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He hadn't really expected to impress her, but to his surprise she drew back whitely. "Oh?" she said in a neutral tone.

"Don't tell her that, Doc," Teki urged anew. "Ever since her son sneaked off to Athos nobody dares to mention the place. She can't even nag him long-distance there—their censorship guys send back any vids from a woman. She can't get at him at all." Teki dissolved in giggles. "I bet he's happy as a clam."

Ethan cringed at the thought of getting drawn into some family squabble. The Security man looked equally dubious, but asked, "How old was the boy?"

"Thirty-two," Teki snickered.

"Oh." The Security man lost interest.

"Do you possess an antidote to that—so-called truth serum, Doctor?" Helda inquired frostily. "If so I suggest you administer it, and we'll sort the rest of this out down in Quarantine."

Ethan slowed. His words fell from him one by one, like drops of cold honey. "Where you possess dictatorial powers, and where you . . ." He looked up to catch her frigid, frightened eyes. Time stopped. "You . . ."

Time sprang forward. "Quinn!" Ethan bellowed.

At her prompt appearance, herding Millisor and Rau before her with jabs from her stunner, Ethan jumped to his feet. He felt like running around in tight circles, or tearing his hair out in great clumps, or grabbing her by her gray-and-white jacket and shaking her until her teeth rattled. His clenched hands beat the air. His words tumbled over one another in his excitement.

"I kept trying to tell you, but you never stopped to listen. Pretend you're the agent, or whatever, on Kline Station trying to grab Athos's shipment. You make an impromptu decision to replace the frozen tissue, with substitute material. We know it's impromptu, because if it had been planned you could have brought real cultures with you and nobody would ever have known a switch had been made, right? Where, where, in God the Fathers name even on Kline Station, are you going to come up with 450 human ovaries? Not even 450. Three hundred eighty-eight and six cows' ovaries. I don't think even you could pull 'em out of your jacket, Commander Quinn."

Quinn opened her mouth, closed it, and looked extremely thoughtful. "Go on, Doctor."

Millisor had dropped his Harmon Dal act and, oblivious now to Quinn's stunner, stood with his attention rapt on Ethan. Rau watched his leader anxiously for some signal to action. The other ecotech looked bewildered; the Security man, although his eyebrows were up in equal puzzlement, was absorbing every word.

Ethan gabbled on. "Forget the 426 suspect ships. Trace backwards from one ship, the census courier to Athos. Method, motive, and opportunity, by God! Who has ready access to every corner and cubbyhole on Kline Station, who could pass in and out of a guarded transfer warehouse with no question asked? Who has access to human cadavers every day? Cadavers from which a few grams of selected tissues will never be missed, because the bodies are biochemically destroyed immediately after the theft? But not quite enough cadavers, eh Helda, before it was time for the census courier to leave for Athos? Hence the cow ovaries, thrown in out of desperation to make up the numbers, and the short-changed boxes, and the empty box." Ethan paused, panting.

"You're insane," choked Helda. Her face had gone from white to red to white again. Millisor's stunned eyes devoured her. Quinn looked like a woman taken by a beatific vision. The Security's man's fingers were locked on his report panel in a sort of overloaded paralysis.

"Not as crazy as you are," said Ethan. "What did you hope to accomplish?"

"Redundant question," snapped Millisor. "We know what she accomplished. Forget the window-dressing, and find out where—" A sharp gesture from Quinn's stunner reminded him that his status had been reversed from interrogator to prisoner.

"You're all coming to Quarantine—"

"It's over, Helda," said Ethan. "I bet if I look around your Assimilation Station I'll