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Except for blind spots caused by Bloodprice and the drag gondola, the towed array could scan several light-hours in every direction. As the outermost of Prakith’s three concentric spheres of defense, the first purpose of the deep patrol was to detect possible military threats long before they could come near the planet. For that reason, the ship’s patrol route took it through the most likely final staging areas for an attack on Prakith, outside the range of its ground-based and orbiting sensors.

But an equally important purpose was to intercept and claim as a prize any merchant or private vessel unwary enough to pass within reach. Ship seizures were not only an obligation, but an opportunity. A rich enough prize could advance the entire crew to a better post. And every deep patrol captain knew stories of other captains who had come home with a prize rich enough to earn the favor of Foga Brill himself.

So when Captain Dogot was called away from his examinations of the new female crew members and saw the size of the contact on the optical displays, he quickly forgave the interruption. “What identification have you made?” he asked, peering over the shoulder of the security master.

“None so far,” said the officer. “The image is too crude, and the target is silent in all spectral bands except the optical.”

“Interrogate the navigation transponder.”

“There is no transponder response at that location.”

“Range?”

“Three-point-eight light-hours—nearly at the limit of detection.”

Captain Dogot weighed the possibilities. A warship of that size would be more than a match for a patrol frigate. He would need reinforcements from the inner fleet. But a freighter of that size would be a prize of the first rank, and one he would much prefer not to share with other captains.

For a brief moment he considered cutting the array adrift, rather than allowing the hour necessary to reel it in. Abandoning the array would ensure that Bloodprice was the first ship to reach the target. But if the contact proved spurious, or the target escaped, the loss of the array—or even any substantial damage to it—would cost him his post, if not his life.

“Bring in the array,” Captain Dogot ordered. “Prepare the ship for hyperspace. Notify patrol command that we are in pursuit of an unidentified contact, vector zero-nine-one, zero-six-six, zero-five-three.”

The navigation master turned at his station. “But, sir, the last coordinate for the contact is zero-five-five.”

“I am sure you are mistaken,” Dogot said evenly. “Communications master, send the message as I instructed. Patrol command will want to send additional ships to support us. Navigation master, what would an error of two degrees over this distance mean?”

“The, uh—the ships would be hours away at sub-light, but too close to safely microjump.” Understanding belatedly came to his eyes, and he glanced down at his console. “Yes, sir, zero-five-three. Thank you for catching my error before it had any undesirable consequences.”

“Sleeping on the job again, I see. Did you know that you snore like a power saw in ironwood?”

Lando’s voice, sharp and clear in the helmet’s comm speakers, startled a dozing Lobot awake. He looked up to find Lando and Artoo back in chamber 21, the portal quickly closing behind them. Lando was holding his helmet under his arm and grinning broadly.

“Lando—what are you doing?”

“Master Lando, have you gone mad?” Threepio demanded in alarm. “You must replace your helmet immediately, or you’ll suffocate!”

“I’ve had it off for most of an hour now,” said Lando. “Didn’t you wonder how anything could burn in. an atmosphere that was ninety percent nitrogen and carbon dioxide?”

“It seems I did not have the necessary data to wonder,” said Lobot. “And I was thinking about other things.”

“Well, the answer is, it can’t,” said Lando. “What I had to find out was whether it was just this room that had been oxygen-enriched.”

“And it apparently wasn’t.”

“No. Something happened while we were sleeping. Every chamber back to number one now has