"In your ship?"

"Well, no, but don't let that worry you none. I ain't gonna lose as much as it seems. They'll take us on one of their small ships, nice and comfy and much faster than I could do it. And once down, do you really care about them?"

The girls seemed to be thinking it over, or, more correctly, the collective mind seemed to mull over the choices. The trouble was, Murphy reflected, even all three of them together couldn't get a deep thought and haul it out if it took three days. The problem was, were he in their position, he doubted if he would trust any of them, least of all him, to do more than dissect them to see how they did their little trick.

Finally, they seemed to come up with some sort of risky compromise, which was, after all, the best they could do in any event.

"Cap'n Murphy?"

"I'm here, darlin's."

"You tell 'em to get that little ship ready now. You tell 'em we leave now. You and us."

"Well, darlin's, we're more than a wee bit out of the neighborhood yet. It'd still be a long flight, and they're gonna hav'ta drive 'cause I couldn't handle a jobbie like that. Too fancy for an old trader like me. And they ain't gonna let it go unless they got some folks aboard to make sure it stays in their hands and comes back. Now, that's only reasonable."

"No! Just you and us!"

"I told you. The ship won't even listen to me, and, besides, the laws, even on Barnum's World, require somebody real to be in charge when it docks. There'll be four of us and two of them. That's not unreasonable. And I'll be makin' sure they don't do no double-crossin'."

They were silent again for a moment, but he felt better now. They weren't thinking about not going anymore, only making the safest deal. Finally they answered, "All right, but just one of them."

"They say two. That's not very many considerin' how many they got on this big bugger. They need one to pilot, one to deal with the folks on Barnum's World to make sure they allow us to come down. I been there many a time, girls. Just me, or just us, we might talk 'em into it, but with a navy shuttle we'll need somebody with permissions and such. They ain't that trustin' of the navy, you see."

He realized that this made very little sense, but if it sounded reasonable and within their control, they might go for it.

"But we go now." It wasn't a question.

"If we must, yes. It'll take longer and be less comfy, but we can go now. Let me ask the folks here." He turned and looked at Mohr, who nodded. "Twenty minutes. We'll use number twenty-four. It's got its own gate drive but is also fitted out as a lifeboat, so it has basic supplies and such. It should do. Shall I alert the crew?"

"By all means." Murphy turned back to the intercom. "Okay, darlin's, ye drive a hard bargain but they're buyin' it. The man here's callin' his folks now. The problem is, I don't know where you are so I don't know how to tell you to get down there."

"We can get there," the girls replied. "The spirit of the ship will guide us."

The spirit of the ship? Suddenly he realized that they meant the central computer that was running just about the whole show. To them, it was just another person, albeit a supernatural one, whose mind they were partly controlling. All those tests and practices to get a damned pilot's license and these little girls do it by ordering the disembodied voice in the heavens. Jesus!

Mohr came back into the room and looked over at him. "You want to come with me? I'll take you down there. I'm having a real argument with the captain and the exec over this, but short of risking the entire ship I don't see any other way but this. Maslovic's on his way as well, and I've alerted Lieutenant Chung, one of our best fighter pilots from the destroyer Agrippa to take her kit and proceed to the shuttle. She's been briefed and knows the situation if not the whole score. Best if as few of the crew as possible ever know the kind of power these girls showed."

Murphy nodded. "I see. Gonna be hard to keep it silent, though, I think. You better watch it with this ship's command and control computer, too, Commander. You don't know what thoughts them little darlin's put in its metaphysical head."

"I'm well aware of that," Mohr assured him. "But there shouldn't be any problem if we keep our end of the bargain, and I fully intend to do so. Good luck, Captain. And if you find out anything valuable about the people behind all this, there's a great deal of reward potential. You remember that."

"I kind of think that, havin' seen what these little girls can do, I'm best off mindin' me own business, Commander. And mindin' it as far away from Barnum's World and Tara Hibernius as well as I can. This is a kind of power I'd rather not think much on, or for long. If these girls can do this, imagine what the folks behind 'em, the ones with the big brains, can do! No, I think this is time to mind me own business."

The security chief shrugged. "Suit yourself. It's my duty to find out how to stop this sort of thing from happening to us again, and maybe whether or not it's a part of something nastier that we should know about. Maybe it's not. Well and good if not, but that's what I'm supposed to do. It's why I'm here." He put out a hand and Murphy took it and shook it.

"Well, good luck, Commander. I don't know which one of us is goin' into the worst situation," Murphy replied. "But at least I'm goin' someplace."

Finding Shuttle 24 was not all that difficult, but it did take some time to get to on the vast frigate.

As Mohr said, the shuttles did double duty as emergency lifeboats, and because of that they were laid out like lifeboats along every other deck from top to bottom and from stem to stern, each with an airlock entrance and a separate small launch bay. Each was angled slightly, so that it needed only the emergency code or a pilot to shoot it out at high velocity into space, whereupon it could be either piloted by the human aboard or go on automatic if in lifeboat mode. Mohr had not been lying when he said that a pilot was needed if they were to get to Barnum's World; on automatic, it would simply head for the nearest inhabited world, and if no such world were in its range, it would head for the nearest stable wormgate and go through it and go through the procedure again. If more than half the supplies were used up, it would put everyone aboard into a cryogenic state whether they wanted to be or not and continue on, possibly forever, certainly until it found something in its programming.

With a pilot aboard it became a shuttle. The pilot generally brought a detailed flight plan from the central computer with him or her and simply inserted it, adjusting only as circumstances required. In this case, though, they hadn't trusted the computers aboard the frigate to do a solid plan, and so the pilot would have to complete it on the shuttle and make daily adjustments. From this point, Barnum's World required two jumps and would be about eighty hours subjective time at the highest speed the shuttle was capable of making. The larger ships weren't likely to follow at that rate; they would be a week or more behind at full throttle. This was going to be a long time with the three witches, subject to their powers and whims.

When Murphy finally got to the bay, the outer lock was open and lit up from within. He had no idea who had made it and who hadn't, but he was kind of hoping to be the last one inside.

He wasn't. Maslovic was there, in a new, clean uniform and looking more official, but that was it, or so it seemed. He came to near attention when Murphy entered, a marked difference from the way he'd greeted them as head of the boarding party when they'd been taken aboard not all that long ago.

"At ease, Sergeant. I'm nobody's captain here. Nobody else here yet?"