Ethan wondered if that should be understood as Humanity = Cetaganda.
"—a virus of a man, who would make the whole universe over in his twisted image. Surely you of all men understand that lethal contagions demand vigorous counter-measures. But ours is the controlled violence of surgery. You must not swallow the virus's propaganda. We are not the butchers he would have you believe us to be."
Millisor's hands turned in their restraints, opened in pleading. "Help us. You must help us."
Ethan stared at Millisor's bonds, shaken. "I'm sorry …" God the Father, was he actually apologizing to Millisor? "No, Colonel. I remember Okita. I can understand a man being a killer, I think. But a bored killer?"
"Okita is only a tool. The surgeon's knife."
"Then your service has turned a man into a thing." An old quote drifted through Ethan's memory: By their fruits you shall know them…
Millisor's eyes narrowed; he did not pursue the argument, but rather, with a glance at Arata, inquired, "And just what did you do to Sergeant Okita, Dr. Urquhart?"
Ethan glanced at Arata too, sorry he'd brought up the subject. "I didn't do anything to him. Maybe he met with an accident. Or perhaps he deserted." Or considering Okita's ultimate fete, perhaps "desserted" might be the better term… Ethan squelched that line of thought. "In any case, I can't help you. Even if I wanted to betray Cee to you—if that's what you're asking me to do—I really don't know where he is.
"Or where he is headed?" said Millisor suggestively.
Ethan shook his head. "Anywhere, for all I know. Anywhere but Athos, that is."
"Alas, yes," murmured Millisor. "Before, Cee was tied to that shipment. If I had the one, I had a string to the other. Now that the shipment is destroyed, a very poor second choice to our recovering it, he is entirely unleashed. Anywhere," Millisor sighed. "Anywhere…"
The ghem-colonel, Ethan reminded himself firmly, was the one who was tied down. He had his feet under him; it was up to him to end this interview before the smooth spy plucked any more information from him.
Ethan paused in his strategic retreat out the door. "I will leave you with one last thought, though, Colonel. If you had made that pitch to me when we first met, instead of doing what you did, you might have convinced me, and had it all."
Millisor's hands clenched and jerked against their bonds at last.
And so Ethan returned to his own hostel room, rented his first day on Kline Station and never occupied since. He thanked his spotty luck that he had paid for it in advance, for his personal effects were all as he had left them. He bathed, shaved, trimmed, changed back in to his own clothes at last, and ate a light meal from the room service console.
He sighed over his coffee. Pushing two weeks—he would have to look up the date, having lost track—expended on this adventure, as Quinn's stalking-goat, as Millisor's moving target, Cee's pawn, anybody's ping pong ball, and what did he have to show for it? An education? Once he returned his red coveralls and boots, he would have no more tangible souvenir than the learning. He got out his credit chit and regarded it. Quinn's microscopic bug was presumably still on it somewhere. If he shouted into it, might he cause a feedback squeal in her left ear? But she was gone, with no word of farewell. Anyhow, people who talked to their credit cards would doubtless make their neighbors uneasy, even on Kline Station.
He lay down wearily, only to find his nerves still too strung up to allow sleep. Was it day, or night? On Kline Station, who could say? He wasn't sure if he missed Athos's diurnal rhythm or its weather more. He wanted rain, or a brisk polar front to blow the cobwebs out of his brains. He could turn up the air conditioning, but it would still smell the same.
After nearly an hour spent comparing all the things he should have said and done this last fortnight with the actual events, he gave up in disgust, dressed, and went out. If sleep was to elude him, he might at least be doing something useful with his time. Athos was paying an ungodly enough sum for it.
He strolled back to the Transients' Lounge level where the embassies and consuls were concentrated and began doing some serious shopping for legitimate biological supply houses. Most of the more technically advanced planets offered something. Beta Colony offered nineteen separate sources, from purely commercial ventures to a government-sponsored gene pool at Silica University stocked entirely by invited donations from talented and gifted citizens. As much as Ethan cringed at taking any more of Quinn's advice on anything, Beta Colony did seem to be the best destination. He would not be disappointed, the woman expediting the commercial directory interface assured him. He exited feeling he had done a good day's work at last, and a little smug. He had dealt with the female expediter just as he would have dealt with a man. It could be done; wasn't hard at all.
He returned to his room for a quick snack, then sat down to his comconsole for a little comparison-shopping for the best price on a round-trip ticket to Beta Colony. The straightest route was via Escobar, giving him a chance to check out another potential source at no added cost to the Population Council. At least half the committee would be pleased with him, about as good odds as he was likely to obtain.
All his decisions made at last, his weariness washed over him. He lay down to rest for a minute.
Hours later, an insistent chiming from his comconsole hooked him to mushy consciousness. One foot was asleep, from lying at an odd angle with his shoes on, and it tingled numbly as he stumbled to press the "Receive" keypad.
Terrence Cee's face materialized over the holovid plate. "Dr. Urquhart?"
"Well. I didn't expect to hear from you again." Ethan rubbed sleep from his face. "I thought you'd have no further use for the asylum of Athos. You and Quinn both being the practical sort."
Cee winced, looking distinctly unhappy. "In fact, I'm about to leave," he said in a dull voice. "I wanted to see you one more time, to—to apologize. Can you meet me in Docking Bay C-8 right away?"
"I suppose," said Ethan. "Are you off to the Dendarii Mercenaries with Quinn, then?"
"I can't talk any more now. I'm sorry." Cee's image turned to sparkling snow, then emptiness.
Quinn was hanging over Cee's shoulder, perhaps, inhibiting his frankness. Ethan suppressed an impulse to call Security and tell Captain Arata where to look for her. He and Quinn were even now, help averaging harm. His mystery was solved; she had the intelligence coup she wanted. Let it end so.
As he exited his hostel to the mall a man, who had been idly seated by the central pool feeding the goldfish with pellets from a credit-card-operated dispenser placed nearby, rose and approached him.
Ethan stifled an urge to run back up the mall in screaming paranoia. The man couldn't be Setti. He was altogether the wrong racial type for a Cetagandan; tall, dark-skinned with a high-bridged nose, and wearing a pink silk jacket gaudy with embroidery. "Dr. Urquhart?" the man inquired politely.
Ethan kept some distance between them. If this was another damned spy of some sort, he swore he would put him head first into the pool…. "Yes?"
"I wonder if I might request a small service of you."
"Request away."
The man produced a small flat oblong from his jacket, a little holovid projector. "Should you see him again, I wish you would give this message capsule to Ghem-colonel Ruyst Millisor. The message is activated by entering his military serial number."
Definitely the pool. "Colonel Millisor is under arrest by Kline Station Security. You want to get a message to him, go see them."
"Ah." The man smiled. "Perhaps I shall. Still, who can say what chances the turning of the great wheel may bring us? Take it anyway. If no opportunity arises to deliver it, throw it away." He tried to press the little oblong on Ethan, who foiled him by backing up. Rather than chase Ethan skipping backwards down the mall, the man paused, shaking his head. He laid the message capsule down on a bench Ethan had put between them. "I leave it to your discretion, sir." He bowed with a flourish of his hand reminiscent of a genuflection, and turned to go.