Dirtsiders tended to think of starships as solid chunks of alloy wrapped around passages and compartments, but any professional spacer knew better. Like the human body itself, ships were riddled by arteries and capillaries which carried power, light, air, water, and all the other vital ingredients of an artificial world throughout their volumes. And unlike the human body, they were also provided with inspection hatches and crawlways to provide access to components which might require repair or adjustment.

Needless to say, the presence of such subsidiary access ways was a pain in the posterior for naval architects, who had to provide blast doors to seal them, as well as the passages and lifts the dirtsiders knew about, in the event of sudden loss of pressure, but there was no way to do without them. And if a man knew his way around them, and had enough time, he could get virtually anywhere he wanted to without using those passages and lifts.

Which was precisely what Harkness had done. Now he switched the minicomp off, shoved it back into his pocket, and slithered down the last few meters of his current ventilation duct. It wasn't quite a perfect way to his destination, but he figured it came as close to one as he had any right to ask for. The grille at its end was set into the long wall of the passage, but it was clear down at the far end from the lifts. No one was likely to be looking this direction, after all, the only thing there was to see was the bulkhead the passage dead-ended into, but its positioning also meant he wouldn't be able to look things over before he acted, and he didn't much like jumping blind this way. On the other hand, he didn't have a lot of choice, and he'd spent enough time viewing the output from the security cameras covering the passage to know what he ought to find waiting for him.

He breathed a silent prayer that he was right, worked his way around to get his feet against the grille, drew both pulsers, and kicked hard.

"Why d'you think he spends so much time with them Manties, Sarge?" Citizen Corporal Porter asked.

"Damned if I know." Citizen Sergeant Calvin Innis shrugged and reached for his coffee cup once more. Citizen Private Donatelli saw him reaching and pushed it closer to him, and he nodded his thanks to her before he looked back at Porter. "All I know is he's s'posed to be their 'liaison officer,' and as long as nobody tells me he can't see 'em, I don't give a rat's ass what he's up to. 'Course, if he hasn't got authorization to be down here, he's gonna be a mighty sick puppy when Citizen Captain Vladovich finds out about it, don't y'think?"

"Oh, I think you could probably say that," Citizen Private Mazyrak, the fourth member of the detail, agreed with a smile. "Wanna start a pool on how long it's gonna be before he checks into one of the rooms down the hall himself?"

He and Innis exchanged nasty grins, and then the sergeant chuckled and raised his mug. He'd needed the laugh, but he needed the caffeine more, and he grumbled to himself as he sipped. He'd only been on duty a bit less than an hour, and he hated the midwatch. He never seemed to get any real sleep when they made him work nights, which was silly, since only chronos gave any meaning to the terms "day" and "night" aboard a starship. But there it was. He always had that sense of fatigue, that stretched-skin feeling around his eyes, which made the coffee especially welcome, and...

A loud clatter chopped off his thought, and he jumped in surprise. Scalding hot coffee sloshed over his tunic, and he snarled a short, savage oath as it soaked through to his skin. His free hand dabbed uselessly at his chest, and he turned his head towards the source of the sound, prepared to flay the skin off whoever had made it.

It wasn't until he'd actually begun to turn that his brain started to catch up with his reactions, and one eyebrow rose in surprise, for the sound had come from his left, and the lifts were to his right. But the lifts were the only way into the area, and all three of his subordinates were right here in front of him, Citizen Private Donatelli seated behind the security console while Citizen Corporal Porter and Citizen Private Mazyrak leaned casual elbows on its counter. So if they were all with him, and if the lifts were to his right, then what the hell...?

He never completed the thought, for even before he saw the ventilator grille still bouncing on the deck, he also saw a human body come feet-first after it. He had too little time to recognize the Manty petty officer who'd defected to the Republic, indeed, he barely had time to realize where the man must have come from, for the apparition had a long-barreled military-issue pulser in either hand, and the very last thing Citizen Sergeant Calvin Innis ever felt was astonishment as a hurricane of three-millimeter darts tore him and his detail apart.

"I appreciate the gesture, Citizen Commander, but if we're not supposed to know the schedule, you shouldn't be here." The four missing and two broken teeth his demand to see Lady Harrington had cost him made Alistair McKeon’s enunciation a little unclear, but his sincerity came through, and Warner Caslet gave a small, fatalistic shrug.

"I can't get into a lot more trouble, Captain," he said. "You didn't cause that, and neither did Lady Harrington, really. It's just a fact. And since it is, I might as well spend some time doing what I think is right."

McKeon said nothing for a long moment, simply gazed into Caslet’s hazel eyes. Then his own eyes softened, and he nodded. In fact, as both he and Caslet knew, there'd been precious little the citizen commander could do, but that made what he had accomplished no less invaluable. The small favors he'd been able to procure, like the limited medical supplies Montoya had used to care for Nimitz, and, for that matter, do something about the constant pain of McKeon’s damaged teeth, had been welcome enough in their own right, but knowing they came from someone who'd risked providing them because his own sense of honor required it of him, had done more for the prisoners' morale than Warner Caslet might ever suspect. And knowing the price he would probably pay for his decency had only made his efforts on their behalf even more precious.

"Thank you," the Manticoran said softly, and held out his hand. "Dame Honor told me you were something special, Citizen Commander. I see she was right."

"It's not so much that I'm 'special' as that StateSec is a cesspool," Caslet said bitterly, but he shook McKeon's hand anyway.

"Maybe so. But I can only call them as I see them, and..." The Manticoran broke off in midsentence, staring past Caslet as the hatch behind the Peep officer opened without warning. Caslet stiffened but refused to turn. There was only one reason for the hatch to open before he ordered Innis to let him out, and he waited for the heavy, contemptuous hand on his shoulder and the voice placing him under arrest for association with the Peoples enemies. But what he heard instead was only a strange, ringing silence, a suspension of sound and movement, as if no one present could quite believe whatever was happening. And then the stillness shattered.

"Harkness ?"

The sheer, stunned incredulity in Venizelos' voice sent Caslet spinning around despite his earlier resolve, and his jaw dropped as he, too, recognized the man in the open hatch. The man carrying four heavy flechette guns under his left arm like an awkward bundle while four bolstered pulsers and their gun belts dangled from his right hand.

"Yes, Sir," Horace Harkness said to Venizelos, and then nodded to McKeon. "Sorry it took so long, Captain."