Rissa and Tregare by F. M. Busby Page B

of each run; she caught herself in error once and realized she had hurried too much. She turned to Deverel. "Now, if there is a tape I may see, in which destina-tion was changed in mid-voyage, I would like to try it. If not, we can turn the machine off."
    He hesitated. "There's the Escape itself, of course, but-"
    Then he shrugged. "I can't think of any reason you shouldn't see it-"
    "Only if you feel sure, Hain Deverel."
    "I'm sure enough. Here-I'll punch up the start for you."
    She watched the record, stopping the tape to work out her own figures and then running it to see how well she had done.
    In a quick side-glance she saw Deverel smiling, and soon found the reason for his amusement-not merely one change of goal on this trip, but three-and now she remembered Tre-gare's story. "The second," she said, "was when Farnsworth retook the ship, briefly. And then Tregare ..." She punched in the final course-figures and waited, and found she was correct.
    "The skipper-he told you about that, did he?"
    "On Inconnu, the first evening out of Far Corner. I men-tioned hearing that after Escape he mutinied against his own people. Like any person, he resents being maligned."
    "Saved our heads, the captain did." It was Kenekke's voice; Rissa had not seen or heard his entrance. "Not for the first time, nor likely the last."
    "True," said Deverel. "But don't be so modest, Anse. You saved a few heads yourself, on that trip." Kenekke waved a hand. "Who didn't?" He looked at the figures from Rissa's last simulation run. "That's how it went, al right. You studying to navigate, Ms. Kerguelen?"
    "Yes. But I thought you were an engineer, not a navi-gator."
    "We work with the same numbers; it's simpler that way."
    "I see I have more to learn than I had thought. May I ask you questions when I know what to ask?"
    "Any time. Say-sounds like you're coming along, on Inconnu."
    "I hope to do so."
    "Good. A man keeps a steadier head, with his love close to hand." The big man smiled, turned, and left the control room.
    Unsure what to say, Rissa looked at Deverel. He said, "Anse is right. He doesn't talk much, but when he does, it pays to listen."
    Before she could stop herself she said, "How long-?"
    "Anse and I? From before space-in UET training, when they'd have killed us for it. Nobody was more eager than us for Escape."
    "UET would have killed you? I do not understand. In North America, among freepersons many ways are accepted."
    "But not in UET. What they want is robots, zombies-and they manage to build themselves a lot of those. They caught a couple of boys in the cadre next to ours-and we saw what happened to them."
    She shook her head. "Do not tel me, please. Though per-haps I imagine worse than the reality."
    "I doubt it." With obvious effort, he laughed. "But that's light-years gone and here we are on a fine world, waiting our chance to set teeth into-wel, to teach UET a lesson, maybe."
    "I hope so. Thank you, Hain, for helping me. I will leave you now."
    she decided to explore Tregare's escape tunnel. Carrying a handlight, she swung the tub, opened the trapdoor and de-scended the vertical shaft. Above her the door closed; she pointed the light up to find the latch that would release it from below. She walked through the featureless tube, past the shaft slanting upward on the left, to the gully exit. Yes-it did give good cover. She returned to the side shaft and clambered up to the smal pilbox. Vision slits looked out toward the cabin-she could see the left side and the front-and the area between it and the scout. The emplaced weapons were two energy projectors, similar to those on Inconnu-but she knew they must be powered by a lesser source than the ship's. They were mounted so they could be locked together for elevation and traverse or disengaged for separate targets. Aiming, she moved the locked pair back and forth to get the feel of it. She returned to the shaft under the cabin, operated the latch and waited while the tub pivoted and the