"I'm in no present danger. But we'd better waste no time."
"Is it going to take real hardware? I'm carrying a finger gun at the
moment."
"Then go to your rooms and pick up something useful," Reetal said.
"This should take real hardware, all right."
"All right. Then where do I go?"
"I'll meet you at your door. I know where it is."
When Quillan arrived, she was standing before the door to his suite, a
tall blonde in a sleeveless black and gold sheath; a beautiful body, a
warm, lovely, humorous face. The warmth and humor were real, but
masked a mind as impersonally efficient as a computer, and a taste for
high and dangerous living. When Quillan had last met Reetal Destone, a
year and a half before, the taste was being satisfied in industrial
espionage. He hadn't heard of her activities since then.
She smiled thoughtfully at him as he came up. "I'll wait outside," she
said. "We're not talking here."
Quillan nodded, went on into his living room, selected a gun belt and
holstered gun from a suitcase, fastened the belt around his waist
under the coat, and came out. "Now what?"
"First a little portal-hopping--"
He followed her across the corridor and into a tube portal, watched as
she tapped out a setting. The exit light flashed a moment later; they
stepped out into a vacant lounge elsewhere in the same building,
crossed it, entered another portal. After three more shifts, they
emerged into a long hall, dimly lit, heavily carpeted. There was no
one in sight.
"Last stop," Reetal said. She glanced up at his face. "We're on the
other side of the Star now, in one of the sections they've closed up.
I've established a kind of emergency headquarters here. The Star's
nearly broke, did you know?"
"I'd heard of it."
"That appears to be part of the reason for what's going on."