The sled sloped up. He waited until his view of the ship’s curving black hull, towering above him, was cut off by the top edge of the hatch…and then hurled himself to one side, rolling over onto his stomach, weapon out. He had one quick glimpse of the startled brown face of a crewman, then fired, the shot going wide but slicing across as he adjusted downward. The front of the man’s tunic smoked as the laser sliced through his chest, and he fell with a horrible gurgling sound. Lorn was up and running an instant later, scanning the hold for any other humans, but there were only robots, which ignored him and the corpse, simply setting to work immediately unloading the sled, the barrels going into one elevator, the crates into another, all of them whisked away without any human intervention at
