After a moment the speaker came to life. “We read you.”

“I will open fire in two minutes unless you surrender unconditionally. Where is General Kail?”

The speaker was silent for several seconds. “Prong yourself, joey!”

“In one and three-quarter minutes I will open fire. I will cut through your hull about twenty meters to either side of the upper airlock. Expect decompression.”

I could hear a muffled commotion behind their caller. A new voice answered. “Go ahead and decompress us! Your General will be in the airlock along with the rest of the officers.”

“I really don’t care. They’ll blame you, not me.”

Vax sucked in his breath. I touched the laser activation release but did not depress it. “Fire control, stand by. Either side of their airlock.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“We’ll kill them all!” The voice rasped in the speaker.

“One minute left. After decompression, I’ll give you another minute before I cut the station into small pieces. I’ll start with your comm room.”

“You wouldn’t dare! The station is worth billions; they’ll hang you!”

My voice was very strange. “I know. It’s what I’m hoping.

Forty-five seconds.” I depressed the laser release.

“You’re crazy!”

“And you’ll be dead. In a moment.”

Darla said urgently, “Incoming laser at low power! Erratic beam.”

“What in hell?” Miningcamp was supposed to be unarmed.

“Shields fully deployed. Beam within shield capacity.”

I looked to Vax. “A cutting tool? Hand lasers strung to fire together?”

Vax shrugged, his mind on more pressing matters. “Captain, please don’t blow the station.”

I thumbed the caller. “Thirty seconds!” To Vax, “Sorry, Mr. Holser.” We drifted toward the station airlock, lasers powered and ready to fire.

“Fifteen seconds!” My voice was tight. “Trusting in the goodness and mercy of Lord God eternal, we commit your bodies to the deep--“

“Oh, my God.” Vax, in a whisper.

“--to await the day of judgment when the souls of man shall be called forth before Almighty Lord God--”

“Wait, don’t shoot!” I could smell their fear.

“Commence firing!”

I watched in the simulscreen. A piece of hull plating near the airlock sagged.

“Hold your fire; we surrender!” A scream.

“Comm room, hold fire!” I deactivated the laser. “Sta-

tion, acknowledge your unconditional surrender!”

A different voice. “Look, mister. We’ve lost, we know that. But if we surrender now you’ll kill us, or they will. We want “amnesty.”

“No.” It was final.

“Our freedom for the station. A trade.”

“No.”

“Our lives, then! No death sentence. Otherwise go ahead and wreck the station; we have nothing to lose!”

He was right. It took only a few seconds to decide. “I agree. As representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations I commute any penalty of death you would be given. No death sentences will be imposed on you. I give my word.”

“For the General too?”

“My guarantee, for all U.N. forces.” Vax put his head in his hands. I had legal authority to make such a pledge but it wouldn’t be well received at Admiralty. Not well at all.

“Give me a minute. Please. I have to talk to the others.”

“Very well.” Vax and the other middies breathed almost imperceptibly while I watched the clock.

Two minutes. “Time’s up. I’ll fire in fifteen seconds.”

“We surrender! We’ll take the deal!”

“Very well. Suit up. Release your officers, then go into your airlock and open the outer hatch. You have three minutes.”

It took them five. I floated Hiberniaas close as I dared.

Then I had a sailor in a thrustersuit take a cable across to their airlock. I made the rebels swing across the line hand over hand to our own lock. One by one we took them in, fifteen of them. Mr. Vishinsky and his waiting crew brandished laser pistols, hoping for an excuse to use them.

Some hours later General Friedreich Kail sat in my cabin, an untouched drink by his arm. He was a heavyset, florid man of sixty. He flatly refused to honor my agreement, and demanded the mutineers’ return. They would be tried and hanged. We glowered at each other.

I shrugged. “You act as if you have a choice.” I thumbed the caller. “Mr. Holser, report to the Captain’s cabin, to escort General Kail off the ship.”

“I’m not subject to your orders!”

“No, but you’re on my ship. As soon as we’re done offloading your supplies I’ll be on my way.”

“What about the rebels?”

“They go with me, for protection.”

“They’re under my authority! You can’t!” He flung himself to his feet.

“Watch me.” It was easy, once I no longer cared about consequences. My tone was blunt. “General Kail, you’re an ass. Write your objections into my Log and your own Daybook. Then get off my ship.”

“You’d let mutineers go free, you traitor?” He was out of control.

Vax knocked on my cabin hatch. “Free?” I said as I opened it. “Hardly. They’ll be tried and convicted. They’ll probably wish they were dead before their sentences are up.

But we won’t hang them.”

“How do you expect me to hold my command if you treat them with such leniency?”

“I don’t,” I said evenly. “I expect you to lose it again before we return.”

He crumpled, slumped heavily into the seat. “Do you know what this means on my service record? Losing the station to a bunch of civilians? I’m through.”

I signaled Vax to wait, shut the hatch again. “Not necessarily. You’ve got your station back. You still have problems planetside. Your record will include how you handle them.”

“You think so?” He looked up hopefully. “Bah. They despise weakness.”

“Who? The miners or U.N. Command?”

“Both. And me. I despise weakness too.”

“Accept the deal I gave them, and I’ll stay in the vicinity to back you up. My lasers can target the surface if necessary.

My report will show I watched you reassert control on your own.” I was becoming a dealmaker. If I couldn’t lead, I’d negotiate.

After much argument, he reluctantly went along with me.

I saw him off the ship, transferred the fifteen rebels to his custody, and withdrew the ship a thousand kilometers to a parking orbit.

I had three more chores.

We packed the circumference corridor at the forward airlock, officers, sailors, passengers. The flag-draped alumalloy coffins rested in the lock behind me. I read from the Christian Reunification service for the dead.

In my cabin, donning my dress whites and adjusting the black mourning sash over my shoulder, I’d resolved to complete the ritual. My voice would stay level, I wouldn’t tremble. I had already determined that. Now I only had to carry it out.

I began flatly, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust... “ Sandy sat in his bunk absolutely still, waiting for Vax to allow him to move. “Man that is born of woman... “ Sandy held his orchestron above Ricky’s reaching hand, grinning.

My voice quavered. I bit off my words. I was as much to blame for Sandy’s death as the wretches in our brig.’ Trusting in the goodness and mercy of Lord God eternal, we commit their bodies to the deep... “

A dozen men in spacesuits, and I’d allowed them aboard? Better I had resigned my commission the day Captain Malstrom died. Sandy’s contorted face stared past me. I felt the scorched fabric of his uniform. I touched the blistered hole in his chest. Only a few more words and it would be done.

Sandy was barely sixteen. Yesterday his whole life had been before him. He’d wolfed down his breakfast in the mess.

He’d sat joking with us at lunch. He washed. He smiled. He stood his watch. Now, because of me, his remains were in a cold metal box. “To await the day of judgment when the souls of man shall be called forth before Almighty Lord God... Amen.”

I had managed to finish the service. I glanced at Vax. His shoulders shook silently, his eyes red from weeping. I smiled bitterly. Vax, who had tormented Sandy in the wardroom, was devastated by his death while I, his protector, had no tears to shed.