"I never knew," said Orkap.
"The spy among your pilots is more than appearance indicates. Did you ever hear of Johnny Mayhem?"
Orkap's heart jumped into his throat. Who in the galaxy hadn't heard of Mayhem? "But," he gasped, "a—"
"Nevertheless. It is Mayhem."
Orkap was suddenly afraid, more afraid than he had ever been in his life. The ubiquitous Mayhem.
The fierce white sun of Ophiuchus IX broiled down on the Empty Places, a featureless desert two-thousand miles across and as lividly white as bleached bone. In all that burning emptiness, the jet cargo craft looked very small and very insignificant, like black midges on the dead white sand.
Midges among midges, the new pilots walked.
One said: "But I see no cargo."
Another: "These outworlders and their mystery...."