Mary Rosenblum (31 page)

A security cart waited out in the hall, but there was no sign of Carrie. “What about our security people?”

Laif climbed into the cart at the CSF nod. “I hope you didn’t just treat ‘em all like enemies. We’re not a hostile country, Sergeant. If your people don’t start something, nobody’s going to attack you.”

“That’s not what we’ve been hearing.” The sergeant swung himself into the driver’s seat with an athlete’s grace. “We just shut you all down for now. Simpler than dealing with a mess. Your Security people are assigned to quarters. For the duration. You all can have ‘em back when we pull out of here.” The cart leaped forward at the maximum safe speed for this G.

“Where’d you guys practice in micro?” Laif eyed the abanndoned carts, spotted a couple of blue uniforms in the distance. “New Singapore?”

The sergeant didn’t answer.

“What happened to Nilsson. The other guy you arrested?” The sergeant shrugged.

You’re on your own, Dane, he thought bleakly. Better pray they do a DNA test on the dead girl.

The sergeant knew where he lived. The elevator opened as they approached and he drove the cart into it, sitting relaxed, arms crossed as the elevator lifted three levels. “Hey, you’re top dog here. Or you were.” He chuckled as he drove out into the corridor. “How come you live up here? I can feel my muscles wasting away just comming up here.”

“Skinside earns income.” Laif shrugged. “What’s the fixation with feeling heavy all the time?” He glanced at the sergeant’s dense musculature. “If you want big muscles, you spend time in a G gym is all.” The man was a bit awkward in the reduced G up here, but not as much as your average tourist. They had reached his door and Laif’s lips tightened as the door opened before he could even reach for the lock plate. So they were controlling it from Admin. Nice demonstration, thank you. “You want to come in?” he looked at the sergeant. “Look around for weapons?”

“We already checked.” The sergeant smiled, his white teeth gleaming against his dark skin. “We don’t want to get rough with you folk. But we can do it just fine if we have to. Just so you all know.”

“Don’t worry,” Laif said with only a tinge of irony in his voice.

“You made a believer out of me.”

“Nice to know. Turn around.”

“How come?”

”You want the collar off or you gonna wear it as a fashion statement?”

Huh. Laif turned, felt a touch at the back of his neck, then the collar dropped into his hands. He turned, handed it to the sergeant. Surprised him, just how glad he was to be free of the damn thing. He rubbed his throat. “I thought I was under arrest for interfering with you guys.”

The sergeant shrugged. “I guess you haven’t pissed off anybody really big.” His grin widened. “As for us, if you give us any trouble … we’ll hurt you. Okay?”

Laif met his stare. “Okay.”

”You stay home, like everybody else. We’ll tell you when you can go about your business.” He flipped his fingers in a salute turned neatly on his heel, and headed back to the elevator.

Just like that. They were damn sure of themselves. Laif rubbed his throat again. They had good reason to be. He wondered what the hell was going to come down now.

“Door close,” he said, and crossed his room in three strides, flung himself down onto the sofa bed.

“Sweet Mohammad, Budddha, and Jesus,” he said softly.

Now what? Laif got to his feet and crossed to the service wall to order up a juice. Thought about making it a shot of brandy, hell make it six shots, and just forget this mess. Paced to the door and glared at it. Bet it rang a bell in Admin. He opened it, stared into the corridor for a few minutes. Closed it.

Drank some juice. Opened the door again. Flung himself down on the sofa again and closed it.

Well, hell, it gave him something to do. He wanted to contact Noah, find out what he’d discovered with that medallion dot–but did it matter at this point? “Door open,” Laif snarled. They’d be monitoring his private link, his access from the room. He could apppreciate what the wildcards had, right now. We lost, he thought. We don’t even know what the hell the game is about, but we lost it. “Door close.”

They could have installed a monitor to make sure he was in here. But why, when they could track him any time they wanted to? “Door open.” This time, he left it open.

After a good half hour, he decided that they weren’t going to come check on him. Maybe they didn’t really care.

He selected a vid–a remake of a twentieth-century Italian western –and started it.

He left the room, heading for the service elevator, hoping that his pass card still worked, even if they had disabled his personal acccess, hoping that they were busy enough securing the platform that they hadn’t assigned someone to watch him personally or watch these corridors. Made it to the service bay and slipped his card into the slot beneath the palm plate. The doors whispered open a moment later.

So far, so good. This particular elevator brought him up to the hub near the control center, but far enough away so that anyone

there wouldn’t spot him exiting. He sent it up at normal speed, since the elevators were supposed to be locked down. With any luck, the CSF were using the elevators and this might slip by.

If it didn’t slip by, all they had to do was stop the elevator, lock the door, and send someone up here to pick him up. He had a feeling he wouldn’t get sent home with a pat on the butt this time around.

The damn trip took forever, and half a dozen times, he was sure it had been frozen. But finally … finally

… the door sighed open and that searing, wonderful light flooded him. He kicked off and arrowed into the deep green light between the tubes. Most of them were close to harvest here and leaves brushed his face and as he sped past.

Laif let hin1self drift to a stop, grabbed anchor on a tube, breathing hard, sweating as he listened for any sound of pursuit. They could find him with scanners, but the hub garden was a big place. Knowing he was there and catching him were two different things. And it would be dangerous if he was armed. Which he wasn’t, but they didn’t know that.

Better to leave him alone?

He sure hoped that was their conclusion.

A shape rocketed from the green shadows over his left shoulder. Wrong guess!

Laif had time for a single searing instant of fury at yet another poor choice, and then the universe exploded in shards of green and white light.

AS THEY MADE THEIR WAY TO THE CONTROL CENTER AND Dane’s bower, Li Zhen’s son gained ability in microG at an amazing rate. Ren, he told Ahni when she asked his name, but it went with a complex mix of image and sensation that Ahni guessed was his nonverbal name for himself. Like Koi’s family, he seemed to be more at home with nonverbal communication and spoke rarely. His happiness in the microG garden bathed Ahni in a golden glow as they made their way though the planted tubes. Good thing Kyros knew the way, she thought, because she was lost.

They reached the bower at last andAhni froze. Someone had slashed through the woven network of tubes and plants, leaving a gaping opening. Shredded leaves and bruised blossoms drifted, alive with feasting frog things. Beside her, Kyros muttered an oath. “Get out of here,” he said softly. “Right now.”

She didn’t argue, spun, yanked Ren tight against her chest pushed off hard. They would have scanners if they were there. CSF? Fear filled her heart. Kyros was right behind her, breathing hard, his anger and fear a sour reek in the air. Frightened, Ren had wrapped his legs around her waist, his heels digging into her kidneys as she shot through the thick leaves. The dense plantings wouldn’t fool a scan and she felt naked, utterly visible.

Koi, she thought with a pang of fear.
What had happened to Koi?
And as if in answer, a slender shape shot across her path, somersaulted off a thickly planted tube was suddenly streaking along beside her.

Koi! She nearly shouted his name, flinched at the white-hot turmoil of his distress.

“Dane?” She let herself slow, a fist of pain clenched in her chest. “Koi, tell me what happened?”

“They killed … they killed … “

“Not Dane?” She whispered it, could not say the words out loud. But he was shaking his head. A flash of image and voice briefly filled her mind – a slender shape tumbling, limbs ugly and slack … “They took him away.” Koi’s words emerged as a howl of grief. “Down!”

A dozen shapes burst from the greenery, Koi’s family, darting and spinning in agitation.

“Koi, where are the people who took Dane?” Ahni asked urgently. “Are they here?” He didn’t need to answer. Images flooded her mind, glimpses of blue clad figures seen through a screen of leaves, flashes of motion and waves of fear. Dizzy, Ahni closed her eyes, sorting out the kaleidoscope of image. “Are they up here?” she gasped. “Koi?”

“Yes.” His milky eyes were wild and blank. “That way. Far.” He pointed with his chin. “They have nets.”

“Kyros, they’ll have scanners.” Anchoring herself on a tube, she faced the miner. ”We have to get them out of here. Safe.”

Kyros was shaking his head.

“There has to be someplace they can go … not on the plattform, Kyros. Outside!”

“Maybe, yeah. There is.” His eyes narrowed. “Let’s go. It’s going to be damn crowded, but I don’t think we have time for two trips.”

Ahni looked around for Ren, discovered him hanging from Koi’s waist as he pushed off to follow Kyros.

The school of Koi’s relatives darted along on either side of them, sleek androgynous shapes twisting effortlessly through the green jungle. Suddenly, with a single fluid motion, Koi stripped Ren from his back slung him precisely into Ahni’s arms. She barely managed to grabthe kid and push off from a tube as his momentum slammed her off course.

Koi vanished and a moment later, she heard an exclamation.

Felt someone’s shock.

Oh, damn. Caught? She stretched her awareness, feeling for that hunter’s-focus, for searching CSF, felt only Koi and he felt…pleased.

A moment or two later, he appeared, towing a body after him.The Administrator.

“I’m okay,” he was saying thickly. “Let go of me, Koi. I can swim.”

Koi released him and the man floundered, grabbing for the nearest tube, still disoriented. Koi must have hit him hard, she thought, and felt a small satisfaction at that.

“Sweet Buddha, you’re all here?” He was looking around at the hovering shapes of the Koi’s family.

Then he focused on Ahni. And Kyros. ”You, huh? Well, I guess we’re all on the same side for sure.”

Ahni wasn’t sure to whom this last was addressed, but Kyros grunted, and he wasn’t at all happy about this.

“Let’s go.” Still no CSF close, but that could change in a heartbeat. “Move, Kyros.”

“I don’t know –”

“Look, the rules have changed,” Laif said urgently. “I’m out, I’m not Admin anymore. Anything I see, I don’t see as Admin, remember, okay?”

Kyros grunted, still not happy, pushed off. There wasn’t time to argue. Koi scooped Ren away from her, which made the boy giggle, and tlley took off once more. The trip back to the dock seemed much longer than she remembered, With the fear of CSF breathing on her neck.

Together, they packed Kyros’s ship like fish in a can. Squeezed next to Laif with Koi beside her, Ren still clinging like an infant monkey to his back, Ahni caught her breath. As the ship cleared the lock she twisted to face Laif. “What about … Dane?” Her voice caught on his name.

“I think they took him straight down,” Laif grated. “And the … body. They killed one of them. By accident, I think.”

“They’ll do a DNA scan … that’ll clear him.”

“I hope so.”

His doubt chilled Ahni. She fixed her eyes on the holofield in front of Kyros. It displayed their path as if seen through a window. The ship arrowed away from the platform and she kept her eyes on the angle of their path, the view of Dragon Home in the distance, the plant’s bulk, storing it all in short term memory.

Just in case.

Thick silence filled the small craft, the only sound that of Laif’s harsh breathing. Ren hid his face against Koi’s shoulder, and his family merely … waited.

“We’re almost there.” Kyros’s voice finally broke the thick siilence. “It’s pressurized, but pretty stark.

Not a fun place but noobody’s gonna look for us here.” He didn’t quite look at Laif.

“I have a very short memory for places,” Laif said sharply. “And a long one for friends. Okay?”

Kyros didn’t say anything, but he relaxed a bit. A moment later, a tiny jar suggested that they had docked and a brief vibration shivered through the ship as the lock pressurized. “Wait,” Kyros snapped.

“Be right back.” He wriggled through the press of bodies to the hull, which melted open for him, giving Ahni a brief glimpse of total darkness and nothing more.

“How come you were in the hub?” Ahni asked Laif softly.

“Looking for Koi. I apologize for getting rough with you. We ran out of time, anyway.”

The hull melted open again, a larger hole this time, and cold, dry air flowed into the ship. Weak light glowed in the distance but it merely accentuated the utter darkness. “I’ve turned up the heat, but it’s going to take a while to warm up,” Kyros said.

Koi went first and his family followed. Ren still clung to Koi, curious and unafraid as they passed through a wide lock door and into a cavernous space, made larger by the shadows streaking the spherical hull.

The light came from a couple of emergency globes tethered to the hull. The air was cold – not freezing cold, but winter cold. Ahni made out odd, bulky shapes also tethered to the hull in nets, but couldn’t make out the contents. A matte black plate on the hull radiated heat and they gathered around it, their breath visible. Ahni noticed Laif’s eyes on the netted goods, saw him lift a shoulder in a shrug and smile crookedly.

Smuggler’s warehouse, she thought. Kyros’s stock?

“Well, there’s some food here. Not fancy, but you won’t starve. Water. Enough air.” Kyros was looking at her, Ahni realized. “It’ll even warm up eventually. So, now what?”

“I go back to New York Up.” She glanced at Laif. “Unles there’s a reason I shouldn’t?”