Preoccupied, Basil began to walk back toward his private offices. Sarein hurried beside him. "What is it, Basil? Can you tell me?"

"Please let me think. This is new information. I don't know yet what it means... but it could be extremely significant." He walked faster, leaving her behind. Basil could always smooth Sarein's ruffled feathers later; more likely, she would come to him and find some way to apologize.

According to the last sketchy messages, the Colicos team had apparently stumbled upon something important, but they had not followed up their tantalizing hints with a complete report. Damn, why hadn't he raised the question before? And if the green priest was so obviously alarmed, then something truly unusual must have taken place.

With all the crises in the Hansa, such a matter would not have risen above his personal radar. Now, though, the idea raised his suspicions and his hopes. Perhaps the archaeologists had indeed found another technological miracle, greater even than the Klikiss Torch? If anyone could manage such a thing, it would be Margaret and Louis Colicos.

Basil did not like loose ends. He would invest the necessary expense in stardrive fuel, find a small ship that wasn't being used for any important matters.

He ran a finger along his chin, pondering. Then he remembered his alien sociologist and spy, Davlin Lotze, who had been sent to the abandoned Ildiran colony of Crenna. Pretending to be an average settler, Lotze had surreptitiously looked under rugs, probed into corners, lifted subtle clues about the Ildiran civilization. By now, he'd had enough time to complete his job there.

Yes, Lotze would be perfect for this job. Basil decided to turn him loose on Rheindic Co to find out what had happened to the archaeologists.

13

DAVLIN LOTZE

At the urgent town meeting, Davlin Lotze silently listened to settlers who wanted to flee Crenna. "We've got to get out of here before we all die of the epidemic! It's the Ildiran plague again!"

Davlin knew it was unlikely that the same biological infection would be compatible with human DNA, but he couldn't reveal how much he understood about genetics. After all, he was supposedly just a farmer and a civil engineer.

Davlin lived alone in an abandoned Ildiran dwelling he had claimed for himself. He was a tall dark-skinned man with a muscular frame and a soft voice. His left cheek was faintly scarred from an accident with an exploding glass bottle; the marks were a bit more distinctive than he preferred, but he had learned how to draw no particular attention to himself. It was a spy's job to blend in.

He had helped his fellow settlers install waterworks, sewers, weather stations, and electrical conduits as they rebuilt the damaged colony's infrastructure. During the epidemic that had driven the Ildirans from Crenna, the alien colonists had burned buildings and ruined generators and substations. They had fled this world in a panic.

And now, five years later, a new mysterious sickness was sweeping through Crenna's human settlers at an alarming rate. The victims suffered a debilitating respiratory infection, and a rash of alarming orange circles blossomed across their legs and shoulders. When one old man died from "Orange Spot," the anxiety reached a new pitch.