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The small charge went off with a loud cracking sound and the triple locked door flew open. A small army of armored police rushed in and took up positions around the room.

  They didn't say anything. They didn't have to. Their drawn weapons said it all. McCade, Chips, and Neem all froze without being told.

  Smoke billowed, eddied, and was sucked toward the nearest vent. That's when Reba stepped into the room and smiled. "Hello, Sam. Greetings, Neem. I couldn't help but overhear that last comment via the bug in the ventilator. Chips is many things . . . but a genius isn't one of them."

  McCade treated Chips to a withering look.

  The little man spread his hands apologetically and said, "Ooops."

  Nineteen

  "Sam McCade, I'd like you to meet Sister Urillo. Sister Urillo, this is Sam McCade."

  Sister Urillo was a cyborg, a beautiful cyborg, but a cyborg nonetheless. It hadn't always been so. During a raid on Carson's World a surface-to-air missile had ignored the electronic countermeasures built into her aerospace fighter and hit one of her stubby wings. Her ship crashed a few seconds later.

  Her copilot pulled her from the burning wreck, but she had massive injuries, and even with an unusually fast air evac, she just barely survived.

  Doctor after doctor said she'd be lucky to live out her life in a nutrient tank, little more than sentient tissue, stored away in some dark corner of a hospital.

  But Urillo refused to give up. She said "yes" to the countless operations, she said "yes" to the experimental bionics, and she said "yes" to the pain.

  And finally, when all the parts of her body were meshed into a unified whole, she went a step further. She made a decision to love and accept her new body. So while others might have hidden their bionic parts, Sister Urillo flaunted hers, treating them as ornaments and using them to her advantage.

  She had rich brown eyes and a beautiful face. It was almost untouched by the crash, the single exception being her left temple and cheek where smooth brown flesh gave way to golden metal. The metal had been sculpted to match the other side of her face. Fanciful patterns had been engraved into the metal, moving and flowing to surround and enhance the single ruby set into her cheek. It glowed with internal fire and flickered with each movement she made.

  Her shoulders were of gleaming chrome giving way to golden arms and fingers. Her red dress was cut low to reveal most of her remaining breast and all of its metal twin. The metal breast was perfectly shaped and tipped with a ruby nipple.

  Lower down her dress fell into sculptured lines around beautiful legs, one brown and one chrome. They took turns appearing and disappearing through slits designed for that purpose.

  And Sister Urillo's appearance didn't end there. Her combination office-living quarters were a carefully designed extension of her body. A high-tech, glass topped desk served to complement and echo her metal parts while the rest of the furniture was soft and brown like her remaining flesh.

  McCade noticed that her voice had a lilting quality and was only slightly distorted by a hidden speech synthesizer. "Greetings, Sam McCade. Although we haven't met, I was present the last time you left the Rock. It was an expensive and rather spectacular sight."

  Even though her hand was metal covered by a thin layer of golden plasti-flesh, McCade found it warm to the touch. Some sort of heating element woven into the plastic?

  He smiled wryly. "My apologies, Sister Urillo. Had I known that such a beautiful woman was present I would have stopped to introduce myself."

  "It's better that you didn't," Urillo replied with a laugh. "I would've been forced to blow your head off."

  She turned to Reba. "He's annoying but gallant as well. You didn't tell me that."

  Reba looked from Sister Urillo to McCade and shrugged. "Sam is full of surprises. Like his transformation from slave to computer thief for example. It was a mistake to underestimate him."

  "I'm glad you admit it," Sister Urillo said as she went behind her desk. "A little humility is a useful thing. Both of you, please, take a seat. McCade . . . you may light one of those god-awful cigars if you wish . . . though Reba may object."

  "Go ahead," Reba said as she selected a seat. "My cancer shots are up-to-date."

  The invitation bothered him. He wasn't sure why. Maybe it was their complete control of the situation, or maybe they'd taken the fun out of it, but whatever the reason he refused.

  "Thank you, ladies," McCade said, dropping into the deep comfort of an over-stuffed armchair, "but I think I'll pass."

  "All right then," Sister Urillo said, her eyes suddenly hard. "Let's get down to brass tacks. By now you realize Reba's something more than a damsel in distress. Most of the time, when she isn't allowing herself to get captured during Il Ronnian raids, she's one of my security agents. I sit on the Brotherhood's governing council and have responsibility for planetary security. So when Reba left Spin, she came straight to me."

  McCade nodded. Well, it was his own fault. He'd been suspicious, just not suspicious enough. "I suppose Chips works for you as well?"

  Urillo nodded approvingly. "Yes, Chips works for us on a part-time basis."

  "Then why the charade?" McCade asked. "Why not grab me off the top?"

  Reba shrugged. "We wanted to see if you would contact any Imperial agents. There are some but we don't know who they are."

  "And," Sister Urillo added wryly, "you did contact an agent. A crazy Il Ronnian who found a way to escape from Spin, bypassed our security systems, and bought you on the open market. We actually lost track of you for a while, and if it hadn't been for Chips, you might have escaped."

  Reba nodded soberly. "Another mistake on my part. I should've killed Neem, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

  "That was a mistake," Sister Urillo agreed, "but in retrospect it was a good mistake."

  "Speaking of which how is Neem?" McCade asked. He hadn't seen the Il Ronnian since the police had broken in.

  "Your friend is fine," Urillo replied calmly, "which brings us to you." She leaned forward in her chair. Her eyes narrowed and the light sparkled off the ruby in her cheek. "I should kill you and use your body to help rebuild our damaged soil. And if it weren't for this absurd religious relic, that's exactly what I'd do. But Reba tells me the Il Ronn are ready to come after this thing, and if they do, the Rock's the first place they'll stop. And while we might stand 'em off for a while, there wouldn't be much left when they got done, and some stupid vial isn't worth dying over. So this is your lucky day, McCade. Instead of winding up dead, you're going to find the relic and give it back to them."

  McCade felt a big emptiness in the pit of his stomach. "Find it? You've already got it. The Vial of Tears was taken during a raid on an Il Ronnian planet and brought here."

  Sister Urillo leaned back in her chair and steepled her golden fingers. Light winked off her forearms and danced across the ceiling. "Unfortunately that's not the case. Oh, it was taken during a raid all right, but it wasn't brought here, and we aren't sure where it is."

  "You see," Reba added, "the raid was unsanctioned."

  "Meaning that while the raid was carried out in our name and using our ships, we didn't authorize it," Urillo added. "That particular raid was led by Mustapha Pong, an ex-colleague of mine and a complete rogue."

  "I was looking for leads to Pong's whereabouts when I was captured," Reba explained. "We want him just as much as the Il Ronn do."

  "Exactly," Sister Urillo agreed, chrome flashing as she crossed her long legs. "So I want the two of you to stop screwing around and go find him."

  Twenty

  Tin Town. Though not a town in the normal sense of the word the name fit. First because Tin Town was made of metal, and second because it qualified as a collection of inhabited dwellings, and that's what a town is.

  So what if this particular town was in orbit around a planet, was equipped with hyperdrive, and had once been an ore barge? To the ten thousand five hundred and sixty-five sentients who lived there, Tin Town was home.

 
; As Pegasus drew closer McCade dimmed the main viewscreen. Tin Town shimmered with light. Much of it came from the signs that covered its hull. They rippled, flashed, and pulsated, advertising everything from ***hot sex*** to Clyde's Cyborg Clinic. "Check in and check us out."

  Some of the light came from Tin Town herself. As the hull turned on its axis an endless array of solar collectors flashed in the sun and generated a belt of light. In addition, there were the winking navigation beacons, the glow of welding torches, and the occasional blue-white flare of steering jets when ships jockeyed for position.

  McCade had never been to Tin Town before, but like everyone else, he'd heard of it. The habitat had been founded some seventy years before by a group of people who disliked government of any kind. They believed everyone should accept responsibility for every aspect of their lives, and having done so, they owed nothing to others. As a result they were commonly referred to as "Loners."

  The group first tried to live out their philosophy on a succession of rim worlds. Things would be fine for a while, but after a while new settlers would come along and conflict would soon follow.

  The new settlers would want to establish a fire department, or a police force, or some other public service, and they'd propose a government to organize and provide it.

  The Loners would object, suggesting a privately owned enterprise instead. They felt each person should be free to support the service in question or go without.

  "But what about the destitute?" the settlers would ask. "Don't we have a moral duty to help them?"

  "Not at all," the Loners would reply. "With the exception of a very few who should borrow money and start again, the destitute failed to provide for themselves. Now they want us to take responsibility for their lives and protect them from the consequences of their own folly. That's not fair. Why should we support a government we don't want or need?"

  Needless to say the rest of the settlers went right ahead and formed governments without them, provided services, and imposed taxes. At this point the Loners were forced to pay or leave, and time after time they left, eventually settling on some other planet where they were forced to start all over again.

  Eventually some of the Loners grew tired of the unending struggle and decided on another course of action. If they couldn't have their own planet, they'd create an alternative. A habitat large enough to hold them but small enough to control. Their habitat would be mobile too, so they could leave unfriendly environs whenever they wished, including human space if that became necessary.

  Research showed that a conventional ship wouldn't be big enough and a custom-designed habitat would be way too expensive. The solution strangely enough was an ore barge. Unlike most ore barges, this one was equipped with drives of its own and was fairly new to boot. The barge had come onto the market when the company that owned it went out of business. Due to its unusual size and design, other companies had declined the opportunity to buy it.

  But the barge was perfect for what the Loners had in mind so they formed a corporation and bought themselves a dream. True to their philosophy each person bought as much of the barge as they could afford, paid for those services they wished to receive, and were in all other respects free to do as they wished.

  To protect their newfound freedom the Loners instituted a policy of strict neutrality toward all governments, planetary and galactic alike, and in doing so made themselves accidentally rich.

  Throughout the history of human civilization there's been a need for neutral ground. A place where enemies can meet, where money can be stored, and secrets can be kept.

  Given their fanatical desire for independence, their utter pragmatism, and their ability to run from trouble, the Loners were perfect candidates to fill this need. And fill it they did, opening banks, storage vaults, and a broad range of related services.

  Due to their prosperity, others were eager to join them. And pragmatists though they were, the Loners didn't care whether the newcomers understood or approved of the underlying philosophy, only that they lived in accordance with it.

  Time passed, and before long there were more people than space to put them in, so additions were approved. There was no reason to limit mass since Tin Town was too large to negotiate a planetary atmosphere, and doing so would have compromised its security.

  As a result the barge began to change shape. Her once-smooth hull grew bumps and bulges as sections were enlarged. Two globular liners were connected to the barge's bow and stern, making her the bar between two huge dumbbells. Then a forest of sensors, weapons platforms, and cooling fins appeared along with the now-famous name "Tin Town."

  A soft chime interrupted McCade's thoughts as the com screen lit up. Where he expected to see a face, there was a request for a damage deposit instead. A rather large damage deposit.

  Although the Loners placed no political restrictions on their visitors, they did insist on insuring themselves against financial loss. After all, a town without laws tends to attract some nasty visitors and without some sort of controls would soon cease to exist. Therefore each visitor was required to produce a rather substantial damage deposit before they were allowed to land.

  The Loners were willing to accept a variety of assets including cash, ships, family members, specialized equipment, bodily organs, and anything else of recognized value.

  McCade typed Pegasus's name and legal description onto the com screen, palm printed the agreement, and swore as it faded from sight. If he or any member of his crew caused damage to Tin Town, or any of its permanent residents, Pegasus would be forfeit.

  He didn't like it, but according to Sister Urillo, there wasn't much choice. Her sources said that Mustapha Pong had been sighted three times in recent months, all of them in Tin Town, and all of them in the company of a local businessman named Morris Sappo. The habitat was in orbit around a planet called Lexor at the moment, but there was no way to tell if that was a significant part of the Sappo-Pong relationship, or just happenstance. But it could be important, and since no one knew when the Loners might decide to move Tin Town somewhere else, time was short. If McCade wished to find Pong or, failing that, Sappo, he'd have to visit Tin Town, damage deposit and all.

  Threading his way through a maze of orbiting ships and free-floating junk, McCade guided Pegasus into the lighted maw of Tin Town's main hatch.

  The hangar was huge, taking up all of what had once been the barge's number three hold. All sorts of ships formed orderly rows to the right and the left. There were scarred freighters, sleek little one-man scouts, richly appointed space yachts, sturdy-looking tugs, and a scattering of pirate raiders. The latter were not too surprising since Tin Town was one of the few places pirates could openly visit.

  Lowering Pegasus into her allotted berth, McCade killed the repellors and turned to his companions. "Welcome to Tin Town, a monument to money, and an eyesore in the sky. All ashore who's goin' ashore."

  Though Neem and Reba didn't seem excited by the prospect, they disappeared into their cabins and showed up a few minutes later ready to go.

  Reba was dressed in faded coveralls. She wore a blaster in a cross-draw holster and had a throwing knife sticking out of her right boot top.

  McCade had debated the merits of taking Neem versus leaving him on the ship and, based on the Il Ronnian's previous success, had decided to take him along.

  Neem was a vision in black. Black helmet, black visor, and a long black cloak that concealed his tail. He had blasters concealed in his copious sleeves, a wicked looking sword strapped across his back, and variety of knives scattered about his person.

  McCade wasn't sure how Neem would react to actual combat, but he certainly looked like death incarnate, and maybe that would help.

  A shuttle bus arrived a few minutes later, sealed its lock against the ship's and welcomed them aboard. There was something wrong with the vehicle's voice simulator that caused it to drop every fourth word.

  "Welcome to Tin . . . We hope you . . . enjoy your stay . . . You may p
ay . . . cash or we . . . be glad to . . . you a line . . . credit secured by . . . damage deposit. Please . . . the payment plate . . . you wish to . . . credit."

  McCade palmed the plate and gave thanks that Swanson-Pierce had provided a thick wad of expense money. If a shuttle ride cost fifty credits a piece, how much would a hotel room be?

  The shuttle stopped twice to pick up other passengers before heading for the main terminal. Except for a birdlike Finthian and a wealthy-looking Cellite, it was a largely humanoid crowd.

  The Cellite wore richly detailed pajamas. They swished softly with each movement of his stocky body and gave off a spicy scent. He wore a matching skullcap on his rounded head and, lacking a nose, breathed through his thin-lipped mouth.

  As he boarded the shuttle the Cellite's eyestalks darted this way and that, examining his fellow passengers with the friendly curiosity of a small child. Then the alien caught sight of Neem and developed a sudden interest in a viewport.

  McCade grinned. Neem's new disguise was having the desired effect.

  The shuttle made lock-to-lock contact with the main terminal, disgorged its passengers, and issued a broken invitation for others to come aboard. Most were more drunk than sober and barely able to stagger aboard with the help of handholds and crewmates.

  Reba grinned. "This place makes Spin look like a nursery school." She had to yell it over the noise of the crowd.

  McCade nodded and motioned toward a broad corridor that led away from the lock and toward glittering lights. "Make a hole, Neem. We'll be right behind you."

  "Having a couple of humans behind me is not my idea of a dream come true," Neem replied good-naturedly, "but everyone should live dangerously once in a while. Follow me."

  And they did. Both sides of the corridor were lined with wall-to-wall shops: restaurants, bars, whorehouses, clothing stores, equipment dealers, banks, medical clinics, and weapons dealers.

  And these were not passive enterprises but centers of frantic activity packed with merchandise and staffed by sentients ready and eager to unload their present stock and bring in more.