Free Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold Page B

decided that all that was needed to make his day complete would be for it to rap back. But she had grounded the pallet and was piling up some cushions. “No blankets,” she muttered. “I gotta keep my jacket. But if you sort of burrow in here, you should be warm enough.”
    It was like falling into a bank of clouds. “Burrow,” Ethan whispered. 'Warm...”
    She dug into her jacket pocket. “And here's a candy bar to tide you over.”
    He snatched it; he couldn't help himself.
    “Ah, one other thing. You can't use the plumbing. It would register on the computer monitors. I know this sounds terrible, but -- if you've gotta go, use the canister.” She paused. “It's not, after all, like he didn't deserve it.”
    “I'd rather the,” said Ethan distinctly around a mouthful of nuts and goo. “Uh -- are you going to be gone long?”
    “At least an hour. Hopefully not more than four. You can sleep, if you like.”
    Ethan jerked himself awake. “Thank you.”
    “And now,” she rubbed her hands together briskly, “phase two of the search for the L-X-10 Terran-C.”
    “The what?”
    “That was the code name of Millisor's research project. Terran-C for short. Maybe some part of whatever they were working on originated on Earth.”
    “But Terrence Cee is a man,” said Ethan. “They kept asking me if I were here to meet him.”
    She was utterly still for a moment. “Oh... ? How strange. How very strange. I never knew that.” Her eyes were bright as mirrors. Then she was gone.

Chapter Five
    Ethan awoke with a startled gasp as something landed on his stomach. He thrashed up, looking around wildly. Commander Quinn stood before him in the wavering illumination of her hand light. The fingers of her other hand tapped a nervous, staccato rhythm on her empty stunner holster. Ethan's hands encountered a bulky bundle of cloth in his lap, which proved to be a set of Stationer coveralls wrapped around a matching pair of boots.
    “Put those on,” she ordered, “and hurry. I think I've found a way to get rid of the body, but we have to get there before shift change if I'm going to catch the right people on duty.”
    He dressed. She helped him impatiently with the unfamiliar tabs and catches, and made him sit again on the float pallet. It all made him feel like a backward four-year-old. After a quick reconnoiter by the mercenary woman, they left the chamber as unseen as they had entered it, and drifted off through the maze of the Station.
    At least he no longer felt as if his brains were suspended in syrup in a jar, Ethan thought. The world parted around him now with no more than natural clarity, and colors did not flash fire in his eyes, nor leave scorched trails across his retinas. This was fortunate, as the Stationer coveralls Quinn had brought him to wear over his Athosian clothes were bright red. But waves of nausea still pulsed slowly in his stomach like moon-raised tides. He slouched, trying to lower his center of gravity still further onto the moving float pallet, and ached for something more than the three hours sleep the mercenary woman had allowed him.
    “People are going to see us,” he objected as she turned down a populated corridor.
    “Not in that outfit,” she nodded toward the coveralls. “Along with the float pallet it's the next best thing to a cloak of invisibility. Red is for Docks and Locks -- they'll all think you're a porter in charge of the pallet. As long as you don't open your mouth or act like a downsider.”
    They passed into a large chamber where thousands of carrots were aligned in serried ranks, their white beards of roots dripping in the intermittent misting from the hydroponics sprayers, their fluffy green tops glowing in the grow-lights. The air of the room through which, Quinn assured him, they were taking a short cut, tasted cool and moist with a faint underlying tang of chemicals.
    His stomach growled. Quinn, guiding the float pallet, glanced over at him. “I don't think I should have