When he questioned her on it, she hastily explained that she had been a passenger, using the courier instead of a commercial carrier because she wanted privacy. He wondered aloud at a courier taking on passengers. She responded by hinting that she was important enough to justify any exception that might have been required.

But the biggest sticking point, and the one on which he kept his own counsel, was the behavior of the courier pilot. Couriers carried important people, emergency supplies, engineering prototypes, irreplaceable documents. It didn’t make sense that a courier pilot would endanger his cargo by poking around a wreck. It seemed far more likely that the pilot would report the sighting to the Patrol post on Viking, then make his Jump on schedule.

Derec recalled that the first time her capture had come up, Katherine had quickly changed the subject. He wondered now if that was because she didn’t have her story ready. Perhaps he was being fed half-truths as some sort of test-Dr. Galen’s prescription for crippled minds. If so, he resented it.

But the arrival at last of the Assistant Manager for Station Operations pushed those thoughts to the back of Derec’s mind.

“I am called Hajime,” the AMSOP said, “Dr.Galen tells me that both of you are recovering from your injuries. That is good news.”

“Especially to us,” Derec said under his breath.

“I understand that you have questions about your presence here. I hope that I will be able to answer them.”

Derec opened his mouth to answer, but before he could speak Katherine jumped in. “Begin with when the station first detected our ship and tell us what you observed,” she ordered.

“Yes, madam. The station’s sensors detected an unidentified ship immediately after it emerged from its Jump-as you may know, the termination of a Jump is accompanied by a minor spacetime disturbance comparable to the atmospheric disturbance caused by a discharge of lightning-”

“We know all that,” Derec said. “Get on with it.”

“Forgive me, sir,” the robot said with a slight bow. “I only wanted to be certain that you understood how we were able to detect your ship at such a great distance.”

“Why? How far out were we?”

“Eighty-three astronomical units. At such a distance, the station’s sensors were only able to determine the position and velocity of the vessel. Since there was no direct identification through a transponder or indirect identification through sensor data, this vessel was designated UPH-07.”

“UPH?” Katherine asked.

“Forgive me. Unidentified, Potentially Hostile,” Hajime supplied.

“Go on, Hajime.”

“Thank you, sir. We tracked Oh Seven inbound for two days. We were just beginning to acquire some preliminary data on its mass and profile when an anomalous event took place. UPH-07 divided into two independentbodies, UPH-07A and UPH-07B. The larger vessel, Oh Seven A, made a course correction which carried it out of the station’s zone of control-”

“They cut us loose and then turned around and went away,” Katherine said.

“Looks like it,” Derec said. “Did the big ship Jump?”

“Not while it was within range of our sensors, sir,” Hajime answered. “It is not possible to say what happened once contact was lost.”

Derec and Katherine exchanged glances that said, So they could still be out there somewhere, waiting.

“And the other vessel, Oh Seven B, it continued inbound?” Katherine asked. “That’s where you found us?”

“Yes, madam. A scout with a rescue and retrieval team aboard was dispatched immediately.”

“Can you show us a navigational plot of all this?” Derec asked.

“Certainly, sir.” The robot went to the hyperviewer and entered a code on the keyboard, and a moment later the far wall dissolved into the black of space.

It was all there as the robot had described it. A blue trace from the top of the plot traced the raider’s approach to the station, represented by a golden hexagon at the bottom. One-third of the way there, the blue trace split. A thick green trace angled off the plot to the upper right, while a thin red one continued curling inbound on the original trajectory. Two-thirds of the way down the plot, the red trace intersected a golden trace climbing up out of the station: the rescue ship.

“Can we have a copy of that?” Derec said.

“I will file it in a directory under your name,” Hajime said, his touch on the controls turning the far wall into a wall once more.

“Was the boarding recorded?” Katherine asked.

“Yes, madam.”

“I’d like to see the recording,” Katherine said, beckoning Derec to come sit on the edge of the bed beside her. When he did, she took his hand and gripped it tightly, as though seeking reassurance. The skin contact surprised and unsettled Derec.

“The recording was made by means of a witness robot,” Hajime said. “The multicom will not be able to display the full bandwidth-”

“What’s a witness robot?” Katherine whispered to Derec.

“I’ll explain later,” Derec whispered back. Witness robots were odd-looking, with their bullet heads and 360-degree scanning slit instead of eye sensors, but invaluable for such operations. Their sole responsibility was to position themselves so that their scanners and recorders captured unfolding events clearly. Many a bungled operation had been reconstructed from the data supplied by witness robots before they were destroyed.

“-so if you wish to move the window left or right at any point please tell me so.”

From the outside, Aranimas’s ship looked like a fat arrowhead trailing bits of the twine which had held it to the shaft. The arrowhead was in fact an atmosphere-piercing lifting body, and the twine the tattered remnants of several transfer corridors which had been attached to the hexagonal junction between the engine exhaust bells at the stern.

Together Derec and Katherine watched as the rescue robots fit a self-cutting emergency hatch to the upper hull. When the hatch’s contact ring had burned through the hull and fused itself in place, the robots entered-one at a time, the witness first.

“This is where Aranimas had me living,” she whispered as the hypervision panned the atticlike upper deck.

“How long were you there?”

“Two months. Believe me, it seemed longer.”

When the witness robot led the way down to the main deck, the first thing they saw was a robot standing in the central corridor.

“Alpha,” Derec cried.

“Capek,” Katherine said at the same instant. “Where’s my robot?”

Hajime suspended the recording. “This robot was removed and taken away for diagnostic examination and repair.”

“I want him back, just the way he was,” Derec said. “You’ve got no right to tinker with him without a work order.”

“The robot resisted our efforts to rescue you. It was judged to be operating in a substandard and hazardous manner and was deactivated. Standard procedure in such cases is to perform a full examination so that the anomaly may be reported to the manufacturer.”

Katherine was nodding in reluctant agreement, and Derec took his cue from her. “All right,” he said. “Go on.”

When the recording continued, they saw themselves for the first time. They were lying head to foot along one wall in the central walkway of the main deck. Katherine winced and turned away at the sight of her own burn-blistered face and bloody clothing. Derec gritted his teeth and tried not to feel the pain all over again that was reflected in his burned skin.

“I thought so,” Derec whispered under his breath. “I thought so.”

“What?” Katherine demanded. “What are you talking about?”

“Alpha. He kept us alive.”

“You heard Hajime-the robot was abnormal. He wouldn’t let them rescue us.”

“That was just the PD cube being careful. Look,” Derec said, gesturing. “Those aren’t positions that you fall into naturally after an accident like that, or even crawl into. We were moved. And more: we were at least five days out when I tripped the booby trap. It took the rescue ship two and a half days to reach us. There’s no quarreling with the fact that we were badly injured-”