When the crew reassembled, she asked for their ideas, their threat assessments. It occurred to her, as they ran down their lists, that they were doing much better than they would have before the Sabine mess. Still, Jim seemed to have a talent for thinking up ways someone might do them damage… his list was longer than anyone else’s.

Ky looked at him, when they’d all finished. “Where did you get those ideas?” she asked. He looked worried. “I’m not angry. I just wonder what else you were doing besides fixing ship engines.”

“I’m not doin’ it here,” he muttered. “Wouldn’t do anything to this ship, Captain.”

“I’m glad to know it—and glad you’re on our side.” She looked at Alene. “First, I’m going to see if the legal firm I contacted has any final word on that Leonora cargo, then we’ll list our cargo on the Exchange boards. Martin will concentrate on security issues, so you’ll have to run Cargo on your own.”

“Prices are volatile, Captain,” Alene said. “How long d’you think it’ll be before we get clearance?”

“Less than an hour after we dock, I’m hoping. Certainly by end of shift. As soon as we start selling, we start resupply. Environmental, insystem fuel, general supplies. Now: can we offload to the secure dock area without outside help?”

Alene shook her head. “I don’t think so. The Leonora cargo’s all palleted, too heavy to shift without a loader. We could rent a loader, I suppose… I’ve handled one. But who else?”

“I can,” Jim said. “At least… I’ve used one once.” With Jim, Ky thought, that could mean he’d seen someone else use one once, or he’d driven one off a dock into the water, or—possibly—he had actually driven one without incident.

“How long will it take with one loader, to clear the holds?”

“If some of the others will help with shifting and positioning, we can have the Leonora pallets off in a shift. The rest… you know our difficulties, Captain. Several days.”

“Here’s what we’ll do, then. First Martin will supervise setting up our security net. Meanwhile I’ll arrange loader rental, and as soon as we’re cleared for it, we’ll start unloading those pallets. I’d like to minimize exposure of personnel to possible… problems. The fewer outsiders who come aboard, and the less time anyone spends onstation, the safer we’ll be.”

On final approach, Lastway Station looked like what it was: a vast and complicated construction that had grown far beyond its original design to accommodate the needs of its local and transient populations. Below it, the planet’s cloud-wrapped surface was invisible. Two centuries earlier, terraforming had begun on a moderately appropriate base; the information packet supplied by the station to all incoming ships described in detail the processes that continued, but Ky was far less interested in the details of biogeochemical processes than in the price of refreshment cultures for the environmental system and what she could hope to get for the cargo originally consigned to Leonora.

As Lee eased the ship nearer and nearer to the docking booms, Ky reviewed the current list of ships docked, their origins and destinations. Another had been waved off from Leonora, and she learned that the onstation legal services had already certified its cargo as undeliverable, available for resale. At least she didn’t have to fight that battle on her own. She called Martin and told him that he could scavenge freely in the Leonora cargo.

“Thanks, ma’am,” he said. “As it happens, those containers were right handy… won’t take much time at all…” The suspicion crossed her mind that he had already taken what he wanted from them, but there was no reason to push the issue. None of the ships on station now seemed like a pirate ready to blow her ship away, but she hadn’t spotted Paison as a problem until too late. She had to assume that danger lurked here, everywhere.

Her own ship’s needs ranged as usual from must-haves like refreshment cultures for the environmental tanks; to very desirable, like better longscan; to wishful thinking, like an insystem drive that would move them faster than a snail on a hot rock. At least she hadn’t spent all her money on Belinta.

Lee docked neatly, and the station crew hooked up the support umbilicals. Ky found several small chores to do until she realized she was anxious about opening the hatch, then made herself go down to cargo hold 1 and do it. Martin materialized from one of the cargo hatches, and stood in front of her as the hatch opened.

Lastway Immigration Control—one unarmed and six armed—were waiting at dockside, by their expressions none too patiently. The one without weapons had two forearms on one arm, and a wrist tentacle on the back of the other wrist. Ky managed not to blink in surprise; that was a humod form she hadn’t seen before. “Eight hundred, cash or trade goods to be valued by an independent assessor,” said the humod. The tentacle uncurled elegantly, and the input connectors glinted.

“Trade goods,” Ky said. She handed the tentacle one of Aunt Gracie’s diamonds.

“Submitted for assessment,” the humod said. The tentacle transferred the diamond to that hand, then removed a sealable pouch from a pocket, plucked up the diamond again, and inserted it, then sealed the pouch. “You will want a receipt.”

“I will want an assessor here, at dockside,” Ky said.

“You think Lastway Immigration Control is dishonest?” That with a ferocious scowl.

“I think diamonds are too easy to misplace or confuse with other diamonds,” Ky said.

“I will call.” Silent moments, as the humod communicated by interface; then it nodded sharply. “Yes. One expert in assessing crystals comes.”

“Are you from here?” Ky asked.

Again the humod scowled. “Why ask that?”

“No insult intended, but your accent is not the same as what I heard from Traffic Control—I merely wished to know which accent is native here, to adjust my interpretation to that norm.”

Its face cleared. “Ah. You have old tech implant, yes? Mine adjust by self.” On input maybe, but the output wasn’t. “From Vastig, I am, eight years agone taking ship away from sad family. You know Vastig?”

“No,” Ky admitted.

“But such ships come there, Vatta Transport. Many ships Vatta has—or had. Someone likes Vatta not.”

“True enough,” Ky said. “And I don’t know why—do you?”

“Not I. Others make guesses, only guesses. On Vastig we do not make guesses. We say the truth. But here comes one to assess…”

Ky looked around to see a man in a dressy business suit; as he came closer, she began to wonder if he, too, were a humod. One eye appeared to have a magnifier built into it, the rim sunken into the skin. When he opened his mouth to speak, his tongue was dark and heavily furred.

“Licensed assessor Grill, at your service,” he said clearly enough, bowing to both the Immigration Control officer and Ky. “A crystal for assessment, yes?”

The Immigration Control officer transferred it to Grill’s hand—a hand that appeared to be normal, to Ky’s fascinated gaze—and Grill put it into his mouth for a long moment, then spat it back to his hand. “Carbon,” he announced. “Impurities negligible to value.” Now the magnifier extended, lenses telescoping from his eye. “Cut… Melique-cut diamond, crystalline structure excellent, flaws… minimal. Value for official purposes 2,443 credits.” He handed it back to the Immigration Control officer, who tucked it into the sealed pouch again. “Good day,” Grill said to the space between them, turned on his heel, and walked away.

“Your receipt for a credit balance of 1,643 to be set against docking and service fees,” said the Immigration Control officer, handing Ky a hardcopy strip that had just extruded from his lower forearm. “Welcome to Lastway and enjoy your stay.” Then he and his escort marched off.

Ky shook her head and spoke to the ship’s intercom. “All clear now. I don’t see the loader that should be here; I’ll contact them and the security company again.”