th
a cure for the plague, he might have bought them off.

Chris stood beside him, looking as if it were a bitter pill for her,
too. She'd risked herself in the hands of the enemy, had cooperated with
him in everything she'd been taught to oppose, and had worked like a
dog. Now the Lobbies seemed to forget her as a useless tool. They were
falling back on a raw power play and forgetting any earlier schemes.

"Maybe they'd hold off for a while if I agreed to go to them and share
all my ideas, specimens and notes," he said at last. "Do you think your
Lobby would settle for that, Chris?"

"I don't know, Dan. I've stopped thinking their way." She seemed almost
apologetic for the admission.

He dropped an arm over her shoulder and turned with her back to the
laboratory. "Okay, then we've got to find a miracle. We've got two days
ahead of us. At least we can try."

But he knew he was lying to himself. There wasn't anything he could
think of to try.

XV

Decision

Two days was never enough time for a miracle. Doc decided as he packed
his notes into a small bag and put it beside his bundle of personal
belongings. He glanced around the room for the last time, and managed a
grin at Jake's gloomy expression.

"Maybe I can bluff them, or maybe they'll string along for a while," he
said. "Anyhow, now that they've agreed to take me and my notes in place
of the cure we're fresh out of, I've got to be on that shuttle when it
goes back to their men at orbital station."

Jake nodded. "I don't like selling friends down the river, Doc. But it
wouldn't do you any more good to blow up with the planet, I reckon. They
won't call off the war rockets when they do get you, of course. But
maybe they won't use them, except as a threat to put the Lobbies back
in, stronger than ever."

He stuck out one of his awkwardly shaped hands, clapped the aspirator
over his face and hurried out. Doc picked up his bags and went toward
the little tractor where Lou was waiting to drive him and Chris back
toward Southport and the shuttle rocket that would be landing for them.
They hadn't mentioned Chris in their demands, but her father must expect
her to return.

After they had him, he'd be on his own. His best course was probably to
insist on talking only to Ryan at Medical Lobby, and then being
completely honest. The room here would be kept sealed, in case the
Lobby wanted to investigate where he had failed. And his notes were
honest, which