hundred or so ancient Culture lifter craft.

Horza had time to look around. There was plenty of space, lots of room and time. The Megaship lay on the floor of the giant

bay, looking for

all the world like a small city sitting on a great slab of metal. The

Clear Air Turbulence

flew past the stern of the Megaship, past tunnels full of

propeller blades tens of meters across, round the side of its rearmost

outrigger, where beached pleasure craft waited for a return to water, over

the towers and spires of its superstructure, then

out over its bows. Horza looked forward. The doors, if they were doors, of the General bay

faced him, two kilometers away.

They were that same distance from top to bottom, and twice that across. Horza shrugged and checked the

laser again. He was

becoming, he realized, almost blasé about the whole thing.

What the hell.

he thought.

The lasers picked a hole in the wall of material ahead, punching a slowly widening gap which Horza aimed straight for. A vortex

of swirling

air was starting to form around the hole; as the

CAT

rushed closer, it was caught in a small horizontal cyclone of air and started to twist. Then it

was through, and in space.

In a quickly dispersing bubble of air and crystals of ice, the craft burst from the body of the General Systems Vehicle, swooping

into vacuum

and star-washed darkness at last. Behind it, a force field slammed across the hole its passage had created in

the doors of the General bay.

Horza felt the plasma motors stutter as their supply of outside air disappeared, then the internal

tanks took up the slack. He was about to cut

them and slide gently into the start-up procedure for the craft’s warp engines

when the speakers in his headrest crackled.

“This is Evanauth port police. All right, you son of a bitch, just keep on that heading and slow right down. Evanauth port

police to rogue craft:

halt on that heading. A—"

Horza pulled on the controls, taking the

CAT

on a huge accelerating arc up over the stern of the GSV, flashing past the outside of the

kilometer-square exit he had been

heading for earlier. Wubslin, moaning now, bumped around the inside of the bridge as the

CAT

lifted its

nose to head straight up, toward the maze of abandoned docks and gantries that was Evanauth port. As it went it

turned, still twisting slightly

from the spin it had picked up from the vortex of air bursting from the General bay. Horza

let it twist, steadying it only as they approached the top

of the loop, the port facilities coming up fast then sliding underneath

as the craft leveled out.

“Rogue ship! This is your last warning!" the speakers blared. “Stop now or we’ll blow you out of the sky! God, he’s heading

for—" The

transmission cut off. Horza grinned to himself. He was indeed heading for the gap between the underside of the port

and the top of the GSV.

The

Clear Air Turbulence

flashed through spaces between traveltube connections, elevator shafts, graving dock gantries, transit areas,

arriving shuttle

craft and crane towers. Horza guided the ship through the maze with the fusion motors still blazing at maximum boost, throwing

the small craft through the few hundred meters of crowded space between the Orbital and the General Systems Vehicle. The rear

radar

ping

ed,

picking up following echoes.

Two towers, hanging under the Orbital like upside-down skyscrapers, between which Horza was aiming the

CAT,

suddenly blossomed with

light, scattering wreckage. Horza cringed in his seat as he corkscrewed the ship into the space between

the two clouds of debris.

“Those were across the bows," crackled the speakers again. “The next ones will be straight up your ass, boy racer." The

CAT

shot out over

the dull gray plain of slanting material that was the start of the

Ends’

nose. Horza turned the

CAT

over and dived down, following the slope of the

vast craft’s bows. The rear radar signal stopped briefly, then reappeared.

He flipped the ship over again. Wubslin, his arms and legs waving weakly, was dumped onto the

CAT

’s bridge ceiling and stuck there like

a fly while Horza did a section of an outside loop.

The ship was racing, powering away from the Orbital port area and the big GSV, heading for space. Horza remembered about Balveda’s

gear, and quickly reached over to the console, closing the vactube circuit from there. A screen showed that all the vactubes

had been rotated.

The rear screen showed something flame inside the twin plumes of plasma fire. The rear radar pinged insistently.

“Goodbye,

stupid !

" the voice in the headrest speakers said. Horza threw the ship to one side.

The rear screen went white, then black. The main screen pulsated with colors and broken lines. The speakers in Horza’s helmet,

as well as

the speakers set into the seat, howled. Every instrument on the console flashed and wavered.

Horza thought for a second they had been hit, but the motors were still blasting, the main screen was starting to clear, and

the other

instruments were recovering, too. The radiation meters were bleeping and flashing. The rear screen stayed blank.

A damage monitor indicated

that the sensors had been knocked out by a very strong pulse of radiation.

Horza started to realize what had happened when the rear radar didn’t start pinging again after it recovered. He threw back

his head and

laughed.

There had indeed been a bomb in Balveda’s kitbag. Whether it had gone off because it was caught in the

CAT

’s plasma exhaust or

because somebody—whoever had been trying to keep the ship on board the GSV in the first place—had detonated

it remotely the instant the

fleeing craft was far enough away from the

Ends

not to cause too much damage, Horza didn’t know. Whatever; the explosion seemed to have

caught the pursuing police vessels.

Laughing uproariously, Horza angled the

CAT

further away from the great circle of brilliantly lit Orbital, heading straight out toward the stars

and readying the warp

engines to take over from the plasma motors. Wubslin, back on the deck, one leg caught on the arm of his own chair,

moaned

distantly.

“Mother," he said. “Mother, say it’s only a dream…."

Horza laughed louder.

“You lunatic," breathed Yalson, shaking her head. Her eyes were wide. “That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen you do.

You’re mad, Kraiklyn.

I’m leaving. I resign as of now… Shit! I wish I’d gone with Jandraligeli, to Ghalssel…. You can just

drop me off first place we get to."

Horza sat down wearily in the seat at the head of the mess-room table. Yalson was at the far end, under the screen, which

was switched into

the bridge main screen. The

CAT

was proceeding under full warp, two hours out on its journey from Vavatch. There had been no further pursuit

following the

destruction of the police craft, and now the

CAT

was gradually coming round to the course Horza had set, into the war zone,

toward the edge of the Glittercliff, toward Schar’s

World.

Dorolow and Aviger were sitting, plainly still shaken, to one side of Yalson. The woman and the elderly man were both staring

at Horza as

though he was pointing a gun at them. Their mouths were open, their eyes were glazed. On the other side of Yalson

the slack form of Perosteck

Balveda was leaning forward, head down, her body pulling against the restraining straps of the

seat.

The mess room was chaotic. The

CAT

hadn’t been readied for violent maneuvering, and nothing had been stowed away. Plates and

containers, a couple of shoes,

a glove, some half-unraveled tapes and spools and various other bits and pieces now lay strewn about the floor

of the mess.

Yalson had been hit by something, and a small trickle of blood had dried on her forehead. Horza hadn’t let anybody move, apart

from brief visits to the heads, for the last two hours; he’d told everybody to stay where they were over the ship PA while

the

CAT

headed away

from Vavatch on a twisting, erratic course. He had kept the plasma motors and laser warm and ready, but no further

pursuit came. Now he

reckoned they were safe and far enough away to warp straight.

He had left Wubslin on the bridge, nursing the battered and abused systems of the

Clear Air Turbulence

as best he could. The engineer