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turn.”
    “Good,” answered the pilot. She
stopped looking along her present course. Swiveling her head to scan the whole
sky she spotted her goal. A quick radar pulse confirmed it. Mitchie yawed the
ship eighty degrees left and more than doubled the torch thrust. Fives Full slid sideways through the sky. The pursuer shifted course to follow her rapidly
changing velocity vector.
    Schwartzenberger lifted
himself in his seat. Turning his head unsupported hurt in the high
acceleration. He pushed to see over the edge of the bridge window. The target
was obvious as soon as he saw it. Three snowballs, each about fifty klicks
across, in a neat triangle. The captain lay quietly back. Too late to pass it
by. Best not to distract her.
    “Guo, how long can we keep up
this accel?” asked the pilot.
    “I can’t reach my damn slide
rule,” complained the mechanic. His voice was strained by the acceleration. “Twenty
or thirty minutes. I’ll inform you before we hit the limit.”
    “That should be plenty,” said
Mitchie calmly.
     
    ***
     
    Conditions in the hold were
starting to improve. Billy had been low-crawling on the deck to collect the
used spacesick bags and towels. With those stuffed into the trash locker the
air recycling started to clear out the smell. The groundhogs had mostly emptied
their stomachs. Bing was impressed that a couple had kept their rich breakfast
down. The panicked chatter had been silenced by the latest boost.
    Bobbie was the first to
notice the snowballs. Her “Ooh, pretty,” made her friends look up. They were
too panicked to appreciate the beauty of them.
    As they visibly grew in the
window everyone wound up staring at them. Professor Tsugawa shifted in his
straps to glare at Bing. He labored to yell, “Is. Your. Pilot. Insane?” at her.
    Bing didn’t reply. All she
could think to say was “I hope not.” That didn’t seem helpful.
    Some of the passengers closed
their eyes as the ship closed on the snowballs. The grad students traded
speculation on their composition in gallows-humor tones. Bobbie was the only
one enjoying the sight. Her eyes shone. But even she flinched as they swept
through the center of the triangle.
     
    ***
     
    Mitchie eased the thrust back
down to ten gravs. Fives Full headed toward the outer edge of the rings.
She brought the nose gently back around and studied the radar to pick a path
back to the center. “Sir, is he still following us?”
    The captain tracked the other
ship on the landing cameras. “So far. Not to the gap yet.” They waited tensely.
The interceptor was certainly agile enough to go anywhere they could. If the
pilot was good enough to use it fully–“There he goes! Max-accel avoidance burn.
That had to hurt.”
    “Which way?”
    “Plus-zee.”
    “Thanks.” Mitchie shifted
course to the south side of the ring. The more ice between them and the hunter
the harder they’d be to spot again. “Should be smooth flying until he comes
back.”
    “Okay. Holler if you have to
maneuver.” The captain left the bridge. She wondered where he was going but
couldn’t come up with a polite way to ask before the hatch dogged shut.
    Maybe he wants to give the
passengers some hand-holding , she
thought. A check of the cameras showed the interceptor staying ballistic. She
set a straight course through empty space below the ring. It was a chance to
relax, unkink some muscles, and look around. This really is a beautiful
place. Piloting a regular tourist run through here would be a lovely job . Not
one for her, of course.
    Captain Schwartzenberger
undogged the hatch and came up the ladder dragging a pile of gear. “Here.” Mitchie
helped pull it up. Spread out it became two spacesuits and a thruster pack. “We
scraped through some gravel while going through the dense patches. Don’t think
it did any more than scratch the paint. But best to be safe.”
    Mitchie looked up at the
bridge window, a clear dome covering the top of the ship. It wouldn’t take