Djuro and Nkosi did not return for another two hours. Heikki spent the time hunting for other surveyor/guides, and culled three possible names from the directories. Two did not respond to her message of inquiry; the third seemed curiously reluctant to bid on the job. Heikki did not press the issue, but left name and numbers with the firm’s junior partner. She turned her attention then to extracting the meteorological data from the disks Lo-Moth had provided, and setting up a crude simulation of the missing latac’s flight path. Her answers did not match Foursquare’s projections, deviating four degrees north of their line, and pushing almost a dozen kilometers further into the wayback: if her projection was right, Foursquare’s course would have taken them well out of range of any visible remains. She smiled at the results, but could not muster more than a dour satisfaction. She copied her final results to a transfer file, and triggered the communications function. When the concierge program appeared, she gave it FitzGilbert’s codes, and leaned back in her chair to wait.
The media wall lit within minutes, FitzGilbert’s heavy-browed face superimposed on the mess of charts. So we’re still getting the first-class treatment, Heikki thought, and nodded in greeting. “Dam’ FitzGilbert, it’s good of you to see me.”
FitzGilbert grimaced. “I’ve a heavy schedule today, so let’s keep this quick, please. What can I do for you?”
The words were brusque, but not intended to be actively rude, Heikki thought. “You said we could draw on Lo-Moth’s staff if we needed. I’ve run a rough simulation; I’d like your people to check it for me—you must have a supercomp on line for crystal design.”
FitzGilbert nodded, her hands busy out of camera range. She glanced down at an invisible workscreen, and said, “We can give you eight hours tonight; it looks like, if you have the material set up for us.”
“I can flip it to you now.”
“Do that.”
Heikki nodded, and touched the keys that would transfer the contents of her working file to FitzGilbert’s diskprinter. “You receive?”
“Copy received,” FitzGilbert said, almost absently. “I’ll pass it to Simulations right away. Is there anything else?”
“One other question,” Heikki said. “I may have mentioned, I wanted to hire some local talent, a backup pilot and probably a guide of some kind. I had a pilot recommended to me, and he gave your name as a reference. The name was Sebasten-Januarias, Josep Laurens Sebasten-Januarias.”
For a moment, she thought FitzGilbert would deny knowing the name, but then the other woman sighed. “Yes, I know him. He’s a good pilot, one of the best. He doesn’t like Lo-Moth, particularly, but he did good work for us. That good enough?”
Heikki nodded again. “How about a surveyor named Alexieva? Do you know her at all?”
FitzGilbert’s head lifted slightly. “Now her I can speak for properly. She’s the best there is, knows the wayback better than anybody on the planet. If she’ll take the job, you’d be a fool not to hire her.”
“Thanks,” Heikki said, startled. “That was all I wanted to know.”
The brief animation died from FitzGilbert’s face. “I’ll flip you the sim results as soon as they’re available.”
“Thanks,” Heikki said again, but the other woman had already broken the connection. Heikki sat very still for a moment, then began mechanically to shut down the workroom. So why is she pushing Alexieva? she wondered. Is she really that good, or is there something else going on? She shook her head, suddenly angry. I’ll check with Ciceron again, and maybe with people at the port, or Jock’s contacts, if he knows anybody on planet. Then we’ll see. She punched a final button, switching off the media wall, and stalked back into the living room. Djuro and Nkosi found her there an hour later, staring at the printed maps that showed the possible courses, stylus and shadowboard discarded on the floor beside her. She looked up as the door opened, and nodded, but said nothing.
“The rentals are set,” Djuro said, after a moment. “Do you want to look over the papers?”
Heikki roused herself painfully, making an effort to put aside her bad mood. “Yeah. What did you get?”
“A standard jumper, like you asked for, capable of hauling a skyhook and a jungle crawler—with grav assist, of course,” Djuro added, and Heikki gave a twisted smile.
“What’s that add to the fuel costs?”
“Twenty per cent,” Nkosi said, and when Heikki scowled, shrugged elaborately. “That is the usual factor —”
“I know that,” Heikki snapped, and bit back the rest of her comment, well aware of the glance the two men exchanged when they thought she wasn’t looking.
“Figuring in the exchange rates, we came in about fifteen hundred poa under your maximum,” Djuro said after a moment.
Heikki nodded, and forced a smile, knowing she was being irrational. “Good,” she said, and managed to sound as though she meant it. “Did you have a chance to check those references I gave you?”
“We both did,” Djuro said, and Nkosi spread his hands.
“Heikki, who is this paragon? All the pilots say he is the best, and ten years younger than I.”
“More like fifteen,” Djuro interjected, smiling.
Nkosi gave him a look of disdain. “Which would make him a mere child, a baby. There must be something wrong with him.”
Heikki smiled in spite of herself. “We can find out tonight. I asked him to dinner, so you’d both have a chance to meet him before I made a final offer.”
“That was kind of you,” Nkosi said, grinning, and Heikki gave a rueful smile.
“Well, if you can’t work with him, that’s my problem, isn’t it? But I want to know what you both think.”
“What about the surveyor?” Djuro asked.
Heikki sighed. “It’s another weirdness, Sten. She wants the job more than she ought, and FitzGilbert was really pushing her. Of course, Ciceron said she was the best, too….” She let her voice trail off, then went on with more confidence than she actually felt. “I’m going to wait and see what her bid comes in at. If there’s anything funny there, we’ll try someone else.”
Djuro nodded agreement.
“One thing more.” Heikki fumbled on the floor for the minisec, switched on its field. “When I brought the ‘cat in, I started to go down to the storage, check on our stuff, but that guy who handled it, Kasib, was waiting, and I’m pretty sure he had a blaster. I want you both to watch your step around him.”
“I checked the crates when we came in,” Djuro said. “They’ve been opened. Nothing’s missing, nothing’s disturbed very much, but I’m sure someone went through them pretty closely.”
“What the hell could they want?” Heikki said involuntarily, and waved the question aside. “Never mind, if you knew that—”
“—we would know whether we should dump the job,” Nkosi finished for her, grinning.
Djuro looked at her, his lined face very serious. “I took a full photo-record, and I have pictures from before, too. I have evidence of tampering that will stand up in court.”
“Are you saying we should pull out?” Heikki asked, startled in spite of herself. Djuro had always been a grumbler, but this was something more than his usual worrying.
Djuro shook his head reluctantly. “No, not yet. But with your permission, Heikki, I want to put this evidence somewhere very safe, and not part of Lo-Moth.”
“Do that,” Heikki said. “If there’s a Lloyds or a SwissNet on planet, that might work.”
Djuro nodded. “And I’ll send copies back to the office.” He shook his head. “Let’s hope we don’t have to use it.”
“Amen,” Nkosi murmured, the smile for once gone from his lips.
“Dinner’s at eight, evening,” Heikki said, and switched off the minisec.
The hostel boasted a ‘pointer-style dining area on its ground level, complete with private terraces and a fleet of service robots supervised by a human overseer. Despite the apparent emptiness of the hostel, Heikki was careful to reserve a table through the concierge, and was not surprised, when she and the others made their way down to the ground floor, to find the dining area busy, perhaps half the terraces occupied by medium-level functionaries. Sebasten-Januarias was there before them, very conspicuous in the loose coat and brightly- patterned headscarf, the only Firster in the comfortable bay, and Heikki’s mouth twisted.
