“Standard,” she said. “Are you going to keep claiming that it was magic that got us in here?”
“Not if it annoys you.”
“Not at all. It’s just not a very convincing cover story for the obviously advanced circuit-scanning implant you have. It is a bionic chip, isn’t it?”
“If you insist. Now where can we find that security system?”
“Use your implant to trace it to the master computer.”
“Yeah.”
She looked around. “No alarms are going off, and I find that rather strange.”
“Well, the facilitation spell is still working. Actually, I supplied the lock with the correct security code, so the system probably thinks that we have a right to be here.”
“Then we’d better stop talking about it. The system is intelligent enough to learn from our conversation that it was fooled.”
“As I said, the spell’s still working, and will continue to do so for a bit longer. It’ll smooth our way, make things happen in our favor. But it’ll wear off eventually. So, let’s get busy.”
“When it wears off, can’t you simply cast another spell?”
“Yeah, but it won’t be as effective. Magic loses potency with overuse, you know.”
“Well, no, I didn’t know that. Interesting.”
He chuckled. “You’re more than a little skeptical.”
“Not as much as you think. Is “magic’ your word for psychic ability?”
“Hmm. Well, there is some mental discipline involved, but “psychic’ is the wrong word for me. It’s a supermarket tabloid buzzword.… Uh, never mind. Call it whatever you want. What it is, is magic, pure and simple. The real stuff. Let’s see what’s behind this other door.”
The inner door was not locked but had a complicated levered latch. Gene worked the mechanism and pulled the door open. It led into an oblong room with rack after empty rack that might once have held electronic instruments. He walked between the rows and came out, then stood looking at the bare counters that ran along the walls.
He said, “Scavengers?”
“Possibly, but it looks too clean. The stuff was probably stripped when the installation was closed.”
“Was this communications, do you think?”
“No,” she said. “Maybe a laboratory for mineral analysis. There is an outside chance they left the communications gear. The place hasn’t been left open to the elements. There might be plans to restart operations or convert the place into something else.”
“They were pretty thorough in stripping the place.”
“A multiphone is a huge piece of equipment. Sometimes it’s more trouble than it’s worth to tear one out. Let’s look for the communications shack.”
There were other rooms on the first floor, all offering little but empty packing crates and other debris. They found an elevator but passed it up in favor of spiral stairs, which they mounted warily, Gene leading the way with his flashlight. The second floor was apportioned between more laboratory space and a number of cubicles: offices or sleeping quarters; it was hard to tell which until they arrived on the third floor, where, in rooms even more cozy, some metal cots sans mattresses remained. There were more rooms off to the right, and they walked on into the darkness. It was a big building.
“Here it is,” she said, stepping through a doorway.
Most of this room was like the rest — denuded racks and shelves — the only difference being a large array of cylinders and spheres running along the left wall.
“That’s a multiphone?” Gene asked.
“The resonating chamber and radiation sources, at least,” she said. “And the control circuits” — she knelt before a metal cabinet and ran a finger along a vertical opening that once might have housed an electronics module —”are gone.”
She sighed and settled cross-legged into a sitting position. She hung her head and closed her eyes.
Gene played the flashlight’s beam around the room. A few stray nuts and bolts, one or two funny-looking vacuum tubes, if that’s what they were (he doubted it), an empty plastic box, a length of plastic tape, dust, grit …
He looked at her. She sat unmoving.
He listened. Nothing. No enemies approaching. This seemed a safe place. He wondered about the security system. The spell hadn’t worn off yet. He wondered what would happen when it did.
“What do you want to do?” he asked her.
She was silent, motionless.
“I don’t even know your name,” he said.
She had no comment.
“Uh, then again, maybe you don’t want me to know your name.”
She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Who and what are you?”
“I’m Gene Ferraro. What am I? Just a … wanderer. A drifter. And you?”
“Sativa.”
“Nice name. That the only name?”
She looked down again. Her voice sounded tired as she said, “Scions of aristocratic houses don’t have surnames, properly speaking, but I’m of the House of Hemlin. It’s a big, important family, with many members prominent in Dominion politics.” Her tone seemed to imply that this wasn’t very remarkable or at all important.
“Is it all right if I think of you as Sativa Hemlin?”
“Feel free.”
“Almost sounds like an Earth name.”
“Earth?”
“Where I’m from.”
“Oh. Never heard of it. Sorry.”
“No reason you should have. Mind telling me why you’re so important to the Irregulars? — Oh, God, wait a minute.”
She looked up again. “What?”
“Uh, you’re not going to tell me you have the secret plans to the Death Star, are you?”
“The what?”
He shook his head vigorously, dismissing the whole notion. “Nothing, nothing.”
“I don’t have any secrets of any sort.”
“For a second there, I was a little worried. Thought I’d walked into some weird aspect.”
“You’re making no sense whatsoever.”
“Forget it. Private joke, just kidding.”
Gene paced once in a circle, idly sweeping the beam around the room.
“You’re a very strange person,” Sativa said, “but I suppose I owe you my life. For what that’s worth.”
“Don’t sweat it. You still haven’t told me why they’re after you.”
“I’d make a perfect hostage. I hold a hereditary seat in the Upper Chamber of the Dominion legislature. I also hold the permanent rank of Wing Leader in the Dominion Near-Space Guards. Last but not least, I’m the daughter of the Outworld Proconsul. My mother is the highest Dominion official governing the hundreds of worlds not directly connected to the Thread.”
“So you’re one choice VIP. Very Important Package. What’s the Thread?”
Sativa lifted unbelieving eyes. “You must be joking.”
“I think I told you that I’m from a world that is very far away.”
“How far? Could your world be off the Thread completely? If so, how did you get here? This is not an inhabited planet.”
“I got here … basically through a spacetime anomaly which was brought about by the same powers that fooled the security lock.”
“Magic again?”
“Yes, magic. It’s the truth, even though you don’t buy it, not for the briefest moment.”
