Ethan of Athos (25 page)

“Ow, ow, all right, no problem!” yammered Quinn. “Your credit chit is in my right inner jacket pocket. Help yourselves.”

“And just where is your jacket?”

“Millisor took it off me. It's back in the docking bay. Ow, no, honest!”

There was a disgusted pause. “It could be the truth,” mused pink-silk.

“Docking bay's crawling with Station Security by now,” brown-silk pointed out. “It could be a trick.”

“Look, fellas, let's be reasonable about this, huh?” said Quinn. “Luigi's deal was half in advance and half on delivery. Now, I already took care of Okita. That's one-quarter right there.”

“We have only your word for that. / haven't seen a body,” said pink-silk.

“Finesse, Gen'ral, finesse.”

“Major,” pink-silk corrected automatically.

“And it was I who took out Setti in the docking bay just now. That's half. Seems to me we're even.”

“With our bomb,” said brown-silk.

“You gonna argue with results? Look, are we allies, or not?”

“Not,” said brown-silk, and elevated her slightly more.

Voices, and a clatter of boots and equipment, echoed down the corridor from the direction of the docking bay. Pink-silk shoved his plasma arc into a holster out of sight under his embroidered jacket. “Time's up.”

“Are you going to let this slide?” demanded brown-silk.

Pink-silk shrugged. “Call it even at half-pay. You right-handed or left-handed, Quinn?”

“Right-handed.”

“Take the Baron's interest out of her left arm, and let's go.”

Brown-silk, quite deliberately, let Quinn drop, achieved an arm-bar, and popped her left elbow. The muffled cartilaginous crack was quite audible. Quinn made no other sound. Again, Cee restrained Ethan's forward lurch. The pair of Bharaputrans stepped delicately into the nearest lift-tube, and sank from sight.

“Damn, I thought they'd never leave,” Quinn sighed. “The last thing I need is for Security to catch up with those guys and start comparing notes.” She slithered greenly to a seat on the floor, her back propped against the wall. “I want to go back to combat duty. I don't think I like this Intelligence stuff as well as Admiral Naismith said I would.”

Ethan cleared his throat. “You, ah -- need a doctor, Commander?”

She grinned wanly. “Yeah. Do you?”

“Yeah.” Ethan sat down rather heavily beside her. His ears still rang, and the chamber walls seemed to pulsate. He mulled over her comment. “This isn't by chance your first Intelligence assignment, is it?”

“Yep.”

“Just my luck.” The floor beckoned; never had friction plating looked so soft and inviting.

“Security's coming,” she observed. She glanced up at Cee, hovering in anxious but helpless solicitude. “What do you say we do them a favor, and simplify the scenario for them? Get gone, Mr. Cee. If you walk and don't run, those green coveralls will carry you right past 'em. Go to work or something.”

“I -- I...” Terrence Cee spread his hands. “What can I ever do to repay you? Either of you?”

She winked. “Never fear, I'll think of something. Meantime, I haven't seen any telepaths around here today. Have you, Doctor?”

“Not a one,” agreed Ethan blandly.

Terrence Cee shook his head in frustration, glanced up the corridor, and faded into the Up lift tube.

When Security finally arrived, they arrested Quinn.

Ethan stepped through the weapons detector without eliciting a beep or blink of false accusation, and breathed more easily. Kline Station Security Detention was a stark, intimidating environment, gleaming and efficient, without any of the usual Stationer attempts to soften the ambience with plants or artistic displays. The effect was doubtless designed; it certainly worked. Ethan felt guilty just visiting the Minimum Security block.

“Commander Quinn is in Number Two Detention Infirmary, Ambassador Urquhart,” the guard assigned to be his guide informed him. “This way, please.”

Up some lift tubes, down some corridors. Station We, Ethan decided, must exert powerful evolutionary pressures to develop a good sense of direction. Not to mention sensitivity to subtleties of status. Color blindness could prove a mortal handicap here. The Security uniforms, as all other work uniforms, were color coded, and furthermore the proportion of orange to black varied with rank. The ordinary guard wore orange picked out with black; he paused to give a snappy salute, casually returned, to a white-haired man whose sleek black uniform was barely highlighted with orange piping. One might study the entire Station hierarchy in nuances of hue.

Captain Arata, who was just now exiting the Infirmary as Ethan and his guide approached, wore mostly black, with broad orange bands on collar and sleeves and an orange stripe down his trouser legs. He also wore a frustrated frown.

“Ah, Ambassador Urquhart.” The frown was put away and replaced with a slightly ironic smile. “Come to visit our star boarder, have you? You needn't have troubled, she'll be a free woman shortly. Her credit check passed -- astonishingly enough -- her fines are paid, and she waits only for her medical release.”

“That's all right, Captain -- it's no trouble,” said Ethan. “I just wanted to ask her a question.”

“As did I,” sighed Arata. “Several. I trust you will have better luck getting answers. These past few weeks, when I wanted a date, all she wanted to do was trade information under the counter. Now I want information, and what do I get? A date.” He brightened slightly. “We will doubtless talk shop. If I worm any more out of her, maybe I'll be able to charge our night out to the department.” He nodded at Ethan; an inviting silence fell.

“Good luck,” said Ethan, cordially unhelpful. He had handled the Security post-mortem of yesterday's terrifying affair in the docking bay by climbing onto his ambassadorial status and referring all questions ruthlessly to the ever-inventive Quinn. She had stitched truth to lies to produce a fabulous beast of a story that nevertheless held up on every checkable point. In her version, for example, Millisor and Rau had been attempting to kidnap her, to program her as a double agent to penetrate the Dendarii Mercenaries for Cetagandan Intelligence. The Bharaputrans were accused of all the crimes they had in fact committed, and a few they hadn't -- Okita who? Most of Security's energies were now diverted to the Consulate where the Bharaputran hit squad was still holed up, negotiating the terms of their deportation. Terrence Cee had vanished utterly from the scenario. Ethan wouldn't have dared add or subtract a word.

“How unfortunate,” Arata murmured, permitting a little of the needle-sharpness to flash in his eyes, “that / require a court order to use fast-penta.”

Ethan smiled blandly. “Quite.” They bowed each other farewell.

The guard turned Ethan over to the infirmary doctor. Except for the coded locks on the doors, Quinn's cell might have been any hospital room. Any Stationer hospital room, that is. Ethan was beginning to miss openable windows, taken for granted on Athos, with a starved passion.

Not wishing to state his real mission straight off, Ethan began with that thought.

“How do you feel about windows that open?” he asked Quinn. “Downside, I mean.”

“Paranoid,” she answered promptly. “I keep looking around for things to seal them up with. Aren't you going to ask how I am?”

“You're fine,” Ethan said absently, “except for the dislocated elbow and the contusions. I asked the doctor. Oral analgesics and no violent exercise for a few days.”

In fact, she looked well. Her color was good, and her movements, except for the immobilized left arm, were only a little stiff. She sat up on, rather than in, her bed. She had escaped her patient gown, itself a uniform of sickness, and was back in her grey-and-whites, although minus the jacket and with slippers in place of boots.

“Suits me.” Her eyes crinkled. “And how do you feel about women now, Dr. Urquhart?”

“Oh --” he paused, “somewhat the way you feel about windows, I'm afraid. Did you ever get used to windows, or learn to enjoy them?”

“Rather. But then, I've been accused of being a thrill-seeker.” Her grin tilted. “I'll never forget my first trip Downside, after I'd signed on with the Dendarii Mercenaries -- the Oseran Mercenaries, they were back then, before Admiral Naismith took over. I'd dreamed all my life of experiencing a real planetary climate. Mountain mists, ocean breezes, that sort of thing. The directory said the planet's climate was 'temperate', which I took as a synonym for mild. We landed for emergency re-supply in the middle of a bloody blizzard. It was a year before I volunteered for Downside duty again.”

“I can imagine.” Ethan laughed, and relaxed a little, and sat down.

Her head tilted to match her smile. “Yes, so you can. One of your more surprising charms, coming from your background. Being able to make an effort of the imagination, that is, and see through a different person's eyes.”

Ethan shrugged, embarrassed. “I've always liked learning new things, finding out how things work. Molecular biology was the best. Curiosity is not a theological virtue, though.”

“Mm, true. Are there carnal virtues?”

Ethan puzzled over this unusual thought. “I -- don't know. It seems like there ought to be. Perhaps they're called something else. I'm sure there are no new virtues under the sun -- or new vices, either.” Before Quinn could point out that they were under no sun -- for surely the distant cinder Kline Station orbited could not be so called -- Ethan hurried on. “Speaking of things carnal -- I, uh -- that is, before you go back to the Dendarii Mercenaries, I wanted to ask you if -- um -- I have what you may think a rather unusual request. If it doesn't offend you?” he inquired nervously.

He had her entire attention, her head cocked, eyes bright, a smile pressed out straight. “Before you say what it is, how can I tell? But I believe I've heard it all, so go on, by all means.”

He was closer to the door than she; besides, she had one hand tied behind her back, so to speak, and there was a guard outside to defend him. How much trouble could he possibly get into? He took a breath.

“I plan to go on to complete my mission of collecting new ovarian cultures for Athos. Probably to Beta Colony, as you recommended, and the government gene repository that stocks the donations from its outstanding citizens -- their seed catalog sounded quite attractive.”

She nodded judicious approval, her eyes full of amused expectation.

“However,” Ethan went on, “there's no reason I can't begin now. Speaking of outstanding or, um, extraordinary sources. What I mean is, um -- would you care to donate an ovary to Athos, Commander Quinn?”

There was a moment's dumbfounded silence. “By the gods,” she said in a rather weak voice, “I hadn't heard it all.”

“The operation is quite painless,” Ethan assured her earnestly. “Kline Station has quite nice tissue culturing facilities, too -- I've spent the morning checking them out. It's not a common request, but it's quite within their capabilities. And you did say you'd help me with my mission if I helped you with yours.”

“I did? Oh. So I did...”

An anxious new thought struck Ethan. “You do have one to spare, don't you? I'd understood women all had two ovaries, in analogue to male testes. You haven't donated before, or had an accident -- combat or something -- I'm not asking for your only one, am I

“No, I'm still fully equipped with all my original parts.” She laughed; Ethan was subtly reassured. “I was just a little taken aback. That -- that wasn't the proposition I was expecting, is all. Excuse me. I fear I am become incurably low-minded.”

“You can't help that, I'm sure,” Ethan said tolerantly. “Being female, and all that.”

She opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head. “Not touching that one with a stick,” she muttered cryptically. “Well,” she took a breath, let it run out, “well...” She cocked her head at him. “And just who would make use of my, urn, donation?”

“Anyone who chose,” Ethan answered. “In time, the culture would be divided and a subculture placed on file in each Reproduction Center on Athos. This time next year, you could have a hundred sons. As soon as I get my designated alternate problems straightened out, I rather fancied -- I, uh --” Ethan found himself turning inexplicably red under her level gaze, “I rather fancied having all my sons from the same culture, you see. I'll have earned four sons altogether by then. I never had a double-brother, from the same culture as me. The practice seems to give a family a certain attractive unity. Diversity in unity, as it were...” He became conscious that he was babbling, and ran down.

“A hundred sons,” she mused. “But no daughters?”

“Well -- no. No daughters. Not on Athos.” He added timidly, “Are daughters as important to a woman as sons are to a man?”

“There is a certain -- ease, in the thought,” she admitted. “There is no room for either daughters or sons in my line of work, however.”

“Well, there you are.”

“Well. There I am.” The semi-permanent amusement lurking in her eyes had given way to a meditative seriousness. “I could never see them, could I? My hundred sons. They would never know who I was.”

“Only a culture number. EQ-1. I -- I might be able to push my Clearance Level A censorship status far enough to, say, send you a holocube someday, if -- if that's something you would like. You could never come to Athos, nor send a message -- at least, not under your own identity. You might fudge your sex, and get it past the censors that way...” He'd been associating with Quinn and her rough-and-ready approach to authority too long, Ethan reflected, upon the ease with which this anti-social suggestion fell from his lips. He cleared his throat.