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and uncomfortable; light entered it only through chinks between the stout planks. The faint illumination was occasionally blocked, indicating that there were men right outside the box.
    There was little the three escapees could say to each other. They had been through a lot together, prior to their first imprisonment. All three had been aboard Chaison’s cruiser when it attacked Falcon Formation’s new dreadnought. They were taken separately from the wreckage, and it was only recently that Chaison found out that Darius Martor had survived and was imprisoned down the hall from him. Richard Reiss’s presence was a surprise, and he wondered if there had been other survivors from the Rook in the prison. He would probably never know.
    And what would happen now? Doubtless they would be separated. They might even be executed, though it was hard to anticipate the logic of Falcon’s byzantine legal system. Certainly these few minutes together were likely to be the last they would ever see of each other.
    The silence stretched.
    The door banged and then opened a crack. It was the legless pilot, grinning at them through the gap. “Police ship’s on its way,” he said. “Just thought you might want to know.”
    “I didn’t actually, but thanks,” said Darius.
    “Hey…sorry, you know?” said the pilot. “It’s the fortunes of war—there’s a reward for you and I’ll be collecting it. Good for me.”
    He glanced around himself and then leaned closer to the door. “But I wanted to ask you fellows. Is it true? Did Slipstream really blow away half our fleet? Stop an invasion of your country?”
    Chaison lifted his chin. “We did, and we did.”
    “Well…” The pilot rubbed his chin. “That’s something. Good for you, I say. Don’t hold with the government just stealing another sun. Wrong, is what it is.”
    Richard Reiss cleared his throat. “Sounds like you have a civilized sense of justice, sir. Why then are you turning us in?”
    Chaison half-saw the shrug around the crack of the door. “Like I said, I need the money. Anyway, how was I to know how you would be?—Three starving prisoners with swords and me all alone on my bridge? I wasn’t going to take the chance. Still won’t.”
    “I assure you,” said Richard, “we are men of honor.”
    “Too late for that.”
    “Then why in hell’s name are you talking to us?”
    There was a pause. “No reason, I guess,” said the pilot gruffly. Chaison half-saw him jab his thumb in the direction of a light that had appeared over his shoulder. “Come on out. It’s time.” The pilot moved back and the door swung open.
    Feathered sharks circled a knife-shaped police cutter with Falcon’s bird-of-prey sigil on its side. The cutter was wingless, relying entirely on four barrel-shaped jets at its stern for motion and guidance. Both sides of its hull had windscreens and a seating area; a rectangular hole in the hull joined these two areas. Each side swarmed with black-uniformed men.
    The cutter’s spotlight slewed over the foundry until it caught Chaison and his companions. Then it fixed on them. Someone shouted, “Prepare to be boarded!” through a bullhorn.
    The legless pilot glanced at Chaison nervously. Men like him often had reasons to work and live far from well-policed areas. Had some run-in with the law driven him here, to perch on this metal monster at the very limit of Falcon’s sunlight? If so, it would have been useful to know that sooner. Chaison grimaced. It was too late to look for leverage on any of these men.
    Someone threw a line out to the cutter, and several policemen started hauling on it. It bobbed closer while the sharks dove in and out of the spotlight’s beam. Nobody spoke, and Chaison knew the strange paralysis that leads sane men to allow themselves to be led to execution.
    Then there was a whhf-bang! and one of the sharks was suddenly an expanding pink cloud. Drops of cool blood sprinkled past Chaison. He blinked, and another shark