Cat set out for Suite D136, the current abode of Phlu Laum, at a pace that was actually quite brisk, thought she appeared to be no more than lazily ambling her way about the ship.

The evening before, after hearing Roger’s rambling, incoherent, yet intriguing story, cleaning him up, and pouring him into her bed, Cat had dove into the galactic net to find out all she could about Phlu Laum.

There had been surprisingly little to learn. On the surface Phlu Laum was very ordinary. She owned and ran a restoration studio in Mily on Nergof III, owned a modest, yet comfortable, home in that same city, time-shared a condo in Yric on Erton, cautiously invested in the market, called her mother every day, donated to the Pan-Galactic Humane Society, and paid her taxes early. She had three speeding tickets in her past and currently had one overdue meldtale from the library.

Diving deeper into the binary data stream, Cat found Laum had several different names, homes, bank accounts, and mothers on different planets. Each identity was perfectly conventional and non-descript, but all of them belonged to the same woman.

She had sent out invitations to several collectors, offering a unique and unusual item never before offered on the market. Backtracking and cross-checking the data, Cat found five of the six collectors, including Justy Tanaka, were on board the Wandering Star. The sixth had been unavoidably detained by a prison sentence.

The door to Suite D136 was in front of her. Cat could have easily used the ship’s duct system to break into Laum’s room, find the tape, and take it. For someone of her skills, that was child’s play. Alternatively she could have hacked the ship’s system, set off the emergency system, and sent Laum and companions fleeing from the room, leaving it easy to search. Or – well, there were several plans Cat could have used that would not have involved direct confrontation with Phlu Laum. But where would the fun be in that?

Cat rapped at the door. Perfectly aware that the room’s occupants could see and hear her through the one-way viewer door, she smiled, waved, and called, “Hullo, dears. I’ve come to buy a tape.”

A voice, it had to be one of the Kitsas, growled through the two-way speaker, “Go ‘way, human female. We not sell tapes. You have wrong room.”

“Of course you don’t sell tapes,” purred Cat, “but you do have a tape. The Mamo tape and I want it. Now do let me in so I can talk to Phlu or Apre Greene or Gollak Nirach or Smeres Olid or Thib Mayne or whatever she wants to call herself.” Cat slid a thin disk out from beneath the band of her skirt and held it up between two fingers. “I have diltium.”

The door opened and Cat strolled in. Her eyebrows arched in surprise and interest as she took in the scene in front of her.

The mood setting holo-scenes were askew on the walls. Gel foam was oozing out of the lounger and another chair lay in pieces.

The Kitsa who’d opened the door leaned against the wall, a hank of its coarse, dark hair torn from its chest revealing the pink flesh beneath. The stunner aimed at Cat wavered in its claws, and its beady, close-set eyes seemed to be having trouble focusing.

The other Kitsa lay on the day couch, its huge form making the sturdy piece of furniture look ridiculously small. One of the Kitsa’s legs was encased in a flex-cast, while its right arm hung at an awkward angle. As Cat watched, the woman kneeling beside it took hold of the arm and yanked.

“ARRRRR!” It was hard to say if the snapping of the arm into place or the Kitsa’s growl of pain was the louder.

“Did I come at a bad time?” Cat said, her tone arch innocence.

Phlu Laum rose, her perfectly sculpted face showing no emotion. And it was sculpted. Nowhere in the data stream or in Roger’s account had it been mentioned that Phlu Laum was a sculptoid, an artificially created being able to change its form and features at will, as well as being able to temporarily bond with other sentients and be worn, like a living costume. This explained why no one had tumbled to the fact she had several identities.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I was going to tell you I represented Lasdad Macek,” Cat said, referring to the unavailable sixth collector as she dropped into one of the still intact chairs. “But as you obviously don’t have the Mamo tape anymore, I won’t bother lying.” She smiled. “So which of the bidders took it?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Payback?” suggested Cat. Her mouth curved upward and her dimple flashed. “They took it from you. I take it from them. Balance. Karma.”

“And you’d return the movie to me?” said Laum, her eyes narrowed.

“No,” said Cat, her smile still in place. “I have other plans for Mamo.”

“Suppose I just ignore your kind offer and make sure you don’t leave this room alive?” At Laum’s words, the Kitsa on the day couch lumbered to its feet, breaking the coach in the process. The one at the door came closer, stunner still in claw and aimed at Cat.

Cat’s expression didn’t change, though her eyes darkened to a golden shade. Her tone was rich with amusement as she laughed. It was impossible to deny the fact that she was enjoying herself immensely. “You couldn’t hold on to the tape,” she said. “You certainly can’t hold on to me.”

Color rose in the sculptoid’s face and she made a quick motion with her hand that sent the Kitsas roaring toward Cat.

Attempting to describe exactly how Cat moved and what she did to the Kitsas would take far longer than the actual event and would be akin to detailing the movements of a capricious and cruel wind during a blizzard. Suffice it to say, before she was finished, the Kitsa with the broken leg had a matching broken arm and the Kitsa who’d held the stunner was on the floor unconscious while the stunner was in Cat’s hand, pointed at Laum.

“Shall we try this again?” said Cat.

The sculptoid’s shoulders slumped in defeat.

Moments later Cat strolled along the corridor of Deck A. A few feet ahead of her, two men, followed by Justy Tanaka, and a woman stepped out of a suite. The group passed Cat without sign of recognition or acknowledgement of her presence. She continued past the suite without pause.

They’re in the elevator. Laum’s mental voice rang clearly in Cat’s head.

Let’s go then. Cat responded in the same way.

Cat turned and headed back toward the suite, only she longer had the appearance of Cat Diablo. Instead, thanks of the morphing abilities of the sculptoid she wore like a second skin, she was a duplicate of the woman who had accompanied Tanaka.

It was not an unpleasant experience being covered by the sculptoid. It felt rather like silk gliding against her skin, while Laum’s presence in her mind was a light non-invasive pressure.

The door to the suite opened immediately at Cat’s tap. Apparently whoever had been left behind half expected the woman’s return. Confirming Cat’s guess, the man inside the room said, “What’d you forget this time, Dayna?”

She smiled as the door slid closed behind her.

“This is getting old,” the man complained. “Justy’s going to—ugghh—!” His words broke off as he was hit in the stomach by the equivalent of a hand encased in a steel glove. His downward falling chin was caught by an upward moving knee. A quick blow to the back of his head had him slipping into unconsciousness and dropping to the floor.

“Watch the door,” Cat commanded, as the sculptoid flowed off her and resumed her Laum form. “The real Dayna could be back any minute.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Laum. She leaned over and dragged the unconscious man behind the couch, out of sight of the door. As she stood, her shape shifted until she was a perfect copy of him. Even the voice was identical as she said, “She won’t know the difference. But don’t waste time. Tanaka had an Enforcer bot when he came to my suite.”

There was both fear and anger in the sculptoid’s voice. She was not used to being the injured party in a deal gone wrong. By Thousand Galaxies’ standards, Laum was an ethical and genteel criminal. She held honest auctions for stolen merchandise. The highest bidder received a quality product and Laum received a hefty fee. That’s the way it always worked. Except it hadn’t this time.

“Tanaka stole it from me!” Laum had said when Cat forced the story out of her, and Cat had laughed at the sculptoid’s righteous indignation. “He didn’t bid. He didn’t give me a ‘Buy now’ fee. He just came in with that Enforcer bot, threw my Kitsas around and took the movie. That thing would have killed me if I hadn’t given Tanaka the tape,” she’d finished. Her shudder of fear had been real, not affected.

Cat didn’t doubt Laum’s assessment of the bot was correct. Properly programmed, a handful of Enforcers were capable of taking out planetary armies. Cat didn’t particularly want to try her luck against even just one. She rather hoped Tanaka had sent it back to some storage locker in the bowels of the starliner after he’d frightened Laum into submission with it.

She scanned the room with an experienced eye. The Wandering Star provided suite passengers with several safes located throughout their rooms for their valuables. Cat doubted Tanaka would use any of the ones in the sitting area. He’d want his prize in a less open area.

Cat stopped a step into the master bedroom and backed slowly out.

“What is it?” Laum said.

“I found the Enforcer.” Cat’s reply was a whisper.

The Enforcer bot resembled a series of large metal cans connected in the shape of a humanoid. Sitting in a chair by the far side of the bed, it was ugly, amusing, and terrifying. Though the LED sensor in the center of its ‘head’ was a muted red, showing it was in energy conservation mode, Cat knew it could spring into action amazingly fast.

“Can you do Tanaka?” she whispered. At the sculptoid’s silent nod, she said, “Cover me then.”

Cat waited only a moment for the sculptoid to settle against her skin before stepping boldly into the room. If the Enforcer came out of sleep mode, it would see Tanaka and act accordingly. At least Cat hoped it would.

The bedroom offered several possibilities for concealment. There were three wall units, an underbed safe, and a decorative table unit that hid another safe box. Cat opted to try the nearest wall unit first.

A quick press of the wall and the panel slid back. The safe was protected by a basic key pad lock. Punch in the correct combination, it would open. Hit just one wrong number and ship’s security would seal the room then enter shooting.

How are you going to get it open?

Cat ignored Laum’s mental question, sending instead a command of her own, Pull back off my hands.

The second skin flowed back to Cat’s wrists. She held her hands over the keyboard, focusing. An instant later she tapped in a series of numbers.

How--? Laum interrupted herself. You’re a post cog.

Cat didn’t answer. She possessed both telepathic and post cognitive abilities to a degree that would have surprised and terrified law enforcement officials throughout the Thousand Galaxies and caused Psi Op commanders to salivate had they known.

The safe clicked open. Cat pulled back the door. The protective casing Roger and Laum had described as holding The Mystery of Mamo was placed neatly on the center of the top shelf.

Cat hesitated as she reached for the tape and in that instant was pushed backward across the bed as Laum surged forward off her skin and grabbed the case.

The sculptoid, still in the form of Tanaka, turned and smirked. “Enforcer,” she said in Tanaka’s voice, “deal with the intruder. So long, thief. Nice doing business with you.”

Cat ignored Laum’s exit. Easing slowly off the bed, she was warily watching the bot whose LED sensor had blazed to blood-red life. It rose smoothly and walked through the bed Cat had just vacated.

Dodging the flying plexi faux wood and temp gel, Cat was forced away from the door and farther into the room. The bot swiveled, walking around the decorative table unit to draw closer to his quarry.

Cat felt the wall behind her. There was no place left to go.

She pushed every movable piece of furniture at the bot, hoping to distract it long enough to dodge past it. A dresser and chair flew through the air and crashed against the wall. Those pieces she hid behind were walked through.

So far the Enforcer had shown no sign of being armed. Tanaka must have programmed it to use brute force. It would serve his purposes well enough, and be safer than having a weapon firing bot on a spaceliner full of passengers.

It gave Cat some comfort to know that she wasn’t about to be fried by a pulse particle beam. On the other hand, she wasn’t particularly thrilled with the idea of being pounded to a pulp by an ambulatory garbage can either.

It was too big and solid to charge through and too well-balanced to knock over. There was another possibility though.

Each Enforcer bot had an emergency over-ride sequence that could be activated remotely or manually; however, it was always initially programmed manually on a small keypad in the bot’s chest cavity area. If Cat could psychically read the sequence as she had read the safe combination, she could stop the Enforcer in its tracks.

Of course she had to get close to the bot, open its chest, scan the code, and enter it in before the bot killed her. Nothing to it.

With Cat to think was to act. Even as she formulated the plan, she was leaping toward the Enforcer, ducking under the arm that grabbed for her. The dodge threw her slightly off balance and her hand slapped at the chest panel without enough force to open it.

In reality Cat’s deadly dance with the Enforcer took only seconds, but in relative time it seemed like hours that she dodged and eluded the killing blows of the bot. And all the while a small smile tipped her lips, as she reveled in the thrill of the moment.

She yelped as the bot’s arm caught her ribs in a glancing blow. She twisted, dropped to the floor, rolled, and came up fast on the bot’s off-side. The bot swiveled at the waist. Cat came up from below. This time her aim was true. The panel opened under her hand.

The Enforcer’s arms came around her in a lethal bear hug. Cat tried to focus on the key pad under her fingers, but the breath was being forced from her lungs by the pressure of the bot’s embrace. The images she was receiving were fragmented, hard to see. Was that a five or a six the disembodied hand was pressing?

Blackness swimming at the edge of her vision, she punched in a sequence.

The pressure stopped. Cat started to slide to the floor. She caught the Enforcer’s shoulders and half stood, half reclined against it as its arms fell to its sides. “Good boy,” she said rather breathlessly, patting its chest lightly, but making sure not to hit the keypad. “Just stay here for now.”

Pushing herself upright, she looked at the room. “Tanaka’s going to have some extra charges,” she said to the unresponsive bot. “Hope he doesn’t take it out of your allowance.”

Every piece of furniture in the luxury room had been demolished by the bot - except for one small table that had often been in the Enforcer’s path, the table that held another of the suite’s safes. The Enforcer had always walked around it.

Cat moved forward to take a closer look.

“But the tape Laum took?” Roger’s expression was a mixture of confusion and hope as he looked from the copy of The Mystery of Mamo in his hands to Cat, who lay on the bed, wearing more bruises and bandages for her cracked ribs than clothes.

“A morph gel copy,” said Cat. “Same as she gave you. Tanaka had it made in case Laum tried to steal it back.”

“You knew?”

“As soon as I saw it,” said Cat. “But it will probably take her a few days to find out. By then we’ll have docked at Arideth and be long gone.”

Roger laid the tape on the bed stand, almost afraid to let it out of his hands. He sat on the edge of the bed, watching Cat out of the corner of his eye to see her reaction. As her face remained pleasantly expressionless, he moved farther onto the mattress. “Won’t Tanaka go after Laum when he finds the original gone?”

“Probably,” Cat said with supreme indifference.

“But she’ll send him after you, won’t she?”

Cat shifted and stretched, causing the gel mattress to dip and Roger to slide closer. “You worry too much,” she said. “Laum might send Tanaka after me, but that doesn’t mean he’ll catch me.” Before Roger could give voice to more of his worries she said, “Now, would you like to watch this movie filled with action, adventure, danger, humor, and romance? Or do you have something else in mind?”

Answering Cat’s smile with one of his own, Roger allowed himself to slide down next to her, saying, “I think I’d rather add some to my own life.”

“Which one?” said Cat. “The action, adventure, danger, humor, or romance?”

“Guess,” Roger said.

Cat’s answer goes unrecorded as she was much too occupied to vocalize it. It should be noted, however, that Roger was completely satisfied with her silence.