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vessel.
'But the quick acceleration is damned handy in a pinch,' the skiprunner
captain said brightly. 'It's saved my butt more than once.'
Mac James stretched in his chair, flexing his fingers in a hellish glare of
warning lights and attitude meters. Jensen held his opinion. Marity might be
safe at present, but only by the grace of surprise.
Khalian raiders would be waiting once they rounded Castleton's sun, and even
Mac James's famous cunning was not equal to combat against a cruiser.
The skip-runner captain met Jensen's skepticism with a stinging honesty. 'Boy,
your officer's handbook doesn't list every known fact in the universe. The
systems they have are infrared, which happens to be our salvation, because the
emissions from that star out there will blind them.'
And it dawned on Jensen then, that both of them were going to survive. The
Khalia believed they had burned. Once eclipsed by Castleton's star, Marity
could hammer her way into escape trajectory with her anachronistic fusion
rockets, then power down. With her gravity drives turned off, no infrared
scope could distinguish her from an asteroid. Hopelessness and lethargy
vanished in a breath. The pellet gun which Mac James had carelessly tossed
down the companionway became of paramount importance.
Jensen measured the distance to the opened hatch with his eyes. The expanse
was wider than he liked, particularly since the Freer robe would encumber him.
Still, with Castleton's world and the threat of the
Khalia keeping MacKenzie James preoccupied, there
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might never be a better opportunity. Jensen gathered his courage and jumped.
He completed no more than a step when a weight crashed into his shoulders from
behind. He fell heavily to the deck. At once the muscled bulk of MacKenzie
James bore him down. Jensen countered with a wrestler's move that should have
freed him in short order. Instead the captain anticipated him, caught his
wrist, and twisted. Jensen cursed, forced to fall limp or scream with the pain
of dislocated joints.
Just shy of injury, Mac James let up. 'You're trouble,' he said bluntly. And
as though he handled a vicious animal, he rolled and jerked Jensen upright.
The strength in his hands was astonishing. Very quickly, the Fleet officer
found himself noosed and helpless in the coils of his own restraints.
'Also, you talk too much,' MacKenzie added. He ripped away the sash of the
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Freer robe, pausing as his fingers encountered the bulk of the transmitter. A
wicked flash of amusement touched his features as he went on and twisted the
material into a gag, which he tied expertly in place. Jensen struggled but
gained nothing except cuts on the ribbon-thin metal of the noose. Shoved into
the nearest crew chair, he glared back as the captain studied him in
passionless silence. The directness of the man's gaze unnerved Jensen as
nothing had before.
'What chance did you give Evans?' Mac James's voice held a roughness that
might have been grief, except his expression showed no feeling at all. The
captain flexed his ruined fingers, one after another.
Tortured with the certainty his fate was being weighed, Jensen recognized more
than habit in the movement; such exercise had once restored mobility to hands
crippled with coil burns. The driving persistence of the captain's character
abruptly became frightening to contemplate.
Jensen closed his eyes, opened them to find the captain watching him still.
The ambition that had driven the attempt at his capture withered away to
diffidence. The gag tasted of sweat and desert spice and stale saliva, and the
sick fear in Jensen's gut coiled tighter by the minute.
Aware his captive's composure was crumbling, MacKenzie James jerked him to his
feet and spun him around. 'Evans never did like to kill,' he said in contempt.
'For that, you'll leave Marity alive.'
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But reprieve was not what MacKenzie James had in mind as he heFted his captive
through the companionway. Towed through null gravity like baggage, Jensen had
to writhe ignominiously to keep his face from banging the bulkheads. The hiss
of the lock to the cargo hold spilled icy air over his skin.
Left to drift, the young officer could not see his captor, but an echoing
flurry of footfalls and the clang of something metallic did little but amplify
his apprehension. Then hard hands caught his legs. His view of the hold spun
horizontally, and through dizziness he glimpsed customs seals and the opened
hatch of the cargo capsule. Then MacKenzie James brutally started cramming his
body inside. Jensen exploded in panic.
He struggled, and got a bang on the head for his effort. Mac James shoved his
shoulders down. Scarred fingers reached for the latch.
Jensen twisted frantically and managed to tear the gag loose. 'Wait!' he said
breathlessly. Desperate now, his ambition reduced to a fool's dream, he
begged. 'I could take Evans's place for you!' Except for the piloting, he was
qualified; and he wouldn't defect, not really. Once he gained MacKenzie's
confidence he could alert Fleet authorities.
But his proposal met with silence. Shoved protesting into the cargo capsule,
and panicked by the prospect of confinement, Jensen abandoned his pride. 'Damn
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