"Security in the area?"
"All taken care of. Now, come with me and don't speak again until I say you can. No matter how long that may be." He beckoned and set off toward the ramp.
She and the cat fell in behind obediently. They traveled in silence until they reached a hovercab stand. The cabs were robotic and accepted tokens. Dedran signaled her to remain silent as he fed tokens into the fare slot. The cab lifted, and they were on their way. Some twenty minutes later they arrived, exited, walked around a corner, climbed into a second cab, and rode again before finding another. They left the third cab and went on foot a while before Dedran halted at a corner.
From one pocket he took a small rod and extended it to a right angle. Placing his eye against one end he peered in. "Right, be ready." He waited, "Wait... wait ... now, around the corner." Laris obeyed. He pointed to a wall cloaked in heavy shrubbery around the base. "Into there, now." She scurried into hiding, Prauo close on her heels. Dedran paused, looking out over the street. All was quiet and empty. On a post above them a scanner revolved slowly.
Laris had noted that in one swift glance as she dived for cover. It was slower than those normally used to cover the wealthier residential streets. It also seemed to halt in its circuit earlier and return. It looked as if the last part of the missing arc would have covered the house wall. Now it didn't. She guessed someone had been here before them. Some kid working his passage for the guild by slowing and aborting a portion of the scanner's movement.
But there was no time to think about that. She had to keep her mind on the job. Prauo was scaling the wall, a fine rope trailing behind him. He reached the top, folded his shoulders together, slid between bars barely a hand's length apart, then walked briskly around one to anchor the rope. His mind voice reached her.
*Climb, sister-one. None stir here.*
She climbed, leaving Dedran below. Once balanced on the window ledge she was able to cut the center bar and bend it outward. She slid adroitly through the narrow gap and joined the waiting cat. Her hand smoothed the ruffled fur over his shoulders.
*Just as well for us that Yohal has little of the inner world's technology. Their security is laughable.*
*Not so laughable that they cannot invent the thing we seek.*
*Having technology and having brains are different things.*
She felt his amused agreement as they moved silently through the building. Dedran had shown her a plan of the place. It was simplified but it had all she needed to find the safe. A small instrument given to her before she climbed would deactivate the alarm. She had the security codes after that. The guild would hold their stolen knowledge until the new invention was in widespread use. Then, little by little they would sell the code-breaker.
They would make millions of credits from the sale, garner a hundred favors owed. This theft of the breaker's plans and technology, if successful, would probably gain Dedran more guild status. If he failed it might gain all three of them an early, unlabeled, and unlamented grave. Laris moved more carefully. She'd gain nothing from a successful theft but she had no desire for the possible results of a theft foiled by discovery.
Ahead the big cat moved on silken silent paws. They accessed the safe without difficulty once it was found. Laris shivered with nerves the almost sixty minutes it took to crack the technology and make the copy. With all the information safely in her hands she returned it, closed and re-coded the safe. Then, she carefully reset the alarm.
Half done. She moved quickly back through the building. Hissed the all-clear to Dedran and climbed through the window bars. With the miniature heat device she re-welded the bar shut; below, Dedran was waiting when she descended the rope. Together they watched as the scanner circled slowly, halted, returned, and set off again.
"Now." They trotted quickly around the corner into the darker alley. Laris heaved a sigh as they reached it in safety. No alarm. With luck they'd be home free. It seemed they were, since in another hour they were drifting, darker shadows among shadows in a deserted circus ground, up the ramp to their respective cabins, and still in silence.
After that Laris waited. The performances went by, there was no sign of Baris and Ideena and after another week of ordinary events the circus's ship requested takeoff clearance. It was granted casually. They lifted from Yohal and no one below was the wiser that the departing ship was now worth a million times its previous value.
Chapter Four
The circus landed on Arzor with the minimum of official fuss and the maximum glare of publicity. Not since the half-forgotten days before the war had there been such an event. Some of the oldest families at Arzor Port liked to consider themselves sophisticated. But sophistication is in the eye of the beholder. It pleased the first-ship families to decide that a traveling circus was sophisticated and to have their entire families attend in their best clothing.
With them, as Dedran had expected, came the beast master here. Laris was watching when they arrived.
"Is that them?"
Occasionally Dedran enjoyed showing off what he knew. "Yes, see. The man at the end with the woman. That's the beast master and his wife. His name is Hosteen Storm and she is Tani."
"Who're the others with them?" Laris was peering at the distant figures with fascination.
"His stepfather and younger half-brother. Storm only joined the family after the war. He was raised apart. But the stepfather is from a first-ship family. He doesn't make a parade of it but there's some wealth and a lot of influence there." He studied her briefly. "I'd have no objections if you spoke to them. With you handling the animals here they may well wish to talk with you." His fingers bit into her arm. "Just be very careful what you say, my dear. We wouldn't want them to be warned in any way, would we?"
"No, of course not. I'll be careful."
But he'd put the idea into her mind and she thought about it all through the performance. She gave it up reluctantly. If Dedran thought she'd let anything slip it would be her body on the turntable; what would Prauo do then? Even as her mind flew in search of ideas she soared on her trapeze. The carras soared with her, tumbling like the happy beasts they were, whirling about her, clowning to her serious act so that Arzor Port alternately gasped at her skill and laughed as the carras foiled her attempts to be a serious artist time and time again.
She caught glimpses of the family as she swung. They were laughing as hard as anyone, all but the beast master and even he wore a half-smile. Somehow it pleased her, that they should admire her. She pushed her act to the edge and brought gasps from below. She ended the performance by dropping lightly from the trapeze to land bouncing in the safety net, the carras dropping with her, chittering merrily.
The family was clapping for her as she swung down, to turn, bowing to the audience. She scampered with the beasts from the ring and Dedran watched her take up the carras. That had been an interesting display. The girl had pushed safety to the limits and given an act that had brought the audience halfway to its feet in horror and then applause. But how much of her daring had been a determination to show her skill before a beast master, Dedran wondered.
His mind paused at that thought before following the path. How much had been admiration for beast master skills? Maybe a desire to see the man's animals remain where they were? Dedran was not a fool. He knew the girl was more and more unhappy over the stolen animals that died. So was Cregar. Could it have been one of them who had brought down those spies from the authority, and later, Baris and Ideena, upon the show? He'd have to think about that. Cregar and Laris could be replaced. Not easily on the part of the man but for the girl, there was the De Pyall camp where he'd first found her.