Keeping machines running smoothly was an activity he understood and valued.  Doing spy things, like finding out the identity of Aaron Lamb or locating the mass detector foiler, was something he could gladly put off.  After all, they would be in space three weeks.  There was no hurry.  He found a broken strut rod bushing in one of the ship's leg extenders, and replaced it.  The rest of the day until dinnertime he spent roaming the Star Nymph's lower decks, getting to know all the diagnostic equipment and taking a close look at machines he didn't understand.  To his relief, the parachute folder was really very simple.

     One interesting thing he discovered was a mysterious cabinet about two cubic meters in size.  It had no obvious purpose.  Prying off a cover plate, he saw computer boards, but then, nearly everything had a computer in it.  There were a couple of fat cables leading to the bridge and the auxiliary control room.  This, he decided, might be the mass detector foiler, but it was too complex to just sketch a diagram of, for transmission back to Earth.  Getting the plans to it would take some research and sneaking around.  It could wait.

     No one else ventured into the working parts of the ship during his investigations.  His only human contact was with Captain Witherspoon, who twice called him on the nearest monitor to ask how he was doing and whether he needed any help.  It made him feel like he was being spied on, but under the circumstances, it would hardly be fair for him to complain.  Actually, monitors of this kind were standard equipment in any ship or factory that was almost totally automated.  Warmack Armaments had them, to spot fires or malfunctions that the automatic systems missed.  They were the non-sneaky kind: you could tell when they were watching you because a little red light came on.  Still, his back itched whenever he turned away from one.

     The only step he took toward fulfilling his mission, that afternoon, was to collect a pouch of little tools he thought might be useful to a spy.  It made him feel more like he knew what he was doing.

     Reasoning that the crew of the Star Nymph had probably adapted to Watch the Sky's meal schedule during the time they were there, Warmack headed for the living quarters when his stomach told him it was dinnertime.

     He was early.  Captain Witherspoon was barbecuing three chickens in the galley adjacent to the common room.  Captains did not normally cook for their crews, but this one was used to traveling alone or nearly so, and perhaps only liked her own cooking.  Warmack hoped the ship had a good autopilot, because the entire population of the Star Nymph was waiting for dinner at the moment.  Dr. Muggins and Lydia Kinney were involved in a chess game and most of the others were watching.

     Chess was practically obsolete on Earth, but the game enjoyed high popularity on the Fringe, especially among starship crews.  It was said that riding those steel bubbles between stars, were chess masters equal to the greats of the golden age.  Warmack had never played chess, but he'd brought along a rule book in the hope that he could fake it, if railroaded into a game.  So he pulled up a chair and sat down, glad of a chance to learn by watching.

     Muggins moved a bishop.

     "You shouldn't have done that," said Tevjik.  "Now she can take it with her knight."

     "No," said Muggins.  "A knight can't take a bishop.  It can only take pieces of equal or lower rank."

     "Rank doesn't matter," Kinney said.  "Any piece can take any other piece.  I'm sure of that.  But you see, this one came from the left side of the board so it can only jump clockwise, and since his bishop is to the left of my knight, I'm out of luck.  However, he's left himself wide open.  My rook is unblocked now--" She moved the little piece of red plastic with a forceful sweep "--and I'm taking his bishop and his queen."

     "Unfair!" Muggins protested.  "You can't take two pieces at once."

     "No, she's right," said Tevjik.  "A rook is a castle.  Once you get a building that size really moving, it takes more than one collision to stop it.  I'd say a castle could flatten a bishop and a queen."

     "I was being conservative," Kinney said.

     Captain Witherspoon had been listening to the game from the galley, occasionally glancing over at the group with a sort of glassy-eyed wonder.  Catching Warmack looking at her, she looked away hastily.  "Lydia," she said a moment later, "would you help me set the table, please?"

     "But--all right.  Ted, would you take over for me?"

     Warmack remembered that his alias was Ted.  "Well," he said uncomfortably, "actually, I'm not that good at chess."

     "It's easy," Kinney told him.  "Just keep the doc off balance with new moves.  And watch out for his castles.  Sometimes he'll hide an extra pawn inside one."

     "All right," Warmack said.  He had gathered that chess was a simulated war, in which originality was an important factor.  Thinking fast, he took out a pencil and pad and scribbled a note.  "Who's the referee here?"

     There was a moment's blank silence, and Muggins and Tevjik shot questioning glances at each other.

     "I am," said Victor Belden, the Ambassador's valet.  "It was I who suggested the game."  The corners of his mouth quivered.

     Warmack handed him the note.  Belden read it, nodded, and put it in his pocket.

     "By the way," Warmack said as Muggins moved a knight, "that big gun down by the lifeboats--the Foeburster.  I understand it was tested after it was installed."

     "Of course it was," Tevjik said.

     "Work okay?  It looks pretty old."

     "Sure, it worked fine."

     "I've heard that the Foebursters are surprisingly quiet for their size.  But as old as that one is, I guess its muffler is shot."

     "No, I could hardly hear it when the rockets were fired," Tevjik said, smiling.  "And I was on the same deck."

     Warmack kept his face casual, but inwardly he quailed.  If the Foeburster had been fired, its boom would have rattled every eyeball in the ship.  Yet Tevjik corroborated Kenney's lie, and so, by their silence, did the others.  Why were they trying to deceive them?  Did they know he was a spy?

     Mentally cursing Ombarth and the entire government of Earth, he moved a pawn.

     "Aha!" cried Muggins, making him jump.  "I've got you now!"  He swooped his knight onto the pawn's square.  "Next move I'll get your queen, and have a clear shot at your king."

     "Not quite," said Victor Belden, producing the note.  "That pawn was a demolitionist, and you've just galloped onto his freshly-laid minefield.   Think of a number between one and ten."

     Muggins looked stunned.  "Eight."

     "Pawn and knight were both blown sky-high."

     Warmack smiled with satisfaction, rubbing his right anklebone, which was starting to itch.

     "Brilliant move, Craft," Tevjik said.  "And you pretended you couldn't play chess."

     "It's not as hard as I thought."  Warmack wrote another note and handed it to the valet.  Muggins did likewise.  About that time, Warmack noticed that Lydia Kinney had left the room and it was the Ambassador's secretary, Mr. Lewis, who was setting the table.

     "Where's Lydia?" he said.

     "I think she went to the john."  The Captain forked chicken pieces onto a big platter and poured sauce over them from the pan.  "Want to finish that game later?  It's ready."

     They all sat down, with Captain Witherspoon at one end of the table and Ambassador Valarson at the other.  Warmack noticed that the Ambassador had a fixed from on his face and that he seemed to be having trouble spearing a chicken breast with his fork.  He made several tries before he got it, and then he dripped sauce all the way to his plate.  Perhaps he was always like that, Warmack thought, trying not to stare.  Maybe he'd been a stroke victim or something.  But Lewis and Belden were watching the man will ill-concealed surprise, too.

     The Ambassador was an impressive-looking gentleman, tall and fairly lean, though he was spreading a bit around the center.  He had gray temples and a craggy, dignified face, with deep lines from his hawk nose to the corners of his downturned mouth.  His eyes had thin rings of blue around big dark centers.  He was flawlessly groomed in a steel-gray suit, set off by a pink tie bearing the official emblem of Witch's Tit.  "Do we have to have so much light in here?" he said, spreading mashed potatoes on his chicken.

     Warmack felt a nudge from the secretary.  "I think he took something for the roll-off," Lewis whispered.  "Pretend you don't notice."

     "I didn't catch that remark," said Valarson.

     Lewis raised his voice.  "I was just saying that the barbecue sauce seems a little thin."  He spooned a dab of mashed potatoes onto his chicken.  "This ought to thicken it up just right."

     "Ah, yes," said the valet, doing the same.

     The Captain snorted.  "To think I'd ever find myself eating with bureaucrats!"

     "I assure you, madam, that I also never expected to find myself eating with crew," said the Ambassador.  "This return trip is going to be a trial."

     Before Warmack had time to wonder why the return trip was different than the trip to Earth in that respect, the Captain said, "Well, Valarson, if you don't come down off your high horse, come planetfall the government may just find itself high and dry without a part-time pilot, and you'll be back to commercial liners again."

     Valarson stared at her with his strange eyes.  "Then maybe we'll draft ourselves a pilot," he said.  "And a ship, too.  Furnished."

     "Scratch a bureaucrat and uncover a megalomaniac!  I swear, our government is getting dangerous ideas."  Captain Witherspoon appeared to calm down a bit then.  "You've been in a funny mood lately, Gar.  You don't sound like yourself at all.  Tomorrow after breakfast, meet me in sick bay.  I want to look you over."

     The Ambassador shrugged and licked sauce from his fingers.

     Warmack had been so caught by this peculiar conversation that he had forgotten to eat.  The Captain cast a sharp look at him, and at his plate.  "If you don't like it the way it is, Craft, try mixing it with mashed potatoes."

     Warmack stood.  "I don't think my stomach had quite adjusted to the artificial gravity," he said.  (This was absurd, but some people really did claim they could tell the difference.)  "Would you excuse me, please?"

     As he left the common room, his thoughts raced ahead of him.  Ambassador Valarson was obviously drugged.  He had hired a valet on Earth although surely he could not well afford one.  The spy, Aaron Lamb, who was an expert on the effects of drugs, had needed a berth on the ship.  It seemed more likely than ever that the valet was Lamb.  So Warmack would search Victor Belden's cabin and see if he could find a telltale cache of drugs.  With any luck, Belden would linger over dessert, or at least stay occupied with the Ambassador.  These thoughts filled Warmack's conscious mind.  On another level, he was remembering his comfortable apartment back on Earth, with its hot tub and well-mannered chef and sweet solitude.  There, he could lock the doors and unplug the phone, slather his whole body with anaesthetic, and forget about trying to cope with the shifting demands of law and society.  But he would not taste that relief again, unless he first risked his life exploring the quarters of a probable killer spy.

     He went down one level and got the pouch of tools he'd selected for cat-burglar work, then took a different route to the first-class quarters.  Drawing a deep, silent breath and fighting down the need to rake his sides with his fingernails, he put a hand on the knob of Victor Belden's stateroom door, and turned it.  Strangely, it wasn't locked.  For an instant he thought he heard something inside.  He froze.  There was no sound but the whisper of the ventilators.  With infinite caution he slid the door open.

     The room was dark.  By the soft light from the corridor he saw a thick beige carpet, a cot with a suitcase underneath it, a foot locker, doors to the closet and bathroom, and a nice mirror built into the wall.  He wondered if the Ambassador's room were this bare.  Warmack's room had nice furniture.

     He eased himself inside, closed the door, and touched the light switch.

     An overhead light came on.  Warmack exhaled shakily.  Everything looked innocent enough.  The cot looked uncomfortable.  He felt a touch of sympathy.

     If Victor Belden were hiding dangerous drugs, where would they be?  He looked under the pillow and between the sheets.  Nothing.  He pulled the suitcase out from under the cot, and tried the latches.  It was locked.  Taking a small pick from his tool pouch, he opened it.  He saw clothes, a couple of books. A box of candy, and a pistol with a silencer.  How Belden had got the pistol past Customs was a mystery--but then, of course, if he was Aaron Lamb, he could have had special clearance.  This wasn't proof of the man's identity, since lots of people would go to great lengths to have guns, for all sorts of different reasons.  But it was certainly a suspicious circumstance.  Warmack closed the suitcase, wiped it clean of fingerprints, and pushed it under the cot again.  He checked the foot locker next.  It had a combination lock, and he knew of no way to get it open without ripping it to pieces with a crowbar, or something equally obvious.

     There were steps in the corridor outside.  He leaped to the light switch--miraculously, in total silence, so well did his terrified legs obey him--plunged the cabin into darkness, and flew like a scared ghost to where he knew the bathroom door was.  To his relief it was open a crack, so he didn't have to worry about the latch clicking.  He slid inside and eased the door to its former position.

     The door from the corridor opened and the bedroom light came on.  Warmack felt his heart thud.  He would never, never make a good spy, he told himself with a grimace.  Forcing his fear-numbed arms to move, he groped forward in the tiny bathroom.  His hand knocked against a bottle of something but he caught it before it made a noise.

     There were soft sounds in the bedroom.  It sounded like someone was getting the suitcase from under the cot.  Warmack tried to remember whether he'd locked it again after he looked inside it.  He heard the suitcase being set on the bed, and its latches clicked sharply.

     Warmack's eyes adjusted to the faint light from the crack in the door, and he saw the shower stall.  Surely Belden wouldn't be wanting a shower so early in the evening.  He could hide there.  He stepped silently across the cubicle.  Muffling the magnetic latch with his fingers so it wouldn't make a noise, he eased himself into the shower stall.

     And came up against warm flesh.

     It was impossible to tell whether the jolt of fear came from himself or the other person.  Someone gasped sharply.  A hand came up and covered his mouth.

     Hearing steps approaching from the bedroom, he gently pulled the shower door shut.  At the same time, he noticed that the person he was squeezed in with was female.  He'd left Captain Witherspoon presiding over dinner, and she was bulkier than this anyway, so this must be Lydia Kinney.

     The bathroom door opened and the light came on.  The shower door was opaque, but there was space above it and they had enough light to see each other.  Yes, it was Lydia Kinney.  She stared at him in astonishment.

     The other person in the bathroom--Belden, presumably--used the toilet, brushed his teeth, gargled, and went out again, switching off the light.  They heard the door to the corridor open and close.

     "Do you really think he's gone?" Kinney breathed.

     Warmack went up on his toes and looked over the shower door.  He saw nothing but darkness.  "Can't tell.  Door's closed."

     "Let's wait a few minutes and see if we hear him moving around out there."

     They shifted positions slightly.  Warmack's ears were tuned to pick up the slightest sound from the next room, but he was suddenly distracted by an intense prickling on his chest.  He reached up to scratch it.

     "Don't touch me there!" Kinney said, not whispering.  He felt her hand jerk up to slap him.  Trying to fend off the blow, he leaned against the shower door, which flew open and hit the wall with a loud bang, and Warmack fell, hit his elbow on the stool, and said, "Ow!  Damn!"

     The succession of noises took only three seconds.  Then they both froze.  There was no sound from the bedroom.  A minute passed.

     "I think he must be gone," Warmack said in a normal tone.  He sat up and moved his elbow to see if it was broken.  "That was a fool thing, trying to start a fight in a shower stall."

     "I'm sorry.  No man has ever touched me there before.  You didn't exactly behave brilliantly, yourself."  She groped her way around him, turned on the light, and opened the door.  "He's not there.  Are you all right, Ted?"

     "Yeah."  Warmack pulled himself to his feet.  "So what the hell were you doing in the shower?  No--dumb question.  What were you doing in Belden's room?"

     "I was searching it for a subspace transmitter.  You?"

     "Drugs.  Why?"

     "We suspect he's a spy."

     "We?"

     "The Captain and me."  Kinney opened the medicine cabinet.  "Mouthwash, aftershave, toothpaste, and a bottle of--aspirin!"  She grabbed the bottle, opened it, shook out five or six of the white tablets, and stuffed them in her jeans pocket.  "Boy, it's been months since I've had any decent aspirin."

     "Give me that," said Warmack, taking the bottle.  He examined a tablet and saw that it was, in fact, imprinted with the ornate GVP of Giles-Very Pharmaceuticals, of Cannabia.  "This is pure stuff!"  He popped two tablets into his mouth (for the pain in the elbow) and pocketed some more.

     "Wipe the bottle," Kinney said.

     "Yeah."  Warmack cleaned off the fingerprints and returned the bottle to the cabinet.

     "Is that what you meant when you said you were looking for drugs?" she asked him.

     "No."

     "You some kind of junkie?"

     "No!  But if he has a cache of drugs, then he's who I think he is."

     "And who is that?"

     "A--" Warmack suddenly realized he'd been about to confide everything to the enemy's chief of security.  It was too soon to betray Lamb.  "Ah--I--say, how come you're so excited over a bottle of aspirin, when you just smuggled two hundred fifty kilos of the stuff down to Watch the Sky?"  He had meant to put her on the defensive, but after he said it, he realized he'd blurted out something he wasn't supposed to know.

     His blunder didn't seem to register with Kinney.  She bit her lip.  "Well... to tell the truth, I'm--no, I'd better not tell you yet.  Soon, maybe.  But I'm not sure I've got everything straight in my head.  This situation is getting complicated.  Let's wait until after this Victor Belden business is cleared up, and then we'll see how much I can tell you.  And then--" she looked stern "--YOU will tell ME everything.  After all, I'm the security chief here.  And it might interest you to know that I already know most of your secret, anyway.  Now go, and don't snoop into any more rooms.  I'm the one who's supposed to do that."

     Warmack was intensely relieved to be temporarily off the hook.  "Sure you don't need any help here?"

     "Can you open a combination lock?"

     He shook his head.

     "Then go on."

     He opened the outer door a crack, checked the corridor, and started to leave.  Then he turned back to her with a smile.  "As pretty as you are, how come you've never been touched there before?"

     She blushed.  "I am pretty, aren't I?  But not until very recently.  I sort of had a makeover."

     "You an Earthie spy or something?"

     Her expression darkened.  "I'm not an Earthie anything, Craft.  If I ever did happen to be from Earth, I would have left it at the earliest opportunity.  One owes it to oneself to try to escape slavery, to be as free as possible.  Don't you agree?"

     He shrugged.  "Politics really don't interest me."

     He caught a glimpse of a puzzled look on her face, as he turned and left.