The weight of the big man, the stench of his fatal injury, pressed into Miles's face. He wished the fellow'd massed another fifty kilos. No wonder Cavilo had been willing to front twenty thousand Betan dollars toward a line on a shield-suit. Of all the loathsome weapons Miles had ever faced, this had to be the most personally terrifying. A head injury that didn't quite kill him, but stole his humanity and left him animal or vegetable was the worst nightmare. His intellect was surely his sole justification for existence. Without it …

The crackle of a nerve disrupter not aimed his way penetrated his hearing. Miles turned his head to scream, cloth– and meat-muffled, "Stunners! Stunners! We want him alive for questioning!" He's yours, you go get him. . . . He should shove out from under this body and join the fight. But if he was the assassin's special target, and why else pump charges into a corpse . . . perhaps he ought to stay right here. He squirmed, trying to draw his hands and legs in tighter.

The shouting died down; the firing stopped. Someone kneeling beside him tried to roll the sergeant's body off Miles. It took Miles a moment to realize he had to unclutch the dead man's uniform jacket before he could be rescued. He straightened his fingers with difficulty.

Thorne's face wavered over him, white and breathing open-mouthed, urgent. "Are you all right, Admiral?"

"I think," Miles panted.

"He was aiming at you," Thorne reported. "Only."

"I noticed," Miles stuttered. "I'm only lightly fried." Thorne helped him sit up. He was shaking as badly as after the shock-stick beating. He regarded his spasming hands, lowered one to touch the corpse beside him in morbid wonder. Every day of the rest of my life will be your gift. And I don't even know your name. "Your sergeant—what was his name?"

"Collins."

"Collins. Thanks."

"Good man."

"I saw."

Oser came up, looking strained. "Admiral Naismith, this was not my doing."

"Oh?" Miles blinked. "Help me up, Bel. . . ." That might have been a mistake, Thorne then had to help him keep standing as his muscles twitched. He felt weak, washed-out as a sick man. Elena– where? She had no weapon. . . .

There she was, with another female mercenary. They were dragging a man in the dark blue uniform of an Aslunder ranker toward Miles and Oser. Each woman held a booted foot; the man's arms trailed nervelessly across the deck. Stunned? Dead? They dropped the feet with a thump beside Miles, with the matter-of-fact air of lionesses delivering prey to their cubs. Miles stared down at a very familiar face indeed. General Metzov. What are you doing here?

"Do you recognize this man?" Oser asked an Aslunder officer who had hurried up to join them. "Is he one of yours?"

"I don't know him—" The Aslunder knelt to check for IDs. "He had a valid pass. . . ."

"He could have had me, and gotten away," said Elena to Miles, "but he kept firing at you. You were bright to stay put."

A triumph of wit, or a failure of nerve? "Yes. Quite." Miles made another attempt to stand on his own, gave up, and leaned on Thorne. "I hope you didn't kill him."

"Just stunned," said Elena, holding up the weapon as evidence. Some intelligent person must have tossed it to her when the melee began. "He probably has a broken wrist."

"Who is he?" asked Oser. Quite sincerely, Miles judged.

"Why, Admiral," Miles bared his teeth, "I told you I was going to deliver you more intelligence data than your Section could collect in a month. May I present," rather like an entree at that—he made a gesture designed to evoke a waiter lifting a domed cover from a silver platter, but which probably looked like another muscle spasm, "General Stanis Metzov. Second-in-command, Randall's Rangers."

"Since when do senior staff officers undertake field assassinations?"

"Excuse me, second-in-command as of three days ago. That may have changed. He was up to his stringy neck in Cavilo's schemes. You, I, and he have an appointment with a hypospray."

Oser stared. "You planned this?"

"Why do you think I spent the last hour flitting around the Station, if not to smoke him out?" Miles said brightly. He must have been stalking me this whole time. I think I'm going to throw up. Have I just claimed to be brilliant, or incredibly stupid? Oser looked like he was trying in figure out the answer to that same question.

Miles stared down at Metzov's unconscious form, trying to think. Had Metzov been sent by Cavilo, or was this murder attempt entirely on his own time? If sent by Cavilo—had she planned him to fall alive into her enemies' hands? If not, was there a backup assassin around here somewhere, and if so was his target Metzov, if Metzov succeeded, or Miles, if Metzov failed? Or both? I need to sit down and draw a flow-chart.

Medical squads had arrived. "Yes, sickbay," said Miles faintly. "Till my old friend here wakes up."

"I'll agree to that," said Oser, shaking his head in something akin to dismay.

"Better put a protective as well as holding guard on our prisoner. I'm not sure if he was meant to survive capture."

"Right," Oser agreed bemusedly.

Thorne supporting one arm and Elena the other, Miles staggered home into the Triumph's hatchway.

Miles sat trembling on a bench in a glassed-in cubicle normally used for bio-isolation in the Triumph's sickbay, and watched Elena tie General Metzov to a chair with a tangle-cord. It would have given Miles a smug sense of turn-about, if the interrogation upon which they were about to embark was not so fraught with dangerous complications. Elena was disarmed again. Two stunner-armed men stood guard beyond the soundproof transparent door, glancing in occasionally. It had taken all Miles's eloquence to keep the audience for this initial questioning limited to himself, Oser, and Elena.

"How hot can this man's information be?" Oser had inquired irritably. "They let him go out in the field."

"Hot enough that I think you should have a chance to think about it before broadcasting it to a committee," Miles had argued. "You'll still have the recording."

Metzov looked sick and silent, tight-mouthed and unresponsive. His right wrist was neatly bandaged. Awakening from stun accounted for the sick; the silence was futile, and everyone knew it. It was a kind of strange courtesy, not to badger him with questions before the fast-penta cut in.

Now Oser frowned at Miles. "Are you up to this yet?"

Miles glanced down at his still-shaking hands. "As long as no one asks me to do brain surgery, yes. Proceed. I have reason to suspect that time is of the essence."

Oser nodded to Elena, who held up a hypospray to calibrate the dose, and pressed it to Metzov's neck. Metzov's eyes shut briefly in despair. After a moment his clenched hands relaxed. The muscles of his face unlocked to sag into a loose, idiotic smile. The transformation was most unpleasant to watch. Without the tension his face looked aged.

Elena checked Metzov's pulse and pupils. "All right. He's all yours, gentlemen." She stepped back to lean against the doorframe with folded arms, her expression almost as closed as Metzov's had been.

Miles opened his hand. "After you, Admiral."

Oser's mouth twisted. "Thank you. Admiral." He walked over to stare speculatively into Metzov's face. "General Metzov. Is your name Stanis Metzov?"

Metzov grinned. "Yeah, that's me."

"Presently second-in-command, RandalFs Rangers?"

"Yeah."

"Who sent you to assassinate Admiral Naismith?"

Metzov's face took on an expression of sunny bewilderment.

"Who?"

"Call me Miles," Miles suggested. "He knows me under a … pseudonym." His chance of getting through this interview with his identity undisclosed equalled that of a snowball surviving a worm-hole jump to the center of a sun, but why rush the complications?