leeveless black and gold sheath; a beautiful body, a
warm, lovely, humorous face. The warmth and humor were real, but
masked a mind as impersonally efficient as a computer, and a taste for
high and dangerous living. When Quillan had last met Reetal Destone, a
year and a half before, the taste was being satisfied in industrial
espionage. He hadn't heard of her activities since then.

She smiled thoughtfully at him as he came up. "I'll wait outside," she
said. "We're not talking here."

Quillan nodded, went on into his living room, selected a gun belt and
holstered gun from a suitcase, fastened the belt around his waist
under the coat, and came out. "Now what?"

"First a little portal-hopping--"

He followed her across the corridor and into a tube portal, watched as
she tapped out a setting. The exit light flashed a moment later; they
stepped out into a vacant lounge elsewhere in the same building,
crossed it, entered another portal. After three more shifts, they
emerged into a long hall, dimly lit, heavily carpeted. There was no
one in sight.

"Last stop," Reetal said. She glanced up at his face. "We're on the
other side of the Star now, in one of the sections they've closed up.
I've established a kind of emergency headquarters here. The Star's
nearly broke, did you know?"

"I'd heard of it."

"That appears to be part of the reason for what's going on."

Quillan said, "What's going on?"

Reetal slid her arm through his, said, "Come on. That's my, hm-m-m,
unregistered suite over there. Big boy, it's very, very selfish of me,
but I was extremely glad to detect your name on the list of newly
arrived guests just now! As to what's going on ... the _Camelot_
berths here at midnight, you know."

Quillan nodded. "I've some business with one of her passengers."

Reetal bent to unlock the entrance door to the indicated suite. "The
way it looks now," she remarked, "the odds are pretty high that you're
not going to keep that appointment."

"Why not?"

"Because shortly after the _Camelot_ docks and something's been
unloaded from her, the _Camelot_ and the Seventh Star Hotel are
scheduled to go _poof!_ together. Along with you, me, and some twelve
thousand other people. And, so far, I haven't been able to think of a
good way to keep it from happening."

Quillan was silent a moment. "Who's scheduling the poof?" he asked.

"Some old acquaintances of ours are among them. Come on in. What
they're doing comes under the