or Corvina? Those three are the worst, I'd say."

"Uh-huh—Rigel's is probably a shade the worst in property damage and urgency. Before we decide, though, I wish you'd take a good look at the data on this one from Dekanore III. See if you see what I do."

"Dekanore III?" Cloud glanced curiously at the older man. "Didn't know they were having any trouble. Only got one, haven't they?"

"Two now—they just had a new one. It's that new one I'm talking about. It's acting funny—damned funny."

Cloud went through the data in brow-furrowing concentration, then charted some of it and frowned.

"I get it. 'Damned funny' is right," he agreed. "The toxicity is too steady, but at the same time the composition of the effluvium seems to be too varied. Inconsistent, apparently—but since there's no real attempt at a gamma analysis and very little actual mathematical data, it could be; they're so utterly unpredictable. Inexperienced observers, I take it, with chemical and medical bias?"

"Very much so, from our angle."

"Well, I'll say this much—I never saw a gamma chart that would fit this stuff, and I can't even imagine what the sigma curve would look like. Boss, I'd like to run a full test on that baby before it goes orthodox."

"My thought exactly. And we have a valid excuse for giving it priority, too. It happens to be killing more people than all three of those bad ones combined."

"I can fix that toxicity, I think, with exciters; and I'll throw a solid cordon around it, if I have to, to keep the fools from getting themselves burned to death. However, I won't blow it out until I find out why it's acting so—if it is. Clear the ether, Chief, I'm practically there!"

It did not take long to load Cloud's apparatus-packed flitter into a liner, Dekanore-bound. But that trip was not uneventful. Half-way there an alarm rang out and the dread word "Pirates!" resounded throughout the ship.

Consternation reigned, for organized piracy had vanished with the fall of the Council of Boskone. Treasure ships were either warships themselves or were escorted by warships. But this vessel was no treasure ship; she was only a passenger liner.

She had had little enough warning—her alert Communications Officer had sent out only a part of his first distress call when the blanketing 

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