That doesn't cripple the weapon as a device for shedding heat, but it does bode ill for its future as a weapon.

That's bit one of a score of problems plaguing the ship. Mold that can't be beaten. Stench that seems to have penetrated the metal itself. Onev system after another getting crankier and crankier. In most cases we'll have to make do. We carry few spare parts, and not many are available at beacons. Main lighting has begun to decay. The men are spending more and more time on corrective maintenance.

Stores, too, are getting short.

It's scary, watching a ship come apart around you.

It's even spookier, watching a crew disintegrate. This one is definitely headed downhill. We've reached the point where Command's policy of having men bounced from ship to ship is paying negative dividends. They don't have that extra gram of spirit given by devotion to a standing team.

That's critical when you're down to the bitter end and barely hanging on.

I say, "Mr. Piniaz, I have trouble here. Output wattage oscillating."

Piniaz studies the board sourly. "Shit. Guess we're lucky it held up this long." He rings Ops.

"Commander, we've developed a major stress oscillation in our gamma gas cartridges."

"How bad?"

"It won't last more than ten minutes if we keep using it." To me, Piniaz remarks, "I've been saying we should be using crystal cassette lasers since I got here. Will they listen to me?

Absolutely not. They just tell me crystals burn out too fast and they don't want to waste the massroom needed to haul spares."

"Wait one while I get some numbers, Mr. Piniaz."

"Standing by, Commander."

"No replacement cartridges?" I ask. "In the bombards we could change units in five minutes. Like click-click."

Piniaz shakes his head. "Not here. Not in the Climbers. You have to go outside to get at the cartridges. But Command's main argument is that we're never in action long enough to need spares."

"But this star business..."

He shrugs. "What can you do?"

The Commander says, "Mr. Piniaz, go ahead and use it, but only when Mr. Bradley needs it to sustain internal temperature."

Piniaz snorts. "Heavier load on the others."

I listened with one ear while the Old Man talked it over with Yanevich. My bugs steal everybody's privacy. They decided the weapon was wasted, that the ship has to move to a cooler hiding place.

Fine with me. Having all that incandescent fury under my feet is doing nothing for my nerves.

Westhause is calculating a passage to the surface of a small moon. Its gravity shouldn't put undue stress on the ship's structure.

Varese, too, overhears the comm exchange. He reasons out the consequences. "Commander, Engineering Officer. May I remind you that we're low on CT fuel?"

"You may, Lieutenant. You may also rest assured that I'll take it into consideration." There's a touch of sarcasm in his tone. He has no love for Varese.

My guess is we have no more than thirty hours Climb time left. That's a tight margin if we haven't been lucky with our sun-hopping.

Are they still after us? It's been a long time since the raid. A long time since contact. Maybe they've overcome their emotional response and gone back to guarding their convoy.

What's going on out there? We've had no news, made no beacon connections. The biggest operation of the war... Being out of touch leaves me feeling like my last homeline has been cut.

Has the raid given Tannian's wolves the edge they need? Have they panicked the logistic hulls?

Once a convoy scatters, no number of late-showing escorts can protect all the vessels. Climbers can stalk the ponderous freighters with virtual impunity. Some will get through only because our people won't have time to get them all.

Uhm. If the convoy has scattered, the other firm might feel obligated to keep after their most responsible foe. They know this ship of old. Her record is long and bloody. She's hurt them. Her survival, after what she's done, might be an intolerable threat.

I'm caught hi the trap of circular thinking that lies waiting for men with time on then' hands and an invisible uncertain enemy on their trail. I want to shriek. I want to demand certain knowledge.

Even bad news would be welcome at this juncture. Just make it certain news.

Varese and the Commander, during the computation of the fly to our new hiding place, have a rousing battle over the level of our CT fuel. Finally, against his better judgment, the Old Man says he'll make the passage without Climbing.

"Goddamn!" Piniaz explodes as an illumination tube above his station fails. "Damned shoddy Outworlds trash..." He excoriates quality-control work on Canaan, insisting nothing like this would happen with an Old Earth product. He's vicious and bitter. The men tuck their heads against their shoulders and weather the storm.

He has a point, though his claim for Old Earth manufactures is specious. The human race seems incapable of overcoming human nature. Just do the minimum to get by.

With one weapon all but out and the others likely to degrade, our ability to shed heat is crippled. We can't rely on radiator vanes alone if the pursuit closes in.

Teeter-totter, teeter-totter. Each time the situation shows promise, something ugly raises its head. Lately, it seems, life is a Jurassic swamp.

Sometimes things go from bad to worse without any intervening cause for optimism.

The Commander was right, Lieutenant Varese wrong. We should have made the transfer fly in Climb, and fuel levels be damned.

We fall foul of the other firm's new tactical intelligence system. They've been seeding tiny, instelled probes near stars to catch sun-skippers. If the unit detects a Climber's tachyon spray, it sends one tiny instel bleep.

The sharks, who have been casting about in confusion, turn their noses toward the scent of blood.

Fisherman gets a trace when the squirt goes out. "Commander, I've got something strange here. A

millisecond trace."

"Play it back." A moment later, "Play it again. Make anything of it, First Watch Officer?"

"Never seen anything like it."

"Junghaus, you're the expert."

"Sorry, sir. I don't know. Never had anything like that in E-school. Maybe it's natural." There are natural tachyon sources. Some Hawking Holes are known to produce them in much the same fashion as a pulsar generates its beam.

"Maybe you should ask the writer," Yanevich suggests.

"No point. Wasn't a ship, was it? That's what matters."

"Maybe a Climber going up? Looks a little like that."

"Shouldn't be anybody in the neighborhood. Keep an eye on it, Junghaus."

In ignorant bliss we settle gently into the soft dust of a lunar crater bottom, cycle down to minimum power, and prepare to possum for a few days. Sooner or later the other firm will go after livelier game. If they haven't already.

The Old Man says, "Old Musgrave used a trick like this when he was in the Eight Ball."

"Uhm?" The coffee is gone. Even the ersatz. We do our fencing over juice glasses now.

For several minutes he doesn't say anything more. Then, "Found himself a little moon with a big hollow spot inside. Don't ask me how. Used to duck in there, go norm, and power down. Drove the other firm crazy for a while."

"What happened?"

"Went to the well too often. One day he showed up and that moon was a gravel cloud with a halfdozen destroyers inside."

"They didn't get him?"

"Not that time. Not in the Eight Ball." He swallows some juice, chews his pipe. "He was a wily old trapdoor spider. He'd sit in there for a week sometimes, then jump out and get himself a red star.

He took out more destroyers than any two men since." Silence again.

"End of story?"

"Yep."

"What's the point?"

He shrugs. "You can't keep doing the same thing?"