“Yeah, I’ve heard. Wasn’t sure of the timeline, though. Where are you going to go?”
“My cousin’s got a restaurant on Ganagara. Nas Ordell. Does very well with the tourists. He needs someone to manage it, so I may check that out for a while.”
“Good for you, Lhi.” The two women stared at each other for a beat, and I felt there was definitely something unspoken going on.
I cleared my throat to try to break the spell.
“Right,” Kira said. “Uh, Jeris, this is Lhiana Jowe. She runs a mighty fine café in the front and a private comm shop in the back.”
“Good, ’cause I need a pot of your best moxa and to send a message to Anglad. And this little guy needs to send a message to…”
“Raritan,” TenSix said.
“Cute bot,” Lhiana said. “It needs to send a message, too?”
“Yes, madame, I do,” TenSix said. “A secure transmission.”
“Well, that’s going to be a problem, little guy.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“These days, everything going out or in is being monitored by the MCP.”
“What?” Kira looked surprised. “When did that start?”
“About the same time as the mass exodus.”
“What’s your protocol?” I asked. “Beta quantum?”
Lhiana laughed at me. “Where do you think you are, gēgē? What I’ve got here is a Dorschel argent from the early ’40s. On a good day, it can just about get a high-density message to the relay unit on Hango TSS, but the pre-relay is not secure by any means.”
“I thought even the argents had flake keys.”
“Well, genius. You probably already know this, but f-keys ain’t particularly effective when you use a vortex laser intraplanetary. Especially if the Mayir have the master. Which they do.”
I looked over at Kira and TenSix. Neither of them could afford to send an unencrypted message. TenSix had already admitted that his message was secret and sensitive in nature, and Kira couldn’t exactly alert Oeri that her parents had been kidnapped by the Mayir when those same Mayir were listening in. Then there was the matter of the evidence on Biella Lark’s Aura. There was no way to send that safely.
Maybe I could call the office and request that they arrange transport off this rock, but as I thought of it, I realized that it probably wouldn’t be smart to identify myself—especially since I was supposed to have gone missing seven years ago.
“How about transport to the orbital station?” I asked.
“Sure. If you have reservations. Do you?”
“Um, no.”
“Well, then you’ve got a problem. Most of the folks here have already booked up the freighters to move their shit to somewhere else. And even passenger-only transport to the TSS is booked ten to twelve days in advance. My ride to Nas Ordell leaves just over three weeks from now. You’re welcome to hitch on that.”
“Three weeks?” I shook my head.
“Yeah, thanks, Lhi,” Kira said. “But we need to figure out something now. It’s kind of urgent.”
“Well, my offer still stands.”
“I appreciate it. We need to chat about it. I’ll let you know.”
“Good. In the meantime, I can rustle us up some moxa.”
“Yes, for the love of Dynark, please,” I said.
When Lhiana left for the kitchen, I turned to Kira. “Surely your parents have a flight booked already?”
“I’m sure they did, but they never shared the specifics with me.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I wasn’t. There’s no record of it in my mom’s Aura. Probably my dad made the arrangements and the info was in his Aura.”
“Do you remember who you used for transport before?”
“All different outfits. We typically would load up into a container here, and that would be shipped back to Devariin on a freighter. We’d take a shuttle to Hango TSS and then a separate starliner to Devariin. Sometimes the company would send a yacht.”
“You need to contact them. Ask them to send the travel arrangements.”
“That’s going to set off a lot of red flags. They’re going to want to know about my parents. And I can’t say anything with the comm being monitored.”
She was right.
“All we need to do is get to the orbital station,” I said. “Then we can send secure messages that are out of reach of the Mayir.”
“You heard Lhi. Apparently there are not that many flights between here and there.”
“There’s got to be something. Hell, even if we could rent a shuttle, I could fly it.”
“Hmmm. Maybe it’s worth asking around.”
Even before Lhiana returned, I smelled the robust aroma of fresh-brewed moxa. When she glided into the main part of the café with a tray of steaming mugs and fresh-baked scones, I was starting to salivate.
“We’re going to need those moxas in a to-go cup,” Kira said.
“You just got here!”
“Yeah, well Jann—Jeris has some crazy idea about renting a shuttle and flying to the TSS himself.”
“Oh, you a fly-boy?” Lhiana smirked at me.
“I fly.”
“Hango’s an old spaceport. No auto-approach vectoring.”
“I’m fine with full manual.”
“Just so you know what you’re getting into. There’s a guy with a bunch of old shuttles in Docking Bay 49. Name’s Caebach. Most of what he’s got is junk, but maybe there’s one or two sets of wings that can still fly.”
“You’re sending us to a junk dealer?” I asked.
“Junk dealer, arms dealer, small craft dealer. Caebach wears a lot of hats.”
“Caebach,” Kira repeated. “Docking Bay 49. Got it.”
“Tell him Lhiana sent you, and he may not gouge the price quite as much.”
“Thank you, Lhi,” Kira said. “I owe you.”
“Yeah, you can pay me back by coming over one night before you leave. I got some of that baijiu you like.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
She disappeared in the back to get us our moxas to go.
Kira turned to me. “You can really fly a shuttle?”
“Of course. Part of my job. Plus, back at home I fly a ’57 Swallow XK.”
“Swallow XK? It figures.”
“What?”
“Rich boy toy.”
“Whatever.” I made a face at her.
When Lhiana returned, we thanked her for the moxas and Kira offered to pay.
“On the house, girlfriend. Less crap for me to move. Give this
