ship. Some klutz has dropped and broken their mass detector, and so they're going to physically measure all our interior volumes, and they won't add up. . . . This last notion, once it occurred to him, seemed so likely that he held his breath until he spotted the mercenary

technician in charge of the instrument among the boarders.

There were nine of them, all men, all bigger than Miles, and all

lethally armed. Bothari, unarmed and unhappy about it, stood behind Miles and inspected them coldly.

There was something motley about them. The grey-and-white

uniforms? They weren't particularly old, but some were in disrepair, others dirty. But were they too busy to waste time on nonessentials, or merely too lazy to keep up appearances? At least one man seemed

out-of-focus, leaning against a wall. Drunk on duty? Recovering from wounds? They bore an odd variety of weapons, stunners, nerve

disrupters, plasma arcs, needlers. Miles tried to add them up and

evaluate them the way Bothari would. Hard to tell their working

condition from the outside.

"All right," a big man shouldered through the bunch. "Who's in

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charge of this hulk?"

Miles stepped forward. "I'm Naismith, the owner, sir," he stated, trying to sound very polite. The big man obviously commanded the

boarders, and perhaps even the cruiser, judging from his rank

insignia.

The mercenary captain's eyes flicked over Miles; a quirk of an

eyebrow, a shrug of contemptuous dismissal, clearly categorized

Miles as No Threat. That's just what I want, Miles reminded himself firmly. Good.

The mercenary heaved a sigh of ennui. "All right, Shorty, let's get this over with. Is this your whole crew?" He gestured to Mayhew and Daum, flanking Bothari.

Miles lidded his eyes against a flash of anger. "My engineer's at his station, sir," he said, hoping he was achieving the right tone of a timid man anxious to please.

"Search 'em," the big man directed over his shoulder. Bothari stiffened; Miles met his look of annoyance with a quelling shake of his head. Bothari submitted to being pawed over with an obvious ill-grace that was not lost on the mercenary captain. A sour smile slid over the man's face.

The mercenary captain split his crew into three search parties, and gestured Miles and his people ahead of him to Nav and Com. His two

soldiers began spot-checking everything that would come apart, even disassembling the padded swivel chairs. Leaving all in disarray, they went on to the cabins, where the search took on the nature of a

ransacking. Miles clenched his teeth and smiled meekly as his

personal effects were dumped pell-mell on the floor and kicked

through.

"These guys have got nothing worth having, Captain Auson,"

muttered one soldier, sounding savagely disappointed. "Wait, here's something . . ."