left. It seemed like a nightmare. I blamed you vaguely till I remembered the gold braid on his sleeves and knew it must have been a ship's officer. Later, an officer came in with the doctor, who took one look at me and seemed scared to death. Too scared to examine me. They wouldn't listen to anything, just untied me enough so I could work loose eventually, left some stuff, and locked me in. That's all I knew till you let me out just now."

Coran considered. "It sounds plausible. I'd like to believe you, but that photograph is too damning. You'll have a lot of explaining to do ... if we get out of this alive."

"What about the photograph? What's he wanted for?"

"There's another one of him in the Security Police headquarters. He's the man I was sent to get. Both ISP and the Security Police want him. The original charge was barratry, but—"

"What's barratry?" she asked.

"It's the deliberate wrecking of a ship, for the insurance or to salvage the cargo illegally. I don't know what your connection is with this man, but—"

"It's very simple," she said. "He's my brother. I knew he was in trouble, but didn't know it was so serious. Our family broke up years ago. Mother married again. That was fifteen years ago. I was ten, and Ken was thirteen. We took our stepfather's name, but Ken and he never got along very well. Ken ran away to Venus when he was seventeen. Mother died a year ago. I—I wanted to find Ken and help him. My stepfather had him traced for me and we found out he was in trouble with the police. I thought if I could talk to him, maybe he'd give himself up, take his just punishment, and we could start over again together. Ken's all I have left. He's not bad. A little wild, but not bad."

Coran stood up and stared into the black gulf of space through the visiplate. He felt a sudden bleak distaste for his profession.

"I'm afraid it's a little late for that," he said gently. "He's wanted for barratry, murder, and perhaps treason. The penalty for any one of them is death. I'm sorry."

Gerda sat silently, brooding over the information. "You think I'm going to cry, don't you? And you hate emotional women. You can relax. I think I've known all along that it was hopeless. It does hurt, but I'm beyond crying any more."

Far out in the void a clustered blur of faint, needle-sharp lights etched itself 

 Prev. P 18/25 next