"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 interference closed down. The pirate--a first-class super-dreadnought--flashed up, and a heavy visual beam drove in. "Go inert," came the tense command. "We are coming aboard." "Are you crazy?" The liner's captain was surprised and disgusted, rather than alarmed. "If not, you've got the wrong ship. Everything we have aboard, including the ransom--if any--you can get for our passengers, wouldn't pay your expenses." "You wouldn't know, of course, that you are carrying a package of Lonabarian jewelry, would you?" The question was elaborately skeptical. "I know damned well that I'm not!" "We'll take the package you _haven't_ got, then!" The pirate snapped. "Go inert and open up, or I'll inert you with a needle-beam and open you up, compartment by compartment--like this." A narrow beam lashed out and expired. "That was through one of your cargo holds, just to show you that I mean business. The next one will be through your control room." Resistance being out of the question, the liner went inert, and while the intrinsic velocities of the two vessels were being matched, the attacker issued further instructions. "All officers are to be in the control room, all passengers in the main saloon. Everybody unarmed. Any person wearing arms or slow in obeying orders will be blasted." Lines were rigged and space-suited men crossed the intervening void.