His operator punched in the command, smiling for the cameras. Lights flickered all over the lab as the various systems talked to each other. Over the hum, Titus answered questions about how his catalogue would figure in this process when it was read into the system. He mentioned the method he’d developed to determine if a distant system with a gas giant actually had an Earthlike planet.

He’d never rehearsed this, so he was astonished that his speech ended exactly as the printer began to spill out pages.

“With my assumptions, the program has narrowed it down to fifteen stars, all widely separated. We can’t signal so many locations. We can bracket two, perhaps three closely grouped stars and still listen for answers. Remember, this probe will be unmanned. The less it must do on its own, the more likely it will succeed before it malfunctions.”

Colby stepped up beside Titus and took his elbow. Behind a broad grin she whispered, “Abbot never showed!” Aloud, she announced, “So you see, Dr. Shiddehara’s department is ready. Now if you’ll follow my most able assistants, you’ll tour the probe. We’ve made miraculous progress there, and we expect to bring it in under budget.

“I’ll see you all in the big conference hall tomorrow morning. Now, please excuse me. It’s been a very long day.” The group broke up, and Colby added, to Titus, “I’ve been on my feet for almost twenty hours, and I can’t remember the last time I had more than a nap. I’ve got to get some sleep. If you see Abbot, don’t let him talk to the reporters alone. They’ll cream him. He’s so innocent. But your main job is to tell us which of those catalogues is the real thing.”

“That may be impossible. I haven’t memorized the data.” Innocent? Abbot? Shit. “But I’ll do my best.”

As they watched the guides lining the reporters up for the excursion into vacuum, she added, swaying on her feet, “I’ll want you at that meeting tomorrow if you can authenticate one of those catalogues. If not, stay away.”

At that point, the doors opened, and everyone turned. Titus expected it would be Abbot, but the figure who stood there was shorter, older, and very human. Abner Gold!

He threw up both his arms and shouted for silence. “I have something to tell you. Don’t let them stop me!”

The Brink’s people surreptitiously closing in on him from all sides froze, looking at Colby. She stood, mouth agape.

Gold announced, “There’s a secret project here! They’ve got a perfectly preserved alien corpse and they’re planning to clone it and raise an alien child! Has any W.S. nation ratified such a an? Or have these mad scientists taken the moral decisions of our race into their own hands?”

Good God!

A roar of questions and demands for proof filled the room. Gold told them which room in Biomed held the corpse. He tossed a memory cartridge to the reporter who had tried to deliver Titus’s catalogue. The man caught it, and Gold said, “In there is the whole story-the bills of landing for the cloning equipment, the names of those here insane enough to try such a thing, and,” he added with a triumphant glance at Colby, “the total amounts spent on this unauthorized scheme.”

Where could he have gotten all of that? Then the image came to him of Gold head to head with Ebony. Had she put him up to this? Or had Gold told her about it?

But if she knew Gold would blow the lid on the cloning project, and if her terrorist group knew his star catalogue was altered, then why would she have tried to assassinate Titus?

Of course! There was more than one group of terrorists. And they each wanted credit for scuttling the Project.

Surely, Ebony had found out about the cloning project from Gold only after she sabotaged the centrifuge. Having failed, she needed another line of attack, and Gold fell right into her lap. Gold wouldn’t have spoken to anyone until after Colby fired him. Not knowing Ebony was a terrorist, he wouldn’t have gone running to his weight-lifting instructor. But when he saw her next, she’d have pumped him until he spilled the whole story.

Colby climbed the steps by the door and held everyone’s attention as three Brink’s guards escorted Gold out. One of the reporters called, “Dr. Colby, the tour of the probe can wait. We must see Biomed and Cognitive Sciences. Now.”

“And what would you expect to see?” she challenged.

“Proof,” retorted a woman reporter.

“Nonsense,” said Colby. “You’d see what Dr. Gold described-a perfectly preserved alien corpse in a cryogenic chamber, in a small lab rigged for full sterility procedures, absolutely full. None of you will get into that room.”

There was an uproar. “We’re hiding nothing!” she lied. “We reported we have well-preserved tissue. Dr. Shiddehara mentioned how study of the alien eyes will yield clues to the spectrum of the alien’s sun. Skin tissue likewise. Chemical analysis of the flesh may reveal their sun’s composition for the planet on which they evolved probably formed from the same matter that condensed into their sun. Calculations are possible. But not if the tissue is contaminated. I repeat, for your safety and the potential reliability of our data, not one of you will enter the chamber.” She was sweating.

When the protests subsided, she relented. “You may, however, view the chamber through our monitors. Biomed personnel will answer your questions. You’ll find that we do have the capability to attempt a cloning. We couldn’t do our primary job without it because those who are expert in the necessary fields are also prominent in the field of clone research. No such project is, however, under way. No such facility has been set up. No such authorization has been given us. No such budget exists. You may check all that.”

“Then you deny the charge?”

“That we’re mad scientists? Certainly. Are you mad journalists? Do you deny that charge?”

“We’re angry journalists!” said a woman representing three science magazines. “We toured Biomed and you never showed us this corpse.”

“You saw every phase of the investigations currently under way. We’ve given you a coherent picture of the thrust of our research. I’d think experienced journalists would appreciate that. I would not expect anyone but sensation mongers to be diverted by the hysterical allegations of one deeply disturbed individual. Why don’t you continue your tour-which we’ve arranged to be ”east disruptive to our work-and later, check the facts behind this so-called evidence you’ve been given? Then I’ll answer your questions.

“But I will not tolerate an ever-escalating melee. This is a research facility, ladies and gentlemen, not a commodity trading pit. Those who wish to tour the probe are welcome to step into le corridor where cars await you. Others may catch the shuttle leaving for Luna Station in half an hour. It has room for the few who’ve completed the tour here. I will instruct the Brink’s guards to see you to the dock.”

She turned her back and went out. Someone met her in the doorway, and she waved them on into the lab.

Titus expected an uproar. But the rumble of discontent did not wax any louder as the reporters talked it over. He heard one group deciding not to accuse Colby of buying time to hide the evidence, but to send one of their own in as a spy. But no one volunteered. In the end, a group of science writers made for the electric carts that would take them to the airlock for the probe tour. By ones and twos, the others followed.

The person Colby had sent through approached Titus with two computer media cases, the two copies of his catalogue. “If you’ll just sign for these, Dr. Shiddehara, I’ll leave them with you. Dr. Colby says you’ll be through with them by the time of her conference in the morning. I’ll pick them up thgn. And we’ll be leaving guards here, if that’s all right with you. This is legal evidence for the moment.”

Shimon peered around Titus’s elbow. “Which is which?”