g to break the mood. Her hands were
clenched, her eyes staring unseeingly at the wall as her mind raced.

Brion and Ulv were quiet, watching her, waiting for her conclusions.
The pieces were falling into shape at last.

Lea opened her clenched hands and smoothed them on her sodden skirt.
She blinked and turned to Brion. "Is there a tool box here?" she asked.

Her words were so unexpected that Brion could not answer for a
moment. Before he could say anything she spoke again.

"Not hand tools; that would take too long. Could you find anything
like a power saw? That would be ideal." She turned back to the
microscope, and he didn't try to question her. Ulv was still looking
at the body of the magter and had understood nothing of what they
had said.

Brion went out into the loading bay. There was nothing he could use
on the ground floor, so he took the stairs to the floor above. A
corridor here passed by a number of rooms. All of the doors were
locked, including one with the hopeful sign TOOL ROOM on it. He
battered at the metal door with his shoulder without budging it. As
he stepped back to look for another way in, he glanced at his watch.

Two o'clock! In ten hours the bombs would fall on Dis.

The need for haste tore at him. Yet there could be no noise--someone
in the street might hear it. He quickly stripped off his shirt and
wrapped it in a loose roll around the barrel of his gun, extending
it in a loose tube in front of the barrel. Holding the rolled cloth
in his left hand, he jammed the gun up tight against the door, the
muzzle against the lock. The single shot was only a dull thud,
inaudible outside of the building. Pieces of broken mechanism jarred
and rattled inside the lock and the door swung open.

When he came back Lea was standing by the body. He held the small
power saw with a rotary blade. "Will this do?" he asked. "Runs on
its own battery; almost fully charged too."

"Perfect," she answered. "You're both going to have to help me." She
switched into the Disan language. "Ulv, would you find some place
where you can watch the street without being seen? Signal me when
it is empty. I'm afraid this saw is going to make a lot of noise."

Ulv nodded and went out into the bay, where he climbed a heap of
empty crates so he could peer through the small windows set high in
the wall. He looked carefully in both directions, then waved to her
to go ahead.

"Stand to one side and hold the cadaver's chin, Brion