Alonza thought she detected amus.e.m.e.nt in his smile, a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

She found herself suddenly disliking him intensely, then let that feeling go. "We'll start with chili bean soup," she said, "and then some fish in a cuc.u.mber and dill saucewith rice for the main course. The fish is from one of our protein vats, of course, but it tastes almost exactly like salmon. We'll end the meal with a few fruit pastries."

"Sounds delicious," Benzi said.

"And we can offer you a selection of coffees, herbal teas, and fruit juices." The officers' mess served no alcohol, in deference to the Islamic faith of Earth's dominant Nomarchies and also to keep discipline among the Guardians and the Wheel's other personnel, although occasionally the pilots or crew members of a freighter could be bribed into surrendering a few bottles of a cargo.

"We'll have whatever you're having," Benzi said.

Alonza touched her screen to order the meal, finding their acquiescence annoying.

Te-yu's face was composed, and her dark eyes stared past Alonza. In common with the Linkers of Earth, Habbers had Links that connected them directly to their cyberminds; they could call up any data they might need from their artificial intelligences without using the slender silver headbands most people had to wear in order to open those channels.

The Council of Mukhtars restricted direct Links to only a few, to the scientists, specialists, Guardian Commanders, and prominent advisers to the Council who had been trained to use the Links and who had access to channels that were closed to other people. But Habbers, it was said, were all Linked, all equal in their access to their cyberminds. Perhaps Te-yu was diverting herself with some data stream or other, or picking up a message from a friend; that might account for the vacant look on her face.

How insulting of her, Alonza thought; it was as rude as coming to dinner, whipping out a pocket screen, and playing a game instead of conversing with one's companions.

"I'm told that you have close kinfolk on Earth," she said aloud, wanting to get that out of the way.

"Yes," Benzi said, "and on Venus as well."

"And do you sometimes miss what you left behind?" Alonza asked.

"You're asking if that is why I volunteered to ferry people from that camp to Venus?" Benzi drew his brows together. "Maybe so. I haven't really examined my possible motivations,"

An orderly came into the small room with a tray, set down the cups of juice, then left. Having people handle such simple tasks on the Wheel was cheaper than the trouble and expense of maintaining the servos and other mechanisms that performed such jobs elsewhere. Whatever Earth might lack in other resources, it had no shortage of people.

"You might have been taking a risk," Alonza said, "even with our agreements.

Ways might have been found to keep you both on Earth without violating any treaties."

Te-yu's eyes focused on her. Alonza finally had her attention. Benzi sipped some juice, then set his cup down. "We thought that most unlikely," he said.

"But still possible."

"Just barely." He frowned for a moment, then drank more juice. She wanted him a bit apprehensive; that would make him and his companion less likely to interfere with her task.

They got through the meal while saying little of any significance. Benzi and Alonza exchanged opinions on the very few mind-tours and virtual concerts they had both experienced. The dinner, better than Benzi had clearly expected, inspired them both to discuss some of their favorite foods. Alonza mentioned in pa.s.sing that she had beenborn in San Antonio, and Benzi said that although he had grown up on one of Venus'

Islands, he had been born in a small town on the North American Plains. Te-yu said almost nothing at all.

Alonza walked the two Habbers back to their room, then hurried to the nearest lift.

The door slid shut silently; the cage hummed softly around her until the door opened and she knew that she had arrived at the Wheel's hub.

Alonza welcomed the half-g of the hub, where all the docks were located. She came here often, to look at the ships and imagine herself on an endless journey aboard one; such musings were one of her few indulgences.

She entered the bay area, empty except for two technicians checking some readings, and went to the viewscreen. Often Tom Ruden-Nodell joined her here after a shift of duty at the infirmary, partly because the half-g eased his minor aches and pains. He was another one like her, according to his public record, someone who had been a child living on Basic and what he could scrounge for himself until he caught the eye of a benefactor who, impressed by his quickness and intelligence, had taken him away from his negligent parents and found him a place in a dormitory.

But they never spoke of the past. They sat in the bay and speculated about the travelers who pa.s.sed through the Wheel and exchanged the stories they had each gleaned from them. There were workers in gray tunics and pants with tales of repairing seawalls and dikes near the flooded cities of New York, Melbourne, or Corpus Christi; Linkers in white robes with gossip about the s.e.xual affairs of those close to the Council of Mukhtars; students and young scientists with stories of their future ambitions told with a mixture of youthful arrogance and insecurity. While listening to them, Alonza often thought of how far she had come from the wretched shantytown of people on Basic that nestled near San Antonio's port.

"I might put in for a change," Tom had told her the last time they were here in the hub. "I'm thinking of making a move to Luna. They'll need another physician there sooner or later, and there'd be the astronomers and other researchers to exchange ideas with and the engineers and miners to drink with. And one-sixth gravity might be just the thing for my old bones." She had noticed the deep lines around his eyes then, the graying hair, the weariness his slouch betrayed.

"You're not that old, Tom," she said.

"I am that old, Alonza," and he was right; he was eighty, and could expect another thirty or forty years if his rejuvenation therapy worked as it did for most people, but there were always exceptions, and Tom was already showing many of the signs of age.

"Might not be a bad place for a Guardian officer to be posted either," he added.

"And why is that?"

"Because there isn't much to do except keep order and look out for people's safety and maybe round up a few miners and workers when they get a little rowdy."

"There wouldn't be much chance for a promotion, though."

"And not much chance of running afoul of ambitious officers either." Tom had smiled to himself then, and for a moment Alonza had envied the physician the relatively peaceful life he had won for himself.

More docks had been added to the Wheel in recent years, and now there were fifteen of them filled with the metal slugs of freighters and dull gray torchships; other docks held the shuttles that traveled to and from Earth and Luna. The Habber vessel was unlike the other torchships; it was a slender spire of silver attached to the vast globe that housed its engines. Its pa.s.sengers would board the vessel, perhaps expecting the diversions that other pa.s.senger ships offered, only to find out that theywould be in suspension during the entire journey. The Habbers claimed that this was a more efficient way of transporting their pa.s.sengers, that to have them safely stored in sleepers was more comfortable for them, given the high acceleration of their faster ships, but Alonza also suspected that the Habbers did not want anyone else poking around inside their vessels and maybe finding out more about them.

Alonza moved closer to the viewscreen. Outside the hub, two suited and helmeted figures crawled along the latticework of the dock that held the Habber ship. They had surely noticed by now that the components did not really need to be replaced this soon, according to the readings, but they were well-disciplined Guardian technicians and had not questioned their orders.

Alonza slapped the comm next to the screen. "How's it going, Starling?"

"I've got two more components to go, Major," the voice of Darlanna Starling replied. "Richi's got three."

"Estimate?"

"Two more hours, maybe three."

"Both of you better come inside for a break, Starling. That's an order. When you get too tired, accidents can happen."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Get some food into you, maybe a nap if you think you need it."

"Yes, ma'am."

That would give her some more time. Maybe she wouldn't need much more; maybe this whole business would move along faster than she expected. Go to the lounge where the Venus-bound pa.s.sengers were waiting, give them some bureaucratic gab, get Sameh Tryolla away from the others on some excuse, and send the two Habbers on their way with their ship.

Doubt bit at her again. It didn't add up, the secrecy, holding the woman here, going to all this trouble. Alonza pushed those thoughts aside as she left the bay.

The people in the lounge seemed subdued. Some of them lay on the floor, their packs and duffels under their heads, while others sat on cushions. A few had helped themselves to cups of water from the wall dispenser and were drinking it listlessly.

Perhaps they were still recovering from the weightless discomforts of the shuttle flight.

Sameh Tryolla was on one of the cushions, her back against the wall, looking even thinner and smaller than she had in her file image. She glanced toward Alonza, then looked away.

"...showed them to the lavatories," the Guardian on Alonza's right murmured, "and they haven't given us any trouble. Might need to get fed soon, though."

"They don't have any credit to pay for their food," Alonza said. The hopeful settlers had been forced to give up all their credit after reaching the camp; it was one way to help cover the expense of housing them while they waited for pa.s.sage. "Thirty or forty hours on nothing but water won't kill them," she went on, thinking of times in her early childhood when she had had even less than that.

"Yeah, but you don't want them to get weak, Major," the Guardian said, "or we might get stuck with them for even longer."

Alonza turned toward the young man. "You're quite right, Zaleski," she said as the threads of her plan came together in her mind. "In fact, that's why I'm here. I'm a little worried after the last message I got from Keir Renin."

The young Guardian looked puzzled.

"The officer in charge of the camp they came from," she continued in a softer voice."He didn't say so outright, but he implied that the soldiers who gave them their med-scans might have been a bit sloppy."

Zaleski's blue eyes widened.

"Oh, I don't think we really have to worry," Alonza said hastily. "Renin's people would have caught anything virulent or potentially lethal. But as long as they're stuck here, it wouldn't hurt to scan them all again."

"Should I call for a couple of paramedics?" Zaleski turned toward the comm near the doorway.

"No," Alonza replied. "The head physician can handle this." She could trust Tom, and Colonel Sansom had told her to use her own judgment. "I'll go to the infirmary and set things up with him."

"I could call him and-"

"I'd rather not have rumors going around about possibly contagious travelers being here."

The young Guardian nodded. "Of course, Major Lemaris."

Tom Ruden-Nodell listened as Alonza told him about the people she wanted scanned and gave him the name of the person she had been ordered to detain. "We'll bring her back here," she continued, "and hold her until Colonel Sansom gets back."

"And we're to do all this as quietly as possible," he said.

"Yes. We'll put her in one of the private rooms, and you can give her something to knock her out. I'll keep watch over her. It would be better not to involve any of the other medical personnel."

"Understood."

Tom had not asked her about why she was to hold the woman, and what Colonel Sansom wanted with her, but she had expected that. He was safer knowing as little as possible and not risking his usually placid and extremely secure existence.

They left his office together, the physician with a portable scanner under his arm.

He said nothing to her during the short walk through the corridor to the lounge. As they entered the room, Zaleski and the three Guardians with him stepped aside and stood at attention.

"I have an announcement to make," Alonza said. The people sitting on cushions or on the floor looked toward her; those lying down stirred and sat up. "Since you have to wait here anyway until the dock's repaired, we've decided to give you all another med-scan." She heard groans, and a couple of men scowled. "Let me a.s.sure you that we expect to find nothing, given that you were all scanned before leaving your camp, but it doesn't hurt to be careful, and we've got the time for the extra caution."

"I'll tell you what you'll find out," a stocky blond man said in accented Anglaic.

"We could all use some food. I vomited what little they gave me during that d.a.m.ned shuttle flight."

Alonza narrowed her eyes as she gripped the handle of the stun wand at her waist.

"You won't be here that much longer. Now line up in front of the ID console and we'll get this done as quickly as we can." She turned to Tom as people cleared their throats, stretched, mumbled to one another, and slowly got to their feet.

The stocky blond man held out his braceleted wrist as the ID console's flat voice recited his name, age, and other particulars. He was scanned first, followed by two bearded fellows in worn brown tunics and baggy pants. Sameh Tryolla was near the back of the line; that was good. They could be done with this, get the operative secured, and send the Habbers and their human cargo on their way in two or three hours.Tom circled each person with a med-scan wand, moved the wand up and down, stared at the readings on his portable screen for a bit, then gave a quick nod before scanning the next man or woman. The physician seemed his usual thorough self, and it occurred to Alonza then that he might actually find some sort of medical problem in one of these people that had not been caught earlier. The chances of that were vanishingly remote, but could complicate matters for her.

People held their arms out to the console, shuffled toward Tom, stood quietly as he waved his wand over them as though casting a spell, then moved toward the back of the room to lean against the wall and gaze sourly at Alonza and her Guardians.

When it was Sameh Tryolla's turn, a look of uneasiness flickered across her pretty face. The ID console gave her age as twenty, which agreed with the data Alonza had seen in her file, but she looked even younger than that.

Tom pa.s.sed his wand over her, stared at his screen, rubbed his chin, and sighed.

"Stand right over there, young woman," he said, gesturing in Alonza's direction.

"But why?" Sameh Tryolla asked in the high tiny voice of a child.

"Do as the doctor says," Alonza said. Sameh Tryolla came toward her and waited at her left as Tom finished scanning the last three people.

"All right," Tom said, "I'm done, and grateful for your cooperation. Now I better start by saying that n.o.body here has anything to worry about, but it looks like I'll have to do a more thorough scan of young Sameh Tryolla here."

Alonza saw the young woman raise her brows, as if startled, and yet she did not seem that surprised somehow. Her body had not tensed; if anything, she seemed almost relaxed. In her position, Alonza thought, I'd be wondering what's going on, why I was being singled out, if somebody had found out what I really was. At the very least I'd be worrying about whether or not I actually did have some kind of unexpected and mysterious medical problem.

"There's nothing the matter with me," Sameh Tryolla said in her little girl's voice.

"Now I'm just about certain that's true," Tom said rea.s.suringly, "and a complete workup in the infirmary will probably bear that out, but we can't be too careful. Scan here shows that you've got some kind of bacterium in your system that the med-scan program can't identify. I don't want you worrying, because people carry all kinds of bacteria as a normal thing, but we just want-"

"You don't have to explain it to me," Sameh said in a softer but steelier voice.

Tom nodded. "We'll just isolate it and make sure-"

"I understand." Sameh bowed her head, looking like a child again.

"And what about the rest of us?" the blond man called out. He seemed to have made himself the spokesman for his companions. "What are we supposed to do, wait around here until he runs all his tests on her?"

Alonza stared at him; he glared back. She kept her eyes on him until he finally looked down, then said, "I checked on how the repairs were going just a short time ago, and by now the components have probably been replaced. As soon as I verify that, we'll get all of you aboard the Habber ship as quickly as we can. If this woman here is cleared by then, as the doctor expects, she'll join you, and if not, you'll be on your way without her."

She waited for somebody in the group to object, to ask what would happen to Sameh Tryolla after that, but no one did. They probably a.s.sumed that she would be sent back to the camp, or maybe given some job on the Wheel to earn her keep until another ship arrived to carry former camp inmates to Venus. As Alonza studied their indifferent and bored faces, she realized that n.o.body here particularly cared whathappened to her. Just as well, she thought, since it made her task easier.

"I have to get my pack," Sameh Tryolla whispered, at last sounding worried.

"Get it, then," Alonza said. The woman went to the back of the room, picked up a duffel, and slipped the strap over her shoulder. Alonza pressed her hand against the comm next to the door. "Lemaris to Starling."

"Starling here," the voice of Darlanna Starling replied.

"How are those repairs coming along?"

"We'll be done in a hour, Major."

"Good. We'll get the pa.s.sengers ready to board." She turned to the men at her side.

"Zaleski, go fetch our two Habber guests. Achmed and Jeyaraj, get all these people to the hub. I'll let you know if this woman will be joining them or not by the time they're ready to leave."

"Yes, ma'am."

Sameh was silent during the walk to the infirmary. Tom would stall for a while, doing another med-scan and taking his samples, and then Alonza would give the young woman the word. "You won't be going to Venus; I have to detain you. Those are my orders. No, I don't know why; all they told me was to hold you until my commanding officer returns." Maybe it would be better to simply put her under restraint without explaining anything, but something in Alonza rebelled against that; an operative working for Guardian Commanders deserved more consideration, and it might count against Alonza if the woman complained that she had been badly treated.