Aneka Jansen 7: Hope (26 page)

The rooms at the back of the brothel were small and pretty basic. There was a bed and a straight-backed chair, and that was it. The house did not worry about what you did with their employees, but if you wanted anything more complicated than a place to fuck, you had to bring your own toys.

Ella locked the door behind them and looked around, trying to keep the disgust off her face.

‘What would you like?’ Lenora said. ‘I’m skilled in any form of–’

‘Just sit down on the bed and shut up,’ Ella replied. Silently she spoke to Aneka. ‘I’m ready.’

It had been decided that Ella would handle Lenora while Aneka provided what Winter called ‘technical backup.’ What that meant was that she was back in the ducts, wired into Lenora’s communications tap and ready to make the Pinnacle agent’s life miserable.

‘Initiating cut-off now,’ Aneka replied.

Lenora’s brow shifted, tightening slightly, but she was good enough at hiding her feelings that only Ella’s accelerated perceptions spotted it.

‘About now you’ll have noticed that your computer has gone offline,’ Ella said. ‘You’re wondering how. You’re
now
wondering how I know and what else I know. Well, I know that that collar of yours isn’t like the others here, and I know something about it you don’t.’

There was tension in Lenora’s body. She was contemplating making a move, attacking Ella and taking the pistol attached to her boot. ‘What’s that?’

‘When they altered it, they
added
to it. They didn’t
remove
anything.’

Lenora’s eyes widened a little and then she stiffened as a burst of pain lanced through her body. It was brief, a taster triggered by Aneka as a demonstration, but the woman was panting when it died away.

‘Your masters can trigger that remotely,’ Ella said, her voice soft because she knew what it felt like and could not help feeling some sympathy. ‘We think it’s their safety mechanism in case you suddenly developed a conscience. We know that your name is Lenora Roheen, that you’re Pinnacle, and that you run the local spy ring. What we don’t know is why a Pinnacle woman would willingly let herself be used like this. My reading of the mindset suggests that no one like you would let this happen, and no man would even consider suggesting it.’

‘Why, exactly, should I explain myself to you?’ Lenora replied.

‘Aside from the potential for prolonged agony? Because we have something planned and your cooperation would be useful. But if we can’t have it, you’ll die. Here. In this sordid little room, screaming your lungs out in pain. I’ve worn one of those things. I know how it feels. Frankly, I’m not sure I could bring myself to do it to you, but luckily I have a more practical partner in charge of the button.’

‘If I die–’

‘The Pinnacle will send another, but that will take weeks. The owners here will wonder how your collar malfunctioned, but they won’t cry over a dead slave. What are you doing here? Why did you let this happen?’

‘I fell in love.’ She lay back on the bed, covering her face with her hands. ‘He was tall and handsome. So strong, but he had a quick mind. Of course, I knew it was stupid, that I was condemning us both. I told him that we should stay apart. I would sell him to a good home. He said I was the most beautiful woman he had ever met and leaving me would tear his heart out.’

‘Oh,’ Ella said flatly.

‘We had almost a year of stolen meetings. It was the best year of my life. And then my husband caught us. He’s a…’ She trailed off, seeming to reconsider her statement. ‘He works in the military. Intelligence. He’s not my husband now, of course. He redeemed himself by suggesting a plan to his colonel and they promoted him when I accepted. They told me I could redeem myself by doing just what I’d done to get myself into this. I would be sent here and I would spend my time being fucked by animals, and they would get me out at some point. The alternative was re-education.’

‘That doesn’t necessarily sound too bad.’

‘No, it doesn’t, but the people who undergo it are… different afterwards. They come out… less like people. I met one once and I never want to be like that.’

‘What happened to the slave?’

‘He was…’ Her voice broke off in a choking noise and she paused for a second and then went on in the same flat, dispassionate tone she had been using. ‘The Pinnacle never wastes good slaves. They made sure he would never be able to do the same with another woman and he was put to work again.’

‘They castrated him? And your husband got rid of his embarrassing wife by shipping her off to become a whore. You know they are never going to call you back, don’t you?’

‘The thought has crossed my mind.’

‘What do you think?’ Ella asked silently. ‘I think she might go for it.’

‘I think you might be right’ Aneka replied. ‘Tell her.’

‘What if I were to offer you the chance to leave here? You probably couldn’t go home, but we can offer you asylum somewhere else. Maybe even Old Earth. There’s a lot of land there that’s unused. You could set up a small farm or something if you couldn’t bring yourself to live among “animals.”’

Lenora pushed herself up onto her elbows. ‘If the network here goes silent, they’ll send in a fleet and obliterate the place.’

‘There won’t be anyone here for them to kill. We’re moving everyone. Creating a new Haven, one the Pinnacle know nothing about. All we need is some time. You and the other spies keep feeding them reports saying nothing much is happening, and we start shipping people out to the new site.’

‘If I say yes, it’s not going to do you much good. They have another source. There’s someone… I’m pretty sure it’s one of the pirates, a captain, but his whole ship must be involved. They move freely and they can send out messages when they’re away. They never told me who it is, but I
know
he’s out there.’

‘So she doesn’t know,’ Aneka mused. ‘She really is as much a victim in this as the rest of them.’

‘Seems that way.’ Aloud Ella said, ‘We’re working on that. We have a suspect.’

Lenora looked at her for a second. ‘The others, the other slaves, they get asylum too. The locals would never trust them and they can’t go back. Dineera was sixteen when she was brought here. She was a virgin! She’s never known anything else. She’ll never find anyone willing to take her and they’ll turn her into a zombie.’

‘Everyone gets taken care of.’

‘All right. You have my cooperation. You have my word. I don’t suppose that means a lot, considering what you must think of us, but–’

‘Actually, from what I know of your culture, I think it does.’

Amethyst Hyde, 9.1.560 FSC.

‘All right,’ Gillian said, rubbing at the bridge of her nose, ‘we have all the spies on-side and Aggy says their reports seem clean.’

‘There is the possibility of hidden code words,’ Winter commented, ‘but our reading of their behaviour at the interviews suggests that they will play ball.’

War’s lips twitched. ‘Still sticking to these ancient idioms, sister?’

‘I like them. Don’t think I didn’t see you cooing over Aneka’s gun. It was like a mother and a long-lost child. We all have our peculiarities.’

Kade shook her head. ‘Are all AIs like this?’

‘Like people?’ Gillian suggested. ‘No, only the ones worth talking to. How are we coming on the new site?’

‘There’s a G-type system about thirty parsecs from here,’ Drake said. ‘Shadataga dropped a probe in there yesterday and it’s looking good.’

‘G-type?’ Kade asked.

‘Old Federation terminology. G-type systems have garden worlds in them, capable of supporting life and usually already having some form of it. In this case, it’s got enough plants to have a stable, breathable atmosphere. The gravity is a little low for my tastes, but not too bad. Resources are reasonable, not too much volcanism, and the ground should be good for growing crops.’

‘Huh, there are going to be a few people wondering about the idea of becoming farmers. Even if we have the hydroponics facilities. I think it’s going to take some adjustment.’

‘We can provide help if you need it,’ Gillian said. ‘Shadataga has very good vocational courses and, at least for a few years, you’re going to be a sort of client state.’

‘When we do something,’ Winter stated, ‘we do it properly. The reports I’ve seen on “New Haven” look perfect. I’ve suggested that we get started on construction.’

‘How long are we going to have to keep fooling the Pinnacle before we can move?’ Kade asked.

‘Basic orbital reception facilities will be in place the day after tomorrow. Ground habitation completion in two weeks. A little longer for full facilities to be ready, but we can begin moving people out once they have somewhere to live.’

‘Two weeks? You’re going to build a city for forty thousand people in two weeks, with a spaceport?’

‘Well, we could probably go a little faster, but I did say we like to do things right.’

Kade was looking a little shocked, but any reply was cut off as Aggy’s avatar appeared beside the briefing room table. ‘Aneka, the signal Lenora was told to trip if she needed to talk to someone has been tripped. I detected inbound traffic to her system about ten minutes ago but have not decrypted it yet.’

Aneka sighed. ‘Maybe we’ll have to put a rush on the building anyway.’

Pirate Cove.

The room was a little cramped with four people in it, but Lenora had asked very nicely, but urgently, that another girl be brought in with her, so Aneka had picked up the indicated young woman and taken her back to join Lenora and Ella.

‘This is Dineera,’ Lenora said. ‘I mentioned her–’

‘I remember,’ Aneka said. The girl was young, not much more than twenty. Her blonde hair was cut short which did not help make her look happier. Despite her youth, she had a distinctly womanly figure and she had to get plenty of clients, which was not a good thing in her case.

‘I sort of took her under my wing when she was brought here. I… I told her what we’re planning because…’

‘Because I’ve been getting very depressed,’ Dineera said. ‘I wanted a way out and I tried the only way I could think of last week.’

‘They found her before she bled out too much and they healed her up good as new because a scarred slave doesn’t get as much work, but…’

‘That’s fine,’ Ella said, ‘as long as you can keep your mouth shut, Dineera.’ There was a firm nod as a reply. ‘I don’t think Dineera explains why you needed to talk to us.’

‘I got a message from my handlers.’

‘We noticed.’

‘They say there’s a group of five new spies coming in in the next few days. They want more coverage after what happened with Kade. I’m pretty sure they’re all people like Naseena. They’ve been pressed into service with promises and a few exaggerated threats. But we won’t know who they are until they check in with me.’

Aneka tapped her lip thoughtfully. ‘What’s the procedure when they get here?’

‘They’re told to come to me, pose as clients. I check them out. They’re given a pass phrase to use. If I’m happy, I send them to Naseena and she gives them the protocols to send reports out through her system. Then it’s business as usual.’

‘Fair enough. When the first of them turns up, you trigger the alarm. We’ll get them when they talk to Naseena, but we’ll keep an eye on both ends of the transaction, just in case. I don’t like this whole “extra coverage” idea.’

‘No,’ Lenora replied. ‘There’s something about it I don’t like either.’

Amethyst Hyde, 10.1.560 FSC.

‘The sites devoted to the Baleful Eye are full of the news,’ Aggy said to the people gathered in the briefing room. ‘He attacked a large Pinnacle slave transport and recovered over a hundred slaves. There are stories of how he destroyed two light cruisers to do it. He brought a few of them back with him, and the rest are arriving tomorrow aboard the captured transport.’

‘And Lenora was told to expect several new spies soon,’ Ella said. ‘Coincidence?’

‘Unlikely,’ Kade growled.

‘Unfortunately this does not entirely convict Captain Sorien,’ Winter said. ‘He could be being set up as transport for the spies. You brought Naseena to Haven yourself.’

‘Yeah, but… The Eye is a big, powerful ship. She’s an enforcement cruiser, heavily armoured, good close-range weapons. She’s built for boarding actions,
not
for taking on light cruisers at range.’

Aggy turned her head and an image of the Baleful Eye appeared beside her. It was not a pretty ship; there was a rather heavy-looking midsection with a more pointed nose and a narrowed rear where the fusion drive was located. The midsection had a heavy docking tube collapsed in on one side and it bristled with gun turrets. ‘I have to concur with the captain, though War is the expert. It seems that the majority of weaponry is designed to be effective at close range. Antiproton beams, multi-barrel railguns, and a pair of gravity traction beams. There are three heavier gamma-ray laser turrets, but against two targets with force screens?’

War nodded. ‘The scenario seems an unlikely one. And there is little sign of battle damage following this daring combat action.’

‘Captain Sorien will be hosting a welcome party at Nightside in two days, for the newly arrived refugees,’ Aggy went on. ‘The amount of publicity suggests he’s trying to take over Captain Kade’s position as “most loved pirate.” If the plan remains the same, this would be a good time for you to ingratiate yourself, Aneka.’

‘The plan stays the same,’ Aneka said. ‘I want to hear what Sorien has to say for himself.’

Pirate Cove, 11.1.560 FSC.

Aneka watched as a tall, well-built man walked up to Lenora and waved for her to follow him. The girl got trade, but three of her customers so far that morning were not what they seemed and she doubted they had been allowed access to what they paid for. Lenora might have been forced into slavery, but Aneka doubted she took that from the people she was supposed to be supervising.

This particular patron looked like he was pirate crew more than standard refugee. He had muscles, a body which suggested exercise rather than hard work. He was attractive, reasonably well dressed, his hair had been cut by someone who knew what they were doing, and fairly recently.