his boots, and strode away towards the far end of the station.

*

Beyond the trading floor lay a stretch of passages and conduits in a state of obvious development. The route was well marked, however, and he arrived with some minutes to spare, emerging into a transparent blister overlooking a cavernous docking bay. Hesperus peered out into the gloom. A few brilliant stars were visible, framed within a distant circular opening at the far end of the bay. A flexible tube snaked away from the blister, connecting to some enormous structure that almost filled the entire space. Strange: like a gigantic city block, berthed as if it were a ship ... He staggered, struck by sudden vertigo. It _was_ a ship. A vast ship, bigger than anything Hesperus had seen before. Long, smooth, sleek; rows of plasma turrets dotted the hectares of its flanks, and three huge engine manifolds jutted out from its undershot stern, each nearly big enough to swallow the _Dubious Profit_ whole.

When Hesperus had known him, years ago, Sherman Sunderling had flown a Python, like the _Dubious Profit_. Perhaps Sunderling's vessel had been a trifle more robust, capable of threatening lone merchants and warding off the passing attentions of local police – but still essentially the same class of ship. Clearly, the man was now operating at an entirely different level. This, this new ship, this _thing_ , this could give a squadron of the Co-operative Navy cause for concern. The thought of such force being at the command of an alcoholic bully like Sunderling made Hesperus's bowels churn. What ghastly flaw in the logic of the universe could have produced such a misalignment of fortune?

And Sunderling, this new, successful, powerful Sunderling, wished to see him. Had asked especially to see him. Had laughed, even. Hesperus gnawed at the knuckles of his right fist, eyeing the airlock that led to the monstrous craft. Finally, with a spasmodic jerk, he stepped forward and thumbed the intercom beside the entrance to the access tube.

The intercom grille emitted an interrogatory sound.

"Hah-hm, I am Hesperus, Captain Hesperus, master, commander and owner of the merchant vessel the _Dubious Profit_ , here at the express invitation of—"

The grille made a flat, disinterested noise. A light burned green, and the airlock hissed open. Hesperus drew a long breath, and entered the tube.

He boarded the ship, emerging into a long corridor. To his right and left the passage branched off into the interior of the huge vessel; directly in front was a wide double door marked "Stateroom". As he hesitated, glancing from side to side, the doors parted, revealing a dimly lit interior space large enough to contain the entire crew quarters of the _Profit_ with room to spare. A figure stood near the centre of the room, and Hesperus recognised the barrel gut and bull neck, the splay-footed stance of Sherman Sunderling – styled the Haute, also known as the Black Dog of Lasoce. He was very, very still.

"Mr Sunderling!" squeaked Hesperus, stepping forward and fighting to modulate his voice. "Ha-hm, Mr the Haute Sherman Sunderling, the Haute indeed, I am amazed, delighted, astounded by your ship, your station, your success ..." He came to an uncertain stop, still some metres from his host. Sunderling made no move: he simply stood there, jaw jutting forward, staring off to the right. "Ah ..." said Hesperus. "Aha ... I ..."

"He will not speak with you." A voice, light and amused, behind him.

Hesperus leapt, whinnying, and looked wildly around. A human female stood in the doorway, slightly built, sheathed to her throat in a beetle-black armoured pressure suit. A nimbus of blonde hair framed her face.

"Oh! I mean, ah, er ... Arae?" Hesperus glanced back at Sunderling, who still gazed fixedly into nowhere. He looked, thought Hesperus, slightly annoyed, as if there was some minor fact he couldn't quite remember. "Um ah I don't ..."

"No, you don't," said the woman, a faint smile playing on her lips. "I see though at least that you remember me." Stepping forward, she twitched a finger, and the stateroom doors glided shut behind her. "How gratifying. For I remember you, Hesperus. Captain. Captain Hes-per-us." She paced around him, graceful as a dancer, to stand next to Sunderling.

"Yes, ah, Arae ... Arae! How, how nice to see ..." His eyes flicked between Arae's smiling face, and Sunderling's vaguely constipated one. "I, I am here by invitation, I ... that is to say Mr Sunderling and I ..."

Arae's lips parted to expose her small white teeth, and she placed one hand on Sunderling's shoulder. "I must inform you that Mr the Haute Sherman Sunderling is dead, and has been for quite some time. This ... memento here," she caressed Sunderling's hair, "is all that remains."

"Oh. Oh, I mean, my condolences, I regret—"

"Regret!" Arae laughed. She gestured, and a soft yellow light glowed above her. " _Here_ is regret!" With one hand she grasped Sunderling's belt and, without apparent effort, lifted the rigid form entirely off the floor. She tilted Sunderling's head towards Hesperus. He saw a deep depression in the top of the scalp, as if it had been struck by a large hammer. A large hammer or a small fist. "My one regret," said Arae, "is that in killing him I shattered his skull. For I would have had it lined in silver, and drunk red wine from it all the days of my life."

"But then ... my invitation ..."

"You are here at my _command_ , Hesperus. This ship, this station; everything they signify and contain, the volume of space which they control, all belong to me, and me alone. This—" she set Sunderling's stuffed corpse down with a weighty thump "—was nothing but a common criminal, skulking in his lair, sneaking out to loot and steal and sneaking back again to wallow in his own foulness. But I snuffed out his wretched life, and made his people into mine. I have dealt with guilds and agencies; I have treated with diplomats and ministers. I have threatened presidents and faced down kings, and shown the petty states of Lerela that we of Stranglehold stand athwart their trade routes. Now they value our friendship, and fear our enmity. I have turned this rock from pirate's nest into a nation, and I am its queen."

Hesperus snatched off his twixtear cap, sweeping it across his chest in a low and fulsome bow. "An honour and a rare delight, your majesty! I confess I was incredulous that such an oaf, such a boor as Sunderling could have wrought the transformations I have witnessed upon this station. That he could gain such wealth, such power as I have seen here displayed on Stranglehold! But of course, I should have realised that this could only have come about through your efforts, your judgement, your keen intelligence. I always knew that you were in all respects that brute's true superior."

"Indeed?" Arae looked at him, her blue eyes wide. "And yet it was to that brute that you sold me, Hesperus."

"Oh, ah, um," said Hesperus, conscious of the sealed doors behind him. "Perhaps ... not an ideal choice but nonetheless I made every effort to locate you within an environment where your natural talents would ensure your future prosperity and in this regard it delights me to see how much you have flourished surpassed even my wildest expectations to become a queen a golden rose a shining jewel—"

"Shut," said Arae, raising one black gauntlet and aiming a finger precisely at the spot between Hesperus's eyes, "your flapping mouth."

Hesperus's lips closed with a faint clap. Arae stepped towards him. The interwoven metal plates and bands of her pressure suit slid and locked and slid again with every movement of her body. She reached up her right hand and touched his chin, the servo motors in her armour singing thin gnat-songs, gliding down the razor's edge of audible. Her shoulders rose and fell fractionally to the rhythm of her breathing.

"You sold me," she said, her left arm rigid, pointing back to where Sunderling's body stood, "to that thing." The hard fingers of her gauntlet dug into Hesperus's jaw. "Did you make a profit?" she asked.

Hesperus rolled his eyes, and let out a small, nasal squeak.

Arae's fingers twitched against his throat. "I ask again: did, you make, a profit?"

"Eech, huah, ah, not much – to be honest, I'm sorry, no, not much of one."

A pause. Arae snatched her hand away. "I did not think so." She turned and paced back towards the centre of the room, where she stood, studying the expression frozen onto Sunderling's face.

"Arae, my lady, your majesty," said Hesperus, "I – I am truly, truly most sorry for what I – for my part in, in—"

She held up a hand. "I did consider having you killed," she said. "Killed, skinned, stuffed. I would have stood your remains here also. A small tableau." She turned her face towards him, unsmiling. "But that may have seemed ... eccentric. Caprice, I have found, is tolerated in monarchs; outright madness too can often go unremarked. But people frown on mere eccentricity." She gave a small sigh. "The demands of state."

"If – if there is anything I can do, any service I can provide, to, to make up for ... I am not rich but—"

"No, you're not, are you? And I am. Rich and powerful. Feared and respected. Loved, even, by my citizens. What would be crimes for you are acts of policy for me. Police and bounty-hunters pursue you for your transgressions; for mine, statesmen beg me to negotiate. We exist within different universes, Hesperus. I could kill you, destroy you and your ship, erase each last particle from the galaxy – but to what end? Now you are here I find the only thing you can do for me is to continue in your failed existence." She turned her back on him. "You wish to use the station's drydock. Very well: but you will pay the full commercial rate, in advance, with an additional premium to be specified by my dockmaster according to the decrepitude of your ship. Further, all your payments must be made in hard assets: a promissory from the Co-operative is scarcely more reliable than one from you." She raised an admonitory hand. "But there must be limits, even to my mercy: any disruption, any action you may commit which disturbs the smooth operation of my station, will result in your ship being seized and you and all your crew being sold to the first slave-dealer stupid enough to make a bid for you. Or," she glanced over her shoulder, once, and looked away again; "or more likely I shall simply have you ejected through the nearest airlock. There is little sense in devaluing an already depressed market." She twitched a single finger, and the double doors swung open. "You may go."

Hesperus opened his mouth, then closed it again. He realised he was clutching his twixtear cap in front of him with both his hands, and had twisted it badly out of shape. He fluttered it, and bowed once more. He shuffled backwards through the stateroom doors, then turned and fled down the access tube, through the airlock and off the ship.

*

Back within the station, Hesperus felt the need to collect his wits and to assess the situation. Skirting the trading floor he located a bar called The Long Spoon, where he purchased and drank two doses of Old Dreadful without haggling or even sitting down. Although this rendered him temporarily incapable of speech he was still able to indicate his desire to the barkeeper for a third. This he carried with careful concentration to a shadowed corner table, where with equal focus he sat and stared into the smoky depths of his glass.

He rolled the interview with Arae around in his head. A dangerously unbalanced individual, to be sure! It was true, then, that the very rich possessed no gratitude. After all, without Hesperus's involvement in her life, without his financial outlay on her behalf, where would she be now? Even once her bonded sentence had expired, there would have been few opportunities for her. She would have ended up drudging in some factory, or scratching in the mud on some plantation, no doubt. Perhaps, in selling her to Sunderling, Hesperus had exposed her to some unpleasantness – but now here she was, Queen of Stranglehold! Surely such good fortune cancelled out whatever inconvenience she might have experienced, leaving her deeply in his debt ... the ledger-books of the universe were ill-balanced, so much was certain.

Another sip burned its way down Hesperus's throat. He shuddered, remembering the steely touch of Arae's fingers there. Inside that suit she could punch a hole through a hull plate. If they should meet on more equal terms, though, then ... he frowned, and with one finger trailed a drop of Old Dreadful across the scarred tabletop, watching the greasy surface flinch under the dark spirit's path. Then what? he asked himself. Such an encounter was hardly likely, and in any case, he was no assassin. In a few short years Arae had slain Sunderling, dominated Stranglehold, grown staggeringly rich and powerful, and now wielded influence across an entire star system. What had he achieved? His crew were mutinous, his ship was falling apart, and time and again his fortunes slipped from his grasp like smoke and dreams. He slumped low in his chair, his twixtear cap misshapen and awry.

There was a stir from across the room and the muttered conversations of the bar's few patrons died away. An insectoid musician, a member of the Didiran cantor caste, was stepping up onto a small dais. Its instrument, a chitaronne, was crafted from the translucent husk of its own chrysalis, lacquered and stretched into shape and strung with the musician's own extruded silk. The Didiran settled onto a low four-pronged crouching stool, strummed the chitaronne, and began to play.

Hesperus recognised the melody: an old song, often sung in dives and dens where spacefarers gathered. Hesperus had sung it himself many times. The dozen oval membranes which studded the insect's thorax pulsed and trembled, and the song rolled out as if from a choir.

Call my name out on the common band!

Shout it for the stars to hear

Tell them that I, with heart and hand

Fought the universe and showed no fear.

I battered down the witchspace doors

And through them, heedless, came and went

To touch a million different shores

and shake the very firmament.

I voyaged through the blazing black

And from the vacuum drew my breath

I knew no borders, held no track

I laughed at life and danced with death.

My days have run out with the sands

But as I sink down into night

Call my name out on the common band

To be remembered at the speed of light.

To be a spacer was to ply a dangerous trade. Few left any memorial of their passing; fewer still left any mortal remains. It was traditional, then, among them, to mark a colleague's death with a wake, where their name would be yelled out across the general communications frequency: radio-waves scribbled onto spacetime as proof that, once, they had lived. Spacers often bellowed these verses in a raucous drunken chorus, as affirmation of the singers' continued survival as much as anything else. The Didiran, though, had not given the song its customary defiant volume or hectic pace; instead it wove a clear cold harmony around the words, and made their trite sentiments seem rich and sombre through the deep thrumming of the chitaronne's drone-strings.

Hesperus felt his fur bristle; a seismic shiver ran up his spine. Life, he thought, was but a fleeting spark of brightness amid black infinities of nonexistence: precious, yes, but blink and you'd miss it. So what if he had not yet scaled the heights of his ambition? It was the struggle that mattered; life had to be lived. He stood, and saluted the musician with his glass of Old Dreadful, then downed the dose with a flick of his wrist and a jerk of his neck. He grimaced once, tugged his twixtear cap straight again on his head, flicked the brim, and marched out of the bar.

*

A reckless mix of alcohol and wounded pride glowed within him. So Arae strewed petty obstacles in his path. What of it? He would conquer them. She had won a fortune through sheer chance, and one single act of mere murder – most probably carried out when Sunderling had swilled himself into a state of swinish unconsciousness. What did that reckon, against the wits of a merchant prince such as he? Or if not a prince, then at least a noble, a duke or a landsgrave or a – a banneret? Or was that a type of flag? No matter: the point, the essential point, was that he, Captain Hesperus, master and commander of the _Dubious Profit_ , could sell fish to the sea and stars to the sky and come out ahead. So she demanded payment in hard assets: he would run through her little rock like a laser through a lampshade, he would outsmart and out-trade her gaggle of tame peddlers and shopkeepers, run them cross-eyed and knot them up until they couldn't tell their knees from their noses.

Here was a booth which merited closer inspection. The midnight-blue paintwork might have made it gloomy, but judicious spotlighting picked out trays of glittering gemstones, sending out sparks and spangles and giving the impression of a star-scattered sky. The finest jewels were safely ensconced at the back of the booth: Hesperus's eye fell upon a nest of rubies there, uncut and deep blood-red. The owner, though, was obviously confident enough in local security to place a few attractive trifles – mostly tourmalines and peridots, with the occasional sliver of topaz or of citrine – on small flat pads on the countertop. Placing his hands behind his back, Hesperus gave grave consideration to these semi-precious chippings, and watched sidelong the actions of the stallholder, currently in conversation with another trader.

The gem merchant was Berienese. A blue-and-white chequered kilt was wrapped around his thick waist, and his chestnut pelt was glossy with scented oil. His sharp fox face poked out beneath a broad circular hat, from the brim of which rose a dozen thin and springy wires, each bearing a tiny copper silhouette of a flying bird. His customer was a human female, dark-skinned, egg-bald, wearing a tasselled crimson waistcoat and trews. A wide red stripe ran from the crown of her head down to her chin, marking her as a Prodromian devotee. A tray of four mid-sized opals – rather milky, Hesperus fancied – was open on the counter between them.

"Sixteen," the woman said.

The stallholder smiled, bending forward. "Each? I am sure I—"

"Not each, not each!" the woman interrupted. "For the whole tray, of course. Do you take me for a fish, sir?"

"The whole tray? Sixteen?" The stallholder jerked upright, causing his flock of copper birds to bob and swoop above him. "I am generous, madam, but I have costs, I have overheads. I must purchase my stock, for example, I must pay rent upon my stall. My own needs are modest, my tastes inexpensive, but on Stranglehold I must even buy the air I breathe; and this one—" he stabbed a thumb backwards over his shoulder, indicating a pale gangling figure lost in the shadows at the back of the booth, "—this one eats and eats and does little work of any value. Come come, madam, all humour aside: make me an offer that at least allows me to maintain my business, if not my dignity."

"Your dignity may be beyond the length of my purse ... twenty, then." She folded her arms.

The stallholder's moist pink nose quivered in frustration, and he raised his eyes to the ceiling. "Madam, if I cannot appeal to your sympathy and sense of justice, I must seek the intervention of a higher power." He reached beneath the counter, and drew out a narrow cylindrical cage containing a wrinkled, naked, squatting homunculus with an outsize head, large amber eyes and a mournful expression. "Behold!" exclaimed the stallholder, placing the cage on the countertop with delicate precision, rotating it so the little creature faced the customer. "The Great God Judred!"

The woman raised one eyebrow, glancing down at the caged figure with faint distaste. "The Great God ... Judred? I am unfamiliar ..."

"The Great God Judred is revered among my people for his unswerving righteousness and total commitment to fair and honest trade."

"Indeed. And this, this manikin, this is he?"

"It is."

"In this cage, in your booth, on this rock."

"In one of his infinite manifestations, yes. I have been so blessed." The stallholder laid one hand flat against his chest, and gave a fractional bow.

The woman sighed. "Very well, make all necessary obeisances to this, this ..."

"Ah, no, madam, you misapprehend. I now disavow all interest in our deal. It is with Judred that you must bargain. Make your offers to him. He alone will judge their worth." He took one long step back from the counter.

"I will not be mocked, sir!"

"Madam, I assure you, I do not mock. This is a religious act we perform here, and one of the utmost seriousness. Please," he gestured towards the narrow cage. "Make Judred an offer for the stones."

She peered at the stallholder for several seconds, but he maintained a grave and sober mien. Frowning, she stooped towards the imprisoned creature, examining it closely. It gazed back at her, dainty fingers plucking at the bars. She made a hissing sound through her teeth, then spoke in a loud, clear voice: "Twenty. For all four stones together. Twen-ty."

Immediately the creature arched its back and rolled its head from side to side. Its little mouth opened and closed, emitting a thin and piteous piping. The woman stepped back a pace.

"The Great God Judred, it would appear, is made sorrowful by your offer," said the stallholder, copper birds dipping above his head. "Perhaps ... but I should not interfere."

"Hum," said the woman, her scalp twitching. "Twenty – twenty-eight."

"Oh-oh-oh," said the creature in a tiny griefstruck voice, fat soft tears welling from its lambent eyes. "Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh."

"Bah! Oh!" said the woman, clapping her hands in vexation. "Thirty – no, no, forty, then! Forty for all four, or drop them in the sun!"

The Great God Judred gave a high and happy sigh. Its tears forgotten, it gazed up at the woman, a wet, loose-lipped smile creasing its little squashed face. "Judred approves the price?" said the stallholder, stepping forwards. "Ah well, ah well ... I had hoped for more, for stones of such fine quality. Well, well, but we must all bow before the workings of divine judgement. Forty it shall be." He swept the opals into a small velvet pouch and proffered them to his customer, who stood now with hands on hips, her eyes narrow. Finally she expelled a snort, plucked out her wallet and thumbed over the money. She nodded once, took the pouch, and stalked off.

The stallholder bestowed a fond look upon the Great God Judred, and gave its cage a gentle pat, before directing his attention towards the figure at the back of the booth. "Borobo! Stop lurking back there. Come and attend to Judred, who does more work than you. Feed him, give him a drop or two of tincture ... check too his cage for any soiling. I must attend to other matters: in my absence, attempt no sales of anything better than the fourth-class stones. On my return, you will go to bay six in the stockroom: there are four new loads of quartz gravels to be graded, and you must shovel these into the assay bins for me."

The merchant strode away, and Borobo, a thin and pallid youth of uncertain species, shuffled out from the shadows to attend to the little caged god. Hesperus glanced up, and smiled, before resuming his perusals of the cheaper stock. Borobo let out a deep sigh, and rummaged beneath the counter. He emerged holding a small wooden box, containing a few vials and a jar of some gritty yellow paste. He poked around in the box, and sighed again.

"You work for a hard taskmaster!" said Hesperus, shaking his head and smiling. "Ah, but it reminds me of my own apprenticeship ... it seems to be a universal law that one's labours must always go unappreciated by one's superiors!"

Borobo looked up, as if seeing Hesperus for the first time. "Hm? Who? Oh, old Hystrich is not so bad to work for, not so very bad I suppose. But, love and death, if you'll pardon me for saying so sir, there should be more to life than this grey drudgery! It pains me that he displays such little faith in my abilities as a merchant ... I see you are interested in these peridots here, for example: you are a trader yourself, sir? Have you journeyed far?"

"Your eyes are keen! I confess I have a fondness for such baubles; and you are correct again, I am far indeed from home! Such acuity will stand you in good stead, I am certain. Yes, the wanderlust took me when I was scarcely older than yourself ... I don't doubt but I have outraced my own home starlight. If I could even find the spark of it in the sky, it would only be an image from centuries before my birth around it. A strange thought, and not in all respects a happy one! Still though, there are always new people to meet, and new things to see. This little impling here, for instance." Hesperus gestured towards the Great God Judred, hunched over in its cage. "Your master reveres it, seemingly. What is its story?"

"Aha. The Great God Judred. Well, Hystrich values it, undoubtedly. It has proven its worth in many a difficult negotiation, especially with customers of a more spiritual bent. The little beast can prove quite intransigent on price, and none can name Hystrich as a chiseller or profiteer."

"So? The creature is sapient, then?"

"Ha. Well. Now we must grow philosophical. The animal itself is of small intelligence: wild, it matches wits with caterpillars and other crawling things. However, according to doctrine, correctly fed and treated it can become a vessel, a conduit for the Great God Judred – a powerful deity and a stickler for buying low and selling high."

"Mm. Mm," said Hesperus, stroking his chin. "Judred did seem to participate in that last transaction, with some emotion and to no small effect. In all my travels I have seen many strange things, and make it my custom to respect all gods, spirits, demiurges and suchlike, yet I have never previously encountered a divinity which acts so ... blatantly within the tangible world. Except of course where one can trace an intimate connection to, say, a member of the priesthood behind a nearby screen, or perhaps concealed within a hollow statue. Or to the cunning use of magnets, or other similar contrivances."

Borobo nodded sagely. "Here too, metaphysics acts in concert with physics of the more humble variety. Observe!" He stepped back from the counter to where Hystrich had previously stood, and pressed down all his weight onto his right foot. Judred let out a mewling gasp, and raised its hands up to its head, a dolorous expression crumpling its small ugly face. Borobo shifted to his left, and Judred gave a happy sigh, winking one eye shut contentedly. Borobo raised one finger. "Now," he said, stepping forward. He slid Judred's cage a hand-span to one side, then stepped back and repeated his previous manoeuvre. Hesperus watched with interest as, when Borobo leaned again to his right, a short, blunt prong thrust up from the countertop. He also discerned a faint circular groove, the exact diameter of Judred's cage, centred upon the prong.

"Aha!" he said. "I begin to see ... I assume the Great God Judred's cage is pierced from beneath? So when your master leans just so ..."

"The prong passes through the hole to connect with Judred's hindquarters, which naturally makes him unhappy."

"Naturally! And the withdrawal of the prong, we must assume, is an event which the creature welcomes, to say the least. So Judred's fluctuations of emotion are purely linked to your master's opinions of the offered deal."

"Ah, so it may appear to the secular eye," said Borobo, shaking his head. "I once thought the same myself. But one should not dismiss the immanent presence of the Great God Judred from the equation so lightly! It is old Hystrich's weight which drives the prong, to be sure, but who can say what forces compel Hystrich to lean left or right, as prices change? The theology is subtle, and complex."

"I do not doubt it," replied Hesperus. "Thank you, sir, for your consideration." He raised his cap and turned away.

"Oh! My pleasure, sir – but the um, the ah, the peridots ...?"

Hesperus looked over his shoulder. "I am sorely tempted, I admit ... alas, I have a pressing engagement. Perhaps another time. But be assured, across the galaxy, on many worlds and under many suns, the greatest treasure one can find is good, intelligent conversation with a sophisticated individual. It has been a joy speaking with you, sir."

Borobo beamed. Hesperus touched a finger to the peak of his cap and walked away, deep in thought.

Further down the aisle, towards the far wall, the goods displayed became cheaper and coarser: bales of metal foil, drums of unprocessed hydrocarbons, and the like. Near the end, Hesperus spied a small kiosk, almost a lean-to, where a dimly luminous sign advertised the services of a luck-changer. By way of some brief and purely formulaic haggling, Hesperus exchanged two slightly clipped silver sequins for a large brass medallion – guaranteed proof against all known forms of devil, bogey or sprite of misfortune – which he placed around his neck. He also took the opportunity, in the gloom outside the luck-changer's stall, to remove one small crumb of red wango from his wallet and secrete it carefully beneath the claw of his left index finger. Hands folded behind his back, he strolled around the floor until once again he found himself at the booth of the jewel-merchant Hystrich.

Hystrich himself fussed over some small stones, the tip of a pointed purple tongue protruding from one corner of his mouth. Borobo was nowhere to be seen. Hesperus stepped forward and rapped twice on the counter. Hystrich gave a small start: his copper birds soared and plunged. "Oh! Ah. Ahem. Your pardon, ah, sir, I was distracted ... how may I be of service?" Hystrich's darting glance took in Hesperus's hat and jacket; perhaps the medallion caught his eye for just a moment.

"Ah," said Hesperus. "Thank you, yes. That arrangement of red spinels, there, now: I find they speak to me. They look a little wan, to be sure, but perhaps with the right setting they may prove adequate to my needs."

Hystrich straightened his back, and regarded Hesperus askance. "Spinels? Spinels? You are mistaken, sir: these are rubies, pure and true. You called them 'wan', too, unless my ears deceived me ... this cluster of six precious jewels here, each one a flawless crystal, red as heart's blood? Can these really be the gems to which you refer, sir?"

Hesperus nodded easily. "Indeed yes, those pink stones there. I imagine you would hope for, what, five credits apiece? I am not one to haggle: shall we say twenty-five for the lot, to include a discount for payment in bullion? That seems a fair deal all round."

Hystrich's nose twitched first left, then right, and his lips parted in a wide and mirthless grin. "Sirrah, I admire your boundless optimism, but I fear I must disappoint you: despite all rumours to the contrary I have not yet grown addled in my wits." He plucked the smallest ruby – the size of the final joint of Hesperus's little finger – from the display, and placed it reverently on the counter. "This alone I would not sell to my own litter-mate for twenty-five. See. Look. Witness here the limpid clarity, the deep, dark, rich and royal hue." He bent low over the counter, the tip of his snout nearly touching the stone. His round black eyes peered at Hesperus from beneath the brim of his hat. "The jewel _breathes_ , sir. One can almost feel the heat of the fire that burns forever within its depths. For this single stone I would not take less than fifty."

Hesperus pursed his lips, and scratched at his right eyebrow. "Hm. You are a poet, sir," he said. "But I am a businessman. Let us eschew hyperbole, and deal in concrete facts. Fifty is a large sum – one might almost say an outrageous sum – for such a meagre chipping. Perhaps though my initial offer was a trifle ambitious: I could be persuaded to stretch to thirty, even thirty-five, for the six together."

Hystrich stood up again, and lifted the single ruby between his thumb and forefinger. Red light flashed within the gem. "Sir, in all candour: such an offer verges on the insulting."

"Come come, sir," said Hesperus, slapping the counter. "We are practical men, are we not? You sell, I buy; then I must sell again. You, I do not doubt, purchased those stones from some dusty miner for a trivial sum; I, however, must hope to wring my prices from wily middlemen, hostile to the independent trader. All down the line each of us seek sufficient leeway to make our profits; but I cannot survive if all my margin is swallowed up by you. It is hardly fair, sir, hardly fair at all. I am vexed, I confess it, but I will make yet another adjustment, to please you: thirty-eight for the set."

"'Fair', now, he cries, 'fair'!" Hystrich shook his head. He placed the ruby gently back with the other stones. "'Fair' is a mighty word, sir. Like 'truth' and 'justice', it has a cosmic resonance. I see only one solution to your intransigence. Would you accept the valuation of a disinterested third party? One whose judgement is acknowledged across all of time and space?"

"Why, certainly," replied Hesperus. "But where shall we find such a miraculous sage?"

"Behold!" cried Hystrich, bringing forth the caged homunculus once more. "The Great God Judred!"

Hesperus leaned forward, an expression of great interest on his face. "A god!" he gasped, fingering his medallion. "You possess a veritable living god? Your fortune astounds me."

"The Great God Judred," said Hystrich, "is revered among my people for his unswerving righteousness and total commitment to fair and honest trade. This is his true avatar. If you are willing, he will make judgement of your offers for these jewels. If he is pleased with your price, I will cleave to it willingly."

"Well," said Hesperus, "I am sure of the justice of my cause. By the virtue of this holy symbol—" he removed his medallion and held it high "—I will accept the wisdom of Judred, gladly."

"Excellent," said Hystrich, siting the cage carefully on the countertop, and stepping back into the booth. "Speak to him when you are ready."

Hesperus bowed, eyeing Judred closely. With an elaborate flourish he placed his medallion next to the Great God's cage. At the same time he dug beneath his left forefinger claw to crush the crumb of red wango hidden there, surreptitiously flicking a few grains of the euphoriant into Judred's gnarled visage. "Thirty-eight, oh Great God Judred!" he called. "Thirty-eight for all six rubies!"

Hystrich swayed fractionally to his right.

"Hzzzzz!" said Judred. "Hzzzzzaaii ... dz!" The scrunched face grew purple, the tiny hands grasped at the bars and heaved. Judred's lips peeled back, and orange drool spilled from the creature's gaping mouth.

Hesperus stood up smartly, and stepped back a pace. "Ah ... Judred accepts!" he cried.

"What? What what?" Hystrich honked, his copper birds bobbing. He moved to step forward, then stopped, unwilling to shift his right foot. "No, sir, you are mistaken! He mourns, he weeps, he—"

"Feeee!" Judred squealed, spraying foam from its nostrils. "Feeeefeeee!" With a shuddering wrench it rammed its head against the top of the cage, crashing back down again before repeating the manoeuvre. "Faaii-ch-ch-ch ... tk!" The cage rattled and jerked on the countertop; somehow the creature managed to invert itself. A livid froth poured out between the bars. Judred issued three piercing shrieks, gave one last contorted spasm, and collapsed into a tangle of twisted spindly limbs.

"Alas, alas!" said Hystrich, distraught. "Oh, misfortune!" He rushed forward and snatched up the little cage, cradling it to his breast.

"Ah ... sir?" called Hesperus, straightening his cap, which had become somewhat askew. "My offer? Our deal? Might I enquire ...?"

"You!" boomed Hystrich, flinging out a hand in Hesperus's direction. "You ill-starred wretch, you night-shadow of tribulation; you—you—"

"The Great God Judred did seem, ah, positively animated," said Hesperus. "I interpret this as an affirmation of my suggested price."

"No!" bellowed Hystrich, glaring across the counter. "No, no, and never, never, never!" He glanced around him with a wild expression, then fumbled beneath the counter and pulled out a thick stave, studded with iron and surmounted by a long barbed hook. Nostrils flaring, he brought it crashing down upon the countertop. His eyes gleamed.

Hesperus backed away rapidly. He raised his cap. "My commiserations on your sad loss," he called. "A better place ... another time ... appropriate." He spun around and moved off at a brisk pace. Behind him, Hystrich let out a deep roar of anger. There was a series of bangs and rattles, suggestive of a large body clambering over an obstacle strewn with small objects. Hesperus bolted around the corner, then squeezed between two stalls, weaving through knots of traders and piles of merchandise. Hystrich's bellowings alternated between a keening nasal wail and thick clots of guttural curses. A crowd was beginning to gather, and heads turned this way and that.

A chill wave washed down Hesperus's spine, extinguishing the last embers of Old Dreadful and leaving a sick, slack sensation in his bowels instead. "Any disruption, any action you may commit which disturbs the smooth operation of my station," Arae had said: he pictured himself pitched into the raw vacuum, glimpsing the grey, pitted shell of Stranglehold for one brief final instant as his eyeballs froze and his blood boiled and his last breath gouted out of his lungs in a sparkling spray of ice ... She would do it. She would absolutely do it. The slightest excuse, and she would send him, and Rus, and Stepan and all his crew, including those demented crustacean imbeciles in the ventilation ducts, she would send them all out to gasp and choke and freeze and die. He saw Hystrich wave the limp form of the Great God Judred high in the air, pushing and struggling with the crowd around him.

Hesperus swallowed, his mouth dry. This would be enough for Arae to make good her threat, he thought; this would be more than enough. He snatched off his twixtear cap and thrust it into his jacket, ducked across the aisle and hastened towards the stockroom.

He had recovered his pressure suit from its locker and was pulling it on when he saw the dockmaster waving at him. Quickly he clapped his helmet over his head, flicked the neck seal and darted into the airlock as the dockmaster advanced. The door hissed shut and the lock began to cycle. Hesperus took a great gasp of the thinning atmosphere as he pawed at his suit seals, fumbling them shut just as the exterior door opened. The _Dubious Profit_ hung there in the docking bay, its outer airlock still open. Hesperus sprang weightless through the intervening vacuum and thudded against the hull, one hand snagging the edge of the airlock. He dragged himself inside the ship and slapped at the controls. The exterior door slid ponderously across: through the closing gap, silhouetted against the docking bay windows, Hesperus could just make out small knots of purposeful motion among Stranglehold's crew.

Finally, the _Profit_ 's airlock completed its own cycle. Hesperus dashed for the cockpit, flung himself into the command couch, and slammed the ship's systems into life. The dockmaster, he saw, had been true to his promise: the _Dubious Profit_ was fully fuelled. With one single twist and heave on the control yoke, Hesperus arced the _Profit_ 's nose around, flipping the ship's cumbrous bulk end over end. A short series of thuds and jerks, more felt than heard, indicated that this manoeuvre, in the crowded docking bay, had been perhaps less than optimal: however, given the circumstances, it had probably gone as well as could be expected. The comms were flashing urgently: but Hesperus was still wearing his helmet, and felt no burning desire to take it off and hold a conversation. He curbed the ship's rotation and ramped up the engines, driving the _Profit_ towards the exit and the stars beyond.

There was a loud, insistent knocking on the top of his helmet, and then suddenly it was twisted off. Hesperus drew a cloying lungful of the ship's fetid air, and Rus loomed into view.

"Are we in a tearing hurry to reach the drydock, or were you just trying to shake the little buggers out of the ducts with that lunatic stunt back there? Are you mad, or drunk, or both?" The engineer pointed at the wildly flashing comms. "Are you going to answer that?"

Hesperus opened his mouth, then closed it again. He pointed to the scanner: one, two, three blips slid onto the scope, flicking from yellow to red as the ships they represented locked their weapons systems onto the _Dubious Profit_.

Rus groaned. "Wonderful. Just wonderful. Did your old friend not remember you? Or did he remember you too well? Maybe if I just throttled you myself, here ... auach!" He clutched at the back of the command couch, his long black claws digging fresh holes in the patched laminate. "What's the use? So it's yet another hasty farewell for the _Profit_ , then. Stepan!" he bellowed, causing the ship's navigator – who had been trying to squeeze into the cockpit – to fall over in fright. Rus grabbed Stepan and slung him bodily into the copilot's chair. "Go on, plot us a course out of here. Do it fast. Our Captain Charming has offended the locals again. I'll have to go spin up the engines. What foul star was I born under, that I am cursed to life aboard this drifting disaster?" He stamped out of the cockpit, shouting imprecations at the universe.

Hesperus had accelerated the _Profit_ to full speed, seeking to put distance between himself and the pursuing ships. An authoritative voice barked from the comms, ordering him to heave to, to surrender his ship in the name of Queen Arae.

" _Queen_ Arae?" said Stepan. "Fantastic! I mean," he continued, as Hesperus let out a sibilant hiss, "um, we're a bit short of destinations here, Captain ..."

The _Profit_ 's rear shield dipped as incoming laser fire splashed across her stern. Hesperus hauled at the yoke, feathering the ship's drive and flinging her into a tight spiral. "Pick one!" he yelled. "The closest one!"

"Eronona?" said Stepan, doubtfully.

Eronona was the system where Hesperus had bought the wango, and where he had neglected even to attempt to acquire the requisite export permits. A joyless world, a grim agrarian collective with little sympathy for the individual entrepreneur. They would impound his ship and cargo and sentence him and his crew to years of penal servitude, to scratch and scrabble at their planet's heavy clay, trapped beneath its thick dull skies. He groaned, and sent the ship into a plunging roll. "No, not Eronona! What else have you got?"

"There's Isusle, there's Lasoce ..."

"Blood and bile, no! Not if we can help it!" Both worlds were known pirate nests; no doubt they swarmed with Arae's suppliers. Warning signals lit up the _Dubious Profit_ 's cockpit as red beams stitched down one flank. The ship shuddered, her engines pounding as they pumped more power to the depleted shields.

"Then it's Issoar, or nothing. But—"

"Issoar!" cried Hesperus, damping the engines and flipping the _Profit_ end over end. The pursuing ships – two Mamba-class escorts and a Krait fighter – flashed by, caught unawares by the manoeuvre. "Fortune's favour!" Issoar was a stable, democratic system, whose easygoing inhabitants held an enlightened attitude towards transgressors, and whose legal system emphasised reform rather than punishment. If he handed over the cargo to the authorities on Issoar – presented himself as an honest trader whose stock of white bakha root had fallen victim to an unfortunate infestation – there was an excellent chance that the outstanding charges against the _Dubious Profit_ would be dropped. It was even remotely possible that the Issorvans might pay him some token good-citizen reward. It would only be a pitiful fraction of what the wango was truly worth, of course ... Hesperus pictured the huge potential profits he would have to abandon, and whimpered: but what choice did he have? He cursed, once, and turned to Stepan. "Issoar it is. Punch it in!"

"Okay, Captain," said Stepan, jabbing at the astrogation console. "It's just, it's—"

Hesperus rammed the _Profit_ into a thundering charge, aiming the ship's nose straight back towards Stranglehold."I don't care, Stepan! Punch it!"

Stepan rolled one horrified eye at the looming grey rock and cowered over his instruments, bleating a jumble of prayers and calculations. On the scanner Hesperus could see the hostile craft looping around, trying to bring the _Dubious Profit_ under their guns once more. He shoved the control yoke hard over, sending the _Profit_ skimming low across the asteroid's scarred, ancient surface.

"... and _eight_ and the power of _eight_ and I'll _never_ do it again and six point _eight_ ... done!" Stepan lifted his head, wincing as Hesperus forced the ship into another corkscrew turn. Stranglehold's massive bulk bulged and swung overhead. "It's all set," he said, as the lights on the astrogation console flicked one by one from red to green. "We're good to go!"

Jumping into witchspace, it has been remarked, is a lot like dusting crops: you need to fly long, straight, and level if you're going to do it right. One's entry vector should be uniform in both speed and direction: the ship should not pitch, roll, or yaw as the wormhole forms. Which is all well and good for those fortunate enough to be making their jumps within the safe and ordered volume of space around a Co-operative main station; but long, straight and level flight is not appropriate behaviour in the middle of a firefight. Consequently, some starship commanders have set out three requirements for making successful witchjumps under combat conditions. These are: one, an absolute clarity of mind; two, an unerring sense of timing; and three, having very little left to lose. Hesperus was working on this list, albeit in reverse order.

Hesperus flipped open the plastic cover of the witchjump actuator, and glanced at Stepan. The navigator grimaced, nodded, gulped, shrugged, and screwed his eyes shut. Hesperus let out a long hissing breath and slammed his palm against the control. The first indicator light glowed more brightly, and began to pulse. From deep within the ship there came a low throb, rising steadily in pitch and tone as the witchdrive began to spin up to speed.

Behind the _Dubious Profit_ , the two Mamba escorts swung around, spitting fire. Hesperus sent the _Profit_ weaving as Stranglehold's close, curved horizon rushed nearer. Then in front, rising from behind the asteroid, came the Krait, its engines glowing in the near ultraviolet. Black shadows rushed and danced across the dust beneath. The Krait's laser flashed, smashing into the _Profit_ 's forward shield. Hesperus cursed, spinning the ship through the incoming barrage, jerking at the control yoke to bring the Krait into his sights and mashing down the trigger. The _Profit_ 's heavy military-grade laser lashed out, punching through the fighter's shield and gouging a glowing trench in its hull. The Krait twirled and spun away.

On the astrogation console, the second, then the third indicator lights brightened, pulsing in sequence with the first. The noise from the witchdrive rose to an insectile hum, high and angry. The _Dubious Profit_ shook, the deckplates vibrating as coolant pumps fought to control her laser's surging temperature. The rear shields wailed as the pursuing Mambas pounded at them.

Hesperus rammed the ship's nose up and around, muttering numbers to himself: nine, eight, seven ...

Keep her straight ...

Incoming fire slammed against the ship.

A little longer ...

... six, five, four ...

The attack alarm sounded: another ship, emerging from out of Stranglehold's shadow, had joined the hunt.

Just a little longer!

... three ...

The Krait, spinning, plasma spewing from its fractured engines, lurched in front of them.

... two ...

Hesperus shrieked as the stricken vessel filled the screen, and clutched at the trigger. The _Profit_ 's laser blazed out again, tearing into the Krait. The fighter vanished in a colossal flare of energy.

... one ...

The _Dubious Profit_ 's laser cut out as its internal temperature hit its operational ceiling. Simultaneously her front shield, catching the full effect of the Krait's explosive demise, redlined and collapsed. The ship screamed.

... zero.

A radiant light, cool and blue and brilliant, washed across the screen. The final indicator glowed, pulsing in harmony with the others. The _Dubious Profit_ was inside a wormhole, safe from all outside harm. There was, now, no "outside" at all: riding the witch, a ship was a universe to itself. The _Profit_ now constituted an entire totality of existence, one hundred and thirty metres long by eighty metres wide by forty metres high, containing a knot of physical laws, a consensual timeframe, a small crew, and a dwindling supply of already bad air.

*

"I did try to say, Captain," said Stepan. "But you said Issoar, so ..."

Hesperus dabbed gingerly at his nose. Although painful, it did not seem to be broken, and the bleeding had stopped. He had gathered the _Dubious Profit_ 's crew – with the exception of the atmospheric reprocessors: all attempts at communication with them were now met with chittering laughter and a stream of vulgar noises – in the ship's mess, to explain their situation. Arae, he had told them (and here he cited Stepan's copy of _Blood and Plunder_ as authority), was quite mad: tragically she had murdered his good friend, the jovial and generous Mr the Haute Sherman Sunderling, and had vowed to destroy all who would not swear allegiance to her. Hesperus, conscious of his crew's honour, had firmly declined to do so, at which point she flew into a rage and ordered him off the station, before launching the treacherous attack from which they had, thankfully, escaped unscathed. He then opened up the meeting to discuss what he had referred to as "our current shortfall in consumables", and Rus had hit him with a chair. Afterwards, the engineer had become much calmer, and now sat and watched impassively as Gasazck, the angular, emaciated avian ship's cook (and – on the principle that he owned the sharpest implements on board – ship's surgeon), staunched the flow of blood from Hesperus's nose.

Hesperus sniffed, experimentally, then wished that he hadn't. He held up one hand, and shook his head fractionally. "No, Stepan, no, I have no regrets," he said, nasally. "Issoar was absolutely the right choice, the only practical destination. There is no sense in raging against the vagaries of fortune: rather we should accept such, ah, challenges, with dignity, and fortitude."

Rus grunted.

"Facing adversity," continued Hesperus, "we may discover within ourselves unknown wells of resourcefulness. Acting together, bending our efforts to the common good, we can overcome any difficulty. I am completely confident that my crew – my fine and loyal crew – that together we will win through, and we will be stronger, more united, and ... and more—"

"I'll settle for 'alive'," said Rus. "And that's not going to be easy. Forty-six hours to reach Issoar. Forty-six hours and twelve minutes: you couldn't have picked a longer witchjump if you'd tried, could you?"

"As I said," replied Hesperus, "Issoar was the only choice! Yes, it's a long jump, but you've seen the alternatives: what would you have done?"

"Bah!" said Rus. "What's done is done. Now we've got to deal with it. Which, inevitably, means that I've got to deal with it. Of course, if certain members of the crew would volunteer to stop breathing for the duration, that would make my task a lot easier ... How about it, _Captain_ Hesperus? Care to lead by example?"

"Mr Rus," said Hesperus, "I am so pleased to see you maintain your sense of humour in these trying times. Now: to business. The carbon scrubbers. You can keep these running? Can you construct any more?"

"Auch ... faugh." Rus wiped his mouth, and scowled. "What we've got already is all we have. I've got about all I can out of the available materials," he said. "I could try electrolysing water: bleed off the hydrogen, liberate the oxygen, but we'll need to be careful ... Cook's Constant, and all."

'Cook's Constant' was a curious physical phenomenon, hovering around the borderlands between theory and superstition. In essence, it was this: a ship in witchspace is a wholly self-contained universe, and all universes tend towards a state of energetic equilibrium. Therefore, went the theory (or superstition), any large-scale flow of energy within a ship-universe worked directly in opposition to the laws of entropy, with potentially dire consequences. The most popular version held that an offending ship would suffer cosmological inflation, expanding exponentially in all directions faster than the speed of light, creating vast gulfs of brand-new spacetime in a brand-new universe orthogonal to our own. Such a ship's crew, however, would not have the chance to enjoy their new genesis, having been reduced by the process to a smear of hot quarks, anti-quarks and gluons. Physicists across the Co-operative had constructed elaborate mathematical arguments to prove, and refute, this theory (or superstition), without ever reaching a definite conclusion.

But the fact remained that ships did go missing in witchspace. They would jump out to a star, and never re-emerge; and ships with heavily loaded power grids were, it seemed, the most likely to disappear. No-one knew if there was a causal link, but even so, ships' engineers everywhere maintained strict controls over internal energy transferences while in witchspace. There was no consensus on what the actual margins might be; engineers, however, liked to joke that the maximum amount which could be safely concentrated in any one area was that sufficient to prepare a meal for the crew: hence, 'Cook's Constant'.

"Of course," said Hesperus. "Do what you can. Stepan, you can make an audit of the pressure suit air bottles; see what we have there. Gasazck: it's probably best if you retire to your quarters; try to – well, try not to breathe too much. And I will try, once again, to reopen negotiations with the atmospheric reprocessors. At this stage I am prepared to offer them Kob's Ladder in a bag, if only they will reactivate the air-plant."

*

Hesperus awoke in his cabin, surfacing muzzily from a distressing dream where a huge, black, metallic lobster with blonde hair and smiling eyes clutched at his throat with armoured claws. His head pounded, and he felt sick and breathless. Rus loomed over him, chest labouring. "I've got the electrolysis set up," he said. "Probably best to get everyone down to the engine room. That's where the oxygen is."

Hesperus sat up, groaning and gasping. With some effort, he focused on the ship's chronometer, counting down towards their re-emergence into normal space. They were still more than thirty-two hours from Issoar – and then of course there was the journey through Issoar space to the Co-operative station orbiting the planet, and making an appeal for assistance, for clemency, for life ... "Right ... yes, right: the engine room. Good." At least Rus had succeeded with the electrolysis plant: his own attempts to persuade the two atmospheric reprocessors to allow the air to flow again had been singularly unsuccessful. A rotting, vegetal reek permeated the ship; he suspected that some portions of the ship's air-plant had begun to ferment. That at least might explain why the crustacean mutineers had sung incoherently throughout his appeals, and had failed to respond to even the wildest of his entreaties.

The atmosphere in the engine room could hardly be described as "fresh", but it was noticeably easier to breathe, even with all the crew huddled around Rus's water-electrolysis rig. Two fat cables snaked from the ship's fusion generator, terminating in a large transparent plastic vat full of water. Bubbles seethed around two corrugated electrode plates: hydrogen gas being released at one, and sweet oxygen at the other. The gases were collected by two separate funnel systems, with the hydrogen piped into a header tank bolted to the generator, and the oxygen allowed to waft out into the engine room.

Hesperus felt the fog in his head begin to clear. "Excellent ... excellent," he said, inhaling deeply. "Once again, we of the _Dubious Profit_ shall prove our mettle!" He glanced around: Stepan was picking his nose, staring blearily at the strings of bubbles rising within the electrolysis rig; Gasazck, meanwhile, had fallen asleep, folded up into a tangle of bony joints and straggly green feathers and resembling nothing so much as a discarded umbrella. A faint series of unmusical sounds floated from the ventilation ducts.

"Uh-huh," said Rus. "There's something you need to see, Hesperus. Come over here." The engineer ducked under the slowly turning main drive shaft which transected the room. He pointed up to where the shaft entered the main engine assembly. A circular tube of blue liquid was fixed to the bulkhead, marked off with a series of gradations. A single red bead floated within the tube, bobbing around the two o'clock position.

"Ah ... uh ... hmm," said Hesperus, glancing at Rus. "Hmmmm."

Rus rolled his eyes, and clenched and unclenched his fists. "It's a witchspace potentiometer," he said.

"Aha, yes! Ah ... remind me ...?"

"Love and death, give me strength!" said Rus. "It indicates the probability curvature of our projection towards our destination. No, that's not doing it either, is it?" he added, as Hesperus frowned and rubbed his chin. "How about: little-red-dot-show-how-we-fly-to-star?"

Hesperus tutted. "There is no need to be facetious," he said. "I am a pilot and a captain: I command, I direct, I steer. I am content to leave the mechanical details in your capable hands. Can you tell me, please, in straightforward terms: what does this red bead mean?"

"It means," said Rus, "that the mass quotient of our witchjump has increased: another ship, or ships, entered our wormhole back in the Lerela system before it closed. Someone is following us."

Hesperus looked up sharply. "Following us? Are you certain? Perhaps the bead is stuck ..." he reached up and tapped at the tube.

Rus slapped his hand away. "Yes! Yes, I'm certain."

"Hmm," said Hesperus. "It's possible, I suppose, that one or even both of those Mambas could have flown into our wormhole ... they'll emerge from witchspace shortly after we do. It's worth knowing, of course, but I don't think we need to worry unduly. Mambas are not jump-capable ships, remember. They'll find themselves trapped in Issoar, dependent on the good graces of the Issorvans to get themselves back home again. Likely they'll behave themselves. We probably won't have any trouble from them."

"Two Mambas, eh?" said Rus. "All that fuss ... anyway, no. Not two Mambas. That's a sixty-odd degree deviation you're looking at, there, on a six-point-eight light-year jump: that's about ... oh, seventy Mambas, maybe eighty? I can't remember their exact displacement. But anyway, no. It's a lot of something, though. Or maybe one very large something, because I can't see how our wormhole could have stayed open long enough to let that many ships use it. It would have to be _very_ large ... you didn't, I don't know, rip off a chunk of that forsaken rock and drag it through behind you?"

Hesperus remembered two things: first, the vast bulk of the _Fractal Sacrifice_ , as it sat in its private dock at Stranglehold's further end; and second, the chiming of the attack alarm that had sounded moments before the _Dubious Profit_ had jumped out, which had signalled the appearance of a new, and hostile, ship. His legs suddenly felt very weak, and he sat down with a thump on the oily deck.

"Uh-huh," said Rus, folding his arms and looking down at him. "I didn't think we'd scraped the bottom of this little catastrophe just yet."

"We, ah ... we may have a problem, indeed." Hesperus described the _Fractal Sacrifice_ to Rus, who paled, just a fraction. "And we'll be dropping out of witchspace with next to nothing in our tanks: I don't think we can hope to outrun her." The _Dubious Profit_ had burned almost all her fuel to tear open the wormhole to Issoar; any ship which followed her through, however, would have made the journey without expending a single drop.

"I hate to break this to you, Hesperus, but I don't think we can hope to outfight a ship like that, either. The front shield is gone, the rear shield all but: we'd need a good long time in normal space just to let the laser cool down again, never mind recharging our defences."

Hesperus struggled back to his feet, leaning against the greasy bulkhead. He took a long, laboured breath; then another. He looked up at Rus. "Issoar ... Issoar is a moderately busy system. Stable. A thoroughly civilised part of the Co-operative. We could get lucky: maybe we'll hit the witchpoint there and find a Viper patrol. Broadcast an SOS ..."

"We're still carrying an Offender tag: they might attack us," said Rus. "In our current state we're not fit to fend off much more than whistles and sneezes. Besides, if what you've told me about this _Fractal Sacrifice_ is true ... how many police Vipers would we need to take it down?"

Hesperus chewed at his thumb. "Wouldn't matter. Just something to occupy it long enough for us to get away. There's a chance ... long odds, I'll grant you, but there's still a chance. We just need to find some way to shorten those odds, is all. Cook's Constant be damned: can you find some way to recharge the shields and cool the laser before we drop out of witchspace?"

Rus flung up his hands. "Yes, let's throw another form of certain death into the pot, why not?" He clutched his head, and groaned. "I can try. The shields, at least. But I'll have to turn off the electrolysis rig."

Hesperus nodded. "Agreed: we can manage without it, for a while, at least. We can take turns on the remaining bottles from the pressure suits. And the laser?"

Rus shook his head. "Can't be done," he said. "Don't look at me like that: this is so basic surely even you can understand. We need to dump the heat, and right now there's nowhere to dump the heat _to_. Usually we radiate it out into the vacuum – which is difficult, it being a good insulator, but at least there's a lot of it. But here, we're all that exists; there _is_ no outside, not until we reach Issoar."

"Yes. Yes. Right." Hesperus reached out a hand. He hesitated, then patted Rus, once, on the shoulder. "Just do your best. If you need assistance, let me know."

*

Time wore away, moment by unhappy moment, and the air grew steadily more foul. Rus toiled on, dragging loops and hanks and clots of cabling through the ship, cutting and splicing, measuring and testing, now and then sipping delicately from a respirator mask. The rest of the crew lay motionless, and panted. The ship's chronometer snipped off each expiring second.

Finally, with only minutes to go before the _Dubious Profit_ was due to emerge into the Issoar system, Rus came to the cockpit and declared that he had done all he could. "All told, I've shuffled enough energy around this tub to crack a moon in half," he said to Hesperus. "Why we're not enjoying a grandstand view of the inside of our own cosmic fireball, I don't know. We should be. I can show you the mathematics." He swayed, slightly. "Sweet death, maybe it did happen: maybe we're all dead, and for my sins against the laws of physics I'm doomed to spend eternity on this scrap-iron ship of fools."

Hesperus and Stepan were running through the last-minute arrival checks, dragging in ragged breaths and struggling to concentrate. Hesperus looked back over his shoulder at his engineer. Rus's scales were pallid, his lips grey. "Very ... very good, Mr Rus. All systems seem nominal. Or at least, as nominal as can be expected." He turned back, and tapped at his console. "The laser ... seems to have cooled, substantially ..."

Rus groaned. "Don't ask. Just ... don't ask. I have done things no engineer should ever have to do – to the ship, to my principles, to basic common sense. I can't escape it: I have finally become a true member of your twiddle-brained crew. You've broken me, Hesperus. I hope you're happy." The chronometer chimed: one minute to go. "I'll be in the engine room." Head bowed, he slumped out of the cockpit.

The last seconds ticked away. Hesperus glanced across at Stepan: the navigator sat half-stunned, chewing at his jacket collar. Hesperus heaved another breath, and another. The air felt thick, and hot; a stew of fear and sweat and rank desperation. The viewscreen flashed into life, and the _Dubious Profit_ erupted into Issoar space in a dazzling spray of radiation.

Instrumentation clicked on, as the ship's systems grasped at the new reality all around. Hesperus spun up the engines, and – as he felt them bite into Issorvan spacetime – he punched at the torus drive. The stars shimmered as the _Profit_ leapt forward, skimming towards the distant planet—

—and then locked immobile again, moments later, as the mass alarm blinked on. When the surrounding space was flat enough, the _Profit_ could cruise up near to lightspeed; but any local disturbance – a nearby mass large enough to make a significant dent in spacetime, say, or another ship with a similar reactionless drive – and she was forced to creep along at a mere fraction of _c_.

Hesperus groaned. On the scanner, a single blip had appeared. A ship, warping into Issoar behind him. He slammed his hand against the console, and jabbed a finger at the scanner. "Stepan. We have company." He flicked the screen to the rear view, picking out the delta shape of a Mamba's hull, gleaming like a dagger in the blue Cherenkov glow of the _Dubious Profit_ 's engines. A patch of stars trembled next to it; there was a bright flash, and a second Mamba appeared. The attack alarm warbled, detecting a weapons lock. Hesperus returned the compliment, keying the new arrivals into his targeting computer. The Mambas speared forward, fanning out.

Then came the moment he had been dreading: spacetime rippled, shuddered, bulged and burst apart in a blinding ball of light. The huge shark-shape of the _Fractal Sacrifice_ poured out of witchspace, its long, predatory bow nosing round, homing in on the _Dubious Profit_.

Stepan gave a single, mewling yelp, almost swallowing the sodden fabric of his collar. Hesperus nodded. "I've seen it before." He clicked to the forward view again, and peered desperately into the scanner's little illuminated sphere. On either side, the Mambas sprang ahead, overhauling the _Profit_ , arcing around like a pair of hunting dogs: astern, the _Fractal Sacrifice_ cruised behind them. All three blips burned a hostile red. Not a single other ship was present in the local volume: not a convoy, not a lone trader, and certainly not Hesperus's hoped-for patrol of police Viper interceptors. Hesperus cursed, fluently, soundlessly, heaping horror on Arae, Issoar, the Co-operative, the atmospheric reprocessors, Rus, fate, time and space. He drew a sobbing breath, clutched at the controls, and prepared to fight for his life.

The Mambas came at him, their lasers sparkling against the _Profit_ 's forward shields. Hesperus pulled the ship up into a tumbling spiral: behind, the _Fractal Sacrifice_ angled upwards, edging closer. At least she did not seem to be faster than the _Profit_ ; even with those titanic engines, her massive bulk seemed ponderous. Maybe there was still a chance. He had to keep his distance from her, despite the attentions of the two Mamba fighters. Hesperus pushed the _Profit_ 's nose down again, keeping the _Fractal Sacrifice_ astern.

To port and starboard, the Mambas swung lazily around, snapping fire at the _Profit_ 's flanks. "Stepan," Hesperus wheezed, sending the ship into a roll. "Missiles. The Mambas are locked in: launch the missiles, one on each, on my mark."

Stepan made a muffled noise of assent, twisting the arming keys for the _Dubious Profit_ 's two homing missiles. Currently the tubes held what the dealer had assured him were the very latest Faulcon de Lacey ship-to-ship ordnance, hardened against electronic countermeasures, and each easily sufficient to destroy a light fighter. If they hit. If they worked at all.

The Mambas raced past, curving away, preparing for another pass. Hesperus spun the ship about her central axis, aiming her broad belly towards one of the fighters. "Tube one, fire!" The _Profit_ shuddered as the first missile burst from her, leaping off towards the hostile vessel. Hesperus leaned hard over, keeping her rolling. "Tube two, fire!" The second missile soared out, darting towards the other Mamba. Alarm signals burbled around the cockpit, and the scanner image pulsed and swayed: the _Fractal Sacrifice_ , detecting missile launches, had triggered an ECM burst, filling the local volume with a storm of electromagnetic disruption, designed to fry the missiles' tiny brains. The first missile detonated, a livid orange flash. The second seemed to stumble, hesitate – then surged on. Hesperus coughed, and gasped, and swung the _Profit_ 's nose towards the first Mamba, which had turned again to face him. Behind him, the second fighter wrenched itself across the sky, darting side to side as the surviving missile stabbed towards it. The _Fractal Sacrifice_ swam nearer.

Laser fire splashed and spattered across the _Profit_ 's bows: her generators thundered, driving energy into the shields. Hesperus jerked and twisted the controls, nailing the fighter into his gunsights. The _Profit_ 's laser blazed, burning across space and hammering the Mamba. The fighter staggered, dodged, and dived away. Hesperus slowed the ship, drove the _Profit_ 's bows down, and accelerated in pursuit. Again, the _Fractal Sacrifice_ manoeuvred behind, closing the angle.

"Missile two – hit!" cried Stepan, eyes on the scanner. "Got him!"

Settling the gunsights onto the fleeing fighter's tail, Hesperus gave a croaking laugh. He jammed down the triggers: the Mamba's hull glowed, boiled, and ripped apart into a cloud of flying fragments. "And got this one, too." Then he hissed: the _Fractal Sacrifice_ loomed closer yet. Worse, it now stood between the _Dubious Profit_ and the planet Issoar.

"Hesperus." A light, mocking voice came from the comms. "Are you still there? I wonder that you have not burst that rusted canister you call a ship ... or ruptured your own filthy hide, and spilt the rotten contents of your carcase. I suppose the latter is too much to hope for. Doubtless I shall have to undertake that task myself."

Hesperus heaved at the control yoke, looping the _Profit_ away, and redlining the engines. The _Fractal Sacrifice_ swayed, settling on course behind them. It drew no nearer, but it didn't seem to be falling away, either. He flicked at the communicator, as if it might bite or burn him. "Ah ... Arae—queen—your Majesty?" he said. "Please, Majesty, I beg you: let us go! What can it profit you to destroy such a poor, insignificant, abject, wretched ..." Was the _Fractal Sacrifice_ edging closer?

"Profit!" Arae's voice sang from the comms. "It's not always about profit, Hesperus. Not in the here and now, at any rate. Sometimes, it is better to let immediate profit take a back seat, hmm? To invest for the future. One might enlarge one's cargo bay, for example. Or do a favour for a fellow merchant. Or buy protection from some local brigand with a pretty gift." She paused. "Here, though: here I am protecting what I have built. Unlike you, I must maintain my reputation, not forever flee from it. After your insult to me – to my station, to my realm – I find that your continued survival is too high a cost for me to bear. Fear is a valuable commodity: but it is volatile, and stocks can crash all too easily." She sighed. "But do not let anyone say I lack mercy: if your crew, now, feed you out of your airlock in small pieces, then possibly—"

Hesperus snapped off the communicator, glancing sidelong at Stepan. He was grateful there was no external communicator in the engine room.

"Wow," said Stepan, looking back at him. "Mad Arae!"

"Mad, yes, mad indeed," said Hesperus. "Quite, quite mad. Totally untrustworthy and unreliable, can't believe a single word she says."

The rear shields screeched suddenly, as laser fire pounded at the ship. The range was still extreme, but Arae's gunnery was precise. Alarms trilled and whooped as Hesperus yanked the _Profit_ onto a reeling evasive course.

He was being driven ever further away from Issoar, from the main route from witchpoint to the planet, and from the possibility of succour. Worse, the _Fractal Sacrifice_ had – perhaps – the slightest edge on the _Dubious Profit_ in speed. Time and again, Arae's laser blazed against his stern, forcing him to dodge and roll; each time he did so, the _Fractal Sacrifice_ crept closer – and as the distance narrowed, the laser fire grew yet more accurate.

The air supply in the cockpit was scant, forcing Hesperus to fight for every breath. Stepan too sat gasping, struggling to focus. In desperation, Hesperus heaved back hard on the yoke, dragging the ship onto a perpendicular course. Flicking the screen to the rear view, he saw the _Fractal Sacrifice_ 's nose swing upwards in anticipation. Quickly, he slammed the engines down to almost nothing, twirled the _Profit_ through one hundred and eighty degrees, then rammed the drive back up to full speed. The _Fractal Sacrifice_ , caught unawares, swayed, then smoothly looped around, settling once more onto a pursuit course. At minimum thrust, he could out-turn the larger vessel. He had gained a few klicks extra distance; not much, but it was something. If he could repeat that trick a few more times, then perhaps ... the _Fractal Sacrifice_ 's laser whipped out again, and again, and once more he had to jink and swerve.

He tried the manoeuvre again, picking a moment when the _Fractal Sacrifice_ looked committed to a turn, then cutting off his engines to reverse course. This time, though, a seething violet glow gushed out from the engine housings of the pursuing ship, and the _Fractal Sacrifice_ plunged forwards at a terrifying rate, rushing down on the _Dubious Profit_ as she swung end over end. Hesperus had arrived in Issoar with his quirium fuel tanks virtually empty; all but a trace had been expended punching out the wormhole from Lerela. The _Fractal Sacrifice_ , though, had ridden free, following in the _Profit_ 's wake: her tanks were full. Unleashed in instantaneous explosions, quirium could gouge out wormholes; but injected and expended through a ship's torus drive, it could – while it lasted – give a ship a massive boost to its velocity through normal space. Clearly, Arae could overhaul him any time she wanted.

Hesperus gave a wordless yell, and Stepan clutched at the console, his eyes screwed shut. The _Fractal Sacrifice_ ballooned in the viewscreen, falling down on them like a meteor. Fighting with the control yoke, Hesperus spun the _Profit_ , pouring energy into the ship's labouring engines. The _Fractal Sacrifice_ lanced past, a weak and watery reflection of the _Dubious Profit_ visible in her gleaming hull. The vast ship's stern shot by, engines pouring out a hellish purple radiation. Then the turrets which dotted her stern opened fire, sending up a barrage of plasma bolts that smashed against the _Profit_ 's shields. The generators howled in protest, and a chorus of alarms began to shriek in sympathy.

Gulping at the rancid air, Hesperus flung the _Profit_ away from the storm of plasma. The _Fractal Sacrifice_ no longer stood between him and the planet: maybe – just maybe—

Stepan gave a strangled croak, flapping one hand towards the scanner. The savage red spark that represented the _Fractal Sacrifice_ was rushing down on them again. Desperately Hesperus pulled on the controls; once again, the _Fractal Sacrifice_ skimmed past them, missing them by scant metres; once again, from her stern, a torrent of plasma crashed out, thundering into the _Dubious Profit_. Red and amber warnings flared across Hesperus's instruments. His vision swam; blood pounded in his ears. In front, the _Fractal Sacrifice_ looped around once more, and began another run.

Hesperus screamed. The monstrous bulk of Arae's ship filled his gunsights, and he poured laser fire against it. The _Fractal Sacrifice_ 's shields glowed a little brighter. He jammed open the fuel injectors, spraying the last drops from his tanks into his engines. The _Dubious Profit_ lurched forwards on a collision course. He struck off the cover guarding the cargo ejection system, and smashed down his hand on the release. Twenty-two tonnes of prime red wango were vomited up from the belly of the ship.

The _Dubious Profit_ 's fuel injectors cut out, exhausted; her laser beat in vain against the _Fractal Sacrifice_ 's shields.

Hesperus dragged on the yoke, sliding the _Profit_ onto a new vector.

Twenty-two tonnes of prime red wango, moving with a relative velocity close to the speed of light, struck the onrushing _Fractal Sacrifice_ 's shields and turned instantly into plasma.

Twenty-two tons of plasma, give or take, still moving at the same relative velocity, burst through those shields and slammed into the _Fractal Sacrifice_ 's hull, slicing through duralium, burning brighter than the stars, slashing out a trail of horrifying destruction through the bowels of the ship.

The _Dubious Profit_ slithered past: this time, no hail of fire rose up around them. But Hesperus had other concerns. A thick fug filled the cockpit; he coughed and choked, clawing at his throat. "Fire ... fire ... Stepan ..."

The navigator, eyes wide, shook his head. "'S not fire," he said. "Steam." Condensation was pouring off the instrumentation, and Hesperus's whiskers drooped with moisture. Stepan pointed up at the bulkhead: although the cockpit was clearing, gouts of steam still drooled from the ventilation ducts.

Hesperus blinked, and wiped his eyes. He peered at the scanner, and clicked the screen to the rear view again. The _Fractal Sacrifice_ rolled in space, a livid, burning gash carved across her flank. As he watched, the huge ship trembled, and plasma jetted from her engine manifold. She bulged, once, twice – then split apart and vanished in a wash of light that overloaded the _Profit_ 's filters and turned the screen momentarily black. When vision returned, nothing remained except an expanding shell of sparkling motes, fading out against the stars.

A squeaking, chittering noise caught Hesperus's attention: two pairs of blue dots – tinged perhaps a little pink – peeped out at him from the misty ventilator grille. "Hespus?" cheeped a voice. "Hespus captain sir commander? Lord?" The dots blinked, slowly, and dipped low. "Money we not want, we happy, we work again, we pay rent! Please?"

*

"It's still going to cost a small fortune to put right," said Rus. "To do it properly, I mean. You do know that, don't you?"

The _Dubious Profit_ drifted gently in a very quiet corner of Issoar space. Hesperus stood with his hands behind his back, watching Rus drag another dripping laser coolant coil out of the air-plant hydroponic system. He took a deep, ostentatious breath, and ignored the strong stench of overcooked cabbage which permeated the ship. "Very commendable, Mr Rus!" he said, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. "Very commendable indeed! You know, laser overheating is a pressing issue for a great many starship commanders: now that we have developed this admirable solution, we can patent it, sell it ... this could be worth a lot of money. A lot of money!"

"Hesperus," said Rus, between gritted teeth, "I only did this out of desperation. Desperation and temporary insanity, brought on by oxygen starvation – and possibly contagion. If you can find me one single other commander witless enough to use his own ship's atmospheric systems as a heat-sink, I will carry out the work myself, for free. Wearing that ridiculous twixtear cap of yours as a codpiece. It might have escaped your notice, but that stunt not only damaged the air-plant, it nearly cooked two members of the crew."

"Two _tenants_ , Rus," said Hesperus. "Not crew: tenants. We have settled that question, at least. In any case, those _tenants_ assure me that the air-plant will soon be in excellent health once more: they work with a vigour all would do well to emulate."

Rus hissed, and yanked out another coil, spraying the floor with green algal ooze. "It's not even as if you needed the laser!" he said. "Compared with twenty-two tonnes of cargo canisters moving at that sort of relative speed ... entirely superfluous. Still though," he added, looking sidelong at Hesperus, "shame about the cargo, eh? Twenty-two tonnes. Twenty-two tonnes of red wango: what would that have fetched, do you think?"

Hesperus scowled. "You have your work to do, Mr Rus," he said. "You should not waste your time with idle speculation." He turned, and stamped off down the corridor to the cockpit.

Twenty-two tonnes. It nagged at him, gnawed at him. Yes, he was alive; yes, the ship would survive. They would have to skim more quirium fuel from the stellar winds, a strenuous and potentially dangerous task, and make further jumps, until at last they outran the Co-operative's interest – which meant many more days of short rations, boredom, missed opportunities ... and he had lost twenty-two tonnes of prime red wango! He cursed.

In the cockpit, he found Stepan, slumped in the co-pilot's chair. The navigator started, and tried to hide the book he had been reading. Hesperus recognised the cover: _Blood and Plunder_. He opened his mouth to remonstrate, then closed it again, and shook his head. He sat, tapping at the controls, running through a systems check.

"Stepan," he said. "You have run calculations for jumps to all neighbouring systems, as I asked?"

"Um, yes, Captain," Stepan said.

"Twice?"

"Yes ... well, three times, actually. The second time one didn't come out right, so ..."

"Very good." He tested the compass, waggled the control yoke. He turned to Stepan. "Arae. Mad Arae. 'Mad Queen Arae', I suppose they will call her now. You read about her. Do you ... admire her?"

Stepan blinked. "Um ... not admire, no, I don't ... it's just, she's just _exciting_ , is all."

Hesperus raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, um, ah, no, er, not like that, that's not what I mean at all, no," said Stepan, his ears fanning up and down. "Just, well ... adventure and excitement, you know? She did exciting things. Big. Dramatic. You know?"

Hesperus sniffed. "Indeed. Well, do not let me detain you."

"Eh?" said Stepan. "Oh. Right." He stood and shuffled out of the cockpit.

Hesperus stared at the screen. The stars gazed back, unwinking. Arae was rich; he was not. Arae was powerful; he was not. Arae was respected, feared, and even loved; he was not. He shifted in his seat. Then again, he thought, Arae was dead; he was not. On the whole, taking everything into consideration – and twenty-two tonnes of prime red wango notwithstanding – he supposed he preferred things as they were.

THE END
