He grinned, appeared pleasantly surprised. "Put the lady through." There was a brief silence. Then a woman's voice inquired softly, "Quillan?" "Right here, doll! Where--" "Seal the ComWeb, Quillan." He reached down to the instrument, tapped the seal button, said, "All right. We're private." "Probably," the woman's voice said. "But better scramble this, too. I want to be very sure no one's listening." Quillan grunted, slid his left hand into an inner coat pocket, briefly fingered a device of the approximate size and shape of a cigarette, drew his hand out again. "Scrambling!" he announced. "Now, what--" "Mayday, Quillan," the soft voice said. "Can you come immediately?" Quillan's face went expressionless. "Of course. Is it urgent?" "I'm in no present danger. But we'd better waste no time." "Is it going to take real hardware? I'm carrying a finger gun at the moment." "Then go to your rooms and pick up something useful," Reetal said. "This should take real hardware, all right." "All right. Then where do I go?" "I'll meet you at your door. I know where it is." When Quillan arrived, she was standing before the door to his suite, a tall blonde in a sleeveless 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."