hi to Mei for me." His acquaintance Gary Beck, aka Beck the

k? C'mon Will – let's get you to

not exactly brimming

oo. Seven thousand credits! Then he scooped the coins and the (ugh) gold tooth into an empty

sat across the table from him, his eyes red-rimmed and m

He said in a shaky voice. "The Celeste. That's ma'

"You bet your ship? On a

ebts to pay off." Deire said, subdue

a gold tooth and some coinage – minus the ship – which must've been worth well, a lot mo

at. He passed the document over to Jonn, who looked at him as if he were ma

ll have just called the man's darling little sister a two-bit counter-clockwise thig

over. Under the grime and stains of ages past, it read: 'Terran Merchant Fleet Registration Certificate'. Somewhere in the spaces indicated below were the name of the owner – one Jonnulass Mc Watt Deire an

and twelve years o

ned. "Stardrive gets a mite twitchy at warp

smack into a wormhole ending somewhere on the other side of the universe with no way back. Well, he could always sell the damn th

s a loophole somewhere. You might not see it because it's lurking somewhere in the small-print, looking at you with its b

aid Deire. "O

se? 'Yeah, right' a small imaginary figure wit

Said Timaset Skooch at l

27." Deire said, rising. "Ah'll have m

nd paused a moment. Most guys who had just won seven grand in a card game in a dingy low class bar would stand a fairly good chance of getting mugged as soon as they set a foot outside. But not Timaset Skooch. His reputation tended to provide him some protection

g dead. But only because being dead probably didn't hurt quite so much. While pulling himself together and taking stock, he discovered that he'd been robbed. Money, all gone – the

He had nothing to keep in it anyway. So now he was broke and he still had a ship to get rid of. Well, maybe he could recoup his losses that way. And he'd acquir