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I are a good team?” I suggested.
    “A bug which knocks out humans just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers, “might take a little longer to dispose of a Calicoi. Or maybe it will work the other way around. Either way, someone could be on hand to watch it happen, and get the story back. That’s how dangerous Harmall thinks it is.”
    “You worry too much,” I told him.
    Directors are paid to be cautious to the point of paranoia. I preferred to think that Zeno was in for much the same reason that Vesenkov was in—because the Calicoi had every right to take an interest in the Ariadne ’s discovery.
    “Well,” he said, “good luck anyway.”
    “Thanks,” I replied. “I’ll tell you the whole story, next time I pass this way.”
    I figured that I was in a position to be generous with my promises.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    When they told me that the Department had decided to throw a party to bid us farewell, I was not exactly overjoyed. Indeed, I felt a distinct sinking feeling in my stomach. I could hardly refuse, though; it wouldn’t have done any good, and it would have offended a lot of people. So close to New Year’s Eve, it couldn’t actually be said that they needed another excuse to let their hair down, but on the other hand, when you’re so many millions of miles from home, who can say that they didn’t need it?
    As always, they took the partition walls down to increase the size of the common room and make room for a dance floor. Out there, the lights were dim and colored, and they had a couple of strobes set up. I decided that I wasn’t going near them. It was unlikely that my blackout had been caused by strobes interfering with my alpha rhythms, but I was damn certain that I wasn’t going to take the chance. I elected to stay in the brightly lit space behind the bar area, sipping the indigenous brew that the non-pedantic members our fraternity were pleased to call “wine.” I tried to look as if I was enjoying myself, just in case anybody cared. If challenged, I reckoned that I could always excuse my unease by explaining how sorry I was to leave good old Sule, which was a home from home to me.
    A few people drifted up to me to offer me their good wishes and ask polite but inquisitive questions about where I might be going and why. They weren’t upset when I explained why I couldn’t answer them.
    I was just wondering how long I ought to stick it out before tendering my apologies and pleading lack of sleep, when I was accosted by a woman I didn’t know. She was about fifty, with short-cropped grey hair, and looked rather like my mother’s older sister.
    “Dr. Caretta?” she asked.
    “I’m Lee Caretta,” I confirmed. There was something about the situation which was vaguely alarming, but I couldn’t quite figure out what.
    “I’m Catherine d’Orsay,” she said.
    I nodded vaguely, and it wasn’t until a half-frown crossed her face that it sunk in.
    “D’Orsay!” I exclaimed. “You’re the Captain of the....”
    “Not anymore,” she said, swiftly and flatly. “I handed over the command.”
    My mouth was still open and moving, but no sound came out. It was easy to see that she didn’t want to pursue the matter. I cast around for some other approach.
    “You don’t look old enough to be my fourteen times great-grandmother,” I observed, wishing after I said it that it didn’t seem so snide.
    She was up to it, though. “You don’t look old enough to be one of the top men in your field,” she countered.
    “You know how it is,” I said, piling gaffe upon gaffe. “These days, if you don’t make your mark before you’re thirty, you never will.”
    She let that one die the death it deserved. After a suitable pause, she said, “Do you mind if I talk to you—somewhere where we don’t have to compete with the music?”
    I put my plastic cup down on a shelf, and wiped my hand on the back of my trousers because a little of the fluid had somehow spilled on to my