“Good!”

But Duncan’s lips were tight. He was bluffing, of course. Blasting an unarmed ship full of passengers—well, if it came to a showdown, he could not do it, even if Andrea had not been on board. However, the Maid’s captain couldn’t know that. He wouldn’t dare take the risk.

Answering lights flashed on the larger ship’s hull. Duncan read them aloud with the ease of long practice.

“No radium aboard. Is this a joke?”

“Send another blast,” Olcott suggested.

Duncan’s response was to fire a bolt that melted two of the Maid’s stern tubes into slag. That didn’t harm anyone in the passenger ship, but it showed that he was presumably in earnest. And he had to get Andrea aboard now. She had smashed the radio, and probably was already under arrest. Well—

“Sending radium. Don’t fire again.”

“Send one of your passengers also. Jane Horton.” Andrea was booked under that alias, Olcott had said.

There was a pause. Then—“Jane Horton victim of Plutonians. Must have turned off power in Helmet. Found dead in radio room just before you made contact.”

Saul Duncan’s fingers didn’t move on the keys. Deep within him, something turned into ice. He was hearing a voice, seeing a face, both phantoms, for Andrea was dead.

Andrea was dead.

The words were meaningless.

He became conscious of Olcott at his side, talking angrily.

“What’s wrong? What did they say?”

Duncan looked at Olcott. The dead, frozen fury in the pilot’s eyes halted Olcott in mid-sentence.

Automatically Duncan’s hand moved over the keyboard.

“Send the body to me.”

Then he waited.

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