"Sure. If I hadn't primed my cousin Teki to ease you on out of quarantine you'd still be hung up in there with no ID, legal prisoner of the handwashers. And you and Mr. Cee here would never have met."
Ethan's jaw snapped shut. "Introduce yourself," he finally fumed.
She gave him a gracious nod and turned to Cee, her studied ease not quite concealing an intent excitement. "My name is Elli Quinn. I hold the rank of Commander in the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, and the post of a field agent in the Fleet intelligence section. My orders were to observe Ghem-colonel Millisor and his group and discover their mission. Thanks largely to Ambassador Urquhart here, I have finally done so." Her eyes sparked satisfaction.
Terrence Cee stared at them both in new suspicion. It made Ethan boil, after all his careful work to coax Cee's damaged spirit to trust him a little.
"Who are you working for?" asked Cee.
"Admiral Miles Naismith commands me."
Cee brushed this aside impatiently. "Who is he working for, then?"
Ethan wondered why this question had never occurred to him.
Commander Quinn cleared her throat. "One of the reasons, of course, for hiring a mercenary agent instead of using your own in-house people is precisely so that if the mercenary is captured, he cannot reveal where all his reports went."
"In other words, you don't know."
"That's right."
Cee's eyes narrowed. "I can think of another reason for hiring a mercenary. What if you want to do an in-house check of your own people?
How can I be sure you're not working for the Cetagandans yourself?"
Ethan gasped at this horrific, logical idea.
"In other words, might Colonel Millisor's superiors just be evaluating him for his next promotion?" Quinn's smile grew quizzical. "I hope not, because they would be awfully unhappy with that last report of mine—" by which vagueness Ethan gathered that she had no intention of publically reclaiming Okita as her kill. This generosity failed to fill him with gratitude.
"—the only guarantee I can offer you is the same one I'm relying on myself. I don't think Admiral Naismith would accept a contract from the Cetagandans."
"Mercenaries get rich by taking their contracts from the highest bidder, " said Cee. "They don't care who."
"Ah—hm. Not precisely. Mercenaries get rich by winning with the least possible loss. To win, it helps if you can command the best possible people. And the very best do care who. True, there are moral zombies and outright psychos in the business—but not on Admiral Naismith's staff."
Ethan barely restrained himself from quibbling with this last assertion.
Well-launched, she continued, forgetting her carefully non-threatening posture and rising to pace about in all her nervous concentration. "Mr. Cee, I wish to offer you a commission in the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. Based on your telepathic gift alone—if proved—I can personally guarantee you a tech/spec lieutenancy on the Intelligence Staff. Maybe something more, given your experience, but I'm sure I can deliver a lieutenancy. If you were indeed bred and born for military intelligence, why not make that destiny your own? No secret power structures like the ghem-lords make or break you in the Dendarii. You rise on merit alone. And however strange you think yourself, there you will find a comrade who is stranger still—"
"I'll bet," muttered Ethan.
"—live births, replicator births, genetically altered marginal habitat people—one of our best ship captains is a genetic hermaphrodite."
She wheeled, she gestured; she would swoop down like a hawk if she could, Ethan felt, and carry off his new charge.
"I might point out, Commander Quinn, that Mr. Cee asked for the protection of Athos."
She didn't even bother to be sarcastic. "Yes, there you are," she said quickly. "If it's Millisor you fear, what better place to find protection than in the middle of an army?"
Furthermore, Ethan thought, Commander Quinn was unfairly good-looking when she was flushed with excitement…. He peeked fearfully at Cee, and was relieved to find him looking cold and unmoved. If that pitch had been aimed with such passion at him, he might be ready to run out and sign up himself. Did the Dendarii need ship's surgeons?
"I presume," Cee said dryly, "they would wish to debrief me first."
"Well," she shrugged, "sure."
"Under drugs, no doubt."
"Ah—well, it is mandatory for all Intelligence volunteers. In spite of all good conscious intent, it's possible to be a plant and not know it."
"Interrogation with all the trimmings, in short."
She looked more cautious. "Well, we have all the trimmings in stock, of course. If needed."
"To be used. If needed."
"Not on our own people."
"Lady," he touched his forehead, "when this thing is activated I am the other people."
Some of her energy drained away in doubt for the first time. "Ah. Hm."
"And if I choose not to go with you—what will you do then, Commander Quinn?"
"Oh—well…" She looked, Ethan thought, exactly like a cat pretending not to stalk a mouse. "You're not off Kline Station yet. Millisor's still out there. I might be able to do you a favor or two yet—"
Was this a threat or a bribe?
"In return, you might care to give me some more information about Millisor and Cetagandan Intelligence. Just so I have something to take back to Admiral Naismith."
Ethan pictured a cat proudly depositing a dead mouse on its owner's pillow.
Cee must have been picturing something similar, for he inquired sardonically, "Would my dead body do?"
"Admiral Naismith," Quinn assured him, "wouldn't like that nearly so well. '
Cee snorted. "What do you blindlings know of men's real minds? What can any of you really tell? When I look at you blind like this, what can I know?"
Quinn hesitated in real thought. "Well, that's the way we must judge people all the time," she offered slowly. "We measure actions, as well as words and appearances. We make imaginative guesses. We place faith, if you will," she nodded toward Ethan, who prodded by honest conscience, nodded back even though he had no wish to prop any argument of hers.
Cee paced. "Both actions and lies may be compelled, against the real will. By fear, or other things. I know." He turned, turned again. "I must know. I must know." He stopped, fixed them both with a stare like a man trying to penetrate black midnight. "Get me some tyramine. Then we'll talk. When I can know what you really are."
Ethan wondered if the dismay in his own face matched Quinn's. They looked at each other, not needing telepathy to picture the other's thoughts; Quinn, doubtless stuffed with secret Dendarii intelligence procedures; himself, well—Cee was bound to find out eventually what a mistake he'd make seeking protection from Ethan. Perhaps it had better not be the hard way. Ethan sighed regret for the demise of his flatteringly exalted image in Cee's eyes. But a fool is twice a fool who tries to conceal it. "All right by me," he conceded mournfully.
Quinn was chewing her lip, abstracted. "That's obsolete," she muttered, "and so's that, and they have to have changed that by now—and Millisor knows all that already. And all the rest is purely personal." She looked up. "All right."
Cee appeared nonplussed. "You agree?"
Quinn's mouth quirked. "The first time the Ambassador and I have agreed on anything, I think?" She raised her eyebrows at Ethan, who muttered, "Humph."
"Do you have access to purified tyramine?" Cee demanded of them. "On hand?"
"Oh, any pharmacy would stock it," Ethan said. "It has some clinical uses in—"
"There's a problem with going to a pharmacy," Cee began grimly, when Quinn burst out in a tone of sudden enlightenment. "Oh. Oh."