«Yeah, I suppose they do. Unless the cybermice duplicate themselves.»

«Now that'd be a sight,» Roman said happily. «One of them humping away on top of the other.»

• • •

His neural nanonics time function told Karl he'd slept for nine hours. After he wriggled out of his sleep pouch he air-swam into the crew lounge and helped himself to a pile of food sachets from the galley. There wasn't much activity in the ship, so he didn't even bother to access the flight computer until he'd almost finished eating.

Katherine was on watch when he dived into the bridge through the floor hatch.

«Who's here?» he asked breathlessly. «Who else is on board right now?»

«Just Roman. The rest of them are all over on the wreck. Why?»

«Shit.»

«Why, what's the matter?»

«Have you accessed the flight computer?»

«I'm on watch, of course I'm accessing.»

«No, not the ship's functions. The satellite analysis network Victoria set up.»

Her flat features twisted into a surprised grin. «You mean they've found some gold?»

«No, no fucking way. The network was reporting that satellite three had located a target deposit three hours ago. When I accessed the network direct to follow it up I found out what the search parameters really are. They're not looking for gold, those bastards are here to get pitchblende.»

«Pitchblende?» Katherine had to run a search program through her neural nanonics encyclopedia to find out what it was. «Oh Christ, uranium. They want uranium.»

«Exactly. You could never mine it from a planet without the local government knowing; that kind of operation would be easily spotted by the observation satellites. Asteroids don't have deposits of pitchblende. But planetoids do, and out here nobody is going to know that they're scooping it up.»

«I knew it! I bloody knew that fable about gold mountains was a load of balls.»

«They must be terrorists, or Sonoran independence freaks, or black syndicate members. We have to warn the others, we can't let them back on board Lady Mac .»

«Wait a minute, Karl. Yes, they're shits, but if we leave them over on the wreck they'll die. Even if you're prepared to do that, it's the Captain's decision.»

«No it isn't, not any more. If they come back then neither you, me, nor the Captain is going to be in any position to make decisions about anything. They knew we'd find out about the pitchblende eventually when Lady Mac rendezvoused with the ore particle. They knew we wouldn't take it on board voluntarily. That means they came fully prepared to force us. They've got guns, or weapons implants. Jorge is exactly what I said he was, a mercenary killer. We can't let them back on the ship, Katherine. We can't.»

«Oh, Christ.» She was gripping the side of her acceleration couch in reflex. Command decision. And it was all hers.

«Can we datavise the Captain?» he asked.

«I don't know. We've got relay blocks in the stairwells now the cybermice have been deactivated, but they're not very reliable; the structure plays hell with our signals.»