“Go ahead.” Roman cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t seem especially surprised to see us.”

“No, we were surprised enough,” Ferrol admitted. “It’s just that the surprise got covered over by relief—when we first spotted you I assumed you were a shark. I don’t suppose you’d like to tell us how you managed to track us down.”

Roman shook his head. “Actually, we’re not absolutely sure ourselves,” he said.

“All the Tampies can tell us is that Sleipnir was able to follow you here. Marlowe’s suggested that it’s some kind of perturbations in some theoretical telekene field, but so for—”

“Damn,” Ferrol breathed. Suddenly, so loudly he could almost hear the clicks, it had all fallen together. “It’s the dust sweat, Captain. Sleipnir read our trail from Epilog’s dust sweat.”

Roman frowned. “I don’t see—”

“Hang on,” Ferrol cut him off, fumbling for the recorder keys. The junior vulture’s attack on the butterfly… there. “Take a look at this,” he said, keying for transmission. “We recorded it here, just before you showed up.”

For a few moments the laser carrier hummed with silence as Roman’s image frowned thoughtfully at something off camera. “Interesting,” he said at last.

“You’re right, dust sweat clearly seems to be the space-going analog of a terrestrial animal’s blood-scent. But that only works if the animal doesn’t Jump.”

“No,” Ferrol shook his head, feeling the excitement of the revelation tingling through him. Why had no one ever seen this before—? “The dust sweat ends at a Jump, but the trail doesn’t. Those complex silicon molecules in the dust, remember?—the ones everybody’s looked at and never really seen? It’s there.

Somehow, the information on Jump direction is locked into those molecules.”

“Oh, my God,” Roman said, a sudden look of horror on his face. “You’re right…

but it’s not just the Jump information. It’s a record of everything the animal’s gone through. Short-term, maybe even long-term memory—all of it.”

Ferrol frowned. “I don’t see how that follows.”

“The second shark in the 9862 system,” Roman said quietly. “The one that destroyed the Atlantis’ task force. It knew everything about their weapons and tactics.”

Ferrol stared at the other, a cold knot tightening in the pit of his stomach. In his mind’s eye he saw that horrible massacre: the second shark using its vulture cloud to block the lasers and ion beams, using its own telekening power to block the missiles and then to put death-grips on the ships themselves…

And the first shark’s twisting, roiling dance of death. “It wasn’t a death dance at all,” he murmured. “The first shark was trying to spread its dust sweat around.”

“I think you’re right,” Roman agreed. “Marlowe?”

“Confirmed, Captain,” Marlowe’s voice came from off-camera. “The second shark passed through that area, all right; and if you look closely, you can see that it pauses there for a couple of seconds before starting its charge.”

Ferrol shivered suddenly. “And we sat in the 66802 system afterward… for ten days.”

“We did indeed,” Roman nodded grimly. “And were sitting ducks the entire time.

The only thing I can think of is that the missile we shot off to try and blind the incoming vultures did enough damage to Sleipnir’s dust sweat residue to make it unreadable.”

Ferrol gazed out the port at the eerie blue light edging the nearest asteroids and creating a sort of background haze from the distant ones. “It’s crazy,” he said, shaking his head. “The Tampies have been running space horses for over half a century now. How come they never figured this out?”

“Probably never had any reason to,” Roman said “I doubt they’ve had someone steal a space horse out from under them before.”

The bubble burst, and Ferrol abruptly remembered where he was. And why.

“Right,” Ferrol said. “So. What now?”

For a moment Roman gazed off into infinity. “What now,” he said, “is that we get back to the Cordonale with this as quickly as possible. Or perhaps to—”

He broke off suddenly, something blazing in his eyes. “Kennedy, get on your nav system—I want a minimum-time route to the space horse corral at Kialinninni.

Ferrol, consider yourself as on parole: collect that animal you’re chasing down and head back to the Cordonale —we’ll sort out any charges against you later.”

“Wait a minute,” Ferrol protested. “What’s the rush?”

“Don’t you remember?” Roman ground out. “The Tampies have been pulling their space horses back to Kialinninni. All of them.”

And abruptly, Ferrol got it. “Leaving dust sweat trails over the place,” he breathed.

“Every one of them pointing straight at the corral.”

“Exactly,” Roman said tightly. “We’ve got to warn them right away. Maybe we can do something to confuse the trail—send ships out to drop sub-nuke missiles at the original Jump points or something.”

Ferrol chewed hard at his lower lip. The possibilities here… “I’d like to come along, captain,” he said. “If we head toward you right now, we should be able to rendezvous in half an hour or so.”

Roman had been looking away, presumably at Kennedy. Now, very deliberately, he looked back at Ferrol. “May I ask why?”

Ferrol forced himself to hold the other’s gaze. “I’m still Amity’s exec,” he reminded the other, aware for the first time in hours of the needler pressing against his side beneath his tunic. The needler, and the Senator’s envelope… “It’s where I belong. Even if you choose to confine me to quarters.” A sudden thought occurred to him—“Besides, which, the Amity is far better equipped to handle these animal samples than we are. And since it’ll probably take at least a few hours to get back, this would give Dr. Tenzing a head start on studying them.”

Roman pursed his lips, frowning at Ferrol as if trying to read the motive behind the words. Ferrol held his breath… and at last, almost reluctantly, the other nodded.

“Very well, Commander. Proceed with your capture, and prepare your samples for transfer. We’ll rendezvous with you in an hour.”

Ferrol exhaled quietly. “Yes, sir. Thank you, Captain.”

“I’ll talk to you then. Amity out.”

The display went blank. For a long moment Ferrol stared at it, feeling his stomach knotting up within him. Once again, in the face of totally inexcusable actions, Roman was going to give him another chance… and once again, Ferrol was very likely going to betray that trust.

He’d known, from the beginning, that this would probably happen. What he hadn’t expected was that it would hurt.

“First Jump completed, Captain,” Kennedy reported from the bridge. “We’ll be driving cross-system now for about twenty minutes to get into proper position for the second.”

Roman nodded. “Good. Any problems with the Scapa Flow?”

“Not so far.” She paused, her eyes flicking away from Roman’s face for a quick scan of her displays. “No. The tether line’s holding just fine, and Sleipnir doesn’t seem to be having any trouble at all with the extra mass.”

“Very good. Keep me informed.”

The intercom screen blanked, and he looked back up. On the other side of his desk, Ferrol was sitting quietly, trying to exude respect and a sort of righteous dignity.

Not that it was really coming off. “Probably a slightly bumpy ride for them back there,” Roman told him. “We can still arrange to berth your men here, you know.”

Ferrol shrugged. “I appreciate the offer, sir, but to be perfectly honest, they’ve got better accomodations in the Scapa Flow than they’d have here.”

“As well as a better chance of cutting the tether line and escaping once we’re back within Mitsuushi distance of the Cordonale?” Roman asked pointedly.

Ferrol seemed to draw himself up. “I’ve given you the ship’s parole, Captain,” he said, his voice stiff. “They won’t try to leave.”

Roman thought about that. “No,” he acknowledged, “I don’t believe they will. My apologies, Commander.”