Spaceport umbilical hoses were jacked into sockets on her lower hull, supplying basic utility functions. Another expense Marcus wished he could avoid; it was inflicting further pain on his already ailing cash flow situation. They were going to have to fly soon, and fate seemed to have decided what flight it would be. That hadn't stopped his intuition from maintaining its subliminal assault on Antonio Ribeiro's scheme. If he could just find a single practical or logical argument against it . . .

He waited patiently while the crew drifted into the main lounge in life-support capsule A. Wai Choi, the spaceplane pilot, came down through the ceiling hatch and used a stikpad to anchor her shoes to the decking. She gave Marcus a sly smile that bordered on teasing. There had been times in the last five years when she'd joined him in his cabin, nothing serious, but they'd certainly had their moments. Which, he supposed, made her more tolerant of him than the others.

At the opposite end of the spectrum was Karl Jordan, the Lady Mac 's systems specialist, with the shortest temper, the greatest enthusiasm, and certainly the most serious of the crew. His age was the reason, only twenty-five; the Lady Mac was his second starship duty.

As for Schutz, who knew what emotions were at play in the cosmonik's mind; there was no visible outlet for them. Unlike Marcus, he hadn't been geneered for free fall; decades of working on ships and spaceport docks had seen his bones lose calcium, his muscles waste away, and his cardiovascular system atrophy. There were hundreds like him in every asteroid, slowly replacing their body parts with mechanical substitutes. Some even divested themselves of their human shape altogether. At sixty-three, Schutz was still humanoid, though only twenty per cent of him was biological. His body supplements made him an excellent engineer.

«We've been offered a joint prize flight,» Marcus told them. He explained Victoria's theory about disc systems and the magnetic anomaly array. «Ribeiro will provide us with consumables and a full cryogenics load. All we have to do is take Lady Mac to a disc system and scoop up the gold.»

«There has to be a catch,» Wai said. «I don't believe in mountains of gold just drifting through space waiting for us to come along and find them.»

«Believe it,» Roman said. «You've seen the Dorados. Why can't other elements exist in the same way?»

«I don't know. I just don't think anything comes that easy.»

«Always the pessimist.»

«What do you think, Marcus?» she asked. «What does your intuition tell you?»

«About the mission, nothing. I'm more worried about Antonio Ribeiro.»

«Definitely suspect,» Katherine agreed.

«Being a total prat is socially unfortunate,» Roman said. «But it's not a crime. Besides, Victoria Keef seemed levelheaded enough.»

«An odd combination,» Marcus mused. «A wannabe playboy and an astrophysicist. I wonder how they ever got together.»

«They're both Sonoran nationals,» Katherine said. «I ran a check through the public data cores, they were born here. It's not that remarkable.»