Ethan was not relieved. But lies were pointless now. 'I haven't even figured out how to get my own tail out of this mess yet,' he admitted ruefully, 'let alone yours.' He eyed Quinn. 'But I'm not quitting.'
A wave of her index finger indicated a touched 'I might point out, gentlemen, that before any of us can do anything at all about that genetic shipment we must first find the damn thing. Now, there seems to be a missing element in this equation. Let's try to narrow it down. If none of us nor Millisor has it, who else might?'
'Anyone who found out what it was,' answered Cee. 'Rival planetary governments. Criminal organizations. Free mercenary fleets.'
'Watch who you put in the same breath, Cee,' Quinn muttered.
'House Bharaputra must have known,' said Ethan.
Quinn smiled with half her mouth. 'And they fit two categories out of the three, being both a government and a criminal organization…. Ahem. Pardon my prejudices. Yes. Certain individuals in House Bharaputra did know what it was. They all became smoking corpses. I fear that House Bharaputra no longer knows what it hatched. Internal evidence; Bharaputra didn't exactly take me into their entire confidence, but I submit that if they'd known, my assignment would have been to return Millisor and company to them alive for questioning and not, as explicitly requested, dead. ' She caught Cee's eye. 'You doubtless knew their minds better than I. Does my reasoning hold?'
'Yes,' Cee admitted reluctantly.
'We're going in circles,' Ethan observed.
Quinn twisted her hair. 'Yeah.'
'What about some individual entrepreneur,' suggested Ethan, 'stumbling on the knowledge by accident. A ship's crewman, say…'
'Aargh,' groaned Quinn, 'I said to narrow the range of possibilities, not widen them! Data. Data.' She swung to her feet, studied Cee. 'You done for now, Mr. Cee?'
Cee was hunched over, his hands pressing his head. 'Yes, go. No more now.'
Ethan was concerned. 'Are you experiencing pain? Does it have a localized pattern?'
'Yes, never mind, it's always like this.' Cee stumbled to his bed, rolled over, curled up.
'Where are you going?' Ethan asked Quinn.
'First, to empty my regular information traps; second, to try a little oblique interrogation of the warehouse personnel. Although what the human supervisor of an automated system is likely to remember after five to seven months about one shipment out of thousands… Oh, well. It's a loose end I can nail down. You may as well stay here, it's as safe as anyplace.' A jerk of her head implied, And you can keep an eye on our friend in the bed.
Ethan ordered up three-fourths of a gram of salicylates and some B-vitamins from the room service console, and pressed them on the pale telepath. Cee took them and rolled back up with a never-mind-me gesture that failed to reassure Ethan. But Cee's clenched glazed stupor at last relaxed into sleep.
Ethan watched over him, chafing anew at his own helplessness. He had nothing to offer, nothing half so clever as Quinn's bags of tricks. Nothing but an insistent conviction that they all had hold of the problem by the wrong end.
Quinn's return woke Ethan, asleep on the floor. He creaked to his feet and let her in, rubbing sand out of his eyes. It was time for another shave, too; maybe he could borrow some depilatory from Cee.
'How did it go? What did you find out?' he asked.
She shrugged. 'Millisor continues to maintain his cover routine. Rau's back at the listening post. I could call in an anonymous tip to Station Security where to look for him, but if he slipped out of Detention again I'd just have to track him down someplace new. And the warehouse supervisor can drink premium aquavit by the liter and talk for hours without remembering anything.' She smothered a slightly aromatic belch herself.
Cee awoke to their voices and sat up on the edge of his bed. 'Oh,' he muttered, and lay back down rather more carefully, blinking. After a moment he sat up again. 'What time is it?'
'Nineteen-hundred hours,' said Quinn.
'Oh, hell.' Cee jerked to his feet. 'I've got to get to work.'
'Should you go out at all?' asked Ethan anxiously.
Quinn frowned judiciously. 'He'd probably better maintain his cover for the time being. It's worked so far.'
'I'd better maintain my income,' said Cee. 'if I'm ever to buy a ticket off this vacuum-packed rat warren.'
'I'll buy you a ticket,' offered Quinn.
'Going your way,' said Cee.
'Well, naturally.'
Cee shook his head and stumbled to the bathroom.
Quinn dialed orange juice and coffee from the room service console. Ethan, scooting around the table to reserve a place for Cee, accepted both gratefully.
Quinn sipped from an insulated bulb of shimmering black liquid. 'Well, my shift was a bust, Doctor, but how about yours? Did Cee say anything new?'
This was mere polite conversation, Ethan gauged. She had probably recorded every snore they'd emitted.
'We slept, mostly.' Ethan drank. The coffee was hot and vile, some cheap synthetic. Ethan considered that it was being charged to Cee, and made no comment. 'But I've been thinking about the problem of tracking the shipment. It seems to me we've been going at it wrong way round. Look at the internal evidence of what actually arrived on Athos.'
'Trash, you said, to fill up the boxes.'
'Yes, but—'
A peeping noise, as from a captive baby chick, sounded from Quinn's rumpled grey and white jacket. She patted the pockets, muttering, 'What the hell—oh gods, Teki, I told you not to call me at work…' She pulled out a small beeper, and checked a glowing numeric readout.
'What is that?' asked Ethan.
'My emergency call-back signal. A very few people have the code. Supposedly not traceable, but Millisor has some equipment that—hm, that's not Teki's console number.'
She swung around in her chair to Terrence Cee's comconsole. 'Don't talk, Doctor, and stay out of range of the 'vid pick-up.'
The face of a perky auburn-haired young woman wearing blue Stationer coveralls appeared over the holovid plate.
'Oh,' Quinn sounded relieved, 'it's you, Sara.' She smiled.
Sara did not smile. 'Hello, Elli. Is Teki with you?'
A tiny spurt of coffee shot out the bulb's mouthpiece as Quinn's hand tightened convulsively. Her smile became fixed. 'With me? Did he say he was going to see me?'
Sara's eyes narrowed. 'Don't play games with me, Elli. You can tell him I was at the Blue Fern Bistro on time. And I'm not going to wait more than three hours for any guy, even one wearing a spiffy green and blue uniform.' She frowned at Quinn's grey-and-whites. 'I'm not as taken with uniforms as he is. I'm going ho—out. I'm going out, and you can tell him that a party doesn't need him to get started.' Her hand moved toward the cut-off control.
'Wait, Sara! Don't cut me off! Teki's not with me, honest!' Quinn, who'd seemed about to climb into the vid, relaxed slightly as the girl's hand hesitated. 'What's this all about? I last saw Teki just before his work shift. I know he got to Ecobranch all right. Was he supposed to meet you after?'
'He said he was going to take me to dinner, and to the null-gee ballet, for my birthday. It started an hour ago.' The girl sniffed, anger masking distress. 'At first I thought he was working late, but I called and they said he left on time.'
Quinn glanced at her chronometer. 'I see.' Her hands flexed, gripping the desk edge. 'Have you called his home, or any of his other friends yet?'
'I called everywhere. Your father gave me your number.' The girl frowned again in renewed suspicion.
'Ah.' Quinn's fingers drummed on her stunner holster, now refilled with a shiny lightweight civilian model. 'Ah.' Ethan, jolted by the thought of Quinn having a father, struggled to pay attention.
