The ship's radio beeped. Aszrin woke up with a start and nearly fell off his chair.
"Yeah? I mean, Europa here."
"Kuczynksi. Hey Gerry, how's it going?"
"All quiet. Everyone's asleep but me."
"Sod, I need to speak to Leslie. It's kind of urgent. Can you wake her up?"
"Wake her up? Where's the fire?"
"Van got some weird message from Vega Corp and lost his rag at Cassandra. She's run off. Ard's out looking for her now."
"Run off to Vega?"
"Who knows? Anyway, apparently Vega know the site exists and offered to forget about it in return for something of Van's."
"Seems unusually generous on Vega's part."
"Van thinks it's a bluff and what they really want is the titanium."
"So now what?"
"Move to a safer place for the moment. See if Ard can find out what Cassandra's up to and talk her out of it. After all, we still have Angelos."
"He's really going to cooperate since Leslie locked him up on the ship."
"Oh well, that's her problem. Go and wake her up, will you?"
"I'm going. Back in a minute."