“Where could she be where there’d be only one Pan Spechi?”

“Beats me. Oh, and there were some humans, too—green uniforms.”

“Abnethe house guards.”

“That’s the way I made it.”

“Quite a mob to be hiding away.”

“If anyone can afford it, she can.

“One more thing,” McKie said. “I smelled yeast.”

“Yeast?”

“No doubt about it. There’s always a pressure differential through a jumpdoor. It was blowing our way. Yeast.”

“That’s quite a bag of observations.”

“Did you think I was getting careless?”

“No more than usual. Are you absolutely sure about that Pan Spechi?”

“I saw the eyes.”

“Sunken, the facets smoothing over?”

“That’s the way it looked to me.”

“If we can get a Pan Spechi to make an official observation of this fellow, that’d give us a lever. Harboring a criminal, you know.”

“Apparently, you haven’t much experience with Pan Spechi,” McKie said. “How’d you get to be Director of Discretion?”

“All right, McKie, let’s not . . .”

“You know damn well a Pan Spechi would blow up if he saw this fellow. Our observer would try to dive through the jumpdoor and . . .”

“So?”

“Abnethe would close it on him. She’d have half of our observer, and we’d have the other half.”

“But that’d be murder!”

“An unfortunate accident, no more.”

“That woman does swing a lot of weight, I admit, but . . .”

“And she’ll have our hides if she can make it stick that she’s a private citizen and we’re trying to sabotage her.”

“Messy,” Siker agreed. “I hope you made no official sounds in her direction.”

“Ah, but I did.”

“You what?”

“I put her on official notice.”

“McKie, you were told to handle this with dis—”

“Look, we want her to start official action. Check with Legal. She can try a countersuit against me personally, but if she moves against the Bureau, we can ask for a seratori hearing, a personal confrontation. Her legal staff will advise her of that. No, she’ll try to get at . . .”

“She may not go into court against the Bureau,” Siker said, “but she’s certain to set her dogs on us. And it couldn’t come at a worse time. Bildoon has just about used up his ego-time. He’ll be going into the crèche any time now. You know what that means.”

“The Bureau Director’s chair up for grabs,” McKie said. “I’ve been expecting it.”

“Yes, but things’ll be in a real uproar around here.”

“You’re eligible for the seat, Siker.”

“So are you, McKie.”

“I pass.”

“That’ll be the day! What I’m worried about is Bildoon. He’ll blow when he hears about this ego-frozen Pan Spechi. That might be all it takes to . . .”

“He’ll handle it,” McKie said, putting more confidence into the statement than he felt.

“And you could be wrong. I hope you know I’m not passing.”

“We all know you want the job,” McKie said.

“I can imagine the gossip.”

“Is it worth it?”