Three days later, Jasper Warmack stopped in front of an open doorway in Watch the Sky Municipal Spaceport.

     "Hello, Captain Witherspoon.  I thought you'd be packed up and gone by now."

     "Mr. Craft!"  The Captain of the Star Nymph dropped her clipboard on her desk and came quickly out of the rented storeroom, as though she wanted to grab him before he vanished in the crowded hallway.  "It's a good thing you came back!"

     Warmack waited and smiled cautiously at her.  Dressed in jeans and a work shirt, he was, as Ombarth had said, very un-memorable.  He was about 38, a little taller, a little lankier, and a little plainer than average, neither swarthy nor fair, brown haired, brown eyed, with a manner that made him fade into the woodwork.  He looked much more like a grease monkey than a rich industrialist.  Even if he had been much in the news, which he had not, no one who was not specifically interested in him would have recognized him.

     Captain Witherspoon led him eagerly into the storeroom.  She was a raw-boned black woman, past middle age, who had never been pretty, and her conversational style wasn't right for a starship captain talking to a crew member.  At his first interview, she had told Warmack that she was used to one- or two-man private trading boats, and a diplomatic starship with a crew of four, and three passengers, was more glory than she'd aimed for.  She'd won the job in a poker game, she said.  Still, even in her too-new and too-tight white uniform, she was clearly not the overawed small-timer she claimed to be.  Warmack figured her for a battle-hardened old smuggler, chosen to give the acid test to the mass detector foiler.

     "You can have the job, Craft, if you still want it," she said.  "Andy Pedilla skipped out on us.  Would you believe it, he won the Fiji Sweepstakes, and the week reserved for him overlaps our departure time, so he quit."  Her voice went up at the end, as though she found it incredible.

     Warmack saw nothing strange in Pedilla's values.  He assumed anyone with a normal standard of living, especially if he came from a planet as cold as Witch's Tit, would give up a good job for a week of luxury on Fiji.  "Well, it looks like Pedilla's good luck is mine too.  I take it my references were okay?"

     "I've got you halfway cleared through the Port Authority already, I the hope that you'd come back after that rather definite ‘no' I gave you.  It's a waste of time, trying to get in touch with anyone in this town.  I couldn't get an appointment for a telephone, and there's no transportation to the address you gave me.  This planet makes me frantic!  Have you got all your papers?"

     Smiling, Warmack pulled a thick sheaf of government forms from an outside pocket of the suitcase he carried.  "I came prepared, Captain."

     "Then get up to the crew clearance office, son, and don't dawdle.  We roll off in six hours."

     The Star Nymph was about 400 feet long by 200 feet in diameter, shaped much like a blimp.  It rested, at the moment, on four retractable legs, near a launch ramp at Watch the Sky Municipal.  People on Earth believed that anything orbiting their planet--with the necessary exception of defense satellites--should be banned because things like that might generate radio waves which would interfere with the communication of ants.  And rocket exhaust, of course, caused heat pollution, and there was a theory that gravity field generators, the most common mode of short-range starship propulsion, might either inhibit or aggravate the motion of the tides.  So starships with business on Earth had to land, and they had to use the Dribble Method.  This, of course, was before the Dribble Method was shown to have gradually caused all wildlife to migrate away from a hundred-mile radius of all spaceports.

     In the Dribble Method, a landing starship checked its descent not with retro rockets but with parachutes, combined with the buoyancy of large vacuum chambers.  Even with those aids, a big starship would strike the Earth pretty hard, skip across the countryside in a series of miles-high bounces, and roll to a stop.  With internal adjustors, this procedure wasn't as unpleasant for the ship's passengers as it might seem.  The bounces, of course, were part of a carefully computed landing pattern.  They were supposed to take place on specially cushioned bounce pads which dotted the jungle around Watch the Sky, like giant stepping-stones leading to the spaceport.  There had been a time when it was unheard-of for a starship to accidentally bounce on--for example--a house.  Nowadays, with qualified traffic controllers so rare, of course there were squashed spots here and there in the jungle and the city.

     Jasper Warmack stepped from the metal catwalk into the airlock of the Star Nymph, still suffering from writer's cramp after filling out forms for nearly five hours.  He emerged into a hall of generous proportions, lushly carpeted with something soft and purple, and paneled with white oak.  The airlock hissed shut behind him--he turned and saw that from this side, it was a double door of ornately carved mahogany, a tree which was nearly extinct on Earth, but which the lumber industry had successfully fostered on several Fringe planets.  In opposite corners of the room were spiral stairs of some silvery metal, carpeted in gray, leading to a balcony that circled the room. The chandelier, a good twenty-five feet from the floor, looked like real crystal.  Warmack was no slave to fashion but it occurred to him that he might not have brought the right clothes for this trip.

     A door opened on the balcony and an elderly man in a suit came out.  "Mr. Craft?  I'm Albert Lewis, Ambassador Valarson's secretary.  You were supposed to use the other entrance.  Will you come this way, please?"

     The man led him down a wide, carpeted corridor, through an airtight door, and down another corridor which was more like starships were supposed to be: cramped and smelly.

     "That's some front room," Warmack remarked as they walked.

     "I'm afraid so," the secretary agreed.  "The Star Nymph used to be a private yacht and then it was something to see, I've been told.  But when it was donated to the Witch's Tit Diplomatic Corps, the furniture wasn't included, and we couldn't afford any."

     "With the exchange rates the way they are, I'd have thought you'd have bought something on Earth."

     "If we'd wanted cardboard.  Don't worry, though--Captain Witherspoon furnished the crew's quarters."

     It was very common for people from the frontier systems to describe terrestrial products as "cardboard"--a comment on the workmanship as well as the materials used.  Warmack's merchandise was never described that way.  Still, he felt a flash of embarrassment.

     He stowed his suitcase under his bunk, in a cabin which was small but--surprisingly--all his.  He hadn't thought starship mechanics lived that well.  Maybe those wild rumors about the affluence of the Fringe had some basis in fact.

     Before going belowdecks to look at the engines and other guts of the ship, Warmack stopped in the crew's common room.  It was nicely fixed up with drapes that matched the sofa, several easy chairs, a big video platform, bookshelves, and potted plants.  Two people were having coffee there: a slim, very pretty red-haired woman in her mid-thirties, and a stocky man, about fifty, who looked like a TV anchorman.  The woman looked up and smiled shyly.

     "You must be Ted Craft," said the anchorman, rising to shake Warmack's hand.  "Welcome aboard."  He had a firm hand, an engaging smile, and a deep, smooth voice.  Warmack smiled back, without taking a liking to him.  The man went on, "This is Lydia Kinney, our chief of security--and a crack gunner, I understand.  I'm Victor Belden, the Ambassador's valet.  Like you, I'm an Earthie, just hired."

     On Earth you could get servants who would work for room and board.  Most bureaucrats had a valet, a butler, and a couple of maids.  Warmack only had a chef because he didn't have room in his apartment for any more.  So it was very plausible that the Ambassador might hire a valet while he was here, and that anyone might take the job, for a free ride to the Fringe.  But suddenly Warmack felt certain that Victor Belden was actually the deadly, psychotic Aaron Lamb.  He was afraid to approach that subject for fear of being assassinated.  So, after the pleased-to-meet-yous, he said, "I thought diplomatic ships didn't carry guns."

     "There've been pirates along the shipping routes," Lydia Kinney said.  "We've got a ballista mounted next to the lifeboat hangar.  That ought to make those sonofaguns thing twice."

     Warmack swallowed a perplexed question.  A ballista was heavy artillery, meant to be used in combination with some form of defense--energy shields, military armor, or a fighter squadron.  Depending on the model, it could fire 100 to 1000 missiles at once, creating a zone of destruction in a particular segment of space.  But you couldn't really aim it.  Seven or eight, staggered around the hull, would be needed to protect a ship to a meaningful degree.  If the Star Nymph only had one, it could easily be avoided by the quick little ships pirates liked.

     "Have you had to use it yet?" he said.

     "Not on pirates.  I tried it out on an inflatable target," said Lydia Kinney.

     Well, Warmack thought, just possibly it could be a new kind of ballista that could protect the whole ship.  He wanted a close look at it.  Anyway, he didn't take the pirate threat very seriously.  He dealt with Fringe planets on the black market, through his Lunar plant.  If there was heavy pirate activity around Witch's Tit, the market should have reflected a demand for freighter armor and suitable ships' guns.  It hadn't.  More likely this business of arming the Star Nymph had to do with a diplomatic confrontation of some kind, or else they were smuggling the gun to someplace else.  So he decided not to risk his cover by volunteering any advice on the subject.

     "You made the trip from the Fringe, then, I take it?" he said.  "You weren't hired on Earth?"

     The very idea seemed to jolt her.  "Good lord, do I sound like an Earthie?"

     "No, no.  Since you know the ship, I was wondering if you'd show me around."

     She looked at her watch.  "Sure, there's time for a quick tour before we strap in.  Belden, how about you?"

     "Some other time."  The valet rose, smiling.  "I should be helping the Ambassador batten down his gear--if that's the correct astronautical terminology."

     Kinney showed Warmack the subspace sails, gravity field generators, life support systems, and landing cushions.  There wasn't much time to look them over in detail but he formed the impression that they were in wonderfully good repair.  Everything was hooked up to the newest and best diagnostic equipment in case anything broke.  He'd never worked on a starship before.  Some of the things, like the grav generators, he understood well, but he'd been alternating between fatalistic gloom and the hope that he would learn very fast, if something should go wrong with an unfamiliar thing like a parachute folder.  With all these luscious mechanic's aids, though, he knew he could fix whatever broke down, and look brilliant doing it.  That took one big worry off his mind.

     But System Intelligence hadn't known what disguise Aaron Lamb would assume on the Star Nymph.  He suspected Victor Belden.  But what if it was someone else?  He wouldn't know who not to turn his back on.  Or what if it was, and Belden found out that he knew?  Warmack wanted to go home.

     "Now here's the big gun I told you about," said Kinney, and Warmack's wandering attention was instantly riveted.

     "No," he said involuntarily.

     "Yes, it really is," she insisted with a puzzled little smile.  "A Warmack Model VI Foeburster, old but as good as new.  Fives 500 rockets at a time, in clusters of 100.  Pretty, isn't it?"

     Warmack couldn't answer.  To his eyes the huge steel antique would indeed have been a thing of beauty, except that something was dreadfully wrong with it.  As originally sold, the Foeburster was mounted in a cushioned cradle which held the gunner's seat, with its controls and sensors, more than six feet back from the tail ends of the five barrels.  But somewhere in the course of its long career, this one had lost both its cradle and, apparently, its instruction manual.  Ballistae of later years, of course, came equipped with inertial adjustors to counteract the crashing recoil of the big barrels.  Whoever had installed this weapon hadn't realized the need to allow space for a recoil.  Anyone who sat in this gunner's couch and fired the rockets, would get both legs crushed.

     Should he tell her?  It could be dangerous to expose his intimate knowledge of an antique weapon.  On the other hand, he didn't want the poor woman injured.  But she wasn't likely to fire the thing, if he was right that there was no threat of pirates.  Obviously she hadn't fired it during the journey to Earth, even though she claimed she had.  That was odd, too.  Why would she lie about firing the gun?

     It was a huge thing.  If it had somehow been fired, maybe by remote control, the noise and jolt would have been noticed everywhere in this little yacht.  The other crew members would remember it.  Warmack would ask them.  Meanwhile, he decided, he wouldn't mention this mis-installation, unless she showed signs of wanting to fire some rockets.  Then he would make it sound like something he'd just thought of.

     "You certainly seem fascinated," Lydia Kinney said, with a strange smile.  "Were you a gunner in the war, or something?"

     "No."  That would have been a convenient lie, but his papers said differently.  "It's sure big, isn't it?"

     "Sure is."

     They moved on around the room, examining the lifeboats and some sensor screens and diagnostic equipment.  Here, as elsewhere, Warmack found that he knew as much, or more, about the functions of things than this regular crew member did.

     "That little side corridor leads to my cabin," Kinney said, pointing.  "Originally this ship was built for a three-man crew.  So when they added the Foeburster, and a chief of security to go with it, they had to stick another cabin somewhere.  It's not as big as the others."

     "You can trade with me if you want," Warmack offered, with the vague idea that the farther she was from the gun, the less likely she'd be to sit in it and push buttons.

     "Thanks, no.  I wasn't complaining.  If we are attacked, I should be near the gun.  Anyway, I love the privacy."

     The cabins in the crew's quarters were not lacking in privacy.  They didn't even have standard monitors, just intercoms.  This could be almost like the paranoid secrecy of a spy.  Could Aaron Lamb disguise himself as a woman?  Walking behind her back to the common room, Warmack looked her over critically.  Not likely, he thought.

     The two other crew members, Muggins and Tevjik, were already in the common room, strapping in.  Phil Muggins was a man between fifty and sixty, of slight build, with a fringe of white hair and thick glasses.  The inflections of his perfunctory greeting were unmistakably Earthie, with a faint overlay of Fringe drawl.  He was, he said, the ship's doctor.  Ramon Tevjik was only thirty, a big, soft-looking man with curly hair and dark coloring.  His Fringe accent was thick enough to cut with a knife.  He seemed to accept Warmack immediately, Earthie or not.

     "Glad to have you aboard, grease monkey," he said, with a chuckle as though at a private joke.  He extended a big hand, but didn't rise since he was already strapped into his recliner.  "I'm the Star Nymph's gravitist."

     Warmack accepted his hand.  As small as they were making computers these days, it would still have taken one as big as a loaf of bread to replace this man.  Manipulating a ship's gravity fields and inertial adjustors so the tides of subspace didn't kill the passengers was a job requiring a brilliant mind and years of training.  It was unusual to see a gravitist as young as Tevjik.

     The hard part of the gravitist's job wouldn't begin until they dropped into subspace.  His roll-off calculations were no doubt already in the inertial adjustors.  Still, it was unusual to see him riding out the launch here, instead of on the bridge.  Captain Witherspoon must be there all by herself.

     As for the Ambassador and his secretary and valet, they were up in the ritzy-but-bare part of the ship.  Warmack didn't mind not having Victor Belden here to observe his unspacemanlike reactions to roll-off, if he had any.  He lay down in his recliner, noting the pocket in the side that contained the plastic bags.  The wide, padded straps were easy to adjust to his dimensions, and pleasantly warm, since the temperature in the room had dropped several degrees to help prevent nausea.

     The Captain's voice came on the intercom.  "All hands, if you're not strapped in you'd better do it now.  Roll-off is in two minutes.  Ambassador, are your people ready?"

     If there was a reply, it was inaudible to the crew.

     "Dr. Muggins, is everybody strapped in down there?  It was interesting that she asked Muggins, the oldest, rather than Tevjik, whose job would logically make him second in command.

     "Yes, ma'am," said Muggins.  "I count four heads."

     "I'm activating your viewscreen," the Captain said.  "Enjoy the ride.  R-minus 70 seconds.  Wait--the tower is saying I forgot to fill out a form.  Nobody else in the traffic pattern.  Any reason we should wait?  Nope.  Ready... set... roll-off!"

     On cue, the Star Nymph tipped over, rolled down a two-mile concrete ramp with gathering speed, struck a section that curved upward, and shot into the air, still spinning.  The occupants only had a slight sensation of motion unless they looked at the viewscreen, which showed rapidly alternating flashes of jungle and sky.  As the ship reached the top of its trajectory, Kinney, Muggins, and Tevjik moaned in gleeful fright, like children on a roller coaster.  The Star Nymph plummeted to Earth and smacked into a bounce pad.  They heard the boom of metal on concrete.  For an instant the image on the screen stood still, a view of a cloud shaped like a bear's head.  Then the pad flung them into the air again, like a racquet slapping a tennis ball, and Kinney and Muggins oohed as they shattered the cloud and sped skyward.  Tevjik had fallen silent.  A quick glance showed him with his eyes averted from the screen and his lips compressed.

     They fell and rose three more times, each bounce longer and higher than the one before.  At last, just as the Brazilian coast came into sight, Warmack sensed that they had reached the high point of their bounce and still rising.  Evidently they were high enough that they wouldn't interfere with the tides, and the gravity field generators had cut in.  Just then, Ramon Tevjik vomited into a sack.  Well, people said that could happen even to an experienced spaceman, but Warmack had never believed it until now.

     When they were in space, everyone unbuckled and to Warmack's surprise, started hugging one another.  He got three hugs too.  Then they all went their separate ways, and Warmack went belowdecks to find some work to do.