Timothy Zahn - Odd Girl Out

"Definitely," I promised, though I didn't have the vaguest idea when that day would come. Bayta's close relationship with the Chahwyn and Spiders was a closely guarded secret, but at least it was something I could vaguely understand. Bayta's relationship with me, on the other hand, I was still trying to get a handle on. "Meanwhile, I'll do whatever I can to get back before my court date," I added. "If I do, hopefully you'll be able to sneak the bail money back into your department account with no one the wiser."

"You just focus on figuring out what the Modhri is up to and nail him," McMicking said grimly. "Mr. Hardin can absorb the loss if he has to."

"Mr. Hardin isn't the one I'm worried about," I said, sliding the ID to the back of the stack. Behind it was a torchliner ticket, with the shuttle from Sutherlin scheduled to leave that evening for its long voyage across the inner system to the Quadrail station. "I didn't think I was nearly this easy to read," I commented.

He shrugged. "It's not like the Modhri is doing serious work down here," he said. "At least, I hope not. Therefore, wherever you need to go for follow-up on Lorelei will probably be somewhere out-system. I hope the timing isn't going to be too tight."

"No, it's perfect," I assured him. "The sooner I get out of town, the better."

I rotated the ticket to the back of the stack and thumbed through the rest of my brand-new credentials. There was a universal pilot's license, an import/export license, a rare-collectables dealer's certificate, and a notarized security bond. "No plumber's certificate?" I asked.

"Never hurts to be prepared," he said equably. "You may find the last one particularly useful."

I flipped to it, and stopped cold, about as surprised as I'd been in many a day. It was a card identifying Frank Abram Donaldson as a member in good standing in the Hardin Industries security force.

I looked up at McMicking again. This time there was a puckish smile on his face. "And that one's even legit," he said. "I have standing authority to hire any security personnel I want."

"Oh, he's going to be pleased about this one," I said. "What exactly is my salary, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Don't mind at all," he said. "You're on staff at a dollar a year. Don't spend it all in one place."

"Not a problem," I assured him. "It's the prestige of the thing that matters."

"The hell with the prestige," McMicking countered. "What matters is that that ID includes a carry permit."

I frowned down at the card. He was right—the proper legal phrasing was there at the bottom. "The hell with the prestige, indeed," I agreed. "That could come in very handy."

"And unlike your residence permit, it doesn't require you to load with snoozers, either," he added, moving back toward the door. "I have to get going—Mr. Hardin's briefing me on a new assignment this afternoon. If I get anything more on Ms. Beach before you hit the Quadrail, I'll send it on ahead."

"Thanks," I said, sliding the stack of documents into my inside pocket. "For everything. I owe you."

"Just let me know how it comes out," McMicking said. He paused with his hand on the knob. "Or at least let me know as much as the Spiders will let you tell me."

"You'll get it all," I promised. "I know how to push the boundaries, too."

He gave me a lopsided smile, then opened the door and checked the hallway outside. With a final glance and nod, he was gone.

I double-locked the door behind him, feeling a not entirely pleasant warmth flowing through me. Sometimes it felt like Bayta and I were all alone in this war, with no one but the Spiders and the Chahwyn even cheering from the sidelines. It was nice to know that McMicking was treating the whole thing seriously, too.

On the other hand, the Modhri had a little trick called thought viruses that he could use to plant subtle suggestions into those who weren't already under his control. And thought viruses transferred best between friends, allies, associates, and compatriots.

It was nice to have McMicking as an ally. It was also potentially very dangerous.

But in a few hours I would be aboard a torchliner, out of reach of him and anything the Modhri might be able to do to me through him. In this case, at least, having an ally had proved to be a worthwhile gamble.

Setting my Glock on the tea table, I headed to the bedroom to pack.

I waited until evening, and then headed outside and caught an autocab. No one was loitering outside my apartment as I left, nor was anyone waiting for me when I arrived at Sutherlin Skyport. I watched my fellow passengers closely as they came aboard, but given that the only view I'd had of the two Modhran walkers had been a nighttime glimpse of heads inside a car, I wasn't really expecting to recognize either of them. Sure enough, I didn't recognize anyone.

We lifted from the field and headed for our orbital rendezvous with the torchliner that would take us to the Tube cutting across the outer solar system. At Earth's current position in its own orbit, the trip would take a little under eight days.

I spent most of those days in my tiny shipboard stateroom, avoiding the rest of the passengers and reading everything I could find on the thriving colony world of New Tigris, the first of the Terran Confederation's four colony worlds as you headed inward toward the center of the galaxy. It was about three hundred light-years away, which translated to a nice comfortable five-hour Quadrail trip from Terra Station.

My research on the place, unfortunately, didn't take nearly all of those eight days. The colony had been officially founded twenty years ago, and in that time the population had grown to nearly two hundred thousand people. That sounded impressive, but I knew the truth: most of that growth had been pushed and prodded and possibly bribed by UN officials desperate to bring Earth to the level of the other eleven empire-sized alien civilizations.

Unfortunately, all that prodding had yet to produce much in the way of tangible results. Of the four colony worlds, all but Helvanti were still little more than charity cases, heavily subsidized by the mother world, with little prospect of ever becoming anything more.

Fortunately for Earth's taxpayers, among whom I was so very honored to count myself, it wasn't only public money that was being poured down the rabbit hole. The UN had managed to persuade a number of corporations, both the superlarge as well as the merely large, to add some of their own cash to the pot.

On the firms' balance sheets they were probably called investments, with an eye toward future advancements or discoveries. A more honest approach would be to write them off as favorable publicity and general goodwill.

More cynically-minded types might even consider the donations as a form of other-directed bribes designed to soothe the UN's regulators into looking elsewhere for someone to scrutinize.

I had to admit, though, that New Tigris's founding fathers had done a decent job with all the money flowing into their coffers. They'd built a single major town, Imani City, for those who liked a variety of restaurants and clubs, plus several smaller outlying towns and rural farming communities for those who preferred their companionship in smaller doses and were more casual about haute cuisine.

But even the colony's relative youth, the constant influx of public money, and the leadership's good intentions hadn't prevented a dark underbelly from forming on their new world. There were a couple of districts in Imani where the poor, the frustrated, and the otherwise disenchanted among the populace had developed a habit of gathering to express their grievances. Many of those malcontents already lived there, and as the like-minded were drawn in the more upstanding citizens had found it advisable to go elsewhere. Slums, in everything but name.