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meant. Did he mean, “tell us all,” the whole crew? or “all the rest”?
    None of us is safe while you’re aboard.
    There were too many unknowns. She only knew one thing about Nick, had only that one lever. Everything else was blank. How much had he learned about her through his contact in Com-Mine Security? What had the UMCP told Com-Mine? How many of his secrets did he share with his crew? What was their loyalty to him based on: personal gain? success? reciprocity?
    Who was he, that he could get Com-Mine Security to help him betray Angus Thermopyle?
    Since she had no way to approach any of her other questions, she concentrated on that one.
    Angus Thermopyle was guilty of almost any illegal act imaginable—and yet he was innocent of the specific crime for which he’d been arrested. She knew the truth: she’d been there when he was framed. That was disturbing enough. But even more disturbing to her—considering that she was UMCP born and trained—was Security’s complicity.
    Why would Security risk vital Station supplies to help one known pirate betray another?
    No, worse than that: what on earth possessed Security to trust Nick Succorso against Angus Thermopyle?
    And here was another question, now that she thought about it: Why did Security let Nick take her?
    It was one thing to leave her alone with Angus. After all, she’d used her UMCP authority to demand that Com-Mine keep its hands off her. But it was something else entirely to risk Station supplies to help one pirate betray another, with a UMC cop in the middle, and then to simply let that cop depart unquestioned. Why had Security allowed her to leave its jurisdiction?
    Yet the issue was even more complex than that. Under any circumstances, Com-Mine Security must have sent a message to UMCPHQ when she first appeared with Angus. Security would have relayed everything she said and did to UMCPHQ as a matter of course. Why hadn’t Enforcement Division replied? Granted, communication across interstellar distances was no instantaneous business. Nevertheless gap courier drones could have carried messages to UMCPHQ and back in a few days. Ordinary ship traffic could have done the job in a couple of weeks. Surely her time with Angus hadn’t been too short to permit a reply? And surely, if ED had replied, Security wouldn’t have let Nick take her?
    She was lost in it. If Min Donner, the director of Enforcement Division, had instructed Com-Mine Security to let Nick Succorso take her—Morn couldn’t get past that point. There were too many levels involved, too many implications of treachery. And she’d trusted the UMCP from the day she was born: it was the same thing as trusting her father.
    She had to stick with what she knew, or else she would paralyze herself. She had to focus on the present; on survival and the zone implant.
    She had to concentrate on Nick Succorso.
    Before she could get any further, the cabin intercom chimed. A voice that sounded like Mikka Vasaczk’s said neutrally, “Nick.”
    As if he’d never been asleep, Nick sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the berth. Ignoring Morn, he scrubbed his hands up and down his face for a second or two: that was all the time he needed to collect himself. While Morn was still trying to decide how to react, how to play her role now, he stood up and keyed the intercom.
    “Here.”
    “Nick, you’re wanted on the bridge.” The intercom flattened the voice, made it sound impersonal; untouched.
    Nick didn’t reply. Instead he keyed off the intercom and reached for his shipsuit and boots.
    He still hadn’t glanced at Morn.
    She was too vulnerable, too much at risk: she had to say something. Swallowing weariness and old fright, she asked with as much naturalness as she could summon, “What is it?”
    He finished sealing his shipsuit and pulling on his boots before he turned to her.
    His eyes were bright; they focused on her with a keenness, an inner intensity, which she might have loved, or at least