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doing.

    Could it be that he really thought her a drone ship?
    Maybe not. At least, he wasn't sure. Now that he was through playing with the Net, Polyon sent out an ex-ploratory tendril of code to report on other activities linked into the ship's computer... a patch that would reveal the exact location and extent of Nancia's connections within the ship.

    A Hale late to check that, my lad! Didn't the Space Academy teach you to look for ambushes before you started maneuvers ?
    Self-protection was an automatic response, more deeply ingrained even than discretion. Nancia closed down pathways and redefined access codes in a single, instinctive wave of activity that left Polyon staring at a blank screen and touching a keyboard that no longer responded to his search commands.

    Darnell

    Darnell Ovetton-Glaxely moaned gently as he caught 28

    Arme McCaffrey fc? Margaret Ball

    PARTNERSHIP

    29

    sight of his puffy face, a distorted reflection in the polished curve of synthalloy along the ship's central corridor. It was too early in the morning to face mirrors, especially curving ones that made his reflection swell and shrink and ripple like waves on the damned ocean. Darnell moaned again and reminded himself that the artificial gravity of space was practically like being on Earth; it was only his imagination making him feel sick.
    This was really nothing like being aboard one of the oldstyle oceangoing vessels that had been the start of OG
    Shipping, back when they were still a planetbound local corporation. His old man had made him go on one of those monsters once, with some crap about remembering the family's roots. Darndl had taken a lot more crap from the old man when he puked his guts out before the ship left harbor.

    Well, there wouldn't be any more of ihat\ Dear Papa was history now, and so was the unexplained space-station collapse that had killed him and left OG
    Shipping in the hands of its directors until Darnell finished school. And last night's Stemerald debauch was also history—if only he could convince his queasy stomach and pounding head of that!

    It wasn't fair that he should suffer like this after what had only been a perfectly reasonable indulgence to celebrate the end of schooling and the start of his new career. A pity neither of the girls had seen fit to continue the celebration in the logical manner. Well, they had two weeks to planetfall; they'd come around and see his attractions soon enough. After all, it wasn't as if he had any serious competition on this droneship. De Gras-Waldheim was handsome enough, but a cold fish if Darnell had ever seen one. Something frightening about him, with those intense blue eyes burning like dry ice under the stiff Academy haircut. As for the Medoc boy, Blass or Blaze or whatever his name was, no girl was going to waste time on a kid with a face like a friendly gare. No> it would be old Darnell to the rescue again, the n man on board widi the social skills to entertain two lovely ladies all the way to their destination planets around Nyotayajaha.

    And he could hear sounds in the central cabin. Was one of the girls up and about already? Darnell sucked in his gut, threw his shoulders as far back as they would go, and glanced at his reflection in the synth-ailoy wall once again. His face wasn't really soft and pufly like that, he told himself; it was a trick of the distorted reflection. Made him look middle-aged and flabby and tired. Nonsense. He was the handsome young heir to OG shipping and he was fit to take on anybody or anything....

    But not, maybe, that cold fish, Polyon de Gras-Waldheim. Darnell clutched at the doorway and tried to stop his impulsive movement into the central cabin. His legs kept going while his arms tried to haul him back.

    "Oh, come on in, OG," Polyon said impatiently, his back to the door. "Don't just cling to the doorframe waving your tentacles like a seasick jellyfish."

    Seasick.

    Jellyfish.

    Darnell gulped down a wave of nausea and