Paul smiled crookedly and looked Haedaecker in the eye coldly. "Doctor Haedaecker," he said in a level, voice, "if I ever try it and fail, no one will know of my failure. If I try and succeed, I assure you that you will be able to do nothing to me."
Haedaecker nodded, his manner as cold as Paul's voice had been. The gage had been hurled, the swords measured and weighed. So far it was stalemate. But only until Paul Grayson really did something against the rules, large enough to let Haedaecker really clip him deep, lasting, and legally justifiable.
Haedaecker left and Paul turned to Nora Phillips. She smiled at him and asked: "What is this intrigue business, or is it a top secret?"
Paul shook his head. "I'd prefer to tell you after I return."
"Do that," she said. "I'd like to hear about it."
Paul pondered briefly. The obvious thing was to offer her a chance to look over his ship. He could do that, now that he had all of his credentials and papers back. But the Z-wave gear was evidence against him, and even though it was parked in a convenient locker, certain hunks of cable-endings and associated bits of equipment were a dead giveaway; the same sort of evidence in the shape of capped pipes will tell the observer that plumbing once existed in a certain room. Paul had no intention of trusting anybody at this moment.
Mayhap Nora's timely information about the deceased thief were true. Still, there was a hole in her tale. If the thief wanted only to stow away until take-off time, he would pick another spacecraft than the BurAst P.G.33-1. The registry number glowed in luminescent paint a yard high, and matched the numbers on his identification card. Certainly no half-idiot would try to stow away in an official ship that was almost certain to be investigated as soon as the hue-and-cry was heard.
He suspected Haedaecker's hand in this; anything to keep Haedaecker's Theory in high gear, to keep Haedaecker top man in his field. He might as well suspect Nora, too. At least until motive or innocence could be shown.
He decided to lie glibly. "Normally I could take you aboard and show you the crate," he said. "But this is an experimental run and subject to security, though I'll not be able to explain why they think it so."
Nora laughed and shook her head. "Space ships are cold, powerful, and dangerous things to me," she said. "I'd feel uncomfortable on one of them."