“I know. That’s another reason why he’ll stay loyal to me.” Cain paused for a moment while the Swagman tossed his cigar onto the red-brown dirt and ground it out with his heel. “And now, if you’ve got nothing further to add, I think I’d better go talk to Schussler.”

“Be on your best behavior,” said the Swagman, falling into step beside the bounty hunter as he headed off toward the spaceship. “He may be a little bit strange, but we need him.”

“Him? You mean Schussler?”

The Swagman nodded his head. “I’m not the only one with information, and his is different from mine. He knows every place Altair of Altair has been, everyone she’s seen. Even if she never met Santiago, it was almost certainly Schussler who received the order to terminate Kastartos; he has to know where it came from.”

“What does one offer a spaceship?” asked Cain wryly. “He can’t have any use for money.”

“I’m sure he’ll think of something,” said the Swagman.

“I don’t know,” said Cain. “Any guy who wanted to become a spaceship...”

“I have a feeling that want was never the operative word.”

They reached the ship and came to a halt. Suddenly a hatch door opened.

“You go ahead,” said the Swagman, pulling out another cigar. “I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

“Why?” asked Cain suspiciously.

The Swagman held up his cigar. “He doesn’t like me to smoke inside him.”

Cain grimaced. “I probably wouldn’t want someone smoking in my stomach, either, if push came to shove.”

He entered the compact ship through the hatch and found himself in a brightly illuminated cabin. The control panels and terminals were like nothing he had ever seen, and even the digital readouts on the screens were in an unfamiliar language.

“Schussler?” he said hesitantly. “Are you here?”

“I am always here,” replied Schussler, his melodic voice not at all what Cain had expected.

“I’m Cain.”

“I know. I can see you.”

“You can?” asked Cain, surprised. “How?”

“I am tied in to various sensing devices.”

“So you can see inside yourself as well as outside?”

“And hear, and smell, and use senses no human can conceive of.”

“It must be handy,” remarked Cain.

“If one likes being a spaceship.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Then why are you one?”

“It happened seventeen years ago,” said Schussler. “I was a businessman, on my way to Alpha Prego for a conference. My ship crashed on Kalkos Two.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s an outpost world of a starfaring race called the Graal.”

“I never heard of them, either,” commented Cain.