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desired, if she’d met him before she met Angus—if she’d never met Angus. Despite the easy way he carried himself, he conveyed a tense, coiled quality, as if his physical relaxation were a part of what made him dangerous.
    He was smiling—even his tone of voice smiled—as he said, “We’re pretty casual here. Not like the UMCP.” And yet she knew she was being warned; perhaps threatened. “We’ve only got a few simple rules. But they aren’t negotiable. Here’s one of them.
    “When you hear the word ‘want.’ you don’t ask. It isn’t up for discussion. You just do.
    “Understand?”
    Morn was definitely being threatened. Keeping her face as blank as a mask, she nodded once, firmly.
    “Good,” he said.
    The door hissed open, and he was gone.
    When the door shut itself after him, she stayed where she was and stared at his departure as if he’d turned her off—as if he’d taken away her reasons for doing anything.
    Nick was “wanted” on the bridge. And want had a special meaning aboard his ship. It was the command that couldn’t be questioned, the absolute imperative, like the coded order her father might have given her if he’d decided Starmaster had to self-destruct; if she’d let him live, and the occasion to issue such an order had ever arisen.
    Something had happened.
    Captain’s Fancy was on a routine departure trajectory out from Com-Mine Station. Presumably. What could have happened? What was conceivable? What kind of danger or exigency could have come up after only a few thousand kilometers; still within Station’s control space?
    Almost certainly, the explanation involved Com-Mine in some way. It involved Security and Angus.
    Morn couldn’t stop staring at the door, at the spot where Nick had left her; she couldn’t move. What was she going to do now? She was losing control of her compartments: pieces of doubt and black horror bled together, combining like elements of a binary poison. She wanted to flee, but she had nowhere to go. There was nothing around her except panic.
    Riding a visceral tremble, as if she were caught at the epicenter of a quake and needed to get away from it, she decided to leave the cabin.
    Half expecting a shift in Captain’s Fancy ’s g which would indicate a change of direction—to return to dock, or to meet interceptors from Com-Mine—she left the berth and began hunting through the built-in lockers for a clean shipsuit.
    She found one easily: Captain’s Fancy was equipped for guests. Female guests, judging by the cut of the shipsuits. But Morn hardly noticed the comfort of wearing clothes that fit. She was in a hurry, and the only thing she cared about was the tremors driving through her—or the danger that they might make her do something foolish.
    She sealed the shipsuit; located her boots in the san. Because of the nature of her panic, she went back to the berth and retrieved the zone implant control. She didn’t want to be separated from it.
    But then she stopped herself. The part of her which had been shaped by Angus Thermopyle responded to fear in ways which were new to her. Mere physical possession of the control was dangerous. If she carried it with her, anybody who searched her or simply bumped against her could find it.
    Her cabin was the only simulacrum of privacy available to her. She had to conceal the control somewhere here.
    Under the mattress was convenient, but too easy. With the right tools, she would have preferred to open either the door’s panel or the intercom and bury the black box among their circuit boards and wiring. Unfortunately she only had the mending kit to work with.
    Inside her the tremble built so that every movement felt unsteady as she went back to the san, to the mending kit. She tossed some of the patches and velcro into the disposal to make room; then she put the control in the bottom of the kit and covered it with the remaining supplies.
    That would have to do. If she stood where she was and tried to imagine