anywhere. I got a bad heart, a very bad heart. About half of it's—"

Vicenzo and Aziz, spacesuited, crowded into the compartment through the doorway in the netting. "Dis is a stickup!" Aziz announced over a loudspeaker on the chest of his suit.

"Don't move," Vicenzo growled, scowling beneath his black bangs.

Since deadly weapons were extremely rare and difficult to obtain, the pair had armed themselves with long, hand-made knives. Vicenzo also carried a cumbersome rocket launcher, a remodeled lifeline tube.

"Gangsters!" Ranjit wheezed. "I ain't seen a gangster in twenty years! I fought them in the Crime War! I—"

"Shut up, old man," Vicenzo ordered. His sideburns twitched around his cruel mouth. "Everything fixed here, Henry?"

"Are you into this, Henry?" Ranjit said.

Vicenzo snarled, "I told you to shut up!"

"Let me talk to you alone, Vicenzo," Henry said.

"Spill it now. Is this all the crew? Did you smash communications?"

"Yes," Henry admitted. "The old man is the crew. The others just came aboard."

"Why didn't you fix the other ship?" Vicenzo said. "We had to clamp on, because it was blocking the valve. We came through it, and you hadn't even smashed the radio. There might've been a crew aboard, for all you knew."

"Vicenzo's a streak, kid," Aziz said. The short, wide man's sallow face looked horrible behind the faceplate. "You oughta done like Vicenzo said," he advised. "You won't get nowhere goofin' like dat or—Hey, take a check on the doll! I never thought to see nothin' like dat on a sweeper! Lucky me!"

"She's not in this," Henry said. "She's from the other ship. Leave her alone, Aziz."

"Don't yap at me like dat, kid," Aziz warned.

Morna, who had stood as if frozen, turned to Henry and squealed, "You're a gangster? How awful, after I thought you were nice, letting Ranjit save your life!"

"Shut up, girl," Vicenzo said.

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