A red light flashed in front of her the instant she cut loose from the tube. “Alarm,” she said. “Somebody noticed.” She was working as she spoke, swinging the shuttle about, sending it toward the gaping outer door of the lock. “Or maybe it’s automatic,” she said. “With a little luck…”

The port was near the top of the worldship where the shuttles could jump in and out without getting tangled in the web of tubes linking the central mass with the ring of much smaller derelicts.

Autumn Rose booted the shuttle into a reckless arc over that ring, came down to the central plane and darted for the skeletal marina that Ginny had provided for his bidders.

She circled the marina, put it between her and Koulsnakko’s Hole, then pooted along behind the ships, looking them over for size and conformation, talking absently as she kept her eyes fixed on the scanner. “We want a small ship, one that doesn’t take a big crew, two reasons, we couldn’t handle a big ’un and a small crew’s probably in the Hole, not lying about to make misery for us. And we should get one that can put down onplanet so we don’t have to depend on landers, who knows where we’ll end up. So, a small hot ship. None of these. No… no… ah! there’s one that might do if we can’t find… ah! Red light’s gone out, don’t know whether that’s good or bad. Ah… ah… yes! Don’t think we can do better than that one.” She centered the small sleek yacht in the screen, enlarged the image. “What do you think, Kuna?”

He shivered. “Do it. Something’s stepping on my shadow, Rose, breathing down my neck. Hurry.”

“Right.” Autumn Rose took the shuttle closer, nosed it around until it hung beside the yacht, lock nuzzling against lock. “Well, now it gets hard. Be helpful if I had one of Digby’s trick boxes, but I don’t, so we go with what we have. Let me see…”

She began playing with the sensor pad, stopping occasionally to watch the screen. Nothing happened. She muttered to herself and went back to work.