side.
The door hissed open.
'Good evening, Ambassador Urquhart.' Elli Quinn, framed in the aperture, beamed at him. 'I heard the Athosian Embassy might be in the market for security guards—soldiers—an intelligence corps. Look no further, Quinn is here, all three in one. I'm offering a special discount on daring rescues to any customer who places his order before midnight. It's five minutes till,' she added after a moment. 'You going to invite me in?'
CHAPTER NINE
'You again,' groaned Ethan. He gave Commander Quinn a malignant glower as her exact words—his exact words—registered. 'Where'd you plant the bug, Quinn?'
'On your credit chit,' she answered promptly. 'It was the one item you slept with.' She rocked on her toes, and cocked her head to peer around Ethan's shoulder. 'Won't you introduce me to your new friend? Pretty please?'
Ethan bleated under his breath.
'Exactly,' Quinn nodded. 'And I must say you're the best stalking-goat I ever ran. The way troubles flock to you is just astonishing.'
'I thought you had no use for—ah—queers,' said Ethan coldly.
She grinned evilly. 'Well, now, don't take that too much to heart. To tell the truth, I was starting to wonder just how I was ever going to shift you out from under my bed. I was really very pleased with your initiative.'
Ethan's lip curled, but until she took her booted foot off the door groove the safety seals would refuse to close. He stepped aside with what grace he could choke up.
Terrence Cee's right hand smoothed his jacket, tensely. 'Is she a friend?'
'No,' said Ethan curtly.
'Yes,' Commander Quinn nodded vigorously, turning her best smile on the new target.
Cee, Ethan noted irritably, showed the same silly startlement that all galactic males displayed upon their first encounter with Commander Quinn; but to Ethan's relief he seemed to recover far more quickly, his eyes jumping from her face to her holster to her boots and other likely weapons check-points. Quinn's eyes mapped Cee's inventory of her against Cee himself, and crinkled smugly in the knowledge of where to look for his weapons. Ethan sighed. Was the mercenary woman always destined to be one step ahead of them?
The doorseals hissed shut and Quinn seated herself with her hands resting demurely on her knees, away from whatever arsenal she carried. 'Tell this nice young man who I am, Ambassador Doctor Urquhart.'
'Why?' Ethan grumped.
'Oh, c'mon. You owe me a favor, after all.'
'What!' Ethan inhaled in preparation for fully expressing his outrage, but Quinn went on.
'Sure. If I hadn't primed my cousin Teki to ease you on out of quarantine you'd still be hung up in there with no ID, legal prisoner of the handwashers. And you and Mr. Cee here would never have met.'
Ethan's jaw snapped shut. 'Introduce yourself,' he finally fumed.
She gave him a gracious nod and turned to Cee, her studied ease not quite concealing an intent excitement. 'My name is Elli Quinn. I hold the rank of Commander in the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, and the post of a field agent in the Fleet intelligence section. My orders were to observe Ghem-colonel Millisor and his group and discover their mission. Thanks largely to Ambassador Urquhart here, I have finally done so.' Her eyes sparked satisfaction.
Terrence Cee stared at them both in new suspicion. It made Ethan boil, after all his careful work to coax Cee's damaged spirit to trust him a little.
'Who are you working for?' asked Cee.
'Admiral Miles Naismith commands me.'
Cee brushed this aside impatiently. 'Who is he working for, then?'
Ethan wondered why this question had never occurred to him.
Commander Quinn cleared her throat. 'One of the reasons, of course, for hiring a mercenary agent instead of using your own in-house people is precisely so that if the mercenary is captured, he cannot reveal where all his reports went.'
'In other words, you don't know.'
'That's right.'
Cee's eyes narrowed. 'I can think of another reason for hiring a mercenary. What if you want to do an in- house check of your own people?
How can I be sure you're not working for the Cetagandans yourself?'
Ethan gasped at this horrific, logical idea.
'In other words, might Colonel Millisor's superiors just be evaluating him for his next promotion?' Quinn's smile grew quizzical. 'I hope not, because they would be awfully unhappy with that last report of mine—' by which vagueness Ethan gathered that she had no intention of publically reclaiming Okita as her kill. This generosity failed to fill him with gratitude.
'—the only guarantee I can offer you is the same one I'm relying on myself. I don't think Admiral Naismith would accept a contract from the Cetagandans.'
'Mercenaries get rich by taking their contracts from the highest bidder, ' said Cee. 'They don't care who.'
'Ah—hm. Not precisely. Mercenaries get rich by winning with the least possible loss. To win, it helps if you can command the best possible people. And the very best do care who. True, there are moral zombies and outright psychos in the business—but not on Admiral Naismith's staff.'
Ethan barely restrained himself from quibbling with this last assertion.
Well-launched, she continued, forgetting her carefully non-threatening posture and rising to pace about in all her nervous concentration. 'Mr. Cee, I wish to offer you a commission in the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. Based on your telepathic gift alone—if proved—I can personally guarantee you a tech/spec lieutenancy on the Intelligence Staff. Maybe something more, given your experience, but I'm sure I can deliver a lieutenancy. If you were indeed bred and born for military intelligence, why not make that destiny your own? No secret power structures like the ghem-lords make or break you in the Dendarii. You rise on merit alone. And however strange you think yourself, there you will find a comrade who is stranger still—'
'I'll bet,' muttered Ethan.
'—live births, replicator births, genetically altered marginal habitat people—one of our best ship captains is a genetic hermaphrodite.'
She wheeled, she gestured; she would swoop down like a hawk if she could, Ethan felt, and carry off his new charge.
'I might point out, Commander Quinn, that Mr. Cee asked for the protection of Athos.'
She didn't even bother to be sarcastic. 'Yes, there you are,' she said quickly. 'If it's Millisor you fear, what better place to find protection than in the middle of an army?'
Furthermore, Ethan thought, Commander Quinn was unfairly good-looking when she was flushed with excitement…. He peeked fearfully at Cee, and was relieved to find him looking cold and unmoved. If that pitch had been aimed with such passion at him, he might be ready to run out and sign up himself. Did the Dendarii need ship's surgeons?
'I presume,' Cee said dryly, 'they would wish to debrief me first.'
'Well,' she shrugged, 'sure.'
'Under drugs, no doubt.'
'Ah—well, it is mandatory for all Intelligence volunteers. In spite of all good conscious intent, it's possible to be a plant and not know it.'
'Interrogation with all the trimmings, in short.'
She looked more cautious. 'Well, we have all the trimmings in stock, of course. If needed.'
'To be used. If needed.'
