Quickly, she outlined what had happened, first the job and then Lo-Moth’s reaction, and finished, “So I was wondering if you could get onto Malachy for me, have him check out our legal position.” She hesitated, then said slowly, “Do you remember Idris Max?”
“The transit cop you were living with when I met you?” Santerese asked.
“We were roommates,” Heikki said, with some annoyance, and Santerese gestured an apology.
“Sorry, doll. Do you want me to talk to him, too?”
“I think it might be useful. I hear he’s with the Terran Enforcement now; he might be able to tell us if there’s anything we ought to know about Tremoth.”
“I’ll do that,” Santerese said, her hands already busy on a shadowscreen.
“So what were you going to call me about?” Heikki asked.
Santerese hesitated, finally said, with unwonted seriousness, “You remember I asked you if you had a relative, doll? Named Galler?”
Heikki paused in turn, not knowing what to say. This was not the way she would have chosen to explain things to Santerese, at a distance and over a flickering ultima line, but there was no evading the question. “Yes,” she said at last, and couldn’t think how to continue.
“Yes what?” Santerese said, after a moment. “Yes you remember, or yes, he’s related?”
“Both,” Heikki said. “I had—have—a twin brother named Galler. We lost contact a long time ago, and frankly I’d rather not regain it.”
“It may be a little late for that,” Santerese said. “When I got back from Pleasaunce, there was a message cube waiting for you, and the sender’s listed as G. Heikki. So, unless you’re sending yourself letters. . . .” She let her voice trail off.
Hardly likely, is it? Heikki thought, but bit back the angry comment. There was no blaming Santerese for this, only Galler—and only herself, for allowing herself to be found. She said, her voice strictly controlled, “What does he want?”
Even on the cloudy screen, she could see Santerese’s shrug. “I don’t know. The cube’s palm-sealed, love, no way for me to play it. Do you want me to send it on, or do you think it can wait till you get back?”
“Let it wait,” Heikki said. She paused then, considering, and ran her hand over the shadowscreen. It would take physical mail almost a ten-day to reach them—the main Iadaran FTLship had just made planetfall, bringing Santerese’s cube; the next scheduled landing was almost a week away—and by that time she and the others would be on their way back to the Loop. There was really only one other possibility…. “You know as many shadow-sides as I do,” she said abruptly. “What’s the odds of their fixing the seal?”
Santerese made a face at her through the pulsing static. “That’s illegal,” she said firmly, in a tone that was intended to remind her partner of the open line. When Heikki did not respond, she sighed. “It’s the new model cube, Heikki. I doubt it could be done.”
“Then it’ll have to wait,” Heikki answered. “We’ll be home in a ten-day anyway.”
“Good enough,” Santerese said, and smiled. “I’m looking forward to it, doll.”
Heikki smiled back, looking for an excuse to prolong the conversation despite the expense. There was none, and she knew it; her smile twisted slightly, and she said, “I think that’s everything.”
Santerese nodded with equal reluctance. “Nothing else here.”
“Then transmission ends,” Heikki said firmly, and watched the screen fade.
It took less than a day to make the necessary arrangements for their return to the Loop. A cargo FTLship on a semi-scheduled run was due to land at Lowlands in a little under a local week; as Iadara was its last stop before swinging back to Exchange Point Three, the captain was only too happy to fill her otherwise empty compartments with paying passengers. Somewhat to Heikki’s surprise, Lo-Moth made no objection to covering the additional costs for equipment transfer—she had more than half expected to have to have the heavy crates shipped on a fully scheduled corporate flight. Maybe it was the fact that she had made no official objection to ending her job and handing over unedited, unanalyzed data; or maybe, she thought, with an inward frown, it was someone’s— Mikelis’s?—oblique apology for the situation. She put the thought aside as unimportant, and flipped the voucher numbers to the captain’s agents back in the Loop. An hour later, the receipt numbers and confirmation were flashing on her screen, and the transport chits were in her diskprinter’s basket. Heikki allowed herself a sigh of relief—she had been worried, irrationally, she knew, but undefinably uneasy—and locked the disks into her travel safe.
That left them with nothing to do but to wait for the cargo ship to land. Lo-Moth, through FitzGilbert, encouraged them to remain at the corporate hostel. Heikki hesitated, but could think of no reason to shift their quarters: the hostel was the most up-to-date transient housing on-planet, and there was no point in subjecting anyone else to her own prejudices. That decision made, she was more than a little annoyed when Nkosi announced blithely that he had made arrangements to fly out to the South-Shallow Islands with Alexieva.
“May one ask just what you expect to do there?” she asked, and blushed at the big man’s grin. “Oh, never mind.”
“As you wish, Heikki.” Nkosi’s expression sobered. “Besides, Alex has promised me the chance to brush up on my wavetop flying. It has been a while since I have had the opportunity, and I want to keep in practice.”
I bet, Heikki thought, but bit back any further direct comment. “Have fun,” she said instead, and thought Nkosi looked at least momentarily abashed.
Djuro, too, had found business elsewhere, renewing contact with an old acquaintance now an engineer on the transport Carnegie. Left more or less to herself, Heikki passed the time by running the raw data from the wreck through her own analysis programs. As she had expected, the results were inconclusive: the machines she had brought with her, the ones that would leave no record in Lo-Moth’s systems, were simply not powerful enough to give her any kind of definite answer, and she was still prohibited from tying in to Lo-Moth’s mainframes. When she had finished the last frustrating datarun, she sat for a long moment, staring at the empty workscreen. There were ways to get into the system—there were always ways—and maybe even to get the answers she wanted without risking being accused of a breach of contract, at the very least ways of getting what she wanted and getting off-planet before the intrusion was discovered…. It was a stupid idea, stupid and dangerous, she told herself firmly. Whatever was going on was part of Lo-Moth’s internal politics, and not worth risking Heikki/Santerese’s license over. Once she was back in the Loop, and once Malachy had analyzed the legal situation, then she could finish the job. She leaned over the workboard, typing in sequences that brought the mall menus onto the main screen, and spent an hour browsing through Lowlands’ only bookstore. She took a certain perverse pleasure in sending the hostel’s messenger service to pick up the freshly printed copies.
The suite’s tiny kitchen had been restocked every day since their arrival, but, after a moment’s hesitation, she turned away from the bright packages and used the main room console to order fresh-cooked food from the concierge. She felt vaguely guilty, less for the expense than for the indolence, but put that sternly aside. There was wine as well, in the wall bar; she decanted a smallish jug, and took it over to the suite’s main window, dragging the most comfortable chair with her. The books and the food arrived together on an autotable, which positioned itself beside the chair and then shut down, only a single red light on its tiny control box still lit to show its dormant state. Heikki unwrapped the package of quick-print texts, smiling a little at the sharp pleasant scent of the new ink, and settled herself into the long chair. Santerese would laugh at her, she knew with a sharp pang of homesickness, tease her both for the adolescent indulgence, food and wine and books, and for the books themselves. She preferred—Santerese said needed—the carefully structured disorder of the classic mystery, the ultimately passionless passions, especially the stories set in the Loop and its maze of obligation and subtly conflicting rules. And analysis destroyed her pleasure, though she would never be free of the awareness: she put those thoughts aside, and settled down to read.
When she looked up again, the novel finished and the rules restored, the afternoon’s storm was rising beyond the window, the thick blue-purple clouds making the yellow grass seem even brighter. As she watched, lightning slashed across the bank of clouds, a distinct and delicate tracery, but she was either too distant or the hostel was too well insulated for her to hear the thunder. She had seen storms before, and bigger ones; even so, she stared in fascination as the clouds swept up toward the zenith and the light changed, imagining in that shift of colors the sudden cooling of the air that was the breath of the storm. The lightning was closer now, and thunder was audible, low rumblings not quite absorbed by the hostel’s thickened walls. The first gusts of rain rattled against the window. Heikki blinked, but kept watching, until the sheets of water obscured everything except the hostel’s lawn.
