"Really," Faraday said, looking at Sprenkle as a sudden thought struck him. "Do you think...?"

Sprenkle shrugged. "Too soon to say," he said. "But it certainly looks promising."

"Yes," Faraday murmured. One of Raimey's biggest problems, Sprenkle had always said, was that in five years he still didn't really fit in with the rest of Qanskan society. Not even before his blowup with Drusni; certainly not afterward. Could this finally be the social breakthrough they'd been waiting for?

If it was, he would bet his pension that Liadof had missed the significance of the event entirely. She might know all of Changeling's facts and figures, but she had no feel for any of the more subtle stuff going on beneath the surface. "What did Liadof say afterward?" he asked. "Was she was suitably impressed?"

"Probably as impressed as her sort ever gets," Beach said sourly. "She basically just said 'interesting,'

then made us promise not to tell anyone."

"Including me?"

"Especially you," Sprenkle said. "She said that if you weren't interested enough to stick around till the end of the shift, then you didn't deserve to know what was going on."

"Hmm," Faraday said, rubbing his chin. Insulting, but also revealing. So Liadof wasn't all that interested one way or the other in Raimey's survival. Less interested, apparently, than getting an entertaining live-nature show.

But at the same time, she didn't want to tip the cart over by letting Faraday get wind of it. Did that imply that Raimey was expendable, but that Faraday still had some influence on what went on here?

Or did she merely not want to bother with the kind of noise he could make with the Five Hundred?

A Marine lockdown on Jupiter Prime, after all, would be rather counterproductive.

"So what's the next move?" McCollum asked.

Faraday shook his head. "I don't know," he said candidly. "Ideally, I'd like some idea what she's up to. Unfortunately, she's apparently the only one who knows."

"Does it have something to do with that eight-man tech group she's got working down in Bay Seven?" Milligan asked.

Faraday stared at him. "What tech group?"

"The one putting together a top-secret, high-end probe," Milligan said. "Rumor has it they've thrown all the station personnel out of the bay and support areas and taken the whole place over."

"You're kidding," Faraday said. He hadn't heard even a hint of this one. "Where did you hear this?"

"Where do you think?" Milligan threw a slightly smug, slightly injured look at McCollum. "Those poker games aren't just for the redistribution of wealth, you know. Someone has to keep tabs on what's happening around here."

"Consider us duly chastised," Faraday said dryly. "What else have you heard?"

Milligan grimaced. "Like I said, it's supposed to be top secret," he said. "The only reason I got anything is that the regular station guys are pretty sore at having been kicked out."

"Happens all the time on a space station," Beach grunted. "We must have kicked someone out of the Contact Room when we moved in, too."

"Yeah, but it was the way Liadof's people took over," Milligan said. "High-handed and stiff-nosed was the way one of the guys put it."

"Sounds like the sort of people she would hire," Sprenkle said.

"It does, doesn't it?" Faraday said, frowning. A new, high-tech probe. What could Liadof be doing with a new, high-tech probe?

"You don't suppose she really does intend to search the whole planet, do you?" Beach asked. "I was kidding about that."

"Never kid about politicians," Milligan advised him. "The more bizarre the joke, the more likely it'll come true."

"Still, I can't imagine them thinking anything that bizarre," Faraday said. "The range of current emscan technology... on the other hand, maybe someone's made a breakthrough they haven't told us about."

"Sounds like our first step is to find out more about this probe," McCollum suggested. "Does anybody besides Tom have an in with this group?"

"Hey, I don't even have an in with the techs doing the actual work," Milligan warned. "I just know some of the station engineering guys, and they don't know any more than the rest of us do."

"Then let's get to know Liadof's people," Faraday said. "Try to make contact, befriend them—that sort of thing. They must be feeling a little isolated, working down there all by themselves. Any idea what their timetable is?"

"One of them said Liadof's got the bay reserved for the next two months," Milligan said. "For a crew of eight, that's probably about right for assembly and testing a deep-atmosphere probe."

"So we've got two months," Faraday said. "Fine. Let's see just how friendly we all can be. And we can start by trying to coax one of them outside Bay Seven for some kind of social visit. Any kind of social visit."

He looked at Milligan. "Including a poker game."

"Sounds good to me," Milligan said blandly. "They talk more when they're winning, though. You willing to subsidize me a little?"

"Within reason," Faraday said. "In fact, I'll go you one better. I'll offer a cash bonus to the first person who gets one of them out on a social visit."

Sprenkle half raised his hand. "Colonel, what about Beta and Gamma Shifts? Are you going to bring them into this, too?"

Faraday hesitated. "Not right now," he said. "I don't know any of them nearly as well as I know you four; and I do know there are a couple among them who are very big on blind obedience to governmental authority. They might not be comfortable with this."

"I know which ones you mean," Beach said, making a face. "You're right, we'd better keep it here."

"At least for now," Faraday said. "Well. Does anyone have anything else to add or ask?"

There was a moment of silence. "Then that's it," Faraday said. "Thank you all for coming."

With a rustle of cloth and a muttering of good-byes, they got up and filed out of the room.

All of them, that is, except Sprenkle.

"You have a question?" Faraday asked him as the door closed behind the others.

"More of a comment, really," Sprenkle said. His posture was studiously relaxed as he sat on the edge of Faraday's bed, the sort of pose that put people at their ease. An old psychologist's trick, no doubt.

"I just wanted to make sure you realized just how far out your neck is stuck on this one."

"I have a pretty good idea," Faraday said. "My question for you is whether it's stuck out there all alone."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that if push comes to crunch, are they going to stand with me?" Faraday said bluntly. "Or are they going to think only of themselves?"

"I would say that's partly up to you," Sprenkle said. "For whatever it's worth, I think you've taken a good first step here tonight."

"Which step was that?"

"Reinvigorating them," Sprenkle said. "You saw what they were like when they came in. Over the past couple of years this job's gotten breathtakingly boring. We know most of what there is to know about Qanskan society, and frankly Raimey isn't all that interesting to watch anymore."

"Is that why they've been picking at each other so much?"

"It's a common outlet," Sprenkle said. "But as I'm sure you saw, when they left here they left as a team again. You've given us something new to think about and work toward together."

He cocked his head. "Whether that's going to be enough for them to stand by you, I don't know. You have a name and a reputation that even the Five Hundred might hesitate to take on. None of the rest of us have that kind of armor plating."

"My name and reputation would be standing in the dock along with them," Faraday pointed out.

"True, but armor plating extends only so far," Sprenkle said. "It's easy to talk big and confident here in a private meeting. It's not nearly so easy to turn that talk into action. Especially not when you're facing the possible loss of your entire future."