"Kinda gettin' more'n your money's worth of what normal wimminfolks look like, ain't you?" he commented dryly.

Commander Sittithong was not amused. "If there is one single thing about those three that can be defined as 'normal' by anyone, on any world, anywhere, I have never heard of it," she responded. "Just what in heaven's name are they doing?"

Murphy shrugged. "Chanting, seems like," he responded.

The exec reached out and forcefully pulled the old captain around. "I've about had it with you, Captain Murphy! And you can stow that old folksy ethnic act, too. That may get you a few more drinks in spaceport dives, but it means nothing here! Now, just what is this all about?"

Murphy squinted at the screen. "Be damned," he muttered, more to himself than to the naval officer. "First time I ever seen 'em painted up like that. They all got hold of them damned necklaces, though. First time I seen ' em clear. Emerald, ruby, and turquoise. Strange lookin' things. I don't like this. Can you turn up the volume a bit and isolate the chant? What're they sayin'?"

The exec turned and gave a nod to one of the technicians, who pressed a few controls. The chanting grew much clearer, if no more explicable.

"Power of the universe, come to us!

Father of darkness, heed our prayers.

Send your messengers to heed the call of your brides!

"Gather, darkness! Come from where nothing escapes,

Hear our prayers and extend to us your power!

"Give power from the darkness where no light springs!"

It went on like that, some of it in some sort of tongue-twisting language that was unfamiliar to any of them but which fit the chanting, mostly the same words clearly said over and over again, with occasional added lines of supplication to bizarre names or creatures.

"Come send the goat that eats its young.

"Come from the power where no light springs…"

"Those are prayers, Commander," Murphy said at last, indicating with a gesture that he didn't have to hear more. "I'm not really well schooled on it, but apparently they're praying to their lord and master and his minions to spring from the black holes of the universe and give them the ultimate power. To do what, I don't even want to think, but I kind of hope that it won't get beyond that silliness."

"Prayers! To what deity? Nothing of the faiths of ancient Earth nor the cults that sprang from the colonies, surely."

"Oh, yes. Old as any of 'em. Maybe older than all but one. That design's a kind of protection, since their deities can't even be trusted to not kill their own followers-that stuff about the goat eating her young. Some ancient symbol, and more on their bodies. But it was known on Old Earth, for sure. It's devil worship, Commander! They're summoning demons."

The exec stared at him. "You can't be serious!"

"Oh, but I am. More importantly, they're serious. They're witches, Commander. That's why they was bein' burned back on Tara Hibernus. Don't look so shocked. It's not that odd. The damned society there is so strict, so fundamentalist if you please, that if you don't blindly accept it, you're corrupted. It's the ultimate rebellion for the young in such a place. They only had three alternatives, you see. Blindly follow the incredibly strict and boring theocracy there or be the opposition, as it were. Mostly it does little harm and lets 'em blow off steam, since the third way is to kill yourself, which many do I'm told. I'd sure do it if I was stuck there, I'll tell you. I'm from the same ancestral stock and traditions as them people, but they're way beyond what my folks lived. Sooner or later, of course, most of the young ones pair off and wind up bein' reabsorbed into that society and that's the end of that. But these girls, their group or coven or whatever, went a bit far in the pleasures of the dark side and they got knocked up on a world where the powers that be think it's damned near impossible, almost unthinkable. Musta been a hell of an orgy, huh?"

The exec looked over at the chief tech, who was ahead of her. "Orgy, Commander. A frequent rite of ancient cults going back to the early civilizations of Old Earth involving frenzied singing, dancing, drink and drugs, and wanton and uninhibited sexual activity."

"I always wanted to attend somebody's orgy but I never could find one," Murphy sighed.

"I do not understand all that, but I do understand that it is a demonstration of disobedience and rebellion," Sittithong commented.

"Of course y'don't, you manufactured martinet! They engineered the sex right out of your society. Probably the drinking, drugs, and all the rest that make life fun now and then, too."

"We have songs," the commander responded, almost defensively. "But, never mind. So they truly were under a death sentence? And you rescued them?"

"Only in a manner of speakin'," Murphy replied. "You're dismissin' what they're doin' as just some kid's act, like throwin' a tantrum or holding their breath until they get their way. It's not like that. That's how it starts, but they're already well along. There's always somethin' to them things, I found in me long life. Maybe not what you expect, or even what they think is right, but usually there's reasons why things keep goin', and wherever there's a belief in somethin' supernatural, there's always the two sides. The yin and the yang. God and the devil. Angels and demons. Somehow those little darlin's sprung themselves from what must have been pretty good security. And, in that condition, they somehow made their way over forty kilometers on a world with no paved roads or mechanized vehicles to the one point of outside contact, the tiny spaceport and freight center. Security's even better there. Really good. They hire some real experts to make sure of that, since they don't want nobody on their little world to get the idea you can just pick up and leave and all. Folks like me don't even have a point of contact with the common folk there. Just a few officials, priests mostly, who do the intermediary work. Yet they got in there, easy as you please, and it was just my bad fortune to be the one in port at the time. They only can handle one ship at a time, y'see."

"But given that, tugs are generally automated or have at best one pilot. There wouldn't even be room for them, and they'd be detected by machines or pilots. How did they get aboard your ship?"

"They just-did, that's all. I delivered some pure breeding stock, mostly cows. I figure they used the pressurized and insulated containers to get up. But how they got in, how they kept from triggerin' all the alarms or bein' seen on the monitors, and how for that matter they got through a coded double airlock into the ship itself is beyond me. You see what I mean?"

"You asked them, I assume?"

"Oh, yes, I asked 'em. Never got an answer, though. Fact is, once they was in there, it never once entered my head to report 'em, throw 'em off, or whatever. It was like they was payin' passengers and was expected. I can't explain it, but it's kinda spooky. On the one hand, I knew somethin' was real wrong, but on the other, I just went along like all was normal."

The commander stared at the chanting women and considered the new information. "So these three are not the ignorant little things they'd like us to believe?"

"That's just the point! I think they are pretty much what you see. They're sure enough illiterate; they think the law of gravity is somethin' passed by the government, they was absolutely shocked when they discovered that their home world wasn't flat, and they didn't have the slightest idea how to turn the lights on and off in the cabin, let alone figure out how to boil water for tea. No, they think it's all bein' done by invisible demons from the depths of Hell or somethin'. But they got power that's scary as all hell. That's what I meant by you bein' sorry you ever picked us up. Looks to me like they're gettin' ready to use that power, and with all that and not a brain in their cute little heads, they're about as dangerous as a nuclear reaction."