just as probable
the magazine of Trelawney’s rifle before giving it to him. They started down to the house, Trelawney in the lead, the IPA gun in Dowland’s hand.
The house door was closed. Trelawney glanced back questioningly. Dowland said in a low voice, “It isn’t locked. Open it, go on in, and stop two steps inside the hallway. I’ll be behind you. They’re both in the living room.”
He followed Trelawney in, reaching back to draw the door shut again. There was a whisper of sound. Dowland half turned, incredulously felt something hard jab painfully against his backbone. He stood still.
“Drop your gun, Dowland.”
Jill Trelawney stood behind him. Her voice was as clear and un-slurred as if she had been awake for hours. Dowland cursed himself silently. She must have come around the corner of the house the instant they went in.
“My gun’s pointing at your uncle’s back,” he said. “Don’t do anything that might make me nervous, Miss Trelawney.”
“Don’t try to bluff Jill, friend,” Paul Trelawney advised him without turning his head. There was dry amusement in the man’s voice. “No one’s ever been able to do it. And she’s quite capable of concluding that trading an uncle for an SPA spy would still leave Terra ahead at this stage. But that shouldn’t be necessary. Jill?”
“Yes, Paul?”
“Give our policeman a moment to collect his wits. . . . This does put him in a very embarrassing position, after all. And I can use his help in the lab.”
“I’ll give you exactly three seconds, Dowland,” Jill said. “And you’d better believe that is not a bluff. One . . .”
Dowland dropped his gun.
The two Trelawneys held a brief, whispered conversation in the living room. Dowland, across the room from them, and under cover of two guns now, couldn’t catch much of it. Jill was in one of the radiation suits he’d brought in from the storeroom. Miguel was dead. He had still been unconscious when she woke up, and had stopped breathing minutes afterwards. Medic had done what it could; in this case it simply hadn’t been enough. Jill, however, had found another use for it. Dowland thought the possibility mightn’t have occurred to anyone else in similar circumstances; t