Of course, there'd be charges waiting for him when he got back.

If he got back.

Only that could wait. That was still far off in the future.


He fell asleep that way ... a troubled sleep, full of mad, distorted dreams of Eileen and Krobis, and of monsters.

Then, all at once, he was awake again, sitting bolt upright in the bunk—sweat-drenched, fists clenched.

Dimly, confusedly, he sensed that some sound must have roused him.

In the same instant the sound came again—a knock, echoing over-loud in the cabin's stillness.

Stumbling from the bunk, Boone jerked open the door.

Eileen stood in the corridor outside, flanked by two guards with nerve-guns at the ready. A cold-eyed ship's officer waited behind them.