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Flamewind had begun, and she was going to miss it.

Born in the Oseon System, she was one of the many who served the few, her function—not terribly different from that of the countless robots that populated the asteroids—spare her masters all possible inconvenience. That this has been the essential task of police officers everywhere in time and space, she was unaware. Her education had been specific and to a point. It had not been noticeably cosmopolitan or analytical.

Her parents, even less well off than she was, had originally immigrated as merchants after passing batteries of examinations, probes into their backgrounds and intentions, studies of their attitudes and goals. Nevertheless, they had not been terribly successful. In the end, she had worked to support them, and by the time it was no longer necessary, what she did for a living had become a habit with her, although not a particularly comfortable one.

Her one relief, her one vacation every year, was Flamewind.

It was a deadly and spectacular time. Brightly colored streamers of gaseous ionization filled the open spaces—a thousand kilometers on average—between floating mountains. Fantastic lightnings blasted from rock to rock. The seven belts of the Oseon fluoresced madly.

Radiation, static discharges, and swirling, colored fogs distorted navigational references, drove instruments and men alike insane. All interasteroidal commerce was grounded by law for the duration, averaging three weeks, to protect would-be sojourners from their own folly. The sleet of particles that lashed the system was only one opportunity for misadventure and destruction. Communications of any sort between the asteroids or with the rest of the galaxy were physically impossible, blotted out by wailing electrons.

No one went anywhere. Or wanted to.

And there were spooky stories of a less scientifically verifiable nature that circulated every year during Flamewind. Legendary disappearances, ominous apparitions, phenomena of the oddest, ghastliest, most relishably gossipable sort.

Yet—or consequently—tourists flocked to the Oseon just before the cataclysmic display. It had become a carnival of continuous parties, public and private, unceasing gaiety. Hundreds of different intelligent species intermingled from a million systems, giving some meaning and adventure to the otherwise humdrum life of a small-town girl.

Like Bassi Vobah.

And now this. Aside from the arrest itself and the keyboard-work it engendered, there were the impoundment documents, to be completed in nanolicate, it seemed. This Lando Calrissian, a wandering tramp who hadn’t filled out so much as a single visa form, had so far collected one hundred seventy-three thousand credits from his betters (and hers) without lifting a finger to do any honest work. That had been confiscated, of course, and, whether he was ultimately found innocent or guilty, would go to pay the expenses he’d imposed on the administrative services of the Oseon.

That much money would have supported half a hundred families like Bassi Vobah’s for a year. It was simply indecent for an individual to gain so much so easily. At least justice reached a long arm out to punish evil-doers sometimes. This was one occasion when her job generated a great deal of satisfaction.

And then there was the broken-down smuggling vessel he claimed was a freighter. That was worth fifteen or twenty thousand. If she could think of additional appropriate charges, the ship would go on auction to pay for them. Also that pilot/repair droid. It was worth considerably more than the ship and would have a much more enthusiastic market in the Oseon. Mark it down at fifty thousand credits.

Incidental personal items of property, worthless—and, of course, the murder weapon. No, she wasn’t legally justified calling it that. Yet. The confiscated stingbeam, then. It would make a nice addition to her tiny department’s “museum.” Such killings didn’t happen often in the fat, complacent community she served. It would make an interesting story to tell.

But that scarcely made up for