The first clear thoughts to enter her mind were a string of related questions. Her attacker had been a belter-that much was clear-and his sharply filed teeth marked him as a member of the Society of Binding Light, a fanatic religious cult that had established a colony on Ceres more than a hundred years before. But why had he been in Susan's rooms? How had he gotten past the door's spore- lock? Why had he attacked her, and why hadn't he used his stun pistol? Finally, how had he pulled off that vanishing trick?

That last question was the real stumper. One instant he had lain on the bathroom floor. The next he was gone.

But to where? And how had he accomplished it?

Again she thought of those whose job it was to ferret out that information. Her first task should be to contact Base Security.

She opened her eyes, then stood somewhat shakily and went to the holo- phone on the far side of the room. As she entered the lens cluster's field, the device activated with a date-time display-two-feet-high glowing red letters and numerals hanging in mid air: OCT. 3, 2187-0738.

"Base Security," she said. "This is a priority emergency."

Instantly the date-time display disappeared, replaced by the three-dimensional image of a man sitting behind a small wooden desk. Perhaps twenty or twenty- five, he was dressed in a black uniform with white corporal's stripes on both sleeves and a gold Base Security emblem over his left breast.

The young man reddened, his eyes becoming large and round with surprise. He reached out to the controls set in the desk top and his image vanished, supplanted by the date-time display: OCT. 3, 2187-0739.

"Are you still there?" Susan asked.

"Yes, ma'am, I'm still here," the young man's voice said, issuing from thin air.

"Is something wrong with the equipment, then?"

"The equipment is fine. I disconnected visual when I saw you weren't dressed."