Odd Girl Out

the other person or persons is of paramount importance.'

He looked sagely at me. 'Furthermore, unless New Tigris has local ordinances with which I'm not familiar, the prohibition against association with criminals applies only to convicted felons or former felons still on parole. Does Mr. Donaldson have any such criminal record you're aware of?'

It was definitely not going the way Aksam had hoped. 'I have my orders,' he said stiffly. 'And I have a warrant.'

'Really.' McMicking threw a significant glance at me. I caught the glance and lobbed it back again. If the cop had a viable warrant, he should have mentioned it long before now. 'May I see it?'

Aksam looked at his partner, as if hoping for help or inspiration. But there was nothing there but more uncertainty and a clear wish to be left out of this battle. Reluctantly, the sergeant pulled a folded piece of paper from inside his pocket and handed it over.

McMicking unfolded it and ran his eyes down the fine print. I watched, wondering how much of his act was actual legal knowledge and how much was complete blown smoke. With McMicking, one could never be sure.

He took his time, going through the entire document. Aksam was starting to fidget by the time he finally looked up again. 'I'm sorry,' he said, handing back the warrant, 'but this document is completely invalid.'

'What are you talking about?' Aksam demanded, frowning at it. 'It looks fine to me.'

'The alleged crime is far too vague, with no dates or other specifications,' McMicking told him. 'Furthermore, the authorization signature is illegible, and the four referenced laws aren't tagged with their statute and subsection numbers. Any one of those would be enough to invalidate the entire document.'

'It's the same format we always use,' Aksam protested, still studying it.

'Which probably means it's never been seen by someone actually familiar with Confederation law,' McMicking said. 'Perhaps I should drop by the courthouse before I leave New Tigris and have a look at all your other document formats.'

Aksam's cheeks tightened. He'd probably seen enough dit rec courtroom dramas to know that invalid documents could be grounds for appeal.

I had no idea whether that was actually true. But in my case, it didn't matter. McMicking's goal was clearly to buy us some time, and he'd already accomplished that.

'But thank you for dropping by,' I spoke up. 'Now that I know about Mr. Karim's record, I'll be sure to steer clear of him. Do you happen to have a list of other local criminals handy, in case I need to ask anyone for directions again?'

Aksam gave me a look that could kill mildew. But he still had one card left to play. 'We'll be seeing you later, Mr. Donaldson,' he promised menacingly. 'In the meantime, I need to ask you to surrender your weapon.'

'I have a valid carry permit,' I reminded him.

'You had a valid carry permit,' he countered. 'As local representative of Hardin Industries, Mr. Veldrick has just revoked it.'

I frowned. 'That's absurd. Mr. Veldrick isn't connected to Hardin Industries.'

'He's the local head of Crown Rosette, which is now a subsidiary of Hardin Industries,' Aksam said. 'That makes him the local Hardin representative.'

'Hardly,' I said. 'And certainly not for this. Even actual, official Hardin managers have no authority over security personnel.'

'You're welcome to come down to the courthouse and argue your case,' Aksam said. He had his hand resting on his own holstered sidearm now 'But until a judge rules on the question, public safety overrides all such concerns. You will surrender your weapon.'

I looked at McMicking. He had a sour look on his face, but he gave me a small nod. 'Fine,' I said, pulling out my Glock and handing it over. 'But I'm holding you personally responsible for the safety of this weapon.'

'Don't worry,' Aksam said, taking the Glock and handing it to Lasari, who tucked it into the back of his belt. 'I understand you're staying at the Hanging Gardens?'

'That's right,' I said. 'Feel free to drop by when you have a proper warrant for a proper crime.' I raised my eyebrows. 'I'm sorry. If you ever have a proper warrant for a proper crime.'

A good dit rec detective would have had a sarcastic riposte ready. But Aksam must have missed that day at cop school. Sending a last glower at McMicking, he turned and stalked out, his partner trailing silently behind him.

'So much for Veldrick's next move,' I commented, taking a sip of my iced tea.

'Indeed,' McMicking said, stroking his lip thoughtfully. 'Offhand, I'd say he's getting ready to move out the rest of his coral.'

'Going to be tricky,' I said. 'The stuff was pretty firmly mounted in his little artificial stream. At eight million dollars for the lot, it won't take much damage to start chewing up the potential profits.'

'Better a smaller piece than having the whole pie snatched off your cooling rack,' McMicking said. 'And if he's making his move, it's about time we thought about making ours.'

I looked around the restaurant. With the impromptu floor show over, the rest of the diners had returned to their meals and conversation. 'You have a plan for getting to his coral?' I asked.

'I have three,' McMicking said. 'Unfortunately, all of them assumed only one house that would need to be burgled and several days with which to plan the operation.'

'I guess we'll just have to improvise,' I said.

He inclined his head. 'I guess we will.'

'But first we need to get Rebekah off New Tigris,' Bayta put in suddenly.

I looked at her in surprise. 'Yes, we'll do that,' I assured her. 'But Veldrick's coral—'

'It can wait,' Bayta cut me off tartly. 'Rebekah's in danger. We have to get her clear.'

I looked at McMicking, saw my same puzzlement reflected there. 'Is she in more danger than she was two hours ago?' I asked, looking back at Bayta.

'I don't know,' she said. Her cheek and throat muscles were tight as she gazed pleadingly at me. 'I just know that we have to get to her. Now.'

I looked around the restaurant again. Bayta got worked up like this so seldom that it was always something of a shock.

But when it did happen, it was worth paying attention to. 'Okay,' I said slowly. 'We can't make a move against the coral anyway until we know where Veldrick's got the other pieces stashed. McMicking can handle that while you and I sneak Rebekah out of hiding and through Customs onto our torchyacht.'

I looked at McMicking. 'By then, you should have the coral's locations nailed down. Rebekah and Bayta will lift off and head for the Tube, and I'll come back to town to help you with your burglaries.'

'Sounds reasonable,' McMicking said.

'Not to me it doesn't,' Bayta said. 'I don't know how to fly a torchyacht.'

'You won't have to,' I said. 'With the minuscule traffic level around here, I should be able to set up a straight autolift while we're working the preflight. I'll also set your course for a low-speed, leisurely trip to the Tube, which will give McMicking and me plenty of time to catch up to you in his torchyacht. At that point I'll come aboard with you and Rebekah and fly us the rest of the way'

'Of course, we'll also have to deal with Customs once we reach the transfer station,' McMicking warned. 'They'll certainly have been alerted to the coral theft by the time we get there.'

'I'm sure you already have a plan for that part,' I said.

McMicking shrugged. 'Any suggestions as to how I go about finding the rest of Veldrick's coral?'

'There are a couple of options,' I said. 'How are your computer hacking skills these days?'

'Adequate.'

'Good,' I said. 'Option one: hack into the Crown Rosette computer system. See who Veldrick's been doing business with since the Hardin rep noticed his coral three months ago.'

'Paying special attention to the non-Humans on the list,' McMicking said, nodding his understanding.

'Exactly,' I said. 'That should give you the most likely recipients. Once you've got that, hack into the city's utilities system and find out which of them had their water bills shoot up recently.'

McMicking frowned. 'Their water bills?'

'Modhran coral does best with cold water flowing around it,' Bayta told him.