t do you mean by that?"

"Hm-m-m," she said. "Bad News Quillan! A really tough boy, for sure.
You know, I didn't believe for an instant that you were after the
Hlats--"

"Why not?"

Reetal said, "I've been on a couple of operations with you, and you'd
be surprised how much I've picked up about you from time to time on
the side. Swiping a shipment of odd animals and selling them to Yaco,
that could be Bad News, in character. Selling a couple of hundred
human beings--like Brock and Solvey Kinmarten--to go along with the
animals to an outfit like Yaco would not be in character."

"So I have a heart of gold," Quillan said.

"So you fell all over your own big feet about half a minute ago!"
Reetal told him. "Bad News Quillan--with no interest whatsoever in the
Hlats--still couldn't afford to let Ryter live to talk about him to
the Feds, big boy!"

Quillan looked reflective for a moment. "Dirty trick!" he observed.
"For that, you might freshen up my glass."

* * * * *

Reetal took both glasses over to the liquor cabinet, freshened them
up, and settled down on the armrest of the chair again. "So there
we're back to the embarrassing little problem," she said.

"Ryter?"

"No, idiot. We both know that Ryter is headed for Rehabilitation.
Fifteen years or so of it, as a guess. The problem is little Reetal
who has now learned a good deal more than she was ever intended to
learn. Does she head for Rehabilitation, too?"

Quillan took a swallow of his drink and set the glass down again. "Are
you suggesting," he inquired, "that I might be, excuse the expression,
a cop?"

Reetal patted his head. "Bad News Quillan! Let's look back at his
record. What do we find? A shambles, mainly. Smashed-up organizations,
outfits, gangs. Top-level crooks with suddenly vacant expressions and
unexplained holes in their heads. Why go on? The name is awfully well
earned! And nobody realizing anything because the ones who do realize
it suddenly ... well, where _are_ Boltan Hagready at the moment."

Quillan sighed. "Since you keep bringing it up--Hagready played it
smart, so he's in Rehabilitation. Be cute if Ryter ran into him there
some day. Pappy Boltan didn't want to play it smart. I'm not enough of
a philosopher to make a guess at where he might be at present. But I
knew he wouldn't be talking."

"All right," Reetal said, "we've got that straight. Bad News is
Intelligence of some kind. Federation maybe, or