Trespassers: a science-fiction novel (34 page)

Lambert quietly sized up the room. He identified Dexim and Jin as the two main threats. While Lyntic was probably the fiercest and most capable (after all, she had single-handedly rescued the rest of her team back at the Juniper Hotel), she had proved she wasn
’
t a threat, since she had used nonlethal force on the bounty hunter and had let Mindy go. Dexim, however, seemed to have a distain for Stewart
’
s job and a personal grudge against Stewart himself.

Jin was a whole different creature. He wanted to be benevolent, but an underlying fear threatened to take control of him at any second. That made him dangerous. He
was
the one who attacked Bruner.

“
Our first obstacle would be the Limestone Group,
”
Stewart said, as he looked to Web. Web was already opening his computer as he took a seat. He had complete access to
Home
right on his desktop, and he pulled up what he needed.

“
Yeah, they
’
re tracking her all right,
”
Web groaned.
“
The heart-signal tracker was removed from the vault this morning at 11:03 A.M.
”

“
How do we know that
’
s for her?
”
Dexim said.

“
When
’
s the last time it was moved out of storage?
”
Stewart asked Web.

“
Uhh .
.
. never,
”
he said, reading from the screen.

Stewart nodded. His point had been proved.
“
If they took the heart-signal tracker out of the vault, they have a heart-signal to go along with it. That means they
’
re out there searching right now, and they should find her in no time. This thing
’
s already over.
”

“
Not necessarily,
”
Tobi interjected, stepping out of the corner.
“
Heart-signal trackers have a limited range, and they
’
re very touchy.
”

“
Heart signals don
’
t fade,
”
Web said.

“
No, they don
’
t,
”
Tobi agreed,
“
but it
’
s more complicated than that. If Sarazha was the only person on a barren planet, then the heart-signal tracker would pick her up with no problem. She couldn
’
t make a move without it registering. But every organism has an effect on the tracker. Anything that emits a signal will dilute its clarity. If you add a hundred people to that barren planet, it will make her heart signal appear weaker to the tracking device, because it has to sift through all those frequencies. With billions of people on this planet, you have to be almost right on top of the signal to distinguish it. On top of that, radio, microwave, and radar frequencies clog the receptors even more.
”

“
So, what does that mean?
”
Stewart asked.

“
It means they would have to know where to start,
”
Tobi explained.

“
And what
’
s the range?
”
Dexim inquired.

“
It depends on the unit.
”
Tobi turned to Web.
“
Do you know what it looks like?
”

Web turned the computer screen to show a photo. Tobi leaned in to take a look.

“
Double cylinder, reverberating model,
”
Tobi mumbled to himself,
“
not the best, but it
’
ll do.
”

As he straightened back up, Tobi noticed the others still waiting for the prognosis.

“
Oh.
”
He remembered the question.
“
About five to ten miles, I would think.
”

“
That gives us some time,
”
Dexim said.

“
What about
your
tracker?
”
Stewart asked.
“
What
’
s the range on it?
”

“
About three miles,
”
Tobi replied.

“
Then we
’
d need to know where to start, too,
”
Stewart said. He looked to Dexim,
“
I need a moment with my team.
”
Dexim agreed and called his group out of the room. With Web, Lambert, and Mindy circled around him, Stewart laid it all out.

“
This is a big thing,
”
he said.
“
We
’
re way out of bounds with this. How I see it, we have three options.
”
He counted them on his fingers.
“
We go
Home
and stay out of it.
”
He put up another finger.
“
We call
Home
and let them know what
’
s going on and assist in handing this girl over to the Mundle
—
in which case we get credit for saving the planet and I move into the big office at the end of the hall .
.
.Web, you
’
ll get my old office .
.
.
”

“
Or?
”
Mindy asked.

“
Or we help them .
.
. we help them find this missing girl, we help them sneak her off the planet, and we do it all under the Limestone Deposit Survey Group
’
s nose. Worst-case scenario, we start an intergalactic incident that ends up destroying the planet in the process. Best-case scenario, nobody knows we did anything .
.
. and we probably get yelled at by George either way. What do you think?
”

In the kitchen, Lyntic could see the smallest glimpse of Stewart as he spoke with his team.

“
He
’
s looking for an opportunity to use us,
”
Dexim whispered.

Lyntic shifted her eyes from the sliver of Stewart over to her brother.
“
And what .
.
. you
’
re looking for an opportunity to
help
him?
”

“
I
’
m not saying this situation can
’
t work. I
’
m just saying we can
’
t trust him as much as you want to.
”

“
Whether you trust him or not,
”
she said,
“
he
’
s a valuable asset to our mission.
”

It was a good try, but Dexim could see she wasn
’
t concerned with Stewart
’
s value to the mission. She still had feelings for him. Stewart arrived at the kitchen.

“
Okay,
”
Stewart said.
“
We
’
re in.
”

“
Hold on.
”
Dexim caught him before he could return to the living room.
“
Before we get started
—”
He slapped a quoret on the counter.

“
You
’
re not serious,
”
Stewart said, as he picked up the cube. It was expertly crafted, made of a wood that could pass as indigenous on most inhabited planets. Maple was the wood it was most likely to be mistaken for on Earth. It wasn
’
t the wood that was concerning Stewart, though. It was the technology that lay inside. Stewart wasn
’
t afraid of the quoret. He had been successful in defeating one in a practice drill back at
Home
. A triangle had been placed in a box and participants were asked,
What
’
s in the box?
The first seven agents were all unable to lie and said,
a
triangle
. Stewart, however, simply said,
air
. He found that focusing on the honesty of his answer allowed him to slip past unaffected. He would do the same here.

Dexim was going to ask whether Stewart intended to turn Sara over to the Mundle. It was a fair question, but Stewart couldn
’
t answer it honestly. There was no telling what might happen. And if push came to shove, he might be in a position where he had to turn her over. Stewart had no intention of betraying them, but he couldn
’
t say it wasn
’
t a possibility. He would have to keep that concealed.

Web, Mindy, and Lambert collected around him as he switched the quoret on.

“
Go ahead,
”
Stewart said. No matter what Dexim asked, Stewart would have to find a truthful answer that Dexim would want to hear. Dexim
’
s mind would assume the rest. Stewart nodded that he was ready.

“
Are you still in love with my sister?
”
This, Stewart was not ready for. He set the quoret back on the counter.

“
You
’
re in over your head,
”
Stewart growled.
“
The Limestone Deposit Survey Group is looking for this girl right now. And they
’
re good. The only shot you have at pulling this off is me. Now if you
’
re done screwing around, I
’
m going to get to work.
”
He stormed off to the living room.

Web got on his computer and pulled up Sarazha Bant
’
s visitor file. She had checked in as a research student, just as Dexim said.

“
Sara Baker,
”
Web said,
“
that
’
s the name she was using, according to the file.
”

Stewart ordered Web to start a telephone feeler search for the name
Sara Baker
.

“
How wide?
”
Web asked.

“
Let
’
s start with the town here and see what we get.
”

Web printed a list of business names and numbers for the town of Juniper. These were divvied up among members of both teams, who systematically made calls asking for Sara Baker. It took only fifteen minutes before Mindy got a hit from a hardware store.

“
Nathan's Hardware,
”
she reported.
“
I told the lady I was looking for Sara Baker, and she said she wasn
’
t in. I asked when she would be back, and the lady said she expected her anytime.
”

Within ten minutes, Stewart
’
s government-issue SUV and Dexim
’
s borrowed Ford Edge were on the road and closing in on Nathan's Hardware. The team members were mixed and matched in the two vehicles for
cohesion
—
which was a polite way of saying that each team wanted to keep an eye on the other.

“
You can restore a memory, even after eight months?
”
Mindy asked, from the back seat of the Ford Edge.

“
Sure,
”
Tobi replied from the front passenger
’
s seat.
“
It
’
s just that she will have developed so many new memories in that span that it could be difficult to convince her to let go of them and return to a life that she doesn
’
t know at all.
”

Web nodded along. As a technical specialist, he was well versed in this subject.