not turned up the first time.

They ate at the nearest stand and went back to work. Trying to write
was almost impossible, and even using his left hand for minor tasks
was difficult. In spite of quick healing of muscle and flesh from the
amino and nucleic acid powders the doctor had packed in, the shoulder
ached with a tightness that spoiled his coordination. He shifted to
writing clumsily with his right hand.

After twenty minutes he abandoned the pretense of working and began
thoughtfully doing practice draws with his right hand. It was stiff
and clumsy, and there was no holster in his right pocket to make
grasping easy. The second time the maggy caught on his pocket edge and
slipped from his hand he left it on the rug where it had fallen,
sitting looking at it thoughtfully for a moment. Today was the day he
would meet Orillo.

"How well can you handle a four tube cabin cruiser?"

"Line of sight only. I'm no navigator," Pierce responded.

Bryce said soberly, realizing what he had decided, "This is a good day
to have a bodyguard who's a good shot. I have an appointment to meet a
friend--and I'm not sure he's a friend."

"I shoot," Pierce said, writing at one of the letters he had been set
to. "Happy to oblige. Shall I wear my bulletproof clothes?"

"You could do with something like that," Bryce said soberly.

Pierce looked up from the letters. "Would this be the man behind all
these bullets, and you're meeting him in space?"

"Yes."

"In armor plated tanks with heavy artillery?"

"No."

"No light and heavy cruisers. No marines?"

"Just you." Bryce was smiling at Pierce's mock astonishment. He knew
that the kid didn't care in the slightest where Bryce led him as long
as there was a fight at the end of it, and he left it to Bryce to
choose the odds.

The odds might be even enough. Orillo himself, if he came with murder
as his intention, would bring no helpers for witnesses, and he would
expect Bryce to bring none. Or if he had hired assassins, he would not
come himself, and they would not know who had hired them, but they
would have been told to expect one man only.

* * * * *

The secrecy of any meeting in space is practically absolute. If there
is one thing which space has plenty of, it's distance--distance enough
to lose things in, distance enough to hide in, distance enough so that
even if you know where something is by all the figures of its
coordinates, if it's s