was only when she felt a light touch on her knee that she lifted her head quickly to look into a pair of steady, large, chocolate brown eyes peering up at her from a bedraggled mop of blond-brown canine hair. In his last letter to her via blink beacon, her father had told her about his new companion. «Well, hi,» she said, snuffling mucus, reaching for a tissue. «Hi, there.» The dog was standing on his hind legs, forepaws on her knee, his liquid, warm eyes seeming to express concern. He was quite small, weighting only seven pounds. «I know you,» she said. He made a little sound. She reached down to pick him up. He leapt away, stood looking at her with his unwavering eyes. «You're Mop,» she said. «Dad named you that because he said when you lie down you look like an old-fashioned rag mop.» At the sound of his name one of the dog's floppy ears stood up. «I'll bet you've been lonely,» she said. «Come here.» Mop was doubtful. He crept closer. Erin didn't move. He put his paws on her knee, lowered his head so that his chin rested between his paws, and looked up at her. «Oh,» she said. This time he allowed her to pick him up. «Poor little fellow,» she crooned. «Who's been looking after you?» Mop licked her hand politely, just once. There was space on New Earth to allow old-fashioned burial of the dead. The Kenner family plot was situated two hundred yards from the house in an area of knee-high grass dotted with purple and yellow wildflowers. The dirt on John Kenner's grave was still fresh. Mop the dog, who had guided her down a pathway familiar to Erin because it led to her mother's grave, sat down and looked solemnly at the mound. The headstone had been in place since the death of John Kenner's wife. On her father's slab only the date of death had been left blank. She made a mental note to find out who could carve the letters and numerals into the stone. A cold wind crept up the skirt of her dress uniform. As if reminded of his loss by the moaning of the wind through the trees that outlined the burial plot, the little dog lifted his head and howled. «I know how you feel,» Erin said, her throat tight, her eyes stinging. Mop howled again and her own grief burst out of her again in harsh sobs. The dog stopped howling, came to look up at her with concern. She knelt next to him and said, «It's all right to howl. It hurts. If howling makes it feel better, howl your head off.» She threw back her head, looked up at a leaden, winter sky that promised snow, and turned her sobbing into an imitation of the dog's cry of loneliness. After one questioning tilt of his head, Mop joined her and the joint howls of anguish soared upward, out, and away to be absorbed in the dull, chill air. Night. She went from room to room turning on all of the lights, Mop following her every step. She discovered his water and food dishes in the kitchen, saw that both basins were stocked. Someone had been looking after him. He followed her to the main room of the house where a front wall of glass gave a view of the Canadian. The river was up from heavy rains in the hills to the west. Muddy water filled the wide channel from bank to bank. In the summertime, she knew, there would be only a four or five foot wide trickle of clear water making a runnel down the center of the half-mile wide, sandy riverbed. In the glow of the lights on the patio, big feathery snowflakes began to fall and, although it was warm and comfortable in the house, she shivered. She tried the holo, flipped through the available channels, turned the power off. The image of a newsman in business dress faded quickly from the viewing square. Mop was sitting in front of her, his long hair hanging to the deep pile of the carpet. «So what do you think?» she asked. He barked twice, with some urgency. «You are kidding me,» she said. «You really don't want me to let you out.» The dog barked excitedly. «Out?» More excited barking, a run toward the glass wall. She opened a door. The dog dashed out. Snowflakes and a cold wind hit him in the face. He ran back in faster than he had run out. «So?» she asked. He lay down and assumed his mop pose, head between his legs. «Well, if you can hold it, all right,» she said. «However, I am not accustomed to cleaning up after some hairy little bugger like you.» It was too early to go to bed. She had talked with no one other than the taxi driver who had known her father. She was sure that John Kenner had had his affairs in order, but she imagined that there'd be some matters that would require her attention. At that moment her plans didn't go past calling her father's bank and, if he'd had one, his attorney. She went into the office and opened the middle drawer where her father had kept his bank book. The bank balance was small, under two hundred standard credits. The current power bill, unpaid, was stuck in the checkbook. She began to explore other drawers in the desk. John Kenner had prided himself on having a clear title to the house and three hundred acres of reforested hills and rolling meadowlands. With New Earth becoming more and more popular as a quiet haven, such retreats were accruing in value. The Kenner place, should she decide to sell it, would bring a good price. There was a chrome steel strongbox in the bottom drawer. She punched in her mother's birth date as the combination and the box opened. The first piece of legal paper she opened was a copy of her father's will. No surprises there. Everything had been left to Erin Elizabeth Kenner. But under the will was a blue-wrapped mortgage on the house and land. Less than a year ago John Kenner had borrowed to within a few thousand credits of the value of his property. Instead of leaving his daughter a valuable piece of real estate free and clear, John Kenner had left her a sizable debt. «So, Mr. Mop,» she said to the dog, who had climbed to her lap and then to the desk to lie there watching her as she riffled through the drawers, «what is this?» The doorbell rang. The dog leapt to the floor, barking. «I hear, I hear,» Erin said. She detoured past her bedroom, got her regulation X&A hand weapon from her bag, held it behind her as she walked to the side door which was the house's front door, facing west. It was strictly illegal for her to have a Service issue hand weapon, but if every retired X&A officer who had managed to hang onto a saffer were arrested, the Service would have to work overtime to discover another planet to be used as a prison for them. Bearing arms was still looked upon as one of the personal freedoms, and saffers were, after all, inexpensive. X&A didn't make too much effort to prevent the taking of one deadly souvenir by a departing officer. Erin looked through the viewer and saw a tall man, young of face. His unruly brown hair was sprinkled with snowflakes. Mop was still barking frantically, but in a different tone, as if he were thoroughly excited. «All right,» she said. «That's enough.» The dog paid no attention. In fact, the pitch of his bark rose. «Who?» she asked, after pressing the button that activated the talk-through. «Miss Kenner?» «Yes, who are you?» «I'm Denton Gale. I'm a friend of your father's.» She opened the door, letting the X&A saffer hang down by her side in plain view. Mop rushed toward the visitor, yapping happily. «Hey, Moppy,» Gale said, bending to rub the dog's head. Mop's stubby tail was doing overtime in circles. The young man picked him up and rubbed him, then looked at Erin. His eyes widened when he saw the weapon. «You won't need that, « he said. «I hope not,» she said. «Look, if you'd feel more comfortable if I come back during the day—» On the hardpad she saw an aircar, sleek, silver. «I apologize for my caution,» she said. «I suppose if my little buddy there knows you—» «I work at the port,» Gale said. «I rebuilt the computer on the Mother Lode for your dad.» «Run that by again?» she said. «Look.» When he smiled he looked very young. «You're letting all the warm air out and, quite frankly, I'm freezing.» «Come in.» «I heard that you had come home,» he said, as she closed the door. «I would have been here in daylight, but I had an emergency call.» She stood in the center of the room, the saffer held behind her. «Gale?» «Denton Gale.» «And you work on computers?» «Yes.» «And you did some work for my father?» «On the Mother Lode,» he said. «You won't saff me if I sit down?» She laughed. «Sit. I've been gone for six years. The last letter I had from my father was almost a year ago. What is a Mother Lode?» «A Mule Class space-going tug.» «Good God,» she said, sitting down weakly. «You didn't know?» Gale asked. He had deep, dark brown eyes, a regular, pleasant face, a mouth that smiled easily and attractively. «I've had a lot of surprises lately.» «He bought it just under a year ago. She's in good shape. Really. She was on service with the Trans-Zede Corporation. She was one of the last Mules to be built, as a matter of fact.» «What in hell did my father want with a Mule?» she asked. Gale shrugged. «I didn't ask.» «What does an antiquated space-going tug cost?» He named a figure that was within a few thousand credits of the face value of the mortgage she'd found in her father's desk. «The reason I came over tonight,» Denton said, «is because the pad rent is due on the Lode. The port's government operated, you know—» «No, I didn't.» «Well, it is. And they get pretty damned sticky if the pad rent is late.» «How much?» «A hundred and fifty credits for the month.» «Fine.» That, along with the current power bill, would clean out her father's checkbook. «If you like, I can take the check with me,» Gale said. «I'd appreciate that.» She went into the office, wrote the amount. «How do I make it out?» she called. «Canadian County Spaceport Authority,» he answered. «You're sure that's not you?» she asked, coming out of the office waving the check. He laughed. «Nope. I'm 'The Computerman, the Century Series a Specialty.' « «Antiques,» she said. The Century Series of computers was two generations older than the Unicloud computers on Rimfire and all current X&A ships. «But solid,» he said. «Look, my office is at the end of the main administration building. I'll be glad to show the Lode to you any time.» «Can you help me sell her?» «I guess so,» he said. «If the weather isn't too bad, I'll come over tomorrow.» «Fine.» «Give you a cup of coffee before you go?» She didn't know him, but he had a nice smile and the house seemed so empty with only the little dog for company. «I really do need to run. I've got a rush job on a freighter that's scheduled to lift for the Tigian planets tomorrow.» «Thank you for coming by.» He smiled, and for the first time his eyes showed that he had noticed that she was a girl. «My pleasure.» She watched his aircar lift off and zoom up and away. The snow was heavier. The ground was turning white. Mop had followed them out. He lifted one leg and left a liquid message on a bush and then ran to wait for her at the door. She went to the library and pulled down a reference book. Mule Class tugs had been in deep space for almost fifty years. Thousands of them had been built on Trojan during the last half-century. A Mule was a stocky looking brute, knobby and squarish. She was overpowered, built with a blink generator that could take her on half a dozen jumps without recharging, hefty enough to enclose the largest ship within her fields and jump with her in an electronic embrace. Spaceships, after all, were just electronics and mechanics. Electronic things and mechanical things had not changed since some Old One on Old Earth invented the wheel. Machines broke down. Electronic circuits failed. And if enough of them broke down or failed at the same time, a ship carrying a crew and a valuable cargo or a ship with a load of passengers was stranded in space. That's where the Mules came in. Some space tugs were government owned. Most, however, were free enterprise. At specified sites on every blink route space tugs were stationed. There was fierce bidding for the more traveled routes, for the salvage money that came to a space tug and its owners when a big ship had to be piggybacked to a repair yard by a squat, dwarfed Mule made fortunes. Although the Mule was hailed all over the civilized galaxy as the most dependable ship ever put into space, she had been replaced over the past ten years by the newer, larger, more comfortable Fleet Class tug, built by the same Trojan shipyards that had produced the Mules. Erin first saw her Mule on a day when snowdrifts were piling up against the side of the port buildings. She had drifted over in her father's aircar, Mop sitting beside her, tongue lolling in excitement at being able to go. She was given a landing spot at least two hundred yards from the administration building. After a few doubtful steps in the snow, Mop decided that it was frisky time. He dashed back and forth, made mock attacks on her legs, bit at the falling flakes. Sure enough there was a sign over a door that said THE COMPUTERMAN, The Century Series a Specialty. She entered without knocking. Denton Gale sat with his feet up on his desk. He dropped his boots to the floor and stood, smiling. Mop jumped into his chair and demanded attention. Denton rubbed the dog's head as he said, «I didn't think you'd come today.» «Well, I couldn't wait to see my inheritance,» she said with a wry smile. «Let me get my coat.» The Mother Lode sat squatly on a pad another two hundred yards away through snow and icy wind. Denton punched a code into the airlock. «Mother's birthday,» Erin said. «This is a pretty secure port,» Denton said. «Even if someone figured out the code you wouldn't have to worry.» Ship's smell. A hint of silicon lubes, that almost intangible scent produced by banks of electronics at work, the odd tang to the recycled air that meant a Blink generator was in operation. The Mother Lode was on standby. Her automatic monitoring systems purred and hummed. The control bridge had been freshly painted. The command chair was newly upholstered in synthetic leather. «He had her completely overhauled,» Denton said. «She's ready. You could take her anywhere.» «I've just been there,» Erin said, for the hatch had closed behind him and she was closed in, encapsulated once more in metal, and although it was the cold, winter air of New Earth outside instead of the harsh vacuum of space, she suddenly felt lonely. «Still want to sell her, huh?» «Yes.» «I just wish I had the money to buy her,» he said. «I wish you did, too.» «I haven't had a chance to ask around. If you want me to, I will.» «Please do.» He touched buttons on the console. An electronic hiss accompanied the brightening of the computer screen. «Know anything about the Century?» «We had one at the Academy in my first year, then it was replaced with a first generation Unicloud.» «The Century will do everything a Unicloud will do.» «But slower,» she said. «True. But how vital are a few nanoseconds?» «Most of the time, not vital,» she said. «There was some senility in the cloud chambers when I first began work on her,» Denton said. «Nothing serious. Required recharging the Verbolt fields. Reloading. You'll find that she's as crisp as new.» «I don't really anticipate—» A beeper at Gale's waist buzzed. He put the instrument to his lips, identified himself. Erin, examining the controls of the Mule, didn't hear the communication. «I have to run over to the office,» he said. «Someone wants to give me some money and I find that to be one of the more rewarding aspects of having my own business. If you'll wait here, I'll be back in a few minutes and I'll show you the rest of the layout.» Erin nodded. In a careful search of the house she had turned up nothing to indicate why a retired spaceman— who had said repeatedly that if he never had to breath recycled air again he would be happy—would put his entire assets into a spaceship. She went into the Mule's living quarters. Crews of two had spent long months in the large and luxurious private cabins aboard the Lode when she was on space duty. On the Mother Lode one cabin had been converted into a control room for mining equipment attached to the ship's squarish hull. The remaining cabin was equipped with a terminal to give access to the ship's library. She returned to the bridge, turned on the computer terminal, punched information up idly, saw that the Lode was stocked with a rather magnificent library of books and visuals. «My boy,» she told Mop, who had jumped up onto the bed, «I think Mr. John was planning to be in space for a long time. Now the question is, why?» Mop cocked his head as if to echo her question. «Why would he name the ship the Mother Lode? That's a mining term. My father? Going mining?» She shook he