"They'll be watching the route lanes," Rip pointed out. "They won't expect a ship to come in on that vector, steering away from the ports. Why should they? As far as I know it's never been tried since Terraport was laid out. It'll be tricky--" And he himself would have to bear most of the responsibility for it. "But I believe that it can be done. And we can't just roam around out here. With I-S out for our blood and a Patrol warn-off it won't do us any good to head for Luna--" None of his listeners could argue with that. And, Dane's spirits began to rise, after all they knew so little about the Big Burn--it might afford them just the temporary sanctuary they needed. In the end they agreed to try it, mainly because none of them could see any alternative, except the too dangerous one of trying to contact the authorities and being summarily treated as a plague ship before they could defend themselves. And their decision was ably endorsed not long afterwards by a sardonic warning on the com--a warning which Ali who had been tending the machine passed along to them. "Greetings, pirates--" "What do you mean?" Dane was heating broth to feed to Captain Jellico. "The word has gone out--our raid on the E-Stat is now a matter of history and Patrol record--we've been Posted!" Dane felt a cold finger drawn along his backbone. Now they were fair game for the whole system. Any Patrol ship that wanted could shoot them down with no questions asked. Of course that had always been a possibility from the first after their raid on the E-Stat. But to realize that it was now true was a different matter altogether. This was one occasion when realization was worse than anticipation. He tried to keep his voice level as he answered: "Let us hope we can pull off Rip's plan--" "We'd better. What about the Big Burn anyway, Thorson? Is it as tough as the stories say?" "We don't know what it's like. It's never been explored--or at least those who tried to explore its interior never reported in afterwards. As far as I know it's left strictly alone." "Is it still all 'hot'?" "Parts of it must be. But all--we don't know." With the bottle of soup in his hand Dane climbed to Jellico's cabin. And he was so occupied with the problem at hand that at first he did not see what was happening in the small room. He had braced the Captain up into a half-sitting position and was patiently ladling the liquid into his mouth a spoonful at a time when a thin squeak drew his attention to the top of Jellico's desk. From the half open lid of a microtape compartment something long and dark projected, beating the air feebly. Dane, easing the Captain back on the bunk, was going to investigate when the Hoobat broke its unnatural quiet of the past few days with an ear-splitting screech of fury. Dane struck at the bottom of its cage--the move its master always used to silence it--But this time the results were spectacular.