were houses now, attached to the road by newly-metalled turn-offs, ostentatious single dwellings screened from the road and from the neighboring dozen-unit complexes by carefully tended screens of highgrass. This was mostly corporate land, and corporate housing; between the settlements, sunlight flamed from the mirror-bright walls of the enormous crystal sheds. Neilenn had been right, Heikki realized. Production had doubled or tripled, at the very least, since she had last been on planet.
Lo-Moth’s headquarters complex lay at the heart of a little town, its streets and open parks laid out with a studied irregularity that was more artificial than the corporate rigidity it sought to avoid. Heikki swore to herself as she worked her way through the maze, damning all architects and city planners, but at last fetched up at the entrance to the headquarters complex. The securitron on duty at the main gate informed her blandly that she was expected, and gave her the guide frequency that would take her into the executive parking bay. Heikki thanked him with equal blandness, and let the flashing arrow in the windscreen guide her around and then through the cluster of towers. The mirrored glass cylinders reflected her fastcat back at her, and then reflected its reflection; she looked away, dizzied, and concentrated on the guiding arrow.
Neilenn was waiting for her in the parking bay, his hand running nervously over the electronics pad set into the high collar of his ‘pointer-style jacket. Heikki swore again, silently, glancing down at her own too-casual dress, but composed herself to greet him with ‘pointer courtesy.
“Ser Neilenn, it’s good to see you.”
“And you, Dam’ Heikki,” Neilenn answered, unsmiling. “If you’d come with me?”
Heikki’s eyebrows rose, but she allowed herself to be led through the tangle of corridors, each one embellished with plates of half-grown crystal—slag crystal, flawed in the earliest stage of growth, useless but beautiful—and brightly polished metal. They passed through a plant-and-stream lobby, and then followed a circular stairway up to the next level. Glancing back, Heikki was suddenly aware of shapes, people, and security devices, concealed among the greenery. And why should they be watching me? she wondered. There were a dozen obvious answers, most of them having to do with corporate politics, and she didn’t like any of them.
“Dam’ Heikki.” Neilenn came to a stop beside a brass-paneled door, one hand resting on the security box set into the wall beside it. “Dam’ FitzGilbert is waiting for you.”
“Thank you,” Heikki said, and could not keep a certain tartness from her voice. She drew herself up, wishing once again that she were wearing something other than her four-paneled shift and high boots that were her usual exploration gear, but put aside that fear instantly. It would do her no good to arrive feeling inferior—that was a lesson she had learned long ago, and learned too well to forget now. Neilenn touched buttons on the panel, and the door slid back. Heikki took a deep breath, and stepped into air suddenly chill. She shivered in spite of herself, and glanced around quickly. FitzGilbert, standing beside a massive executive desk, greeted her with a strained smile. She seemed to be feeling the cold, too, Heikki thought; the other woman was wrapped in an incongruously heavy jacket that was trimmed with some sort of feathery fur. Then she saw the stranger, sitting at the desk, broad shoulders broadened further by the cut of his expensive jacket. He was sweating visibly, despite the chill. Used to a colder climate, Heikki thought, but did not speak.
FitzGilbert cleared her throat, and took a step forward. “Ser Slade, this is Gwynne Heikki, of Heikki- Santerese, the salvage company we’ve hired to try and clear up this mess. Dam’ Heikki, this is Daulo Slade, a troubleshooter for our parent company.”
Heikki murmured a polite response, trying to keep her face expressionless. Troubleshooters were just what their title implied, the people who solved problems for the mainline, Loop-based corporations—except that most troubleshooters’ idea of solving a problem was to create other problems for other people.
“Dam’ Heikki.” Slade had risen to his feet at her approach. Light glinted from a pin clipped to his lapel: a green circle marked with three gold “R”s. A Retroceder? Heikki thought. Damn, he must be good, if Tremoth’s willing to tolerate that visible an eccentricity. Slade stood now, frowning slightly, the expression barely raising a line on his rounded face. “Heikki. That name’s familiar.”
Heikki’s stomach contracted. Galler, she thought, but kept silent, looking at the big man with an expression as innocent as she could make it.
“That’s it,” Slade said, “I had a publicity liaison, oh, not long ago, whose name was Heikki. Galler Heikki.” The frown vanished, to be replaced by an enormous and unsettling smile. “Would he be any relation of yours, Dam’ Heikki?”
“No,” Heikki said, instinctively and irrationally, and in the next instant could have bitten her tongue for that stupidity. There was no point in lying; records were too good, and too easily checked, to make it worthwhile denying Galler. She hesitated, looking for some way to recover the situation, and Slade shrugged.
“I see. Not that it matters. Let’s get down to business, shall we?”
“Certainly,” Heikki said, and FitzGilbert stirred again.
“Ser Mikelis planned to join us if we could raise the main link. Shall I see if communications has managed it yet?”
“I doubt they have,” Slade said, pleasantly enough, but with an edge that stopped FitzGilbert in her tracks. “The plant has been down since yesterday, and—forgive me, but your technicians don’t seem to be very efficient in their repairs.”
“We could use more up-to-date equipment,” FitzGilbert murmured, and Slade smiled again.
“I see the shoemaker’s child still goes barefoot.”
FitzGilbert flushed, barely restraining some profane retort. Slade’s smile widened, and he turned his attention to Heikki. “Now, Dam’ Heikki, please forgive me for being blunt, but I haven’t much time to spend on planet. Would you mind my asking your plans for the recovery of our matrix crystal?”
“Not at all,” Heikki answered, and was pleased with the academic detachment of her own voice. “I brought our—the firm’s—best technician with us, and a senior pilot with whom we’ve worked in the past. We’ve hired a local pilot and guide as well, for back up—”
“If you don’t mind,” Slade interrupted. “Could you perhaps just give me a summary?”
“Whatever you want,” Heikki said, suppressing her own annoyance. “We’ve run some simulations of the latac’s course, and have mapped out an area for a preliminary aerial search. We’ve pulled in satellite data on the area—standard orbital survey material, both from before and after the crash—and have identified six possible sites. Once we’ve found the wreck, and I think the odds are that we will find the crash site within that preliminary area, then we’ll either bring in equipment to analyze the wreck in situ or we’ll fly out the remains and look at it here in Lowlands.”
“I assume Lo-Moth has already run this sort of program,” Slade said. “What makes you think you can find anything new?”
Heikki suppressed an angry answer only with an effort. “Because this is what I do for a living. Look, I have either modified or have had written half a dozen programs that look through your raw data for the few trivial bits of information that will help me find what I’m looking for. Once those programs are running, I have to make decisions within the program—what it’s looking for, whether a certain variable that meets the search parameters really is relevant or just noise—and I make those decisions based on twenty years’ experience. Your people don’t have the experience or the programs to do what I do.”
Slade nodded again, oblivious to her anger. “What would cause you to decide to remove the wreck from the crash site? I would have thought an oil-site analysis would be far more valuable.”
“Any number of factors,” Heikki answered, fighting for control, and in the same breath, FitzGilbert said,
“Orcs.”
“Orcs?” For a moment, Slade looked puzzled. “Oh. Your resident hominid.”
His tone was faintly contemptuous, and Heikki struggled to keep her own voice steady. “That’s the most likely reason we’d want to move the remains. If the site were awkward for any other reason, though, I’d move— after obtaining a full holographic record, of course.”
“Of course.” Slade sounded almost bored now. “Tell me, do you think this is a matter for internal affairs?”
“He means, was it sabotage,” FitzGilbert interjected.
“I have no idea at this point,” Heikki answered.
“You must have made some assumptions,” Slade murmured.
Heikki stiffened. “I assumed the job was as advertised, Ser, and therefore that this was probably a case of bad weather bringing down a flight that should have kept to the coastal route. If you have any additional
