Chapter Eleven

She went into hiding in a Fleet-owned safe house while Coromell arranged for a shuttle to take her off-planet. Except for the Discipline Master and Admiral Coromell Senior, there was no one to regret her abrupt departure - except perhaps Quinada. But Lunzie did want the Adept to realise that she had been unavoidably called away. That was Discipline courtesy. Her studies in the special course had progressed to a point where she didn't need direct instruction although she had hoped to obtain permission to teach what she had learned. As it was, the powerful new techniques would take her years to perfect.

The next day a shuttle made a rendezvous in space with the Exploration and Evaluation CorpsARCT-10 , a multi-generation, multi-environmental vessel that carried numerous exploration scouts and shuttlecraft. Lunzie was transferred aboard. Her files were edited so that her enlistment in Fleet Intelligence had been excised and a false employment record with the Tau Ceti medical center inserted. She was an ordinary doctor, joining the complement of theARCT-10 to explore and document new planets for colonisation.

"There are thousands of beings aboard," Coromell had assured her. "You'll just be one of several hundred human specialists who sign on for three-year stints with the EEC. No one will have any reason to look twice at you. Once you're settled in, you can be another remote sensor on that vessel for me. Keep an ear open."

"You mean, I'm not entirely safe on board?"

"Far safer than on Tau Ceti," he replied encouragingly. "Blend in but don't call attention to yourself. You should be fine. You've got me slightly paranoid for your sake now." He ran restless fingers through his hair and gave her an exasperated look. "Think safe and you'll be safe! Just be cautious."

"I'm totally reassured!"

Once her shuttle matched velocity with theARCT-10 , it circled around the back of the long stem to the docking bay. The ship was built with a series of cylinders arranged in a ring with arcs joining each segment. Along the dorsal edge of the ship, Lunzie could see a partially shaded quartz dome which probably contained the hydroponics section. The drives, below and astern of the docking bay, could easily have swallowed the tiny shuttle up without a burp. The five exhaust cones arranged in a ring, rimed with a film of ice crystals, were almost a hundred feet across. The ARCT-10 was reputed to be 250 years old. It had an air of majestic dignity, instead of creaking old age. It was the oldest of the original EEC generation ships still in space.

There was a Thek waiting in the docking bay as the shuttle doors cracked open. The meter-high specimen waited while Lunzie greeted the deck officer, then neatly blocked her path when she started to leave the deck without acknowledging it.

"I beg your pardon," she said, stopping short, and waited for the translator slung around the Thek's peak to slow her words down enough for it to understand.

"Ttttooooooooooooorrrrrr," it drawled.

Tor. "Your name?" she asked. Talking with a Thek was like playing the child's party game of Twenty Questions, but there was no guarantee she would get twenty answers. Theks did not like to use unnecessary verbiage when a syllable or two would do.

"Yyyyyeeeeessssss." Good, that was short and easy. This must be a relatively young Thek. There was more. Lunzie braced herself to comprehend Tor's voice.

"Llllllluuunnnnnnnn...... zzzzzzzzzziiiiiieeeeeee.... sssssaaaaaaafffffffeeeee ...... hhhhhhhheeeeeeerrrrrrreeeeee."

Well, bless Coromell. She'd no idea he had Thek confederates aboard the ARCT-10. If he'd only thought to mention it, she'd have been more reassured.

"Thank you. Tor," she said. Although come to think on it, she wondered how much help a Thek could provide, flattering though such an offer was from such a source. Even the Thek who had pointed out her escape capsule to Illin "Romsey hadn't been able to tow her in on its own. A thought struck her. Theks had no real defining characteristics, but this one was the same size as that Thek. "By any chance, were you the one - no, that's too long - Tor . . . rescued me . . . Descartes?"

A short rumble, sounding like an abbreviated version of his previous "yes," issued from the depths of the silicoid cone. Now this is one for the books, Lunzie thought, much heartened. Then Tor moved aside as an officer entered the landing bay with a hand out for Lunzie and it settled down into anonymous immobility.

"Doctor, welcome aboard," the tall man said. He had the attenuated fingers, limbs and long face that marked him as one of the ship-born, a human who had spent his whole life in space. The lighter gravity frequently allowed humans to grow taller on slenderer, wider-spaced bones than the planet-born. They also proved immune to the calcium attrition that planet born space travellers experienced on long journeys. As she shook his hand, Lunzie had an uncomfortable feeling of deja vu. Except for eyes that were green, not brown, the young man fit perfectly the genotype of the banned colony-clones that she'd investigated as a member of the investigative panel on Astris seventy years ago as a medical student. "I'm Lieutenant Sanborn. We had your records just two hours ago. It'll be good to have someone with your trauma specialty on board. Spacebound paranoia is one of the worst things we have to deal with. Walking wounded, you know. You have general training as well?"

"I can sew up wounds and deliver babies, if that's what you mean," Lunzie said drily.

Sanborn threw back his head and laughed. He seemed to be a likeable young man. She felt bad about teasing him. "I shouldn't have asked for a two-byte resume. Sorry. Let me show you to the visitors' quarters. You're in luck. There's an individual sleeping cubicle available in the visitor's section." He held out a hand for her bags and hoisted them over his shoulder. "This way, please, Lunzie."

Her compartment was tiny and spare, but just big enough to be comfortable. Lunzie put her things away in the drop-down ceiling locker before she followed Sanborn to the common room to get acquainted with her shipmates. The common room doubled as a light-use recreation centre.

"The last third of each shift is reserved for conversation only so we don't have to worry about a game of grav-ball bouncing over our heads," Sanborn explained as he introduced Lunzie around. The common rooms in the humanoid oxygen-breathers' section were set with free-form furniture that managed to comfortably accommodate the smallest Weft or the largest heavyworlder.

"Welcome aboard," said the man in blue coveralls who was lounging with his seat tipped backwards against the walk He had a smooth, dark brown skin and large, mild eyes.

A sallow-faced young man dressed in a pale green lab tunic sat nearby with his elbows braced on the back of his chair and glanced up at her expressionlessly. "I'm Coe. Join us. Do you play chess?" the dark man asked.

"Later perhaps, eh?" Sanborn intervened before she could answer. "I've got to get Lunzie to Orientation."

"Any time," Coe replied, waving.

His companion swept another look and met Lunzie's eyes, and said something to Coe. Lunzie thought she heard her name and the word "ambrosia."

Panic gripped her insides. Oh, no! she thought. Have I left one bad situation for a worse one? I'm trapped aboard this vessel with someone who knows about ambrosia!

"Who's that young man with Coe?" she asked Sanborn, forcing her voice to stay-calm.

"Oh, that's Chacal. He's a communications tech. Not much of a conversationalist for a com-tech. Coe is the only one who can stand him. Keeps to himself when he's not on duty."

That would be appropriate if he was an agent for the Parchandri, or the planet pirates. Lunzie wondered to which, if either, Chacal might be attached. She wished she could speak to Coromell, but he was out of reach. Lunzie was on her own, for good or ill. What was the meaning of "ambrosia," anyway? Or was she simply exhibiting symptoms of spacebound paranoia, as Sanborn put it?

TheARCT-10 was so huge that it was easy to forget that she was travelling through space instead of living on a planet. It was designed to be entirely self-sufficient, not needing to make contact with a planet for years. Sanborn took Lunzie to the Administration offices by way of the life support dome where fresh vegetables, fruit, and grain were grown for carbohydrates to feed the synthesisers and to supplement the otherwise boring synth diet as well as refreshing the oxygen in the atmosphere. Lunzie admired the section, which was twice as big as the hydroponics plant aboard theDestiny Calls , though by no means stocked with the same exotic varieties.

One section of the ship was the multi-generation hive, where the Ship-born and Ship-bred lived, apart from the "Visitors' habitation." She quickly discovered that there was an unspoken rivalry between the two groups. The Ship-born were snobbish about the Visitors' difficulty adapting to almost all-synth food and the cramped living conditions on board. The Visitors, who were often part of the ship's complement for years on end, couldn't understand why the Ship-born were so proud of living under such limited conditions, like laboratory animals who were reduced to minimum needs. It was obvious to each group that its way was better. Mostly the rivalry was good-natured.

Since the Visitors on the ship were mission scientists or colonists awaiting transport to FSP sanctioned colonies, few crossed the boundary to socialise between groups. The matter was temporary, as far as the Visitors were concerned. On average. Visitors lasted about three years on the ARCT. When they could no longer stand the conditions, they quit.

The Ship-born felt they could ignore anyone for three years if they wanted to. In the million-light-year vision of the generation ships, that was just an eyeblink. Fortunately for more gregarious souls like Lunzie who joined the EEC, the boundaries were less than a formality.

Several of the major FSP races had groups aboard theARCT-10 in both habitations. Heavyworlders occupied specially pressurised units designed to duplicate the gravity and harsh weather conditions of their native worlds. The Ryxi needed more square metres per being than the other groups did. Many Visitors were resentful of the seemingly spacious quarters the Ryxi occupied, though the Ship-born understood that it was the minimum the Ryxi could stand.

Theks skimmed smoothly through the corridors like mountains receding in the distance with no extraneous movement. They ranged in size from Tor's one meter to a seven-meter specimen who lived in the hydroponics section and who spoke so slowly that it took a week to produce a comprehensible word. A small complement of Brachians worked aboard ship. Lunzie recognized their long-armed silhouettes immediately in their low-light habitation. A family of the marine race of Ssli occupied their only environment in the Ship-born hive. Those Ssli had resolved to devote their entire line to serving the EEC, and theARCT-10 was grateful for their expertise in chemistry and energy research.

As on the Descartes mining platform, there was an effort made to draw the inhabitants of the ship together as a community, rather than passengers on a vessel intended only for research and exploration. There was an emphasis on family involvement, in which praise was given not only to the child which got good grades, but for the family which supported and encouraged a child's success. Individual accomplishment was not ignored, but acknowledged in the context of the community. But Lunzie never sensed a heavy administrative hand ensuring that all were equally treated. Departments were given autonomy in their fields. The EEC administration only stepped in when necessary to ease understanding between them. Denizens of the ship were encouraged to sort out matters for themselves. Lunzie admired the system. It fostered achievement in an atmosphere of cooperation.

When she wasn't researching or working an infirmary shift, Lunzie spent time in the common room getting to know her shipmates, and her ship. TheARCT-10 had been in space a hundred and fifty Earth-Standard years. Some of the Ship-born were descended from families who had been aboard since its commissioning. One day, Lunzie became part of a lively discussion group that held court in the middle of the floor, suspending the normal polarisation of Visitors to one end of the room and Ship-born to the other.

"But how can you stand the food?" Varian asked Grabone, rolling over on her free-form cushion to face him. Varian was a tall Xenobiologist Visitor. "It's been recycled through the pipes, too, for seven generations."

"Not at all," Grabone replied. "We use fresh carbohydrates for food. The recyclate is used for other purposes, such as fertiliser and plas-sheeting. We're completely self-sufficient." The Ship-born engineer's shock of red hair helped to express his outrage. "How can you question a system with less than four percent breakdown over a hundred years?"

"But there's something lacking in the aesthetics," Lunzie said, entering the discussion. "I've never been able to stand synthesiser food myself. It's the memory of real food, not the actual stuff."

"If your cooks just didn't make synth food so boring!" Varian said in disgust. "It'd be almost palatable if it had some recognisable taste. I'll bet, Grabone, that you've never had real food. Not even the vegetables they grow on the upper deck."

"Why take chances?" demanded Grabone, leaning back defiantly on the floor and crossing his ankles. "You could poison yourself with unhygienically grown foodstuffs. You know the synth food is safe, and nourishing."

"Have you ever even tried naturally grown food?" Varian demanded.

"Can't tell the difference if I have. I've never been off theARCT-10 ," Grabone admitted. "I'm a drives engineer. There's no reason for me to have to make planetfall on, I might point out, potentially hazardous missions. Risk your own neck. Leave mine alone."

"Life can be hazardous to your health," Lunzie said cheerfully to Varian beside her. She liked the lively, curly-haired girl who was unable to sit still for more than a few minutes. They did Discipline exercises together in the early shift. Lunzie could tell that Varian's training was of the most basic, though it would seem advanced to anyone who was not an Adept. "How are you chosen to go on planetside missions?" she asked Varian. "Do I have to put my name in the duty roster?"

"Oh, no," Varian replied. "Nothing that organised. Each mission requires such different skills that the first person off the queue might not be qualified. Details of a mission's personnel needs are posted days before the actual drop. If you're interested, you inform Comm Center and you're listed as available. A mission leader then picks the complement. Some missions are planned at FSP Center. Some develop out of circumstances. Let me explain. TheARCT-10's job is to keep tabs on all the Exploration and Evaluation vessels in our sector and support them with ground teams when necessary. So you really never know what's or who's going to be needed. TheARCT also keeps checking in on message beacons previously set in this sector by initial EEC scouts. They strip off messages whenever we're in line of sight and send reports back to FSP Center. If a recon or an emergency team are needed,ARCT supplies it. So really," and Varian shrugged, "you can gain a lot of xeno experience in a three year stint."

"And that's what you're after?" Lunzie said.

"You bet! That's what'll get me a good dirtside job." Then her vivacious face changed and she lowered her voice. "There may be a very good one coming up. I've a friend in Com and he said for me to keep my ears open."

"Then you're not at all nervous about the scuttle-butt I've been hearing?"

"Which one?" asked Varian scornfully.

"The one about planting colonists without their permission?"

"That old one." Grabone was openly derisive. "Rumours sometimes start themselves, you know. I'll excuse you this time, Lunzie, since I know you're not long on board. You wouldn't know how many times that one's oozed through the deckplates."

"That's reassuring," Lunzie said. "It seems so unlike an official EEC position."

"It's a lot of space dust," Grabone went on. "You got that from the heavyworlders, didn't you? Their favourite paranoia. They think we'll strand them the first chance we get. Well, it isn't true."

"No, actually, it wasn't the heavyworlders," Lunzie said slowly; she'd kept well away from any of that group. "It was one of the visiting scientists who wants only to finish his duty and go home on time. I gather he's expecting a grandchild."

"For one thing," Grabone went on to prove the rumour fallacious, "ARCT--1Ocan't plant anyone. Colonies take years of planning. It's hard enough to find the right mix of people who want to settle on a certain world, and live together in peace, not to say cooperation. You wouldn't believe the filework that has to go out to EEC before a colony is approved."

"Well, planting would be a quicker, if illicit, way to get more colonies started," Varian suggested. "There are some found that don't meet minimum requirements but if people were planted, they'd learn to cope."

"Doesn't anyone planetside practice birth control?" Lunzie asked, with a vivid memory of the crowds on Alpha Centauri. "Having dozens of offspring without a thought for environment or a reasonable standard of living for future citizens."

"Even a mathematical expansion of the population, one child per adult," Varian pointed out, "would soon deplete currently available resources, let alone a geometric increase. Judicious planting could reduce some of the pressure. Not that I advocate it, mind you."

One of the lights of the duty panel flickered. Involuntarily everyone in the room glanced at the blue medical light. Lunzie clambered to her feet. "I can respond."

She flipped on the switch at the panel. "Lunzie."

"Accident at interface A-10. One crew member down, several others injured."

Lunzie mentally plotted the fastest path to the scene of the accident and hit the comswitch again.

"Acknowledged," she said. "I'm on my way." She waved farewell to Grabone and Varian.

The interfaces were one of the most sensitive and carefully watched parts of the multi-environmental system aboard theARCT-10 . Whereas normal bulk-heads were accustomed to the pressure of a single atmosphere, the interfaces had to stand between two different atmospheric zones, sometimes of vastly different pressure levels which might also vary according to program. A-10 stood between the normal-weight human environment and the heavyworlders' gravity zone. Had this happened in her first few weeks aboard, she'd have become hopelessly lost. Now she knew the scheme which named decks and section by location and personnel, she knew she wasn't far from A-10 and found her way there without trouble.

Dozens of other crew members were on the move through the corridors in the A Section. At the point at which A-10 had been breached, frigid wind of the same temperature as the ambient on Diplo was pouring through into the warmer lightweight zone. Clutching her medical bag to her chest, Lunzie passed through a hastily erected baffle chamber that cut off the icy winds from the rest of the deck and would act as a temporary barrier while the heavy gravity was restored. Beyond the broken wall, heavyworlders who had been in their exercise room were picking up weights and bodybuilding equipment made suddenly light by the drop in gravity. Workers of every configuration hurried in and out of the chambers, clearing away debris, tying down torn circuits and redirecting pipes whose broken ends pumped sewage and water across the floor. Lunzie made a wide circle around two workers who were cutting out the ragged remains of the damaged panel with an arc torch.

"Doctor, quickly!" An officer in the black uniform of environmental sciences motioned urgently where she knelt by the far wall. "Orlig's twitching even if he is unconscious. He was checking the wall when it blew."

Lunzie hurried over, ignoring the stench of sewage and the odour of burned flesh. Stretched out on the deck at the woman's side was a gigantic heavyworlder wearing a jumpsuit and protective goggles. He had been severely gashed by flying metal and a tremendous haematoma coloured the side of his face. Though his eyes were closed, he was thrashing wildly and muttering. Lunzie's hands flew to her belt pouch for her bod bird.

"I don't dare give him a sedative until I know if there's neural damage, Truna," Lunzie explained.

"You do what you have to do. Other heavyworlders incurred only heavy bruises when the wall popped and they were blown against the bulkhead toward light gravity. They walked away. No one else was on this side of the wall. Orlig took the full blast. Poor beast." The environment tech got up and began shouting orders at the mob of workers, leaving Lunzie alone with her patient.

Orlig was one of the largest specimens of his sub-group that Lunzie had ever seen. Her outstretched hand covered only his palm and third phalange of his fingers. She had no idea what she would do if he went out of control.

"Fardling lightweights," he snarled, thrashing. Lunzie jumped back out of range as his swinging arm just missed her and smashed onto the deck. "Set me up to die! I'll kill them!" The arm swept up, fingers curved like claws, ripping at the air, and smashed down again, shaking the deck. "All of them!"

Nervous but equally determined not to let her fear of heavyworlders keep her from treating one in desperate need of her skills, Lunzie approached to take a bod bird reading. According to that, Orlig was bleeding internally. He had to be sedated and treated before he haemorrhaged to death.

She couldn't fix his arm while he was banging it around like that. The bod bird was inconclusive on the point of neural trauma. She would have to take her chances. She programmed a hefty dose of sedative and applied the hypogun to the nearest fleshy part of the thrashing man. Orlig levered himself up when he felt the injection hiss against his upper arm and snarled bare-toothed at Lunzie. The drug took speedy effect and his arms collapsed under him. He fell to the deck with a bang.

Still shaking, Lunzie began debriding his wounds and slapping patches of synthskin on them. Shards of metal had been driven into his flesh through the heavy fabric of the jumpsuit. The goggles had spared his eyes though the plasglas lens were cracked. What with flying debris and the force of the explosion, the man was lucky to be alive. She tried to think which ship's system could have blown like that.

Unbelievably, Orlig started moving again. How could he move? She'd given him enough sedative to sleep six shifts. Lunzie worked faster. She must unseal the upper half of his jumpsuit to repair his wounds. The fabric was so heavy she got mired in the folds of it. Then in a restless gesture, he jerked his arm and sent Lunzie stumbling across the room.

Lunzie crawled back to him and gathered her equipment together in her lap. She programmed the hypo for another massive dose of sedative and held it to the heavyworlder's arm. Just as she was about to push the button, Orlig's small eyes opened and focused on hers. His gigantic hand closed around her hand and wrist, immobilizing her but not hurting her.

He'll kill me! Lunzie thought nervously. She drew in a breath to yell for help from the struggling engineers at the broken wall.

"Who are you?" he demanded, bringing the other fist up under her face.

Lunzie kept her voice low out of fear. "My name is Lunzie. I'm a doctor."

Orlig's eyes narrowed, but the fist dropped. "Lunzie? Do you know a Thek?"

He's raving, Lunzie thought. "Orlig, please lie back. You were badly injured. I can't treat you if you keep thrashing about. Let go of my hand." Sometimes a firm no-nonsense voice reassured a nervous patient.

His fist grabbed her up by the neck of her tunic. "Do you know a Thek?"

"Yes. Tor."

Subtly the heavyworlder's attitude altered. He swivelled his head around to glare at the bustling crowd of workers and technicians, and wrinkled his nose at the sewage, now being mopped up.

"Then get me out of here. Someplace no one would expect to find me." With that he let her go and sagged to the floor.

Lunzie shouted for a gurney and waited by Orlig until it came. She sent an emergency crewman back for a grav lift so that she could manage the gurney herself in spite of Orlig's mass. He snarled when the crewman came a centimeter closer to him than necessary. He had to be in considerable pain with those wounds. She wondered just why he was braving it out. Without any help he somehow rolled his mangled body onto the gurney.

"Get me out of here," he muttered, eyes glittering with pain and an underlying fear that he permitted her to glimpse.

Operating the anti-grav lift, she guided the gurney out of the interface area, through one hatch, running along beside her patient and up a freight turbovator.

"Anybody following?" he demanded urgently, gripping her hand in his huge fingers.

"No, no one. Not even a rat."

He grunted. "Hurry it up."

"This was all your idea." But then she saw what she was looking for, one of the small first-aid stations that were located on every deck and section, usually for routine medichecks, contagion isolation quarters, or treatments that didn't require stays in the main infirmary.

Once the door slid shut behind them, Orlig grinned up at her.

"Krims, but you lightweights are easy to scare." He surveyed the room with a searching glance as Lunzie positioned the gurney by the soft-topped examination table which doubled as a hospital bed when the sides were raised. He raised a hand as Lunzie started toward him with the hypo. "No, no more sedatives. I'm practically unconscious now."

Lunzie stared at him. "I thought you must be immune to it."

Orlig grimaced. "I had to use pain to stay awake. Someone rigged that wall to fall on me. They want me dead."

With a sigh, Lunzie recognized the classic symptoms of agoraphobic paranoia. She put away the hypospray and held up the flesh-knitter.

"Well, I'm a doctor and as I've never seen you before, I have no urge to kill you." Yet, she thought. "And since you heavyworlders are such big machismo types, I'll sew you into one piece again in front of your eyes. Does that relieve your mind?"

"Coromell didn't say you'd be so dumb. Doctor."

Lunzie nearly dropped the piece of equipment in her hands. "Coromell?" she repeated. "First you want to know my Thek acquaintances, now you're throwing the Admiralty at me. Just who are you?"

"I work for him, too. And I've got some information that he's got to have. This isn't the first attempt on my life. I've been trying to figure out a legitimate reason to contact you. But I had to be careful. Couldn't have suspicion fall on you ..."

"Like a wall fell on you?" Lunzie put in.

"Yeah, but it's working out just right, isn't it? I can't risk this information getting lost." He groaned. "I tried to get in touch with Tor. I think that's where I blew it. Us heavyworlders don't generally seek out Theks." He winced. "All right, I think I'll accept a local anaesthetic now you're playing tinkertoy with my ribs. It feels like meteors were shot through it. What's it look like?"

Lunzie peered at his chest and ran the bod bird over it. "Like you got meteors shot through it. I might be able to reach Tor without anyone suspecting me. I don't know why, but it likes me."

"Few are as lucky. But you've got to find the right Thek without asking for it by name. That's the hard part. They all look alike at the size they fit on theARCT . Look ..." Orlig's voice was weaker now as shock began to seep through his formidable physical stamina. He fumbled in his left ear, tilting his head. "Fardles. You got something like tweezers? That wall must've knocked it down inside."

"What am I looking for?"

"A message brick." He turned his head so she had the best angle for the search.

"You might have irreparably damaged your hearing," she said, disapprovingly as she finally retrieved the cube.

"It fit. It was safe," Orlig replied, unpenitent. "If you can't get to Tor, wait until Zebara gets back. You can tell him to check out AidkisagI VIII, the Seti of Fomalhaut. The cube gives him the rest of the pertinent details."

"The Seti of ... their head of government?" Lunzie's voice rose in pitch to a surprised squeak.

"Shh! Keep it down!" Orlig hissed. "Whoever rigged that wall to blow may be looking for me now he knows he failed to kill me."

"Who?"

Orlig rolled his eyes at her naivete.

"Sorry."

"Wise up, gal, or you can end up like me. And you couldn't stand a wall felling on you." His voice was now a thin trickle of sound.

She tucked the cube into her soft ship boot. "Tor or Zebara. Count on me. Now, I stop being courier and start being medic."

Just as she finished and had him plas-skinned, his eyes sagged shut. The sedative and shock were finally overwhelming him.

"You're safe now," Lunzie murmured. "I'll pull the food synthesiser within your reach so you don't have to get up if you're hungry or thirsty. I'll lock the room so that no one can get in. And I'll knock if I want to come in."

,. Orlig nodded sleepily. "Use a password. Say 'ambrosia.' That way I'll know if it's you or someone you sent."

"That particular word keeps getting me in trouble. I'll use 'whisky' instead." As soon as she sealed the infirmary door, Lunzie immediately went back to her compartment to change out of her bloodstained clothes. She kept the cube in her boot but decided to attach her Fleet ID disk against her skin under her clothes. It was safer to keep it on her person than to risk someone finding it among her possessions. Orlig's "accident" brought a resurgence of her paranoia. Too many odd things happened to couriers of messages to Coromell.

"How's the patient?" Truna called to her as Lunzie returned to the common room. The technician and her assistants were sitting slumped over a table with steaming mugs in their hands.

"As well as can be expected for a man who's been knocked about by a bulkhead blowing out on him," Lunzie answered, programming a cup of coffee for herself. "How'd repairs go?"

"We got the wall temporarily put together again. It's going to take at least a few days to recreate the components needed to replace the damaged systems. Those circuits got truly fried!" Truna said, taking a deep drink from her mug. The woman's eyes were puffy and rimmed with red.

"What caused the explosion?" Lunzie asked, settling down at the table with the others. As soon as she sat, she realised how sore her muscles were from dealing with Orlig and his injuries.

"I was about to ask you. Could Orlig tell what happened?"

"Not really," Lunzie nodded. "He was too shocked to be lucid. Though come to think of it, he rabbited on about the chem lab. Could something have been flushed away that shouldn't be and detonated in the pipe?"

"Well, the waste pipes sure were blown into a black hole," Truna agreed. "I'll check with the biochemistry section on the ninth level. They use that disposal system. Thanks for the suggestion."

"Will Orlig recover?" a crewman asked.

"Oh, I expect so," Lunzie replied offhandedly. "Even heavyworlder physiques get bent out of shape from time to time. He'll be sore a while."

Lunzie sat with Truna and her crew for a short time, chatting and encouraging them to share their experiences with her. All the time she was apparently listening, she was wondering how she could get to Tor or how long it would be before "someone" discovered that Orlig wasn't in the infirmary. Then her thoughts would revolve back to the astonishing information that a Seti of Fomalhaut was involved in planetary piracy. That news would rock a few foundations. That was what Orlig had implied. Well, Seti were known to take gambles. The stakes would be very high, if the Phoenix affair had been any guide.

In the back of her mind, she ran scenarios on how to track down Tor. First she'd have to find out where the Theks were quartered. She couldn't just list it all on the ARCT e-mail channel.

"I must check up on my patient," she told the environment engineers she'd dined with. "I left him alone to sleep, but he's probably stirring again."

"Good idea," Truna said. "Tell him I hope he heals soon."

She took a circuitous route to Orlig but saw no one obviously following her.

"It's Lunzie," she announced in a low voice, tapping on the infirmary door with her knuckles. "Um, oh, whisky."

The door slid back noiselessly on its track. Orlig was behind it, clutching his injured ribs tenderly in one arm. "I wondered how long it was gonna be before you came back. I haven't been able to relax. Even with that sleep-stuff you shot into me I tossed and turned."

Lunzie pushed him into a chair so she could check the pupils of his eyes. "Sorry. That happens sometimes in shock cases. The sedative acts as an upper instead of a downer. Let me try you on calcium and L-tryptophane. It's an amino acid which the body does not produce for itself. Those should help you sleep. You don't have any sensitivities to mineral supplements, do you?"

"You sure don't know much about heavyworlders, do you? I have to pop mineral supplements all the time to keep my bones from crumbling in your puny gravity." Orlig produced a handful of uncoated vitamin tablets from a singed belt pouch and poured them into her palm.

Lunzie analysed one with the tracer. "Iron, copper, zinc, calcium, magnesium, boron. Good. And I'll see to it that the amino acid is added to your food for the next few days. It will help you to relax and sleep naturally."

"Look, while you were gone, I thought of something to get the bugger that's after me. You can noise it about that I was critically injured and may not live," Orlig suggested grimly. "Maybe I can trick my assassins into the open. Let them think they have another chance at me while I'm weak."

"That's not only dangerous but plain stupid," Lunzie replied but he gave her such a formidable look, she shrugged in resignation. "You're healing but your injuries were severe. You may think you're smart but right now you've little stamina to get into a fight. Give yourself a chance to regain your strength. Then you can be moved to the infirmary - and at least have assistance near at hand when you try a damfool scheme like that."

"I'll handle this my own way," Orlig said brusquely. "Out. I want to go to sleep." He sat down on the examination bed and swung his legs up, ignoring her.

Irritated by his dismissal, Lunzie left. The door shut behind her, with the double hiss that meant the seals were being put on. What they had both forgotten was that Lunzie was the medic on record attending that accident. The CMO asked for a report on the status of the victim. Lunzie filled out the requisite forms but asked the CMO to keep it secure.

"The man's suffering from a mild paranoia."

"Don't think I'd blame him with a wall blowing out like that. Those heavyworlder vendettas are costly."

"I've put him in one of the small treatment rooms. He felt safer there, but I'm trying to get him to transfer to the infirmary. He'd be safer from retaliation here."

Her next visit was brief, too. Orlig was improving so much that he had a raging case of cabin fever, and exploded at Lunzie.

"Why haven't you passed that brick on to Tor? What in the comet's tail are you waiting for?"

"I suppose I should just list it on the Bulletin Board that Lunzie Mespil, medic, wishes to speak with Thek Tor?" Lunzie snapped back tartly. "You told me not to draw attention to myself so I'm not."

"I risked my life for that information. You light-weights think you're so smart - well, think up a plausible reason but pass that information on."

"When circumstances permit!"

That began a screaming argument in which, to her surprise, Lunzie managed to hold her own. In retaliation, Orlig threw a few very personal insults at her that questioned her parentage and personal habits, and showed an intimate knowledge of the details of her life. Had Coromell actually given him access to her file? Shocked and offended, she marched out, vowing that it would be a warm and sunny day midspace before she'd go back.

Three more shifts passed. Lunzie felt guilty for having lost her temper with Orlig. He was as much under strain as she was, and it was wrong to indulge in a petty fit of temper at his expense. She returned to the infirmary and tapped on the door.

"Orlig? It's Lunzie. Oh, whisky! Orlig? Let me in."

She tapped at the doorplate and the door swung partly in. It was neither locked nor sealed. Startled, Lunzie leaned cautiously forward to investigate. The chamber was dark inside, reeking with a peculiar, heavy smell. She passed her hand over the panel for lights, and jumped back, gasping at what she saw.

There had been a fight. Most of the furniture was smashed or bent, and there were smears of blood on the walls. The sink had been torn out of the wall and stuffed halfway into the disposer unit. The equipment cabinets were smashed open, with their contents strewn throughout the chamber. Still attached to the wall, the shattered hand dryer sputtered fitfully to itself, dropping hot sparks.

Orlig lay sprawled on the floor. Guiltily Lunzie thought for a moment that internal bleeding had begun again. The cause of death was all too evident. Orlig had been strangled. His face was darkened with extravasated blood, and his eyes bulged. She had seen death before, even violent death. But not ruthless murder.

The marks of opposable digits were livid on the dead man's windpipe. Someone with incredible strength had thrown Orlig all over the room before pressing him to the ground and wringing his neck. Lunzie felt weak.

Only another heavyworlder could have done that to Orlig. And she'd thought that he was the biggest one on theARCT-10 . So who? And what did that person know or suspect about her? She checked the door to see how the killer had forced its way. But there was no sign of a forced entry. The seals were unsecured. Orlig had let his assailant into the room himself. Had the killer followed her, undetected, and overheard her use the agreed password? Or had Orlig overestimated his own returning strength and cunning? Sometimes being a lightweight was an advantage - you found it easier to recognise physical limitations.

If the murderer should decide to eliminate Orlig's medic on the possibility that the dead man had passed on his knowledge, she was once again in jeopardy from heavyworlders. How long had Orlig been dead? How much more "safety" did she have left?

"I've got to get off this ship. Just finding Tor and passing on that brick are not going to be the answer. But how?"

First she had to report the death to the CMO, who was appalled by the murder but not terribly surprised.

"These guys are temperamental, you know. Strangest things set off personal vendettas." But the CMO could and did slam a security lock on the details.

Since the CMO didn't ask more details from her, Lunzie ventured none. Enough people had seen Orlig manhandle her after the accident so that she would seem an unlikely recipient of any confidences. But she wouldn't rest easy on that assumption. She continued to feel vulnerable. To her own surprise, she felt more anger than fright.

She did take the precaution of attaching her personal alarm to the door of her cubicle at night. She was cautious enough to stay in a group at all times.

"They wanted me to find him, that's clear," Lunzie mused blackly as she went about her duties the next day. "Otherwise, they'd have stuffed the body into the disposer and let the recycling systems have it. His absence might even have passed without any notice. Maybe I should grumble about patients who discharge themselves without medic permission." She doubted that would do any good and scanned the updates on mission personnel with an anxious eye. Surely she could wangle the medic's spot on the next one. Even if she had to pull out her FI ID.