I couldn’t see Emil’s face, which was bent in thought two feet below eye level. But his words came slowly, as if he had picked them with care. “We could find the ship that brought him down. You can’t hide a spaceship landing. The gravity drag makes waves on a spaceport indicator.”

“Granted.”

“He could be right here in the base. So many ships go in and out.”

“Most of the base ships don’t have hyperdrive.”

“Good. Then we can find them wherever they landed.” He looked up. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go look at the spaceport records!”

It was a waste of time, but there was no talking him out of it. I tagged along.

The timing was a problem.

From where the kidnapping took place, any ship in known space would take six hours to reach the breakout point. If it tried to go farther in hyperspace, CY Aquarii’s gee well would drop it permanently into the Blind Spot.

From breakout it had taken us ten hours to reach Gummidgy. That was at five-gee acceleration, fusion drive and gravity drag, with four gees compensated by the internal gee field. CY Aquarii was a hot star, and if Gummidgy hadn’t been near the edge of the system, it would have been boiling rock. Now, the fastest ship I’d ever heard of could make twenty gees…

“Which would take it here in five hours,” said Emil. “Total of eleven. A one-gee ship would—”

“Would take too long. Lloobee would go crazy. They must know something about Kdatlyno. In fact, I’ll bet they’re lying about not having Kdatlyno food.”

“Maybe. Okay, assume they’re at least as fast as the Argos. That gives us five hours to play in. Hmmm…?”

“Nineteen ships.” On the timetable they were listed according to class. I crossed out fifteen that didn’t have hyperdrive, crossed out the Argos itself to leave three. Crossed out the Pregnant Banana because it was a cargo job, flown by computer, ten gee with no internal compensating fields. Crossed out the Golden Voyage, a passenger ship smaller than the Argos, with a one-gee drive.

“That’s nice,” said Emil. “Drunkard’s Walk. Say! Remember the hunting party I told you about, with their own yacht?”

“Yah. I know that name.”

“Well, that’s the yacht. Drunkard’s Walk. What did you say?”

“The owner of the yacht. Larchmont Bellamy. I met him once, at Elephant’s house.”

“Go on.”

By then it was too late to bite my tongue, though I didn’t know it yet. “Not much to tell. Elephant’s a friend of mine, a flatlander. He’s got friends all over known space. I walked in at lush hour one afternoon, and Bellamy was there, with a woman named…here she is, Tanya Wilson. She’s in the same hunting party. She’s Bellamy’s age.”

“What’s Bellamy like?”