pounding came from the interior.
'Now Millisor wants to open it, and can't, because of the pressure differential, ' Quinn whispered.
After a good long pause Helda reversed the airflow. The doorseals parted with an audible pop and whoosh. Millisor and Rau, noses bleeding, stumbled gasping into the corridor, swallowing and working their jaws in an effort to equalize inner-ear pressure.
'Helda didn't even give the poor fellows a chance to tell her about their hostage,' Quinn smirked. 'Efficient lady…'
Millisor finally got his breath. 'Are you insane?' he snarled at the three Stationer officials. He focused on the Security man. 'My diplomatic immunity—'
The Security man jerked his thumb at Helda. 'She's in charge here.'
'Where is your warrant?' cried Millisor angrily. I 'This space is legally paid for and possessed, and I furthermore I hold a Class IV diplomatic waiver. You have no right to restrict or impede my movements for anything except a major felony charge—'
Ethan could not tell if the bluster was feigned or real, Harman Dal or Ghem-colonel Millisor talking.
'The rights you cite are for transients versus Security,' said Helda sharply. 'A biocontrol emergency abrogates them all. Now step into the float pallet.'
Ethan and Quinn had been playing the part of goggling bystanders. About this time Rau's eye fell on them; a hand on his superior's arm stemmed the next argument. Millisor's head swivelled, and his mouth shut with a snap. There was something chilling about so much rage being so abruptly controlled. Not quenched, but banished from the surface, conserved for some future moment. Thought boiled in Millisor's eyes.
'Hey,' the Security man said, sticking his head into the recently evacuated room, 'there's a third guy in here. Tied to a chair, naked.'
'That's disgusting,' said Helda. She treated Millisor to a withering glare.
The glare failed its intended effect, bouncing off Millisor's furious introspection. Rau stirred nervously. His hand twitched toward his jacket, but both Millisor and Quinn shook their heads at him, each from their different perspective.
'He's bleeding,' said the Security man, advancing into the room and, with a glance back at Millisor and Rau, meditatively loosing his stunner in its holster.
'It's the nose,' called Helda. 'Always makes it look like a slaughter, but I guarantee you nobody ever died of a bloody nose.'
'My friend here is a doctor,' Quinn chirped, inserting herself into the group with a quick wriggle. 'Can we help?'
'Oh, yes,' called the Security man, sounding relieved.
Quinn grabbed Ethan by the hand and thrust him past her into the room, never taking her smiling gaze off Millisor and Rau. Her stunner had found its way into her other hand, somehow. The Security man glanced back at her and nodded gratefully. Helda grudgingly snapped on plastic gloves and followed to view the scene of debauch for herself.
Ethan approached Millisor's trussed prey anxiously. The Security man knelt beside the chair and poked tentatively at the wires binding Teki's ankles. They had cut through and his skin oozed blood. Teki's clothes were laid out on the bed in the familiar search array. Wires also bound his wrists, and the skin puffed up redly along their tight lines. Blood from his nose masked his lower face. Teki's head lolled, but his eyes were open and smiling, unnaturally bright. He giggled as the Security man touched his ankle. The Security man jumped back in startlement, eyed him with growing grimness, and pulled out his report panel with the air of a swordsman unsheathing his steel. 'I don't like the looks of this,' he stated.
Helda, coming up behind Ethan, stopped short. 'By all the gods! Teki! I always thought you were an idiot, but this goes beyond all—'
'I'm off-shift,' said Teki in a small dignified voice. 'I don't hafta put up with you off-shift, Helda.' He twitched against his bonds, starting a new trickle of blood across his feet.
Helda's voice stumbled to silence as she got a better view. But not for long. 'What is this?'
'Is he drugged, Doctor?' asked the Security man as Ethan knelt beside Teki. 'What with? Was this a, a private act that got out of hand, or something chargeable?' His thick fingers poised hopefully over his report panel.
'Drugged and tortured,' said Ethan shortly, opening Quinn's medkit. 'Kidnapped, too.' There was a vibra- scalpel; a touch, and the ankle wires parted with a ping.
'Raped?'
'I doubt it.'
Helda, closing in, turned her head at the sound of Ethan's voice and stared at him. 'You're no doctor,' she gasped. 'You're that moron from Docks and Locks again. My department wants a word with you!'
Teki yelped with laughter, causing Ethan to drop the sterile sponge he'd been applying to his ankle. 'Joke's on you, Helda! He really is a doctor.' He leaned toward Ethan, nearly tipping the chair, and confided conspiratorially, 'Don't let on you're an Athosian, or she'll pop an artery. She hates Athos.' He nodded happily, then, exhausted, let his head loll sideways again.
Helda recoiled. 'An Athosian? Is this some kind of joke?' She glared anew at Ethan.
Ethan, absorbed in his work, jerked his head at Teki. 'Ask him, he's the one full of truth serum.' Teki's pulse was racing, his extremities cold, but he was not quite shocky. Ethan released the wrists. Reassuringly, Teki did not fall over, but sat up on his own. 'But for your information, madam, I am indeed Dr. Ethan Urquhart of Athos. Ambassador Doctor Urquhart, on a special mission for the Population Council.'
He hadn't really expected to impress her, but to his surprise she drew back whitely. 'Oh?' she said in a neutral tone.
'Don't tell her that, Doc,' Teki urged anew. 'Ever since her son sneaked off to Athos nobody dares to mention the place. She can't even nag him longdistance there—their censorship guys send back any vids from a woman. She can't get at him at all.' Teki dissolved in giggles. 'I bet he's happy as a clam.'
Ethan cringed at the thought of getting drawn into some family squabble. The Security man looked equally dubious, but asked, 'How old was the boy?'
'Thirty-two,' Teki snickered.
'Oh.' The Security man lost interest.
'Do you possess an antidote to that—so-called truth serum, Doctor?' Helda inquired frostily. 'If so I suggest you administer it, and we'll sort the rest of this out down in Quarantine.'
Ethan slowed. His words fell from him one by one, like drops of cold honey. 'Where you possess dictatorial powers, and where you…' He looked up to catch her frigid, frightened eyes. Time stopped. 'You…'
Time sprang forward. 'Quinn!' Ethan bellowed.
At her prompt appearance, herding Millisor and Rau before her with jabs from her stunner, Ethan jumped to his feet. He felt like running around in tight circles, or tearing his hair out in great clumps, or grabbing her by her grey-and-white jacket and shaking her until her teeth rattled. His clenched hands beat the air. His words tumbled over one another in his excitement.
'I kept trying to tell you, but you never stopped to listen. Pretend you're the agent, or whatever, on Kline Station trying to grab Athos's shipment. You make an impromptu decision to replace the frozen tissues with substitute material. We know it's impromptu, because if it had been planned you could have brought real cultures with you and nobody would ever have known a switch had been made, right? Where, where, in God the Father's name even on Kline Station, are you going to come up with 450 human ovaries? Not even 450. Three hundred eighty-eight and six cows' ovaries. I don't think even you could pull 'em out of your jacket, Commander Quinn.'
Quinn opened her mouth, closed it, and looked extremely thoughtful. 'Go on, Doctor.'
Millisor had dropped his Harmon Dal act and, oblivious now to Quinn's stunner, stood with his attention rapt on Ethan. Rau watched his leader anxiously for some signal to action. The other ecotech looked bewildered; the Security man, although his eyebrows were up in equal puzzlement, was absorbing every word.
Ethan gabbled on. 'Forget the 426 suspect ships. Trace backwards from one ship, the census courier to Athos. Method, motive, and opportunity, by God! Who has ready access to every corner and cubbyhole on Kline Station, who could pass in and out of a guarded transfer warehouse with no question asked? Who has access to human cadavers every day? Cadavers from which a few grams of selected tissues will never be missed, because the
