Marcan Rayger read the article over and over again. The Universal Scientist was the only paper that had printed a story about the incident, but he was happy about it nevertheless. The article guaranteed that his reputation now included more than just the unhappy event at the Amaliel Corporation and it would make it easier for him to find good paying jobs.

There was one thing that the Scientist did not mention, though. And it was something that Marcan was almost sure that they would never find out. The representative from the Bardoff's Trust Fund had made it clear that no word of the professor going crazy was to leak to the public. They would make up a cover story as soon as they had properly investigated the evidence brought back by Marcan and visited the dead ship by themselves. Marcan was surely not going to blow whatever story they came up with: the nice money reward with the unique one-man trader on top made sure of that. Although the uniqueness of the ship was at question: the trust fund was evidently looking for a manufacturer who might want to lease the manufacturing rights.

He had also learned more of his new ship's AI and its desire to find "it's lost brother". The poem written on the wall of the bridge of Castor should have told him as much, as it mentioned "the great Twin Brethren", but the trust fund had confirmed that there was another small ship that was called Polydeuces, or Pollux for short. They had also told him that the ship had not been seen in either Federal or Imperial space and it was thus still missing. Marcan had promised the ship's AI, Castor, that he would search for that ship. The only problem was that he had no idea where to start.

And there was also the matter of Mr Jones from the Lave system. Now that he knew that Marcan had escaped the cruel death that had been planned for him, he might try something against him. And, surely, Marcan was not going to let anyone go for trying to murder him. That was another promise that he had made: Mr Jones would learn to be sorry for his actions.

He clicked a button and the article disappeared from the screen. Then he leaned back in the pilot's seat and looked around. He was very happy with the new ship. The Asp that he had abandoned to the Boa, and subsequently sold to the trust fund, had not been as manoeuvrable as he liked his ships to be. The Wolf Mk II that he had been allowed to fly once had been nice enough, but Castor, being a smaller ship, had better hyper space ranges and even better manoeuvrability. The main thruster acceleration was only 20.1g, but Marcan did not think that he needed it any better. There was a downside to the 12.1g retro thrusters, though, and that was the fact that the powerful thrusters left room for only one gun mount and two missile pylons.

It was also a shame that Castor was essentially a one-man ship. Even though he had earlier thought of buying one just to get rid of Petr, his co-pilot and an android, he had later learned to appreciate the tin-man and would not have liked to kick him out. Without Petr he would not have survived the trap that Mr Jones had set for him. But he had had to let the android go. He just hoped that the ten thousand credits that he had given Petr showed the android how much his work had been appreciated.

With his reward money and other funds, Marcan had equipped the Castor along to his own liking. Now, it had six shield units, a Naval E.C.M. system and an Energy Booster Unit, among other things, all equipment that he thought that he would need when going up against Mr Jones. All the equipment installed left him with additional 17 tonnes of cargo space that he would use mostly for fuel. The weapon of his choice was a 5mw Pulse Laser, a light and effective weapon. Before leaving, Petr had modified the weapon slightly, giving it a slightly faster fire rate than normal.

It was obvious to Marcan now that he would never learn to make money by trade alone and that he needed to broaden his scope. He was not quite sure what that meant yet, but he knew that his ship was now equipped more like a medium fighter than a trader.

"Safe comes the ship to haven,

Through billows and through gales,

If once the great Twin Brethren

Sit shining on the sails."

Those were the last four lines of the poem that was inscribed on the wall of the Castor's bridge. Marcan had read them many times since he had started to plan his revenge. He had read that Castor and Polydeuces had been worshiped as protectors of seamen in violent storms by ancient Romans and both of the brothers were famous for their bravery and skill in fighting. Marcan felt confident that flying a ship that had been named after such heroic figure would guide and protect him in the stormy situations that the was bound to find himself in.

He had not visited Lave, or any of the systems near to it, since his escape from Ahoand. Now, however, he was returning to those frontier systems with a plan to find someone who would be willing to pay him to kill Mr Jones. He had decided that since he was going to kill the man anyway, he should find someone who would be willing to pay him to do so. The system of his choice was Leesti, simply because it was a relatively safe system near to Lave and frequently visited by traders. If there was a place where shady contracts on the heads of powerful figures in the area could be made, it was this.

He did not know how long he would have to wait for such a contract, but he felt confident that it would not be long. All powerful figures, especially someone living in a dictatorship such as Lave, had enemies. And Mr Jones, who had been crushing criminal families and built himself a small empire on their remains, was bound to have dozens of them. And 'empire' was the correct word, since it had been from the Imperial systems that Mr Jones had acquired backing for his plans and their execution.

The system of Leesti was very similar to that of Lave. They both had just one planet orbiting the sun, which in Leesti's case was a class M red star and neither of them had commercial spaceports on the planet itself, just on the orbit. Of course, they were dissimilar as well; the planet Leesti was just a battered rock covered with manufacturing plants compared to the beautiful garden world of Lave.

When Marcan requested a landing clearance from George Lucas, the orbital trading post, he gave one last look at the article about his exploits. Then he pushed a button and saved the article in his personal collection.

"Commander Rayger?" said a strong male voice suddenly.

Marcan smiled and answered, "Yes, Castor?" The AI was a lot saner than it had been when he had first come to know it. On their way back from Ohoand, Petr had toyed with the memory crystals and wiring and helped bring Castor back. It no longer believed that Professor Bardoff had really been Jason the Argonaut reborn and that it was the mythical hero, Castor. Still, having an AI like Castor was a long leap from the business-like AI units that he had got used to liking in the military.

"Do you think that we will ever find my brother?" Castor asked.

Marcan blinked, "What do you mean?"

"If he has not been seen in the Federal or Imperial Space in the last nine years, how could we find him?" Castor asked, his voice hinting a bit of uncertainty.

"That still leaves the allied worlds and the frontier worlds unaccounted for, Castor. Your brother may be in one of those. Or perhaps some collector of rare ships has got him. Anyway, when I have earned enough credits, we will put up an announcement, promising a reward for anyone who can lead us to Polydeuces's trail. Sooner or later, we will find your brother," Marcan assured.

When Petr had repaired the AI, he had noticed that the bond that Castor had with the other AI was not a simple result of it being broken. The bond had been programmed into the very base code of the unit and could not be removed without destroying the whole personality. The artificial intelligence units Castor and Polydeuces were as linked and bonded together as their mythological counterparts, the twin soldiers and protectors of voyagers in long journeys.

"I miss him," Castor said at last.

Marcan nodded solemnly. He knew that the AI could see the gesture through the bridge cameras. There was really nothing he could say. He could not really understand the feelings the AI felt since he had never had brothers or sisters, and if he had, he would probably know where they were.

At last he replied, while the automatic docking sequence kicked on and took them into their landing bay, "Let's wait for what the trust fund finds out when they go to recover the ship. Then we may find out more about what happened to your brother, too."

"I hope so," Castor said. After a pause he continued, "I wish I had not mourned so after the professor died. I could have seen who took my brother and how they killed the crew. Perhaps I could have intervened."

Marcan shook his head; "There was nothing you could do. You were connected only to the onboard speaker systems and had no way to control anything else. And don't worry about it now. We'll get more information later."

"Will you really kill this Mr Jones for what he did to you and Petr?" Castor asked then.

Marcan sneered, "He is an evil man, Castor. If I told the police what he did, they could not do anything. If I go to speak to the Federal Military about his connection with the Empire, they will probably send an assassin after him. But then Mr Jones will never learn why he died and I want him to know that. He has to know that he brought it onto himself by trying to kill me."

"You are a vengeful man, Commander Rayger," Castor said.

"This is a vengeful world we live in, Castor, a vengeful world," Marcan said sourly as the ship stopped still and they were finally docked at George Lucas.

Being only an orbital trading post, George Lucas was a small space station compared to some Marcan had visited. But however small the station, there was always a gathering place for pilots, traders and their crews. Marcan entered the local facility and found it no different from the many others that he had seen, at least as far as customers go.

The tables were scattered around the pilots' lounge in a haphazard fashion and serving droids moved from one table to the other to take orders and to remove empty glasses. Because Marcan had learned hard discipline in the military, he stood out of the rest of the customers for his cleaner clothes and nicely cut hair, but Marcan himself was blind to these small details. He walked past the first few tables and the roughest of the clientele and found a table near to a group of apparent merchants discussing their recent luck in their trade.

Marcan sat at the empty table and ordered his favourite drink, Magalan Green, from a passing droid. He listened to the nearby conversations in a half-hearted attempt to catch some good hints on what to buy and where to deliver it. His ship did not have much extra cargo space, but he would not mind if he managed to make some profit with what little he had.

But the traders' conversation was rather dull, although there was one funny guy who planned to hire an all-female crew on his ship. Marcan shook his head trying to keep from asking how the guy planned to stay alive on such a ship. Especially after the women found out about the various plans that he was now describing to his fellow traders. Marcan hoped that it was just the liquor talking.

After the traders moved on to more and more uninteresting details of market taxes and the exquisite tastes of their various special clients, Marcan leaned back in his chair and relaxed. He hoped that the guy that he was supposed to meet would arrive soon. There had been many messages on the bulletin board that requested that some person or the other should be 'removed' or 'put to an early retirement', but they had not been about Mr Jones.

But, in addition to all those other messages, there had been one that was not as blunt and straightforward as the others. It had not even mentioned the name of the wished-for target, and Marcan knew that with targets as big as Mr Jones apparently was one could never be too careful. So, he had contacted the person who had left the message and found out that the connection was voice-only. The contractor had not wanted to reveal anything on the open line and had proposed a face-to-face meeting. Marcan, who had come to distrust such meetings, had tried to refuse, but the person at the other end had not been willing to let go of the demand.

He did not immediately recognise the woman who eventually sat on the opposite side of his table. He was too preoccupied with her amazing looks that drew his attention below her neck. She was wearing a red dress with low-cut bodice that revealed a good deal of what was underneath. He did, however, notice the guy at the nearby table – who had just moments earlier started retelling his plans about all-female crew to a new addition to their group – staring at his new companion.

"Do you ever look a woman in the eye?" asked a hard but feminine voice then.

Marcan managed to turn his gaze up from their previous target of interest and saw a face that he knew he had seen before, contrary to the previous accusation. "Yes, I do sometimes," he said with a slight grin. It was a forced grin though, because the woman on the other side of the table was the same woman he had last seen limping away from the pilots' lounge at Lave, and only moments before that, she had been pointing a very dangerous laser pistol at him.

"I have to admit that I did not expect to see you here," she said then.

Marcan nodded, and said; "Right back at you."

The woman nodded and looked at his almost untouched drink. "What are you drinking?" she asked.

Marcan hefted the glass in his hand, letting the lady see how the liquid glimmered green in the dimly lit room. "Magalan Green," he said.

When a serving droid got to their table and the woman ordered a drink for herself, Marcan had some time to try to make sense of what was happening. The woman, the same one that had been ready to kill him earlier, was behind the mysterious message that had got him here. For some reason she was after Mr Jones like he was.

"I hope your wound healed properly," he said.

"Yes, it did. It was not that bad, actually. Hurt like hell, but not bad," she said and looked at him in the eye. "It was a neat trick that you did there," she said after a brief pause.

Marcan nodded and decided to get to the point. "What is that message of yours about?" he asked when the woman had taken a sip of her Stiller Bee.

"Oh, it was not my message!" the woman replied and took another sip of her yellow and red-striped drink. "I'm just the middle-hand here," she said.

Marcan nodded. He should have guessed as much from the earlier voice-only connection. "Well, who is the target needing this much secrecy?" he asked.

The woman smiled, "I don't think that you want to take this one, pal. It is your employer, Mr Jones."

Marcan smiled; the pieces were starting to find their places. "And your employers are those two guys with the funny hair-dos?" he hazarded a guess.

"Yes," the woman confirmed, "they had to get away from Lave soon after our previous meeting. Things were getting too hot there even though Mr Jones did not appear to have received the parcel in the end." There was a question in her voice.

Marcan grimaced. "It seems that I should have taken the offer from your employers after all. Mr Jones attempted to kill me," he explained.

"In that case," the woman said, suddenly smiling, "I think that we can do business after all! My name is Alana Vera."

Marcan squinted his eyes suspiciously. He had heard that name before, connected with a different woman. "Your facial features were softer the last time I saw your picture," he said and raised his glass to his lips, interested in the woman's reaction to his words.

The reaction was worth seeing. The woman who claimed to be Vera straightened up in her chair and looked at him, wide-eyed. "Where have you seen Vera's picture?" she asked.

"I used to work for the Federal Military. Alana Vera stole a prototype ship from the Amaliel Corporation with certain Emic Troy. And I have to say that even though you and she both have a more than dazzling figure, you are not her," Marcan said with a narrow smile. He also knew that Alana Vera was too rich to be working for some lowly criminals.

"Well, perhaps I'm not," the woman said curtly, "Call me Ariadne, then"

Marcan smiled again. He was starting to like this. "Ariadne as in the beautiful daughter of evil Minos, who tried to force the hero, Theseus, to marry her, but who married her sister instead?"

Ariadne frowned, "What are you talking about?"

Marcan almost lost his smile. Quipping at someone was fun as long as they also understood the butt of the joke. He realised that Castor had been teaching him too much of the ancient myths in the last few weeks for him to start recognising chance names. "I'm sorry, I have been immersed in classical Earth mythology lately and your name rang a bell," he clarified.

Ariadne smiled slightly, "Well, what happened to her?"

"To Ariadne? Well, after Theseus had abandoned her on an island on his way home she found a new spouse: Dionysus, the god of wine and the vine. A really happy sort of fellow, but kept company with lots of shady people."

Ariadne smiled, "Well, I guess I got it from him. Can we talk business now?"

Marcan nodded, "Yes, of course."

The voluptuous woman took another sip of the Stiller Bee and started talking; "Even though my present employers were forced away from Lave, they want to get back there as soon as possible. The only way to manage that, however, is to somehow get rid of Mr Jones. They are willing to pay 10 000 credits to anyone who is successful in persuading him to take an early retirement."

Marcan frowned, "The last time I talked with them, they did not have even six thousand credits! Where did they suddenly get this much?"

"They are not the only source of payment here," Ariadne said.

"Who are the others?"

"I wouldn't say even if I knew," the woman said.

Marcan had no idea how many other victims Mr Jones had, but he was sure that there were enough of them to pile up such sums. Of course, ten thousand was only a tenth of what he had earned with the Bardoff case, but he knew very well that it had been a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

"But I get the money from you when I get back from Lave?" Marcan asked.

Ariadne nodded, "Yes."

"Have you any information that I could use to get close to the target? As I understand, he tends to sit tight in his city abode, on the surface of the planet." Marcan inquired.

Ariadne shook her head, "I'm afraid that we know next to nothing about his plans. His motivations and the source of his means are unknown to us and thus his actions are hard to guess. Anyway, he tends to rely on his so-called 'assistants' in most of his personal communications."

"The location of his residence then? It's defences?" Marcan tried.

"Well, his flat is located near to the centre of the capitol, in the business sector. And sometimes he is seen in his countryside retreat, but he visits there irregularly. The defences of the retreat are good, we think, since he has a small private spaceport there. In the city he relies on the city's own defences." Ariadne relayed from memory.

Marcan nodded. He had guessed that getting to Mr Jones might be hard, but he had had no idea how hard it could be. Unlike many CEOs and other company representatives, Mr Jones did not move around much and he was nearly never encountered in any kind of spacecraft. It was clear that he could not attack the city or the countryside residences, since he was acting solo, so he had to find a way to ambush Mr Jones along the route between the two locales.

"How does he move between the residences?" he asked.

Ariadne shrugged, "With one of his reinforced hovercars, usually accompanied by two or three bodyguards on hoverbikes."

Marcan nodded again, and said; "By when should this be done?"

The woman smiled slightly, "As soon as possible, but by the end of this month at the latest."

"That does not leave me much time to plan my attack," Marcan said, a little dismayed.

"Yes, but my employers want to get back there by then. Otherwise it is no use to them," she said.

"I'd better get going then," Marcan said and finished his drink. It had none of its soothing effects on him now; he was too excited with what he was planning to do. Mr Jones had his plans for Lave, something that had to do with the Empire, but he could not care less about that. Except to worry what kind of defences the Duval family had issued to their agent. Given the resources of the superpower, he should be prepared for anything.

The woman finished her drink as well and stood up at the same time as he. As he said his goodbyes, Ariadne asked one last question, "On what kind of a ship should I expect you to return here? The same Asp as before?"

Marcan smiled slightly as he replied, "Tell your employers to read more than just the RIG. Universal Scientist might be a good idea."

He left Ariadne dumbfounded in the pilots' lounge and returned to his remarkable new ship.

The approach to Lave was not as peaceful as Marcan had hoped. It had been his plan to dock on the Lave Station and refuel his ship before entering the planet's atmosphere and preparing the ambush. It should have been an easy thing to hide in some roadside forest and wait for the intended prey. Of course he would have had the possible difficulties with other travellers and the local police, but he had been sure that he could have handled them. But that whole plan had been vacuumed into the void by what took place about 5au from the planet.

It all started with Castor's sudden warning that woke Marcan up from his soft bed in the pilot's cabin. Castor's autopilot unit had controlled the ship for the past twelve hours and Marcan had taken the opportunity to catch some sleep. But those dreams were now cut short by an alarmed voice.

As Marcan scrambled up from his bed and hurried towards the bridge, he asked, "How many ships, Castor?"

"From the planet?" Marcan asked aloud, even though he knew that Castor had no way of knowing. The AI did not even answer. "Can you lock on identify them, starting from the closest one?" he asked as he sat on the pilot's seat and searched the space through the bridge window. Castor was one of the rare ships that did not possess conventional computer view screens, but real outside views for space view. The pilot was thus not dependent of the functionality of the outside cameras or the electric systems.

There were three dots visible from the main window, all accompanied by registration numbers added on by the automatic labels system that Marcan liked to keep on at all times. It helped to spot any nearby ships before they came to the scanner range. One by one the dots were marked with a red squares as Castor identified the approaching ships.

Marcan grimaced at the mention of the energy bomb. The Castor had only six shield units to protect it from the possible blast and they would be enough to save them only if they were not too much depleted in the laser combat. The upside was, of course, that the Asp pilot could not use the bomb if he wanted to save his comrades. The energy bombs showed no preferences and would affect all ships in the fifty-kilometre radius.

"How about their shields?" he asked.

"Shield strengths minimal. The Asp has 3.5, but the others have only 1.0," Castor replied.

Marcan nodded grimly and said, "Target the Asp. She is our primary worry."

Castor let out a sound that sounded almost like an apologetic cough; "Commander, the Asp is falling behind the others now and it seems that she will be in the range of our lasers last of these ships."

Marcan cursed. The enemies seemed to follow the worst tactic from his point of view. If the two other ships managed to drain his shields for the energy bomb, he would be in big trouble. "Target the ship that will come to range first, then," he said gruffly.

"That will be the Viper Mk II, range 22.4km now," Castor answered.

Marcan turned his attention to the approaching medium fighter. Viper Mk II was a nice ship, but almost forty tonnes lighter than Castor. With such a confined space, he was not expecting anything deadly on the laser department. 'A 1mw beam laser at worst,' he mused silently in his mind. The Constrictor and the Asp were both bigger than his own ship and could carry something more dangerous.

When the other ship was at 12 kilometres, Marcan suddenly remembered the short experience that he had had with the military lasers. With their computer-aided targeting and x4SUSAT sights he would have been able to take out the Viper even before it was able to fire its first shot. But as he was out of the active service now, and had no longer the authority that FMI bestowed upon its operatives, he had to settle on the less striking weaponry. Only special military units had military lasers at their disposal after the banning of the wonderfully powerful weapons.

Then the Viper and the Constrictor opened fire at the same time. Their 1mw beam lasers strayed far off their target and Marcan smiled to himself. The fact that the other pilots had fired so soon revealed that he was dealing with amateurs here. They could not have more than Poor rating in the Elite Federation records. Marcan himself was not sure how far he was from the Dangerous, but he knew that he was close. His enemies evidently did not.

Marcan was a lot more comfortable in Castor than he had been in the Asp, mainly because of the superior manoeuvrability, but partly also because of Castor. Before Castor he had always preferred his AIs with as little personality as he could but now he was changing his mind. A ship AI that had had time to truly learn to know the ship and its pilot worked a lot better than one that had been just its personality erased. Even with Castor's occasional comments about his lost brother, he was the most efficient AI that Marcan had ever known. No other AI had ever countered his decisions about priority targets before.

Then the range counter reached six kilometres and Marcan started firing rapid fire towards the Viper. At that range the shooting was still a little chancy, but the sound effects produced by the ships sound system let him know that at least three of his first six shots found their mark. It was a lot better than the laser beams from his enemies, that came nowhere near him.

"Open communications, Castor," Marcan said as the AI had reported a significant drop in the Viper's hull integrity. "Enemy craft, this is Commander Marcan Rayger of Castor. State your reason for this hopeless attack before I blow you all up!"

There was a short pause before the answer came, but the Viper had stopped shooting. The Constrictor was still coming at him with weapons blazing, but Marcan ignored it for the moment. Then the voice of the Viper's pilot came through the speakers; "Mr Jones sends his regards, Commander Rayger."

Then the Viper shot again and this time the beam caught the Castor right on. Marcan turned the ship aside to evade the beam, but it followed his move. Then he pulled up and turned the ship completely around, using all the ship's manoeuvrability to his advantage. The Viper was unable to follow his tight curve and the beam went harmlessly by.

"The shields are at 32 percent," Castor said, and continued, "I'd suggest firing one of our missiles, commander. I doubt he will have time to E.C.M. it before it hits."

Marcan gave the proposal only a moments thought, but decided against it; he was not going to give the Viper's pilot even the slightest sign of appreciation by using one of his expensive missiles. He was not going to resort to them when he was fighting imbeciles who barely knew how to fly a ship.

He let his ship fly past the Viper and only then turned around. Vipers were almost as swift to turn as the Castor, but not quite. Once Marcan had got into a position behind the enemy craft, he fired his pulse lasers again. With no mercy, he kept shooting until the enemy turned into a fiery ball of short-lived flames and fragments of its former hull.

While he was chasing the Viper, the Constrictor got a short burst of beam laser through and the shields dropped to 22 percent before Marcan was free to evade it.

"The Asp is within firing distance," Castor warned suddenly and made Marcan take a glimpse at the scanner. He was in a close combat with the Constrictor and their dots on the scanner's screen were almost intermingled, but the Asp was still over five kilometres away. And suddenly he realised that the enemy's plan was working. If he continued to fight the Constrictor and managed to destroy it, the Asp would immediately fire the energy bomb. At the current level of the Castor's shields, Marcan's chance of survival was less than infeasible. And there was also the possibility that the Asp's pilot might be willing to sacrifice the Constrictor.

"Castor, do you have any ideas?" he asked then, all out of them himself.

"I'm sorry, commander, but I see no other way than to try to evade fire until my shields are high enough again," Castor said at length. Then he added, "I wish Polydeuces was here. Together we are invincible."

Marcan cursed under his breath and turned his ship into another series of evasive actions when the Asp opened fire with its 4mw beam laser. He tried to take his ship as close to the Constrictor as he could to make it impossible for the other ship to fire without endangering its comrade. But trying to follow another ship as close as it was necessary was more than even his skills as a pilot, and the abilities of the ship, made possible and he found himself once again the target of the amber laser beam.

"The shields are at 54 percent," said Castor then and Marcan decided that it would have to be enough. He turned his ship towards the Asp, fired both of his missiles at his current target, the Constrictor, and opened laser fire towards the bigger ship.

The Asp that had thus far been left into relative peace had to turn aside and stop shooting. Marcan followed its turn and continued firing. Then the klaxons went off in the Castor's bridge.

"Three missiles coming at us, Commander!" Castor announced.

"Where are ours?" Marcan yelled back.

"Still after the Constrictor. It appears that their E.C.M is powerless against our MV2 Assault Missiles," Castor said.

"And so they fired their own missiles in hopes that I would use my Naval E.C.M. and destroy my own missiles as well," Marcan said angrily and continued chasing the fleeing Asp.

"And this is something you plan not to do, then?" Castor asked carefully.

"Damn right I'm not!" Marcan bellowed and fired the pulse laser again.

"May I propose some evasive manoeuvres then?" Castor continued with a sign of alarm in his voice.

"How soon will our missiles hit?" Marcan asked.

"It's difficult to say, commander. It depends on how good that Constrictor's pilot is at such a skill that they call e v a d i n g!" Castor replied.

Marcan registered the obnoxious note in the AI's voice, but gave it no further thought. However, he did give some attention to the theme of Castor's plea and finally turned the ship away from the Asp and concentrated in the missiles that were closing in dangerously.

"What type of missiles are those, Castor?" Marcan asked.

"They are basic homing missiles, commander," Castor said.

Marcan nodded. That meant that the missiles needed a lot of room to turn around, because of their powerful main and weak retro thrusters. Thus the missiles needed slightly more room to turn around than his ship did. That difference made it relatively easy for him to dodge the missiles the first time they passed, since they were following about the same trajectories. However, it was likely that they would separate as they turned back for another try and that would make his job much harder. A few seconds later, he saw that there was no way for him to evade the missiles for a second time.

Then, an explosion sounded through the speakers. "The Constrictor is crushed," Castor said.

Almost immediately Marcan hit the E.C.M. button and destroyed the deadly missiles.

Then the energy bomb went off.

The whole ship shook as the shields were torn asunder and the hull itself got some of the impact. Fortunately the shields had had enough time to recharge and the whole ship was not destroyed in the blast.

"Report, Castor!" Marcan shouted.

"The shields are gone and the hull is at 72 percent," Castor replied casually.

Marcan let out a long breath. Then he looked at the scanner and saw that the Asp was coming back at him. The space in front of his ship lit up with the amber laser beam and the rapidly strengthening shields were gone again before Marcan could pull away.

Angered, but expressing it only with cold resolution, Marcan turned his ship around a couple of times to throw of the enemy's aim and then turned head on towards the Asp with his laser firing. The Asp's shields had not yet recuperated from his previous onslaught and he tore them apart in short order. Only a few more hits and the Asp was space dust.

Marcan let go of the control stick and leaned backwards in his seat. "Take the control, Castor, and get us to Lave Station."

"Yes, Commander," Castor replied with his strong voice, and added, "You know that if my brother had been here, they wouldn't have had a chance!".

Marcan ignored the remark and closed his eyes. Perhaps it was time for some relaxing DreamWare movie, although he tried to avoid them as a general rule because of the occasional report of a fried brain.

Marcan looked out through the main window at the Lave Station as they closed in on it. It had been hours since the attack and no one else as dangerous had come after them during the rest of the trip. There had been only one pirate vessel, but it had run away and Marcan could not have been bothered to follow after. His thoughts had been on the attack and what it meant to his plans to kill Mr Jones.

In a few hours the man would surely find out that his strike team had failed and that the Castor had docked onto the Lave Station. There was nothing Marcan could do about it, since there was no way he could evade the station's system scanners that had probably shown his battle against the three ships to the local police. At least they must have seen the disappearance of the three ships from their scanner screens.

Fortunately, the local police forces were generally responsible only of protecting the vicinity of the inhabited planets and stations, since otherwise Marcan would have had to respond to endless questions about the fight. Deep space was fair battleground as far as it concerned the authorities. No one cared, except for the Elite Federation that kept track of everyone's kill files and combat skills.

The fact that Mr Jones knew that he was coming disturbed Marcan. Whatever his plans for the future of Lave, he apparently had spies in the surrounding star systems as well, or he was in contact with the ever-present imperial spies. And if he knew that Marcan was approaching, he probably knew the reason as well. Unless Mr Jones was overconfident of his safety, he would certainly decide to stay put in some locale that he considered impregnable. If he stayed in the city, Marcan would have no way of getting to him since attacking the city office sector in the Castor was right out of the question. He had no money to pay the fines that that would cause.

But if Mr Jones stayed at his country house, it would mean that an attack was possible. Of course it also meant that such an attack would be expected and it had been prepared for. Marcan decided that it would be best to first find out what the situation really was and only then start worrying about it.

The Castor docked into the Lave Station without further problems and Marcan immediately ordered a new pair of missiles from the shipyard. The best ones available were pathetic KL760 Homing Missiles. Then he sold the radioactive waste that had been produced by the military drive and bought new fuel to replace it. The complication caused by his unknown ship type was that he had to go outside and oversee the working robots that soon surrounded his ship. Castor communicated with them well enough, but Marcan wanted to be sure that everything went where it was supposed. He noticed the admiring and wondering gazes of the few human workers who came with the 'bots towards his beautiful white ship.

As Marcan was looking at the loading and unloading process, the Castor's outside speakers suddenly came to life. "Commander, there is a message for you," Castor said.

For a moment Marcan stood still, wondering if Mr Jones had been this quick to notice his arrival, but then he remembered the other party that knew his intended location and he hurried back inside the ship.

Marcan sat on the pilot's seat and read the message as it flowed over the screen. Then he got bored with the technical data and asked Castor to summarise the most important parts and speak them out loud.

Castor scanned the text for a microsecond before he spoke, "The team of analysts who were sent to Bardoff's Argo II have returned with their findings. It appears that six people were missing from amongst the bodies and are suspected of the mass murder and destruction. One of these people, Victor Shelanko, was amongst Argo II's commanding staff. The other five were mechanics and other personnel, three women and two men.

"They are offering you an assignment to search and find these murderers and bring them to justice, if possible. They will pay you 15 000 for this, assuming that you give them all the information that you can find out about the Argo II and its mission and keep this assignment a closely held secret. If you choose to take this job, they will send more information about the missing people," Castor finished.

Marcan groaned, "Finding them in the frontier worlds is next to impossible!"

"They have my brother, commander," Castor said softly.

Marcan nodded. He had learned that when the AI chose to speak with that kind of voice, he was very serious and very close to the border of incoherence as well. "Yes, they do. That is the only thing that may make this task easier, provided that Polydeuces is as unique a ship as you are," he said.

"Polydeuces is unique, commander. After all, we are twins," Castor said, his voice stronger again.

Marcan nodded again and thought for a short while. "Tell me," he said finally, "are you two identical twins? Is there another ship like you somewhere?" It was a question he had asked several times before and always the answer had been incoherent. Also, the Bardoff's Trust Fund had proved unable to provide him with that piece of information, and the ship's original designer had not yet been reached. Castor and Polydeuces had been a closely held secret of Bardoff and his closest officers.

"After Zeus had raped our mother, Leda, in the form of Swan, she gave birth to two eggs. From one egg came Pollux and our sister Helen, and from the other came Clytemnestra and me. But only Polydeuces was the son of Zeus. I was the son of Tyndareus, Leda's true husband," Castor said, speaking in a soft voice again.

Marcan nodded, trying not to let the disappointment show on his face. Professor Bardoff had driven the myth of the twins so deep into Castor's mind that he sometimes actually believed that he was the mythical half-god.

"Does that mean that you are not identical?" he asked.

Castor did not answer to the question when he spoke; "The military fuel and the missiles have been loaded, commander."

A few minutes later, Marcan was once again in the pilots' lounge on Lave Station. The place had not changed since his last visit and when he had first met Ariadne. This time, though he had no pre-arranged meetings. He was there to listen to gossip and ask around to find out whether anyone knew anything about Mr Jones. He knew that someone had to know where the man stayed and that he had only to find that someone. Marcan knew that there were always people in places like these who traded in information. Unfortunately, he had never had to find one before and had no idea what they looked like, if anything. His self-learned FMI operative skills covered only the theory, not the practice of information gathering.

He found himself an empty table and sat down. Once again he ordered his favourite drink, Magalan Green and sat silently, enjoying its various effects on his mind. As he drank, he looked around in the lounge and tried to figure out where he should start. There were several groups of people there, not all of them spacers, and they discussed with each other in loud voices. There were so many people of so many different social classes and professions that Marcan knew that it would take a long time to separate the travelling traders from those who really knew the local system and the people living there.

He had read about the political situation in the system and knew all public information that there was to find about the dictatorship's ruler, Dr Walden. It appeared that the beloved ruler had arranged the demise of his predecessor almost 70 years earlier and taken his place, and had survived several assassination attempts since then. It also appeared that the man was no man at all, since his appearance had not changed in those 70 years. Even without having known Petr, Marcan knew that some androids looked more like humans than humans did themselves. He had also been able to read between the lines that some of the assassination attempts, though not all, had originated from off-planet, and more precisely from the Empire.

If Mr Jones was planning yet another of the assassinations, he was taking a longer route than the others before him had, since he tried to establish himself in the system before doing anything. Judging from Dr Walden's history, it was exactly the same tactic he had used before his coup d'état. Perhaps the dictator deserved to be displaced by now, but Marcan had decided that it would not be an imperial agent who did it, and certainly not Mr Jones.

His thoughts were interrupted when a middle-aged man sat at his table. He had a full black beard and long hair and he wore an old and faded pilot's jacket.

"May I interest you in some rare trade items?" the man asked.

Marcan lifted his eyebrow. The man was apparently one of the many smugglers and black market traders that infested every single spaceport. "What do you have?" he asked the man.

The older man smirked, "Anything a man can hope for! From nice weaponry to some products that can make you very happy!"

Marcan studied the man as he tried to decide if he could trust him. It was never wise to trust anyone or anything when one was on a mission, and especially not when one had powerful enemies to deal with. This trader could be just another of Mr Jones' so-called 'assistants'. "Can you be trusted?" he asked.

"Certainly, commander! Ask anyone here. I'm well known around here and have served many a man like you," the other man said, possibly smiling under his beard, although it was impossible to say.

Marcan's attention was suddenly drawn elsewhere when he spotted a familiar face in a big monitor on one of the lounge walls. It was the local news broadcast and the face on the screen belonged to Mr Jones. Marcan picked up one of the cheap earpieces that were in a cup on the table and turned it on.

Marcan took out the earpiece and shut it down. He had heard what he needed to. It seemed that whatever Mr Jones had planned, was now crumbling down fast. Perhaps someone had found the parcel Marcan had thrown into the landing bay and pieced together something of value.

The middle-aged man had given up and was picking himself up from the other chair, when Marcan stopped him and asked; "What kind of weaponry do you have?"

There was a happy spark in the black-haired man's eyes when he sat back down. "Whatever you need. I have hand weapons, battle weapons and even some serious weaponry that the local shipyard cannot offer!"

Marcan nodded, "In what kind of quantities are you selling?"

"Usual 1 tonne canisters, of course!" the man answered.

"What if I needed to buy some missiles for my ship? Could you arrange their instalment?" Marcan asked.

"For a certain price, naturally. What kind of missiles do you require?"

Marcan grew more careful and lowered his voice as he said, "Assault missiles, if you have them."

The other man whistled, "They are hard to come by around here. Very expensive!"

"I can trade them for KL760 homing missiles. Just tell me how much for two of them?" Marcan said gruffly.

The other man wrinkled his nose; "In exchange I can give you two MV1's for 500 credits."

Marcan laughed almost too loudly, "That is ridiculous! I'll pay you 200 at most!"

They haggled for a few minutes and in the end Marcan had to pay 350 plus his own missiles for the missiles that he would have got from some other system for less than 250 credits. The prize was awfully high, but he had had to pay it; the missiles were crucial for the mission to succeed. Since he had no reason to stay in the lounge now, Marcan accompanied the black market trader out of the facility.

An hour and a half later, the powerful missiles were in Castor's missile tubes and Marcan had checked them to see that they really were what they were supposed to be. He had protected Castor's systems with the best anti-virus programs that he had been able to purchase and he was certain that the newly fitted missiles could not be fooling his computer system.

An hour after that he had entered the atmosphere of the Lave planet on the night side with his registration codes scrambled and now was flying over the great sea towards the high, rocky cliffs on the eastern shore that supported the expensive lodging of Mr Jones. The hologram map provided by Ariadne confirmed the location and the identity of the building.

"Castor, can you say how stable the rock-face under that house is?" he asked the AI when they were seventy kilometres from the target. He was flying as fast and as low as he could in the thick atmosphere, his velocity nearing 1400 kilometres an hour and his altitude only 200 metres at best.

"Impossible to say, commander, without proper equipment. However, I do detect a landing bay door on the cliff-side," Castor replied.

When Castor announced that they had only two minutes to the target, Marcan slowed down a little. He wanted to get this over with as quickly and as efficiently as possible, but he also wanted to avoid any chance of mishap. The cliffs were high and if he flew too fast towards them, he might not be able to pull up in time to avoid running into them. That would be a sad end to his vengeance.

"Target the landing bay doors, Castor, and tell me if and when they open up," Marcan said, his voice strained with concentration. He wished that Mr Jones's security was good enough to spot his approach, because then the bay door would indeed open. "And," he continued, "immediately after I have fired the first missile, set a new target to the main house." That way, his missiles would strike from both possible directions and make the best possible impression on the beautiful natural formation by the great sparkling sea.

"Landing bay doors are opening," Castor said only a few seconds later.

"Anything coming out?" Marcan asked.

"Yes. There are two small ships coming out fast. Target One at ten kilometres," Castor said

Marcan waited for only as long as it took him to hit the missile launch trigger and the first assault missile was on its way. Then the red square that marked the target flicked to the house on top of the cliff and he pressed the trigger again. The two powerful missiles made their way towards the building at a speed and from a distance that made it impossible for anyone to stop them. Marcan slowed down his craft even more and pulled it upwards. Castor fed the picture from the missile cameras to one of the secondary screens and Marcan kept his eyes on it while he headed for space.

The ball of flame rose to two hundred metres and a whole section of the cliffs crumbled into the sea when the missiles found their target. Marcan smiled coldly. Such destruction guaranteed that no one inside could have survived alive.

Then Castor momentarily tore his sense of fulfilment away from him. "One of the fighters got clear of the explosion, commander, and is escaping at a high speed."

Marcan turned his attention to the scanner and saw the dot that marked the escaping vehicle. He turned the Castor around and gave chase.

"How fast is that ship?" he asked.

"It's a Hawk Air-fighter, commander, and its acceleration greatly exceeds ours," Castor replied calmly.

Marcan looked at the distance counter. The fighter was already five kilometres away and getting mode distance between them every moment. It was nearly impossible to hit such a small target from five kilometres, but he tried it anyway, heating up the enhanced pulse lasers until he realised that the target had got too far away.

"Where is it heading?" Marcan asked, "any population in that direction?"

Castor was quiet for a short moment; "No other habitats marked in the planetary maps that we were provided, commander."

Marcan cursed. It was of no consequence whether there were other buildings in that direction or not. Even if the other ship had now reached the maximum velocity, so had Castor and there was nothing he could do to change that. Even climbing up into thinner air would not work, since then every scanner screen would reveal his position to the world. He had to stay low until he was ready to leave the system. The distance to the other ship was eight kilometres and stayed that way.

It was very improbable that the pilot of the Hawk was anyone of any importance, but Marcan would have preferred not to leave eyewitnesses. His ship was too unique and as such easy to trace that if someone was left alive to tell others what he had seen, Marcan would be in trouble.

"Castor, do you have any tricks up your sleeve that could help us here?" he asked at last.

"I'm sorry, commander. Without Polydeuces there is nothing I can think of. Together we could win any battle," the AI replied.

A few minutes later Marcan noticed the mountains that they were heading to and wondered again what the Hawk's pilot was trying to do. The small ship could easily disappear from his scanner once the mountains came between them, but it would be very dangerous to the other pilot. Especially since the Hawk, despite its speed, was poorly manoeuvrable. Possibly the other pilot wished that Marcan's ship was even worse at quick turns, Marcan mused, but if he did, he was in for a grave disappointment.

Then they got to the mountains and the Hawk sped between two high peaks and into a narrow, winding valley between. They were both forced to slow down to make the sharp turns, but because of the Castor's superior manoeuvrability, Marcan could keep up a faster speed than the smaller craft. And it was clear that the other pilot noticed it quickly as well. The Hawk climbed upwards suddenly and escaped the valley and sped towards the sky above. It was another turn that Marcan was able to make better than the Hawk-pilot and suddenly the distance between the ships was only three kilometres. It was still too far to make exact hits with his pulse lasers on such a small target, but Marcan gave it a try anyway.

Because the air was getting thinner the higher they got, the superior acceleration of the Hawk started to widen the gap between them again. Marcan fired his laser for several times with no success and was almost ready to give up. Then he was again taken over by the feeling of cold resolution that he often felt just before success. Then, only a couple of shots later, his 5mw pulse laser found its mark and the small fighter blew up in hot flames.

"Good flying, commander," Castor said.

Marcan grinned slightly and checked the altitude and saw that it was already ten kilometres; only two more and he could jump into the hyper space. "Set target to Reorte, Castor," Marcan said and prepared to engage the hyper space engines. He considered it wiser to jump first into some other system than Leesti in order to throw of any chasers. Some smaller craft could perhaps reach Reorte before he did and wait for him there, but Marcan doubted it. It would take time for anyone to realise that it was exactly this hyperspace remnant cloud that had been left by the ship that had destroyed the sea-side house, and then even more time until any ship with hyper space capabilities reached the scene. He was already wondering what he would do with the money that Ariadne was going to pay him when the thinning atmosphere around him turned into the comforting colours of the hyperspace.