d. "How did he ... now what do I ..."

She hesitated an instant, then opened a console drawer, took out the
kwil needle Dasinger had left with her and slipped it into a pocket,
clipped the holstered shocker back to her belt, and reached for the
controls. A vast whistling shriek smote the Antares and the ears of
those within as the Mooncat ripped down through atmosphere at an
unatmospheric speed, leveled out smoothly and floated to the ground
beside the wreck.

There was no one in sight in the lock of the Antares as Duomart came out
and sealed the Mooncat's entry behind her. She went quickly up the
broad, mold-covered ramp. The lock remained empty. From beyond it came
the sound of some metallic object being pulled about, a murmur of
voices. Twelve steps from the top, she took out the little gun, ran up
to the lock and into it, bringing the gun up. She had a glimpse of Dr.
Egavine and Quist standing near a rusty bench in the compartment, of
Graylock half into a salvage suit, Dasinger on the floor ... then a
flick of motion to right and left.

The tips of two space lines lashed about her simultaneously, one pinning
her arms to her sides, the other clamping about her ankles and twitching
her legs out from beneath her. She fired twice blindly to the left as
the lines snapped her face down to the floor of the compartment. The
gun was clamped beneath her stretched-out body and useless.

* * * * *

"What made that animal attack me anyway?" Dasinger asked wearily. He had
just regained consciousness and been ordered by Calat to join the others
on a rusted metal bench in the center of the lock compartment; Duomart
to his left, Egavine on his right, Quist on the other side of Egavine.
Calat stood watching them fifteen feet away, holding Dasinger's gun in
one hand while he jiggled a few of Hovig's star hyacinths gently about
in the other.

Calat's expression was cheerful, which made him the exception here. Liu
Taunus and Graylock were down in the hold of the ship, working sturdily
with cutter beams and power hoists to get to the sealed vault and blow
it open. How long they'd been at it, Dasinger didn't know.

"You can thank your double-crossing partner for what happened!" Duomart
informed him. She looked pretty thoroughly mussed up though still
unsubdued. "Graylock's been using the bird-thing to hunt with," she
said. "It's a bloodsucker ... nicks some animal with its claws and the
animal stays