On the FSP Fleet heavy cruiser Zaid-Dayan

“We have resources they don’t know about,” Sassinak said, and not for the first time. It did not reassure her.

The convivial mood in which Sassinak and Lunzie had first made their plans to combine forces against the planet pirates had long since evaporated. They had been carried by the euphoria following the incredible Thek cathedral which had dispensed right justice to Captain Cruss who had illegally landed a heavyworlder colony transport ship on the planet Ireta, right under the bows of Sassinak’s pursuing cruiser. The Thek conference had elicited considerable fascinating information about the Captain’s superiors. Apart from sorting out the problem of which race “owned” Ireta, the Thek had departed without reference to bringing the perpetrators of planet pirating to a similar justice.

Neither Sassinak nor Lunzie felt they would be lucky enough to obtain more support from the Thelcs, even if that long-lived race were the oldest of the space-faring species. Theks rarely interfered with members of the various ephemeral species that they had discovered over the centuries. Only when, as on Ireta, some ancient plan of their own might be jeopardized would they intervene. As a rule, Thek permitted all their

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client races, from the lizard-like Seti, the shape-changing Wefts, the marine Ssli down to humans, to “dree their ain weirds,” No sooner than the Thek had resolved the matter of Ireta then they had departed, leaving Sassinak and Lunzie with an irresistible challenge: to seek out and destroy those who indulged in the most daring sort of piracy—the rape and pillage of entire planets and the mass enslavement of their legally resident populations. The problems were immense. Sassinak was too experienced a commander to ignore real problems, and Lunzie had seen too many good plans go wrong herself. Lunzie, sprawled comfortably on the white leather cushions in Sassinak’s office, watched her distant ofispring with amusement. She was so young to be so old.

“So are you,” Sassinak retorted.

Lunzie felt herself reddening.

“There’s no such thing as telepathy,” she said. “It’s never been demonstrated under controlled conditions.”

“Twins do it,” Sassinak said. “I read that somewhere. And other close relatives, sometimes. As for you and me . . . nobody knows what that many deepfreezes have done to your brain, and what my life’s done to me. You were thinking I’m young to be so old, and I was thinking exactly the same thing about you. You’re younger than I am ...”

“Which doesn’t give you the right to play boss,” said Lunzie. Then she wished she hadn’t. Sassinak’s fece had hardened . . . and of course to her, she did have the right. She was the captain of her ship, one step below her first star, and she had ten more years of actual, awake, living-experience age.

“I’m sorry,” Lunzie said quickly. “You are older, and you are the boss ... I’m just still adjusting.”

Sassinak’s quick smile almost reassured her. “Same here. But I do have to be the boss on this ship. Even if you are my great-great-great, you don’t know which pipes hold what.”

“Right. Point taken. I will be the good little civilian.” And try, she thought to herself, to adjust to having a distant ofispring not only older than herself but quite a

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bit tougher. She leaned forward, setting her mug down on the table. “What are you thinking of doing?”

“What we need/’ said Sass, frowning at nothing, “is a lot more information. The kind of proof we can bring before the Council meeting, for instance. Take the Diplo problem. Who’s been contacting whom, and whose money paid for that heavyworlder seedship? Which factions of heavyworlders are involved, and do they all know what they’re doing? Then there’s the Paraden family. I have my own reasons to think they’re guilty, root and branch, but no proof. If we could get someone into position, some social connection ...”

Lunzie picked up her mug, gulped down the last of her drink, and tried to ignore the hollow in her belly. Was she about to do something stupid, or brave, or both?

“I ... might be able to help with the Diplo bit.”