He called up the holomap of the ghostly buildings with Norwood and Tonkin's line of march glowing inside. "Not here"—he pointed—"but there." He marked a complex well off-sides from the route the Dendarii had traveled with the cryochamber. "That's where Norwood went. Through that tunnel. I'm sure of it! I've seen that facility—been all over that building. Hell, I used to play hide and seek in it with my friends, till the babysitters made us stop. I can see it in my head as surely as if I had Norwood's helmet vid playing right here on the table. He took that cryochamber down to Shipping and Receiving, and he shipped it!"

Bothari-Jesek sat up. "Is that possible? He had so little time!"

"Not just possible. Easy! The packing equipment is fully automated. All he had to do was put the cryochamber in the casing machine and hit the keypad. The robots would even have delivered it to the loading dock. It's a busy place—receives supplies for the whole complex, ships everything from data disks to frozen body parts for transplants to genetically engineered fetuses to emergency equipment for search-and-rescue teams. Such as reconditioned cryochambers. All sorts of stuff! It operates around the clock, and it would have had to be evacuated in a hurry when our raid hit. While the packing equipment was running, Norwood could have been generating the shipping label on the computer. Slapped 'em together, gave it to the transport robot—and then, if he was as smart as I think, erased the file record. Then he ran like hell back to Tonkin."

"So the cryochamber is sitting packed on a loading dock downside! Wait'll I tell Quinn! I suppose we'd better tell the Bharaputrans where to look—"

"I . . ." He held up a restraining hand. "I think . . ."

She looked at him and sank back into the station chair, eyes narrowing. "Think what?"

"It's been almost a full day since we lifted. It's been a half day and more since we told the Bharaputrans to look for the cryochamber. If that cryochamber was still sitting on a loading dock, I think the Bharaputrans would have found it by now. The automated shipping system is efficient. I think the cryochamber already went out, maybe within the first hour. I think the Bharaputrans and Fell are telling the truth. They must be going insane right now. Not only is there no cryochamber down there, they haven't got a clue in hell where it went!"

Bothari-Jesek sat stiff. "Do we?" she asked. "My God. If you're right—it could be on its way anywhere. Freighted out from any of two dozen orbital transfer stations—it could have been jumped by now! Simon Illyan is going to have a stroke when we report this."

"No. Not anywhere," Mark corrected intently. "It could only have been addressed to somewhere that Medic Norwood knew. Someplace he could remember, even when he was surrounded and cut off and under fire."