t should be safe enough to use them while she was drugged. If he
only knew when she'd be under!

But without that knowledge, he decided regretfully, it would be wiser
to refrain. The Adversary had pointed out that timing was crucial; he
simply dared not take the risk of rousing Cortin's power too early.

* * * * *

Friday, 28 Feb 2572

Odeon was sitting beside the heavily sedated Cortin, stroking the hand
without tubes, when Bradford entered the shelter. He started to rise,
but settled back at Bradford's gesture. "Yes, Colonel?"

"Brad, please." Bradford looked at the woman for some time, then he
turned his attention back to the scar-faced man who was her second in
command. "You've known and loved her for years, Mike. So will you
please tell me why in God's name the most talented Inquisitor I've ever
seen won't take a nice, safe, productive assignment at the New Denver
Detention Center where the most difficult cases can be referred to her?"

"I thought you wanted her in the field!" Odeon exclaimed.

"Dear God, no! If I had my way, she'd be at the Center with all the
medical and professional support I could provide, not out in the field
getting shot at, torturing herself by making her back trouble worse,
and wasting her talents on criminals a second-semester student could
handle. If I try to keep her there, though, I'm afraid I'll lose
her--she's never said it in so many words, but if I read her right,
she'd go rogue rather than give up her hunt for the Shannons."

"I think so too," Odeon said. "She wants revenge, and I can't blame
her. So I'll help her, and protect her as well as I can . . . and so
will the rest of Team Azrael."

"And any other Enforcement man who's been around her for long,"
Bradford said drily. "Interrogation isn't her only talent, I've
discovered. She doesn't know about it, I found when I debriefed her--I
can't help wondering if you've noticed."

"Noticed what?" Odeon asked, puzzled.

"How people, men especially, react to her."

Odeon chuckled. "That? That's easy! She's an Enforcement officer, so
civs are apprehensive about her--more than they are of us, but until
Sis came aboard she was the only woman officer. And our people like
her, probably for the same reason."

"Your observations are accurate, of course--I'd expect that, from a
Tracker. But not completely so, since I have yet to find an
Enforcement trooper, officer or enlisted, who's bee