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point?"
He felt he ought to argue with her. But he was sick and weak and, it also
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occurred to him, still very high in the air. Green vertigo plucked at him. If
she decided to send him after Okita . . . "Yeah," he mumbled. "Uh, what what
are you going to do with me?"
She planted her hands on her hips and frowned thoughtfully down upon him. "Not
sure yet. Don't know if you're an ace or a joker. I think I'll keep you up my
sleeve for a while, until I can figure out how best to play you. With your
permission," she added in palpable afterthought.
"Stalking-goat," he muttered darkly.
She quirked an eyebrow at him. "Perhaps. If you can think of a better idea,
trot it out."
He shook his head, which made shooting pains ricochet around inside his skull
and yellow pinwheels counter-rotate before his eyes. At least she didn't seem
to be on the same side as his recent captors. The enemy of my enemy my ally. .
. ?
She hoisted him to his feet and pulled his arm across her shoulders to thread
their way down stairs and ladders to the docking bay floor. He noticed for the
first time that she was several centimeters shorter than himself. But he had
no inclination to spot her points in a free-for-all.
When she released him he sank to the deck in a dizzy stupor. She poked around
Okita's body, checking pulse points and damages. Her lips thinned ironically.
"Huh. Broken neck." She sighed, and stood regarding the corpse and Ethan with
much the same narrow calculation.
"We could just leave him here," she said. "But I rather fancy giving Colonel
Millisor a mystery of his own to solve. I'm tired of being on the damn
defensive, lying low, always one move behind. Have you ever given thought to
the difficulty of getting rid of a body on a space station? I'll bet Millisor
has. Bodies don't bother you, do they? What with your being a doctor and all,
I mean."
Okita's fixed stare was exactly like that of a dead fish, glassily
reproachful. Ethan swallowed. "I actually never cared much for that end of the
life-cycle," he explained. "Pathology and anatomy and so forth. That's why I
went for Rep work, I guess. It was more, um . . . hopeful." He paused a while.
His intellect began to crunch on in spite of himself. "Is it hard to get rid
of a body on a space station? Can't you just shove it out the nearest airlock,
or down an unused lift tube, or something?"
Her eyes were bright with stimulation. "The airlocks are all monitored. Taking
anything out, even an anonymous bundle, leaves a record in the computers. And
it would last forever out there. Same objection applies to chopping it up and
putting it down an organics disposer. Eighty or so kilos of high-grade protein
leaves too big a blip in the records. Besides, it's been tried. Very famous
murder case, a few years back. The lady's still in therapy, I believe. It
would definitely be noticed."
She flopped down beside him to sit with her chin on her knees, arms wrapped
around her boots and flexing, not rest but nervous energy contained. "As for
stashing it whole anywhere inside the Station well, the safety patrols are
nothing compared to the ecology cops. There isn't a cubic centimeter of the
Station that doesn't get checked on a regular schedule. You could keep moving
it around, but . . .
"I think I have a better idea. Yes. Why not? As long as I'm going to commit a
crime, let it be a perfect one. Anything worth doing is worth doing well, as
Admiral Naismith would say . . ."
She rose to make a wandering circuit of the docking bay, selecting bits of
equipment with the faintly distracted air of a housekeeper choosing vegetables
at the market.
Ethan lay on the floor in misery, envying Okita, whose troubles were over. He
had been on Kline Station, he estimated, just about a day, and had yet to have
his first meal. Beaten up, kidnapped, drugged, nearly murdered, and now
rapidly becoming accessory-after-the-fact to a crime which if not exactly a
murder was surely the next best thing. Galactic life was every bit as bad as
anything he had imagined. And he had fallen into the hands of a madwoman, to
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boot. The Founding Fathers had been right. . . . "I want to go home," he
moaned.
"Now, now," Commander Quinn chided, plunking down a float pallet next to
Okita's body and rolling a squat cylindrical shipping canister off it. "That's
no way to be, just when my case is showing signs of cracking open at last. You
just need a good meal," she glanced at him, "and about a week in a hospital
bed. Afraid I shan't be able to supply that, but as soon as I finish cleaning
up here I will take you to a place you can rest a bit while I get the next
phase started. All right?"
She unlatched the shipping canister and, with some difficulty, folded Okita's
body into it. "There. That doesn't look too coffin-like, does it?" She made a
rapid but thorough pass over the impact area with a sonic scrubber, emptied
its receptacle bag in with Okita, hopped the canister back onto the pallet
with a hand-tractor, and replaced everything else where she had found it.
Lastly, and somewhat mournfully, she collected all the pieces of her stunner.
"So. That gives the project its first deadline. Pallet and drum must be
returned here within eight hours, before the next scheduled docking, or
they'll be missed."
"Who were those men?" he asked her, as she had him crawl onto the pallet and
settle himself for the ride. "They were insane. I mean, everyone I've met here
is crazy, but they they were talking about bombing Athos's reproduction
clinics! Killing all the babies maybe killing everyone!"
"Oh?" she said. "That's a new wrinkle. First I've heard of that scenario. I am
extremely sorry I didn't get to listen in on that interrogation, and I hope
you will, ah, fill me in on what I missed. I've been trying to plant a bug in
Millisor's quarters for three weeks, but his counter-intelligence equipment
is, unfortunately, superb." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]