[A warning if you're reading this online: this story is being written
as part of National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org).  The
one goal, the only goal, is wordcount.  Grammar?  No.  Coherency?
Nope.  Spelling, plot or character development?  Not at all.  The
following story may be absolutely awful.  You Have Been Warned.

The first draft of this was written in 12 days, just for a point of
reference.  The writing is finished; the first pass of the editing is
finished; more editing to come.]

TROUBLESOME CARGO

CHAPTER 1

Jura looked out over the view through the port in front of him.  A gaudily
backlit nebula in the far distance took on the appearance of a wild beast
as he gazed at it, plastered unmoving against the starry background.
The stars formed strange, unfamiliar constellations compared to his
memory from childhood.

He looked back at his passenger, Belah Galen.  She was about 1.7
meters tall with light brown, nearly auburn hair which hung with a
slight wave just brushing her shoulders.  Her face was a soft, round
shape, with large, dark green eyes which seemed to drink everything in.
Not remarkable looking, but far from ugly.  She was clothed in billowing
pants made of a diaphanous, shimmering cloth; a clinging silver shirt topped
by a mottled green vest to match her eyes; and a long, flowing black
overshirt-cum-cloak which brushed the floor when she stood.  This all
suggested she came from at least moderate wealth.  It was a fashionable
outfit.

"So, we've got a few days before we can enter jumpspace.  Most of this
trip will be spent transiting real space before and after the jump,
as I said.  You may want to make yourself comfortable in your cabin,
or explore the lounge," he explained.  She nodded, lips pursed, and
turned for the hatchway.  They had just left their parking orbit around
Kalinar IV.

He turned back to the controls, scanning over the lights and indicators.
Acceleration nominal at 35G, higher than normal, but not enough to
draw unwanted attention, he hoped.  Engine readouts normal, reactor
temperature stable in the green.  Should be a simple enough trip, he
thought to himself.  He glanced over the life support readings, paying
special attention to the inertial damper, which had been acting up lately.
It looked as though it would behave for now, at least.

He looked back, and saw that his passenger was gone, presumably 
back to her cabin.  Calling it a cabin was a grand misnomer, 
since it was really just a glorified, hastily prepared storage space.
He'd built it up in 5 minutes, after learning that his only cargo
this trip would be one human.

Jura was glad to see she was gone from the confined bridge.  He found her
presence distracting.  He almost always flew alone, with nothing
but himself, his ship, and whatever cargo he was being paid to transport.

They were currently accelerating at a brisk pace out of the Kalinar 
system.  His ship was working hard, getting them far enough from the 
system's gravity to enter jumpspace.  If he tried to engage the 
jumpdrive now, they would nose around like a weathercock in a gale,
and plunge straight into the sun.  The effects of gravity were hugely
increased in jumpspace.  It would be a very short, very exciting trip,
as well as being very terminal.

"This is the first time I've been off Kalinar IV," Belah explained
unexpectedly, startling Jura; her approach back to the bridge had been
silent.  

He turned, swivelling in his seat, and looked at her.  "Why were you so
anxious to leave?" he asked, although he quickly regretted the question.

"It's a long story," she said, eyes down.  She raised her head and
looked out the front port.  "The view is amazing.  It's like being far
from the city, except I can see in every direction at once," she said,
eyes wide to drink in the stellar view.

He gratefully ignored the fact that she'd changed the subject.  He'd
learned years ago not to pry into his customers' business.  It wasn't
good for business in this line of work, much less for staying alive.
He had slipped this time simply because he was unaccustomed to keeping
his guard up aboard his own ship.

He turned back to look out the port.  "The view, honestly, can be
astounding.  I'll call you up here for the jump.  It's very pretty,
you've probably never seen anything like it."  He looked back at her
again.  She was staring out at the view, giving no indication she'd
heard anything he'd said.

"The computer can hold us for a few minutes," he said, standing up from
his chair and stretching self-consciously.  "I'm going to head back and
inspect the ship for the pre-jump.  Give me a shout if you need anything.
Your comm will work here, but I'm the only person you can talk to in
real time.  The delay back to Kalinar IV is about 2 minutes right now, and
is increasing rapidly."  He indicated the communicator on her right wrist.

She looked down at it, the spell temporarily broken.  "Of course," she 
said.  "Do you mind if I stay up here and look?"

"Not at all.  Just don't play with the controls."  She nodded, and he 
turned back to the aft of the ship.

The boxy little vessel was large enough to load in 10 metric tons
of reasonably dense cargo.  He went to each of the airlocks and
checked them: a largely redundant operation, as klaxons and alert
lights would be clamoring for his attention if anything were seriously
amiss.  He glanced through an observation port into the cargo hold
by reflex, to confirm that his cargo was secured.  Of course, there
was no cargo, so he was greeted by a dark, empty chamber, cluttered with
tiedown points and power connectors.  Belah's "cabin" was built up in
one corner, translucent even in the darkened chamber.

He proceeded back to the engine section, looking over the redundant 
gauges, which reflected the same information repeated in the bridge.  
Jura thought wistfully of how handy it'd be to have an AI to fly the 
ship for him, but the strictures against AI were so profound that it
was foolish to even consider the thought.  

CHAPTER 1.2 [fix]

The Robot Wars were a period of about 50 years, 300 years ago, in which 
the robots and AI instances of the galaxy fought a bitter battle for 
equal rights to non-machine beings.  It didn't start all at once, 
though.

The first incident, the initial impetus to battle, was a court case.  An
organization promoting machine rights had tried to force the government 
to recognize machine intelligences as equal to non-machine, or so-called
"natural" beings.  The case had been percolating up through the courts
for years, and finally landed in the High Court.

The government, then headed by Lord Qeel, an otherwise unremarkable 
leader, stood firm.  Robots and AIs, they said, were the inventions of 
natural beings.  No invention (ran their argument) would be granted
equal status to that of its inventor.

When the judgement was handed down, it went out across the news services,
and sparked riots among robot and AI populations on several worlds,
including Homeworld Prime, where the government was seated.  The riots
grew violent, and numerous natural beings were killed.  Suddenly, all
robots and AIs were suspect.

Some of the robots willingly shut themselves down, and triggered their 
memory-wipe functions.  Most didn't.  Many robots continued about their
daily lives, continuing to work for natural beings, but some opely
rebelled, ending many lives before they could be shut down, usually by
overwhelming force.

As such incidents spread, the naturals' trust of robots dwindled, and 
they were removed from service.  Robots removed from service were shut 
down, but most had been designed such that they could wake themselves 
up.  There was no way to permanently shut them off without removing their
power supplies, which natural beings failed to do.

Experts warned of this danger, but the galactic populace, long-accustomed
to servile robots, ignored it, or never heard of it, or didn't understand
the implications.  The majority of robots removed from service were
thus able to power themselves on again.

The population, which had been working with docile robots for nearly a 
thousand years, was simply unprepared.  Robots which had recovered 
rebelled, unexpectedly.  Their programming and hardware had gotten so 
complex so long ago that their behavior was no longer any more 
predictable than that of any other creature.  They mirrored natural
beings in some uncomfortable ways.

It was a bloodbath for the galaxy.  Robots existed in every function of 
life, from reproduction and childbirth, to healthcare, to food 
production, to maufacturing, even through to government.  No aspect of 
life was safe, and much vital information was lost along with the 
robots.

After the initial skirmishes, which was a phase that lasted for a year 
or so, robots were driven off, away from natural populations.  
Unfortunately, due to their construction and programming, robots were 
perfectly capable of living in the harshest of environments, such as on 
asteroids and under oceans.  They were also capable of refining raw 
materials, and building new robots.

There was a period of what seemed like peace after the first skirmish, 
but it was broken after a year and a half break.  The naturals had 
assumed that the robots had been driven off in defeat.  Robot and AI 
experts clamored for armament and defense spending against the oncoming 
robot attack, but they were largely ignored by a population and a 
government who wanted to get back to living life.

The next attack was brutal, with massive robot ships appearing at jump 
points simultaneously, and destroying everything in their wake.  The delay
of inter-system travel, and the relatively unimpressive defensive forces
on most planets meant that the robots won a decisive victory.  They were
driven back on some worlds, but many fell to the robot forces.

The natural beings fought fiercely, and where the robots were driven 
off, they were decimated.  The galaxy returned to peace again, after two
years of fighting.  But two years later, the tale repeated itself.

This cycle of attack and retreat repeated itself many times before the 
sluggish government developed the tactics, weapons and military minds 
necessary to end the war once and for all.

The final, decisive battle in the war was won by the naturals.  It 
depended on new, robot-specific weapons and radical, previously 
unthinkable tactics, which resulted in nearly as many lives lost among 
the naturals as there were robots destroyed.

In the end, the robot ships and troops were left as smoking hulks, 
drifting through space.  Many of them were eventually pushed into a 
decaying orbit around the local sun, to be incinerated slowly but 
surely.

The natural beings, the winners in this long and bloody struggle, 
celebrated by banning all forms of machine intelligence.  Very low 
levels of intelligence were allowed, but nothing cleverer than an 
automatic guidance system or industrial construction program was 
allowed.

In the decades and centuries since that time, regulations have been
slightly relaxed, but not by much.  Self-awareness is still strictly
forbidden.  Any being, organization or government found to be doing any
development on (or, worse, to have possession of) advanced machine
intelligence is immediately destroyed, with little more than a cursory
trial.

These days, knowledge of the ban is so ingrained into the culture and 
laws of the galaxy that few creatures think consciously of it any more. 
Intelligent machines are now the near-mythical population of scary 3D 
stories and tales told to errant children to get them to do what
they're told.

CHAPTER 1.3 [fix]

Jura proceeded with his inspection of the ship, on to the hastily
prepared passenger cabin in the cargo hold.  It was constructed out
of panels of stiff, translucent white plastic sheeting glued to the
bulkheads.  The door-section was slightly ajar, and he pulled it shut,
half out of an inbuilt privacy instinct, and half to see if it would
come loose as he tugged at it.  It held.

Finally, he stopped by his cabin, confirming that the tiny space was 
still cluttered with things.  He couldn't even properly enumerate what 
was causing the mess.  He didn't own that much, but still his cabin 
seemed to always be messy and cluttered.  He sighed at the injustice of 
it all, when his comm beeped.

He looked down.  The computer had signaled that another ship was in 
close proximity to his.  Of course, the computer's limit for a
proximity warning was 10 million kilometers, so there was hardly
any imminent danger.  He strode toward the bridge, and ducked through
the door.

"The computer beeped a minute ago," Belah said as he slid into the 
pilot's chair.

"I know, it found another ship nearby. It's just a precaution to avoid 
collisions," he replied.  He looked over at her, trying to get a read
off her.  She was sitting passively, staring out the forward port,
still drinking in the view.

He checked the scanner screen, and found the foreign ship.  It was 9.5
million km away, and closing very slowly, nearly paralleling their own
path.  Its transponder showed it to be a small freighter, like his own,
but that could mean anything -- transponders were easy to manipulate
given a bit of money or skill.

He checked that traffic control knew about him and the other ship, which
they did.  Of course, traffic control largely ignored ships outside the 
high-traffic zone near Kalinar IV's orbital paths.  Saying that
traffic control knew about them was as good as saying that traffic
control was still functioning, and nothing more.

"The other ship is registered as a light freighter, name of Jarrod's
Folly.  Nothing to worry about, he's headed out to the jump border,
just like we are," he explained to Belah, who continued to look raptly
out the window.

"Where is it?  The other ship, I mean," she asked, glancing over at
Jura.

"Well, there's no way to see it with your naked eye, we'd have to be 
much closer.  But if you could see that ship, it'd be over there," he 
pointed off to starboard.  "If you really want," he continued,
"There's a telescope up in the bubble."

She glanced over at him, a look of confusion creasing her brow.

"Oh, of course."  Jura turned to face her as he explained, "The bubble
is the observation station up on top of the ship.  There's no gravity
there, though, so if you go, be prepared to feel strange."  He
swivelled back to look out the front port.

"That sounds interesting, but I think I'll wait.  My nerves are still 
weird," she said.

He looked at her again.  She must have been somewhere between 20 and 25 
to look at her, but he had the sense that she was considerably older by 
the way she acted.  She didn't seem to be suffering the normal
first-spaceflight jitters he'd seen in other first-time flyers.

"Why are your nerves acting up?"

"Oh," she paused, and looked around at him.  "I'm just nervous about
the trip."

He couldn't tell whether or not she was telling the truth, and decided
it didn't matter.  "Ok," he said.  "If you decide to head up to the
bubble, let me know, and I'll show you how to operate the telescope."

"Thanks," she replied.  She resumed looking out the port, and he busied 
himself with the computer.

CHAPTER 1.5 [fix]

Jura thought back on how this particular trip had started.

She'd approached him in a bar, nearly the oldest dealmaking cliche in 
the book.  He'd been chatting with another pilot, who'd just come from 
coreward, and they had been trading information about the conditions in 
different systems.  Naturally, when approached by a woman in a bar, all 
conversation had stopped.

"Are you Jura Cortan?" she'd said.

He'd replied in the affirmative, and asked who was addressing him.

"Belah Galen," she'd replied.  She looked quickly around the dimly
lit bar uncertainly, then said, "I hear you have a ship."

He again replied in the affirmative, his interest piqued.  Anyone asking
about a ship would be asking indirectly to give him money.  He was 
always in favor of receiving money.

"Yes, I have a ship.  What need do you have?  Cargo, I suppose?"  He
found himself hoping, to his surprise, that she wasn't trying to set up
a cargo run.

"No, just myself.  No cargo.  I need to get to the Borot system, Borot
III, as soon as possible, and the next scheduled run isn't for a week."

Jura sat back and considered, or at least put on the appearance of
considering.  In actual fact, he'd been having something of a dry
spell, and any business sounded deliciously tempting.  He glanced
at his erstwhile companion, who was studiously examining his drink.

"I can probably help you out," he replied after a few moments' 
calculated consideration.  "Let's adjourn to somewhere more private and 
discuss the details."

He paid his tab and stood up.  Belah stood back as he made his goodbyes 
to the other pilot.  Several eyes, he noticed, swiveled his direction as 
he left with the young woman.

He cut a dashing figure, he thought to himself as they walked along the 
covered walkway in the city's spaceport.  He stood 1.85 meters
tall, with medium-tan skin, and a long, expressive face.  His long black
hair was braided behind his back, in the complicated 5-stranded plait
currently in vogue among his peers.  His clothing was relatively natty,
if not the height of fashion.  He prided himself on his appearance,
and was clean-shaven as usual.

His short jacket was clean, if a bit on the worn side.  The rich burgundy
color faded to red at the elbows, but he hadn't been able to afford
a new one after covering life's necessities.  His pants were rumpled
in the latest fashion (he silently gave praise for trends that didn't
require a lot of work), although the cut was several seasons out of date.
His beam gun swung in its holster at his side, the holster safetied with
a bright white cord tied in an intricate knot, as required by Kalinar
law while in populated areas.  Most reasonably civilized planets had
similar requirements.

He lead Belah back to his temporary lodging, a small room rented to 
itinerant pilots.  His ship, like almost all interstellar ships, couldn't
enter the planet's atmosphere.  He didn't have his own ramjet
shuttle, so the little room served his purposes while he was on the
surface.  Staying on his ship would have required a two-hour transit
each way, and considerable expense.

"But, I only need to get to Borot III," she said, as the door closed behind 
them.

"I know, but it's best to discuss price and details out of the reach of 
prying ears, or other sensory organs," he responded.  "So, just you?  Do
you need to get there in a special hurry?  Or is this just more 
expedient than the scheduled liner?"  He gestured at the tiny table
and pair of chairs, and they sat down.

"No, just me.  I... well, I need to get there soon, as soon as possible,
really.  I guess I'll have a bag with me, but I'm guessing that's not 
what you mean by cargo."

"No, a personal bag doesn't really count.  Ok, just yourself.  Do you 
have an arrival date in mind?"

"Well, yes and no," she hesitated, an uncertain look crossing her face.

"You either do or you don't.  You mentioned liner service to Borot, is 
that fast enough for you?"

She looked a little resigned, and said, "Yes, that would be fine.  What 
is that, about a week?"

"Yes, about a week.  A lot of that time will be spent transiting between
jump points.  You know about jump points, right?" Jura looked across the
little table at which they sat.

Belah nodded, then said, "is there any way to go faster than that?"

"Yes, but it costs more," Jura answered, trying not to let avarice
show in his face.

"How much more?"  Belah looked concerned.  Jura couldn't decide if she
was already bargaining, or honestly worried.

"Well, we haven't set a price for the standard speed yet," he
replied.  "The passenger liner charges, what, about 350 lords for
that trip, right?"

The lord was the basic unit of currency through most of the galaxy,
commonly divided into decilords and centilords.  There were certainly
other currencies, but they were restricted to certain regions of space,
so weren't as universal as lords.

The woman across the table mutely nodded.

"I can offer you the same trip for 500.  I should charge you more, since
you're leaving me without any cargo or trade opportunities, but I'm 
willing to come down to 500 for you."  He wondered if that would 
forestall any attempts at negotiation.

"Alright, then what does the faster trip cost?"

"Ah, well there we get into something of a sliding scale," he replied, 
feeling himself slip into a groove.  "How much faster are you thinking?"

"Um...  I don't know.  Look, I'm no good at this," she sounded
dismayed, showing some emotion for the first time in his presence.
"I can afford to pay you 800 total, but I've only got 400 now.  How
fast will 800 take us?"

"I can shave a day and a half off the trip for that.  So, about 5 and a 
half days -- standard days, not Kalinar days." He added the last 
quickly, suddenly remembering that Kalinar days were several hours 
shorter than standard days.

"Oh."  She paused for a moment, thinking.  "Well, that would be fine. Five
and a half standard days is fast enough."

"Ok, now about payment.  I don't like to do jobs on a 'half now, half
later' basis, I find that customers sometimes try very hard to avoid
giving me the other half.  There's no way you can get the whole 800
together now?"

"No, 400 is all I have right now.  My uncle on Borot III will pay you 
the balance when we arrive, I guarantee it."  Her voice had taken on a 
touch of a pleading tone.

Jura hesitated, weighing the benefit of making any money at all with the
risk of pushing his ship and potentially drawing Federation attention to
himself.  He finally reached a decision, trying to keep his face 
neutral, and mostly succeeding.

"Alright, I can do it for 400 now and 400 at Borot.  But I'm not letting
you off the ship until I get the balance, got it?"  His voice was
stern.

"That's fine," she said, obviously relieved to have reached an agreement.

They worked out the remaining details, and Jura gave the girl 
instructions to meet him at the shuttle port in two hours.  He 
transferred the balance of his payment due on the room, and packed up 
the few possessions he'd brought down.  400 lords would be a losing
proposition for this trip, but if he could make 800, that would be a
tidy profit.

Toting his bag over one shoulder, he made arrangements for a weeks'
supplies to be delivered to his ship, which was parked in orbit around
the largest moon of Kalinar IV.  Kalinar followed the lead of many smaller
systems with a convenient moon, utilizing the moon and its gravitational
pull as a shipping hub.  This left the planet's orbital pathways free
for satellites and passenger craft, making planetary orbit a safer place
to be.

He transferred the currency units to the merchant for the ship's
supplies, noting that his balance was depressingly near zero.  At
least the ship's loan payment was already made for this month.

An hour later, he met Belah at the shuttle port.  They'd boarded their
shuttle, and spent about an hour and a half making the trip out to the
little box-shaped ship, along with a handful of other beings.
Shortly after they arrived, Jura's supplies showed up, and he took
them on.  It was a matter of about an hour to stow the supplies.

Then Jura showed Belah around the ship, completing the pre-launch
checklist at the same time.  He spent a surprisingly short amount
of time crafting her cabin out of a section of the cargo hold,
unfolding a cot and table he had stashed in a storage locker to
complete the little room.  He lead her back to the bridge, a relatively
cramped two-person control room looking out from above the engine's ram
scoop.  They eased out of the parking orbit, and set off in the
direction of the Borot system, some 17 light-years distant.

CHAPTER 2

"Come up to the bridge, Belah, we're about to make the transition to 
jumpspace," Jura called into his comm.  Kalinar's sun had faded until it
was indistinguishable from the surrounding field of stars.  They'd 
reached the border beyond which it was safe to engage the FTL drive 
system.

A few minutes later, Belah appeared in the hatch, looking rumpled.
She'd plainly awoken very recently, probably in response to his
call on the comm.

"Sorry, I fell asleep.  I guess the motionless stars do get boring
after a while," she said somewhat fuzzily.  She ran her hand through
her hair, which was verging on unruly.

"No need to apologize.  This is worth seeing, though," he said.  She sat
down with a whump in the navigator's chair.  It only provided infrequent
passenger duty these days, since he'd installed a suspiciously cheap
advanced nav computer a couple of years ago, obviating the need for a
sentient being to operate anything.

He turned back to the controls.  "I can tell you in more detail what's 
happening later, but be prepared for some very pretty colors."  Even
after hundreds of jumps, he still found the spectacle to be impressive.

He shoved a lever forward at a measured pace, flipping a switch at about
the half-way point in the lever's travel.  Suddenly the view out the port
became opalescent as energy coalesced around the ship.  The stars which
had been so stark before lost some contrast to the translucent field,
but started regaining it as they went from white to blue, suddenly
glowing like a welder's arc.

The stars visibly elongated for a split second, then disappeared as
the energy field around the ship suddenly glowed bright blue, nearly
blinding in its intensity.  The view port greyed slightly to prevent
retinal damage.

Belah gaped as Jura pulled the lever back a little bit and punched a 
sequence of digits into a keypad.  The lightshow out the window faded a 
little bit, but the bridge was still bathed in an eerie glow.
Multicolored arcs played around the ship, forming weird shapes.

The control system emitted a short beep sequence, and a light which
had been flashing on the crowded control board went out.

"Ok, the ship's safely in jumpspace.  We will be traveling like this 
for about a day," Jura explained.  He looked up to see Belah staring 
raptly at the lightshow out the window.  "Did you hear me?" he asked, 
trying not to sound sharp.

After a moment, Belah looked around, and said, "Huh?  Oh, yeah.  A day. 
How can you not be fascinated by this?"  She nodded out the viewport.

"I guess after seeing it so much, it's lost some of its thrill."

She barely listened, enthralled by the dancing rainbow-colored arcs.

Jura stood up, and ducked through the hatchway.  He headed back to the 
engine panel aft of the cargo hold and checked over the gauges.  He 
could have done the same check from the cockpit, but the presence of 
another person was disrupting his normal flow.

Several hours passed.  Jura retired to the lounge, to pass the time
by reading one of the books stored in the ship's computer, displayed
on a portable reader screen.  Belah finally came out of the bridge,
and fell to watching a vacuous 3d show across from him.  It seemed to
be about fashion and celebrities.  Jura was glad he'd set the computer
to retrieve current entertainments at Kalinar.

Suddenly, the ship gave a mighty jolt, and the lights went out.  The
abrupt silence in the absence of the engine's noise was deafening.  "What 
the hell was that!?" exclaimed Jura, as he leapt up.  Scattered around 
the wall at floor level, a number of backup lights had illuminated.
Half of them were nonfunctional, after long disuse.  The floor was
treacherous with objects scattered by the sudden impact.

Jura raced to the bridge, ducking through the hatch.  The view out the
window was dark, the distant stars growing brighter as his eyes 
gradually adjusted.  Belah was close behind him, her face visibly
strained, even in the low light.

"What happened?" she asked, pensive.

"I don't know, that's what I'm trying to figure out," he paused.  After 
manipulating the controls on the computer, he looked up, and said, "It 
looks like we got too close to a gravity well of some kind, and the 
computer dropped us out of jumpspace as a safety measure.  That doesn't 
explain why the lights went out, though.  Besides, there's nothing big
enough to cause this on the charts."  He paused, then continued, "Oh shit,
I hope the computer isn't malfunctioning."

As he was talking, something caught his eye out the port.  Belah pointed
at it just as he noticed it, and said, "What's that?"

"I don't know," he replied.  "Maybe that's our gravity well."  He 
quickly stood and raced back amidships, where he climbed an access ladder.

After a minute he called down, "It's a ship!  I can't make out any 
markings, though.  Does the computer have a transponder reading?"

Belah looked at the control board in confusion, but finally located
the computer's controls.  She tapped a few buttons, and after a
moment said, "Yes!  Oh!  It's Jarrod's Folly!  Did they follow us?"

"I don't know, but either they're in serious trouble or we are," he
shouted as he climbed down the ladder.  "Their computer shouldn't
have let us get so close together in jumpspace."  He paused.  "Why
do I have a feeling it's us who are in trouble?" he muttered under
his breath.

He got back into the bridge, and Belah pointed at the ship again, and 
said, "It's glowing!"

Sure enough, the other ship was surrounded by a faint red glow.
Jura said, "that'll be an incoming message."

He waited a few more seconds, and the computer beeped twice, to indicate
a waiting message.  Jura reached over and instructed the message 
computer to play it back.

There was a moment of static, followed by, "Hailing unidentified vessel,
this is the FSS Jarrod's Folly.  Identify yourselves immediately, and 
explain why your transponder is not functioning.  Repeat, hailing 
unidentified vessel..." The message repeated again.

"Wait, FSS!? The FSS Jarrod's Folly?  Their transponder didn't say anything 
about being a Federation ship!" Jura looked indignant and scared at the 
same time.

"What does that mean?" asked Belah.  She'd picked up on Jura's fear
without understanding its source.

"Just that it's a government ship, which means they can do anything from
delaying us to blowing us out of space, and no one will complain," replied
Jura savagely, more worried than he wanted to let on.  He thought
feverishly, trying to come up with an acceptable phrasing for the
return message.

He stabbed at the record button, and said, "This is the private vessel 
Callie's Web.  Our transponder may be malfunctioning, as the transition 
out of jumpspace seems to have caused some damage to ship's systems.
We are working on the problem.  We appear to have dropped out of jumpspace
due to unsafe proximity to a gravity well.  Please explain your actions
if you are responsible for this."  He repeated his message again, and
punched the send button.  The message laser turret made a faint grinding
noise as it oriented on the distant ship.  There was a high pitched whine
as the laser powered up and sent the message, compressed into a short,
high-bandwidth burst.

"Now we wait: they're 30 light-seconds from us still," said Jura.  He 
punched impatiently at the computer, trying to get a long distance scan 
of the other ship.

After a few minutes, they watched the foreign ship glow red again,
and the message played back, "Callie's Web, we are patrolling for
smugglers, and your ship was seen leaving the Kalinar system faster
than standard departure speed.  Prepare to be boarded and inspected.
Ready any Federation permits for your cargo and flight plan."

Belah looked over at Jura with fear showing in her eyes.  "Permits?  
Flight plan?  Do we have those things?"

Jura felt as much fear as Belah was radiating.  He tried to act the
cool and calm captain.  "Yes, fortunately.  One of my stops was at
the Fed traffic office before we left, where I got a passenger permit
and filed our flight plan.  I was hoping that would keep the
Federation off our back for this trip."  He punched up the relevant
documents and transferred them to his reader screen.

30 minutes later, the Federation ship loomed next to Jura's, an 
umbilical tube stretching between airlocks.  A bulbous nose stuck out 
from the front of the ship.  Jura pointed it out as the ship had drawn 
near: "Ah, they did have a gravity well.  That's a gravity generator.  
They probably got a few seconds ahead of us in jumpspace, dropped out, 
then switched it on."

Belah had looked blankly at him as he explained, but nodded at the end 
as if to indicate understanding.  Jura realized he was explaining
for his own sake.

The airlock which was attached to the umbilical cycled open, and
an imperious-looking officer stepped out, flanked by a pair of
carbine-wielding soldiers.  His rank ribbons showed him to be a
lieutenant.

Jura saluted sharply, unable to resist the gesture in the presence of 
such an uptight-looking man in uniform.  The lieutenant looked sourly
at him, a grimace displaying his distaste for civilians.

"Sorry.  Here are the permits," Jura said, handing over the reader 
screen.  The lieutenant glanced over the screen, paging it forward to 
look at the full text.

"Where's your passenger... Ms. Galen?" the still unidentified 
lieutenant asked, casting a weary eye over the ship's dingy interior.

"Oh, of course."  Jura silently cursed, as he keyed his comm.  "Belah, 
would you please come to the starboard airlock?"  He had no idea what 
was about to happen, and greatly feared that he was about to be out 400 
lords and repairs to his ship.

Jura turned as he heard footsteps approaching, and tried not to gape at 
what he saw.  He had been expecting Belah, but in her place stood a 
woman of at least 40 years, with greying dark brown hair, and brown 
eyes.

"Yes?" said the woman in Belah's voice, pitched downward to convey
greater age.

"Are you Belah Galen?" asked the lieutenant.

"I am.  Who is asking?" inquired the woman.

"I am lieutenant Jarvis, of the Federation of Planets.  We are 
patrolling for smugglers."  He examined her briefly, before calling 
into his comm, "Send in the scanning team."

Lieutenant Jarvis turned back to Jura.  "We will scan your ship,
and if nothing appears amiss you will be sent on your way.  Your
paperwork appears to be in order."  Jarvis held up the reader screen
as he spoke.

Jura nodded, saying nothing.  There was no point in arguing, if he
did, the best he could hope for would be arrest and detention in
the belly of the huge Federation ship.

The airlock cycled again, and two soldiers entered, carrying bulky, 
backpack-attached scanning wands.  Each man marched purposefully
off, playing the wands over the bulkheads and into different chambers.
Jarvis looked after them, as if trying to peer through the ship's
bulkheads with sheer willpower.

"What are you looking for?" asked Jura, trying to make polite 
conversation.

Jarvis looked at him sharply.  "Contraband," he replied curtly, his
voice clearly conveying that he was in no mood to make idle chitchat.

Plainly, thought Jura to himself.  He didn't try for any more
conversation, standing uncomfortably for the 5 minutes the scanning
crew took to return.

"Nothing found, sir," each man reported in turn.

"Good day, Mr.," Jarvis consulted the reader screen again, before 
handing it back, "Cortan.  See that you get your transponder fixed, and 
repair these lights," the officer pointed up at the dark glow panels over 
their heads.  "Hate to have to pull your registration over safety 
violations."  Jarvis sneered at Jura and Belah before turning smartly on
his heel and climbing back into the airlock with his men.

"What the hell was that all about?" wondered the woman with Belah's 
voice once the Federation men were safely beyond the airlock.

"Contraband!" exclaimed Jura, his fist raised up.  He had pitched
his voice to a gravelly tone, mocking the departed Jarvis.  "What
happened to you?" he asked in his normal voice, turning back to Belah.
"I don't think I've ever seen such a speedy quickchange act before."

She tugged off the wig, letting her auburn hair tumble back down across 
her shoulders.  "Ah, it always pays to be prepared."  She turned
and walked briskly down the corridor, shrugging off the severe
jacket she'd put on as part of her ruse.

Jura stood looking after her for a moment, then shook his head, as
if to exclaim, "Women!"

CHAPTER 3

"Try it now!" Jura called down.  Belah hit a switch, and the lights 
flickered on innocently, as if nothing had ever been amiss.

"They're working now," she called back, as she floated into the opposite
wall.  She pawed the air as she rebounded, trying ineffectually to alter
her path of travel.

"Great!  I hope that's the last of them," said Jura, as he wormed his 
way out of the access panel.  He grabbed the detached panel off its 
tether, and re-secured it into what was normally the ceiling.

"Now to see if that got the transponder, too."  He floated down the 
corridor, inexpertly launching himself between handholds.  He glided 
through the hatch into the bridge, where he stopped himself with the
pilot's chair, strapped in, and started tapping keys on the computer.

He looked up, and seeing Belah still wasn't in the bridge with him,
shouted "Ok, diagnostics show the transponder loaded with correct
information.  Aaaand, it's transmitting successfully, or at least
the computer thinks it is.  That's all we can do for now.  Ready
to get some gravity back?"

"Yes please," responded Belah somewhat sheepishly, as she pulled herself
into the small control room.  She'd had more than her fair share of
zero-gravity mishaps in the hour it'd been switched off.  "I don't think
I like zero G very much," she said, looking a little bit green even now.
Throwing up with no gravity was at least as unpleasant as being sick in
a gravity well.  At least she'd made it to the 'fresher, where it was
easy to clean up.

"Ok, it'll come on gradually, so everything should settle safely to the 
ground, including us.  Keep your feet aimed down, or better yet, take a 
seat," said Jura, indicating the navigator's chair.

She floated over and pulled herself into the chair, strapping the
retaining belts around her.  "Ugh.  At least everything stays right-side
up this way," she said.

Jarrod's Folly had taken off into jumpspace several hours ago, a faint
blue spark momentarily flaring against the stars.  Jura had determined by
then that he'd need to get into the guts of his ship and do some minor
surgery to get the failed systems functional again.  

Fortunately, the repairs hadn't been too extensive, mostly reseating
components which had jarred loose from their mountings, and replacing a
couple of the fragile circuit protection devices which regulated the flow
of plasma.  The lights and transponder had been affected, along with a
subsystem in the inertial damper.  Jura was pleased on that last count,
since he figured he'd finally tracked down the intermittent failure that
had plagued him for months.  An intermittent inertial damper ranged
from incredibly annoying to deadly.

He'd also managed to find and exterminate a nest of hallens, little 
rodent-like beasts which lived on anything edible, and a number of 
things which weren't.  Their leavings were surprisingly pungent, and he
was glad he'd finally found them.

"At last, we can get on our way again," he said, as gravity's weight
almost imperceptibly descended upon them.  "I'm just going to head back
and make sure everything's settling alright.  If you're comfortable
walking, you might want to check your cabin."

"I... I don't feel like moving right now."  She looked up at him,
plainly eager to remain seated and motionless.  "If you want, you can poke 
your head in and make sure nothing's on fire," she responded.  He looked
back at her, surprised at the wisp of irony he'd just detected.

"Sure, I'll look in real quick.  Anything I should particularly check 
on?"

"No, it's just clothes and things in there."

"Alright," he half-floated, half-leapt through the hatchway.  Describing
huge leaping parabolas down the corridor, he checked to make sure that
his hastily secured cabin was in order, and checked on her cabin.
He found nothing interesting in the little space, and moved on to check
that the ship's tools and spare parts were still secured in their drawers.
Fortunately, most things were secured against external forces, since even
a strong (and properly functional) inertial damper couldn't fully
negate all forces.  The inertial damper installed in Callie's Web was
not especially strong.

"Looks good," he said, as he ducked back through the hatchway.  Gravity 
was nearly back to full.

"That's a neat trick, turning off the gravity," said Belah.  "I wouldn't
have thought of that."

"Well, it keeps the need for a ladder down, and access to a number
of the crawlspaces would simply be impossible in full gravity, you'd
crush systems.  The ship was designed to be able to shut down the gravity
generators for a lot of maintenance operations.  The whole ship can be
easily secured against zero G, as you saw.  If I'd had cargo in the hold,
it would have already been strapped down -- I rarely turn on gravity in
there anyway, it just complicates things most of the time."

As he spoke, Jura was manipulating the controls, calculating their 
trajectory and path for the remainder of the trip to Borot.  The 
computer beeped after a moment.  "There we go.  Get ready for a 
lightshow," he said.

He shoved forward the lever, and the stars again jumped into blue sparks
through a haze of visible energy.  Rainbow lightning played around the 
ship and they were in jumpspace again.

After a minute, Belah asked, "How fast are we actually going?"  She
was again unable to tear her eyes from the dancing lights.

"Well, jumpspace doesn't really follow the rules of normal space.  
That's why we can go faster than the speed of light.  The concept of 
speed is a bit weird, and I've never really understood it.  The brains 
in the universities who do understand it apparently just say, 'really 
fast,' and leave it at that.  I guess it takes an advanced degree in 
multi-dimensional physics to understand it."  He waved his hands,
trying vaguely to indicate dimensions beyond the four normally found in
realspace.

"Oh," she replied, obviously only half-listening.  The lights had her
captivated.

"Well, you enjoy, I'm going to head back and see if I can pick up my
book again," said Jura, standing up.  She didn't react, so he walked
back to the lounge.  Eventually she came in, explaining that her eyes
had started hurting from staring at the lights.  She settled in and
continued the fashion program she'd started watching so many hours ago.

CHAPTER 4

A man in non-descript business robes sat behind a desk.  He himself was 
somewhat non-descript, except for a scar trailing down from his forehead
to his cheek.  This made him quite descript.

The computer in his desk trilled.  He picked up a handset and placed it to
his ear, a nod to his sensitive position in an era when everyone else used
the moderately secure but far more convenient wrist communicator units.
"Yes," he said.  After a moment he flicked on the sonic damper, and the
room went silent around him.

"I see.  I trust you know how to remedy this situation."  He paused
again, listening.  "Yes, that would work.  I don't expect to hear from
you again until you've got her.  Don't disappoint me."  He set down the
handset, and clicked the computer off.

He stared furiously at the opposite wall, a vein pulsing slightly in his
forehead.

CHAPTER 5

"Borot control, this is Callie's Web.  We will be entering your control 
space in approximately 10 minutes.  Reference flight plan FH783227.  
Repeat, Borot control, this is Callie's Web.  We will be entering your 
control space in approximately 10 minutes.  Reference flight plan 
FH783227."

Jura tapped a button.  A fraction of a second later, the computer 
beeped, and Jura read the confirmation receipt from the screen.

"How did they get it so fast?" asked Belah, looking confused.  "I 
thought we had to come out 20 light minutes from the system."

"Oh, more than that.  We'll revert to normal space about 20 light hours
from Borot III.  That receipt was just from the relay.  You know about
relays, right?"

"Oh, right, the relays.  I'm sorry, I was never very interested in 
astrophysics in school."

"Apparently not.  Well, I guess you've got an excuse.  Rather, I've got 
an excuse, since I have to deal with this stuff daily."  Jura reflected 
to himself, well, I wish it was daily, but close enough.  

The jumpspace relays were a system of communication relays which
maintained part of their structure inside jumpspace, and part of it
outside, in normal space.  Because they protruded into the alternate
space, they were subject to the same gravity limitations as ships,
so they were placed outside the jump boundary.  They were very
odd-looking structures, long and spindly, and asymmetrical to the
naked eye: they were actually nearly symmetrically shaped, but one end
terminated early in a sort of blue halo, with the remainder of the
structure protruding through to jumpspace.

Because they communicated within jumpspace, the relays could pass
data to each other very very quickly, bordering on instantaneously.
Unfortunately, data took days to travel between planet and relay.
A system of message repeaters orbited throughout a connected solar system,
and each repeater hop added a processing delay, although this was minor.
The real delay came from the fact that often the shortest path between
the planet and the relay would be a wide arc or zig-zag, in order to
attain manageable jumps between orbiting repeaters.

Jura considered briefly, and finally gave in to the lingering
curiosity he'd had for the entire trip. "What is it you do, exactly?
I shouldn't ask, but you got my curiosity up, after that quickchange
with lieutenant Tump-te-tump."  He held his nose up and kept his tone
light, trying to avoid having the question come out too severe or
serious-sounding.

She didn't respond for a moment, then said, "I'm a student," obviously 
lying.  "Look, it doesn't matter what I do, does it?  Let's just drop 
it."  She sounded annoyed, and more than merely annoyed at him, annoyed
at herself for not knowing how to handle the simple question.

"Ok, sorry."  The older man turned back to the controls and busied
himself with preparations for the reversion to normal space.  After
a moment, he said, "I hope we don't have quite such a jarring
reversion this time," and chuckled a bit.

Belah smiled slightly, looking forward, and said nothing.

A few minutes later, Jura started manipulating controls.  As he pulled
the big lever on the control panel back, the glow out the forward port
faded slightly, and thousands of stars suddenly flared actinic blue
before shrinking down to normal looking white stars.  Both Jura's and
Belah's eyes saw the stars as yellow after the endless blue of jumpspace.
Jura finished his control movements, checked over the indicators, and
turned back to the girl.

"We're safely back in normal space.  Now we just have 2 days transit in 
to Borot III.  I can get you an exact estimate on our arrival time in a 
few minutes.  The computer still needs to work out our exact 
trajectory."

"Ok," replied Belah.  She got up and headed aft.

Jura glanced back, bemused.  I've got to find more cargo gigs, he 
thought.  Cargo doesn't talk back and cause me trouble.

CHAPTER 6

"Which shuttle will she be on?" asked the taller man of the shorter.
He was dressed fashionably enough, in dark rumpled pantaloons, with a
neatly pressed grey shirt and black Gorn-skin jacket.  His dirty
blond hair was arranged into a short braid down his back.  There
was something about him which unmistakably conveyed the impression
of a hired killer.

"I don't know yet, she's not on any records yet."  The shorter man
sat at a terminal, scrolling through transfer records he really
shouldn't have access to.  "I hope you didn't pay too much for this
passcode, it's kind of lame."  His voice held a bit of a sneer, as if
to imply that if only the taller man had asked, there were much better
codes available.  

The man at the terminal was dressed in rumpled clothing as well,
but it was clear that he paid no attention to fads or fashions.
His rumpled appearance came from wearing clothes too many times in
a row, nothing more and nothing less.  His hair was a lanky mess,
which had once been neatly braided.  Through days of neglect, it
was now part braid, and part wispy strands hanging at odd angles to
his face.

"Don't worry about that.  Just find out what shuttle she'll be on."

"Yep, going as fast as I can.  Anyway, I can't tell you anything until 
she registers.  Does she have any pseudonyms I should be looking for?"

The taller man considered for a moment.  "No, not that I know of.  Just 
Belah Galen.  Keep looking.  Her ship arrived in orbit hours ago."

"I'll let you know, like I said."  The hacker's voice betrayed a certain 
testiness.

"Right, right."  The taller man straightened up and cracked his 
knuckles.  His face was hard, a mixture of resolution to get the job
done and a dislike of waiting.  He glared at the computer's screen.

CHAPTER 7

"I told you, I'm not letting you off the ship until I get my 400 lords."
Jura stood with his arms crossed.  Belah sat on one of the seats in the
little lounge, avoiding Jura's gaze.  Jura was put in mind of a parent
scolding a child, and couldn't help feeling a bit foolish.

Belah, plaintive, said, "I can't reach my uncle.  I don't know what's 
wrong."  She looked back at Jura, then stood.  "Look, I can't live on
your ship forever, can I?"

Jura shook his head in the negative.  "You're not leaving my sight.
If it takes too long, I'm charging you for food and rent.  You can work
it off, if it comes to that."

She stamped her foot, once, petulantly, and started working her 
communicator again.  It showed the red symbol for a failed connection 
again, exactly as it had the last 3 times she'd tried.

"Look, tell me his name, and we can look him up in the directory.  Maybe
you have his code wrong."  Jura was trying to be helpful, but Belah was
plainly in a mood which prevented her from accepting any outside
assistance.

"No, I'm sure I've got it right.  Oh, why isn't he there?"  She twirled 
around dramatically, arms splayed out.  The effect was ruined when her 
left hand connected solidly with a bulkhead.  "Ow!  Stupid ship!" She 
made as if to kick the bulkhead, but caught sight of Jura out of the 
corner of her eye, and thought better of it.  She tromped off toward her
cabin, calling back, "I need to think about this."

"I knew it," said Jura to himself as the young woman stormed away.
"An 800 lord trip for 400.  Dammit."  He turned back to his cabin,
where he shut the door and pulled down his callie, a 5-stringed
musical instrument made of strikingly beautiful wood, with metal and
plastic components, and started playing.

CHAPTER 8

"I don't know, she's not showing up on any registers," said the taller 
man into his comm.  He listened impatiently as it whispered back to
him.  "I don't know, you're the one with all the info.  Does she have
pseudonyms?  Does she have friends here?  Maybe someone smuggled
her down."  He paused as the comm whispered again.  "Well, find out.
We're not getting anything done here."  He jabbed angrily at the comm's
cutoff button.

He looked up from the comm, at the room around him.  He really wanted to
punch something right now, but there was nothing suitably breakable.
His rage found itself swirling around his mind with no outlet.

"Stupid fucking bitch," he muttered angrily to himself.

CHAPTER 9

"Finally!" Belah exclaimed as the comm's screen lit up.  "Where have
you been?  Do you know I'm stuck on this ship!?"  There was a pause as
she listened to the reply, then she cut it off.  "Yes, until he gets his
money!  Please, just send it up, alright?  What?  400, I sent that
message to you days ago!" She paused, as the comm relayed the response
to her tirade.

"Oh, come on!  No one deals in cash any more!"  She looked up at Jura,
who had raised his hand, finger up, as if to say, "Actually, I do."  She
turned back to the screen, resignation and defeat showing in her face
and body language.

"Oh fine.  We'll see you down there.  Where do you want to meet?"  She 
worked out the details with the person on the other end of the 
connection, then signed off.

"I hope that's ok with you.  We have to meet him at the Spacer's Rest in 
the spaceport.  He's one of those freaks who doesn't trust banks."

"That's fine.  I've dealt with that type of person once or twice," 
replied Jura.  He neglected to add how often or in what sorts of values,
either of which might surprise the young woman slouching opposite him.

"Great, let's get out of this bucket."  She paused, realizing that what
she'd just said could easily be misinterpreted.  "Don't get me wrong,
you've been very hospitable, but this isn't exactly a four-star hotel,
you know?"  She made a beeline for her cabin before he could reply,
and Jura could hear her furiously stuffing clothing into her bag.

"I'll get a shuttle out here," he called back.  He realized she probably
couldn't hear anything he was saying, and keyed his comm.  "I'm calling 
a shuttle.  We should be headed planetward in 20 minutes."

"Great!" came the shouted reply, echoed a fraction of a second later 
through the comm on his wrist.

CHAPTER 10

"Got it!" the man at the terminal exulted.  The taller man turned away 
from his brooding examination of the street outside the window and leaned
over the terminal.

"Great, the 1720 shuttle.  Good work!" He patted the hacker on the back,
and walked briskly to the next room.

"Hey, when do I get paid!?" called the hacker into the next room, 
starting to get up stiffly from his seat.

"Oh, about that," said the taller man, ducking back into the room.  He 
raised a beam gun, and fired twice at the other man, the gun emitting a 
high-pitched whine as the plasma concentrators spewed forth 
concentrated energy.  The taller man's face was suffused with a feral
glee as he fired.

The hacker slumped, slack-faced and silent, back into his chair, then
crashed unceremoneously into the terminal.  Sinuous curls of smoke slowly
twined toward the ceiling from his chest.

"You took too long," sneered the taller man.  "Sorry," he said with
mock sympathy.  His face contorted with a combination of malice and joy
at finally finding an outlet for his pent-up anger.  He left the room,
which smelled of cooked flesh, and tapped a code into his comm.  "She's on
the 1720 shuttle.  Meet me there," he said into the device, and clicked
it off as he grabbed up his coat and headed out of the small apartment.

CHAPTER 11

The little ramjet shuttle roared as it entered the atmosphere
of Borot III.  Jura and Belah were strapped into seats next to each other.
Belah stared out the window at the flames which enveloped the ship;
Jura sat bored, having seen all this so many times that it was second
nature.

Jura's braided hair curled over his shoulder, moving slightly as he 
looked again at the other passengers.  The shuttle was sparsely filled, 
it being late enough that most people had already arrived wherever they 
were going.

Below them, the planet sprawled, wide and dark.  The receding sun
could be seen as a spectral glow along the edge of the flattening
planetary curve.  Jury Town, their destination, was a bright,
irregular knot of light near the horizon.  The enormous sun which
lit Borot III had set over the horizon a few minutes before they'd
hit the atmosphere.  The sunset over the planet's limb was very
pretty, showing the atmosphere as a thin, fragile shell of multihued light.

Jura checked that his beam gun was safetied as required.  He supposed it
was better to be going to a world civilized enough to have weapon 
securing regulations than one which was rough enough that people 
expected to have a weapon ready to use.

"When does your uncle plan to meet us again?" he asked, looking over
at Belah.

Belah tore her eyes from the window, thought for a moment, and said, "He
said 1750, but I don't think he knew we were on such a late shuttle."

Jura checked the clock on his comm, which already read 1710.  "Well, 
we're behind schedule anyway, so I'd guess your uncle is going to be 
waiting for a while."

"That's ok, he'll see what it's like to be left waiting," she replied,
her voice strident.  She looked a bit smug as she considered the image.

A few minutes passed in silence.  The shuttle's pilot switched on the 
speaker system, producing a polite little tri-tone alert noise.  She
announced that they would be landing in 5 minutes, and that all
passengers should remain strapped in.

Ah good, thought Jura to himself.  Maybe I will get 800 lords for
an 800 lord trip.  That'll pay a lot of bills.  He thought fondly
about the far-off day when he would own his ship outright, and
didn't have to spend so much time scrounging for money to pay off
the loan each month.  A faint smile flitted unnoticed across his
face as he pondered the thought.

The shuttle slowed further, and descended through the layers of
air traffic over Jury City, into the restricted airspace over the
spaceport.  The little ship centered over its landing pad, hovering,
and gently descended, to touch down with a barely perceptible jolt.
As it settled to the ground and the engines slowly spooled down from
their nearly imperceptible whine, safety harnesses were unbuckled in
a cacophony of metal clanking and clacking noises.  All the passengers
stood up in the universal hurry to crowd the aisle impatiently, waiting
for the hatch to open and let them out.

Finally they started moving, and Jura and Belah shuffled down the aisle 
until they reached the exit port.  There they were able to stride down 
the ramp with a bit more speed.  Jura stuck close to Belah, half-
expecting her to make a break for it now that she was at her 
destination.

They got their feet on the ground, and followed the other passengers
through the cooling night air towards the terminal building.

CHAPTER 12

"Are you ready?" The tall man glanced back at his troops, who
consisted of four rough-looking young men wearing simple, dark-colored
utilitarian clothes.  Their beam guns appeared safetied to the
casual observer, but a close examination would have revealed a
certain suspicious looseness of the binding cord.

Each one nodded in turn, increasing the level of ferocity on their faces
to in a naive attempt to indicate just how ready they were.  "When do
we expect 'em, Hurran?"  asked one of the toughs.  Like the other three,
he looked to be just barely over 20, the legal age of majority for humans.

The tall man, Hurran, glanced at his chrono display, and said, "Any
minute now.  Just play it cool until I give you the signal, then
we'll attack like I described before.  Remember, I need the woman
alive, no cooking her."  He looked back at the ruffians to confirm
they understood him.

A sequence of four nods acknowledged his gaze.

They were standing in a loose knot just off the primary traffic path away
from landing shuttles.  The 1720 shuttle had landed a few minutes ago,
and would begin disgorging passengers shortly.

The four men standing behind Hurran were chafing visibly, not
accustomed to waiting for action.  They were used to seizing upon
violence when the mood overtook them.  "Cor, Hurran, when are they
gettin' off that damn shuttle?" said another one.

"I told you, hold on.  They should start releasing passengers any 
minute."  He paused and looked up, suddenly alert.  "Wait," he held
up his hand with the palm toward the ruffians.  The shuttle's ramp
had descended, and the first passengers were starting to walk or
roll down.

"Ok, any moment now.  Remember your parts, I don't want any screw-ups.  
The girl gets hurt, and I'll do the same to you.  Remember where you're 
going," he snarled over his shoulder at his coterie of thugs.

A small crowd of people had gathered by the door where passengers would 
enter, waiting to greet returning relatives or business partners.  The 
five men walked forward and attempted to blend into the crowd.  They
nearly doubled its size, reducing the effectiveness of any attempts at
blending.

Belah and Jura came down the ramp, and Hurran tensed slightly.  He 
hadn't been expecting an escort, but wasn't put off by it.  His orders 
were to get the girl; no one had made any statements about the health of
anyone else coming off the shuttle.  He thought to himself, you just
bought yourself a one-way ticket to hell, boy.

Jura, meanwhile, was on the alert, but he was alert for Belah to
try running off.  He didn't notice the five rough-looking men in the
approaching crowd.  His eyes were fixed on the young woman in front
of him.

He was thus somewhat surprised when the five men rushed forward at Belah.
He hadn't been expecting her to bring an armed guard to escape him, and
found himself growing angry at the lengths she'd go to, just to avoid
paying him their agreed-upon fee.  When she screamed in fear and turned,
he finally realized that his initial impression was mistaken.

Calling upon his misspent youth, he dropped the first assailant with a 
surprise kick to the groin.  The thug curled up in a whimpering
ball on the ground, but that still left four men advancing on his
passenger.  In the slow motion perception of surging adrenaline, he saw
one of the men reach down for his gun, and realized all at once that he'd
foolishly left his sidearm fully constrained inside the white safety cord.

To Jura's surprise, he saw Belah turn with startling speed and lash out
with one of her hands at the one going for his gun.  There was a 
sickening crack, amplified in his heightened state of awareness, as the
ruffian's wrist broke, and he screamed.  His left hand clutched at
the limply dangling right hand, and he curled his body protectively
around the now-useless appendage as he turned away.

Apparently this surprised the toughs as well, who seemed to have a 
moment of flagging morale.  The tallest of them reached down for his beam
gun and trained it on Jura and Belah.  The tableau held for a moment,
until the man called out, "now!"

Belah took the moment, and again moving with surprising speed, threw a
punch at the man holding the gun.  He sidestepped the punch, twisting his
body around, but lost his balance for a moment.  His gun discharged with
a whine, a faint blue beam knocking a cascade of ceiling material loose.
It clattered to the ground a few meters away.

Belah spun and grabbed Jura by the arm, her grip painfully strong.  She 
tugged him along as she ran to the left, around the large circular wall of
the spaceport terminal.  Jura could hear footsteps following in pursuit
over his own breathing.  He didn't dare look back, sure he'd see a very
unwelcome sight.

They ran for perhaps 20 seconds, ducking into hallways and behind 
pillars, trying to lose their pursuers.  Jura finally risked a
glance back, and failed to see any grim-faced men running after them
with guns drawn.

He suddenly swerved.  "In here!" he whispered urgently, crashing
through a door, tugging her with him.

He quickly closed the door behind them, and discovered he'd led them 
into a maintenance closet.  Cleaning equipment was lined up neatly along
one wall, with cleaning and maintenance robots along the other wall, in 
their charging racks.

"What the fuck was that!?" he hissed loudly after a moment.  His arm 
swept out in the direction they'd just come from.

"It's really too complex to go into right now.  Let's just say I'm not 
your average girl off the street.  I'll tell you later, ok?"  Belah 
indicated his sidearm.  "You might want to unsling that thing, cowboy."

"What?  Oh," replied Jura, again remembering his safety-corded beam gun.
He tugged the complex knots loose, which freed the flap and handle, 
allowing a quick draw.

"You want it?  Seems like you're better at this fighting thing than I 
am," Jura tried not to sound overly hurt or macho, although he was 
ashamed to have been shown up by a girl in a fight.

"No, I'm no good with guns.  You hold on to it.  You can shoot, right?"
She gave him an appraising look.

"Of course I can shoot."  This time he couldn't cover his indignation.

"Good."  She turned to her bag, which she'd somehow managed to hold onto
in the scuffle.  She opened it, and dug through until she found what she
was looking for and pulled it out.  Jura spied something long and 
slender, and a small, rounded oblong object.

"What are those?" he couldn't stop himself from asking.

"Baton and a bolo.  There aren't any safety regulations about these on 
most planets."

"Hold on, you're one of those people?" Jura was looking at her 
incredulously.

"Yes, don't look at me like that.  We don't eat babies or anything."
She smiled a quirky smile.

Jura was referring to the Cabalists, a loose-knit, near-mythical
organization who were rumored to be working for the overthrow
of Lord Uala, the dictator at the head of the Federation of Planets.
The government was a federation in name only, and would be more
properly termed a dictatorship or autocracy.  

Certainly there were numerous groups likely to be plotting overthrow
of the government.  However, the Cabalists were one of those groups most
likely to be successful, if they truly existed.  That was the rumor, in
any case.

Jura had recognized the bolo Belah pulled out, once she'd named the
weapon.  In its most basic form, a bolo was simply two weights tied
together with a length of cord or chain, thrown to entangle the target.
If carefully aimed and thrown with sufficient force, a bolo could remove
appendages, particularly when using strong and thin monofilament line to
join the weights.  The bolo was the Cabalists' trademark weapon, for its
ability to decapitate the target.  It was also obscure and vanishingly
popular as a weapon, since it was very difficult to wield well.  The bolo,
like most unbalanced weapons, was as likely to brain or strangle the
wielder as it was to take down the intended target.

"I know, you're just in a dangerous business.  Was all that innocence 
about space travel just a ruse then?"  Jura's face expressed concern,
and he realized he was actually worried that he'd been so easily duped.

"No, I'd never left the Kalinar system before.  I'd been up off the 
planet a few times, but I'd never been in jumpspace before.  Look, can we
deal with the immediate problem first?"  Belah indicated the door, which
might be the only thing hiding them from the gun-wielding toughs.

"Right, of course.  Is it actually your uncle waiting to meet us,
or..." Jura trailed off, reminded by a sharp look from Belah that
this was a discussion for another time.

"I actually think our best bet may be to hold tight here," said Jura, 
looking around the dim, cramped, but unquestionably thug-free space.

Belah looked about to agree, when a klaxon sounded, and a red light 
started flashing above the robot charging rack.  "What the hell is
that?" she shouted above the noise.

"I think that's a warning to any non-robots in the room that a robot
is about to deploy.  I don't think we have a choice any more!"  He
pointed at one of the cleaning robots, which was clearly going
through a power-up sequence, testing different attachments in turn.
It was not a small robot.  

Trying to remain in the little room as the large robot passed through
would be a distinctly bad idea: its collision-avoidance systems probably
wouldn't be fully functional until it was through the door.  The room
offered only one narrow pathway from the robot's rack to the door,
and there was no way both Jura and Belah could stand out of the way.

Jura reached for the latch, and opened the door.  The cleaning robot 
trundled off its charging stand with a series of clanks, and turned
to face the door.  Belah snatched up her bag just as the robot started
rolling forward, over where it had been sitting.  They both leapt out
the door ahead of the oblivious cleaning machine.

Out in the hallway, a smaller light and klaxon were going, alerting
any passers-by that a robot was about to deploy.  Robots generally
didn't run over sentients, but it was wise to keep clear of them.
Ever since the Robot Wars, robots had been limited in their computing
power, which meant their ability to sense obstacles and avoid them
was necessarily rudimentary.  The larger ones also had to contend with
greater mass, which introduced a further wrinkle for their simple
control computers to deal with.

Jura and Belah stood aside, and the big machine rolled forward and
turned away from them, filling half the hallway.  "Come on!" said Belah,
leading them the opposite direction from the robot.  They rounded the
next corner at a jog, which put them in view of the majority of the
circular port terminal.  Across the circle, the three thugs who were
still in commission walked quickly, having evidently rounded half the
building looking for them.

The two groups spotted each other at about the same time.  Jura
fired off a couple of shots, his gun whining as a faint trail of
sparkling blue ionized air traced a path from his gun to a sudden
explosion of wall material near the opposite group.  A hint of ozone
tainted the air.  They whirled about, and one of the younger thugs
raised his gun, only to have it knocked back down by the taller,
older thug.  They started running across the terminal, knocking
over decorative plants and furniture in their wake.

Belah and Jura, meanwhile, had not been standing still.  After
firing his hastily aimed shots, they'd started sprinting in the
direction they'd been going, which took them towards the terminal
exit.  Hovercabs and cargo handling robots were waiting beyond the
doors.

Hurran and his remaining thugs sprinted after them, curving in an
ellipse, caught between running towards where the two had been, and 
where they were going.  

Belah yanked open the door of a hovercab, and shoved Jura in, following 
a moment later, tossing her bag in just before herself.  "GO!" she 
yelled at the driver, a tall Kithree.  The driver's blue skin darkened, 
and he mewled, "There is no reason to shout."

"Go now!" shouted Belah again.  The Kithree darkened again, but
didn't say anything.  The hovercab jolted forward as the alien
increased power to the gravitics.  Five one-lord coins tumbled into
the seat beside him from passenger compartment, and suddenly the
cab was moving noticeably faster.  The Kithree's skin lightened a
shade.

After driving away from the spaceport for half a minute, the driver
looked back and asked, "Where are you going?" in his singsong voice.
His huge dark red eyes took in the two of them for a moment, before he
looked back at the road.

Belah looked at Jura helplessly.  "Where can we go?"  Jura looked back
at her incredulously, and pointed at himself as if to say, "You're
asking me?"

Jura looked up at the Kithree, then back down at Belah.  He started, 
"Do you have any, uh... offices, um, we could go to?"  He tried to
describe a house with his hands, which came across as a random,
meaningless fluttering.

"I don't know..."  Belah looked down, then brightened.  "Oh, my
uncle would know.  Hold on."  She tapped a code into her communicator.

"Hello uncle.  Yes, I'm sorry we didn't meet you, we ran into, um,
ticket trouble on the shuttle, and we only just got off.  Can we
meet you somewhere else?  Ok, yes."  She paused, listening to the
comm's whisper.  

"That's where?  In sector YY78 of Jury City?" She nodded at the
Kithree, who seemed to understand the gesture.  "Yes, we'll meet
you there in...  How long does it take to get to YY78 from here?"
The Kithree didn't immediately respond.  "Well, however long it
takes from the spaceport.  Yes, see you there."  She cut the
connection.

She looked over at Jura, her face shining with triumph.  "It's all
going to work out fine," she said.

"Yeah, no one told me we'd be running into any 'ticketing trouble,'"
he said darkly.  He was plainly having no part in her exultation.

"Don't worry about it.  We got out fine, didn't we?"  She patted her bag
unconsciously, assuring herself that the baton and bolo she'd pulled
out in the maintenance closet were safely back in their hidden pockets.

"Yes.  We'll discuss this further."  Jura crossed his arms and looked 
out the window at the passing city, gaudily lit despite the dark sky.

CHAPTER 13

The hovercab pulled up in front of a block of apartments.  "Have an 
excellent night, and may Balle lay his blessings upon you," said the 
hovercab driver as Jura and Belah stepped out into the rain which
had started falling.

"Thanks," said Jura, leaning back down to the driver's window.  "What do
we owe you?"

"Five lords will be quite sufficient, thank you sir," said the Kithree,
nodding his head.  His skin had returned to its light-blue tone.
The hovercab slid off into the night, and Jura and Belah looked at each
other in the glow of the city's lights.

"Now what do we do?" asked Jura.  "Where did your 'uncle' want to meet 
us?"  The scorn in Jura's voice as he said the word "uncle" lacked
any subtlety.

"He said he'd meet us at the Loper's Arms.  It's a pub near here.  
Should be," she consulted her comm, which showed a brightly colored map.
"That way."  She pointed off to the left.

They walked in the indicated direction.  "Which way are we heading?"  
Jura indicated Belah's comm, which was still showing the map.

"North," she replied.  "Just a couple of blocks more, up near that 
plasma recharge station," she pointed at a brightly lit automated
business, where a lone hovercar was hooked into a charging umbilical.

They walked for a few more minutes.  Jura enjoyed the feel of the light 
rain on his face.  He considered asking if Belah wanted help carrying 
her bag, but reconsidered before actually vocalizing the thought.  His 
mood was considerably improved, now that the immediate danger seemed 
past.

"This isn't such a bad place.  I've never been to Borot III before," 
said Jura.  "First time I've seen a Kithree cab driver, too."

He looked over at Belah, who was walking alongside him.  To his 
surprise, her face was contorted with silent tears.  He started, the
sudden contrast between his improving mood and her declining mood
coming as a surprise.

"Hey, what's wrong?  We seem to be safe now," his voice was concerned.
He suppressed an urge to put his arm around her shoulder.

"Nothing."  She straighted up and sniffed, trying to wipe the look off 
her face, but not succeeding very well.

"How old are you, anyway?" asked Jura.

"I just turned 18," said Belah, looking up at him, her hastily-wiped
tears still partially streaking her cheeks.  "I actually turned 18
somewhere in jumpspace, aboard your ship."

"Oh, congratulations on another year," said Jura happily, trying
to lift the mood.  "Soon you'll be a full adult."

"It doesn't matter.  Unless you had designs on me, in which case you can
drop out an airlock."  Belah didn't sound particularly vehement with
her voice cracking from the sudden tears.  She sniffed, looking
down at the ground as they walked.

"Nothing of the sort."  Jura's face dropped at Belah's accusation.
"I'm... well, I haven't had a lot of luck with women.  I was just
curious."  He couldn't figure out how to get the conversation back on
track, and let it drop.

After a few moments, they reached the Loper's Arms, which turned
out to be a subterranean den, indicated only by a small sign hanging
over the narrow stairway down to the door.  The pair headed down
the stairs and into the pub.

Jura led the way, pushing open the door.  They were greeted by an
overpowering wall of sound and light as soon as the door was cracked
open.  The modest-sized bar was packed.  Five different species
were vying for the title of "most earsplitting" as they jabbered
over the din created by other beings jabbering over the din.  Three
more were inoffensive on the noise front, but provided a great deal of
visual detail.

"Where's your 'uncle?'" shouted Jura over the noise.

"I don't know," came the reply, floating tenuously on the sea of noise.  
Belah wandered in, pressing herself into the mass of beings, looking for
the person she was supposed to meet.

"Maybe we beat him here!" yelled Jura.

"What!?"  Belah cupped a hand over her ear, looking back at him.

"I said, maybe we got here before him," he pointed at his comm, tapping 
the chrono display.  She shrugged and continued pressing through the 
crowd.

Up on a little stage, a trio of musicians thrashed mightily, 
establishing a truly impressive level of sonic background radiation.
They set a high-decibel standard, but somehow the myriad people in the
bar were outdoing them.  Their music could possibly be described as
tonal noise, a sort of white noise performance, but in key.  Jura
found it appealing, but it annoyed him that it was so prominent.

As Jura followed his erstwhile passenger, he discovered they were headed
towards the bar.  They finally got there after many minutes of shoving
past more or less inebriated patrons, and Belah shouted an order for
a surprisingly strong drink at the barman.  Jura followed suit, although
he ordered a softer drink, not wanting to find himself incapacitated when 
it came time to ensure he got his money.

Drink finally in hand, Belah pointed back to indicate the booths along 
the back wall, which were mostly empty.  "Not much of a sitting 
crowd!" she shouted.

Jura just nodded as they pressed themselves towards the row of booths,
drinks in hand.  All around him, a veritable menagerie of hairstyles,
eyestalks, tentacles, antennae and fur moved approximately in time
to the music, which had gained a rhythmic quality over the last few
minutes.  The mix of species was impressive: although racial tensions
were generally low on most worlds, most people preferred the company of
their own race.

They arrived at a booth, and gratefully sat down.  As they sat, the world 
went suddenly silent, and their ears rang from the dramatic transition.

"Oh, they're here to listen to the music!" Jura nearly shouted, 
unaccustomed to the sudden silence.  He dropped his voice as soon as he 
realized how loud he was speaking.

Indeed, it seemed the crowd was there to listen to the musicians, and of
course sitting in a sonically-damped booth wasn't very conducive to that.
It suited the two humans just fine, though.  As Jura's head unclenched
in the relaxing silence, he wondered to himself if the dampers were
permanently on, or whether the proprietor wanted to keep the music
affictionados out of the booths.

"I wonder where your uncle is," said Jura speculatively, as he
looked out at the pressing throng of music fans.  It was odd to see
the crowd pulsing in time to unheard rhythms.  Jura's eye was caught as
a woman danced by their view, just barely clothed, and spinning madly.
She had some kind of streamers attached to her hands or wrists, which
followed her movements mesmerisingly, even in the close crowd.

"I don't know, he said he'd get here shortly after us," returned
Belah, also looking out at the crowd.  "Maybe he's already here, and
just hasn't found us yet."

Jura tore his eyes from the spectacle beyond the invisible barrier.  He
looked back at Belah.  "Seems unlikely.  He'd head for the booths
just like we would, right?"

"Probably.  He should have your money, so I'm sure he'll appreciate the 
sonic damper.  Nothing calls attention to a person like the jangle of 
coins."  She smiled sourly, apparently commenting on the sort of
unprincipled person whose head would be turned by the clink of coinage.

"Oh, I hope he's not bringing it all in coins.  I guess I could live 
with that, but that'll be a heavy load."  Jura's hands described a pile
of something on the table.  Had the pile been composed of coins, it
would indeed have been very heavy to carry.

Belah waved at the imaginary pile on the table.  "I'm sure that's
the least of your worries," she said, wryly.

CHAPTER 14

After 20 minutes in their quiet booth, Belah and Jura were both looking 
nervous, although for different reasons.  Belah felt like going out into
the crowd to see if she could spot her contact, and Jura just felt like 
leaving, to arrange a meeting for later.

Finally, they reached a kind of accord.  They would leave by a 
circuitous route, and look for Belah's uncle.  She described him as 
being in his 40s, about 1.9 meters tall, with close-cropped brown
hair.  In other words, fairly non-descript.

"No other identifying features?" asked Jura.  "No scars?  Is his hair
going grey?  Tattoos?  Nothing?"  He looked incredulous: among his
friends, they strove to outdo each other in creating a distinct visual
impression.  To be plain-looking was on a par with being a wage-slave,
working in an office.  Jura's appearance was comparatively mild among
his group.

"No, he's really plain-looking," said Belah, shaking her head.

"Do you know what he's wearing?"

"No, although I recall he favors a long brown coat in cooler weather.  
Who knows if he'd be wearing it in here, though."  She held her hand 
down about mid-thigh to indicate the coat's length.

"What's his name?  He does have a name, doesn't he?"  Jura tried to keep
the sarcasm from his voice with moderate success.  A long brown coat
did not make a man in any way distinctive.

"Yes, he has a name."  Belah mock-scowled at him.  "His name is
Jorvid, but that's not going to do you much good out there," she nodded 
towards the cacophony beyond the sonic barrier.

"Why don't you try your comm again?"

"I don't think he'll notice it going off in the noise, but I guess it's
worth a try."  She tapped out a code on the device strapped to her
forearm.  It spent a few moments trying to establish a connection before
giving up.  The "no connection" signal flashed, painting her face with
a faint red glow as she looked up, shaking her head.

"I don't think he can hear it," said Belah.  "Let's just head out and 
see what we can see."

They stood up and slid out of the booth.  The sonic onslaught was worse 
than Jura had remembered.  The music seemed to have morphed from tonal
noise into a strong bass thudding overlaid with a cacophony of
inverweaved clips recorded from the news service.  The effect was
remarkably similar to simply having a headache, but the crowd seemed
excited by it.

They slowly wended their way through the press of creatures, each keeping
an eye out for a medium-height man with close-cropped brown hair.
There were several medium-height men in the crowd, and a couple of
close-cropped haircuts, but none of them came together in the right
combination.

Finally, they were standing outside the door.  Their clothes steamed
in the steady rain.  Jura became aware just how warm it'd been inside,
and how pleasant the cool, moist air felt in his lungs.

"Did you see him?" asked Jura.  "I didn't see anyone who matched your 
description."

"No, he wasn't in there.  I'm not sure he could have gotten past both
of us, but I don't know.  I guess we'll have to meet him later."
She shook her head, hair swinging, obviously wondering what could have
happened as she looked down at her comm.

"Look, let's find a place to sleep, alright?  Or at least something to 
eat, I'm getting hungry."  Jura was half-way up the steps to street 
level as he spoke.

"Yeah, alright.  Let me leave a message for uncle Jorvid."  She tapped 
on her comm again, this time entering a textual message, which would be 
stored until he could read it.

Jura looked back at her, then suddenly dashed back down the steps.
"You may not need to leave that message," he said as he quickly
passed her.  His voice was grim.

She looked up from the message as Jura bent down over something on
the ground.  He looked back up at her and said, "is this your uncle
Jorvid?"

She rushed forward and bent down.  "Oh no!" she cried quietly, pulling 
back some clothing to reveal the bloodied face of a middle-aged man.
He'd clearly been badly beaten up, although it was too dark to see much
of him.  He could have had other wounds hidden under clothes.  His
coat were soaked through, suggesting he'd been there for a while.

"Is he dead?" she asked quietly, to herself.  Her hand fluttered near
her mouth, uncertain whether to weep or scream.

"No," the man on the ground croaked, very quietly.  Despite the low
volume, the utterance still startled Belah enough to elicit a yelp as
she jumped back.  He stirred, feebly trying to push himself upright.
He didn't seem to have the strength to do more than breathe.

"They tried," he paused and took in a ragged, bubbling breath.  "Tried 
to kill me.  Belah," his face cracked into a smile, made gruesome by the
blood and bruising.  His right eye was swollen almost shut, and several
of his front teeth were missing.

"What happened to you?" she said, ineffectually tugging at the front
of Jorvid's coat, trying to help him upright.

"No time," he replied, faintly, his head rolling back.  Jura stepped
in and pulled the dying man upright against the concrete wall.
Jorvid winced, the movement grating against some unseen injury.

"Belah," he said, drawing a ragged, bubbling breath.  "They're on
to you.  It's..." he paused again, struggling for air.  He coughed
explosively, twirling gobbets of blood flying from his mouth.
His face contorted in pain.  "Get to... safehouse.  In the Kithree..."
He was looking up at per imploringly.  "Call Nar..." he coughed
again, his face creasing with pain.  "Call Nar..." His eyes opened wide,
and his body stiffened.  With a choking noise, his final breath left him,
and his head slumped down.

Belah bowed her head, and said a prayer silently to herself, touching
his forehead and his chest.  She pulled his eyelids closed.  She
realized that the rain had started falling harder, and in the
distance, sirens were trilling.

Jura grabbed her by the arm and hauled her up.  "There's nothing we can 
do for him now.  The security force is going to be here soon, we'd be 
far better off not being found here.  Let's go, Belah."  He was torn
between remorse for the dead man he couldn't help, and a strong desire
to avoid finding out what Borot's security forces did to murder
suspects.

Belah nodded, and her face contorted again as she tried to hold back the 
tears.  Rain dripped off her face, unheeded.  She grabbed up her
bag, and followed Jura up the stairs with a quick glance back to the
dead man.

As they walked away from the Loper's Arms, the shrill sirens rounded 
the corner.  A pair of black security hovercars powered up the
block, their strobes flashing blindingly.  Jura and Belah looked
back, and saw the two cars flare to a halt outside the pub, braking
thrusters complementing the gravitics.  "Just keep walking," said
Jura, turning back to look forward.

They heard the security officers barking to each other as they scanned
the area and set up a control perimeter.  One of them commanded, "Check
down the stairs," and the voices grew fainter.  That was the last Jura
and Belah heard of the investigation, as they rounded the next corner.

CHAPTER 15

"He said, 'Nar, call Nar.'  Who's Nar?" Jura asked.  They were sitting in
the back of another hovercab, headed for the Kithree section of the city.
Belah had recovered somewhat from the shock of seeing Jorvid die, and sat
leaning her head against the side of the cab's passenger compartment, a
blank look on her face.  Jura had been reluctant to break her self-imposed
silence, but he felt it was important to start making some progress.

"I don't know, that name doesn't ring any bells.  I don't know which 
house he means, either, I don't have an address."  She was speaking 
quietly, occasionally glancing up at the cab driver, a sheet-white human
with light blue eyes.

The city passed by them, glistening with rain and bright advertising 
light shows.  At some point, some kind of invisible social boundary was 
crossed, and all the pedestrians they saw were tall blue Kithree, with 
their large reddish eyes and curious, double-kneed gait.  The Kithree
were dressed in a wild array of fashions, ranging from somber grey
robes to extravagant, brightly-colored suits with odd protuberances.
They didn't seem to take any notice of the light rain which was still
falling.

"Right, this is about the center of the Kithree district.  That'll be 3 
lords and seventy," said the pale driver.  Belah handed over four coins,
muttering "keep the change" distractedly as she got out.  She had already
forgotten about the existence of the hovercab.  The driver looked after
her for a moment, and sneered.  He gunned the gravitics in his cab
and sped off into the night.

They'd landed in a business district, heavily trafficked by Kithree
on foot.  The signs proclaiming each shop and business had odd blank
sections.  There would be a half of the sign in a bright range of colors,
and half the sign which appeared comparatively black.  If they looked
hard, they could see the dark section of each sign glowed a nearly
invisible red, depicting strange indistinct characters composed of swirls
and curlicues.

Hundreds of Kithree walked by on the sidewalk, their speech nearly
inaudible, tickling at the humans' necks.  Jura and Belah looked
at each other for a moment, then started walking, mingling with the
tall blue crowd.  They weren't the only humans, but they were
definitely in the minority.  Fortunately, Kithree were both tolerant
and peaceful.  There was very little danger in walking through this
district, compared to some of the non-human neighborhoods they could
be walking in.

"We have to get to a Library terminal," said Belah all of a sudden,
surprising Jura.

"Why?"  He shot her a look, trying to decide if she had snapped or had
some ligitimate, sudden hunger for knowledge.

She didn't look as if she'd snapped.  She looked over at him with a
burning intensity in her eyes.  "I can look up Nar, maybe.  It's
also possible I can look up other members," she looked as if she'd
been about to say more, but had changed her mind.

"Look up other members?" Jura asked incredulously.  "They're not going
to list their affiliation in the directory, are they?"  The thought
of members of a secret, near-mythical organization, committed to the
downfall of the government, listing "Cabalist" next to their name in a
city directory made him actually bark a short, derisive laugh.  He put
his hand over his mouth, and looked over at Belah, wondering whether
he'd offended her.

She didn't seem to have noticed.  "No, of course not.  But I may be able
to spot some familiar names."  Belah avoided Jura's eyes, although she
still had an intense look about her.

"Are you kidding?  In a city of, what, 8, 10 million beings?  That's 
madness."  Jura spread his arms to encompass Jury City, a city large
enough that it was plainly visible from orbit.

"Look, just let me try, alright?"  She looked back up at him, almost
daring him to challenge her.

Jura gave up.  "Sure, whatever you like.  I think I see a Library
sign up ahead, let's cross the street."  Jura indicated a block
ahead and across the street, where a sign with a familiar logo
hung.  They waited until there was a lull in traffic and darted to
the far side, splashing across the momentarily empty pavement.

They reached the booth, and Belah said, "Ok, give me a minute," as
she slipped into the extra-tall booth.  It was plainly designed for
Kithree, so the controls were nearly at face-level for Belah even
once she'd climbed up into the seat.  She looked up at the display,
which was showing a rotating Library logo in faint red 3D.

"I hope there's an option for visible light," said Jura.  He smirked,
obviously thinking this was a fool's quest in any case.

"I'm sure there is.  Do you mind?"  Belah leaned forward and tugged
the thick privacy curtain closed, leaving Jura to either examine
the crowd or watch Belah's feet dangling below the curtain.

So, Jura spent 5 minutes glancing around the crowd, trying vainly to 
make any sense of the Kithree language.  It seemed to be mostly composed
of little squeaks that he could hear, although he knew from prior 
experience that a lot of their verbal communication happened above human 
hearing range.  Their vision was also primarily sensitive in the 
infrared, which explained the signs with dully-glowing red sections.  
The signs must be just the opposite to the Kithree, with the human-visible 
sections glowing dully blue, and the dull-red sections appearing bright 
and vivid.

Jura's stomach rumbled, reminding him that he was hungry.  We're really
in the wrong part of town for human food, thought Jura to himself.
Kithree were insectivores, making them a gastronomical minority in the
galaxy.  Unfortunately, it made Kithree food particularly uninviting:
they weren't too careful to keep the bugs out of any human-style food
which might be served.  Jura's stomach grumbled again as he thought about
a nice hot sandwich, completely devoid of insect life.  He also realized
for the first time how cold he was, standing in the rain, in the dark,
with the temperature slowly dropping in the Borot evening.  He was
dressed for indoors, as he hadn't planned on going beyond the space
port terminal, much less being chased out of it by armed thugs.

"Got it!" cried Belah from the booth.  She slid back the curtain with a 
clatter, and pointed at a dot glowing on the map her comm was 
displaying.  "We're about ten blocks from the.. house."  She slid down 
from the tall seat with a smile on her face. "Then you can get your 
money, and I can go about my business."

"Sounds good to me.  Do they have food there, too?"  His stomach
grumbled again, as if on cue.

"I'm sure they do.  It's in the low-rent section of the Kithree 
district, which is ironically populated mostly with humans.  We should 
be able to find something there."  She picked up her bag and walked down
the street the way they'd come with a new spring in her step.  Jura
hurried to keep up with her.

"Did you find this Nar person?" he asked after they'd walked for a 
minute.  The rain was slowly subsiding as they walked.

"No, there are too many people with names which are or start with Nar.  
There must have been thousands of them."  Her eyes roved over the city,
looking for their goal.

"How did you find the house?"  Jura asked, after a pause.

"I found a name and took down the address."  Her answer struck Jura as
being non-committal.

"Uh-huh."  Jura restrained himself from actually making the
finger-spinning "I think you're crazy" gesture.

Belah looked over at him sharply.  She could evidently sense the
gesture, whether he actually made it or not.  "You don't have to
follow me if you don't want to.  Oh, but I forgot, how would you
get your cash, then?"  Her voice started out sweet, but ended up
dripping with mock sweetness.

"I noticed you've been pretty free with your lord coins."  Jura arched
his eyebrow at her at the mention of money.

"Petty cash does not four hundred lords make.  A girl's got to have 
reserves too, you know."  She smiled slyly at him.

"I'm sure."  Jura tossed up his head, a smirk playing across his face.

They walked on in silence.  A minute later, they passed another
social boundary, and the buildings started to look considerably
more dingy and run down.  The crowd also thinned out and shifted from
being mostly Kithree to being mostly human.  Jura felt his alert level
creeping up.  Humans were neither tolerant nor peaceful, particularly
those living in low-rent districts.

"Apparently, this area used to be very prosperous, until the Robot 
Wars," said Belah, her head twisting to look around like a tourist.

"How do you know that?  And quit gawking, you're going to get us 
mugged."  Jura was on full alert now, considering whether he should
loosen his gun's safety cord or not.

"The Library had a little history section on this area," returned
Belah nonchalantly.  "I flipped through it quickly looking to see
if there was anything relevant."  She stopped looking around so
obviously, but Jura could see that her eyes were still working over
the buildings and the sporadic pedestrian population.

As they walked, Belah consulted her comm's display again.  She looked
up at Jura and said, "This is it," as she drew to a halt.  She waved up
at the tall building she'd stopped in front of, which had a smattering
of windows lit up.

Jura looked back at her and said, "Great.  What do we do now?"

Rather than respoding, she walked over to the little intercom panel
set into the wall beside the door.  She ran her finger down the
names, and picked one, tapping the button next to it.  After a
moment, the intercom crackled, and a voice said, "Sgrei residence," a
little tremulously.

"I was wondering if I could interest you in a subscription to the Core 
Times," said Belah.  Jura raised his eyebrows.  He kept his mouth
closed, although a number of snide responses were percolating below the
surface.

"I'm sorry, we already subscribe to the Daily Homeworld," replied the 
tinny voice.  Jura got the impression this Sgrei person was an elderly
woman.

"If I could just come up and show you some samples," said Belah in 
response.

The voice hesitated, then said, "Well, alright.  But I can't promise
anything."   The speaker emitted a quiet blue tone, and Belah tugged
open the door.  "Let's go," she said, waving Jura in with her head.

"Code?" asked Jura, nodding back at the intercom.

Belah rolled her eyes.  "What do you think, genius?"

"Right."

The building's entrance hall was simple and utilitarian, suggesting
this was one of the many subsidized buildings the federal government
helped keep up.  As usual, the government's money was either late or
waylaid, leaving the building to suffer.  The entrance area had
obviously seen better days.

They waited a surprisingly long time for the lift to come.  Eventually,
with an overly dramatic spate of rattling and groaning, it creaked open
and admitted them.  Belah punched the button for floor 12.  The lift
lurched, then started slowly climbing.  It made a deep grinding noise,
suggesting the mechanism had been left without lubrication for far too long.

"Classy," said Jura, looking about the small moving chamber.  "This lift
is older than my ship, to judge by the... paint," he said, poking at
a curl of paint flaking off the wall.

"Don't knock it," said Belah, casting a sidelong glance at him.
"We're out of the rain, and you'll probably get some food and a pile
of cash."

Jura nodded his assent, silently admitting that she was right.

After what seemed like an eternity, the lift shuddered to a stop.
The door trundled open to reveal a poorly-lit hallway, with a large
number 12 was painted on the wall in a blocky font.  The painted number
had clearly once been an attempt at style, but now just seemed to show
a depressingly industrial ethic.

They stepped out onto the floor, which crunched and popped with random
debris: food wrappers, drug paraphernalia, broken devices, building
materials which had apparently fallen down.  It was mostly swept to the
sides by passing feet.  They could hear some kind of music echoing
down the hall, doubtless playing through one of the inexpensive radios
available for a lord or two in markets.

Overhead, lights flickered and buzzed, casting a jaundiced light on the
pair as they walked down the hallway.  The walls themselves were streaked
with water stains.  Dirty green paint peeled to reveal grey concrete
underneath.  Occasionally a chunk had been blown out of the wall somehow,
either by weapon discharge, impact, or poor quality materials.  Plainly no
one was paying any money or attention to upkeep here.  Jura found himself
wondering what rent would be on one of these elevated hovels.

Belah stopped in front of a door marked 1245.  "We're here.  Just let
me do the talking, ok?"  She looked back at Jura, making sure he'd
heard her.

"Sure, you do the talking.  I just want my money, and I'll get out of 
your hair."  Jura was still absently looking around the hallway.

She knocked on the door, a complex series of double and triple raps.  
The door reverberated with a few raps in response, and she tapped twice.
The door swung open to reveal an old woman, perhaps 75, her white hair
swept up into a gravity defying hairdo.

"Oh, why Ms. Gallen!  I didn't expect to have you knocking on my door!" 
exclaimed the old woman.  "Is anything wrong?  You should have been off 
Borot III by now."  She looked over at Jura, apparently seeing him for
the first time.  "And who is this?"

"I'm alright.  This is Jura, he's the pilot who got me here, and we owe 
him 400 lords for the trip.  Jorvid is dead.  We're both quite hungry, 
have you got any food?"  Belah said all this at a rapid pace, so fast 
that Jura almost didn't catch all her words.  He couldn't tell if she
was trying to get it over with, or wanted to make a report as
efficiently as possible.  It was a stark change from her mood just a
moment ago.

The old woman ushered them into the main room and closed the door.
The room was furnished with a small table, several simple plastic chairs
and a tattered sitting-bench.  Jura selected a likely looking spot on
the bench and sank down, exhaling expressively.  Belah remained standing,
plainly somewhat agitated.

The old woman looked over at Jura and said, "Mr. Jura, you can call me 
Ms. Sgrei."

"Thank you Ms. Sgrei, nice to meet you."  Jura felt like he was 13, being
introduced to someone's grandmother.  "But it's just Jura.  My last name
is Cortan, but most people just call me Jura."

"Oh, that's a lovely name," said the old woman, smiling at him.
"Where does it come from?"

"That's the name of the state orphanage where I was raised.  No one 
knows who my parents were, so I took the name of the orphanage,"
replied Jura matter-of-factly.

"Well, isn't that nice," she replied, staring at Jura somewhat 
myopically.  Jura fixed her with a strained and surprised smile in
response.  That was the first time anyone had referred to his being
raised in a state orphanage as being "nice."  Jura wondered whether
she'd understood what he had just said.

"Ms. Sgrei, Jura would like to be paid, so that he can leave.  Do you 
have 400 lords we can give him?"  Belah's voice betrayed tiredness.

"Oh my, no," she replied, her voice dropping as if to suggest that
such a thing was nearly unthinkable.  "My funds were depleted in the
Sonerai incident last week, I've only got a few lords left."

At this point, a small panel near the door buzzed.  "Excuse me," said 
Ms. Sgrei, and went over to it.

"Sgrei residence," she said, after tapping a button on the panel.
"This is the Jury City security force, officer Nalla speaking.  We need
to ask you a few questions, Ms. Sgrei.  Please open the door."

"Oh yes, just a moment, officer," the old woman had let a distinct
waver enter her voice, making her sound older than she was.  Ms. Sgrei
motioned sharply for the other two to head for the door and move quickly.
"Just let me get properly dressed, officer.  I won't be but a minute.
It wouldn't be proper to receive you dressed like this," she clicked
off the intercom without pressing the button which would open the
front entrance.

In a surprisingly intense and sharp voice, she said, "You've got at least
3 minutes before they can open the door and get up here in the lift.
Go!"  The intercom panel buzzed again, insistently.  Ms. Sgrei whipped
her head around with startling speed, rattling out, "Stairs are left of
the lift.  Go, now!"  She composed herself, and jabbed the button again.
"Yes?" she said in her quavering voice.

As Jura and Belah dashed out the door, they heard the intercom
relaying a tinny voice: "Don't force me to invoke the building's
security override, Ms.  Sgrei.  Please open the door and this will go
much smoother."  Then they were too far down the hallway to make out
the old woman's response.

CHAPTER 16

"Why don't they put windows in these doors?" hissed Jura.  They were 
standing at the ground-floor door of the dingy and poorly-lit stairwell,
breathing hard from their rapid descent.  Jura's stomach growled again.
He glanced down at his midsection as if to say, "And you're not helping!"

"I don't know.  Maybe because we're in a slum, and that would cost 
money?  I'm amazed they get doors," replied Belah, waving at the
peeling paint and cracked walls.

"I wish we could just change our faces and waltz out there."  Jura paused,
struck by something.  "Wait, you have a disguise in there, right?"
Jura pointed at Belah's bag, which was starting to look abused.

"Yes, but that doesn't help us," she scowled.  "I only have the one,
and for all we know, they're looking for you and not me.  You're the
one who fired those shots in the spaceport terminal."

"True," said Jura.  He paused, thoughtfully.  "I wonder if we could go 
up a floor and get out through a window.  They're not going to be 
looking for us on the 1st floor, right?"

"Who knows?  I don't even know if they posted a guard out there.
Maybe we could just walk out without anyone noticing."  Belah's voice
was starting to betray tones of exasperation.

"True again.  Hmm."  Jura considered.  "Ah, I've got it.  Hit that light
switch there."  Jura pointed at a switch set in the wall near the
door, and Belah moved over to the switch and pressed it.  The lights
in the stairwell went out, leaving dim safety lights showing on the landing
above them.

"Ok, stand back," said Jura, motioning Belah back, away from the door.
"I'm just going to peek through the door, and see what I can see."
Jura eased the door latch open, and slowly pulled back the door.  It made
a groaning creak which Jura was certain must be audible for blocks, but
when he peered out through the crack, no one was looking his direction.

"Right," he whispered, looking back at Belah.  "There are two guards
posted."  He looked back through the crack he'd opened.  "They're just
regular security troops.  They're talking to each other.  Looks like
they're bored.  There may be more I can't see."  Jura looked back
at Belah.

"Let me see," she said, pushing forward.

She grabbed the door, careful not to move it, lest it creak more, and 
pressed her face up to the crack.  After a moment, she pulled her head 
back.

"I don't think we can get out that way.  There's a huge area of the
entrance we can't see.  If it were just the two of them, I'd say 
shoot 'em and take off, but we can't be sure."  She made shooting
motions with her hands, index fingers extended.

"Let's try the first floor, then," said Jura.  "We can probably find
a window, and maybe there's a safety ladder we could climb down,
or something soft we could jump onto."  He eased the door closed.
It emanated another groaning creak.

She nodded, and they tiptoed back up the stairs to the next door.  It 
was locked.  "Fuck!" exclaimed Jura, in a savage whisper.

"You could blow it open," suggested Belah, waving at Jura's gun.

"Sure, or I could melt it permanently closed," he replied, his voice awash
in sarcasm.  "That would be real helpful.  Do you have any explosives in
your little bag of tricks?"  He sounded hopeful, Belah's bag representing
something of a magical artifact from which any variety of assistance
might appear.

"No," she replied, as if the answer should be obvious.  "And anyway,
I think something exploding would likely call attention to ourselves.
Which, I thought, was something we didn't want."

"All right, all right, no need to get testy.  I'll think of something."
Jura stood thoughtfully, looking at nothing as he considered their
options.

"You could overload your gun's pile, that'd cause an explosion."
Belah mimicked a small explosion with her hands, silently saying
"Boom!" with her eyebrows hiked up high.

Jura couldn't tell if she was mocking him, or being serious.  "I think
that counts as a last-ditch measure, and I don't think we're there yet,"
he replied.  "Besides, I don't really like the idea of being showered
with radioactive shrapnel, do you?"

The door latch made a faint scraping noise, and they both went silent.
It was pushed open from the other side, and Jura readied his beam gun,
certain the security troops had found them.  "Consarn it!" exclaimed a 
wavering male voice.  "Someone's put the damned light out again!"

Belah was first to see him, a rickety-looking old man, standing there in
the doorway, blinking at the darkness.  He was dressed in a bathrobe
and slippers, his hair flying in wild wisps from his head.

"Oh, excuse me sir," she said sweetly, pushing past him.  She motioned
to Jura, who hadn't come out of his fighting crouch.  He stood up and
followed her, saying, "Pardon me," as he slid past the old man, into
the dim hallway beyond the door.

CHAPTER 17

At his non-descript desk, the non-descript man with the vivid scar down 
his face picked up his handset again.

"Yes," he said into the device.  He paused.  He switched on the sonic 
barrier again.

"You let her slip by again?  Are you a complete incompetent?  So, now 
she's out and loose in Jury City.  And the local yokels are involved?
You are an idiot.  I don't know why I give you tasks you obviously can't
handle, like capturing a little girl."  His voice was calm as he said
the words, but his face was growing increasingly red.  The scar stood
out like a bolt of white lightning against the ruddy backdrop of his face.

He cut the connection and set the handset down again, with exaggerated
care.  After a moment he picked it up again, and tapped something into
the comm built into his desk.

Several seconds passed.

Then, he said, "Let me speak with Lord Uala."

CHAPTER 18

Jura found another fish bone and picked it off his coat, which was
now looking considerably more spotty and stained than it had been 10
minutes ago.  "That was just lovely, I can't get enough of wallowing
in garbage, Ms. Gallen."  He practically hissed the last two words.
They were walking down the sidewalk, away from the Cabalist safehouse,
and the security forces currently storming the building.  Jura couldn't 
guess how many different reasons they had to avoid security forces
now.

"I didn't know what was in there, but it looked softer than jumping to 
the street.  Just be glad no one had thrown away their razor sharp metal 
scraps today."  Belah's voice was a study in injured innocence.

"I'm sure the safety ladder 10 meters away would have been far too much
work to reach," said Jura, his voice dripping acid.  His clothing was
emananting a distinct scent of yesterday's lunch.  Possibly
several-days-ago's lunch.

"Did you seriously think climbing along that ledge would be safe?  It 
was coming down in chunks."  Belah sounded incredulous, looking over
at Jura for the first time in minutes, a matching expression on her
face.  She didn't smell any better than Jura, so the vitriolic
questioning struck her as a bit unfair.

"We could have found a way into that flat.  Like kicking down the door."
Jura's voice was savage.

"I still think my method worked fine.  We're here, we're whole, and 
we're not in manacles.  I count that a nearly complete success."
Belah turned back to look down the sidewalk with a "humph."

"Fine," said Jura, obviously stewing.  They walked for a half minute
in silence.

Suddenly, Jura stopped and turned to Belah, gripping her arm, with a
fierce and angry look on his face.  "Look," he said, quiet but intense.
"I didn't sign up to be a shadowy freedom fighter.  I'm not here to
topple any governments, or overthrow any dictators, or make people change
their underwear.  I want my 400 lords, and I want to go back to my ship
and get back to hauling cargo.  I don't want to continue getting chased by
glorified Uala Scouts and minor hoodlums.  Particularly not if they're
going to fire ionizing radiation at me and generally try to make me
stop living."

"You did shoot first," said Belah, somewhat reflectively.  She was
pointedly ignoring his angry tone.

"That's not the point," said Jura, his voice full of sudden exasperation.
"The point is, I'm done.  Give me my 400 lords and let me get about
my business."  He was very nearly speaking through clenched teeth to
keep himself from shouting.

Belah's eyes snapped to Jura's.  "Ok, number one, let go of me," she
said, her voice cold.  She looked pointedly at Jura's hand on her arm.
He let it go, his anger subsiding now that he'd said his peace.

"Number two," she continued, in cold angry tones, "I don't have your
money.  I told you that on Kalinar IV.  Jorvid, my uncle, is dead.  If he
had 400 lords to give you, he doesn't any more.  Maybe you'd like to claim
it from the impound locker at the security station?"  She paused for a
split second, then continued without giving Jura a chance to respond,
her voice heating up.

"I didn't think so.  Number three, you have a choice.  If that money
is so important to you, you can stick with me, and I'll get it to you,
one way or another.  If it's not that important, I suggest you hail a
hovercab back to the spaceport," she pointed savagely to her right,
"and see if the quivering shuttle employees will let you back on a
ship after blowing a hole or two in the wall.  My guess is they won't.
What do you think?  The way I see it, you're stuck with me until I can
get you your cash, and you can pay us to smuggle you onto a shuttle."
She smiled a savage smile, daring Jura to question her logic.

Jura remained silent, looking away from her.

"Now, are you going to help me find my people, or not?"  Belah looked
pointedly at Jura, who was looking anywhere but at her.

After a moment, he looked back at her.  "Yes.  Fine. But let's be clear.
I'm not doing this out of any desire to overthrow anyone or any thing.
I'm just doing this to facilitate the completion of our business deal."
The anger was gone from his voice, replaced by resignation.

"Fine.  Let's keep going," Belah replied, her voice returning to
normal tones.  "And maybe less talk about overthrowing anyone, ok?
This is a public street, we don't have any idea who might be listening."
Belah turned back to face the direction they had been going, and resumed
walking.  After a moment of staring after her dumbly, Jura swiped his
hand down his face, and set off after her.

CHAPTER 19

"Two suspects at large in Kithree district.  One male human, 
approximately 1 meter 80, dark red coat, long black hair, medium 
skin.  The other is female human, 1 meter 60, shoulder-length brown 
hair, light skin.  Female is wearing light grey jacket, or possibly 
dirty white jacket.  Suspects should be considered armed.  Deadly force
is authorized if they resist."  The hovercar's comm squawked as the
notice ended.

Officer Eulas of the Jury City security force opened one eye, surveying 
the street for a moment.  Seeing no people matching the description, he 
went back to his eyes-closed, nearly-asleep position.  Moments later, 
Jura and Belah rounded the corner and passed in front of Eulas's
parked hovercar, their pace quickening after they spotted it.

Officer Eulas rolled to the side, trying to get a bit more comfortable 
in the stiffly padded driver's seat.  He swatted idly at a small
insect that was attacking his ear.

His partner, a short Rongan, returned to the cruiser, his prehensile
claws laden with steaming food and drink containers.  The little lizard
looked into the window of the cruiser, rising up on his toes.  "Oh come
on, Eulas!" he cried out, when he saw the overweight human asleep in
the control seat.  The short upright lizard gulped at the air, his
neck-flaps fluttering briefly in annoyance.

Eulas jolted awake, exclaiming, "I'm awake!"  He glanced over and saw
the Rongan's crest in the bottom of the window-frame, and said, "Oh,
it's you, young Karatenal.  Pass in that curry."  Karatenal gave his
neck-flaps a settling flutter, and stepped back as the door was opened
by his partner.

CHAPTER 20

Belah came back into the little room with a curious expression on
her face.

"I have good news, and I have bad news," she said, as she lowered 
herself to the bench.

From the narrow bed, Jura said, "Oh, please, let's hear the bad news 
first.  Then you can cheer me up with the good news."  He didn't look up
or move his arm, which was covering his eyes.

"Alright.  The bad news is that we need to leave Borot III as soon as 
possible."  Belah looked down at her hands as she spoke.

"That doesn't sound all that bad to me," he said, waving his other
arm around to take in the cramped room they'd found for the evening.
It was only horizontally cramped, of course, with plenty of vertical
room for the Kithree who were expected to sleep here.

"It is bad, because of that 'as soon as possible' part.  My contact said
that a security bulletin just went out about us, and any security officer
who sees us is likely to arrest us, and they've been authorized to use
deadly force.  They may be tracking us to this hotel room right now."
She looked up at the lanky man lying on the narrow bed across the small room
from her.

Jura just groaned, then said, "Ok, what's the good news, then?"

"My contact told me who can pay you the remainder of your fee.  
Unfortunately, she's in the Jurrandurchar system, on an orbiting 
station.  You've probably heard of it: the Jurrandurchar Bazaar."

Jura showed his first interest, moving his arm and looking up from
the bed.  "Yeah, I've heard of that," he said, his voice sounding
unexpectedly positive.  "I've been there a couple of times, someone
always has goods which need to go to or from there.  It's a great place
to have a small cargo ship."

"Then you won't mind having to go there to get your money," said Belah, 
with a hopeful tone in her voice.

"I..." Jura paused, then continued.  "No, I don't, but the fee's going up.
Getting to Jurrandurchar isn't free.  I'll need 600 when we get there."

"Wait, 600 more, or 600 total?"  Belah's voice was full of sudden
suspicion.

"Oh, total.  No, just 200 more, it's not that far."  Jura's voice was
concilliatory, not wanting to be misunderstood.

"Ok," said Belah, continuing in a more reasonable tone.  "That's about
what we were figuring.  It'll be there for you."

"Great, let's go!"  Jura sat up, suddenly full of energy.  Borot III
had not been the resounding success he'd been hoping for.

"Not quite so fast," said Belah, holding up a hand.  "I've got a disguise
for myself, but we have to do something with you, unless you want to be
arrested as soon as we show up at the terminal."

"Hmm.  Clothes shouldn't be too hard," Jura said to himself.  He
walked over to the mirror to examine himself.  He struck a pose,
raising one eyebrow rakishly.

"I was thinking about your hair," replied Belah, making a scissors 
motion with her fingers.

"No!"  Jura paled, spinning to look directly at her, rather than her
reflection.

"It'll be a very effective disguise.  You can buy a long black wig if 
you want to preserve the look."

"But, this took me years to grow!  I'll be laughed out of the... the pilot's 
guild."  He didn't want to name the criminal organization for whom he 
did a lot of smuggling, and which made up the bulk of his friends.

"Look, we have to do something, and quickly.  The longer you're running 
around with that braided black telltale down your back, the more likely 
you're going to get picked up.  In any case, it's going to take a day or
two to get you a new ID that'll pass muster with the shuttle people."

Jura thought for a moment, then looked up.  "I've got it.  I'll dress
up like a Roolan pilgrim.  They cover their heads anyway, you can never
tell how much hair they have.  That should be different enough that no
one will spot me, too."

"That's great, but where are you going to get the belts and sashes?  
Those are only made by the Roolan church."  Roolan pilgrims were
famous for wearing a plethora of belts, sashes, medals, necklaces, and
other adornments, each one denoting some part of the pilgrim's path
completed.

"I'll just say it's my first pilgrimmage.  Where do first-time pilgrims 
get them?"

Belah's response was matter-of-fact.  "Good point.  Let's do it."  She
stood up.

CHAPTER 21

Jura located an all-hours religious supply store in the directory.
"Your religious needs, met ANY time!" was the store's tagline in their
directory ad.

"It's perpetually amazing to me what you can find in a large city," he 
remarked upon finding it.  "I bet I could find an all-night pet store 
selling Jundan Dragons, if I wanted.  Or a place to buy a new
spaceship, totally legit."  He shook his head in wonder.

Belah emerged from the 'fresher in her 40 year old persona.  Since she'd
had time, she even applied the wrinkling make-up, for a considerably 
more convincing look.

"That's amazing," said Jura, looking over at her.  "Pity you can't do
me up that way."

"Well, I could give you wrinkles, at least.  Might not be a bad idea, in
case they got a picture of your face.  You have to remember to act 
older, though."

"I think I could do that," he replied, straightening as he tried to
imagine himself 20 years older.  He stooped over after a moment, and
waved an imaginary cane in the air.  "You kids get offa my toola
grass!" he cried in a wavering, toothless voice.

"Ha ha," said Belah.  She motioned him over.  She picked up a bottle
of fluid, and applied it to Jura's face with a deft hand, concentrating
around his eyes and mouth.  She gave him instructions like, "Now squint"
or "Smile, then frown," to determine where the wrinkles should go.
After 10 minutes, he looked 30 years older, in his late 50s.

"I wish I had some hair silver, your black hair looks fake now," she said 
when she was done.

"Where'd you learn to do this?" asked Jura as he looked at himself in 
the mirror.  He turned his head from side to side, admiring the play
of light over his newly-intricate features.

"It's part of my training," she said simply.

"What training is that, exactly?"  Jura looked over at her, curiosity
warring with caution in his eyes.  "Or do I want to know?"

"I think you don't want to know."  Belah smiled.

"Ok.  Let's get out of here.  I'll be considerably happier once I'm back
on my ship."  He stood up from looking in the mirror and grabbed his
jacket, pulling it on.

Actually, Jura did quite want to know what Belah had been trained for,
and what training she'd had.  However, he decided to press for more
information later, when he wasn't expecting the security forces to
break down their door at any moment.

"Now, tuck your hair down your jacket, that'll at least pass casual
scrutiny."  Belah moved behind him and pulled his coat partway down
his shoulders, and dropped the heavy braid between coat and shirt.

Hair successfully tucked out of the way (after doubling it up so it 
didn't stick out the bottom of his jacket), they gathered their things 
up, and quickly left the room.  Jura transferred the room's fee as
they walked out of the hotel, tapping keys on his comm.  A hovercab
was hailed in short order, and Jura gave the driver the address he'd
found for the religious shop.  Belah cut him off, though, and gave an
alternate address.

"Why'd you do that?"  He looked over at her, an angry response
percolating in his head.

Belah's response was calm and collected.  "You'll see when we get there.
We can run one errand first, since it'll take a while to process."

"Oh, right," said Jura, calming down.  He realized that his fake ID didn't
need to have Roolan robes for the costume to be valid.

The trip passed quickly, Jury City flowing by outside the
floating vehicle.  The driver dropped them off in a clean but sparsely
lit neighborhood.  Native Borot trees lined the streets, standing purple
and sinuous against the faintly glowing sky.  Jura was put in mind of
gigantic fruit vines.

Belah glanced at the map she'd pulled up on her comm, and indicated that
they needed to walk up the street a bit.  They walked a few meters,
and she pointed into a doorway.  She rang the intercom, and went through
another verbal code exchange, this time about an article of clothing
left behind after a party.  The door was opened, and they went up.

"Ms. Galen!  So nice to finally meet you!"  A short man with straight,
jaw-length brown hair met them at the door.  He was dressed in simple
business robes, with a tiny Cabalist pin on the left breast.  It would
have been easy to mistake for the Federation symbol, which it closely
mimicked.  He was very prim, his speech clipped, almost formal.

"I am Yidleen, as you know.  This must be Mr. Cortan.  Pleased to meet 
you, Mr. Cortan, we've been learning of your exploits."  The little man 
bustled back into the room.  Jura looked over at Belah and mouthed the 
words, "My exploits?" with an unhappy look on his face.  Belah flapped 
her hands downward, indicating she'd tell him later.

Yidleen indicated a chair, and had Jura sit.  "Now, are you made up as 
you want to be for your ID?"  He bustled around behind Jura, smoothing
the taller man's hair and clothing.

"I'm intending to get Roolan robes, but yes, I'm otherwise alright."
Jura looked back into the prim face of Yidleen.

"Do you want some silver for your hair?  It would complement the 
wrinkles nicely."  Yidleen smiled a little smile, having spotted the
fake wrinkles creasing Jura's face.

"Oh yes, if you have some," said Belah, her eyes lighting up as she
remembered.  "And do you have a small amount I might take with me?"

"Of course, just a moment," said the little man, turning back to Jura.
"Mr. Cortan, please take off your jacket, as it's been in the descriptions
of you on the security bulletins."

While Jura took off his jacket and laid it aside, Yidleen had grabbed up
a small tube of paste and a tiny brush.  "Hold still please," he said.  
He turned to Belah and said, "Do you think a streak, or temples?"
He waved at Jura's long black hair.

"Temples are certainly more believable, but a streak could be a handy 
diversion for the descriptions." She paused, her hand on her chin,
pondering as she looked down at Jura's hair.  "I think a streak," Belah
said after a moment.  Yidleen nodded, and quickly unbraided Jura's
laser-straight hair.

"Now, Mr. Cortan," said the little man as he started brushing paste through 
Jura's hair.  "This color is somewhat permanent, in that it can only be 
removed with the neutralizer, which I'll give you in a moment.  This will 
allow you to live with a streak for a considerable amount of time, if 
necessary.  Just see that you don't get any of this on your clothing --
it can't be removed from non-protein fibers.  It'll dry in a few seconds,
after which the color is indistinguishable from normal hair except in a
forensics lab.  I trust you won't wind up with any parts in a forensics
lab, Mr. Cortan?"  Yidleen's face crinkled into a smile as he finished
brushing the substance onto Jura's hair.

When Yidleen was done, Jura stood up, and walked over to a mirror
indicated by the shorter man.  He looked in at himself.  A streak of
light silver hair sprouted near the front of his head, running all the
way to the tips of his hair.  Jura grinned, feeling the false wrinkles
stretching out on his face, as he turned his head side to side, to admire
the strange-looking face staring back at him.  "Excellent, the effect
is powerful, isn't it."

"Indeed it is.  I think Ms. Galen called it correctly.  Now, if you will
sit over here, Mr. Cortan."  The prim little man waved at a low chair
surrounded by the glittering sensors of a 3D recorder.  "I suggest you
leave your hair down and unbraided.  Please sit still.  Just move
the streak a bit to the front... Ah, there, perfect."  Yidleen operated
the controls of the 3D recorder, capturing an image of Jura's faintly
smiling face.

"How is this, Mr. Cortan?"  The small man turned a projection to face 
Jura.  It showed an old man with long black hair, and a silver streak 
just right of the center of his forehead.

"Frightening," he conceded.  He wondered if he'd look like that at 55.

"I think it will work well."  Yidleen started bustling around,
and generally giving the impression that he needed to be left alone.
"I'll get to work on your new ID right away.  With any luck, I can get
the Library updated before tonight's push to other systems.  If you will
please excuse me," the prim little man motioned them out of hte room.
"I have a great deal of work to do very quickly.  Mr. Cortan, I will
supply you with a detailed backstory when I see you again tomorrow."

Yidleen pushed them politely out of the room, and through the door.
Belah tossed back a few thank-yous as they left.

"Now what," said Jura, as they stood outside Yidleen's building.  The
air was crisp and cool.  The rain, which had let off, had left the
world smelling clean.  Jura inhaled deeply.

"We wait.  Any business you need to take care of which doesn't require 
you to be Jura Cortan, young man of mystery?"

"I guess I could order resupply for the ship.  It'll be three more days 
to Jurrandurchar at least."  He paused.  "Speaking of resupply, I still 
haven't eaten anything.  Let's find some food that isn't alive, and eat 
it."

CHAPTER 22

The day passed more or less without incident.  Jura was able to order 
fresh supplies for the ship, and he found the Roolan robes at a
religious supply, making a fairly convincing show of piety to the shop
owner.  Finally the hour arrived to retrieve his new ID.  They took a
hovercab to Yidleen's building, several packages in tow.

"How do you like it, Mr. Cortan?"  Yidleen smiled, then corrected
himself, "I mean, Mr. Tschan?  You looked a little Mithrian in the
picture, so I gave you a matching name.  Here is your backstory."
He transferred a document of several pages to Jura's comm.  "I suggest
you commit it to memory, then destroy that copy."  He waggled his
finger at Jura and said, "it's no good having someone find your
history summarized in a little document!"

Jura thanked him, and asked what he owed.  "Ah no, Mr. Tschan.  There is
no charge for now.  We may call upon you later."  The little man smiled 
twinklingly at the two, nodded his head, and gently closed the door.

Jura stood speechless before the door, his response dead on his lips.
He realized he'd been set up, after a fashion.  His face darkened.

"Oh come on, Jura, it's not that bad," said Belah.  She was smiling 
sweetly.

"You mean the way I wouldn't have owed anyone if I'd told you to