Kosta took a careful breath. "All right. I will. In fact, if you'll both excuse me, I'll get started right now. Thank you, Dr. Qhahenlo, for running the data for me."

"You're welcome," Qhahenlo said, nodding gravely. "We'll keep you up to date on what's happening."

"Thank you," Kosta said again, rounding the desk toward the door. "Hopefully, I'll have my credit line back in a couple of days and be able to keep track of it myself."

"I'm sure you will," Qhahenlo assured him.

I was sure, too, yesterday, Kosta reminded himself as he headed down the quiet corridor toward his office. But that was yesterday, and yesterday he didn't have information the Gabriel Corporation might not want people to hear. It would, he decided, be very interesting to see their reaction when they saw his paper.

And to see what, if anything, they did about it. To the hunterships, or to him.

The wrench slipped and clanged against the edge of the access flange, narrowly missing Chandris's knuckles in the process. "Nurk," she gritted, lowering the tool and flexing her fingers. "It keeps coming off."

"That's because you're not setting the line-lock solidly enough against the connector," Hanan told her, his voice calm and soothing. "If it's tight enough, it won't slip."

"Well, I can't do it," Chandris growled, offering him the wrench. "If you can, you're a genius."

"Hardly," Hanan huffed. But it was a pleased sort of huff. "Let me show you."

Chandris stepped aside, maintaining her frustrated scowl as Hanan busied himself with the wrench.

His hands, she could see, were still not a hundred percent steady; but she could also see that her modified little-miss-helpless routine was doing wonders for his morale. With any luck, he wouldn't catch on to what she was doing until his nervous system had gotten back in synch with the exobraces' electronics.

And when that happened, it would be time for her to leave.

"There," Hanan grunted, stepping back and gesturing with a slightly shaky hand at the wrench handle protruding from the access hatch. "Try it now."

"Thanks," Chandris said, getting a grip on the wrench and giving it a tug. This time it stayed on.

"That's it, all right."

"Just one of those things you pick up with experience," Hanan said modestly. "You'll get it in time.

That is, if you stay."

"Where else would I go?" she countered, keeping her eyes on her work.

She sensed Hanan shrug. "Back to running, I suppose. You were running when you first came here, if you remember."

With a final tug, Chandris got the connector loose. "I'm not much interested in running anymore, thank you," she told him, in a tone carefully designed to discourage further questioning.

It was a waste of good voice control. "You know, you never did give us any details about this crazy man you said you were running from," Hanan commented. "He must have been really crazy for you to have run all the way to Seraph to get away from him."

"He was," Chandris said briefly. "You have a spare grommet there?"

"Sure." He found one, handed it to her. "Tell me about him."

"Why?"

He sighed, just audibly. "So that maybe we can help you find a way to get clear of him. Before you leave us."

Chandris felt her throat tighten. "Who says I'm leaving?"

"Ornina. She was right, you know: we do need you here."

Chandris snorted. "That's the trouble with you two. You talk too much to each other."

"She talks and I listen, anyway," Hanan said, a hint of his usual flippancy peeking through. "I'm serious, though, about wanting you to stay. For starters, who else will play this helpless-maiden routine with me if you go?"

Chandris grimaced. So much for him not catching on. "Maybe that's why I want to leave," she growled. "Maybe I'm tired of playing games. Ever think of that?"

For a long minute he was silent. Chandris finished attaching the new connector, then set the wrench's line-lock on the next one and broke it loose. "We're all running from something, Chandris," he said at last, quietly. "Did Ornina ever tell you I wanted to be a surgeon?"

Chandris paused, the connector halfway off. "No," she said.

"It's an art, you know, surgery," Hanan said, his voice oddly distant. "One of the few real arts left.

Maybe the only one where you can genuinely feel that you're doing some good for people."

Chandris heard the faint whine of his exobraces as he moved his arm. "How far had you gotten?" she asked.

"I was in my second year of college when our parents died," he told her. "Ornina had just finished basic, and insisted on going to work to help me pay my way. I was able to work some, too, but she was the one who kept us afloat. I let her do it because I knew that when I got into practice I could afford to send her to college, too. To pay her back for everything.

"I was six months from finishing when the disease showed up."

Chandris blinked away sudden moisture. "They couldn't do anything about it?"

"Well, that's the point, you see," Hanan said, his tone suddenly strange. "They could have."

She turned around to look at him, expecting to see anger in his eyes. But all that was there was sadness. "I don't understand," she said carefully.

He let out his breath in a gentle whoosh. "It could have been cured, Chandris," he said, gazing at his trembling hand. "Not just helped; cured. All it would have taken would have been some highly specialized neural surgery and six months of intensive treatment... and about two million ruya to pay for all of it."

Unbidden, a memory from the Barrio flicked into Chandris's mind: old Flavin, limping painfully along on an ankle that could easily have been replaced. "I'm sorry," was all she could think of to say.

Hanan's eyes came back from his hand and his memories, and he threw her a tight smile. "So was I," he said. "For a long time I was pretty bitter about it, I can tell you. I wasn't asking for charity, you know—I could almost certainly have paid all of it back over a lifetime of surgical work."

Chandris nodded, an old saying floating up from the depths of her memory. " 'The rich get richer,' " she quoted.

" 'And the poor get babies,' " Hanan finished.

"What?"

"My own version. Skip it." He cocked an eyebrow. "So. Your turn."

She felt her stomach tighten. "His name is Trilling Vail," she told him. "For two years he was—" she hesitated, groping for the right word.

"Your lover?" Hanan suggested delicately.

"Yes, that too. But he was a lot more." She shook her head. "You have to understand what the Black Barrio was like, Hanan. Poor people, lots of scorers and koshes—probably a lot like that part of Magasca near the spaceport."

"Sounds pretty grim."

"It wasn't fun. I started out as a trac—that's someone who plays decoy or distraction for a scorer—and worked my way up to where I was the one doing the scoring."

"All of this by yourself?"

"I was never really alone," Chandris said. "But there wasn't anyone who really cared about me, either. Mostly the people who kept me around did so because I was useful.

"And then, when I was fourteen, I met Trilling."

She turned back to the access panel, unwilling for Hanan to see her face. "He was real nice at first.

He took care of me like no one else ever had. Taught me all sorts of tricks, got me involved with his friends, let me move in with him."

Bittersweet memories flashed past her eyes, making her throat hurt. "What can I say? He took care of me."

There was a brief pause. "What happened?" Hanan asked quietly. "Another woman?"

Chandris snorted. "Not Trilling," she said. "He always said he was a one-woman man. As far as I know he never tommed around while I was with him. No, what happened was that he started acting... strange. I mean really strange. He'd try to score tracks he wasn't ready for, and then go crazymad when they popped. He'd get mad at me for no reason at all, or else drop into a black pit for days at a time. He'd disappear, too, at strange hours and blow up when I tried to ask where he'd been. And he started playing around with reeks a lot."