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He spun on his cleated heel, brought the launcher up and found himself staring at a face he recognized. It was the black-haired man who had appeared in the message tape, the one who was to have met Zlarb. He and another man in armored spacesuits, helmets thrown back, were digging at their sidearms.

But the pistols were held in military-style holsters, built for durability rather than speed. Might just as well have those guns home in a drawer, Han reflected dispassionately as he aimed. Fiolla was screaming something he couldn’t take time to listen to.

Both men realized at the last instant that they couldn’t outshoot him and hurled themselves back, arms covering their faces, just as he fired.

The antipersonnel round was set for close work; the canister went off almost as soon as it left the launcher, boosting the flechettes and filling the passageway with a deafening concussion. The slavers didn’t seem to be hurt, but remained on the deck where they had fallen. Han fired another AP round at them for good luck and, grabbing Fiolla’s elbow, ran for the boat bay. She seemed to be in shock but didn’t fight him. He opened the lock hatch and propelled her through.

“Find a place and grab on!” He found time to bite out a malediction that he had come upon a lifeboat rather than a pinnace or boarding craft.

A blaster beam mewed past him and burned out an illumination strip further down the passageway. Han knelt in the shelter of the lock and cut loose with four more rounds, emptying the launcher at the figures pounding down on him. They all dove for cover but he didn’t think he had gotten any of them.

Closing both hatches, he threw himself into the boat’s pilot’s seat and detonated its separator charges. Unlike the liner’s boats, the raider ship’s were still functioning. With a stupendous jolt the boat was blown from its lock. At the same moment he cut in full thrust and the lifeboat leaped as if it had been kicked.

Han swung hard, relying on steering thrusters alone here where there was no atmosphere to affect the tumbling boat’s control surfaces. He piloted grimly to miss the liner’s hull and looped up to put the bulk of the Lady of Mindor between himself and the slavers’ vessel. Opening the boat’s engine all the way, he vectored on until he was out of cannon range, then plunged toward the surface of Ammund.

He freed one hand from his struggle long enough to fling back his helmet.

“Can we outrun them?” Fiolla asked from the acceleration chair behind him.

“There’s more to it than that,” he said without taking his eyes from the controls. “They can’t come after us until they sound recall and get all their men back from the Lady. And if they want to send boats after us, they’d better have some awfully hot pilots.”

He heard a lurching and, despite the pull of the boat’s dive, Fiolla drew herself up to the copilot’s chair. “Sit down and stay put,” he told her heatedly, if a bit late. “If I’d had to maneuver or decelerate just then, you’d be scraping yourself off the bulkhead!”

She ignored that. He saw something else had so shocked her that she was still feeling the effect of it. Knowing how resilient she was ordinarily, he divided his attention for a moment.

“What’s wrong? Besides the fact that we might be vaporized at any second, I mean.”

“The man you shot at …”

“The black-haired one? He’s the one who left the message I told you about; he was Zlarb’s connection.” He turned to her sharply. “Why?”

“It was Magg,” Fiolla said, the blood drained from her face. “It was my hand-picked personal assistant, Magg.”

IX

IT was early in the morning of Ammuud’s short day when spaceport employees and automata alike stopped work as sirens announced a defense alert. Reinforced domes folded back to reveal emplacements around the port and in the snowy mountains above. For a quiet little spaceport, Ammuud had an impressive array of weaponry.

A boat came out of the sky, catching the light. Its pilot hit the braking thruster, and