"So what was the kid doing with all those passports and IDs?" asked Cole.

He and the Octopus were sitting in the Duke’s private office. Val stood just outside the door to make sure no one interrupted them, and if anyone had been considering it, the look on her face instantly dissuaded them.

"He was on a mission for me," said the Octopus, puffing on a smokeless cigar. "As good as those forgeries were, someone saw through one on Freeport. He’d never have made it if you hadn’t intervened."

"We were happy to be able to take out a couple of the Navy’s ships," said Cole. "The fact that we also saved your son was just an added bonus." He paused. "He sure as hell doesn’t look like any kin of yours."

"The hands," said the Octopus, indicating the six hands growing out of his sides. "Obviously they don’t breed on. I suppose that makes me a freak rather than a mutation." He shrugged. "Just as well for the boy. I put up with a lot of shit about these hands while I was growing up."

"What’s his name?" asked Cole. "I can’t keep on calling him 'the kid’ forever."

"Jonah."

"That’s not a name you hear very often."

"Well, since I’m the Octopus, it had to be a seafaring name. I toyed with Ahab, but he lost his battle with the whale. I figure Jonah faught his whale to a draw, which is fitting and proper. I want a son as powerful and competent as I am, but I acknowledge no one as my superior, not even my own flesh and blood."

"I thought you were taking orders from me," said Cole.

"That is my own choice. If you had insisted, you’d have another war on your hands."

"Good thing you volunteered, then," said Cole, sipping the drink he’d brought with him.

"It’ll be a good fit," replied the Octopus. "You know the Navy and its machinations better than I do, and I know killing and slaughtering at least as well as you do."

"We’re not in the killing and slaughtering business," said Cole, "at least not in the long run. We just want to convince the Navy that it’s less expensive in terms of lives and vessels to stay out of the Frontier."

"Well, it’ll be fun while it lasts."

"You sound like you think it’s going to be over relatively soon," noted Cole.

"Probably."

"I don’t anticipate an easy victory, not against the Navy."

" Neither do I," said the Octopus. "I figure we’ll pick them off one and two at a time until we’ve got them really annoyed, and then one morning the sky is going to be black with Navy ships."

Cole shook his head. "Not while they’re fighting against the Teroni Federation."

"Maybe they’ll decide that five thousand ships can take a day or two off from the war."

"They won’t," said Cole. "But even if they do, we know the Inner Frontier better than they do. We can lead them a merry chase for a month if we have to. And if they split up, we can also lead them into some pretty deadly traps."

"I’d bet you a couple of thousand Maria Theresa dollars or Republic credits on whether or not they come in force, but I’d be betting against my own survival, so I think it’s in my best interest to assume you’re right." He took another puff of his cigar. "You damned well better be, or I’ll haunt you from the grave."

"If I’m wrong," replied Cole, "you won’t have far to look. I’ll be in the next grave."

The Octopus chuckled and poured himself a drink. "I like yon, Wilson Cole. I knew I would from the first second we met."

"I’m kind of fond of you too," said Cole. "Now that that’s over with, tell me about Jonah. What was he doing that he needed all those passports?"

"I sent him into the Republic to learn the schedules of some of the major cruise and cargo lines that serve the Inner Frontier," said the Octopus. "There’s half a dozen rewards out for me, so I couldn’t go myself. I mean, I don’t care what I rigged the passport disks to read, they’d take one look at me and know who I was. So I sent Jonah. His job was to hire on at one of the companies and stick around long enough to get its schedule for the coming year. I’ve got some people who you’d swear are half computer, and they schooled him well."

"I know the type," said Cole, thinking of Christine and Briggs.

"Anyway, as soon as he got what he needed he was to resign—poor health, family emergency, whatever reason he thought they’d buy. I didn’t want him just vanishing, or they’d figure out why he was there and change their schedules."

"That explains one passport," said Cole. "What about all the others?"

"I didn’t want to risk his hiring on at a second company on the same world, so his task was to hit seven or eight more worlds, spend a week or two on each after he hired on, hacked into the computer, and then resigned. If anyone got suspicious, I didn’t want them tracing his movements, so he had a different ID for each world. Finally, when he had everything he needed—we didn’t want to risk his transmitting it via subspace radio—he was to come back to my base." The Octopus grimaced. "Freeport was only his fourth world. Either the passport had a flaw, or their security is a hell of a lot better than the other worlds’. Anyway, whatever he stole is still in his ship. I trust you had the good sense to destroy it?"

"Of course," replied Cole. "We didn’t have time to search the ship very thoroughly, and if there was anything of value in it we sure as hell didn’t want the Republic to get their hands on it."

"Whatever there was is better lost," said the Octopus. "I’m out of the warlord and criminal trade, and into the revolution business."

"We’re not revolting against anyone," said Cole.

"Who the hell do you think owns all the ships we’re going to destroy?" demanded the Octopus.

"The Republic," answered Cole. "But we’re not trying to overthrow their government. We’re just trying to enforce our decree that the Inner Frontier is off-limits to them. Believe me, that’ll be hard enough." He finished his drink. "I want to see your forger as soon as we can arrange it."

"What for?"

"I want him to make up a couple of passports and IDs for me."

"You’re going into the Republic?" asked the Octopus.

Cole nodded. "Yes."

"What the hell for?"

"I’ve got to get into a Navy base and see how they schedule their patrols on the Frontier," answered Cole.

"You can’t cancel them," said the Octopus. "They’re committed to plundering the Frontier."

"No, I can’t cancel them," agreed Cole. "But maybe I can change the schedule enough to send them to where three or four hundred ships are waiting for them."

"I like that idea!" said the Octopus, grinning.

"I thought you might."

Suddenly the grin vanished. "It won’t work. You can’t get away with it."

"Why not? It worked for Jonah. Well, on his first three worlds, anyway."

"Yeah, but he’s a kid who was born on the Inner Frontier; they have no record of him. You’re Wilson Cole, the most wanted man in the Republic. Every spaceport, every customs station, every immigration station has your photo, your fingerprints, your DIM A, your bone structure, everything. My forger is as good as they come, but he can’t control what the Republic’s already got."

"There are ways around it," said Cole. "I entered the Republic twice during the time we were pirates."

"The fact that you did so probably means whatever ruse you tried won’t work again. More to the point, even if you can land on a world, and avoid customs or fake your way through immigration, that’s the easy part. You want to gain access to a Navy base during wartime, and to get into their heavily guarded computer system. How are you going to do that?"

"Just take me to your forger," said Cole.

The Octopus stared at him. "Okay, you thought of all that," he said at last. "And you still think you can get to the computer?"

"Yeah, I think so," said Cole.

"All by yourself?"

"No," answered Cole. "You’re going to help me."