His suspect staff.
She said it quietly, simply, knowing he would understand everything the one word entailed. “No.”
“You sounded very sure of yourself in that meeting.”
“I have to sound sure of myself in meetings. It’s my job.” When he said nothing in response, she sighed and added, “I’m sure he won’t betray us. I’m all but sure he’s careful enough not to give away our secrets by accident. In his home environment there were no doubts, of course; he’s one of our most trusted consultants. But the iru doesn’t adapt well to new environments. And he isn’t alert to all the subtle social signals that might warn you or me of trouble in the making. So ... can he be bought? No. Corrupted? I doubt it. Tricked?” She drew in a deep breath. “Possibly. That’s a risk we chose to take. Let’s hope it proves worthwhile.”
He said nothing, but came to where she stood, moving close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body against her skin. When she didn’t move away—a necessary sign—he reached out a gentle hand and squeezed her shoulder. She shut her eyes for a moment, savoring the contact, then reached up her own hand to cover his.
“God help whoever designed this virus,” she whispered. There was hate in her voice now, a raw and venomous hate unfiltered by any polite social conventions. She treasured the fact that she could be so open with him. “Because that bastard is going to need the help of a deity when I get through with him.”
She moved closer to him then, and he put his arm around her. And for a short while, in the seat of Guild power, there was nothing but silence.
Those who support the concept of a direct interface network don’t take into account the price they would have to pay for it, in privacy and safety and a thousand other areas of concern. Do you really want a machine to know where you are every minute of the day? Do you really trust the people who design these things, and program them, enough to let their work directly into your head? Don’t you realize that every time you let this creature come in contact with your brain, you are leaving your mark upon it as clearly as fingerprints upon glass, which any clever programmer can decipher?
MAXWELL ONEGIN; Think Againl (Historical Archives, Hellsgate Station)
INSHIP: EXETER
IT WASN’T until they were well clear of the station—and clear of the traffic surrounding it as well—that Allo finally leaned back in his chair, drew in a deep breath, and said, “So. The girl. What do you think?”
Sumi glanced up briefly to see the expression on his face—it was bland and uninformative—and then looked back at what he was doing. “Not much to think yet, is there?” The Medusan’s tentacles twitched slightly as they tested the air for particulate clues as to the captain’s state of mind. “You think she could be important?”
“I think she could be worth money. A lot more than she herself would pay us.” He flashed a command to the commissary program: visual icon for a cup of heller tea. “Tam picked up some buzz on the high security lines right before she ran into us. That’s an interesting coincidence, don’t you think?”
“Could mean something,” Sumi said quietly. He adjusted one of the engines slightly, his slender fingers moving sinuously over the controls, like tentacles themselves. Sumi preferred manual switches to visual icons. Most Medusans did. “Could mean nothing.” He glanced up at Allo again. “You want to wager on it?”
The commissary port slid open, revealing a cup of steaming liquid. Despite the lo-G lid which covered most of the contents, guarding against spills, the scent of mixed spices and alcohol quickly filled the small chamber. Allo took it from the port and sipped from it, slowly. Before him, on the main viewscreen, the crowded skies of Reijik Station were giving way to the peaceful black of empty space. Only it wasn’t empty, not really. At any given time there were more than a billion transmissions buzzing through that darkness, chronicling everything from a grandchild’s first words to the kind of secrets that could unseat governments. Jewels in the darkness. If you pointed your receptors in the right direction, you might even pick up the skip from other nodes, messages bounced off the surface of the ainniq as a stone might be bounced off smooth water. Those were the most valuable transmissions of all. Without them the nodes would be isolated, like true planets, and no outernet would be possible. There couldn’t be a universal network of data if it took years for stations to share their input with each other.
The warm drink filled Allo, and the alcohol began its work of soothing his nerves. Down in the hold the crew had enough contraband drugs stashed to buy half a station, and he was anxious to get it unloaded safely. Usually he limited his “acquisitions” to less tangible goods, but this deal had been just too good to turn down. And if they got away from Reijik Node without trouble over it, he thought darkly, that would be too good to be true. They’d gone over it five times for tracers and not found any, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. He’d done two years hard time once, for learning that the hard way.
“No betting on this one,” he said at last. He glanced back to where Tam was working—one of the Tams, anyway, the other was off duty somewhere—and asked, “Any luck on those security transmissions?”
The Belial twin shook his bald head quickly. He was short and wiry, and moved with that jerky quickness which was typical of small animals. “Not yet, boss. It wasn’t logged in the usual manner. I’d say top secret, though, by the feel of it. ”
Top secret. If that was so—and if the buzz on the security lines was connected to their guest—the girl might be worth quite a bit indeed. “It’ll be encrypted, then.”
“I’d expect so.”
Security codes took time to break. How long could they afford to stay at this node, tempting fate with their cargo? It might be best to leave as soon as they had the transmissions in hand, and worry about interpreting them later. “All right. Let me know as soon as you’ve got them.”
“Of course.”
He finished the tea, then chuted the cup and eased himself out of the contoured pilot’s chair. “Anything you can’t handle?” he asked Sumi.
The Medusan shook his head placidly. “So far so good.”
“Tam—”
“I’ll call you as soon as I get anything,” the Belial promised. His bald head gleamed in the monitor’s light as complex codes appeared on his screen, and just as quickly disappeared.
“Good.” He watched them both for a moment, took a last glance at the viewscreen—all was still peaceful—and nodded. “I’m going to go see how our guest is doing.”
She was pretty ... or would have been, if recent tension hadn’t bled her face of color and made her skin look dull and dry. Her hair was a rich copper color currently stylish in Paradise circles, long and wavy and soft enough when it moved that if it wasn’t the real thing it was a damn good fake. Her body looked unaugmented, slender but not without a curve or two in just the right place. Big eyes, delicate nose, mouth neither too thin nor too full for her face. He liked that. On the whole she was attractive, even though she was clearly Terran through and through. Normally he wouldn’t spare the earthbom a second glance; they carried so much psychological baggage it wasn’t worth the effort of dealing with them.
She was also scared out of her mind. That much was very clear, though she was doing her best to hide that fact. He could see it in the backs of her eyes when she first noticed him standing in the doorway, before she had gotten her guard back up. It was the look of a frightened animal, expecting hunters to close in from any quarter. Big hunters, he guessed. Clearly her panicked flight down the corridors of the docking ring had been everything he’d assumed it to be, and more.
Yeah, this one’s worth a hell of a price, he told himself. Question is, who’s going to pay it?
He nodded a greeting and moved into the small room. He knew how to walk with the fluid grace of innocence, and how to make his voice devoid of any threat. It was a guise he used a lot during customs inspections.
“Raven, is it?”
She seemed stran
gely startled by the question, and hesitated before nodding. “Yes,” she whispered. The timing of the response was oddly wrong, as if she didn’t even know her name. Or couldn’t remember what name she had given him. The latter’s more likely, he thought. A pseudonym was a damned good sign that something unkosher was going on. This got better and better.
“My name’s Allonzo Porsha,” he said, offering her his hand. “I’m pilot and captain here—as you’ve probably guessed.” No answer. The large eyes were fixed on him, measuring him. They were a startling blue, the one thing about her that couldn’t be real. Earthie eyes didn’t come in that color, did they? “Allo to friend and crew.”
Finally she moved; her small, warm hand clasped his in a ritual handshake, then quickly withdrew. “Raven Capra,” she said quietly. Watching him. Waiting for ... something.
“Where are you headed, Raven?”
She shrugged, and then glanced nervously about the room; he got the feeling she was trying to avoid looking directly at him. So that he wouldn’t read too much in her expression? “Anywhere,” she said at last. “Doesn’t matter.”
“No friends to go to?” She said nothing. “Family?”
She shook her head. She wasn’t going to give him a single clue.
All right, you little vixen, I can do a data search as easily as anyone. Better, with Tam-Tam at the screen.
“But you’ve got enough money to pay for this little jaunt.”
She nodded, then clearly realized that more was required of her. “My parents were wealthy.” It was odd watching her speak to him; it was as if she were testing the words as she said them, watching his face to see how well each one would work. “They’re dead now. Corporate accident. I ... came out here to live with relatives, but they’re gone. Died while I was on the metroliner.”
A simple lie, so awkwardly voiced that he didn’t even question its veracity. He let it go unanswered for a minute, waiting to see if she would say more, but no further facts were offered. “You were pretty anxious to get off that station.”
He watched as she bit her lower lip, but she said nothing.
“Raven ... I told if I gave you passage I’d expect some answers. Why don’t we get that out of the way now?”
She stood up suddenly and took a few steps away from him. Her movements were sharp now, no longer fearful and nervous, but somehow aggressive. The transformation was jarring. “You’ll have the answers you need for this trip,” she said sharply. “But I have business which doesn’t concern you. Don’t press me on that.”
For a moment he said nothing. The chemistry in the room had just changed, and with startling suddenness. The girl who looked back at him now with defiance bright in her eyes was a whole different creature than the one he had just been questioning. What had just happened? Usually he was good at reading people—a man in his line of work had damned well better be—but this girl defied his best instincts.
He decided to forgo that line of questioning for now. They could always return to it later. It wasn’t like she was going to leave the ship before he got another chance to talk to her.
“You said you could pay for passage.”
In answer she pulled out a debit chip from an inner pocket of her belt. Holos flashed across its surface, expensive little icons that promised lots of corporate money in a heavily guarded account. “I can pay.”
He reached out his hand for the chip.
“When we arrive.”
He shook his head. “Now.”
“It’s my chip.”
“And my ship. Thus my schedule.” When she still didn’t hand it over, he softened his voice, and said quietly, “Look, I did you a favor taking you on, right? Now how about a show of good faith on your part?”
He saw her hesitate ... and he saw her try to hide the hesitation. Okay, he thought, the chip can get her in trouble. Why?
He waited.
“Not in this node,” she said at last.
Of course. If there was someone looking for her, they’d be waiting for her to access her accounts. You can’t travel far without money, and you can’t get money without connecting to a database somewhere. The minute that chip made contact with the outemet, her pursuers would be tracing the signal.
Whoever they were. Whatever they wanted. However much they would pay to get hold of her....
He briefly toyed with the idea of leveraging the moment to try to gain more substantial information, but a glance at her expression told him it wouldn’t work. Whatever vulnerability he had sensed in her before, it sure as hell wasn’t there right now. He was better off waiting for another time when she was less guarded.
“All right,” he said amiably. “Fair enough. But let’s log the transaction now, and transmit it later.” He spread his hands in a gesture of utter reasonableness and innocence. “We won’t send it out until we’ve reached another node, I promise you.”
She hesitated. He could see the hard-edged fear inside her giving way to exhaustion ... and the need to trust. That was the chink in her armor, he thought. Her defenses were good, but they were far from perfect. She wanted to trust somebody ... anybody.
He could work with that.
“Okay,” she said at last.
His expression betrayed nothing untoward as he showed her the nearest data port. Not until she had turned away from him to use it did he flash the icon that would connect him with the ship’s innernet, and through that to Tam’s headset.
SHE’S ABOUT TO CONNECT, he sent to the twins. GET A COPY OF EVERYTHING.
He didn’t know which of the twins would respond to him, or even how they would decide which one should. The inner workings of the Belial mind were a mystery to him ... and to any sane man. He’d known the Tam twins for five years now and he still couldn’t tell them apart, in looks or in actions or in any manner of thought process. With a pair it wasn’t too bad, but he knew the Belial typically birthed their young in matched sets of three, four, even five and six. All answering to the same name, all sharing a single identity. One of Mother Nature’s stranger creations ... or Father Hausman, more accurately.
The girl slid the slender chip into the input slot. Evidently she didn’t choose the option of headset control, for the computer asked her, VOICEPRINT VERIFICATION?
She hesitated. “Capra.”
CONFIRMED. TRANSACTION?
She looked up at Allo. “Ten thousand,” he said. That was high enough to make her think she was paying him good money for his services, low enough that the fancy little debit chip should be able to handle it. She flinched a bit, but nodded. “Ten thousand Corporate Standard Units,” she told the computer. She was talking aloud for his benefit, it was the icons in her head that would enable the actual transaction. “Transfer to—”
He gave her the proper routing code and she repeated it in her own voice; a well-designed chip would accept nothing less. He was willing to bet that this one was state-of-the-art, to judge from the looks of it. She’d been a rich kid once, whatever she was now, and he was willing to bet that whoever was looking for her didn’t deal in play money either.
When the transaction had been properly confirmed by both parties he added his own instructions to the data string, letting her hear with her own ears that all was to be held in storage, not acted upon, until his ship left Reijik Node. “You see?” he reassured her, as the ship’s computer confirmed his instructions. “As I promised.”
She nodded, but she didn’t relax. She wasn’t ever going to relax around him again, he realized. By questioning her as he did he had made himself into the symbol of authority on this ship; if she was going to fear anything about this journey, he’d be the symbol of it now.
TAM? he visualized. WHAT’VE YOU GOT?
Response was immediate; the Belial had clearly been waiting for him. CHIP’S IN THE NAME OF JAMISIA CAPRA. PROGRAMMED ON EARTH, LANSING STATION, A LITTLE OVER FOUR YEARS AGO. NOT USED MUCH, FROM THE LOOK OF IT. I CAN’T ACCESS THE ACCOUNT ITSELF WITHOUT USING THE OUTERNET, AND I GATHER FROM
YOUR INSTRUCTIONS THAT THAT WOULD BE BAD.
She was looking at him suspiciously, sensing his mental absence as he read the words scrolling before his eyes. He smiled and deliberately, clearly, focused his eyes on her. “I’ll leave you for a while now, Raven. There’s a com port to the left of the bed—” He gestured toward it, and while she turned to see where it was, visualized quickly: YES, THAT WOULD BE BAD. By the time she turned back, he had flashed an icon that ended his link with Tam, and she saw only an expression of carefully orchestrated concern. “Why don’t you get some rest now?” He suggested. “You look like you could use it.”
She looked back at the bed, clearly tempted. It wasn’t much—a pallet with minimal cushioning and pillow all in one, typical spacer issue—but after you’d been on the run for a while it must have seemed like heaven. And he was willing to bet she’d been on the run for quite some time now.
“Where are we going?” she asked. Then, flustered, “I mean ... where is the ship .. ?”
“We’ve got some local business in this node,” he told her. “After that we’ll be heading out to Paradise Station. We can let you off there, if you’d like, or make other arrangements after that.”
“Paradise?” She scowled slightly, as if trying to remember something about the name. “Don’t know it,” she said at last.
“Tourist node, mostly. Massive waystation. You’ll find just about every race there, and can make contact with ... well, with whoever you want. It’s a good place to lose yourself,” he offered.
And to sell rare commodities.
“That’s good,” she whispered. She suddenly looked very, very tired, and older than her years. Which he was willing to bet did not top twenty. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
He felt a twinge of guilt, right then. But only a twinge. Men in his line of business couldn’t afford much of a conscience.
“Sleep well,” he told her!
You can trust him, Jamisia.