ock Kinmarten,
are rest wardens. With another man named Eltak, whom Solvey describes
as 'some sort of crazy old coot,' they're assigned to escort two
deluxe private rest cubicles to a very exclusive sanatorium on
Mezmiali. But Brock told Solvey at the beginning of the trip that this
was a very unusual assignment, that he didn't want her even to come
near the cubicles. That wouldn't have bothered her so much, she says,
but on the way here Brock became increasingly irritable and
absent-minded. She knew he was worrying about the cubicles, and she
began to wonder whether they weren't involved in something illegal.
The pay was very high; they're both getting almost twice the regular
warden fee for the job. One day, she found an opportunity to do a
little investigating.

"The cubicles are registered respectively to a Lady Pendrake and a
Major Pendrake. Lady Pendrake appears to be genuine; the cubicle is
unusually large and constructed somewhat differently from the ones
with which Solvey was familiar, but it was clear that it had an
occupant. However, the life indicator on 'Major Pendrake's cubicle
registered zero when she switched it on. If there was something inside
it, it wasn't a living human being.

"That was all she learned at the time, because she was afraid Brock
might catch her in the cubicle room. Here in the Star, the cubicles
were taken to a suite reserved for Lady Pendrake. The other man,
Eltak, stayed in the suite with the cubicles, while the Kinmartens
were given other quarters. However, Brock was still acting oddly and
spending most of his time in the Pendrake suite. So this morning,
Solvey swiped his key to the suite and slipped in when she knew the
two men had left it."

[Illustration]

"She'd barely got there when she heard Brock and Eltak at the door
again. She ran into the next room, and hid in a closet. Suddenly there
was a commotion in the front room, and Solvey realized that men from
the Star's security force had arrived and were arresting Brock and
Eltak. They hauled both of them away, then floated the cubicles out
and on a carrier and took them off too, locking the suite behind them.

"Solvey was in a complete panic, sure that she and Brock had become
involved in some serious breach of the Warden Code. She waited a few
minutes, then slipped out of the Pendrake suite, and looked me up to
see if I couldn't help them. I had Heraga check, and he reported that
the Kinmarten suite was under observati