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“Just what I need.” She took the sample case from Varian. “Kai, you go on with Fordeliton. I’ll collect you when we’ve analyzed this information.” Mayerd hurried off down the corridor.

“If you’ll come with me,” and Fordeliton gestured in the appropriate direction. “Portside at the next corridor junction, Varian. And that second door . . .”

Varian halted at the door which bore Fordeliton’s nameplate. “I thought we were to see Commander Sassinak.”

“In a manner of speaking, you will. I don’t think we will have missed anything. They’d only just been escorted in when I went to collect you,” he said cryptically as he thumbed the catch on his door and motioned for Varian and Kai to precede him.

For a cruiser his quarters were unusually spacious. One wall contained terminal, displays, and auxiliary controls. The main viewscreen was operational and, to Varian’s surprise, tuned to the commander’s office and the meeting that was in progress.

“No, she’s checking their papers. The commander said she would spin that out indefinitely until I had you here. If you’ll be seated—” and he leaned over to touch a button. “There, she knows you’re here. Yesterday we arrested them for landing illegally on an unopened planet. They protested that they had responded to an emergency distress call and merely homed on the beacon. Sassinak suggested this morning’s meeting to discuss the irregularity. She wanted you both here for obvious reasons.”

Eyes on the screen, Varian felt for the offered chair with fumbling hands. “She’s not in there alone with them, is she?” she asked Fordeliton in a hushed voice, reacting unconsciously to the menace presented by the five heavy-worlders perched implacably in front of Sassinak.

“That’s a stun-wand the commander is handling so casually.” Fordeliton wore an amused expression. “And there’s a group of Wefts in marine uniform just beyond our view plus, of course, the usual sort of escort personnel.”

“Wefts?” Kai was surprised. Wefts were enigmatic shape-changing morphs of unusual abilities. No humanoid of any variety had ever emerged victorious from combat against a Weft.

“Yes, as luck would have it, we’ve six groups with us this tour! The others are inside the transport, strategically deployed. In their own flesh.”

Varian and Kai were both impressed and reassured. Varian released the arms of her chair and glanced quickly at Kai to see that he had cautiously splayed his fingers on his thighs, then she devoted her entire attention to Sassinak’s performance on the screen.

As the commander read through the transport ship’s documentation, she tapped the wand through her fingers repeatedly, mimicking a nervous habit.

Just beyond her desk sat the five heavy-worlders, three men and two women with the massive physiques and broad, almost brutish features of their mutation. They wore soiled ship suits and the wide kidney belts that were the fashion of their kind. The clips and buckles were empty of the usual weaponry and tools. Varian tried to tell herself that the facial expressions were not hostile; it was simply that heavy-worlders were not given to needless gestures or expressions even on planets with considerably less gravity than their own. Unfortunately, she could more clearly remember Paskutti and Tardma deliberately and enjoyably injuring her and Kai and needlessly terrorizing two young girls. She could not muster impartiality or neutral detachment.

“Yes, yes, Captain Cruss,” Sassinak was saying, her voice velvety smooth, and almost unctuous, “your papers do seem to be in order, and one cannot fault your chivalry in diverting to investigate a distress call.”

“It was not a distress call,” Cruss said in a heavy, almost hollow voice. “It was a message sent by homing capsule to the ARCT-10. As I told you when your ship challenged me yesterday, we found the capsule drifting in space. It had been damaged beyond repair. We were able to playback the message. It was sent by Paskutti. The voice pattern matched that of one of our planetary