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targets.
    â€œBlitsharts is…he’s…” Foote was still struggling for words. “He’s…”
    â€œShit,” Martinez said, and bolted for the door.

TWO
    O perations Command wasn’t in the Terran wing of the Commandery, but Terrans were on duty at this hour, none aware of any emergency until Martinez burst through the door. The duty officer, Lieutenant Ari Abacha, lounged with his feet on his console, a perfect corkscrew apple peel falling from his paring knife onto the napkin spread over his lap, while the three duty techs dozed over the screens that helped them supervise the automated systems that routed routine traffic.
    Martinez batted Abacha’s legs out of the way as he rushed for an unoccupied console. The screw of apple peel spilled to the floor, and Abacha bent to pick it up. Footballers careened over a brightly lit field in one of his displays—he was a big Andiron supporter, Martinez recalled.
    â€œWhat’s the problem, Gare?” Abacha said from somewhere near the floor.
    â€œVandrith Challenge race. Yacht’s out of control.” Martinez dropped onto a seat that had been designed for a Laiown and called up displays.
    â€œYeah?” Abacha said. “Whose?”
    â€œBlitsharts.”
    Abacha’s eyes widened. “Shit,” he said, and leaped from his seat to look over Martinez’s shoulder.
    Telemetry from Midnight Runner had been lost, so Martinez had to locate the yacht by using the passive detectors on Zanshaa’s accelerator ring. Blitsharts’s yacht had cut its main engine and started tumbling. From the erratic way the boat lurched, it appeared that maneuvering thrusters were still being fired. It was possible that Blitsharts was trying to regain control, but if so, he was failing. Any input from the thrusters just seemed to add to the chaos.
    And all this, Martinez reminded himself, had happened over twenty-four minutes ago, with the time-lag increasing as Midnight Runner raced toward galactic south.
    Martinez asked the computer to calculate how many gees the acceleration had inflicted on Blitsharts’s body. A maximum of 7.4, he found, deeply uncomfortable but survivable, especially for a yacht racer in peak condition. Blitsharts might still be alive.
    A communicator buzzed on Abacha’s console. He stepped toward it and linked it to the display on his uniform sleeve. “Operations. Lieutenant Abacha.”
    The voice came out of Abacha’s sleeve. “My lord, this is Panjit Sesse of Zanshaa All-Sports Networks. Are you aware that Captain Blitsharts’s yacht Midnight Runner is tumbling out of control?”
    â€œWe’re working on that, yes.”
    Martinez was only vaguely aware of this dialogue. He told the computers to guess where Midnight Runner would be in half an hour or so and to paint the area with low-energy ranging lasers aimed from the ring. That might make it easier for rescuers to track the boat.
    The reporter’s voice went on. “ Who is working on it, my lord?”
    Abacha looked over Martinez’s shoulder at the displays again. “Right now we’ve got Lieutenant Martinez.”
    â€œOnly a lieutenant, lord?”
    â€œHe’s aide to Senior Fleet Commander Enderby.” Abacha’s tone showed impatience. A pair of Peers were dealing with the situation. That should be enough for anybody.
    Martinez called up a list of every ship within three light-hours of Vandrith. The closest to Blitsharts were the yacht racers, but they were still engaged in their race, and none of them were suitable as a rescue vehicle. While they’d almost certainly noted Blitsharts’s exit, they probably were too busy to analyze the meaning of his trajectory, beyond being pleased to have one less competitor. The large tender that had brought the yachts to Vandrith would need to recover the other yachts before it did anything, and it was built more for comfort than for maneuver