gooseneck in his hand, Brad sucked in a deep breath and
blew it out in a rush. But he didn't say what had leaped into his mind.
Instead he glanced over at the panel's screen.

Altman's ship showed up there--a large, greenish-yellow blip. There were
other small dots on the scope too. As he looked, the large blip coasted
over to one of the dots. The two became one mark on the screen.

"You're picking up my cargo!" Brad shouted.

"The stuff not in orbit around the Fleury ain't yours any longer,
Conally," Altman laughed. "You oughta bone up on your salvage laws."

"You damned scavenger!"

"Now, now, Brad," the other said smoothly. "What would you do if you
were in my position? Would you let top priority cargo slip through to
normal and get lost off the hyperlane? Or would you scoop it up and
bring it in for bonus price?"

"You're not after a bonus," Brad roared into the mike. "You're after a
contract.... Altman, I'll pay two thousand for a ten-minute tow up-arc.
That'll almost wipe out my profit on this haul."

"No sale."

Brad gripped the mike with both hands. "So you're just going to sit
around and pick up cargo droppings!"

"The book says I gotta stick around until you come aboard, until you get
underway on hyperpower, or until there just ain't any more ship or
crew.... Might as well pick up cargo; there's nothing else to do."

"And when I come aboard you'll want to unload the Fleury too, I take
it."

"Wouldn't you?"

* * * * *

Half the spilled crates were in close orbit around the SS Fleury. The
tri-D scope showed that. Brad estimated distances of several of the
objects as he clamped the helmet to the neckring of his suit and
clattered to the pilot compartment airlock.

In the lock he unsnapped the hand propulsor from its bulkhead niche and
clamped it to his wrist plate while the outer hatch swung open and the
lock's air exploded into a void encrusted with a crisscross of vivid,
vari-colored lines. The individual streaks, he estimated, averaged at
least ten degrees in length. That indicated he was a reasonable period
of time away from spillthrough into normal space where the lines would
compress into the myriad normal pinpoints that were stars, undistorted
by hyperspace perspective. When the streaks decreased to four or five
degrees, he reminded himself, that was the time to start worrying about
dropping out the bottom of the trough.

He waited until one of the square,