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  The Forever Kid looked amused. “You let them steal the Mouse from you?”

  “There were 40 of them,” growled the Golden Duke defensively. “What would you have done?”

  “Stopped them,” said the Kid.

  “I don't blame my associate,” continued King Tout. “It was the child's doing. I didn't realize it at the time, but if she can see the future, she can change it—and that's just what she did, even though I was watching her every minute.” He shrugged. “I'm well rid of the little monster. I won a tidy little sum tonight, and if she could manipulate events the way she did, then sooner or later she could have managed to kill my friends and me.”

  “Sooner, I should think,” remarked the Iceman.

  “She's a positive menace,” said King Tout.

  “It's a distinct possibility.”

  King Tout stared curiously at the Iceman. “You never had any intention of rescuing her!” he said at last.

  “What I intend to do about her is my own business.”

  “You came after us to kill her!” continued the gambler.

  “I haven't said that.”

  “But I can tell, I can see it written all over your face,” said the gambler. “Look, we no longer have her. Let's call a truce and we'll throw in with you. I owe her something for the way she made fools of us tonight.”

  “You still don't understand, do you?” said the Iceman.

  “Understand what?”

  “I didn't come after her at all.”

  “The Mouse, then?”

  The Iceman shook his head. “I gave an order back on Last Chance. You disobeyed it. Now it's time to face the consequences of your actions.”

  King Tout's eyes went wide with surprise. “Then you were never after them at all!”

  “This isn't a rescue mission,” said the Forever Kid, smiling at the Golden Duke. “It's a punishment party.”

  “But this is ridiculous!” protested King Tout. “We're not the enemy. The enemy is out there—it's the Bailey girl.”

  “You broke the law,” said the Iceman.

  “What law, for God's sake?”

  “My law.” He turned to the Forever Kid. “Let's see if you're as good as you fear you are.”

  “Better,” said the Kid, reaching for his sonic weapon.

  The Golden Duke's fingers closed around his laser pistol, but he was dead before he could pull it out and aim it. Then slowly, almost casually, the Kid turned his weapon on King Tout and dispatched the gambler.

  “Damn!” muttered the Forever Kid.

  “Don't feel badly,” said the Iceman. “It was execution, not murder.”

  “I don't feel bad about killing them,” replied the Kid. “I was just hoping that the Golden Duke would be more of a challenge.” He shrugged. “I don't know where the hell he built his reputation.” His gaze fell on September Morn, who had watched the entire proceeding, motionless and silent. “What about this one?”

  “Kill her.”

  The Kid looked at the naked alien, crouched down and defenseless in her tub of life-giving solution. “Now that seems like murder,” he said.

  “I have a projectile pistol tucked in my belt,” replied the Iceman. “Either you put her out of her misery fast, or I'll blow a couple of holes in her tub and you can watch her die slowly as the liquid drains out.”

  “You are a relentless bastard, aren't you?” said the Kid. Suddenly he smiled. “I admire your professionalism.”

  “What I am is your employer,” said the Iceman. “Kill her.”

  He turned away and set off to explore the rest of the ship, hoping to find some hint of where the pirate had taken Penelope and the Mouse. When he returned, September Morn was dead.

  “What now?” asked the Forever Kid.

  “I'm going after the Yankee Clipper,” said the Iceman. “You take these three back to Last Chance.”

  “What's the sense in that?” said the Kid. “They're already dead.”

  “I want everybody on Last Chance to know it.”

  “Send them a holograph.”

  “A make-up artist can work a lot of magic with a holograph,” replied the Iceman. “When you get back to Last Chance, string them up where everyone can see them.”

  The Kid paused in thought for a long moment. “I don't think so,” he said at last.

  “You're working for me, remember?”

  The Kid shook his head. “I'm holding more than 200,000 credits’ worth of the Mouse's money,” he replied. “The way I see it, it won't do her any good while she's a prisoner, so she and the little girl just bought me for two more weeks.”

  “The little girl doesn't need your help,” said the Iceman. “That ought to be apparent by now.”

  “That's your opinion.”

  “That's a fact.”

  “There's another reason, too.”

  “Oh?”

  The Kid's face came alive with excitement. “I'd like to face 40 men at once.”

  The Iceman paused for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, if you really want to die in glorious battle, you might as well come along,” he said. “Just let me make arrangements for someone to take these three back to Last Chance and we'll be on our way.”

  “Just a minute,” said the Kid.

  “What is it?”

  “I know why I'm going,” he said. “Why are you?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “None until we get there,” said the Kid.

  “And then?”

  “I'm going there to save the little girl, not kill her.” He paused. “If you want to kill her, you've got to get past me to do it.”

  “Would you really shoot your employer?” asked the Iceman.

  The Forever Kid couldn't tell if he was angry or curious or merely amused.

  “No, I wouldn't,” answered the Kid.

  “That settles that.”

  “Not quite,” said the Kid. “I quit. I'm not working for you any more.”

  The Iceman smiled. “I admire your professionalism.” He paused. “Of course, I could just be interested in rescuing the Mouse. I haven't said otherwise.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I know you better now than I did before.”

  “I haven't said that I plan to kill anyone, either,” noted the Iceman.

  “What you say doesn't matter,” replied the Kid adamantly. “Just remember: if you try to kill the little girl before the Mouse's money runs out, you're going to have to get past me first.”

  “You do what you think you have to do,” said the Iceman, totally unperturbed.

  “I plan to,” said the Kid. Suddenly a boyish smile crossed his face. “It could prove very interesting.”

  “It could at that,” conceded the Iceman.

  They stared at each other in silence for an uneasy moment. Then the Iceman turned to the hatch door.

  “Come on,” he said at last. “Let's hire someone to cart these bodies back to Last Chance.”

  He walked through the hatch, and a moment later the Kid fell into step behind him.

  The Iceman made his arrangements for the corpses, and twenty minutes later he and the Forever Kid had formed an uneasy truce and were racing toward the distant Quinellis Cluster in pursuit of the Yankee Clipper and his human cargo.

  Part 3:

  THE YANKEE CLIPPER'S BOOK

  18.

  “Actually, I dislike the word ‘pirate’ and its connotations,” said the Yankee Clipper, leaning back in his chair and sipping an Altairian brandy. “I consider myself to be a simple, hard-working businessman.”

  The Mouse and Penelope were sitting in a luxurious lounge aboard the pirate ship. There were tables, chairs, couches, picture frames, all of shining, polished chrome. The carpeting—the first the Mouse had ever seen on a ship—was formal and muted in color. The bulkheads were covered with paintings and holographs—both naturalistic and abstract—from a hundred worlds, and all about the lounge were objets d'art, each
plundered from a different planet.

  “Simple businessmen don't own spacecraft like this,” answered the Mouse. “This room alone is larger than most ships I've been on.”

  “I've been very fortunate,” replied the Yankee Clipper. “And of course, I've been quite aggressive in my pursuit of financial security.” He uttered a brief command to his computer, and suddenly the room was filled with the sound of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

  “Well, I'll give you this much,” said the Mouse; “you're not at all like any other pirate I've known.”

  He smiled. “I take that as a compliment.” The Yankee Clipper withdrew a large cigar from a pocket, held it lovingly in his hand for a moment, and finally lit it. “Excellent!” he said. “Anyone who doubts the wisdom of subjugating alien races need only smoke a single Antarrean cigar and he'll become an instant convert to the somewhat hazy principles upon which our beloved Democracy was founded.”

  “A Democracy that you loot and plunder,” noted the Mouse.

  “Well, I do have my disagreements with them,” he replied easily, “but I'm glad to say that we do see eye-to-eye on the subject of fine tobaccos.” He paused. “Would you believe that I used to work for them?”

  “Them?” repeated the Mouse. “You mean the Antarrean tobacco farms?”

  He chuckled. “No—the Democracy. I spent more than a decade as a part of its bureaucracy.”

  “In the Navy?”

  “Why should you think so?”

  “Well, you do command a ship,” answered the Mouse.

  “Anyone can command this ship,” he replied. “You just activate the Captain's computer and say, ‘Go here’ or ‘Go there’ or ‘Destroy such-and-such a vessel.’ One hardly needs any training to be a ship's captain.” He paused and smiled again. “I prefer to own the entire fleet, and let my subordinates worry about how to get it from one point to another.”

  “What kind of job prepared you for that?” asked the Mouse.

  “None,” answered the Yankee Clipper, noticing that his cigar had gone out and relighting it. “Actually, I was a tax collector. I worked my way up through the ranks until I was in charge of the entire Taxation Bureau on Nilander IV. Then I decided that I'd much rather be an entrepreneur than a wage slave, so I appropriated a few million credits and began contemplating various new enterprises.” He took a sip of his brandy, then turned to Penelope, who had been sitting perfectly still. “I'm sure we must be boring you. You're at liberty to inspect the entire ship, as long as you ask permission before touching anything.”

  “I'll stay with my friend,” said Penelope, reaching out and holding the Mouse's hand.

  The Yankee Clipper shrugged. “As you wish.” He turned back to the Mouse. “It took them almost two years to discover what I had done, during which time I had ample opportunity to consider my options.”

  “They took that long to find out you had robbed the treasury?” asked the Mouse.

  “I'm surprised they found out so quickly,” he replied. “I was quite good at fixing the records, and they were trying to administer some 50,000 worlds from Deluros VIII, which was half a galaxy away.” He put his cigar down in a crystal ashtray and picked up his brandy glass. “At first I simply planned to rob the planetary treasury on a regular basis, but Nilander IV is a poor planet when all is said and done, and I decided that I could never satisfy my financial ambitions in such a situation. So I purchased a ship—not this one, to be sure—and took my leave of the Nilander System.” He paused, smiling pleasantly at the recollection. “I was in a totally liquid financial position, so I began to look around to see where I might receive the best return on my investment. My, ah, shall we say, questionable status, seemed to dictate a profession beyond the physical limits of the Democracy. I've never liked the Outer Frontier—the Rim was always such a desolate place—and the Spiral Arm is too sparsely populated, so I decided upon the Inner Frontier. I spent some time in the Binder system, reviewing my options, and I finally decided to become what you refer to as a pirate. After careful consideration I even acquired a piratical name, as seemed to be the custom out here.” He paused. “I took it right after that regretable incident near New Botswana.”

  “You were the one who destroyed the Navy convoy?”

  “Most regretable,” he said with obvious insincerity. “But they had posted a reward for me. I viewed it as an object lesson.”

  “An object lesson during which more than 4,000 men lost their lives,” she said.

  “Oh, I very much doubt that the total came to much more than 2,500,” he said, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. “Still,” he added thoughtfully, “that was the day I officially became a pirate in the eyes of the Democracy. Prior to that I was merely a thief.”

  “You must admit they had some justification for the term,” said the Mouse.

  “I suppose so,” sighed the Yankee Clipper. “But there's such an unsavory connotation to it. Most pirates are such low, vulgar types. I decided from the start to run my enterprise like a business, to assess each risk coldly and rationally, to never allow pride or emotion to influence me.” He paused and took another puff of his cigar. “And I must admit that I'm wealthier than even I had anticipated.”

  “I thought all pirates were rich,” remarked the Mouse. “Or dead.”

  The Yankee Clipper shook his head. “Most of them are destitute on any given day.” A note of contempt came into his voice. “They waste what they plunder and then have to go out and do it all over again. I decided that there had to be a better way. So I assembled my crew, hiring ex-Navy men whenever I could—men who understood discipline and could execute orders without arguing—and paid them exorbitantly. Half of the profits from our little ventures are divided among my crew and myself, and the other half goes into what I think I shall term capital expansion.”

  “More ships?” suggested the Mouse.

  “And more men.”

  “It sounds very businesslike.”

  “It is. I run it more efficiently than the Democracy runs its government or Navy, and we have an exceptionally high return on investment, all things considered.” He paused as an officer entered the room, presented him with a pair of papers requiring his signature, and then saluted and departed. “I realize that this does not fit your preconceptions about piracy, but it's the wave of the future. Even my competitors—those who are still alive and at large—are borrowing my methods.”

  “When you describe it like that, it makes it very hard for me to remember that your business is killing and looting,” said the Mouse.

  “Only when absolutely necessary,” said the Clipper. “We much prefer to sell our protection to isolated worlds on the Frontier. After all,” he added, “once you've killed a man, you can never make a profit from him again. But if you enter into a long-term business relationship...” He smiled and let his voice trail off.

  “And just what kind of business relationship do you think you've entered into with us?” asked the Mouse as an intercom light began pulsating on the pirate's wrist radio and he deactivated it without paying it any apparent attention.

  “The very best kind,” answered the Yankee Clipper. “A profitable one.”

  “You freed me from that ship, and you helped Penelope and me get away from King Tout and his friends, and we're very grateful,” said the Mouse. “But as I see it, you were paid in advance.”

  “Have I asked for more money?” said the Yankee Clipper.

  “No,” said the Mouse. She paused and stared at him. “That's what puzzles me.”

  “Well, put your mind at ease,” said the Yankee Clipper. “You are my guests, not my prisoners, and you have free run of the ship. Your quarters are spacious and luxurious, and contain all the amenities. We possess a galley equal to that of any cruise ship, and there is even a small fitness room filled with the very finest equipment.”

  “And that's it?” said the Mouse suspiciously. “Now we're even?”

  “Certainly. You are free agents, and you will not be
charged a single credit during your stay here as my personal guests.” He paused. “We have a small commissary on the fourth level. Select anything you like from it, gratis.”

  “Gratis?” repeated the Mouse suspiciously.

  “I repeat: you are my guests.”

  “Where are we bound for?” asked the Mouse.

  “The Quinellus Cluster,” said Penelope.

  The Yankee Clipper looked down at the little girl and smiled. “You're absolutely right, my dear.” He turned his attention back to the Mouse. “The Quinellus Cluster is my base of operations, and we'll all be much safer back there. I've made some discreet inqueries since we left the Starboat, and it seems that quite a lot of people have an interest in your lovely little traveling companion.” He smiled at Penelope. “You haven't a thing to worry about, my dear. You're perfectly safe as long as you remain with me.”

  “We appreciate your hospitality,” said the Mouse, “but I think we'd like to be let off on the first colony planet we come to as soon as you reach the Cluster. We have arrangements to make, and a friend to contact.”

  “I won't hear of it,” said the Yankee Clipper. “My subspace radio is at your disposal. Contact your friend right from the ship.”

  “I think as long as all our accounts are even, we'd rather not trouble you any further.”

  “It's no trouble at all,” insisted the pirate.

  “Just the same, we'd rather be let off as soon as you reach the Cluster.”

  “Well, of course, if you insist,” said the Yankee Clipper with an eloquent shrug.

  “Let's say that we strongly request it,” answered the Mouse.

  “Your wish is my command,” said the Yankee Clipper. He paused. “Five million.”

  “Five million what?”

  “Five million credits, of course.”

  “All right,” said the Mouse. “What about five million credits?”

  “That's my fee for letting you off the ship.”

  “You said we didn't owe you anything.”

  “You don't.”

  “And that we were your guests.”

  “Indeed you are,” he replied, finally draining his brandy glass and setting it down on a polished chrome surface. “But of course, once you decline my hospitality and leave the comfort and safety of my ship, you're no longer my guests, are you?” He smiled. “You know and I know that young Penelope here is worth millions to various interested parties. I'm perfectly willing to play host to you so long as her value continues to appreciate—but if I'm to part with that potential profit, then I'll have to charge you a minimum fee of five million credits.”