Unfortunately, it had already driven off. 'Doesn't matter,' I said. 'The subway's not far.'
I set off at a brisk walk. 'Wait a minute,' Penny said as she worked to keep up with me. 'Shouldn't we call the spaceport first?'
'And say what?' I countered, pulling up the torchliner schedule on my reader. 'We have no authority to ask them to hold him.'
'I could start extradition proceedings,' Morse offered, sounding doubtful. 'But that would take time.'
'Way too much time,' I agreed. 'Besides, the police may still be mad at me over that hotel incident. We'd do better to keep our heads down.'
'I could try to call him,' Penny offered. 'I know his comm number.'
'Except that the Halkas never gave us back our comms,' Morse reminded her. 'We'd have to find a public.'
'No time for that now,' I said, handing Morse my reader. 'If I'm reading these schedules right, we're going to reach the spaceport with less than an hour to book passage on that torchliner and get ourselves aboard.'
'We're
'The next one doesn't leave until tomorrow,' Morse told her as he flipped through the schedule. 'Compton's right—he'll definitely be making for this one. But we should be able to book our staterooms on the way from one of the comms in the suborb.'
'Good idea,' I said. 'Ms. Auslander can also try calling Mr. Stafford from there. The trick will be to catch the next suborb before it leaves. Otherwise, we won't make that liner.'
'Then let's stop talking and hurry,' Morse said.
Luck, and the express subway schedule, were with us. We made the depot with fifteen minutes to spare, grabbed our luggage and got tickets for the suborbital transport to Portline, and were soon arcing our way through the darkened Ghonsilya sky.
Penny insisted on trying to call Stafford before we did anything else. But there was no answer. Either his comm was off or else he'd lost it sometime during his residence at the Paradise. She tried a dozen times before reluctantly agreeing to stop long enough to call the torchliner station about booking passage. There were, as I'd expected, several staterooms still available, and her credit tab was healthy enough to reserve four of them for us. Brushing off Morse's promise to try to get ESS to reimburse her for at least his part of the fare, she resumed her efforts to get through to Stafford.
The flight took three hours, during which time we passed from the early evening of Magaraa City to the midafternoon of Portline. The torchliner was already in the middle of flight prep, but we had time to sign in and get settled before it lifted.
The staff was, of course, not at liberty to give out the names of other passengers. Morse suggested trying to tap into their computer, but since none of us knew what name Stafford was traveling under there wasn't much point in that. So instead, the four of us settled in to keep a close watch on the dining rooms and public areas. Sooner or later, he would have to come out of his stateroom.
Only he didn't. We were two days out when even Morse was forced to accept the conclusion that Stafford wasn't aboard.
'This is all your fault,' Penny bit out, glaring at me across the dining-room table. '
'You saw the message,' I reminded her, fighting to stay professional about this. It wasn't easy, what with her anger and sense of betrayal hitting me like high-radiation solar wind. 'What other assumption could we have made?'
'Maybe he decided at the last minute he didn't want to leave without his share of the auction money,' Bayta offered.
'Or else he knew we would read his note and go charging off like a pack of idiots,' Morse growled. He was clearly with Penny on the plan to drop all the blame for this into my lap. 'He probably went to ground in Portline to wait for the next torchliner.'
'So that we could be waiting for him when he reached the Tube?' I scoffed. 'That doesn't make any sense.'
'Maybe he thought we'd turn around and go charging back to Ghonsilya as soon as we hit the transfer station,' Morse said. 'Thereby being conveniently out of position when his actual torchliner came in.'
'Only we won't be doing that, I take it?' I said.
'Bloody right we won't,' he said firmly. 'There's only one way out of this system, and that's through the transfer station. I'm prepared to set up camp there and wait all month if I have to.'
'Well, best of luck to you,' I said. 'You want Bayta and me to escort Ms. Auslander back to Earth?'
'I'm not going back without Daniel,' Penny said firmly. Her eyes softened a little as she looked at me. 'You aren't going to leave us, are you?'
And with that, all three sets of eyes were on me: Penny's pleading, Morse's unfriendly, Bayta's merely watchful. 'I guess we'll see,' I said. It was a lame answer, but it was the best I could come up with.
Because I knew that by the time we reached the transfer station I very likely wouldn't have any choice as to whether I stayed or not.
TWENTY :
We reached the transfer station four days later, tying up at our dock ten minutes ahead of schedule. The disembarkation listing called for our particular grouping to exit about an hour after docking, and at Morse's suggestion we spent the time in the aft observation lounge, where we'd at least have a view of something besides the station hull.
I studied Penny's face as we sat there, wondering if she was thinking about what had happened between us the last time we were in one of these aft lounges together. But it was clear that her thoughts were on Stafford, with me running a distant second.
If I was even in the running at all. Whatever that kiss had meant to me, I was starting to suspect it had meant a great deal less to her.
The transfer station was busy today. Docked a safe distance away from us was a small-capacity torchferry, presumably making its run from one of the asteroid mining regions scattered throughout this part of Ghonsilya's outer system. Farther down were a pair of the even smaller torchyachts, plus a third currently maneuvering away from the station at the low-power drive setting necessary to keep from frying everything within reach of its heavy- ion plasma exhaust. For a minor system, Ghonsilya seemed to have a lot of traffic.
Finally, the lounge's speaker called our disembarkation grouping. Gathering our luggage, we joined the line of passengers passing through the hatchways, walked down the entry corridor, and emerged in a large and crowded reception room. Fifty meters directly ahead I could see a row of customs tables with a line of passengers at each, with the doors into the main part of the transfer station just beyond them. A little ahead and to our right was a group of Tra'ho'seej I didn't recognize from our flight, possibly some of the passengers from the torchferry.
And eight people ahead of us and two lines to our left, freshly disembarked from their rented torchyacht, were Fayr and Stafford.
Stafford was in front, with five Tra'ho'seej and a Nemut between him and Fayr. He was wearing the same plain, nondescript clothing he'd had on at the Paradise, but at least he'd taken the time to get the outfit cleaned during the torchyacht trip. Fayr, in contrast, was resplendent in upper-class clothing, as befit a Bellido wearing four handguns in a matched set of double shoulder holsters.
Stafford had two carrybags rolling alongside him, plus a heavy-looking backpack. Fayr had a single carrybag—an expensive one, naturally—and a long, flat shoulder case for his Rontra 772.
I watched Penny and Morse as we settled into position in our own line, wondering if either of them would recognize Stafford. The odds were low, I knew. Only a little of the younger man's face was visible at our angle, even
