Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

The Hanifa’s eyes glittered, but she controlled her excitement and gave a short sharp nod. “Can you find the files on suspect Hordar? Perhaps the Sech’s plans for dealing with them?”

“I can take a look. Some of that might be stored in local branches.”

“There aren’t any. This is the only mainBrain on Tairanna.”

“Your Pittipat doesn’t like to share his power?”

“No.” She didn’t object to the your this time, too much into getting what she’d come for to worry about little things like that. “We want those files.”

“Right. I can also erase them, if you want. Turning them over is more complicated unless your equipment can mate to mine.”

“You can fix that.”

“Probably. Not here.” Adelaar had relaxed all over; she was back in her personal groove, selling her services. “Not for free either. Make me an offer.”

The Hanifa moved her feet apart, set her hands on her hips and prepared to fight. “For your work and the files, five creampink, ten to eighteen grains.”

“Seven corridors, files out and erased, eight midrose, twenty grain minimum, for my time, one of your creampinks.”

“Seven corridors, two midrose; for the files, we’ll have to see them to rate them, guarantee of one midrose, for erasing them one creampink, bonus points negotiated according to how much is in the files; your work, one creampink. Eighteen to twenty grains.”

They went back and forth for several more minutes until they settled on a price that pleased both; by that time the dupe run had finished and Adelaar settled to work pulling the Warmaster stats, dumping them in the duper and at the same time flashing them on a readout so I could look them over and get an idea if a sneakraid was doable. While she was busy with this last, the tall local came inside, murmured something to her leader and went out again.

The Hanifa came over to me and stood watching the stats run past; Adelaar was into schematics now, line drawings of ship segments. “A guard came nosing about,” she said after a moment. “Your friend stunned him. He said to tell you it was part of the standard rover pattern, he was expecting the man, it doesn’t look like anyone is exercised about the scanners going out, the guard was normal-alert, not hyper.”

“I hear you.” I checked my chron again; seemed like we’d been down here a year or two, but it was just over an hour. “There’s a shift change coming up in a little while. We’d better be gone by then.”

“You seem to know a lot about what happens here.”

“I’m a cautious man, Hanifa. I like to know what I’m stepping in.”

“How?”

“Observation and experience.”

“Observation?”

“Electronic surrogates.”

“You recorded what they told you?”

“I’m a cautious man, Hanifa.”

“Willing to sell it?”

“Not worth much. Once top security here wakes up to what happened, there’ll be changes. Tell you what, I’ll throw that into the pot with your suspect files, a little sweetener.”

“Why?”

“Call it good will. Now that I know about you and what you’ve got to offer, I plan to be back, do some trading for this and that.”

“Rosepearls.”

“Naturally. And whatever else seems worth the trip.”

She gave me an odd look and moved off. Like she hadn’t thought through what it meant, us being there. Not until now. There was a big wild universe out there and she didn’t know how she felt about linking up with it. Maybe a touch of panic.

I pulled my mind back to what was happening on the screen in front of me. It was looking good. Total complement was around two hundred and more than half of those were support and services, whores, cooks, valets, you name it, everything you needed to keep three score techs, sech snoops and guards happy in their isolation. No wonder they didn’t notice us, they wouldn’t have noticed a grenade in their laps, to quote one of Pels’ favorite expressions. Why favorite I haven’t a notion, some kink in his psyche I suppose. Most of the ship was mothballed. My palms were starting to itch. Cumpla doomp, I wanted that ship. There was no way I could afford her, the fuel bills alone would be enough to bankrupt a small empire, but taking it would be so easy. For a minute I indulged in fantasies of charging across the universe with the power of a god under my hands, then I shook myself back to reality. Probably wasn’t enough fuel in her tanks to get her across the system, let alone to the nearest fuel dump.

I still didn’t like the thought of trying to nose up to that whale without it noticing me. Hmm. The guards were rotated every half-year local, that meant we could probably pick up someone who’d been up there recently and knew the drill. The screen blanked. I looked around.

“That’s it,” Adelaar said. “How long have I got?”

“Shift change ninety-five minutes. Pels got a guard, but he says there’s no fuss yet. Don’t dawdle over anything you can double-clik.”

“Even doubling, it’s going to take the better part of an hour to finish and that’s saying I don’t screw up somewhere and have to start over.

“I hear.” I slid out of the chair. “Don’t push it, I’ll see what I can do about arranging a meet with our client so we can get paid for this.”

“You do that.” She bent over the eviscerated terminal, forgetting me and everything else but what she was doing.

I went to pump the Hanifa and her women for everything I could get about the local setup.

“Ondar.” A hissing whisper. The Hanifa sprang to her feet as the tall one leaned in the door. “The fuzzy says he hears lots of men coming toward us and he’s going to see about slowing them up, but you should be ready to move.”

I sat where I was, wondering what the Hanifa would do about this. I thought it’d likely be something with flair, she was that kind of leader.

She moved quickly to Adelaar. “Where are you?”

“Covering my tracks.”

“How much longer?”

“Five minutes before I can leave the Brain on its own to finish the job.”

“How much of it can we destroy without negating what you’ve done?”

“Worried about them wondering what you’ve been doing? Don’t. I’ve laid in clues that will tell them you pulled the suspect files; that gives you a reason enough for being here so they won’t look all that hard in other directions. They won’t find the loops, not without some rather esoteric, well, call it logic. Even I’d have trouble undoing what I’ve done.”

The Hanifa examined Adelaar, then me, her jawline hard through the silky knit of the cowl. “Do you need backup to get you out of here?”

“No. Do you?”

“No.” She hesitated. “In case I’m not able to meet you, someone else will be there. Hordar for sure, could be a man or a woman. He or she’ll say…” She looked around, remembering suddenly that there might be ears tuned to this place that hadn’t been there before.

“Don’t bother yourself about snoops. Can’t happen. Del has blocked access to the interface.”

“I hear. Still, um… he or she will show you this.” She jerked up the shoulder drape on her cowl, pulled a medallion on a chain from under her black shirt. She let me look at both sides, then tucked it away again. It was an oval of dark bronze, with an odd bumpy pod on one side and a complicated double glyph on the other. Nice piece. “We’re going to leave,” she said. “Before we’re trapped in here.” She swung back to Adelaar. “What about the scanners?”

“They’re down again, I sent an oversurge through. When they try to fix them, the techs will find I’ve cut them off completely from the mainBrain. The Sech won’t be able to get them functioning again until he regains control of the interface.” Adelaar was looking smugly pleased with herself and so she should, but there was a condescension in her voice which the Hanifa wasn’t appreciating. “If your transport can’t reach you before they get organized up top, you might head for the lakeside wall, either go over it or cut through one of the gates there. Don’t worry about alarms. The melters? The west .wall is off the firing circuits for the next two hours. I’ve set up some snares the techs will find, um, interesting. Avoiding them will cost time. If you can reach your pilot, let her know that.” She paused and the Hanifa started to turn away. “One moment more. After you get loose from here, you’ve got a free run for a while. I’ve fiddled something else, blocked all contact with the Warmaster. I can’t shut her out permanently, there are too many possibilities for reinstating the link. As soon as the Sech reaches her, he’ll have her scanners looking for you. Be careful they don’t get a focus on you, they’ll fry you. Once they get a lock, they can track a flea on a dog’s back even if the man operating them has less brain than that flea. It’s not quite as bad as it sounds, when the power is ratcheted that high, the field is very narrow, so if you can get under cover before they do the first coarse scan, you should be safe enough. Questions? No? That’s it, then. Luck kiss you sweet, eh?”