wall
screen. The liner was still over two hours' flight away but would
arrive on schedule. On the Star, at least in the normspace section,
everything was quiet, and in the main control offices and in the
transmitter room normal working conditions had been restored.

A room portal twenty feet away opened suddenly, and Reetal Destone
stepped out.

"So there you are!" she observed.

[Illustration]

Quillan Looked mildly surprised, then grinned. "I'd hate to have to
try to hide from you!" he said.

"Hm-m-m!" said Reetal. She smiled. "What are you drinking?"

He nodded at an open liquor cabinet near the screen. "Velladon was
leaving some excellent stuff behind. Join me?"

"Hm-m-m." She went to the cabinet, looked over the bottles, made her
selection and filled a glass. "One has the impression," she remarked,
"that you _were_ hiding from me."

"One does? I'd have to be losing my cotton-picking mind--"

"Not necessarily." Reetal brought the drink over to his chair, sat
down on the armrest with it. "You might just have a rather
embarrassing problem to get worked out before you give little Reetal a
chance to start asking questions about it."

Quillan looked surprised. "What gave you that notion?"

"Oh," Reetal said, "adding things up gave me that notion.... Care to
hear what the things were?"

"Go ahead, doll."

"First," said Reetal, "I understand that a while ago, after you'd first
sent me off to do some little job for you, you were in the transmitter
room having a highly private--shielded and scrambled--conversation with
somebody on board the _Camelot_."

"Why, yes," Quillan said. "I was talking to the ship's security
office. They're arranging to have a Federation police boat pick up
what's left of the commodore's boys and the Brotherhood in the
subspace section.

"And that," said Reetal, "is where that embarrassing little problem
begins. Next, I noticed, as I say, that you were showing this tendency
to avoid a chance for a private talk between us. And after thinking
about that for a little, and also about a few other things which came
to mind at around that time, I went to see Ryter."

"Now why--?"

Reetal ran her fingers soothingly through his hair. "Let me finish,
big boy. I found Ryter and Orca in a highly nervous condition. And do
you know why they're nervous? They're convinced that some time before
the _Camelot_ gets here, you're going to do them both in."

"Hm-m-m," said Quillan.

"Ryter," sh