This Alien Shore (74 page)

She asked other questions, similarly intended. The minutes passed. She watched his face as he spoke, tracing with her eyes the features she had grown to love.

Then those features were suddenly overlaid with words.

WE'RE IN.

How strange, to talk to a man while others rummaged around inside his head. How ... violating.

She waited until he had finished answering her last question, then drew in a breath as she gathered herself for the true test. “Devlin . . . do you have connections to anyone in the Hausman League?”

He looked her straight in the eye and said: “No.”

The technician flashed to her: VERIFIED.

And a second later Masada's message followed: HE'S OVERRIDING IT.

She felt her own heart miss a beat at that news. Thank God she wasn't hooked up to that thing herself. Evidence of stress in any form was as good as damnation in her position.

And he showed no stress, none at all. Of course. Masada had said it would be so.

Implied guilt, in a neat little data package. Not enough to convict him—that would take more—but enough to call for a trial. Enough to tell her that the time had come to remove this man from her life, this man who had won her heart and then betrayed her most sacred trust.

Why? she wanted to beg him.
Why have you done this to me
—
to your Guild
—
to your people? I thought you believed in the same things that I did. I thought that you shared my dreams.

“Have you ever deliberately taken action to put Earth's status at risk?”

She thought she saw a flicker in his eye then. A hint of recognition. Had the pattern of her questioning given away the game? If so, it was intended to.

“No,” he said firmly.

VERIFIED, the technician sent.

NO QUESTION ABOUT IT, Masada sent. I DOUBT THE VERIFICATION PROGRAM IS EVEN CONNECTED WITH HIS REAL WELLSEEKER. HE'S FEEDING YOUR TECHNICIAN PREPACKAGED RESPONSES. I'M COPYING THE EVIDENCE OF IT NOW.

She asked a few more questions, these more innocent than the last. She was biding her time now, waiting for Masada's next signal. When Devlin paused to take a drink of water, she graciously didn't rush him. There was one test left, which would absolutely reveal whether or not Devlin was running programs to fool the verification process. A simple test, traditional in form, one might even say primitive. Sometimes she liked those the best.

Then the signal came. DONE, Masada sent. Devlin's defensive programs had been copied. They could be gone over later at leisure in the search for evidence of wrongdoing.

She waited a few minutes more, then said, “I have someone else who would like to ask you a few questions.”

The door behind her opened, admitting Masada. She watched Devlin's face.

It paled.

No change in expression, beyond the twitching of a brow. No real sign of tension, save the tensing of the muscles at the comer of his mouth. But Devlin was
nantana
through and through, and understood social interaction well enough to hide his emotions.

She was
nantana,
too, and knew how to read them despite that.

You son of a bitch,
she thought.
You thought that he was dead.

She looked to the technician. “What were the readings as Masada came in?”

He showed her the screen. Level, absolutely level. Not a tremor in his whole biosystem to match that response of shock on his face. Even a nonprogrammer like herself could see how damning that was, how clearly he had done something to feed the verification program lies. All that agitation, and not a single peaked reading to show for it.

She nodded to Masada, who left the door open. There were four armed guards outside. “No more questions for now,” she said quietly. She could feel the weight in the corner of her eye, and hoped that no tears would come in public. She was the Prima of the Ainniq Guild, and a certain strength of demeanor was expected. No matter what.

“No more questions until trial.”

She left before Devlin could respond.

M
IKLAS TRIDAC was not in a good mood.

It had been nearly an E-week now since the girl had evaded his people. A humiliating failure, that. Two teams of trained operatives and half a million to cover costs, and still she had gotten away. One girl, unarmed, a stranger to the outworlds, versus two dozen of his best.

Not good. Not good at all.

It was Ra's fault, of course. She had proven to be a major irritant from day one of this project. First she had confiscated his weapon shipments, then she'd had her customs people harass his operatives, and now . . . now she had the girl. Tridac's power was vast and its resources almost unlimited, but even the Corporation wasn't about to raid the household of a Guild official.

None of which would matter to them when he reported his failure. The Corporation didn't care much for excuses.

He was about to call up the day's intelligence report—it came to him in hourly increments, a breakdown of every operational statistic that might possibly impact the girl's behavior—when there came a knock on his door. “Come in,” he called out, and he thought,
It had better be good news.

It was Dhera, one of his lieutenants, and although her face was impassive as always, her step seemed confident as she came to him where he sat and laid a piece of plastic on the desk before him. He noted the heading which revealed it to be a communique from the Guildmistress' office, one of the thousands that his people were scanning through various illegal means. This one seemed to come from the office of Sonondra Ra herself.

MIA PRIMA,

IN ACCORDANCE WITH YOUR INSTRUCTIONS I AM RELEASING THE GIRL. SHE HAS ASKED FOR TRANSPORTATION, AND I HAVE ASSIGNED HER AN INSHIP, TERM OF USE INDEFINITE.

PLEASE NOTE THAT I DO NOT CONSIDER THIS A WISE COURSE OF ACTION. I AM NOT AT ALL CERTAIN THAT THE PARTIES WHO PURSUED HER HAVE ABANDONED THE CHASE. THERE IS EVIDENCE OF THEIR CONTINUED PRESENCE ON MY STATION. I URGE YOU TO RECONSIDER, AND IF YOU DO NOT WISH HER TO REMAIN IN MY DOMAIN, THEN GIVE HER SHELTER IN SOME OTHER NODE.

A BILL FOR THE USE OF THE INSHIP WILL BE FORWARDED TO YOUR OFFICE.

SONONDRA RA

PARADISE NODE

 

He read it over three times before he responded. Making sure. Savoring the moment. “Is it possible she knows we intercepted this?”

“No, sir.”

He looked up at her. “You're sure?”

“Quite sure, sir. We've taken all possible precautions. Ra's security hasn't responded with so much as a cursory probe.”

He allowed himself a smile. A small one, not of triumph—that would be premature at this point—but anticipation. “All right. You've done well. Now I want to know what ship she's taking, and the time and place of departure. And I want you doubly certain that Ra knows
nothing
of your inquiries. One hint of any security response, and you warn me immediately.”

“I understand, sir.”

The girl was leaving Paradise Station. Even better, she was leaving alone, and Tridac would know where and when. With news like that he could call in another team of operatives, specialists in safespace interception. Within hours of the girl leaving Ra's station, Tridac would have her in his possession.

He allowed himself the indulgence of a real smile then, and hurried to give the proper orders.

T
he ship was a small one, and it left from a public dock, presumably because Ra expected her private facilities to be under surveillance. Half a dozen guards in civilian disguise had escorted Jamisia Shido safely there, seen her aboard, and stood by while she received her transit instructions and backed out of the ring and into the blackness of space.

So Miklas' men had reported. They had also reported that there was no one on board with her, which meant that the girl could pilot her own ship. Good enough. It also meant that even if the ship had armaments, she'd be hard pressed to use them; mustering a sound defense while in flight usually required one mind devoted to nothing else. If they kept her running fast and hard, she wouldn't have time to take action against them.

Miklas drew in a deep breath as his own ship launched and tried not to feel too exultant. The girl wasn't exactly in his hands yet ... but she would be soon, and when he delivered her safely to the Board of Directors, they'd reward him as his action deserved. Perhaps someday he might even earn a seat in that august body himself.

“I've got her on screen,” his pilot informed him.

The skies were crowded, transports and shippers and yachts and pods all maneuvering for the proper alignment to enter or leave station space. There was no way to reach the girl now, and certainly no way to chase her down safely. Traffic Control would have the pol on him faster than he could give the orders.

“Follow at a distance,” he ordered. “Vary the approach path.”

She was heading away from the ainniq, toward a less densely populated sector. That was perfect, Miklas thought. The last thing he wanted to be doing was tripping over tourists as he chased the girl.

Hopefully it wouldn't come to that. Hopefully the Fed ID on his own ship would reassure her that everything was on the up-and-up, and she would submit without a fight. But this chase had thrown him too many surprises already, and he wasn't going to bet on anything going right. Tridac Corporation didn't want to hear about another failure.

He sent out a signal to his waiting ships, telling them where to meet up with him. There was an industrial station in that sector they could use for cover and a harvester compound right next to it. His people could tuck a good dozen ships in behind there and be ready to come to his aid as soon as he called for them.

She was well out of Paradise Station's space now and past the tourist sector. The last garish casino station passed behind them, and then a few hotel rings, and finally only open space and the stars lay ahead. Thus far she didn't seem to have noticed him. Or maybe she simply thought that a ship from Federated Safespace Security was nothing to worry about.

He gave the orders that would bring them in closer and thought,
So sorry to disappoint you.

She didn't appear to notice him at first. Or she noticed, but didn't worry. He told his pilot to keep to a direct approach and slowly come in closer. Half the distance between them was slowly taken up. Closer, closer . . .

“She's pulling ahead,” the pilot told him.

“Stay with her.”

It would be clear to her now that a fed ship was pursuing her. Would she try to get away from it, or just establish a safe distance and wait to see what happened?

“Picking up speed now,” his pilot warned him.

So much for that question. He nodded for the pilot to keep pace and then sent out a direct signal to her. It started with an ID code that verified his FSS identity. It ended with a command to slow down and prepare for boarding, allegedly for a routine security search. Such procedures were not uncommon in this stretch of space, where smugglers and their patrons were known to congregate, and hopefully she would reason to herself that if she truly had nothing to hide, the easiest thing was to simply submit to a cursory search and let the fed see that for themselves. Dozens of tourists and business folk made the same choice every day.