“I’m Ikela’s daughter. Check my public record file, if you like.”
Alkad did, datavising the lift’s net processor for a link to Ayacucho’s civil administration computer. If Voi was some kind of agency plant, they’d made a very good job of ghosting details. Besides, if she was from an agency, the last thing they’d be doing was talking. “Restart the lift, please.”
“Will you talk to me?”
“Restart the lift.”
Voi datavised the lift’s control processor, and they started to descend. “We want to help you.”
“Who’s we?” Alkad asked.
“My friends; there are quite a few of us now. The partizans you belong to have done nothing for years. They are soft and old and afraid of making waves.”
“I don’t know you.”
“Was my father helpful?”
“We made progress.”
“They won’t help you. Not when it comes to action. We will.”
“How did you find out who I am?”
“From my father. He shouldn’t have told me, but he did. He’s so weak.”
“How much do you know?”
“That the partizans were supposed to prepare for you. That you were bringing something to finally give us our revenge against Omuta. Logically it has to be some kind of powerful weapon. Possibly even a planet-buster. He was always afraid of you, they all were. Have they made the proper preparations? I bet they haven’t.”
“As I said, I don’t know you.”
Voi leaned over her, furiously intent. “We have money. We’re organized. We have people who aren’t afraid. We won’t let you down. We’d never let you down. Tell us what you want, we’ll provide it.”
“How did you know I was seeing your father?”
“Lomie, of course. She’s not one of us, not a core member, but she’s a friend. It’s always useful for me to know what my father is doing. As I said, we’re properly organized.”
“So are children’s day clubs.” For a moment Alkad thought the girl was going to strike her.
“All right,” Voi said with a calm that could only have been induced by neural nanonic overrides. “You’re being sensible, not trusting a stranger with the last hope our culture owns. I can accept that. It’s rational.”
“Thank you.”
“But we can help. Just give us the chance. Please.” And
The lift doors opened. A lobby of polished black stone and curving white metal glinted under large silver light spires. A thirty-year-old unarmed combat program reviewed the image from Alkad’s retinal implants, deciding nobody was lurking suspiciously. She looked up at the tall, anorexically proportioned girl, trying to decide what to do. “Your father invited me to stay at his apartment. We can talk more when we get there.”
Voi gave a shark’s smile. “It would be an honour, Doctor.”
• • •
It was the woman sitting up at the bar wearing a red shirt who caught Joshua’s attention. The red was very red, a bright, effervescent scarlet. And the style of the shirt was odd, though he’d be hard pressed to define exactly what was wrong with the cut, it lacked . . . smoothness. The clincher was the fact it had buttons down the front, not a seal.
“Don’t look,” he murmured to Beaulieu and Dahybi. “But I think she’s a possessed.” He datavised his retinal image file to them.
They both turned and looked. In Beaulieu’s case it was quite a performance, twisting her bulk around in the too-small chair, streamers of light slithering around the contours of her shiny body.
“Jesus! Show some professionalism.”
The woman gave the three of them a demurely inquisitive glance.
“You sure?” Dahybi asked.
“Think so. There’s something wrong with her, anyway.”
Dahybi said nothing; he’d experienced Joshua’s intuition at work before.
“We can soon check,” Beaulieu said. “Go over to her and see if any of our blocks start glitching.”
“No.” Joshua was slowly scanning the rest of the teeming bar. It was a wide room cut square into the rock of Kilifi asteroid’s habitation section, with a mixed clientele mostly taken from ships’ crews and industrial station staff. He was anonymous here, as much as he could be (five people had so far recognized “Lagrange Calvert”). And Kilifi had been a good cover, it manufactured the kind of components he was supposed to be buying for Tranquillity’s defences. Sarha and Ashly were handling the dummy negotiations with local companies; and so far no one had questioned why they’d flown all the way to Narok rather than a closer star system.
He saw a couple more suspicious people drinking in solitude, then another three crammed around a table with sullen sly expressions. I’m getting too paranoid.
“We have to concentrate on our mission,” he said. “If Kilifi isn’t enforcing its screening procedures properly, that’s their problem. We can’t risk any sort of confrontation. Besides, if the possessed are wandering around this freely it must mean their infiltration is quite advanced.”
Dahybi hunched his shoulders and played with his drink, trying not to look anxious. “There are navy ships docked here, and most of the independent traders are combat-capable. If the asteroid falls, the possessed will get them.”
“I know.” Joshua met the node specialist’s stare, refusing to show weakness. “We cannot cause waves.”
“Sure, you said: Don’t draw attention to yourself, don’t talk to the natives, don’t fart loudly. What the hell are we doing here, Joshua? Why are you so anxious to trace Meyer?”
“I need to talk to him.”
“Don’t you trust us?”
“Of course I do. And don’t try such cheap shots. You know I’ll tell all of you as soon as I can. For now, it’s best you don’t know. You trust me, don’t you?”
Dahybi put his lips together in a tired grin. “Cheap shot.”
“Yeah.”
The waitress brought another round of drinks to their alcove. Joshua watched her legs as she wriggled away through the crowd. A bit young for him, mid-teens. Louise’s age. The thought warmed him briefly. Then he saw she was wearing a red handkerchief around her ankle. Jesus, I don’t know which is worse, the horrors of possession or the pathetic dreams of the Deadnights.
He’d received one hell of a shock the first time he accessed the recording from Valisk. Marie Skibbow possessed and luring naive kids to their doom. She’d been a lovely girl, beautiful and smart, with thoughts as hard as carbotanium composite. If she could be caught, anyone could. Lalonde strummed out far too many resonances.
“Captain,” Beaulieu warned.
Joshua saw Bunal approaching their alcove. He sat down and smiled. There wasn’t the slightest sign of nerves. But then as Joshua had discovered while asking around his fellow captains, Bunal was overfamiliar with this kind of transaction.
“Good afternoon, Captain,” Bunal said pleasantly. “Have you managed to acquire your cargo yet?”
“Some of it,” Joshua said. “I’m hoping you were successful with the rest.”
“Indeed I was. Most of the information was quite simple to obtain. However, I am nothing if not assiduous in any freelance work I undertake. I discovered that, sadly, what you actually need falls outside our original agreement.”
Dahybi gave the man a hateful glare. He always despised bent civil servants.
“And will cost . . . ?” Joshua inquired, unperturbed.
“An additional twenty thousand fuseodollars.” Bunal sounded sincerely regretful. “I apologize for the cost, but times are hard at the moment. I have little work and a large family.”
