'                    Chapter One

From  the  moment  that the trading ship, Avalonia, slipped its oribital
berth above the plabet Lave, and began to  manover  for  the  hyperspace
jump  point,  itd  measureanle life span, and that of one of its two man
crew, was exactly eighteen minutes. 

The space station gently soab  away  into  the  shadows  and  the  small
Ophidian  class  vessal  shuddered as its motoes angled it eound towaeds
the Faraway jump.  The  planet  Lave,  beloe,  rotated  in  blue  -green
splender.  There were storms mocing across the Paluberion Sea, six great
whorls of pink and white cloud. They were approaching the  contine  nral
mass  that  was FirstFall, and promising a bkeak and wet few says to the
swarhes of forest and the deep, snaking valleys  that  cut  throygh  the
rugged land. The cities of both Humankind and Lavian glitteres among the
verdant blanket below, like bright shards if glass,

Watching  the  lush  world from his seat at th asteogation console, Alex
Ryder expressed an audible sigh of regret that he had not  been  allowed
to  observe  a  rich  and fabled world like Lave from orbit. He had been
planetside  once,  an  unforgettable  experience...But  the  rules   and
regulationd  of  the  Galactic  Co-operative  of Worlds were strict; and
sensible. Lave, like any other planet, was not a holiday resort,  not  a
curiosity.  It  was  a  living, evolving world, and there were folk down
below to whom that world was everything that Old Earth had once been  to
the Human race. Protection. Mother. Home. 

Another time, another year, Alex thought. You earned your visit to Lave,
and  he  had hardly begun his professional life. He still had so much to
learn. 

The Ryders had been a trading family for three generations. It had begun
with Ben Ryder, who had traded almost exclusively  using  shotup  pirate
ships.  Ben had lived life on the edge, and one day, one night, one star
year, he had not returned. Out in the cold between the stars  his  grave
was  as remote as it was private, and would probably never be found. His
son, and his grandson, who was Jason  Ryder,  had  followed  the  family
business.  Alex  would  soon have to make the final decision: whether to
sacrifice his life to shuttling cargo between the worlds of the Galactic
Co-operative, or to train for a different profession. 

Let's be clear about trading. Trading between worlds is no  game  for  a
youngster  with  ideas  of  getting rich quick. You can spend a lifetime
carrying food, machinery and textiles, and  at  the  end  of  that  life
you'll  havr  enough  saved up to buy a patch of costal land on an Earth
type world, and spend the rest of your days in quiet, isolated comfort. 

That's all. 

A lifetime of sweat and combat for an oribital shuttle, a home, and  the
clear blue of an alian sea at your doorstep. If you want more, there are
ways  of  getting it: narcotics, spices, zoo animals, weapons, political
refugees...  trade in any of these things and wealth will tumble  around
you. 

And corsaries, and privateers, and pirartes... 
And the police. 

The  strain  of the years of honest trading was already telling on Jason
Ryder, but he had  invested  wisely,  and  this  small,  cargo  carrying
pleasure  yacht  was  his  pride  and  joy.  He  could get away from the
deadelines for a while (although he always respected  the  trader  maxim
that  "an  empty  hold  means  an  empty  head",  and he never travelled
freightless; today he was carrying berry juice, an exotic flavoring.  He
could  show  his  son  what  space  was  really like, and whet the lad's
appetite... or let him see that a life in hard vacuum  was  one  of  the
hardest lives of all. 

For  his  part,  Alex  Ryder  would need a lot more convincing. He was a
tall, fair haired young man, wiry  amd  athletic.  He  was  atom-surfing
chammpion  on  the  Ryder  home world, Ontiat, and very bright. Like all
student to professional, with all that that meant in terms  of  settling
with  one  particular  girl,  one  job,  and beginning to plan for when,
eventually, he would buy his own land. 

He still had a year to decide, a year of  surfing,  free-fall  baseball,
cloud barbecues, hi-falling, partner selection, and Sim Combat. 

He was in no hurry. 

Except  that  he  loved space. Loved the flash of sun on duralium hulls,
the clutter and confusion of the space ports. 
Loved the idea of other worlds, of exploration, of path finding. 

The voice of SysCon, which controlled all traffic flow in  Lave's  orbit
space,  murmered  softly.  "Avalinia, make a four minute drift flight to
Faraway jump point."

"Understand," Alex called back, and adjusted the auto  accordingly.  His
father sat back and smiled, his job done for the moment. 

SysCon said, "Enter faraway jump along channel two sevenm, at forty five
orient."

Affirmed."  Alex  said, and his father rolled the ship aling its central
axis, ready for the dangerous hyperspace transit. 

Eveything looked good. 

On the rear monitor, where the planet shone  brilliantly  as  it  slowly
moved  through  the  heavens, a dark shadow drifted into vision: another
ship, lining up for the Farway jump. 

It was quite normal. Alex took  no  notice,  more  concerned  about  the
impending  transit  through hyperspace. His father scrutinised the other
vessel for a moment, then relaxed. He had no way of knowing that he only
had fourteen minutes left alive. 

Making a Faraway jump in a system as complex and crowded as Lave  is  no
simple  business.  A  hundred  eyes  are  watching  you for the slighest
mistake. Make a mistake in orbit space and the next time you go to  dock
at  one  of  the  world's Coriolis space stations a big NOT WELCOME sign
might flash in the vacuume before you. 

You slip your C-berth under the instruction of  Station  Space  Monitor.
Perhaps  twenty  ships  are  doing  the same. You go when it's safe. You
rotate, accelerate, decelerare and spin to the absolute second, both  of
time  and  arc.   That  way  you  get clear without two thousand tons of
duralium trader rammed into your hyperspace jets. 

It isn't over. 

Now you're under supervision of HSA, Home Space Authority,  and  they'll
jockey  you  safely  about  among  the  traders, and the yachts, and the
ferries, and the shuttles, and the star liners,  and  the  arrow  shaped
police  patrol  ships.   All  of these vessels slip and slide about you,
streaks of silver in the  darkness,  flashing  green  and  blue  lights,
sudden  walls  of  grey metal that pass across your bows, winking yellow
warning beacons. 

You move through  this  chaos  and  a  new  voice  begins  to  call  for
attention.  Now  you're  with the Faraway Orientation System Controller;
FOSC (or SysCon as it is sometimes known), sets you up for the big jump.
You're going to cover maybe seven light years in a few minutes, and  you
might  think that's a lot of space to ger lost in, but that isn't how it
works. Faraway is a tunnel, like any other tunnel. Inside that tunnel is
the realm called Witch-Space, a magic place, a place  where  the  normal
rules  of  the  Universe  don't necessarily work. And every few thousand
parsecs along the Witch-Space tunnel there  are  monitoring  satellites,
and  branch  lines, and stop points, and rescue stations; and passing by
all of these are perhaps a hundred channels, a hundred 'lines' for ships
to travel, each one protected against the two big dangers of  hyperspace
travel: atomic reorganization, and time displacement. 

Jump on your own through huperspace, across more than half a light year,
and  you'll  be  luckey  to  make  the  same  Universe,  let  alone your
destination. 

You might emerge from Witch-Space turned inside  out  (which  is  not  a
pretty sight). 

You  might  be streached in all the wrong angles, and although the shiip
keeps travelling, that jelly mass of broken bone and  flesh  inside  the
cabin is you. 

According  to  legend, you might come through okay and breathe a sigh of
relief, only to go into Earth orbit and wonder why that big lizard, with
the teeth and the long rail and the green scales is roaring up  at  you,
and warning you off of his nice Jurassic patch of prehistoric desert. 

To go Faraway is a killer, unless you obey the rules. 

So for a few minutes, in that fateful day, Alex Ryder was content to let
the  robot  voices  of  SysCom guide his family's ship through the space
lanes, towards the jump point for the planet Leesti. He relaxed,  beside
his father, and watched the bussle of the space port. 

The  shadow  behind them, the ship that was following their path towards
Faraway, was a Cobra class cargo freighter. 

No one knew how or when the designation of space going vessels had  been
linked  to  the names of snakes. The Ryder's own vessel was a relatively
harmless  Ophidion,  capabale  of  two  hyperspace  jumps.  armed   very
basicaly,  set  up,  really,  only  to  destroy  imminent  dangers, like
asteroids, meteoroids, or 'crazy craft' the name given to  vessels  that
were out of control, or ridden by juveniles out for kicks. 

The Cobra was a bigger vessel by far. 
A  common  trading ship, most Cobras are buried beneath the weaponry and
defences that their hard bitten, tough talking  captains  have  accrued.
And with good reason... 

To  be  a  trader  is to be two things: dangerous and at risk. Dangerous
because to survive as a trader you have to know your weapons and how  to
use  them in space combat; you need to be able to recognize a pirate, or
an anarchist, or a Thargoid invader, or a police trap when you might  be
carrying any one of the thousands of prohibited materials. 

Amd  at  risk  for  the  same  reason . A juicy Cobra, weighed down with
minerals, or rare textiles, or furs, or ore, is as tasty a target for  a
freebooter as any in the Galexy. 

To  be  a  trader  means  to  shoot  first and pray that you've read the
warning signs alright, and that  your  victum  was  a  pirate.   Make  a
mistake  and  not  even two shells of time stressed duralium and a belly
full of missiles is going to save you from the vipers. 


Vipers. Police  ships.  Small,  fast,  deadly.  And  most  particularly,
tenacious.  The pilot is a man, certainly, but kill the man and the ship
will  keep coming at you. Kill the ship and its missile will keep coming
at you.  Kill the mssile, an watch for the shadow. When a  viper  bites,
it clings. 


Eleven minutes... 
'There's a sight you'll not often see...'

His  father's  words  broke through Alex's silent, concentrated study of
tje planet they were leaving.  To the right, running a  parallel  course
towards the Faraway tunnel, was an odd shaped ship, with powerful lights
flickering  on  and off. It waws catching the sun and Alex could see how
it was slowly spinning about its ce ntral axis . F idh like fins  opened
and  closed.  Across  its  sleek  hull a rapid pattern of colored lights
rippled. 

A Moray.  A  subaqua  vessel,  designed  for  both  space  and  undersea
voyaging.  The  Moray ws a rare shiip indeed to see in space, especially
about to undertake a hyperspace transit. On worlds like Regiti and Aona,
where the only land ws the tips of volcanoes, rising above  the  oceans,
the  Moray  was  both  freifhrer  and public transport, a vital shiplink
between the  undersea  cities  that  were  developing  in  such  hostile
environmrnts. 

The  Motay's  frantic  color  signalling  ceased.  Alex noticed that his
father was  watching  the  animalistic  display  (the  cosing  had  been
developed  from  the  signalling  of a terrestrial aquatic creature, the
squid) with a frown on his face. 

'Something up?'

Jason shrugge. 'Not sure. Probably not.'

Alex watched the Moray with renewed interest, then turned  back  to  the
rear view, where the Cobra had nudged a few kilometers closer. 

'Shall we warn him to stay back?'

Jason  shook  his head. For the first time Alex realized that his father
had been studying it cutiously for some minutes. There  was  tension  on
the Avalinia's btidge that was unususl, and unpleasant. 

Something  wasn't  right.  Alex  had  no  idea  what,  but  he sensed it
powerfully. 

Something was not going according to routine. 

Then the  go  signal  for  entry  to  the  Faraway  tunnel  flashed  on,
accompanied by a gentle audio prompt. 

And  as it did so the Avalonia's life expectancy had shrunk to just nine
minutes. 

Around the entry point to Witch Space is always to be found the  biggest
cluster  of  transit  vessels, most of themn moored in groups at orbital
buoys while mechanics  and  repairmen  crawl  over  them,  checking  and
servicing  their  external  systems.  At  such  a point in anpy advanced
system like Lave you'll see every ship of the line, every type,  subtype
and artufucually mocked up version of every snake shop ever built. 

As  they  approached  the  jump,  Alex  practised ship identification, a
crucial talent in any space faring  profession.  The  unarmed,  unmanned
orbit  shuttles  were  easy  enough  to  spot, as they ferrued cargo all
around the system. He noticed two Asps, navy ships, small,  manouverable
anddeadly,  well  protected  against  attack,  and  with highly advanced
military weapons systems. He also saw  a  single  Krait,  the  so-called
StarStriler,  a  small,  one-man  ship  much  favored by pathdinders and
mercenaries. 

To his right, space-docked and still unloading her paddengers,  was  the
immense,  cylindrical  mass of an Anaconda, a massive freighter that had
been adapted to passenger tramsport.  It  was  an  ugly  ship,  and  its
yawning  ram  scoop  gave  it  the  appearance  of  being a squat, blind
creature with its mouth disgustingly agape. 

The catalog was  endless.  Boa  class  cruisers;  Pythond;  the  bountpy
humters'  favorite,  the  Fer-de-lance,  packed out with weapons, and no
doubt decked out inside like  a  palace;  landing  craft  called  worms;
Mambas;  Sidewinders...large  craft  and small, all winking brightly and
reflecting sunlight in brillent blue-gray sheens. 

And of course, there was advertising  Droidships,  their  catchpy  light
displays  blining  out  information  about  ROHAN'S  REAL EARTH ALE WITH
HONEY, or KETTLE'S CLONE-YOUR-OWN FUNGAL CURES. Or  even  offering  "The
last  real  food before Witch Space," small restaurant ships designed to
dock and  supply  indtant  nourishment  (PRIEST'S  PERFECT  PROTOPOLYPS,
TUTTLE'S TASTY THERAPSABLADDERS) to space weary travelers. 

"Here we go... Hang onto your seat..."

Jason  Ryser  always did this, and Alex always fell for it. He tensed up
as if the ship was about to plunge over a gravity roller. In  fact,  the
entry   to   Witch   Space  was  accompanied  by  an  almost  negligible
accelerarive surge, a moment's dizzinedd, and then the spectacular sight
of the stars  brughtenung,  spreading  out  and  suddenly  streaking  in
multi-colored  circular  patterns, so that the ship seemed to be passing
down a spinning tube. Almost as soon as the surge  of  acceleration  had
come it had gone. The ship drifted in "Witch Light," in the non place in
space  and  time. It was crossing the void between stars in seconds, but
for those seconds it was in a twilight world whose existence was  beyond
imagination. 

They  say  that  witch  space  is haunted. Maybe that's why they call it
'witch." Time turns around all around, and atoms turn  inside  out,  and
gravitywaves billow up, and things move there, lifeforms, or shadows, or
atoms,  or  galaxies, who knows? Noone has ever stopped and gone outside
to find  out,  Only  robot  remotes  exist  there,  switching  stations,
monitors,  rescue Droids and the like. Whatwver lines in Witch Space, in
the faraway timmels, will remain a mystery always. 

But there are ghosts there. The ghosts of the early ships that  went  in
to Faraway, and didn't come out again. 

Ghosts... 

And shadows. 

The shadow of a snake. A Cobra... Rising over them... 

"What in God's name...? 
Jason Ryder had gone whiter than white light. 

Trapped in Witch Space, there was nothing he could do to outmanouver the
other  vessel.  Alex  said,  "He  doesn't know the rules. Perhaps it's a
rookie pilot."

"Perhaps," his father said. Jason Ryder's eyes never left the  scanners.
His face had beaded with sweat. Alex watched the shadow of the Cobra... 

Well equipped, a fuel-scoop, missile silos, extra cargo jolds, the squat
dome of an energy bomb housing; a rich ship indeed, and a deadly one. 

"They can't be intending to attack us."
"The hell they can't!"
Three minutes... 
And they came out of Witch Space! 

Immediately  Jason's  hands  began  to  fly  over  the  key console. The
Acalonia surged forward, rotating on its long axis.  The  planet  Leesti
was  a small, greenish disc in the far distance. Alex saw his father arm
the two missiles that the Avalonia carries, then  reached  to  rest  his
hand on the multiple laser trigger,

It  was  a pirate, then. And as Alex came to accept the inevitability of
combnat, his mouth ermt dry and his mind sharpened. He had never been in
combat before, not for real, only in the SimTrainer. He  had  heard  hid
father ralk about t, of course, And combat did not sound glorious. 

A  Pirate  ship,  disguised  as a trader, pursuing its victim into Witch
Space itself, for their cargo of... Thrumpberry flavoring? 

An uneasy voice whispered in Alex's mind. This was  untypical  behaviour
for a freebooter. They normally waited ar rhe edge of planerary systems,
watching  for  their  prey  eith  long  distance  scanners,  picking and
choosing carefully.  Pirates  could  be  found  everywhere,  of  course,
though  rarely  in  space  around Corporate State worlds, or Democracies
*the police were too efficient).  Planets run by anarchistic  or  feudal
governments were a pirate's favorite haunt. 

This behaviour was wrong... 
Not a pirate. 
Alex  looked  from the slowly rotating planer to the grim, gray features
of his father. They were a long way from safety. "What the hell  are  we
up against?"

"Put  on a RemLok and get to the escape pod," Jason Ryder murmered.  "Do
it!"
I'll stay and fight."
"The hell you will. do as I say." As he spoke,  Jason  thrust  a  small,
black  face  mask,  the  remote  space  locater,  at his son.  The first
missles struck the Avalonia's shields,  and  Jason  punched  the  launch
buttons  on  his  own defenses. The small ship veered and strained as he
looped it in an escape run, activating its ECM as the Cobra  launched  a
second wave of missiles. 

The rear screen exploaded with light... 

But  through  the  btightness  the  somber gray shape of the killer came
on... 

It happened so fast, then, that afterwards Alex was uncertain as to what
exactly had happened. The duelling ships spun and circled in towards the
planet. Space around them blazed silently as their  weapons  struck  and
were deflected. 

then  the whole universe rocked. Air screeched into the void. The lights
in the Avalonia blinked and dimmed, Warning lights shot  on  across  the
console:   Laser temperature in the red, screens fown, energy low, cargo
jettisoned, canin temperature dropping... 

In the same moment of the Avalonia's death,  Alex  Ryder  found  himself
being  struck by his father, the remlok mask forced into place about his
eyes, nose and mouth. Then his whole body was physically manhandled into
the escape pod. 

The ship shuddered and screamed, Fuel spilles into the void. 

Father and son faced each other for a last  moment,  each  watching  the
other  through  a  mist  of tears and confusion. "I don't understand..."
Alex screamed above the noise of the dying ship, meaning:  Who's  trying
to kill us? 
"Raxxla!"  Jason  said.  "Remember Raxxala!" then as he pushed Alex back
into the cramped escape pod, he shluted. "Remember me, Alex! I  wouldn't
have wished this on you. Raxxala!"

The  escape  pod  was  jettisioned. Alex tumbled, Tje sleek shape of the
Avalonia was above him, and then just whit light. 
White heat. 
Cold space! 

In a second it had gone, the ship, his  father,  a  part  of  his  life;
obliterated  by  a  single  burst of fire from the hovering shape of the
pirate. 

And as Alex watched, so a yellow  tongue  of  fire  licked  towards  the
tunbling escape pod. He felt heat, then pain, then cold... 

The tiny survival vehicle was blasted apart, sparkling fragments falling
towards the green world of Leesri. 

Alex  hit  space,  arms  flailing,  mouth opened, consciousness and life
draining from him eith every second. 

               Chapter Two
In space, everyone can hear you scream... 
As long, that is, as you're equipped with a RemLok survival mask. 

An instant after Alex Ryder hit the hard vacuum, a sKin of plasFibre had
been shot across his body from nozzles on the face piece, keeping him
warm against the cold, tightening and protecting him, securing him
against the void. The oxygen flow in his body was cut off to all but his
heart and brain. Needle doses of adrenalin and somnokie were held ready,
just within the skin area of his mouth, ready to alert or depress his
body functions according to circumstances. 

           And the RemLok screamed through space for help. 

It was a standard survival device, an instantly recognisable distress
call indicating that it was being sent out from a small, remotely
located, dying body. The alarm screeched out in forty channels shifting
wavelength within each channel four times a second. One hundred and
twenty chances to catch attention. 

A cumbersome Boa class cruiser, loaded down with industrial machinery,
slowed its departhre run from Leesti and turned to scan space for the
source of the signal. 

Two police vipers came streaking from their patrol sector, near the sun,
scanning for the body in trouble. 

An adapted Moray Starboat, a vast glowing yellow star on its hull, the
sign of a hospital ship, came chugging out of the darkness. 

Messages from ships to both the planet and its ring of Coriolis stations
were abruptly broken as the split second message came screaming through.
TV programs were interrupted, the screen dissolving into a permanently
recorded display of the space grid location of the RemLock. Every
advertising space module changed its garish display to flash, in
brilliant green, the same information. 

In the orbit space around Leesti, a million heads turned starwards. That
split second of panic, that moments cry of distress, was a sound they
kenw too well to ignore, and were too frightemed of to take for
granted. 

Within twenty seconds, two autoremotes, tiny vessels just big enough to
carry an hour's oxygen, one dose each of forty drugs, and a variety of
other stimulants, were hovering around Alex Ryder's spinning body. One
of them shot out a stabilizing cable and dragged itself to his corpse.
Blinking through its solitary monitor, it hovered over his face like a
squat, legless dachsund hound and pumped adrenalin, oxygen and glucose
into his bloodstream. Alex opend his ryrs and panicked slightly. The
autoremote calmed him down with a quick pumpsurge of tetval. 

The robot's voice whispered in his ears, "Brandy? Scotch? Vodka? I am
equipped with a full range of miniature stumulants to make the waiting
easier."

"What ...happened...ship?...Avalonia..." he gasped through the tight
face mask. 

Teh autoremote blinked at him sympathetically, "Brandy, then," and hit
Alex with two shots of Qutirian SynCognac. 

An hour later he was aboard the Moray hospital cessel, in parked orbit
above the green-grey face of the world of Leesti. Burns to his hands and
face had been taken care of. Minor blood vessels theat had ruptured in
his skin had been knitted back together, He was bruised, stunned, but
essentiall fit physically. 

The image of the ship exploding had begun to haunt him, however. He
stood by the wide, sloping window of his hospital room, staring out
across the bright of space to the slowly rotating world below , watching
the flash and tumble of shuttles and small frrighters as they either
glided up from worldDown, or struck the atmosphere on their descent,
leaving brief, btilliant flares of red in the thin planerary
atmosphere. 

Wherever he looked he could see the shadow of the Cobra, rising up in
the Witchlight, a great, killer beast, closing in on its prey. 

And his father's face... The sudden alarm, the sudden anger, and yet...
and yet Hason Ryder had known. 

His greiving, mind stunned son just kenw that his father had been more
aware of the danger than he had let on. It had been in his face, in the
tension in the cabin, in the slow, dwliverate words that he had spoken
during the approach run to hyperspace. 

Jason had known that his lige was in danger. He had been ready for it,
readu to save his son in the event of an attack. 

It made no sense. But for the moment Alex felt only loss, the loss of a
mon he had loved. Both his parents were gone, now. His homeworld would
seem an empty, ininviting place. 

Behind him, the door opened softly and the grey suited figure of a nurse
appeared. She reproved him mildly for being out of bed, but seemed
pleased by his apparently calm mental state. 

There followed what seemed like a constant stream of visitors. First the
doctor, scanning him for tension and psychic repression. The medic was
not pleased. He more or less said, " Young man, your father is dead and
it would do tou no harm to shed a few tears. It's all there, all the
frief, all the sadness. It'll do youno good to deny it."

"I'll greive for my father," Alex said back angrily, coldly. "I'll
grieve among the ashes of the pirate that killed him, And not until."

"Will you indeed."

"Yes," Alex stated defiantly. "I will. Indeed."

After the doctor had gone, the man from the Galactic Medical
Co-operative came, fussily checking up on Alex's medical insurance,
making sure that he was covered for all aspects of the treatment,
including his Garaway transit home. 

Then the police, two lwean-faced men, wearing the grey cloaks and silver
waistcoats of the Narcotics Investigatiom Department. What cargo had the
Avalonia been carrying? Why would a pirate be so interested in him as to
follow him to a corporate State world? had his gather evef transported
drugs?  Firearms? Slaves? What about alien substances: <anjooza, fear
glands, Marswurt? What was said in the moments before destruction? Wouls
he recognisw the ship again? What were its markings? 

Alex told them everything he could remember. Everything he;d seen.
Everything he'd heard...  Except for the fact that his father had
clearly known the danger. And except for the word Raxxla. 

The police left. They were not satisfied, Alex had hust received his
solo pilot's license, so he could make his own way bqci to his home
system, but he should notify them of what route he was taking. -
Raxxla... 

Alex watched them go , their Viper a slim, evil looking ship as it
rolled and sped away from the hospital vessel. His mood matched the dim
lit room, matched the floom frey of the storms that were biolding up on
th world below.  Leesti's oceans looked wild and cold, now, its clouds
great charcoal colored swirls of anger above the ragged, mountainous
land. 

-Raxxla.  What could it be? What could it mean? 

At midnight, still resting and recouperating (care lf the Leesti Medical
Authority), a smallgreen light winked on in his room. Aowx, still awake,
frowned the realized that he was being monitored. "What is it?" he asked
the empty room, and a nyrse's voice whispered, "There's a holoFac
message coming through for you. They've requested a tight beam. Will you
receive?" Alex sat up in bed. No one knew he was here. Did they? He
frowned and said, "Sure." "Will you accept the charge against your CR?"
Curiouser and curiouser. Since he was broke, and without credit until he
sorted out his GMC insurance, it was easy for him to say. "Yes." In the
middle of the room the air suddenly shimmered white, small bright
particles flying off in all directions aroucd the gradually defined
shape of a man. He was tall, but slightly stooped. As the whiteness of
the resolved into colot, the whiteness of the man stayed, His hair was
long and snowy, his bead ragged. His face has a touch of color, His eyes
were small, gleaming points among the wrinkles, Hewas smiling. He wore a
tattered trader;s uniform, and ome arm hung limmp by jis side, Even his
boots were worn down, and the toes were split. The hand laser at his
side had seen the same better days as the rest of his equipment. 

"You the Ryder Boy?" this apparition of rum dowm age asled. Yhe chvoice
creaked, a gruff, battered tome, the voice of a man who had breathed
hard vacuum.  "Thats me. Alex Ryder, And you?" Alex climbed out of bed
and went ti stand before the life sized holoFac. The old man watched
him, and chewed, Then he spat. The gibber if staubed soittle srrmed to
fly straight towards Alex's shoulder and he winced and herked slightly
to one side, before realizing that nothing could travel into real space
form the holo.  "You don't remember me," the old man said. "Thats clear
enough, But I remember you." "Give me a name." "Rafe Zetter, trader of
old, Trraded with your father for many years, till we parted companu on
accoumt of a certain issue which, you maight say...  caused a diffefence
of opinion between is." "Slaves," Alex said quickly. He remembered Tafe,
now. But what had happened to the man? He was old before his time. He
was the same age as Jason Ryder would have been, but looked twenty years
more.  "Slaves is right," Rafe said. "I ran my life on the edge of a
Viper's sting..." trader parlance for "one jump ahead of the law". "But
by the time I indulged that little whim, ny ass was hars as iron. I
somehow made it tohell 'n back. Thats where I am now." "In Hell?"
"Broke."

Alex nodded, picking up slowlr on the trader slang. An :iron ass" was a
ship that was well enough defended - shields, missiles and lasers - to
make a skim tun through any system at all, even an anarchist's paradise
like Sotiqu. All hell and then some would come at you if you tried to
trade in such a chaotic system. "Hell 'n back" meant that Rafe had
tasted the good life, bought with the profits of his illegal trading,
but that it had all gone wrong.  It always went wrong.  Rafe said, "I
was damn sorry to hear about Jason. A good man, A good friend of old,
and a man I still respect." "It didn't happen but eight hours ago," Alex
said coldly. " How the hell do you get to hear about it?" Rafe Zetter
chuckled. then spat again, and again Alex couldn't help ducking.  The
spittle vanished at the holoFac's edge, and Alex felt a chill of
irritation. "yu got your father's temper, young Alex. Maybe you've even
got some of his skills." "Answer my question, old man. How do you manage
to know about my father? How did you find me?" Watching him from the
holo, Rafe chewed, smiled and considered. Alex tensed, waiting for the
next high velocity spit transmission.  and what he was doing." "He was a
good man," Alex said. "And an honest trader." "He was a damn sight more
than that," Rafe said loudly, and spat. Alex dodged. The ghostly holoFac
image shimmered and blurred slightly.  "What does that mean?" Rafe
Zetter leaned forward so that his grizzled features seemed almost able
to kiss the younger man. "He was a combateer, Alex. One of the best. No
way should he have died like he did." "My father was a trader, not a
combateer," Alex said, startled and disturbed by what Rafe was
implying.  "Guess again, sonny." "But it sickened him to fire shots in
anger." "Maybe," Rafe said drily. "But it didn't stop him. How else do
you think he made it as a trader all those years? Dammit, Alex, even if
your cargo is sur cream and piclles there's someone going to try and
take it from you, Your father was a combateer of the highest
caliber...?" Alex swallowed heavily, staring at the quizzical features
of old Rafe Zetter. "The highest caliber...?" Rafe nodded. "That's
right, Alex," he said softly. "You can be deadlu, you can be dangerous,
and you can end up as pet food in orbit around a dog's ass of a world
like Isveve. But if your Elite, and you die, them there's a reason for
your death. 

what was this old man saying? Elite? An elite combateer? Alex's head
spun. He knew all about the space pilots who'd earned that title, og
course. Few of them did, To be elite in combat was to be... well, as
near invincible as made no odds. A great many polots were "dangereous";
you didn't last long as a traded if you weren't. Many more had earned
the classification "deadly." So had a lot of mercenaries. So had a lot
of pirates. But elites. Few and far between. and his father, Jason
Ryder, had been elite, and none of his family had known! 

"Jason was one of the very best. You probably never saw his ship, but it
was like a fortress. He traded places that most of us would have had
nighymates about." Rafe shook his head admiringly. "One of the best. A
man of the highest caliber..." His gaze hardened on Alex. "The question
is, can you be the same?" "What makes you doubt it?" "Jason never sais
anything about you. I guess he was trying to prorhtct you.  The trouble
is that it gives me nothing to go on: you're going to avenge your
father's death - I can tell form the look of you, and your tone, and
your anger - but for all I know, that'll just mean one more Ryder will
be stardust before he even manages to target a missile." Not liking Rafe
Zetters tone, Alex said bitterly, ""I've done houre of SimCombat, I
score highly..." Rafe laughed and spt voluminouslu, then he became
serious.  "Alex, there's something I've got to know. Maybe you're going
to end up-" "Pet food in orbit around Isveve!" "Yeah, maybe that. The
only person who knew your talents was your father.  Tell me, Alex , and
tell me true, now... Did he say anything to you... you know... in the
momnents before he died? Did he indicate anything, or say anything? 

"He said a lot," Alex murmered, and felt a strong pang of grief as he
remembered the look in his father's eyes, the freyness of his cheeks,
and his desperate words, remember me, Alex... "I think he knew he was
going todie, The last thing he said was the word Raxxla. I don't know
what that is. An alien I guess..."

Rafe smiled, haking his head. Suddingly there was a brilliant sparkle in
his eyes: "Raxxla'a no alien, Alex, It's a ghost world. A planet. A
legend..." He hesitated, staring quizzically at the younger man throgh
the distant link between them, "Jason relly said that to you?"

Alex nodded, "Moments before...It was the last thing he said."

"Then he knew," Rafe said with a nod. "And that's good enough for me,
Akex, get your frail shell to Tionisla and take a cisitor's shuttle to
oribital cemetery there. Say you've come the grave of the Starpilot
Fleischer. And takkhe a good look around. You do that, boy. Tomorrow.
I'll be waiting for you."

"Waiting to do what?"

Rafe chuckled. "How're you going to hunt a Cobra? You going to hitch
hike? Or use a big stick? You'll need a ship. Hunt like with like. Get
to the wreckplace at Tionisla. I know just the vehicle you need. Don't
speak to anyone. Just get to Tionisla."

"But -" 'Au'vor, Alex!" And Rafe Zetter spat for the last time before
the holoFac faded. Alex didn't flinch. Something whistled past his ear
and struck the wall behind him.



























































The best way to see the wreckplace at Tionisla is to approach it from
the Sun ( a reasonably safe thing to do since Tionisla, being a
Democracy has few pirates in its system). Tionasila itself is a bright
yellow world, and the cemetery is always between the planet and its
star. As you fly close, the whole strange graveyard seems to be
expanding from the circle of the world behind. 

The first thing you see is a shimmering, silver disc, a double spiral of
tiny bright points. It slowely turns: it's a galaxy in miniature, with
the biggest tombs are to be found. 

Come close and soon you can see that the stars in this galaxy are
markers, great lumps of metal, heavily inscribed with the words and with
the words and sumbols of a thousand religions. The cemetery is a bizarre
and moving sight.  The markers are rerely less than a thousand feet
across. There are chrome-alloy crosses, titanium Stars of David,
duralium hemges, and all the strange sumbolic shapes of the worlds, and
the minds and the faiths that have come to die in this Star traveller's
special place. 

Tethered below this vast, rotating mausoleum is the dodecahedral shape
of a 'Dodo' class space station, the home of the Cemetery Authorities.
Here you go through security checks and get yours visitor's visa. And as
you stand in the queue, staring up through the translucent ceiling of
the Customs Hall, you can see the battered, broken ships many of the
dead, still attached to the silent tomb that contains the body. 

It's good enough reason to come to Tionisla. There are pickings aplenty
among the wrecks. The treasures of centuries might be revealed by
pressing the right panel on the right cube of black, alien metal as it
floats silently by. 
  
  Or maybe not treasure, just the tomb's defenses. 
  A pit with a laser. 
  
  a robot guardian with knives where its hands should be. 
  A hyperspace vacuum that sucks you in and throws you out into another
  time. 

You tred carefully among the wrecks in orbit about Tionisla. The
creatures buried here, human and alien, had money enough to buy these
prized resting places, and more tham enough wealth to protect their
property after death from the mercenary fingers of bounty hunters. 

Formalities completed, his newly issued pilot's licence checked, Alex
Ryder was given a small tourship, an oddly shaped and cumbersome vessel.
He drifted quickly among the tombs, seeking the resting place of
Starpolot Fleischer, following co-ordinates on the ship's cemetery
plan. 

He soon found what he was looking for, whoever Fleuscher had been, he
was monstrously egocentric: his tomb was a great crystalline structure,
a puff-ball of diamond-bright needles, literally hundreds of feet
across. His body, dressed in the red uniform of an elite combateer,
hovered in stasis at the center of this great construct, illuminated by
focused light from the sun. 

Tethered to the simple monument of the grave next to this was the
battered, blistered shape of a Cobra class ship, its insignia still
proudly displayed, but all its vital equipment, its fuel-scoop, its
extra cargo beys, its aft missile and laser banks removed. 

Alex stared at it. It looked nothing like the Cobra that had destroyed
his father's ship. That vessel had been bristling with all the extra
things that good money could buy, to defend and to attack, and to make
the trading game an easier prospect for the elite trader. 

A light on the Cobra winked at him. Alex blinked, then looked again.
Sure enough, a small, red light was flashing on and off, a brief
sequence of code: 

LAND ON DOR PL

'Land on the dorsal plate', That was clear enough. 

Alex manoeuvred his tiny craft above the arrow shape of the Cobra, and
touched it gently onto the heat blistered hull. He looked around
guiltily.  Touching monuments wasn't permitted and the cemetery was
patrolled by Kraits, small and deadly security craft, with instructions
to blast away at any man, woman or child seen tampering with a
mausoleum... 

But the graveyard was huge, and the shadows of the great tombs
transferred this miniature world of the dead into a place of hide-outs,
and shifting, occasional safety. 

An entry port opened, and a green ligh quickly blinked the message "Come
abord." Alex flew the tour ship into the hull space and whem he got the
"pressure green" signal, stepped out and walked cautiously towards the
main control area. He opened the sliding door and blinked for a moment
at the bright control displays and scanners. Ahead of him, the main
screen was wide, and filled with a view of Fleischer's crystal tomb. 

Silhouetted against the gleaming brightness of the crystal was the shape
of a man, wearing full space suit. One hamd rested on the navigation
console, the other hovered above the laser button. 

"I'm aboard," Alex said, and walked up behind the silent pilot. The man
made no movement, said nothing. 

For a moment Alex stood beside him, staring out into the wreckplace, at
the slowly shiftig monuments. at the stars glimpsed in the backgroumd. 

Then he turned to greet his host. 

And nearly died of shock, taking a quick, horrified step backwards! 

It was the drawn, mummified face of a corpse that half looked up at him
from behind its visor, the rictus smile of death stretching wide across
its lips. 

"Do you think we should take him with us?" a voice asked from across the
cabin. Alex started again with surpride and watched the figure which
emerged from the shadows. "As a sort of totem. A lucky charm."

Alex tried to smile, but neither relief nor the new arrival's charming
grin could relax him enough. Too much had happened too fast, and he
stood rooted to the spot, watching as the woman came over to him. 

She was quite small. Her skin was olive, her eyes dark. She wore her
hair in a fashionable series of spikes, like a porcupine. Dressed in the
light green coveralls that most traders sported, she seemed swamped by
clothes. Her hand touch was cool and confident, and she kept the contact
as she looked up at Alle Ryder, still smiling disarmingly. 

"So you're the man theat Rafe has chosen. Well, Alex. Soo far it seems
that star riding with you is at least going to be quiet. You do.. er..,"
She frowned. "You do have a speech function?" She turned him slightly
and felt up his back for the switch. "Or are you one of the early
'semaphore and gormless grin' models?"

"Sorry," Alex said. "You took me by superise."

"Oh God," the woman said. "Where is the off switch? I think I prefer you
silent..."

"Who are you?" Alex asked, irritated by her levity and keen to find out
why Rafe Zetter had summoned him here? Where was the old man? 

"Trader Fields," she said, and tuched the heel of her hand to her left
shoulder by way of salute. "My given name is Elyssia. Elyssia Fields."
She smiled again. "My brood mother's little joke. She discovered Greek
mythology at age 9 when she was incubating her first cluster."

Brood mother? Greek? Incubating clusters? That meant that Elyssia Fields
was from Teorge, the so called "clone world." Alex struggled to remember
what he'd been taught about Teorge... an inhabited world... settled by
two colony ships that had preceeded to clone a select few of the crew
and colonists, killing the others. For centuries Teorge had been a world
apart, cut off from the normal flow of trade and commerce, and banned
from ending representatives into space. 

Elyssia Fields was clearly a fugitive. 

" "I'm Alex Ryder," Alex said. 

"I know," the woman said back, breaking the gaze with which she'd been
fixing him, She patted the corpse on the shoulderr, an oddly
affectionate gesture, "This is - or rather was - Space Trader Henry
Bell. We're going to purloin Mister Bell's coffin. Of all the people who
are going to object, he's going to be the most objectionable. This rust
bucket is set up with holo-projections of our man here, warning of dire
consequences for invading his sanctity, I've turned most of them off,
but I expect I've missed a few."

"We're going to steal this ship?" Alex said quietly, checking the
flickering control display panel. Witchlight fuel registred enough for a
0.1 light year jump, hardly sufficient to clear the Tionisla system. 

Elyssia stared at him, a half smile on hr lips. "We could pass the time
chatting if you'd prefer. Plant some flowers, clean up the tomb..."

'I meant,' Alex said drily, 'How the hell are we going to get away with
it?' He found himdelf staring at the pert features of the humanoid
female. The shadow of gloom and grief that had haunted him for the last
few hours seemed to fade a little. The girl interested him. He added,
'And just why are you helping me, anyway? Where's Rafe?'

With a quick laugh , Elyssia said, 'Funny thing about Rafe, Wherever you
go in the galaxy, he's always there, a shimmering white holo-Fac... but
where he really is... that's something you're about to find out.' She
glanced up at Alex. 'Why am I helping you? Who says I am? We'll be
helping each other, in fact. You have a father to avenge. I have some
things to avenge too. Maybe I'll tell you about them one day. But
without you I cannot fly this ship.'

Surprised, Alex said, 'Cobras were made to be flown by a single pilot.'

'But I'm a single Teorgeon. I'm not supposed to be here. I can fly this
bucket with my eyes closed, but your face fits. Listen, Alex, this ctaft
wouldn't survive the first attack by a pirate with a peashooter, no
matter how good we are behind the laser button. We need shields,
missiles, defenses and cargo space.  How d'you think we're going to get
them? They don't grow on silvery moons, you know.'

'Trade for them,' Alex said gloomily, and the vista of his family's long
life trading through the stars swept before his eyes. 
Elyssia was right. He couldn't go hunting a Cobra without the proper
equipment, and it would take too long to sort out his inheritance,
bearing in mind the ciecumstamces of his father's death. 

He felt utterly overwhelmed with frustration. A part of him wanted to
kill right now. A part of him wanted to rip out onto the space-lanes,
and hunt his father's killer. But the best part of him knew that would
be a recipe for disaster, that patience was called for, that a tactical
appraisl of how he would set about the hunt was essiential...and that a
protected ship was the barest necessity! 

'I've got a hundred credits in all the world,' Alex said, referring to
the Galactic Emergencyy Services loan that he had been given to get him
home. 

'It's a start,' Elyssia said, 'It's a start in the trading business. As
Rafe would say, we'll give this old lass an iron ass.' Her face
darkened, 'Then we'll go to a place that I suspect only Rafe Zetter
knows, and we'll watch a lot of heartache burn up courtesy of some fine
shooting by the both of us.  'We'll get the ship that put an end to your
father, It's a ship that has a lot to answer for...'

But she would say no more than that. 

For anyone reckoning on beginning a space trading career from scratch
the hardest task is finding a ship, Each planetary system has its
floating junk yards, its second hand craft, its impounded vessels,
eventually auctioned by the police. Most places advertise for co-pilots,
to work without pay for four years with the guarantee of a ship at the
end of it - if they're still alive. 

But ships are expensive, even if they're from the scrap heap. 

Alex was impressed and startled by the audacity of the theft that was
being proposed. In response to Rafe's plan, the fugitive, who had been
hiding out in the dead craft for nearly a year, had managed to
accumulate the fuel, food and power to make the brief hyperspace jump to
the interstellar junk yard.  All that had been missing was the right
co-pilot, someone who could actually do the trading without arousing
suspicion. 

They hauled the mummified body of Henry Bell to the small tourship and
set the craft adrift. 

'Whatever happens now,' Elyssia said as they took positions at th bridge
consoles, 'You're going to get an "offender" status tag. But Rafe thinks
if you respect the body they'll just post it at Tionisla itself. Destroy
the body and they'll probably notify most worlds in the vicinity, and we
can't afford that, Here goes...'

On the screen, the small tour ship drifted away, and the crowded
monuments of the cemetery swung past in a dizzying array of bright and
shodowy surfaces.  Alex studied the scanners and monitors carefully.
They had only tiny energy supply to fore and aft screens, A blast or two
of laser power, No missiles, of course. The craft was still locked on to
the Dodo space station, whose position was shown by the darting bright
point in the tri-axial grid map. 

Slowly the Cobra turned, and began to move gently, silently towards the
edge of the spiral grave-field. 

The scanner scanned, and Alex watched it hard, alert and apprehensive
for the tell-tale wink of its moving green light, The duller colors of
the tombs and stationary craft crowded the scanning screen, moving
slowly past. 

'There's something I ought to tell you about in controlled Witch Space
jumps...'Elussia said, and Alex felt a moment's irritation. 

'I already know, Thanks. Besides, wherever we're going we're only going
a tenth of a light year, And that's reasonably safe.'

Elyssia sniggered. "What god or goddess do you believe in?'

'Randomius Factoria...' Alex muttered. 

'Me too...'

They looked at each other. 

Alex laughed and said, "Repeat after me: Lady of Fate, we adore you...'

'Get us to Rafe's, we implore you...'

The monuments and monoliths drifted by. The star field widened ahead of
them. 

'Nearly there,' Elyssia breathed. 'Get ready for the jump...'

Alex watched the scanner. 

And two bright points of light appeared, moving rapidly towards them. 

'Company!' He said, and Elyssia swore loudly. 

'We've not got much laser power,' Alex said

'Use our laser and any chance of trading goes. Those are police. They
may not be Vipers, but they are police nevertheless. Damn!'

Ahead of them the starfield was almost clear. The two security craft
veered apart, to close in from the sides, Elyssia began to count down,
finger resting on the simple trigger that would dispatch them Faraway.
'Ten seconds...'

The Cobra vibrated and whined, unused to activity after many tears in
stasis. 

They'te closing - fire coming in!'

'Five seconds.'

The Cobra screeched as a laser shot glanced off its hill, The shield
energy, low as it was, vanished! The attacking craft overshot, It's
colleague fired and missed, maneuvering with difficulty around a large,
henge monument that slowly revolved at the edge of the cemetary. 

'Three...'

'Lining up... fire coming in!'

The two craft were together again, Their laser fire played in the void
around the Cobra. 

'Two...'

There was a strike, a scream of pain, the vessel almost rocked out of
control, And then--

Star tunnel! 


Elyssia flopped back in her chair. Alex cheered. When he looked at the
woman he saw that she was drenched with sweat, When he reached a hand
towards her, his fingers were shaking uncontrollably.
































































'You've got a ship,' said Rafe, "You've got money. You've got a co-pilot
who's a better soht than you, but not for long I hope. Now it's up to
you, young Alex. And one thing more. If Jason were here he'd have this
to say. In time of trouble forget common sense, forget the force, Do
what you goddam feel like. If it don't work, one things for sure. You
ain't going to be around to regret it. 

Seated at the astrogation console of the Cobra, Alex watched Rafe's home
on the forward screen. It was a much modified, and quite bizarre
looking, Anaconda cruiser, its cargo bay dented, its fuel scoop ripped
open, its hull lights blinking not so much with meaning as with
disrepair. 

Rafe had not invited him abord, At 0.1 light years from Tionisla he was
safe from detection, and here he stayed in the cold and silence of
interstellar space, collectiog ships, fuel, food and weapons. three
Mambas, small fighters, were tethered to the service bay on the
Anaconda's hull, robots crawling all over them as they patched up the
shot up vessels. Unlike humans, robots could work without arc-lights. 

When the graveyard ship had arrived at Rafe Zetter's private system,
Rafe's holoFac had appeared in the cabin. 

'It takes a lot of effort and a lot of wile to get supplies for the sort
of mission you're about to go on. I'll fuel your ship enough to get you
to Isinor. But from then on you're on your own. You're going to need
missiles, operational lasers, an energy bomb, a fuel scoop....a whole
bunch of other things.'

"An iron ass,' Alex muttered with a smile.  'That's right. And I don't
want to hear from you again until you've scalped that Cobra that killed
Jason.'

'Why are you doing this for me?'

'I'm doing it for Jason,' Rafe said. 'And for others besides, And listen
Alex. Don't you go worrying about Raxxla. Not yet. That comes in
time...'

'But why did he say it?'

'To let me know he trusted you, Your father reckoned you hade it in you
to become one of the Elite. That's good enough for me.'

Alex's head span. What was this old man saying now? Not just that Jason
Ryder had been an elite combateer, but that he'd seen the same potential
in his son? 

In SimCombat Alex had ofton built up a success and survival score that
had awarded him the simulaor's highest accolade: a victory roll over the
mock-up of the old Earth city of London. But he had never thought that
in real life he would ever achieve a combat status higher than
'dangerous.'

To be elite. 

A dizzying prospect. And a nerve-racking one, with all that it implied
of not just fighting off free-booters, but of spending time as a bounty
hunter, deliberately hyperspacing into dangerous planetary systems and
waiting for pirates to come to you; looking for trouble, in other words,
boosting your combat status to the maximum by advertising yourself to
killers, and outgunning them.  One thing for sure,' Rafe went on drily.
'Unless you get there, unless tou become elite, you'll never get to
Raxxla. And you;ll never kmow exactly what your father was seaeching
for.'

'I don't understand.'

'Were you aware of his involvement in The Dark Wheel?'

Shock after shock! The Dark Wheel was a semi-legendary space unit,
star-riders who made it their business to seek the truth behind the
plethora of myths and romantic stories that filtered back from all
corners of the Universe: fabulous cities, parallel worlds, time
travellers, even planets that appeared to be the old 'heaven' of Earth
legand. The Dark Wheel was as mysterious and as mythical to the traders
of the Galaxy as King Arther might have been to the first spaceman. 

It's not possible,' Alex breathed. 'He would have told us... 

'The hell he would,' Rafe said, staring at the younger man from the
shimmering holoFac on the bridge. 'The ship that killed Jason was no
pirate, He was killed because he'd fongd something. Something that
certain parties were deeply unhappy that he'd found.'

'What exactly?'

Rafe laughed. 'Listen to the boy! Look at me, Alex. Do I look whole? I
do?  Well I ain't. One leg, some of my liver, a few brain cells - all
that's left of the real me. The rest is just bionic. Trying to do what
you father did, I got shot to hell'n' back. I was elite once. Now it
takes me ten seconds to decide to spit. He didn't tell me because I'm
not part of it anymore. Not to that degree. But I watch and I listen,
and I do what I'm told. And as sure as there's gold flake on the skin of
a Gererean, Jason Ryder told me to get you ready to follow in his
footsteps.'

Coming so soon after his father's death, with the memory of Jason's
murder so vivid in his mind, it was almost too much for Alex. He didn't
know whether to glow with pride, or shake with apprehension. He slowly
sat down at the astrogation console and played his fingers over the
controls of the Cobra. 

After a while he smiled, and shrugged away the confusion and the sadness
he was feeling. 

'Right. If that's what mu father wanted, then I shan't disappoint
him...'

























Out of Witch-Space: the dizziness, the slight shudder, the brief
disorientation. Ahead of them, the distant, red-blue disc of the planet
Xezaor was only slightly brighter than the gleaming field of stars
around. The planet's sun was dim and very close by. It glowed red. A
dying star, as the world ahead of them was a dying world, a cooling
world, a world whose wealth and industrial development could not hold
back the process of galactic ageing. Xezaor was a world where luxuries
and warmth meant everything, now, and Shanaskilk fur, with the multiple
heads still intact, would fetch a high price. 

Routine. A routine trade run. Elyssia dozed, Alex punched coordinates
into the auto-pilot and prepared to pass the time of the long run-in to
the world. 

Out of Witch-Space and then the slow approach until until the Coriolis
station came on target-

Nothing to do... 

Nothing to see... 

The Cobra rocked and a sound like the screech of metal being bent apart
echoed through the bridge! 

'Company!' Alex said loudly, and Elyssia blinked awake. She must have
assessed the situation in an instant. She remained where she was. Alex
was at the console and there were only seconds available for thought. 

Alex ha been taken by surprise, not because he hadn't been paying
attention, but because the attck ships had been so close to the egress
point from hyperspace. With their tiny hulls between him and the glowing
sun, they had not been visible for an instant, and they had been
performing a 'tumbling' routine, mimicking slow-moving asteroids. 

Alex had half noticed them and half ignored them. They had got the first
shot in, them overflown the Cobra. 

Now, they grouped behind as Alex punched up maximum speed, and scanned
space for them.. 

'Here they come...'

The shields screamed as laser fire played off them. Beam lasers! Those
ships were well equipped. But then, so, now was the Nemesis, the
dramatic name that he and Elyssia had given to their ship. Alex checked
the rear monitor and lined up the firing window. He stabbed out two
bursts of fire from the newly installed aft-laser. The pirate ships
veered apart, one of them struck. 

As he had them on the screen, he targeted a missile. A missile from one
of the attacking craft began to weave towards them, and his screen
flashed with warning. Alex operated the Nemesis's ECM, and after an
agonisingly long few seconds the incoming missile vanished in a burst of
heat and light. 

The hull screeched and Alex dived. He noticed that the shields had begun
to put a drain on the first energy unit. 

Elyssia sat calm and quiet while Alex handled the situation. Ahead of
them, the planet edged closer, rising and falling and spinning in a
dizzying way as Alex fought for a better combat position. 

Then, instinct took over. He looped the Cobra a full 180 degrees and
raced head-on at the pirate vessel that had been behind him. Now he
could see that it was a Fer-de-lance, a sleek, fast ship that was
probably loaded down with sophisticated navigational and defense
equipment that had been installed by the original owner. Or maybe
not...such equipment took cash to maintain, and this ship had seen
battle service aplenty. 

As pirate and Alex closed, Alex took a chance. They had only four
missiles and one was targetted. He punched for fire and the Cobra jolted
as the deadly sting shot acress space. 

It reached its target and the Fer-de-lance literlly disappeared. 

Had it hpperspaced? No. 

When Alex activated the rear screen, he saw the spreading ash cloud, a
silvery glimmer against the stars... 

'Good shooting!' Elyssia said enthusiastially. 

Through the cload of metal and ash came the other ship. 

Alex looped again, A laser strike depleted the aft shield even more.
But now that the enemy keew that its prey had an anti-missile system, it
was going to try and dogfight Alex to destruction. 

The ship was a Cobra too. Its' fuel scoop gaped, ready to suck up the
cannisters of precious Shanaskilk fur from the wreckage of the shattered
trader. 

Alex had other ideas. 

Again, Xezaor was ahead of them. Rear-shooting, Alex dicke and darted
towards safety, and the pirate weaved a snaking pattrn afainst the
star-field behind.  Alex targeted a missile-

'Save it if you can...' Elyssia breathed. 

'I know,' Alex said, But we can afford a replacement...'

'We won't afford the fuel-scoop then.' Elyssia reminded him, and they
both laughed, At a time like this, worried about their shopping list! 

The space station, and the safety it afforded with its own fighter
defenses, was too far away. Alex veered sharply sunwards, and dropped
his forward velocity dramatically. The pursuing ship copied the first
movement precisely, but took a few seconds to orientate to the second.
It overshoot. Before it kenw what was happening it was no longer the
hunter but the hunted. 

'Go, Alex, go!' Elyssia shouted, as Alex shot off pulse after pulse of
laser fire. The Cobra on the screen ducked and weaved, but Alex was
equal to it, hardly thinking, just reacting. The temperature of his
forward laser began to rise dangerously. The Cobra ahead of them
launched a missile at them and Alex shot it, not even bothering to
program the ECM. 

Elyssia gasped at the cheek of that, and glanced at the young man in
whose hands her life was being so capably held. 

A moment later it was all over, The pirate exploded, his screen energy
finally exhausted. Alex saw the wink and flash of a jettisoned escape
pod and for a second-

Remembering the beam of fire that had destroyed his own escape craft,
remembering the savage destruction of the Avalonia... 


--he was tempted to go in pursuit. His better judgement prevailed.
Around them, cargo cannisters tumbled. Around them, cargo cannisters
tumbled like sycamore seeds. 

'And us with no scoop to pick them up!' Elyssia muttered. 

Alex grinned. 'We claim two. That's quite a bounty.'

Elyssia looked down at him as he sat and guided the ship towards
Xezaor.  'Alex, you're a natual. It's an honor to ride the stars with
you.'

No-one had said a word, neither of them commented on it: the fact that
this had beem Alex's first solo combat!
They had been trading now for three standard months, and their Cobra
craft, the Nemesis, was scarcely recognizable as the battered tomb-place
of Trader Henry Bell. With new insignia, new welding, new color and the
pods and swellings of the armaments housings, it began to look like a
fighter. 

Three months a trader. And not for one hour of one day of those months
had Alex forgorren the reason behind this way of life. Something,
someone, disguised as a trader had killed his father, and done its best
to kill him.  His father had led a double life, and accordinglu to the
oldest relic in the galaxy, had deputised his son to follow in his star
path. 

Alex Ryder was not about to fail his father in that wish. O There were
so many questions, so much grief, so much anger. And for Elyssia too,
although the Terrgian woman rerely showed the emotion that Alex sensed
was bubbling just below the surface of her cool, wisecracking extrior. 

They were facing a task together, a task of growing, of becoming
strong.  There would have to be a time of waiting, and both were
accepting that time with as much silent patience as they could muster. 

But it was not easy, not easy for either of them. 

And for Alex, with blood on his hands at last...not easy at all... 

The skirmish with the two pirate ships had scraped te paint a little,
and losened several hull plated, necessitating a trip to a service
satellite where, because of their bounty hunting, the work would alnost
certainly be performed free of charge. Through this had been Alex's
first solo combat, it had not been their first battle. Elyssia would
have qualified for 'dangerous' status had she been eligible for rating.
As it was, her rating - on the evidence of the Menesis's skirmishing -
had been assigned to Alex. Now, for the first time, Alex felt he had
taken a substantial step towards proving that he genuinely deserved that
particular classification. 

Still at the astrogation console, he guided the ship to within a
thousand kilometres of the surface of the dying world, so close that the
planet filled everythingin the forward vision screen. At dead slow
before them - a glittering metal cube - was the space station, its
acceess bay a wide, rotating mouth. 

'Oh for a docking computer...' Alex murmured as he began to match
rotation an slowly approached. 

'Waste of money...' Elyssia chided. 'If you can't dock without losing
your paintwork, you shouldn't be in space.'

Alex was a great flier. But snaking neatly into the reception bay of
Coriolis station was his greatest weakness. 

He made it, though, and once inside the vast hanger space, magnetic
traction drew the Nemesis slowly to a vacant berth. AutoCom links snaked
out and clamped to its hull. Alex watched the bustle in the great,
brightly-lit void, the customs ships, the police Vipers, the advertising
modules, the repair modules, all moving slowly in the cube-space,
touting for business. Elyssia hid in the escape pod as usual. Alex
declared his cargo, and received confirmation of his bounty killings,
and notification of his bonus: thirty credits! 

That exactly covered the cost of a new missile. 

When all the check-ins, log-ins, and identity verifications had been
run, Elyssia emerged from hiding. The escape capsule had been their
first priority, and they had bought one second-hand for four hundred
credits. They didn't intend to use it anyway, except to screen off
Elyssia's unfortunate and unwelcome origins. 

Now began the routine of business. Selling then deciding where to trade
next, and what to buy to take with them. 

Trading is very much a hit and miss profession. With certain high
demand, high turnover products, a small profit can usually be guaranteed
- foodstuffs, textiles, simple machinery, simple luxuries. But the
ship's running costs, and an occasional space skirmish, can soon eat up
such profits, making the whole exercise essentially worthless. There is
no way of knowing trade prices at other systems. Each planetary state
jealously guards its stock-market informatiom, and there are heavy
penalties for Faxing the market prices of any item beyond orbit-space. 

Prices change, too. Speculators lurk in every system, no matter how
poor.  That ton of frozen bladderlash that would have fetched eight
credits a month ago at Ceinzala, against a buying price of three from
its homeworld Reorte, will suddenly be worth only two. The demand for
bladdedlash had not lessened, The speculators have made a secret
killing, and fixed up the market. 

Hit and miss. 

Alex and Elyssia had been lucky so far. They had carried Vargorn
mind-silk between Texebe and Inera and doubled their initial hundred
credits. They had ferried the gold-flake scales of Gerehutean reptiles
and only just covered their costs. Thet had supplied twenty tons of
sunflower seeds to the grotesque amphibioid inhabitants of Bierle, to
whom sunflower seeds were a particular delicacy, only to find that a
mass, mind-induced mutatuon had occurred through out the entire
planetary population, changing their taste buds. The search was now on
for the new delicacy to delight the palates of the Bierleans.
Luberication oil had come close, and lavender scented tissue paper. But
somewhere there was a real profit to be made. One day. One year. 

Moving machinery from high tech worlds to middle tech worlds was also
unexpectedly profitable, and demand for luxuries was always high on
evolving industrial worlds. But on Xezaor the Shanaskilk furs (bought at
thirty galactic credits to ton) were likely to be their best bet yet.
Alex nervously called up the buying proce at Xezaor. 

He whooped with triumph as he saw that he and Elyssia had tripled their
money. 

This time, in the hit and miss game, they had hit lucky.  They sold the
furs without trouble. Then Alex called up the price list at Xezaor of
ship and armaments equipment. The new missile was the standard thirty
credits. He ordered one and a small robot scuttled off to fetch the
permitted weaponry. Beam lasers were one thousand credits, and the
temptation to invest in one was strong. The price of the fuel and cargo
scoop which the Nemesis so badly needed was exotortionately high, at
five hundred and twenty five credits. But an energy bomb cost nearly
twice as much! 

Of course a fuel scoop could be used for salvage, as well as topping up
their fuel banks by sun skimming, so it was a good investment, even at
one hundred credits over the odds. 

Alex ordered one. Delivery and fitting would take twenty hours, a
standard day. Alex fuelled the ship next, and stocked up with Xezaorian
delicacies. 

The had three hundred and twenty galactic credits left with which to buy
trade stock, an uncomfortably low sum. On the other hand, their ship now
had extra defensive shields, four-directional targeting of lasers and
missiles, an anti missile system and a fuel scoop. 

They were more than half way to becoming a battle cruiser. 

Elyssia scanned the planet's market list with Alex. For all that
Xezaorians liked exotic things, they had precious little to offer. Two
narcotics were available, arcturan burstweed and, strangely, tobacco,
and Alex thought hard about them. 

'Surely we could get away with tobacco...'

'Uh-huh.' Elyssia murmered, 'No way. Nicotine is deadly, even in low
doses, to many races.'

'If we carried it to a human world?'

'Still too risky.'

Minerals were on offer, but were pricy. Durassion - one of the ores that
could be refined and "time-stressed" to give duralium for ship's hulls -
was available at eight credits the ton, and that would sell
exceptionally well on Lave... but Lave was many light years away, now,
and any dura-ore could bottom out on a standard day when a richer ore
was found. 

Too risky

Gemstones? There were maroon and silver spectonals for sale, and
red-green emeronds. A pirate convoy would smell such booty from two
light years away. 

As for the curiosity market there were two hundred fossilised
Dironothaxaurian life bones on offer, at forty credits each. 

'Ever heard of them?' Elyssia asked. 

Alex said, 'I've seen one. And heard one. In a museum on my homeworld.
They sing. They're over forty million years old, and still they sing;
waiting for something, a hatching, or a change of climate. They'te bones
from the pelvic region, so they could be incubation pods. Nobody
knows...'

'Are they valuable?'

Very. Exactly by how much I don't know.'

'Check it for restrictions...'

Alex did so. There were no known import restrictions, or potential legal
violations involved in trading in these fossilised animal bones. 

'Better than food' Alex said. 

'So we go for it...'

'I suppose so.'

But as Alex began to key into the trade center to purchase the goods,
the console flashed the words 'Incoming message...'

"Rafe!' Alex said, And Elyssia too seemed excited at the prospect of
seeing and talking with Rafe Zetter again. 

But it was not the wizened, crusty old space trader who appeared on the
screen as Alex accepted the call. 
Nothing like. 

It was a human being, and not a humanoid alien that faced them. There
were many ways to change ordinary human looks to nightmarish caricatures
of the same: flying too close to certain stars, being exposed to the
interstellar vacuum too often, working in certain ore and mineral
mines...But Alex, as he stared at the lumpy, gray swellings that swathed
theis person's flesh, could not imagine what grotesque disaster had
befallen the caller. 

Lips like quivering gossamer wings trembled in the gray flesh. A hand,
skeletal and crippled, shot through with bright red blood vessels,
touched the wispy ginger hair that grew in a bizarre floral circle
around the deformed head. 

'Are you Ryder?'

The voice, at leadsdt, was normal. And male. 

'Identify yourself, caller.'

Ignoring the question the other man went on, 'What're you trading in
this time? Minerals? Specialities?'

'What's it to you?'

'Whatever it is you're thinking of buying, I can do you a better deal.'

'I wouldn't trade with you if I was running hot from a supernova.'

The human grinned (or so it seemed). 

'Rafe Zetter would, How come you're so fussy?'

'You know Rafe?' Alex asked, perturbed and puzzled by the grotesque
man's invocation of the friendly name. 

'Me and half the universe.' The deformed man leaned closer to the
monitor.  His features filled the screen totally. 'Parisites.'

'I'm sorry?'

'These things. This ...' tapping his face. 'Parisites. Spider worms. I
did a stint in the pen on Dykstra's world, and the little buggers took a
liking to me. These are the larve, about two million of them. They'll
hatch out in about ten years, and that will be the end of me. I sort of
hope I'm at a dinner party with someone I don't like, at the time, but
you can't plan for these things. I don't blame you for not trusting
me...'

Pale eyes glittered form beneath the heavy, pulsating folds of gray
flesh.  'But don't judge by appearances. Alex - it is Alex, isn't it? I
mean for hell's sake tell me if I've got the wrong number...'

'I'm Alex Ryder.'

'And I'm Patrick Mcgreavy. I'll say just two things to you. The first is
this: when you kill the snake, you'll lay a ghost that's haunted me for
more than five years. I'm not a flier, What I am doesn't matter. There
are more people like me than all the sunflower seeds you're traded in
your life.  People need vengeance. People who can't do it for
themselves. Kill the snake and you'll do a service to us all.'

Alex couldn't help the wry smile that touched his lips, even though he
had rarely felt less like smiling. He felt as if he was being
manouvered, manipulated, like a robot ship, an autoremote, programed to
fly in endless, mindless circles. What the hell was going on? He was
Jason Ryder's son, and until three months ago his best combat experience
had been in a SimCombat trainer. His pilot's license had hardly dried.
And somehow, despite all of this, he had been chosen as Nemesis to exact
a savage vengeance from a ship that was certainly far more than a
simple, and simply deadly, pirate. 

There were people watching him, and waiting on him, their fingers
crossed, their breath held. 

Why him? Why him? (And Elyssia?)

'Okay, he said quietly. 'I get the message, You said "two things".'

'Right. Rafe told you to trade in Shanaskilk fur, as soon as you could
afford it. Am I right?'

He was right. It was one of Rafe's last pieces of advice to Alex, and
Alex had not forgotten it. 

McGreavy went on, 'When Rafe told you to do that he was sending you to
me.  You've got to get an iron ass. You've got to trade in something
really worthwhile. Unship and fly across to South City, to the private
traders' center in the Madellan Building.'

'I've already got an "iron ass",' Alex said. 

'You think so? Do it anyway, Take a chance. Make way to the Magellan
Building, South City...'

After a moment's hesitatiom, and with a glance at Elyssia, who just
shrugged and nodded, Alex agreed. 

A Coriolis station is nothing less than a vast city built on six planes
and spread around the wide empty sky of its interior, facing inwards.
From South city, the roof on the world is North City. At night, the
lights that glow above your head are the lights of streets and
buildings. 

Alex checked out of the ship's berth and took a sky taxi across the
void. The tiny automatic ship slid delicately and smoothly between the
incoming and outgoing ships. Alex watched in fascination as the towering
buildings of South City dropped away below and the gray sky edged
closer. To his left, he could see the pattern of streets and parklands
on the inhabited plane known as Commander City. Facing the entrance to
the station, on that particular level lived the high ranking officials
and various planerary envoys and ambassadors. They enjoyed a landscape
which included lakes, rivers and ski-slopes with real snow.

Below him, the Nemesis became a tiny dart shape on the broad landing
pad.  Above him, the towering offices and living blocks reached down
towards him like geometrical stalactites. 

There was an abrupt moment's disorientation and suddenly the roof was
the ground and now the Nemesis was a single, winking light in the
heavens. The taxi dropped swiftly to street level, between the gray and
black monolithic structures. Lights of different colors blinked and
shone, and when the atmosphere began, a strange dusty shimmer seemed to
envelop the city. 

The streets were crowded here and it took Alex only moments to realize
that the South City of this particular Coriolis station was the 'down
town' area .  Illegal trade abounded, in narcotics, robots, slaves,
sensuastims, prostitution and frozen organs. Spacere walked slowly,
cautiously, most of them still wearing near-full suit, a certain sign
that this was the rough quarter. Hookers, of all sexes (the galaxu
counted seveeteen at this time) and races, but mostly humanoid,
solicited from hovering platforms, ready to escape fast from any over
welcoming, unwelcome client. Advertising hoardings here were almost
completely devoted to proclaiming the illicit pleasures which were
available in South City. Police cars and remotes roared overhead, as did
med-ships. The streets were alive with noise and bustle and filth. 

The Magellan building, a dark, squat cube, sat amongst this confusion
like a great, brooding monster. It had no visible windows. Lifts rose
and fell on its outer walls, slow moving green lights that gave it an
uncanny sense of being alive. 

Alex had come without a hand weapon, and now began to regret it.
Practically everyone, and everything, he saw carried a gun, in
contradiction of orbit space law. He walked cautiously through the
crowds of reptilioids, cloaked amphibioids, armored insectoids, squat
bristling felines and the grotesque robo-tanks in which things that
looked like giant molluscs, or worms, or branches of heather, moved
within the safety of their own environment. 

He entered the Magellan building and noticed the stench for the first
time, the combined body odors of a thousand alien life forms;
suprisingly some (those who drank rew methane gas) managed to excrete
sweat that smelled as sweet as apple blossom. 

But most did not. 

The private trading center was a vast hall, surrounded by the entrences
to offices and warehouses. What was sold in this crowded, noisy place,
was anything that was considered too risky, or bizarre, or commonplace
to sell on the open market. The trader who loaded up his cargo bay from
a private purchase had better check with the planet's export monitoring
system before leaving, or his recepion, at the other end, might be a
little more violent than he'd expected. 

Alex scanned the high walls for a hint of McGreavy's warehouse. As he
did so he found himself standing behind two tall, violent looking insect
forms, their bodies armoured in light gray, their facetted eyes
swivelling to stare at him as they talked together, chelicerae clashing
and clacking in their peculiar mode of communication.  Alex stepped
away, heart beating, blood rushing to his head. Compound eyes, jointed
limbs, head antenna, double cutting jaws... 

Thargoids! 

Here, on a space station! 

Thargoids were deadly. Thargoid spacers hed their fear glands removed,
and were considered to be the most effective and potent of humankind's
enemies.  The bounty for killing a Thargoid was huge. And for capturing
and delivering the junvenile form, the Tharglet, to any Space Navy
research center, even greater. 

What were they doing here? 

The Thargoids chatted together and watched Alex coldly. Alex noticed
that each had an appendage resting on its thoracic plate, where they
holstred their hand lasers. 

'Back off,' a voice whispered, and Alex turned. McGreavy stood there
blinking through his deformities. Alex had not grasped how short the man
was, he only came up as fae as Alex's chest. 

'Thargoids...' he whispered. 


'Bullshit,' McGreavy said and dragged Alex away. 'Thet're Orerians, and
the one thing that can make an Orerian deadly is being confused the way
you just confiused them, with their deadly enemies the Thargoids. Check
the thorax markings and the shape of the fourth joint on each hind leg
before you jump to conclusions again...'

Alex followed McGreavy gratefully, away fromn the whispering insects. 

McGreavy's wharehouse was small, cramped and smelly. Alex followed him
through into the dimly lit interior, and felt a pang of discomfort as
the grotesque little man closed the doors behind them, In several large,
transparent crates, peculiar creatures shuffled and murmured, excited at
the suddon disturbance. 

'Are these what you have to offer?' Alex asked in a low voice. Mcgreavy
chuckles. He walked over to the nearest crate and brought up the light,
to illuminate more clearly the odd creature within. 

Alex stared. The creature was vaguely familiar, but the memory refused
to come. It had a thick shell, patterned neatly, and limb holes at
regular intervals around this bony house. For the moment the beast was
securely hidden within its protective environment. 

'What are they?'

'Mymurths,' McGreavy said. 'If they seem familiar it's because they're
astonishingly like an animal of Old Warth: the tortus, as I believe it
was called. These things have two heads, four legs, and two anterior
organelles that seem to serve no purpose. They're named for the planet
of their origin.  Mymurth. But you'll be shipping them to Craig. The
Ciragians have a special relationship with the Mymurth.'

'They eat them?' Alex guessed. 

'They worship them.' McGreavy corected with a twitch of his flimsy
lips. 

'Worship?'

McGreavy modded. 'To the Cirag race, the Mymurth are the reincarnations
of gods. A particular sort of god, called an 'avatar'. The animal form
of a god.  The Mymurth look very like the legendary avatars of Ciragian
religion and mythology. They're from another world, of course, and have
no connection with Cirag at all. But any Ciragian family will give a
small fortune to have a living Mymurth in its temple.'

Alex was fascinated and intrigued. The bulky creatures moved sluggishly
about, their fleshy pink limbs emerging from the shells to propel them
through the slush that filled their cages. 'How nuch is small fortune?'

'Each of these will fetch a hundred credits, Maybe more. And I have
twenty eight. Twenty eight hundred credits. That'll buy you all the
shields and weaponry you need....'

'Why not trade them yourself?'

McGreavy laughed sourly. 'With my record?' You must be joking. No
thanks. It takes me half a standard year to get a pen full of these
things and Rafe Zetter usually has a customer for me, someone like
yourself who needs credit fast, to perform a certain act...of
violence...'

Alex found himself staring at the bright eyes of the hideous face before
him.  He was no longer overly conscious of the deformities, or of the
pulsating life that existed just below the man's skin. He was aware only
of the fact that he wanted, needed, to trust this acquantance of Rafe,
and yet he didn't. 

'Make me an offer I can't refuse,' Mcgrevey said, and hard reality hit
Alax again. 

He said, 'Three hundred.'

McGreavy chuckled and shook his head. 'The idea is that you make the
profit.  You won't do that offering me three times what you're likely to
make for a Mymurth.'

'I meant...three hundred for the lot.'

For a second McGreavy stood in silence, staring at the younger man. 'Is
this a joke?'

'No joke. I have three hundred credits in the world, You've got the
wrong boy McGreavy.'

'You just sold a cargo load of Shanaskilk fur.'

'And bought weapoms and a fuel scoop. I bought the furs at a loss to
begin with. I'm no trader, McGreavy. I'm a combateer. I did tell you.'
Alex looked down at the Myrmurth. 'I'll buy eight off you. How's that?'

'I sell the lot, or not at all, I want fifteen hundred credits for them.
Rafe said you'd come through...'

Alex turned to go. Mcgreavy's whimper of panic was almost funny to hear.
'I save these things up for Rafe. Who else is going to trade in
Mymurth?'

'Ill take ten off your hands for three hundred credits. The more you
stall, the less I'll offer. 

'I need to shift the lot. To Cirig. 

Where was Cirig, Alex wondered. It was not a name that rang any bells. 

'Then you'll have to trust me,' he said. 'Like you trust Rafe. I'll give
you a down payment of three hundred against one third of what I get at
Cirag.  I'll come back and pay you off

McGreavy stared at him in silence; the man's breathing was labored. 'One
third will hardly cover my outlay. Fifty percent.'

'Forty percent,' Alex said. 'And no further bargaining.'

The Mymurth shuffled anxiously. McGreavy shrugges with defeat. He
summoned the vid-witness, and the two men signed the agreement.
Twenty-eight Mymurth for sale to Cirig, forty percent of the proceeds to
be returned to Pat McGreavy at South City, Coriolis 7, Xezaor. 

If McGreavey was right, and the money was forthcoming from the religious
nutcases on Cirag... 

Where was Cirag? 

   ...the Nemesis could be equipped with beam lasers, extra missiles,
extra shield energy units, and an energy bomb, and the hunt could begin
in earnest. 

Alex returned to his ship to report on the day's trading.





They had been set up of course. 

And in a way, they went into the set-up gamely. Alex checked up on the
planet Cirag and discovered that it was not listed with the Official
Planetary Register. That was the reason for its unfamiliar name. Not to
be regiatered was not in itself unusual. Only inhabited worlds were
listed. There were millions of inhabited star systems of use to miners.
traders and explorers, which could only be located by referennce to the
Galactic Gazatteer of Worlds.

But Cirag was inhabited by intelligent beings. 

That meant just one thing: Cirag was an independent world, had refused
Federation status, was dangerous, probably deadly, most likely the haven
for freebooters and criminals, and almost certainly a system in which
the general principle of 'laser first, talk second' was applied. 

'We've got to be crazy...' Elyssia said. 

Alex agreed. 'Could Corag be Raxxla? Could it be the world my father
mentioned before he died?'

'No way. Cirag is Cirag, and Raxxala, if it exists, is in another
Galaxy; you know the legends. Cirag is just a hell-hole of a world, by
the sounds of it.  Give the guy his turtles back. Let's trade
life-bones.'

But Alex said no. Something about the whole deal, about the way he felt
manipulated, guided had whet his appetite for this venture. There was
good money to be made, and the Nemesis could finally equip itself to
perfection. 

And the hunt could begin. Vengeance could begin. 

'It's hit or miss, right? And in Rafe's eloquent language, we'll not
know a goddam about any failure.'

'We've got to be crazy...' Elyssia repeated. 

'Lets not talk to any strangers, at least...'

Out of Witch-Space. 

The planet Cirog floated before them, a pastal yellow world, the dark
markings upon its surface, mountains probably, or deserts, forming a
pattern that reminded Alex of bones. At ninereen light years from
Xezaor, the Nemises had made two refuelling stops, and as they came into
system space they had energy enough for a two light year jump only. The
nearest worlds, Alex knew, was more than twice that distance away.

No matter. With their new fuel scoop theu would simply transit the sun's
corona, and recharge the fuel cells. 

Cirag's sun was a large, yellow star, old, but with much life left in it
yet.  It was active, too. As Elyssia, at the astrogation console, turned
towards it, so two immenst streamers of fire were erhpting from its
surface, whirlpools of plasma that were spectacular when seen through
the Nemesis's polorizing filters. 

'Let's catch some of that heat,' Elyssia said, and punched for top
speed, The Nemesis surged forward. 

But they flew for no more that a minute. 


'Holy Mother of the Stars!'

Alex stared at the scanner screens and felt his stomach turn over. The
bright marks there were so large that they could only be Boa or Anaconda
class cruisers. They had formed an attack pattern, four large ships,
surrounded by the darting points of light that was its fighter escourt

On the viewscreen, against the glowing sun, the assault group were dark
smears, rapidly closing. 

'Boas,' Elyssia said. 'They're set up as fighter cruisers, by the look
it. At least they're slow. Hang on.'

Alex gripped his seat, then grimaced as he fell for the same trap that
his father had always set for him. But this time it was as well that he
secured himself. The universe shifted; his body organs did somersaults.
Elyssia feigned an escape loop, and the fighters, Mambas by the looks of
them, broke formation and went into the scatter mode that meant pursuit.
But Elyssia completed the loop to come full back against the looming
pirate craft. 

She sailed under the belly of the leader with as much calm and cheek as
you please. It belly shot at them, and she rolled the Cobra so that she
could side strafe back. All along the Boa's under belly, shards and
sparks flew brightyly where the shields were lowered around the laser
housings. 

'Markings are unfamiliar...' Alex said. There had been black and green
flags with bright sunbursts on them, and non-terrestrial ideographs on
the sides. 

'Intentions very familiar...' Elyssia breathed. Behind them, two of the
Mambas were closing fast. Pulses of laser fire made erie streaks in the
dark circle of space around the glowing sun ahead of them. 

The huge ships had turned too, and were accelerating towards them.
Elyssia made it clear, without speaking, that they'd never reach the
star and have time to refuel. Alex, never taking his eyes from the
scanners, knew as much. 

Elyssia rolled the Cobra and turned to fight. She targeted a missile and
dispatched it on the turn, and the nearest fighter became a glittering
dust cloud. The other streaked fire across the forward shields, and the
Nemesis shuddered and whined. Two stabs of her finger on the side fire
button, and the second Mamba tumbled, its shields still up, its polot
disorientated by the unexpected hit. Elyssia closed in for the kill. 

Killed

One of the Boas loamed large from the darkness, It was rolling slowly
and beams of light played from its spike nose. Elyssia targeted a
missile. Sweat ran freely from her face, and her hands were white with
tension, Alex, feeling helpless, gripped the sides of his chair, leaning
forward, jumping and starting in sympathy with evry sudden movement,
every avoiding action. 

The Boa ECM'd the missile before it had gone a tenth of the distance
between the two ships. The Nemesis slid smoothly along its belly and
again turned side on, strafing the sensitive underparts as it matched
the giant's slow roll. 

And then it happened. From somewhere, out of nowhere, pulsing laser fire
made a directr aft hit on them. The Nemesis shuddered and stuttered and
was forced into rapid, dizzying roll. Alex swore, feeling his body
wrenched by the seat harness, the shock had nearly taken his head off.
He straightened up, assessing the situation: there were two Mambas
behind, and they were closing rapidly on the maw of an Anaconda; it
hovered there in the void, like a giant net waiting to swallow them. 

'Let's see you get out of this...' Alex said loudly, and glanced at
Elyssia to see why she was running so straight. 

She was slumped in her chair. Blood flowed freely from her scalp and
nose.  Her eyes were closed. She must have had her seat belt too loosely
fastened, and had struck the console when the Cobra had bucked. 

Alex leaped from his co-pilot's seat and literally wrenched the woman
free, throwing her to the floor, This was no time for courtasy. He
buckled in, stabbed fire at the Anaconda's ram-scoop, then overflew,
dodging laser and outrunning a missile, which then closed on him with
alarming speed before he was able to destroy it. 

The planet Cirag was ahead of them once more, He began to run for
safety, and then thought an alarming thought: what guarantees did he
have that the Coriolis network would protect him if he got in range? He
had no such guarantee. The space stations were as likely to be against
him as the ships that pursued him. 

But if he could let them know what he carried, if he could communicate
that he carried their god creatures, perhaps they would send their
fighters to keep the freebooters at bay. 

To his right a Mamba appeared out of nowhere. He rolled the Nemesis and
shot from his rear laser, then slowed speed, spun and strafed the killer
vessel from his port gun, watching the Mamba tumnble out of control, not
destroyed, just dead. 

If only he could release the cargo, jettison the cannisters containing
the Mymurth life systems, perhaps the pursuit would end. He and Elyssia
would be out of pocket by three hundred credits, but so what?  Neither
he nor Elyssia were elite, yet. He might feel like an elite combateer,
but faced with this sort of -

A Mamba strafed him, Shields screamed. He targeted a missile, but used
side fire to battle with the attacker... 

-faced with this sort of pressure, neither of them could survive. 

Elyssia came round, staggered to her feet and stared, through blood
encrusted eyes, at the combat. Cirag came closer. A timy spinning point
of silver light winked and beckoned to them, but the sight if it did not
fill Alex with joy. 

'Theye must be more than Mymurth in those cannisters...' Elyssia said
quietly. 

'Let's discuss it later,' Alex retorted, as he rolled and veered to
escape the fire coming from the closest of the big ships. 

The woman left the bridge. Hanging on for dear life, she went down to
the cargo bay... 

And suddinly the attack finished. 

Alex nearly jumped with surprise. One moment his tail had been hot, and
his port laser almost at the exploding point. The next: nothing. The
heavy lights of the massive pirate ships dropped away into the
background. Two of the Mambas continued to dog his tail for moment,
firing last, optimistic bursts of fire. Then they vanished, streaking
away into darkness, away from the sun. 


Alex slowed the Nemesis and checked damage levels. They were not
seriously hurt, byt two missiles were gone, and energy levels were low.
Their cargo was intact, however, and if the pirates had backed off, this
close to the world, it could only mean that Cirag would defend its
visitors. 

Elyssia came back onto the bridge, holding the small, black box that was
a Thru-Vis camera. 'They look like turtles. They stink like turtles.
They're boaring as turtles. But I've taken a couple of Thru-V shots,
hust to see if anything else is hiding in there...'

'Good idea. Let's see?'

'Two to three minutes...'

She placed the camera down, sat back in the co-pilot's seat and looked
at him. 'You okay?'

Alex nodded. 'Shaken. How about you?'

'Bruised, bloody but unbowed. We in the safe zone?'

'Looks that way.'

The Coriolis station span gently before them, bright with sunlight,
casting its shadow on the patchy gray and yellow of the huge world
below. Several ships were tethered to buoys close by. They looked safe
enough. Lights flashed on the station. Everything gleamed, everything
welcomed. 

Alex sailed gracefully past the immense flying city, then turned to face
the entrance. 

But there was no entrance. 'What in God's...?'

He sat there motionless in space, rotation matched with the Coriolis,
facing blank metal. By zooming in he could see the shape of the
entrance, closed, now, protectively. 

'Afraid of strangers?' Elyssia suggested. 

'We need fuel badly. They'd better not be too afraid...'

Then the crackle of an audio message coming in. On the screen, only the
space station, with stars and the sun behind. 

'Identify, identify. This is Craig Orbit Space.'

'Cobra class trader, the Nemesis,' Alex said. 'We have a cargo of
Mymurth.  Open the gates.'

There was silence for a while, through the channel remained open because
it continued to hiss and crackle. Then: 

'Attention, Nemesis. Mymurth trade in Coriolis stations is prohibited.'

'What?'

'Release your cargo before coming aboard. Release cargo. You will be
compensated.'

Alex glanced at Elyssia. 'What the hell do we do?'

'Sounds unprofessional to me,' the woman said. 'Sounds a little
fishey...'

She picked up the camera and removed the developed and printed film.
Staring at the two prints for a moment, she suddingly seemed to realize
what she was looking at and gasped. 

'Oh my sweet world...' she said slowly, and passed the prints to Alex. 

On the screen, the entrance to the space station began to open slowly.
Two lights shone there, like eyes, tiny in the dark void space beyond. 

Alex looked at the Thru-V pictures, and for a second couldn't comprehend
the grotesqye sights he saw. Looking through the bodies of the Mymurth,
the camera had picked picked up the spider-like life forms that were
living inside the shuffling, harmless turtle forms. The sight was
discomforting.  Jointed legs seemed to be reaching out into every limb,
and every body space.  The central black body was shiny. and from it
peered a number of bloated, faceted eyes. Two long, bristly tendrils
stretched into the Mymurth's brains from each of these hideous
parasites. 

'What are they?' Alex whispered, and Elyssia said,

'Trouble. They're immature Thargoids'

Alex felt his heart quicken. Tharglets! He was transporting Tharglets,
the larval forms of one of the most deadly life-forms in the known
galaxy! 

Set-up? Being set-up hardly began to describe the way they'd beem duped
on Xezaor. 

No wonder the pirates had closed so ravenously... 

'There's good bounty on Tharglets. The Navy will pay well, for research
purposes.'

'They're also deadly; and they make ideal merenary fighters if trained
and developed. We've been carruing fighters for Cirag. Pirate fighters.
No wonder they want to destrou us. They won't want any evidence left of
this...'

Alex stared at the space station. For a moment Elyssia's words just went
in and didn't register. He was thinking of the pirates who had attacked,
and who had been beaten back... 

He was thinking that the danger was over...they were at a Coriolis
station, and the only danger now was illegal trading... 

He was thinking safety... 

He watched as the bright eyes slid forward, out of the space port.
Behind the eyes came the bulky shape of the ship to which they were
attached. Behind the ship came light, bright light, a gleaming yellow
beam that cast the shadow of the ship across the Nemessis... 

The shadow of a snake. 

The Cobra! 

He would have known that ship anywhere. It was months since he has seen
it, but not a night had passed when the shape of it, when the evil of
it, had not infested his dreams. 

ThtThe ship that had destroyed the Avalonia came slowly towards him, and
he had no doubt at all as to its identity. 


And nor had Elyssia. 

She sucked in her breath and moved towards the console. 'I want him. Let
me take the controls...'

'Sit down,' Alex said coldly, and Elyssia turned angrily on him. 

'I have as much stake in this as you...'

'Luck of the draw,' Alex said. 'The pilot of that ship killed my
father.'

'Killed my whole family! We were escaping from Teorge, and we asked that
ship for help, for supplies. It took my sister and myself as slaves, and
blasted my family's vessel to pieces. I escaped. My sister didn't. Alex,
I want that bastard!'

'Too late...'

Fire blossomed from the front of the Cobra. The Nemesis rocked and
rattled.  Alex targeted a missile, then stabbed laser fire back. The
energy spread over the Cobra's screens like a bright yellow flower. 

It accelerated towards them. Alex accelerated too, but rose over the
killer, and over the space station. 

'We can't fight it! We've not got the waepons, nor the defenses. Not
yet.  Damn! What should we do?'

On the rear screen, Alex saw the somber shape of the killer rising above
the Coriolis station. A flash of light presaged. The warning INCOMING
MISSILE, and Alex targerted the ECM to destroy it. As he did so, he
turned. The two ships tore past each other, majestic metal galleons,
raking each other with fire before turning and approaching again. 

Twice they duelled in this way. The Nemesis groaned beneath the weight
of the laser strkies on its hull; the energy in its storage cells began
to drain away. In Alex's mind ther was only confusion. The Cobra knew
him, and wanted him, and wouldn't let go. And this was the ship he
wanted to kill... 

But he wasn't equipped to kill it... Not yet, Not yet! 

So despite Elyssia's objections, Alex turned and ran for the sun. 

The Cobra followed. The two ships maneuvered and looped, slowed and
speeded up. When ever possible, Alex rear lasered, and this had the
effect of driving the pirates back a little. It targeted and dispatched
three more missiles, and Alex shot them down. He was tempted to think
that represented the full missile load of the Cobra, but he wisely
avoided such complacency. His own missile remained targeted, ready to
fly, but he imagined it would meet a quick and pointless fate. 

The sun edged closer. It grew in size and majesty. The cabin temperature
of the Nemesis rose. Immense arms of plasma curled out from the surface,
like weird creatures rising above a molten sea. Alex flew towards one,
fuel-scoop ready. 

The Cobra fired at him. Shields sceeched. 

The dueling ships entered the realm of the Inferno.. 

Alex said, 'It's working, look...'

The fuel gauge was edging up as the scoop sucked in raw plasma and
converted it to the energy form needed for Witch-Space transit. He
skimmed the Nemesis along the edge of the great ocean of fire. The arms
of the corona was millions of miles long, thousands wide, and curling
round, like a whirlpool.  At its center, then, there was a calm place, a
place away from the heat and danger. 

Alex headed towards it. The cabin filled with an erie brilliance in
which shadows seemed to writhe and beckon. The sun was an unbearable
glare. The temperature of the ship rose dramatically. Force played about
the hull, and the shields moaned and creaked. 

'Not long,' Elyssia said. At last she too had come to realize that they
were just not ready to fight the Cobra. They had to get out of here, and
fast. The nearest star was six light years distant, their fuel gauge
showed a jump capablity of four, and rising... 

In the calm sea, wrapped arround by sunfire, the Nemesis hovered, and
waited.  Somewhere in the brilliant glow of the plasma arm the Cobra
waited. Somewhere in the brilliabt glow of the plasma arm the Cobra
searched for them, but perhaps they were safe, now, safe from scanning,
or from probing, since no electronic eye or ear could pierce the intense
radiation field of the corona. 

'Five light years and climbing. Get ready to go, we're already
targeted...'

'I'm ready,' Alex said. He tried not to think of the consequenses of
such a long, unsupervised jump...In the first instance they would just
jump small distances, but the hyperdrive mechanism wouldn't tolarate too
many such feeble movements. 

Alex turned the Nemesis so that it gently spun in a circle, searching
the flickering, shadowy fore for danger. 

'Five point five light years. A minute more. Just sixty seconds more. 

'Just thirty seconds...we're filling up lovely... 

The ship hummed, Alex dripped with sweat. 

'Just twenty second hs more, Alex, and we can fly like star seed...'

On the scanners the merest flicker of light hinted at the presence of
the Cobra. It was on the other side of the strand of plasma; a curtain
of fire separated them. Nemesis and the killer stood motionless in
space, facing each other through the great erupting wave of sunfire. 

'We're ready to go,' Elyssia said. 'Alex. Go! Now!'

Alex Ryder shrugged her off, 'No,' he said. 'Not yet.'

'Alex!'

He pushed the ship towards the fire, The flickering, ghostly image on
the scanners moved too. Closing. 

And with a suddon cry, Alex stabbed speed into the Nemesis' engines, and
raced towards the veil of flame and plasma. All vision had gone, All he
could see was his father's face; and the white ball of flame that had
been the Avalonia... 

All he could feel was grief, and anger, and hate... 

All he knew was that he had a missile targeted on the Cobra, and that he
had on last, desparate chance... 


The ships closed. The distance between them was the distance of the
plasma veil. It played on the hull of the Nemesis, and the shields
screamed and complained. He could not go too deep... 

Not too far in... 

Too dangereous... 

He fired the missile. 

The tiny vessel sped into the sunfire, weaving and ducking as it homed
on the Cobra. It didn't show on Alex's scanner. It didn't show on the
Cobra's scanner. Not until it was too late. 

The Cobra triggered its ECM. Alex saw the burst of brightness, the
suddon detonation... and then he saw the great fireball that gyrated
around the destroyed missile. 

Momentum, heat, plasma, fire...all gathered together into a ball of
death that swept from the corona and engulfed the Cobra. 

No shield known could stand against such intense energy, the raw
explosive terror. 

The Cobra bathed in light nd fire. Alex watched the scanner, and
suddenly... 

The light was gone. 

The Cobra was dead. Destroyed. Gone forever. 

The Nemesis slowed and turned, went back to safety. 

No-one on its bridge said a word. But in the bright light of the ageing
sun, tears glistened on two faces.

































The holoFac of Rafe Zetter gleamed and shimmered on the bridge of the
Nemesis, as if with pride, Behind it, the full face of Lave was a
welcome and relaxing sight. The last of the Mymurth and their precious
parasites had been off-loaded into two Navy Asp-type ships. The final
payment had not yet been agreed, but the figure would not be less than
one hundred credits per creature. 

'I knew you could do it,' Rafe said, chewing happily and stroaking his
wispy sidewhiskers, 'Had to be sure, But was confident enough to get you
to Cirag before you were ready.'

'We could of been killed,' Alex muttered. 'That system was crawling...'

'But a good combateer, even an elite combateer, knows when to run, and
how to run. I'm proud of you...you ran and scored.'

And as he spoke, so on the screen a message came through from the
Galactic Police HQ on Lave Coriolis 6. 

Congrtaulations to Alex Ryder, and thanks on behalf of the Galatic
Co-operative of Worlds for your efforts and skill in destroying pirate
vessels as documentated by you, and verified by on board V-film, we have
the pleasure in assigning to you the Combat Status of 'Deadly'. Your
legal status of 'Offender' had been negated. Your new rating as Deadly
will be lodged in the GalNetwoek within a standard day. 

'Select wisely in battle, and be strong.'

So there it was. Alex was not yet twenty earth years of age, had come
within one step of being rated more highly as a combateer than most
people would even dream about. 

He was deadly; he had killed the Cobra; why the Cobra had killed his
father Alex hadn't though to ask...of the ships pilot. He had guessed
that the ship and its bounty killer pilot had simply been earning a
wage. 

Instead, he had said to Rafe, 'Did you know the ship was at Cirag?'

'Had a good idea of it, Alex. That's why we sent the Tharglets with
you.  Nobody, but nobody - if they're a tad evil - can resist booty like
that.  I knew it would bring every freebooter for a light year after
you, but I reckoned you could handle them. Most importantly, I was damn
sure that your cargo would bring out the Cobra. 

'You fought well. You showed the sort of instinct for combat that I
remember on Jason. He was right. You are the man to follow him.'

'Follow him where?'

Rafe chuckled and shook his head. 'You see, that's the big question.
Your father was chasing the mythical planet Raxxla,. Does it exist, or
does it not? If it does, then on Raxxala there's an alian construct
that's a gateway to other universes, and all that's in those universes
in the way of bounty, and treasures, and aliens, and life...'

'Jason Ryder was convinced that Raxxla existed, That's why he trained
for, and became a part of, the Dark Wheel, the legend seekers, I hadn't
heard much from him or about him for some time until just before he
died, when he told me he's found evidence for the real existence of
Raxxla. He came back from Deep Space to get a proper team together...'
Rafe smiled bitterly. 'But just before he was due to go back, he decided
to take a safe worlds holiday jaunt with his son...and an assassin was
waiting for him.'

'But why?' Alex asked. 'Why kill him for finding Raxxla?'

'Because there are people on Raxxla already, This is only a guess, mind
you, but from wha happened to Jason I'd say it was close to being right.
We've long sucpected that a corps of elites lives there, and are
exploiting the gateway. They're powerful, twisted men. Powerful enough
to hire an assasin to kill the threat to their domininance.'

Rafe leaned a little closer to Alex, his bright eyes gleaming, an
intense look on his grizzled face. 

'I've put you through your paces, Alex, you and Elyssia both. The Dark
Wheel needs you. Both of you. But nelieve me, what you've just been
through is nothing to what you face now. You've got to become elite,
Alex. And that means a lot of training, and a lot of fighting, and maybe
a lot of months, even years. But then the universe will open up before
you in a way you never imagined possible.'

Alex stood silent, thoughtful, watching the old man. In the corner, half
in shadows, Elyssia stood and watched too, frightened by what she was
hearing. 

'Has the grief gone?' Rafe asked, and Alex nodded. The old trader
smiled. 

'How does it feel to be rich?'

'Empty,' Alex saidm and Rafe Zetter laughed. 

'You'll do for the Dark Wheel, Alex. You'll do...'

 -END-