Ethan of Athos b-6

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Ethan's red went to scarlet. He felt transparent as glass.

  Quinn, watching him, emitted a sour chuckle of perfect understanding. "I predict your talent will not make you popular at parties, Cee."

  Cee appeared to pull himself back on track by force of will. Ethan was relieved.

  "If you can give me asylum, Dr. Urquhart, why not Janine's seed as well? And if you can't protect her, how do you figure to…"

  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 ho
lster, now refilled with a shiny lightweight civilian model. "Ah." Ethan, jolted by the thought of Quinn having a father, struggled to pay attention.

  Quinn's eyes snapped up to the girl in the vid. Her voice became lower in register, with a clipped hard edge. This one, Ethan thought involuntarily, really has commanded in combat. "Have you called Station Security?"

  "Station Security!" The girl recoiled. "Elli, what for?"

  "Call them now, and tell them everything you've told me. File a missing person report on Teki."

  "For a fellow who's late for a date? Elli, they'll laugh at me. You're laughing at me, aren't you?" she said uncertainly.

  "I'm dead serious. Ask to speak with Captain Arata. Tell him Commander Quinn sent you. He won't laugh."

  "But Elli—"

  "Do it now! I have to go. I'll check back with you as soon as I can."

  The girl's image dissolved in sparkling snow. Invective hissed under Quinn's breath.

  "What's going on?" asked Cee, emerging from the bathroom fastening the wrists of his green coveralls.

  "I think Millisor has picked up Teki for questioning," said Quinn. "In which case my cover has just gone up in smoke. Damn it! There was no logical reason for Millisor to do that! Is he thinking with his gonads now? That's not like him."

  "The logic of desperation, maybe," said Cee. "He was very upset by the disappearance of Okita. Even more upset by Dr. Urquhart's reappearance. He, um—had some very strange theories about Dr. Urquhart."

  "On the basis of which," said Ethan, "you went to a great deal of trouble to find me. I'm sorry I'm not the super-agent you were expecting."

  Cee gave him a rather odd look. "Don't be."

  "I meant to push Millisor off-balance." Quinn bit through a fingernail with an audible snap. "But not that far off. I gave them no reason to take Teki. Or I wouldn't have, if he'd done what I told him and turned around immediately—I knew better than to involve a non-professional. Why didn't I listen to myself? Poor Teki won't know what hit him."

  "You didn't have any such scruples about involving me," remarked Ethan, miffed.

  "You were involved already. And besides, I didn't use to baby-sit you when you were a toddler. And besides…" she paused, shooting him a look strangely akin to the one Cee had just given him, "you underestimate yourself," she finished.

  "Where are you going?" asked Ethan in alarm as she stalked toward the door.

  "I'm going to—" she began determinedly. Her hand, reaching for the door control, hesitated and fell back. "I'm going to think this through."

  She turned and began to pace. "Why are they holding him so long?" she asked. Ethan was not quite sure if the question was addressed to him, Cee, or the air. "They could've drained him of everything he knew in fifteen minutes. Let him wake up on a tube car thinking he'd dozed off on the way home, and no one the wiser, not even me."

  "They found out everything I knew in fifteen minutes," Ethan pointed out, "but that didn't stop them."

  "Yes, but their suspicions were aroused, sorry, you were quite right, by finding my bug on you. I deliberately put nothing on Teki so that couldn't happen again. Besides, they can check Teki in Kline Station records back to his conception. You were a man without a past, or at least with an inaccessible one, leaving lots of room for paranoid fantasies to grow."

  "As a result of which it took them seven hours to convince themselves they were right the first time," said Ethan.

  Cee spoke. "And since Okita's disappearance they think you are an agent who successfully resisted seven hours of interrogation. They may be even less willing to take 'I don't know' for an answer now."

  "In that case," said Quinn grimly, "the sooner I get Teki out of there the better."

  "Excuse me," said Ethan, "but out of where?"

  "Odds are, Millisor's quarters. Where you were questioned. Their quiet room, the one I've never been able to bug." She ran her hands through her hair wildly. "How the hell am I going to do this? A frontal assault on a defended cube in the middle of a pack of innocent civilians in the delicate mechanical environment of a space station… ? Doesn't sound too efficient."

  "How did you rescue Dr. Urquhart?" asked Cee.

  "I waited—patiently—for him to come out. I waited a long time for the best opportunity."

  "Quite a long time, yes," Ethan agreed cordially. They exchanged tight smiles.

  She paced back and forth like a frenzied tigress. "I'm being stampeded. I know I am. I can feel it. Millisor is reaching out for me through Teki. And Millisor's a man with no inhibitions about applying leverage. Q. E. D.—Quinn Eats Dirt. Gods. Don't panic, Quinn. What would Admiral Naismith do in the same situation?" She stood still, facing the wall.

  Ethan envisioned diving Dendarii starfighters, waves of space-armored assault troops, ominous lumbering high-energy weapons platforms jockeying for position.

  "Never do yourself," muttered Quinn, "what you can con an expert into doing for you. That's what he'd say. Tactical judo from the space magician himself." Her straight back held the dynamism of zen meditation. When she turned her face was radiant with jubilation. "Yes, that's exactly what he'd do! Sneaky little dwarf, I love you!" She saluted an invisible presence and dove for the comconsole.

  Cee glanced dismayed inquiry at Ethan, who shrugged helplessly.

  The image of an alert-looking clerk in pine green and sky blue materialized above the vid plate. "Ecobranch Epidemiology Hotline. May I help you?" the clerk intoned politely.

  "I'd like to report a suspected disease vector," said Quinn in her most brusque, no-nonsense manner.

  The clerk arranged a report panel at her elbow, poised her fingers over it. "Human or animal?"

  "Human."

  "Transient or Stationer?"

  "Transient. But he may even now be transmitting it to a Stationer."

  The clerk looked even more seriously interested. "And the disease?"

  "Alpha-S-D-plasmid-3."

  The clerk's tapping hand paused. "Alpha-S-D-plasmid-2 is a sexually transmitted soft tissue necrosis that originated on Varusa Tertius. Is that what you mean?"

  Quinn shook her head. "This is a new and much more virulent mutant strain of Varusan Crotch-rot. They haven't even bioengineered the counter-virus last I heard. Hadn't you people heard of it yet? You're fortunate."

  The clerk's eyebrows rose. "No, ma'am." She tapped furiously, and made several adjustments to her recording equipment. "And the name of the suspected vector?"

  "Ghem-lord Harman Dal, a Cetagandan art and artifacts broker. He has a new agency in Transients' Lounge, just licensed a few weeks ago. He comes in contact with a lot of people."

  Harman Dal, Ethan gathered, was Millisor's alias.

  "Oh, dear," said the clerk. "We're certainly glad to get this report. Ah…" the clerk paused, groping for phrasing. "And how did you come to know about this individual's disease?"

  Quinn's stern gaze broke from the clerk's face to her own feet, to distant corners of the room, to her twisting hands. She positively shuffled. She'd have blushed if she'd had a chance to hold her breath long enough. "How would you think?" she muttered to her belt buckle.

  "Oh." The clerk did blush. "Oh. Well, in that case we are extremely grateful that you chose to come forward. I assure you all such epidemiological matters are handled in the strictest confidence. You must see one of our own quarantine physicians at once—"

  "Absolutely," agreed Quinn, feigning nervous eagerness. "Can I come down now? But—but I'm terribly afraid that if you don't hurry, Dal is going to put three patients on your hands instead of just two. '

  "I assure you, ma'am, our department is adept at handling delicate situations. Please place your ID so the machine can read it—"

  Quinn did so, promised again to report directly to Quarantine, was reassured of anonymity and gratitude, and broke off.

  "There, Teki," she sighed. "Help is on the way. I've signed my real name to a criminal act, but the price was right."

  "Being sick is against t
he law here?" asked Ethan in startlement.

  "No, but lodging a false report of a disease vector definitely is. When you see all the machinery it sets in motion you'll realize why they discourage practical jokers. But I'd rather face criminal charges than plasma fire any day. I'll put the fine on my expense account."

  Cee's face bore awed delight. "Will Admiral Naismith approve?"

  "He may give me a medal." Quinn winked at him, cheerful again. "Now. Ecobranch may get more resistance from their new patient than they expect. Best they get a little low-profile back-up, eh? Can you handle a stunner, Mr. Cee?"

  "Yes, Commander."

  Ethan waved a hesitant hand. "I had Athosian Army basic training," he heard himself volunteering insanely.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  In the event, it was Ethan and not Cee whom Quinn chose to accompany her person on what she dubbed "the second wave of this assault." She left the telepath stationed by the lift tubes at the end of Millisor's transient hostel corridor, arming him with the second stunner of her matching pair.

  "Stay out of sight and pick off anybody who bolts," she instructed him, "and don't be shy about firing. With a stunner you can always apologize for mistakes later."

  Ethan lifted an eyebrow at this as he turned to pace her down the corridor.

  "All right, almost always," she muttered, glancing back over her shoulder to check Cee's concealment in the confusion of potted plants, mirrors, and angled conversation niches that formed the decor of the lift tube foyer. Millisor's chosen hostel was clearly meant for a class of traveler beyond Ethan's budget.

  About this time Ethan realized a fatal flaw in the attack plan. "You didn't give me a stunner," he whispered urgently to Quinn.

  "I only had two," she murmured back impatiently. "Here. Take my medkit. You can be the medic."

  "What am I supposed to do, hit Rau over the head with it?"

  She grinned briefly. "If you get the chance, sure. Meantime Teki's going to be needing an antidote to whatever they've pumped him full of. You'll probably be wanting the fast-penta antagonist. It's right in there next to the fast-penta. Unless things have gone really ugly, in which case I leave it up to your medical expertise."