Chapter 19 — THE FINAL RAID

Spirit eyed me speculatively one day. "Hope, you're getting too old."

"Old?" What was she up to now?

"You're thinking about starting a beard."

Oh. "Men do, you know." I ran my finger along my chin, but there really wasn't anything there.

"What if the pirates come again, to slay the men?"

She had a point. If women were subject to rape, men were subject to murder. It was best to remain young. I fetched some depilatory from the diverse supplies that remained and went over my face, rendering it fully boyish again.

"That's not enough," she said. "All they want is girls."

"To rape!" I exclaimed.

"You should be safe from that," she pointed out.

Startled, and not entirely pleased for a reason I could not define, I had to agree. It might indeed be smart for me to learn to masquerade as a girl, just as it had been useful for Helse to masquerade as a boy. If pirates came and blazed away at males and spared the girls, this could give me my only chance to survive long enough to blaze back at them. We would all have lasers ready next time, of course; still, we had so often been betrayed by circumstance that we had to consider any possible advantage that might be available.

Spirit got to work happily. She had a marvelous ability to invest her whole attention in immediacies, bypassing the horrors that tormented my more reflective mind. She found a dress my size and made me change into it, while the other children offered enthusiastic suggestions. I even had to put on pantyhose to cover my hairy legs, and girlish slippers. Naturally the brats fitted me with a padded brassiere to make my front look right, giggling fiendishly.

I had become the entertainment of the hour. They brushed out my hair, which had grown longer in the past month, and they tied a pretty red ribbon in it, and instructed me in girlish nuances of expression and stance. I was surprised by the amount the little girls knew about this sort of thing; evidently they took their sex roles seriously from an early age. I was not really enjoying any of this, but they found it hilarious. Still, it would be pointless for me ever to attempt such a masquerade before pirates unless I had it down pat, so I did work at it, trying to satisfy the piercing cynosure of the children. When they began to nod approval, I knew I was getting better.

Spirit insisted on making it more of an ordeal. She donned male clothing and postured before me in a gross parody of masculinity. Her ravaged face did help, here. "I am your brother!" she declaimed. "I am here to stop you from getting raped, unless you really want to be. Say 'sir' to me, sister!" The other kids laughed as if that were the humor of the century. Was this really the way the typical male came across to the opposite sex?

"Ship ahoy!" the lookout cried.

That would have to happen at the time I was ludicrously garbed! Just when we thought we were free of pirates, well off the ecliptic, another came!

I rushed for my space suit, not sparing time to change; every moment might count. Spirit did likewise—but of course she didn't mind her garb the way I did mine. It was awful for me, cramming the damned dress into the legs of the suit. Spirit had it easy; male clothes are designed for space suits, or vice versa. In this respect it really is a male universe.

The other kids hesitated, then decided to go for their suits too. They were alive now only because they had been lucky enough to avoid the pirates and get their suits on in time; they didn't want to gamble that way again. But that left us without any innocents to test the intruders. We all had laser pistols now, so the innocents could attack with much better effect, but still we all lacked confidence in that. So it was to be suits for all. A few children in a bubble—the suits would not be too surprising. Bubbles didn't leak, but some people worried that they did. Then the innocents could simply slam their helmets on, if we had to go the vacuum route.

I stationed myself near the rear air lock, and Spirit joined me, while the others scrambled. We two were the fastest, because we had drilled specifically for this, many times; our suits were hung right by the air lock, supported so that we could almost literally dive into them feet first. We had everything tight except our helmets. My slippered feet tended to slip around in the big suit-feet, though, and I hated the way my skirt wadded up around my middle.

"You sure look cute, sister, in your suit and ribbon," Spirit teased me.

I put my hand to my head to remove the damned thing, but my suit gauntlets were clumsy.

There was a crash. The entire bubble shook, almost knocking us off our feet. "They crashed into us!" I exclaimed, shaken in two senses.

There was another crash, worse than the first. "No—they're shooting at us!" Spirit screamed. Then she jammed her helmet over her head.

I followed her example. The automatic seal operated and the suit's air puffed on.

The third shot punctured the hull on the side of the bubble opposite us. The air sucked out with gale force. I couldn't see the puncture, but knew its nature from the direction of the rush of air.

Spirit and I were drawn along with it—but we were farthest from the leak and were affected least. I grabbed the netting above the Commons as I flew by, and Spirit did the same. She had had prior experience with explosive decompression; I had not, since I had been out on the hull before.

The opening was small, for bubble-hulls are tough, designed to withstand pebble-meteorites and to self-seal to some extent. But of course space artillery is designed to penetrate exactly such hulls. The shell had formed a tube that let the air out; it took about thirty seconds, with diminishing intensity as the pressure dropped.

Spirit and I survived it—but I realized that the other children probably had not. They had required more time to suit up, and their reactions were less certain. They might have paused in surprise, listening to the collisions of the shells against our hull—and that would have been fatal. Once again we had been betrayed by the unexpected.

I looked at Spirit through our helmets. Why had the pirates done it? To hole a bubble—that was the deliberate murder of all within. No rape of women or kidnapping of children was possible.

Now the pirate ship docked against our air lock and the men used it, keeping their ship sealed. Suited men appeared and began checking around inside our wasted hulk. It seemed that all they wanted was salvage.

What should we do now? If the pirates saw us, they would surely kill us. But we couldn't remain in the holed bubble long; it was now useless. We had no way to repair such a leak, assuming the pirates left us any food or life support equipment when they finished. We seemed to have a choice between a fast death and a slow one.

Spirit had the answer. She handed herself to a rent in the net and took hold of an armful of food containers. She meant to pretend to be a looter!

Would it work? It might. Our suits were standard, similar to those of the pirates; in the confusion of looting, we might manage to get aboard the ship. After that—well, first things first.

I took an armful of food packs, enough to cover my face panel somewhat, and followed Spirit down to the air lock. I really didn't know whether this would work, but didn't see any alternative.

We came to the lock, and the pirate there waved us on in. He closed the lock behind us, and we stepped into the pirate ship.

It took me a moment to realize what was strange. This was very like the bubble, here: just a chamber for access. We had explored a ship before, when we cleaned out the pirates with our vacuum, so this was reasonably familiar, but this present one was a larger and probably better ship. We floated through the chamber and down a short hall, toting our burdens. Then we came to something different.

The vacuumed ship had docked nose-on, so that its spin matched the bubble's spin and the whole thing had been like one extended passage from our lock. Indeed, in the case of the Horse's ship, our drive jet had fired right down its throat, the length of the ship. But this present ship had docked at the center, so its nose and tail sections were projecting to either side, and it was spinning around endwise to match the bubble's rotation. It was always easier for a ship to match rotations, since it would have taken energy to stop the bubble's spin, not worth it for a temporary connection. Here, it is best to make a set of diagrams:

I have drawn a center line to show the axis of rotation in each case. As should be clear, the two modes of docking lead to quite different dynamics within the ship. Actually, the rate of rotations does not have to match, as the airlocks have a built-in slip mechanism that allows opposite rotations of bubble and ship. But what would be the point? Certainly it was impossible for the ship to maintain a long-axis spin while connected to the bubble, so it had either to go to no spin, meaning null-gee, or to rotate end over end, as it was doing.

This seemed unnecessarily clumsy. My mind cast about for the rationale. Could it be that these particular pirates were accustomed to difficult maneuvers in space, and performed them routinely? That would imply a really professional crew, more like a military unit than a motley collection of malcontents. Their completely callous holing of our bubble implied the same. We were up against no-nonsense raiders this time—probably a ship that deserted from a planetary navy.

And there was the explanation for the maneuver: This ship had not docked at the nose because it couldn't! It had a projectile cannon mounted in the nose instead of an air lock. No other pirate ship had fired at us, because such military hardware could not be mounted on ordinary space vessels; they had to be designed for it. A projectile cannon attached to the side of the hull of a spinning ship would be virtually useless, and would severely shake the ship when it fired; it had to be on the axis line, so it could be fired without affecting either the spin or the balance of the ship. Since boarding became so awkward, no chances were taken; the victim was rendered completely helpless before the approach was made. This was like a pirate with one arm, afraid the girl might resist and hurt him, so he shoots her just before he rapes her.

Why was it that each pirate vessel we encountered seemed worse than the last? Even the Horse had been worse the second time!

Now we were at an intersection. On either side a long passage extended down. That's right; we were floating at the null-gee axis, and the opposite directions were both down, because of that endwise rotation. We had to pick one or the other without delay, for a pirate was coming through the lock behind us. I saw an arrow pointing, decided that would be toward the residential section (for no good reason; male intuition is suspect), and jumped. Spirit followed.

Of course, we did not sail blithely down the center of the passage. That is not the nature of free fall, as our experience in the bubble had amply shown. We slid down one wall, and as the pressure of that wall increased our angular momentum—that is, the speed of our revolution around the axis—our centrifugal force increased, and we slid faster. The process fed on itself. So it was a bit like being on a giant slide, whose slant increased as it progressed, so that not only one's velocity but one's rate of increase of velocity quickened. Soon we were bumping along at an uncomfortable rate, and had to catch the inset rungs to break our falls. The packages sprang from our arms and went tumbling on down ahead.

A pirate emerged from a side hall—just in time to be pelted by the onrushing packages. He did not take it well. A laser pistol appeared in his hand, pointing with excellent accuracy at me as I clung to the descent ladder.

So we were caught. But that had been inevitable. So far, we survived.

I lifted back my helmet, surrendering for the moment. There was no point in getting shot, or in getting Spirit shot. Perhaps we could talk our way into something less unpromising.

"A woman!" he exclaimed in English.

I still had the red ribbon in my hair! I started to protest, but Spirit nudged me. "So what'd you expect my sister to be—a frog?" she demanded.

The pirate's lips quirked. It seemed he had some minor sense of humor. "You escaped from the derelict bubble?"

"Derelict?" Spirit demanded. "It wasn't a derelict! Not until you blasted a hole in it!"

"So it would seem." The pistol still covered us. "Come in here and get out of those suits."

We entered his chamber and climbed out of our suits. I had a problem with modesty, as my dress tended to snag above my waist; how did girls stand it? Of course my bloomer-panties protected the essentials. I lost a slipper in the suit and had to fish for it. I realized now why girls often seemed so inefficient; their costumes did it to them. But at length I stood, somewhat bedraggled, before the pirate. Spirit, in masculine attire, was better off. I knew that only the seriousness of our situation prevented her from teasing me about my feminine ineptitude.

"How old are you?" the pirate asked. He was evidently an officer, as he wore some sort of insignia and seemed better spoken than the usual brutes. Probably he originated from Uranus, whose moon Titania was the home of the English-speaking people, and which moon had a longstanding Navy tradition. Mainly, he was calmly self-assured.

"Fifteen," I said. No point in concealing that fact.

"Twelve," Spirit said.

He gazed at me appreciatively and appraisingly, and I became aware of one reason women can cringe under the cynosure of men. I wished I could be anywhere but here.

"You are young," the pirate officer said. "But that perhaps makes you cleaner. You will serve one man per night, commencing this night. You will cooperate gladly—"

"No!" I cried, horrified with better reason than he could know.

"Otherwise your little brother will be flogged—by the man you do not please—and you will go without food or water till the next. I believe in time you will cooperate willingly enough."

I was silent. These pirates certainly knew how to make a girl perform! All we could do now was stall for time.

The officer raised his voice to address the other pirates that were arriving now. "Take these two to the guest room. You will draw straws for order of satisfaction."

Stunned, we went to the indicated chamber. It was near the end of the ship, where gravity approached one gee. It occurred to me that this end-over-end rotation could be the normal mode for this ship, as a slower turning rate led to greater effective gravity at the extremes, compared to the other mode. We had enough trouble establishing half or quarter gee in the bubble; the ship's smaller diameter would force a very high rate of spin to get similar effect, and the difference in effect as a person moved inward from the hull would be formidable. Just standing could be uncomfortable. But the present way, there was relatively little differentiation; it was almost like standing on a planet. When not accelerating or shooting at a helpless bubble, this ship needed no specific orientation in space. And when it was accelerating, that would provide temporary gee. So this odd mode wasn't nearly as odd as it looked. I had never seen it in holo shows depicting navy vessels, but probably those were censored to avoid the undramatic aspects.

The guest room was set up in the fashion of an antique boudoir of the salacious version, with mirrors on walls and ceiling and virtually the entire floor covered by the mattress. Evidently these pirates had entertained women before. This was intended for only one type of guest. I realized that this was the type of situation my sister Faith had walked into.

For a moment we were alone, while the pirates drew their straws. I looked at Spirit. "We're in trouble," I said in a gross understatement.

"You're in trouble, paleface!" she quipped. But she turned serious immediately. "I can take your place. We can change clothes—"

I tried to conceal the extent of my horror at the notion. "No good," I said. "They won't fit."

"We could make it dark—"

"I won't stand by and watch you be raped!" I said.

She sighed like an adult. "That too, of course."

"Maybe we can overpower the first pirate—"

"I could ram a knitting needle in his ear," she said. "That works pretty well. If I had a needle."

"Still no good. They'd be on us when he didn't come out." We no longer had our laser pistols; the officer had competently deprived us of them at the outset.

"We need to get to the captain and hold him up and hijack the ship," she said.

"If we could get to the captain, and if we could make him do our will," I said. "Spirit, these are pirates! They'd as soon kill us as rape us! We just don't have the—"

The panel opened. A gross, burly, bearded pirate came in. "Girl, get on the bed and spread 'em!" he said to me. "Boy, get to the side and watch. When you get old enough, you'll get to do it too; meanwhile you can learn." He started to strip.

Spirit's gaze darted about the room, seeking some possible weapon, but I knew there was none. Her finger-whip had also been taken from her; pirates knew about such things. Her finger-stump had been sprayed with plastic bandage; they knew about that sort of thing too. These were English-speaking pirates, but they differed from the Spanish-speaking ones we had encountered only in their language and efficiency. Maybe we had floated from the Hispanic territory to the British; elsewhere in Jupiter-space there might be French-speaking pirates too. Certainly there had been in the past, in Callisto's history.

I hesitated. I really wasn't taking time to think all these things out as lucidly as I present them here; our fleeting thoughts may be more suggestive than complete. I could use the anti-rape measures against this man, poking his eyes out—but that would surely mean a most unpleasant death for Spirit and me. There had to be a better way.

"Move, girl!" the pirate cried, grabbing my arm and yanking me onto the bed. I fell, and he jumped on top of me, his clothing only partly undone. His liquor-sodden breath seared my face as his foul hand grasped at my padded front. Yet again I appreciated the position young women may be placed in; no person in her right mind would enjoy this approach! Helse had been very smart to conceal her gender.

"Kife," I said. I hadn't known I was going to do it, but the chain of thought leading to Helse had lead naturally to her identity as courier, so brutally fresh in my mind. This did seem worth a try.

The man froze in mid grasp. "Oh, no!" he muttered.

"You think a girl survives in space because of her muscle?" I asked, following up my advantage. I could tell the man was really shaken. Evidently QYV's notoriety extended throughout piratedom.

He backed off. "Why didn't you say something before?"

"Kife wants it private," I explained. "I'll probably get in trouble just for giving away my status." And, really, I had become Kife's courier, for I retained the key in the capsule. "Take me to your captain."

"Damn!" he swore. "I'm tempted to—"

"Yes, I heard about someone who did that once," I said blithely. "Thought he was real smart, thought Kife wouldn't know. But Kife always knows. You know how long it took that man to die, once Kife caught him?"

The pirate was uncertain again. "Look, girl, I just drew straws! I didn't know—"

I saw Spirit smirking. "At the end, he couldn't even scream," I said. "Though he sure was trying to! Because of the blood, you know, in his throat. They ran a hose into him, up his nose and down his windpipe, so he wouldn't choke to death on the gore before they were ready. Kife doesn't like it when someone dies before he's ready. They hadn't done the eyes yet, or the liver—"

The pirate retreated farther. "What do you want, girl?" He had evidently forgotten my demand to see the captain, or hadn't taken it seriously. I decided to play with this some more. I was hurt and angry about the holing of our bubble and the callous murder of the other six children. This might be a small vengeance, but it helped.

"I just thought you'd like to know what you're missing. They gave me one of his gonads for a souvenir, pickled in brine. 'Course it was sort of ragged, because he kicked some while they were pulling it off—"

I don't think I ever saw so rugged a man look so sick so suddenly. "I never touched you, girl! I didn't know—"

"Take me to your captain," I repeated, tiring of this sport. But mixed with my fiendish glee at the nature of this reprieve was my sense of irony. Had Helse employed her weapon of the name more freely, she need never have died. She hadn't really known what she had.

Thus we found ourselves in the presence of the captain, called Brinker. He was not one of the bushy-bearded types; he was clean-shaven and his jacket fitted well. He was small, but looked very much like a Nordic officer, with pale blond hair and sharp, almost chiseled facial features. I became more certain than ever that he had deserted from the Titanian navy, taking his ship and crew with him. I understood such things happened. Space around Uranus wouldn't have been safe for him, so he had crossed to Jupiter and taken up the trade of piracy. He seemed completely self-assured and carried a needle-laser sidearm in a holster visible in his left armpit, its butt forward. I wondered how this physically unprepossessing person maintained discipline over rough pirates, now that he was not supported by the weight of military law and custom. This was obviously a fairly taut ship.

"Say the word," Captain Brinker said to me.

"Not in public," I said, aware that I was being tested.

I did not see Brinker's hand move, but abruptly the pistol was in it and there was the tingle of heated air beside my left ear. Suddenly I saw how Brinker kept discipline. He must be the fastest gun in space! He could have burned me instead of firing past my head, and I would not have had time to blink. The pistol was already back in the holster.

But I sensed that it would be wrong to back down in the face of such a threat. Captain Brinker did not respect those he could readily cow. That much my talent of human understanding indicated, though we had not interacted long enough for me to gain a clearer comprehension of the captain's nature. So though I was frightened, I bluffed. "Shoot me. You know whom you will answer to."

The pistol appeared in his hand again, its lens-muzzle bearing on my right eye. But I had never been daunted by such threats. Afterwards, when I had time to consider, I might shudder with reaction, but at the time of crisis I always stiffened my opposition when threatened. This wasn't courage, just the way I am. Some circuit in my brain cuts out under pressure. So I stared into that lens and waited, unspeaking.

Again the weapon snapped back to its holster. "Very well," Brinker said. "You shall have your private interview."

The pirate guards left, the panel sealing behind them. My sense was continuing to operate; there was something amiss about the captain. I had felt a similar unease when first meeting Helse in her guise as a boy.

That was the key. "Spirit," I said in a normal voice. "Do you remember Helse's secret?"

She looked puzzled. "I remember."

"Another shares it."

Her brow furrowed, then straightened. She was catching on. "Are you sure?"

"Almost. In a moment I'll tell."

Captain Brinker frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"You asked me to say the word," I said while Spirit unobtrusively moved away from me. "I can do better than that. I can write it out for you." I glanced about the chamber, the Captain's small office. "Do you have something to write with?"

"Just spell it," Brinker snapped.

That, of course, was the test. If I spelled Kife the way it sounded, I would show up as an imposter. But I had another ploy now. I saw that Spirit had gotten herself close to an anchored metal cabinet, so might have a baffle. I took the plunge. "F-E-M-A-L-E," I spelled aloud.

The pistol was back in the Captain's hand, aiming at my eye. "Explain yourself, girl."

"I suggest you not fire until you consider the consequence," I said evenly, though the cold clutch of fear almost brought me down. I dread the thought of blindness! "If you are not concerned with the vengeance of Kife, you should think of the more immediate result of action against us." I had slipped in the other key word deliberately, so that it would seem like no bluff, with the spelling held in reserve. "The secret you value most will be exposed if you kill us. This chamber is not completely soundproofed; one of us will scream the word while you kill the other." I glanced toward Spirit, who now stood behind the cabinet, out of the line of fire. "Your men will hear, and wonder—and when they discover the nature of our bodies, they will understand the potential."

"You are speaking gibberish," the Captain said.

"No," I said. "Here is the secret: None of the three of us here are the sex we seem."

The captain did not seem to react. "Be more specific."

"I am male," I said. "Spirit is my sister. And you—"

"Show me," the Captain snapped, the laser still zeroed on my eye.

I lifted my skirt and dropped my bloomers, displaying my masculine parts. This was hardly the occasion for modesty! I signaled to Spirit, who stepped out and started to drop her trousers.

"Enough," the captain said. "You have made your point. How did you know?"

I covered my private region, straightening out my dress. "I have had experience with transvestism, as you can see. I have learned to recognize it. In my profession, such abilities are often necessary. My employer does not like to have his name bandied about, so I avoid the use of it when possible by using other means to conceal my nature." Again I was implying that my position as courier was to be taken for granted.

"In a dozen years, no one has realized I am a woman," Captain Brinker said, putting away the pistol. "I killed any who suspected. If my crew knew, I would lose my command—and more."

"Much more," I agreed. "It is not to the advantage of any of us to have our natures revealed. Shall we deal on that basis, and leave Q-Y-V out of it?" Now at last I spelled it, to remove the last trace of doubt about my connection.

"What do you want?"

"I want my freedom," I said. "To pursue my mission. If I fail my mission, I will have to seek a very fast, very sure extinction. I also want the freedom of my sister."

"She is a courier too?"

I was aware that she was testing me again, so I steered clear of unnecessary elaboration. "No. Couriers don't travel in pairs. She is only my sister—but I will not make any agreement unless she is free."

"If I set you free, I have no guarantee of your silence," Brinker pointed out. "Rather than risk that, I will destroy the whole ship."

But first she would try to eliminate us cleanly, hoping somehow to conceal our natures and hers from her crew. I saw that she could not be moved on this aspect. "That would certainly protect you from my employer's vengeance," I agreed. "I trust you have no blood relatives he can trace. Yet I would rather live, and you would too. Is there no compromise?"

"Yes. I will give you the lifeboat. Your sister remains with me."

As hostage! It did make sense, as I would never betray the captain's secret while my sister was subject to her will, and the captain would not kill Spirit as long as Spirit's life guaranteed my discretion. Yet I could not do it. Spirit was all I had left, the only remaining barrier between me and total desolation. "Make another offer," I said curtly.

"No other offer," the captain said, now assured that Spirit was important to me. "I may neither kill you nor let you go entirely free without imperiling myself. It must be all or nothing—or this. Take the compromise—or the consequence."

"Hope, she means it," Spirit said. "Do it. She will not harm me, for I have the same secret. I can be the cabin boy, and I will not be molested. You must go free—to complete your mission."

My nonexistent courier mission! "My father, my mother, my fiancée—all sacrificed themselves for me!" I exclaimed in anguish. "You are all I have left, Spirit! I cannot let you go!"

"Hope, I said I would die for you," Spirit replied. "This is not nearly as bad. We may someday meet again." And I saw the tears on her face, and knew she was determined to make this final sacrifice for me. I had to do it.

"Agreed," I said to the captain, almost choking over the word. Spirit—I did not know whether I could survive without her, or whether I wanted to. Yet it seemed it had to be done. "We are children and you are pirates—but we have seen as much of death as you have. Do not test us unduly. I refuse to use my courier status to win free; find another pretext to put me on the lifeboat." I was serious; I was on the verge of throwing it all in, screaming out the captain's secret, and letting things follow as they would.

"We understand each other," the captain said. "I will send you back to the bed. You will hijack the ship instead, using our detonation-control panel. Your sister will have to do it." She glanced at Spirit. "You have the nerve, girl?"

"I have the nerve—girl," Spirit replied.

"No more of this!" I said immediately, knowing that mayhem was in the near offing. Either of those two would destroy the ship if pressed, herself with it. "You are both male, henceforth. And I will exit as I am."

"Then listen, lad," Captain Brinker said to Spirit, and my sense informed me that she was not entirely displeased about this development. I realized that it must be a lonely thing, being the only woman in a crew of cutthroat men, anonymously, unable ever to let down her guard lest she be relegated to perpetual slave duty in the guest room. She surely had to sleep in a locked chamber. She might wish for the company of her own kind, while preserving her secret—and we had handed that opportunity to her.

Brinker was letting it be understood that she was compromising in the face of necessity—but in reality she was arranging exactly what she wanted: to be rid of me and to keep my sister. This insight did not dismay me; it reassured me. The captain had no reason to betray us.

The captain tersely explained how to arm the detonator panel, so that the pirate ship would be blown up if anything happened to the one in control. Then we were ready; I would not need my space suit in the lifeboat, and I already had a fair notion how to pilot it, and where I was going. Except—

"The ephemeris!" I exclaimed. "I must have that!"

"You know how to get it," the Captain said.

I nodded. I looked at Spirit.

"One thing," Spirit said to the captain. "If my brother doesn't make it safely away—"

"You will do what I would do in the circumstance," Brinker finished.

"Yes."

"Spirit isn't bluffing," I said.

The captain smiled grimly. "I think we shall get along."

I thought they would, too. There was an underlying similarity between them.

I embraced Spirit. "Beloved brother—farewell," I said, not caring that a feminine tear showed on my face.

She looked so small, trying to be brave, her face scarred, one finger missing. But I knew she would blow up the ship if she had to.

"Beloved sister," she responded. "I love you." She kissed me with a passion that disconcerted me.

I turned to the captain. "You will see that my brother is well treated," I said, and was surprised at the coldness in my voice. I had the fake weapon of QYV and the real one of the captain's secret, but in fact I believed I would find a way to come for Brinker and kill her in the most humiliating and painful way if she harmed Spirit, and this was manifest in my tone. I would somehow in due course destroy all pirates; this I had already vowed. But Spirit was special.

"You can be sure of it." Captain Brinker was no gentle creature, but she understood. There was no bluffing in any of this; we were all killers.

The captain activated her buzzer, summoning the guard pirates. "Take the girl back to the guest room; her protection is fake, and she will have to cooperate. Leave the boy with her for now; we'll lock them up together until we tire of her."

The arriving pirates smiled broadly. "Yes, sir!" one said, crunching my elbow with his huge hand. I must have made a very fetching image of a girl! The other grabbed for Spirit, who looked so cowed it was obviously not necessary to hold her securely.

I had seen that cowed look before. That was when Spirit was most deadly dangerous.

We accompanied the men docilely enough. I noted how other pirates nodded; their captain had come through again, penetrating the difficult matter of the Kife ploy. It was not just Brinker's ready laser that compelled respect; it was her ability to solve the tricky problems, protecting the ship when some other person might have blundered. Brinker was a good captain, setting aside the issue of legality. Even the way the bubble had been holed—that had defused our trap before we had a chance. Brinker took no unnecessary chances.

We entered the longitudinal hall—and Spirit exploded. She kicked her guard pirate in the leg, punched him in the gut, and used him as a brace to shove off violently. In a moment she was plunging down the passage toward the control room at the end.

"Hey!" the man cried stupidly, going after her. My own guard kept his hand on me, and I, being supposedly female and helpless, made no move.

He hauled me toward the control room. We passed through the door and stood on the floor, which could serve as a wall when the ship was accelerating. Our heads were pointed toward the center of the ship, far up the center passage.

Spirit had made it to the Destruct Control panel and stood with her small hands locked on a lever. "Let my sister go!" she cried, spying us.

The pirate on duty gaped. "That's the detonator!" he said. "One tug on that lever and all our ammo blows!"

Spirit smiled and tugged the lever down. Every pirate in sight blanched. "Tried to fool me, huh?" she demanded. "I've seen these things before. Now I've armed it; if I let go, it'll snap back, and that'd blow a hole in your ship, wouldn't it! See how you bastards like breathing vacuum, same's you did for our people. Turn my sister loose!"

Hastily, my guard did so. I rubbed my elbow. "Brother," I asked, "do you know what you're doing? We'll die, if—"

"But we'll take all these apes with us," she said zestfully. "That's the way I like to go!"

I spoke to the pirates. "I know my brother. He's a power-crazy brat. He thinks killing people is a game. He used to smash all his toys for the fun of it. He's not afraid of death. If you don't do what he says—"

Captain Brinker appeared. "What?"

"We're hijacking your ship, sir," Spirit called. "You pilot it where we say, or I'll blow it right out of Jupiter orbit!"

"You ungrateful brat!" Brinker exclaimed. The laser pistol appeared in her hand. "I spare your life, and you pull this. Get away from that panel!"

"Go ahead, kill me!" Spirit gibed. "When I let go of this handle, we'll all go! Boom!"

"Sir!" a sweating pirate cried. "It's true! We can't take the chance!"

The captain's weapon swung to cover him. "Don't tell me what to do!" Brinker snapped. "Who let that brat go?"

The pirate closest to Spirit turned, his face turning waxy. "It was so quick—"

The beam of the laser speared him through the right eye. Steam and fluid puffed out as the eyeball was burned and punctured. The man staggered back, clapping one hand to his face.

"When I give an order, I expect it to be carried out competently," the Captain said. "I had this matter settled, and you have bungled us into a problem. She turned back to Spirit. "What do you want, boy?"

"Pilot this ship to Leda," Spirit said.

"The Jupe military base? They'd blow us out of space! You might as well turn that handle loose now and get it done with."

Spirit looked at the handle. "Oh. Well—" She made as if to let it go, and again the pirates blanched.

I stepped in. "The captain's not bluffing, kid. We can't hijack this ship there."

Spirit scowled. "I know. But I sort of like explosions anyway." She let go the handle—and caught it halfway back.

A pirate grunted in horror, but the captain didn't flinch. It was evident whose nerves were steadiest. "We'll give you safe-conduct to our lifeboat," Brinker said. "It's fueled and stocked; it can easily reach Leda."

"No good," I said. "We can't even find Leda without our ephemeris, and we don't know how to pilot a spacecraft."

The captain spoke to a pirate. "Suit up, go to the bubble and fetch its ephemeris." Then, to me: "There are instructions on the boat. It is designed to be operated by any fool who may survive disaster in space, even a teen-age girl. You can operate it, if you can read English."

"I can read English," I said. "Spirit, maybe we should—"

"Okay, take my sister there," Spirit said. Then she did a dismayed double-take, fine little actress that she was. "Oops—how can I go? I have to keep my hand on this handle!"

"I will hold the lever for you," the captain said.

Spirit laughed so hard she seemed almost to lose control of the handle. Even I, who knew her propensity for such seeming mischief, was alarmed. "Oh, no, you don't, sir! The moment I quit this handle, you'll shoot me and plant my sister in that bed!"

Captain Brinker smiled, and the pirates smiled with her. This was rough humor they understood. The captain, too, was playing to an audience. Obviously I ran the danger of the bed. "Then it seems you must remain here, guarding your handle, while your sister departs. Is that good enough?"

"But I can't stay here forever," Spirit said, playing it out with uncomfortably accurate intuition. "Once my sister's gone, the moment I quit, my life'll be out the air lock!" She shook her head. "I guess I just better blow it up now, and be done with it."

Again the pirates froze nervously. No one liked being subject to the whim of this vacillating child. Again the captain interceded with a skillful compromise. "I could use a nervy lad like you for my cabin boy. Spare the ship, and I'll see that you're protected."

Spirit considered with childlike solemnity. "Will you make a Pirate's Oath on that?"

"Pirate's Oath," the Captain agreed. "Now just let me have that lever—"

"Oh, no, you don't, sir!" Spirit repeated, grasping the lever more tightly and lifting it part of the way back. "Not till my sister's safe! You're probably lying, but at least I can save her!"

"Accuse me of lying again and I will burn you where you stand," the captain said evenly.

"The captain's right, kid," a pirate called. "He never breaks a real promise."

So now the pirate crew knew that the Captain had to keep her word, or stand diminished. Cleverly played, indeed! There would be no backtalk or grumbling when Spirit was spared. And of course it was true: Spirit was a nervy kid, and would make a good cabin boy.

The pirate returned with the ephemeris. I took it. "Thanks, brother," I said to Spirit. "Don't blow up the ship until I get clear." I reveled in the expression of the nearest pirate. We had them scared, all right.

I took one last look at Spirit. She met my gaze squarely, and somehow it reminded me of the time I had tried to question her about the events of the night. It wrenched my heart to part from her.

Then I turned and moved toward the passage to the lifeboat.