"I guess I have been making a bit of a jackass out of myself, haven't I?" he admitted ruefully.

"You have." The seated man opened the attach‚ case and began counting.

Dobbs responded by sinking into the offered chair and leaning forward, his elbows resting lightly in his knees. He had discovered in the past that people were more receptive when approached at eye level.

"I guess I forgot that the captain of a freighter is a businessman same as me." he confided. "You know, as much as we've seen each other these past couple days, I've never gotten around to asking your name. It's Blutman, isn't it? Ulnar Blutman?"

"No, it's Eisner, Dwight Eisner. I'm the First Officer. Captain Blutman doesn't like to handle the business end of things, so I take care of it for him."

"Isn't that a little strange?" Dobbs frowned. Usually..."

"Mr. Dobbs," Eisner sighed, "if you had treated Ulnar Blutman the way you treated me, I guarantee he would have broken your nose and dumped your goods out the nearest airlock. He is, at best, an unpleasant man."

"I see," Dobbs commented, taken slightly aback. "Say, are you taking cargo on before you ship out? Maybe I can put together a shipment for you. You know, to make up for the way I've acted."

"That won't be necessary. We already have a sizable load to pick up at our next stop."

He set the case aside abruptly.

"The count tallies. Just a moment and I'll transfer it into our safe and you can have your case back."

"Keep it." Dobbs waved. "Consider it a present. How much have you taken in this run, anyway?"

"Nearly a quarter of a million. A little less than average, but it's not bad."

"Quarter of a million?" In cash?" Dobbs was visibly impressed. "That's a lot of money!"

"I just wish it was mine." Eisner laughed. "Unfortunately, there are a lot of people waiting at the other end of the run to get their share. Our piece is ridiculously small considering the risks we take, but if we up our prices too much, the companies will buy their own ships and we'll be out of business."

"I suppose. Well, I've got to get going now. Watch out for pirates, and if you're ever back this way, look me up. I'll buy you a drink."

"I'll remember that." Eisner smiled, rising to shake the man's hand. "But don't even mention pirates. It's bad luck."

Dobbs laughed and departed, heading for the shuttlecraft standing by to take him back to the planet's surface.

Eisner sank back into his chair. For long moments he stared thoughtfully at the wall, then he turned his attention to the attach‚ case on the desk, running his hands softly over the leather finish.

His reverie was interrupted by a lanky youth who burst through the door like an exploding bomb.

"How did it go?" he demanded excitedly. "Is everything all right?"

Eisner smiled tolerantly. Nikki always seemed to be going in eight directions at once, even under normal circumstances.

"It went fine, Nikki," he said reassuringly. "The nice man gave me an attach‚ case."

"He what?" the boy blinked.

"... and the extra fifteen thousand." Eisner concluded, opening the case dramatically.

"You did it!" Nikki exclaimed. "God, you've got guts, Dwight. I never would have had the nerve to go for the extra. I was afraid he'd get suspicious."

"The man was trying to pull a fast one. He would have been more suspicious if we hadn't called him on it."

"I know, but-"

"Look, Nikki, it's just like I told you. If we just conduct ourselves as if the captain were still alive, no one will suspect a thing. This way, we've got the ship and a quarter of a million."

"But didn't he say anything?"

"As a matter of fact, he did." Eisner smiled. "He warned us to watch out for pirates."

"He did?"

Simultaneously, the two burst into laughter, whatever tension they had pent up finding release in the absurdity of the situation.

"Did I miss something?"

The interruption came from the middle-aged black woman who had started to enter the cabin, only to stop short at the laughter within.

"No, not really, Roz." Eisner assured her. "Did Dobbs get off okay?"

"No trouble at all." Rosalyn sank into a chair. "He seemed a lot politer on the way out than on the way in."

"We had a talk. I explained a few facts of life to him, and he pulled in his horns a bit."

"That's nice," Roz grimaced. "Since you're in an explaining mood, maybe you wouldn't mind explaining a few things to me-like what do we do next?"

"We already know that," Nikki protested. "Now that we're pirates, we do whatever pirates do."

"Technically, we're mutineers," Eisner corrected. "We aren't pirates until we actually attack another ship. But Roz is right; we still have several options open to us at this point."

"We've been through those already," Nikki grumbled.

"If you don't mind, Nikki," Roz interrupted, "I'd like to go over them again. I'm not too wild about the choice we've made so far."

Eisner began hastily, before a fight could start. "First of all, we could continue business as normal. We could return to our home port, report that the captain died of natural causes in space, and run the freight business ourselves. Of course, that would mean we'd have to give the money we've collected to the proper people."

Nikki snorted derisively, but Roz silenced him with a glare.

"Second," Eisner continued, "we could sell the ship, divide the money among us, and either go our separate ways or set up another business. The main problem with that being that you need ownership papers to sell a ship, and as soon as we touched down planetside, someone's bound to get very curious about where we got our money."

He paused, but the other two remained silent.

"Finally, we can play the cards fate seems to have dealt us. We can turn pirate and become one more ship gone bad, preying on the helpless and defenseless."

"You don't have to be so graphic on that last point," Rosalyn mumbled, half to herself.

"Of course I have to, Roz." Eisner insisted. "That's what anyone else would say about us. That's what we'll say about ourselves sooner or later. We'd better learn to live with it now while we still have other options. Later it will be too late to change our minds."

"You missed an option, my friend."

They all turned to face the massive figure framed in the doorway.

"You could all turn me in to the nearest authorities and pocket a hefty reward. They still pay pretty good for murderers."

"Abuzar, that isn't even an option," Roz scolded. "We've told you a hundred times, Blutman was an animal. If you hadn't lost your temper and killed him, one of us would have. We aren't going to turn you in for that."

"But I was the one who killed him," the big man insisted. "And now, because of me, the rest of you are going to become pirates. You can't make me believe that's what you really want to do, Roz."

"I can live with it." Rosalyn winced, turning away. "It won't be the first time I've earned a living doing something I didn't like."

"Not so fast!"

Eisner had been leaning back, his brows knitted.

"There's another option here, one we haven't considered before." His voice was tense with excitement. "It hadn't even occurred to me until Abuzar mentioned rewards."

"What is it?" Roz asked.

"None of us are too wild about becoming pirates.

Well, what if instead of becoming pirates, we hunt pirates? Besides what we get for salvage rights, there are bound to be businessmen who'll pay us if we can make a dent in the number of shipments and ships lost to pirates."

"Now you're talking!" Nikki exclaimed with the same enthusiasm with which he had accepted the idea of becoming a pirate.

"Pirates shoot back," Abuzar pointed out bluntly.

"But they're used to fighting freighters with little or no armament," Eisner countered. "If we're armed better than they are, with better sensors than normal so that we can see them before they know we're in the area, they're in trouble."