There was a muted thrumming. Mal glanced briefly upwards. To their right a shuttle of medium class was descending on a tail of fire. He’d watched thousands of similar landings and equally conventional liftoffs. There’d been a time when such displays filled him with wonder. Now only a few figures passed through his mind. He could estimate the amount of thrust the shuttle was putting out, its probable mass, even the position of its mother ship. All in an unfamiliar atmosphere. Given a visual check of the mother vessel, he could probably gauge its home port and basal cargo.

There was a single check at the cove entrance. Kitten and Porsupah’s military credentials eased them past that. Kitten docked the raft with a flair that displayed either tremendous skill or fantastic luck, sliding in and spinning between two larger craft. They were so close their cushions brushed.

A fast walkaway brought them to the Port Control buildings. They were a humorous parody of the giant complexes maintained on major trading worlds. As was typical of such smaller ports, certain offices were often combined. This proved true of salvage and registry. The office itself was no different from dozens of others they’d passed. Once inside, they were greeted by a thirty-ish gentleman of nondescript physiognomy and few words. He was casually attired in mesh and tropical lederhosen.

“Sit yourselves down. Be with you in a sec.”

The slightly pallid official escorted them into an even tinier inner office cluttered with charts and microfiles. A plethora of pins, tacks and variegated markers swarmed over the maps and diagrams cluttering the walls.

“What’ll I have for you, then?” he sighed, propping his feet up on the desk. On a major planet the official would have crossed his hands, not his ankles.

“Well . . .” began Mal.

“We’d like to confirm,” interrupted Kitten, “the validity of a recently reported salvage claim.”

“You got the beacon number?”

Kitten prepared to consult her vocorder. She didn’t even get a chance to activate it.

“Never mind,” the man said. “It’s sixty-two.”

“Yes. How the hell did you know?” asked Mal.

The official smiled slightly. “Wasn’t hard. You’re all clearly extra-Replerian visitors. This is the first registry we’ve had reported in several years. It seemed logical enough you wouldn’t be interested in any several years old . . . I can tell you everything’s in order. It’s quite legal. Fees were paid almost immediately after the beacon was registered. Registration and claim are already recorded on Terra.”

“Still, we want to make absolutely sure it’s valid,” persisted Kitten. “Not that we’ve any thoughts of claim-jumping, or anything along those lines.”

“Perish forbid,” the man grinned. “Wouldn’t be my business if you did.”

“In order to be valid,” she continued doggedly, “all details on the registration regarding location must coincide with the beacon’s actual positioning in space, right?”

“Naturally.”

“Well, I’d like to have a check made on it. It’s pretty important to us.” She purred, a semi-vocalization she was astonishingly good at, having perfected it after considerable use: “We’d be ever so grateful.”