Ethan of Athos

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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 life, 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 I 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, um, 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.

Her eyes glinted, amusement rampant again. "What a positively revolutionary idea."

"You know I'm not a revolutionary," Ethan replied with some dignity. He paused. "Although—I'm afraid home is going to look a little different, when I go back. I don't want to change out of all fit."

She glanced around the room, and by implication beyond its walls to the surrounding Station, her former home. "Your instincts are sound, sir, although I suspect futile. Change is a function of time and experience, and time is implacable."

"An ovarian culture can defeat time for 200 years—maybe longer now, as we refine our methods of caring for them. You could be having children long after your own death."

"I could have been dead yesterday. I could be dead this time next month, for that matter. Or this time next year."

"That's true of anybody."

"Yeah, but my odds are about six times worse than average. My insurance has it calculated to the third decimal place, y'know." She sighed. "Well. Here we are." Her lips curved. "And I thought Tav Arata was cheeky. Dr. Urquhart, you've topped them all."

Ethan's shoulders slumped with disappointment, as he saw his imagined string of dark-haired sons with mirror-bright eyes fading back into the realm of ungraspable dream. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to give offense. I'll go." He began to rise.

"You give up too easily," she remarked to the air.

He sat back down hastily. His hands clasped each other between his knees, to keep his fingers from nervous drumming. He searched his mind for suppliction. "The boys would be excellently cared for. Certainly mine would be. We screen our paternal applicants very carefully. A man who does not live up to his trust may have his sons repossessed, a shame and disgrace all strive to avoid."

"What's in it for me, though?"

Ethan thought this over carefully. "Nothing," he had to admit honestly at last. He had a sudden impulse to offer her money—a mercenary, after all—no. That felt all wrong, somehow, he could not say why. He slumped again.

"Nothing." She shook her head ruefully. "What woman could resist that appeal? Did I ever tell you that one of my other hobbies was banging my head against brick walls?"

He glanced at her forehead, startled, then realized this was a joke.

She nibbled her last unbitten fingernail, without biting through. "You sure Athos can take a hundred little Quinns?"

"More than that, in time. It might liven the place up…. Perhaps it would improve our military."

Quinn looked bemused indeed. "What can I say? Dr. Urquhart, you're on. "

Ethan lit with joy.

Ethan met Quinn by pre-arrangement at a cafe in a small arcade near the Stationer edge of Transients' Lounge. She had arrived before him, and sat sipping something blue from a small stemmed glass, which she lifted to him in toast as he threaded the tables toward her.

"How are you feeling?" he asked as he sat down beside her.

She rubbed the right side of her abdomen pensively. "Fine. You were quite correct, I didn't feel a thing. Still don't. Not even a scar to show for my charity." She sounded faintly disappointed.

"The ovary took the culturing treatment just fine," he assured her. "The cells are dividing nicely. It will be ready for freezing for transport in 48 hours. And then, I guess, I'm off to Beta Colony. When will you be leaving?" A faint speculation—hope?—that they might possibly be travelling on the same ship crossed his mind.

"I'm leaving tonight. Before I get into any more trouble with the Station authorities," she replied, dashing Ethan's nascent scenario of further conversations. He never had had time to ask her about all the planets she had undoubtedly seen in her military pilgrimages. "I also want to be long, long gone before any Cetagandan follow-up on Millisor's death arrives. Though it seems they are going to get directed back to Jackson's Whole—I wish them all joy of each other." She stretched, and grinned, like a cat full of bird after a successful hunt and picking a few feathers from its teeth.

"I'd just as soon avoid meeting any more Cetagandans myself," said Ethan. "If I can."

"Shouldn't be too difficult. For your peace of mind, I might mention that before his death Ghem-colonel Millisor managed to send off a confirmation of Helda's destruction of the Bharaputran cultures to his superiors. I doubt the Cetagandans will show any further interest in Athos. Although Mr. Cee is another matter, since the same report also confirmed his presence here on Kline Station.

"But I've got a stack of reports myself that will give Admiral Naismith something to meditate on for months. I'm glad I don't have to decide what to do with it all. I lack but one item to make his day complete—and here it comes, I trust, now." She nodded past Ethan's shoulder, and he turned in his seat.

Terrence Cee was making his way toward them. His green Stationer coveralls were inconspicuous enough, although his wiry blond intensity turned an older female head or two, Ethan noted.

He sat down with them, nodding at Quinn, smiling briefly at Ethan. "Good afternoon, Commander, Doctor."

Quinn smiled back. "Good afternoon, Mr. Cee. Can I buy you a drink? Burgundy, sherry, champagne, beer…"

"Tea," said Cee. "Just tea."

Quinn put the order on her credit card in the table's auto-waiter. The Station, it seemed, did not import all comforts. The real thing—a pleasant aromatic black variety grown and processed on Kline Station—appeared promptly, steaming in a transparent mug. Ethan ordered some too, the business hiding the little discomfort Cee's presence induced in him. The telepath could have no further interest in Athos now either.

Cee sipped; Quinn sipped. "Well," Quinn said. "Did you bring it?"

Cee nodded, sipped again, and laid three thin data discs and an insulated box perhaps half the size of Ethan's hand upon the table. They all disappeared into Quinn's jacket. At Ethan's look of inquiry, Quinn shrugged, "We all trade in flesh here, it seems," by which Ethan understood the box contained the promised tissue sample from the telepath.

"I thought Terrence was going back to the Dendarii Mercenaries with you, " said Ethan, surprised.

"I've tried to talk him into it—by the way, the offer remains open, Mr. Cee."

Terrence Cee shook his head. "When Millisor was breathing down my neck, it seemed the only exit. You've given me a little space to make a choice, Commander Quinn—for which I thank you." A movement of his finger toward the packets secreted in her jacket indicated the tangible form of his thanks.

"I am too kind," Quinn sighed wryly. "If you change your mind later, you can still look us up, you know. Look for a heap of trouble with a squiggly-minded little man on top of it, and tell him Quinn sent you. He'll take you in."

"I'll remember," Cee promised noncommittally.

"Ah, well—I won't be travelling alone." Quinn smiled smugly. "I scrounged up another recruit to keep me company on the trip back. Interesting fellow—a migrant worker. He's knocked around all over the galaxy. You should meet him, Mr. Cee. He's about your height—skinny—blond, too." She lifted her stemmed glass in toast, and tossed off the rest of her blue drink. "Confusion to the enemy."

"Thank you, Commander," Cee said sincerely.

"Where, ah—were you thinking of going now, if not the Dendarii Mercenaries?" Ethan asked him.

Cee spread his hands. "There are a multitude of choices. Too many, really, and all about equally meaningless … excuse me." He remembered to feign good cheer. "Some direction away from Cetaganda." He nodded toward Quinn's left jacket pocket. "I trust you won't have any trouble smuggling that package out. It should go into a proper freeze-box as soon as possible. A very small one, maybe. It might be better if a freeze-box does not appear on your luggage manifest."

She smiled slowly, scratching one tooth—her fingernails were all neatly filed down again—and murmured, "A very small one, or—hm. I think I may have an ideal solution to that little problem, Mr. Cee."

Ethan watched with interest as Quinn dropped the enormous white freezer transport box down upon the counter of Cold Storage Access 297-C. It banged, startling the attention of the counter girl dreaming over a holovid drama. The figures of the girl's private play vanished in smoke, and she hastily removed an audio plug from her ear.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"I've come for my newts," said Quinn. She reached around and shoved her thumb-printed authorization into the read-slot in the counter's computer.

"Oh, yes, I remember you," said the girl. "A cubic meter in plastic. Do you want it quick-thawed?"

"Don't want it thawed at all, I'm shipping them frozen, thanks," said Quinn. "Eighty kilos of newts would be a little icky after four weeks' travel warm, I fear."

The girl wrinkled her nose. "I think they're icky at any temperature."

"I assure you, they will be appreciated in direct ratio to their distance from their source," Quinn grinned.

The corridor doors hissed open behind them. Ethan and Terrence Cee stepped out of the way as a float pallet entered piloted by a green-and-blue uniformed ecotech and bearing half-a-dozen small sealed canisters.

"Oh, oh, priority," said the counter girl. "Excuse me, ma'am."

Ethan recognized the ecotech with a pleasant start; it was Teki, presumably from his work station just around the corner. Teki recognized Quinn and Ethan at the same moment. Cee, not known to the ecotech, didn't register, and stepped smoothly into the background.

"Ah, Teki!" said Quinn. "I was just about to step around and say goodbye. You're fully recovered from your little adventure of last week, I trust?"

Teki snorted. "Yeah, getting kidnapped and worked over by a gang of homicidal lunatics is my idea of a real fun time, sure. Thanks."

Quinn's mouth quirked. "Has Sara forgiven you for standing her up?"

Teki's eyes twinkled, and he foiled to suppress a slow smirk. "Well, yes—once she was finally convinced it wasn't a put-on, she got real, um, sympathetic." He attempted sternness. "But damn, I knew it had to be something for the dwarf! You can tell me now, can't you Elli?"

"Sure. Just as soon as it gets declassified."

Teki groaned. "Not fair! You promised!"

She shrugged, helpless. He frowned grudgingly, then, palpably, let the grudge go: "Goodbye? You leaving soon?"

"In a few hours."

"Oh." Teki looked genuinely disappointed. He glanced at Ethan. "Afternoon, Mr. Ambassador. Say, I'm, uh—sorry about what Helda did to your stuff. Hope you won't take it as representative of our department. She's on medical leave—they're calling it a nervous breakdown. I'm acting head of Assimilation Station B now," he added with a bit of shy pride. He held out a green sleeve for inspection, circled by two blue bands in place of. his previous one. "At least till she gets back." On closer look, Ethan found the second band to be but lightly tacked in place.

"It's all right," said Ethan. "You stitch that armband on good and tight—I'm assured her medical leave will be permanent."

"Oh, yeah?" Teki brightened still more. "Look, let me throw this shit out—" he gestured to the little canisters on his float pallet, "and I'll be with you—you all can come around to Station B for a couple of minutes, can't you?"

"Only a couple," warned Quinn. "I can't stay long, if I'm to make my ship."

Teki waved in a gesture of understanding. "Come on back," he invited, maneuvering his float pallet past the counter and through the airseal doors behind them that the counter girl had keyed open for him.

"Gotta wait for my stuff," Quinn excused herself, but Ethan, curious, trailed along. Cee drifted behind, inconspicuous and quiet, a lonely figure still, odd man out. Ethan smiled over his shoulder, trying to include him in the group.

"So tell me more about Helda," said Teki to Ethan. "Is it really true she mailed all that stolen tissue to Athos?"

Ethan nodded. "I'm still not sure what she hoped to accomplish. I don't think she even knew. Maybe it was just to have something in the shipping cartons to pass casual inspection—I mean, empty boxes would show obvious tampering. She managed to create a mystery almost in spite of herself."

Teki shook his head, as if still unable to believe it all.

"What is all this?" Ethan gestured toward the float pallet.

"Samples, of some contaminated stuff we confiscated and destroyed today—they go into cold storage, for proof later in case of lawsuits, of further outbreaks, or whatever."

They entered a chill white room featuring quantities of robotic equipment and an airlock; a chamber on the very skin of the Station, Ethan realized.

Teki tapped instructions rapidly into a control console, inserted a data disc, placed the canister into a high-tensile-strength plastic bag with a coded label, and attached the bag to a robotic device. The device rose and floated into the airlock, which hissed shut and began to cycle.

Teki touched a control on the wall, and a panel slid back, revealing a small transparent barrier like the great ones in Transients' Lounge. Crowding projections of bits of the Station blocked most of the spectacular galactic view. It was the Station equivalent of a back alley, Ethan decided, except that it was brightly lit. Teki watched carefully as the robot exited the airlock and floated through the vacuum across a long grid of metal columns all tethered about with bags and boxes.

"It's like the universe's biggest closet," mused Teki. "Our own private storage locker. We really ought to clean house and destroy all the really old stuff that was thrown out there in Year One, but it's not like running out of room. Still, if I'm going to be an Assimilation Station head, I could organize something … responsibility … no more playing around…"

The ecotech's words became a buzzing drone in his ears as Ethan's attention was riveted on a collection of transparent plastic bags tethered a short way down the grid. Each bag seemed to contain a jumble of little white boxes of a familiar type. He had seen just such a little box readied for Quinn's donation at a Station biolab that morning. How many boxes? Hard to see, hard to count. More than twenty, surely. More than thirty. He could count the bags that contained them, though; there were nine.

"Thrown out," he whispered. "Thrown—out?"

The robot reached the end of a column and attached its burden thereto. Teki's attention was all on the working device; he moved off to monitor it as it cycled back through the airlock. Ethan reached back, grabbed Cee by the arm, bundled him forward, and pointed silently out the window.

Cee looked annoyed, then looked again. He stiffened, his lips parting. He stared as if his eyes might devour the distance, and the barrier. The telepath began to swear under his breath, so softly that Ethan could hardly make out the words; his hands clenched, unclenched, and splayed against the transparency.

Ethan gripped Cee's arm harder. "Is it them?" he whispered. "Could it be?"

"I can make out the Bharaputra House logo on the labels," breathed Cee. "I saw them packed."

"She must have put them out here herself," muttered Ethan. "Left no record in the computer—I bet a search would list that bin as empty. She threw them out. She really literally did throw them out. Out there."

"Could they still be all right?" asked Cee.

"Stone frozen—why not… ?"

They stared at each other, wild in surmise.

"We've got to tell Quinn," Ethan began.

Cee's hands clamped down over Ethan's wrists. "No!" he hissed. "She has hers. Janine—those are mine."

"Or Athos's."

"No." Cee was trembling white, his eyes blazing like blue pinwheels. "Mine."

"The two," said Ethan carefully, "need not be mutually exclusive."

In the loaded silence that followed, Cee's face flared in an exaltation of hope.