Van Atta turned back to Yei. "What about it, Doctor? Or would you rather wait until someone calls us up asking what to do with the bodies?"

"IV Thalizine-5 is a bit like fast-penta," muttered Dr. Yei reluctantly, "in certain doses. It will make her sick for a day, though."

"That's her choice." He wheeled on Silver. "Your last chance, Silver. I've had it. I despise disloyalty. Where did they go? Tell me, or it's the needle for you, right now."

She was driven from thing-ness at last to a more painful, active human courage. "If you do that to me," Silver whispered in desperate dignity, "we're through."

Van Atta recoiled in sputtering outrage. "Through? You and your little friends conspire to sabotage my career in front of the company brass and you tell me we're through? You're damn right we're through!"

*      *      *

"Company Security, Shuttleport Three, Captain Bannerji speaking," George Bannerji recited into his comconsole. "May I help you?"

"You in charge here?" the well-dressed man in his vid began abruptly. He was clearly laboring under strong emotion, breathing rapidly. A muscle jumped in his clamped jaw.

Bannerji took his feet off his desk and leaned forward. "Yes, sir?"

"I'm Bruce Van Atta, Head of Project at the Habitat. Check my voiceprint, or whatever it is you do."

Bannerji sat up straight, tapped out the check-code; the word 'cleared' flashed for a moment across Van Atta's face. Bannerji sat up straighter still. "Yes, sir, go ahead."

Van Atta paused as if groping for words, speaking slowly despite the jostling urgency of thought apparent in his tense face. "We have a little problem here, Captain."

Red lights and sirens went off in Bannerji's head. He could recognize an ass-covering understatement when he heard one. "Oh?"

"Three of our—experimental subjects have escaped the Habitat. We interrogated their co-conspirator, and we believe they stowed away on shuttle flight B119, and are now loose somewhere in Shuttleport Three. It is of the utmost urgency that they be captured and returned to us as quickly as possible."

Bannerji's eyes widened. Information about the Habitat was under a tight company security lid, but no one could work on Rodeo for long without learning that some kind of genetic experiments on humans were taking place up there, in careful isolation. It usually took a little longer for new employees to figure out that the more exotic monster stories told by the old hands were a form of hazing, practiced upon their credulity. Bannerji had transferred in to Rodeo about a month ago.

The project chief's words rang through Bannerji's head. Escaped. Captured. Criminals escaped. Dangerous zoo animals escaped, when their keepers screwed up, then some poor shmuck of a cop got the job of capturing them. Occasionally, horrifying biological weapons escaped. What the hell was he dealing with?

"How will we recognize them, sir? Do they"—Bannerji swallowed—"look like human beings?"