"No," said Weddell after a moment. "Take a look for yourselves, gentlemen." He passed the black light along to Ivan and General Allegre.

"You'd think it would be here," commented Allegre, peering over Ivan's shoulder.

Miles had given it about a twenty-five-percent chance, personally, though he'd upped the odds after finding Galeni's vent clear. That left one of the conference chambers, or ...

"Find anything?" asked Haroche.

Miles made a small show of going over and borrowing the hand-light from Ivan. "Not in here, dammit. I was hoping it would be simple. If the prokaryote vectors are caught in the filters, they show up bright red, y'see. We tested one, downstairs."

"What are you going to do next?"

"There's nothing for it but to start at the top of the HQ building and check every filtered air vent till I get to the basement. Tedious, but I'll get there in the end. You know I said if I knew why, I'd know who. I've changed my mind. I now think if I know where, I'll know who."

"Oh, really. Have you tried Captain Galeni's office?"

"First place we looked. It's clear."

"Hm. Perhaps . . . one of the briefing rooms?"

"I'd give odds." Bite, Haroche. Bite my hook. Come on, come on. ...

"Very good."

"If you want to save steps," put in Ivan, on cue, "you ought to start with the places Illyan went most, and work out from there. Rather than from the top down."

"Good thinking," said Miles. "Shall we start with the outer office? Then—excuse me, General Allegre, but I must be complete—the offices of the department heads. Then the briefing rooms, then all the affairs analysts' offices. We should probably have done the whole of Komarran Affairs while we were first down there. After that we'll see."