Emil slapped the table, and the walls echoed. “Are we just going to sit here while they rob us? You’re a hell of a man to wear a hero’s name!”

“Look, you’re taking this too personally—huh?”

“A hero’s name! Beowulf! He must be turning over in his barrow about now.”

“Who’s Beowulf?”

Emil stood up, putting us eye to eye, so that I could see his utter disgust. “Beowulf was the first epic hero in English literature. He killed monsters bare-handed, and he did it to help people who didn’t even belong to his own country. And you—” He turned away. “I’m going after Bellamy.”

I sat there for what seemed a long time. Any time seems long, when you need to make a decision but can’t. It probably wasn’t more than a minute.

But Emil wasn’t in sight when I ran outside.

I shouted at the man who’d loaned us the timetables. “Hey! Where do you go to rent a car?”

“Public rentals. Dial fourteen in the transfer booth, then walk a block east.”

So the base did have transfer booths. I found one, paid my coin, and dialed.

Getting to public rentals gave me my first chance to look at the base. There wasn’t much to see. Buildings, half of them semipermanent; the base was only four years old. Apartment buildings, laboratories, a nursery school. Overhead, the actinic pinpoint of CY Aquarii hit the weather dome and was diffused into a wide, soft white glow. There were few people about, and all of them were tanned the same shade of black for protection against the savage, invisible ultraviolet outside. Most of them had goggles hung around their necks.

That much I saw while running a block at top speed.

He was getting into a car when I came panting up. He said, “Change your mind?”

“No, but…hoo!…you’re going to change yours. Whew! The mood you’re in, you’ll fly straight into…Bellamy’s camp and…tell him he’s a lousy pirate. Hyooph! Then if you’re wrong, he’ll…punch you in the nose…and if you’re right, he’ll either…laugh at you or have you…killed.”

Emil climbed into the car. “If you’re going to argue, get in and argue there.”

I got in. I had some of my breath back. “Will you get it through your thick head? You’ve got your life to lose and nothing to gain. I told you why.”

“I’ve got to try, don’t I? Fasten your crash web.”

I fastened my crash web. Its strands were thin as coarse thread and not much stronger, but they had saved lives. Any sharp pull on the crash web would activate the crash field, which would enfold the pilot and protect him from impact.