"Mostly though, it's not much more dangerous usually than any other job. It's been understood for a long time that the troll isn't a target; you don't damn well shoot the messenger. Killing us hurts everyone. And then there are the clearing houses that offer protection and anonymity, and some corporations keep their best trolls on retainer and offer defence. Worrying about sanitizers is just not a big issue. I've been beaten up a couple of times, but no one has ever-ever-threatened my life.
"Till now. About three months ago I was retained to find some old minutes from a board of directors that no longer exists. This kind of thing isn't my most common job, but I've done a few. It's surprising how careless some corporations are with old data like this. I think it's just arrogance-that was the old board, they didn't do anything right, why bother keeping the minutes around, and if there's no legal reason to do so, they just shove them somewhere. A new board is like a new government and anything that happened before them is by definition full of error. Nothing unusual, standard fee, I got a few leads where to start, and I went trolling. Turned about to be a real challenge. I could find traces of it, but it was obvious someone had gone to some trouble to hide it. Took me nearly a month to recover enough of it to make any kind of sense. I found it hiding in stockholder reports, maintenance logs, spread out through portfolio surveys, resumes, spread sheets. Bits of it even turned up in vacation itineraries. The program that hid it was sophisticated enough to actually reconstruct it all with the right command sequence, so it was obvious someone wanted to be able to recover it, otherwise a lot of it would have been corrupted beyond recognition."
Jeta grinned proudly. "But I did it. I found it all and reassembled it and put it into a package for the client. I was finishing it all up when I got a message on my comm that said, 'If you deliver what you have, we will kill you.' Very simple, very direct. Somehow, I didn't think it was crank. We don't get them often, but we do get threats, and there are procedures for dealing with them. I turned it over to my controller at the clearing house and delivered my package per our contract. When I got back to my hole I found a new message: 'You were given fair warning.' That's all it said. "
"No signature?" Ariel asked. "No source?"
"That's all it had to say, 'cause it wasn't the words that scared me, but the timing. I knew then I was being monitored-closely-and that my own system had been hacked."
"Did you try to trace it?" Coren asked.
Jeta scowled. "Of course I did! It ate at me. I've been scared before, especially back when I started out, but this was different-this had an edge to it. After a couple of days and I was still scared, I started making plans to disappear. I did my accounts, added things up, and it looked like I could make it work. I reconfigured my system three times to purge the intruders, then made inquiries to emigrate. I always wanted to, anyway-it was one of my two or three top retirement options. This decided the issue for me.
"No way I'd get my assets through ITE. I'd have to go baley and smuggle what I could. Meantime, I just kept on as always, living my life, doing business like I always had, making no moves I'd never made before. No flags, no warnings, nothing to tell anyone that anything had changed. The final vetting came through Baltimor for the Petrabor Egress-that's what they called it-and I started arranging everything to be ready to transfer at a heartbeat.
"Then you showed up with your request for data on the same baley group. I knew if I refused, you'd just use another troll and in the end it'd be the same result. I had to change my plans. I thought first maybe you were working for the gatos who'd threatened me. So I ran your profile. Imagine my surprise when I saw 'Special Service' pop up, then DyNan Manual Industries. What I saw, it didn't make sense you'd be hunting down a troll for anybody."
"I appreciate that," Coren said with mock sincerity.
"That didn't change anything. I couldn't know what I'd find if I turned up for my ride out."
"You might have asked me for help. "
Jeta shrugged. "Couldn't. Not then."
Coren nodded. "I understand."
"Yes, well. So I left everything as it was, kept the arrangements intact, and made different plans. I did your job, handed over the data, and headed home to disappear. That's when I was attacked. I got away by being just small enough for some crannies others can't use.
"No one waited for me at my hole, so I cleaned up, packed my stash, and ran. I made plans to go to the Bering port. I don't know how they figured that one, but the same gato found me at the tube in Lyzig."
"How did you escape that time?" Ariel asked after a long silence.
"Screamed." Jeta gave them a wan smile. "Too many people, too much attention. He walked away. I felt like a fool standing there in the middle of the platform yelling at the top of my lungs. But not so foolish I wouldn't do it again if I had to. That's when I decided to find Mr. Lanra here. I thought to myself, 'He started all this, he can fix it: "
"I wish I could, Jeta," Coren said. "I had no idea."
"I saw that pretty quick-you weren't part of those gatos trying to kill me. But you fouled up my egress. You drew attention to it. For all I knew, you were going to show up with immigration cops and arrest them all. I couldn't take the chance. Now…" She swallowed loudly. "I want out, Mr. Lanra. I want away from Earth. I want my life. I'll work for you till you can do all that for me. "
"I'll try, Jeta. I can't promise. I don't even know who these people are. They hacked my system, too."
Jeta blinked, her eyes moist. She nodded calmly and looked at Wenithal. "Who are you?"
"Forgive me, I've been remiss. I'm Ree Wenithal. This is my apartment."
"Ah. Nice place."
"Thank you. "
"Jeta." Ariel leaned on the back of the sofa. "That job you did, the minutes…who was it for?"
"Umm…there's a small matter of confidentiality involved. I'm not sure-"
"Someone is trying to kill you over those minutes," Ariel said, her voice intensely reasonable. "I think it would be understandable for you to set confidentiality aside in this instance."
Jeta nodded. "Yeah, well…it was an intermediary, you understand, but I checked into him before I accepted. The contract was from Myler Towne of Imbitek." Jeta claimed to be dead tired. Wenithal showed her into his bedroom and let her sleep. He went into the kitchen and returned with another cup of coffee. His hand shook slightly as he poured it.
Coren said nothing. He joined Ariel on the sofa and spoke quietly.
"That's not Jeta," he said.
"Then who is she?"
Coren shrugged. "Maybe we'll find out. It's interesting, though-Towne tried to hire me away from Looms. Someone tried to assassinate Towne. He doesn't trust his own security anymore."
Wenithal came back into the room and, cup in hand, sat down in a chair.
"Alda Mikels is being released from prison in a couple of days, " Ariel said.
"If you're wondering if there's a connection, I've been wondering that, too. But what would a disagreement between Mikels and Towne have to do with a bunch of baleys?"
"Perhaps," Wenithal said ponderously, "the connection is sleeping in the next room."
"Seems rather heavy-handed," Ariel said, "to murder fifty innocent people just to get one. Especially after the thing you're trying to prevent has already occurred."
"You mean the delivery of the data she found?" Coren asked. "It doesn't make a lot of sense, but…we have more murders to explain, though."
"Brun's," Wenithal said. "Ms. Fromm said she went through the Baltimor District to set up her egress?"
"She said that, yes," Ariel confirmed.