"Accelerate toward Venus, mote-detectors wide open. Kriere must be picked up—now!"
Rice didn't move. Burnett moved first, feeling alive for the first time in years. "Sure," said Sam, smiling. "We'll pick him up."
"No tricks," said Lethla.
Burnett scowled and smiled together. "No tricks. You'll have Kriere on board the Constellation in half an hour or I'm no coroner."
"Follow me up the ladder."
Lethla danced up, turned, waved his gun. "Come on."
Burnett went up, quick. Almost as if he enjoyed doing Lethla a favor. Rice grumbled and cursed after him.
On the way up, Burnett thought about it. About Lethla poised like a white feather at the top, holding death in his hand. You never knew whose body would come in through the star-port next. Number ninety-eight was Lethla. Number ninety-nine would be Kriere.
There were two shelves numbered and empty. They should be filled. And what more proper than that Kriere and Lethla should fill them? But, he chewed his lip, that would need a bit of doing. And even then the cargo wouldn't be full. Still one more body to get; one hundred. And you never knew who it would be.