To be safe, Radko had them pack up and move elsewhere. They hired a new aircar halfway across the city, swapped their equipment over, then took both aircars across the continent, where van Heel dumped the first one. After that, they went back to Bane and booked themselves into an apartment to make plans.
“What happens now?” Han asked. “We go home, tail between our legs?”
“No,” Radko said. What kind of a team were they if they let a setback like that stop them? “We get our report from the source. What names can you remember from the list of contributors at the front of the report?” She remembered five. Jemsin, EightFields, Quinn, RiverSide, and Jakob.
“EightFields,” Chaudry said. “And that one you mentioned. Jemsin.”
“Jemsin, EightFields, and Quinn,” Han said. “There was a Dr. Quinn who tested—” He paused, and visibly didn’t finish what he’d been going to say. “I wonder if it’s the same one.”
Radko didn’t push. Han had probably met Quinn as a linesman. She watched Han rub his eyes—with his right hand, again—and wondered. How likely was trauma to change one’s handedness?
“Find out all you can about those five people. I want someone I can get the reports from. Or at the very least, I want to know where they’re doing their experiments.”
There were no records for Jakob, and it wasn’t a Redmond name. They had the whole galaxy to search, and they didn’t have the time or support to do it.
“There’s plenty on Jemsin,” van Heel said. “She wrote a lot of papers.”
“Forget about her,” Radko said. “She’s in jail.” If she’d spilled any information, the Yaolins would already know about it. “What about Quinn?”
“He’s still doing line experiments, apparently,” Han said. “But there’s nothing here about where he’s doing them. Or where he’s living now.”
Radko noted the “still.” Would he have a problem if they came up against Quinn?
“Concentrate on RiverSide and EightFields then.” They were both Redmond-founding-family names, likely to be well-known in society. That was good in one way, because there was a lot of information about the founding families. They just had to find those particular names among all the noise.
“EightFields,” van Heel said. “I can’t believe the names these Redmond people come up with.”
Radko’s early studies of Redmond had taught her the importance of the names. “When the first settlers arrived on Redmond, they renamed themselves according to their surroundings. Thus, the EightFields family had a farm with eight fields. TwoPaths had two paths nearby.” She tried to remember other founding names. “OneLane. FiveWays.”
“They’re still weird,” van Heel said.
Radko got van Heel to hack into OneLane’s records, while Chaudry and Han searched for other people listed on the report, and she tried to find out what she could about OneLane’s contacts. The woman had run a legitimate business over the top of her fencing activities. Radko could even have bought a jeweled egg her mother had been after for years.
A man named Daniel EightFields was a regular customer. It might only be coincidence, but once they were done with Adam, she’d get them to search on Daniel.
“Adam EightFields fancies himself.” Van Heel pushed an interview onto the main screen. EightFields was being introduced by a young reporter.
“Dr. Adam EightFields is one of our foremost line experts here on Redmond, and—”
“Not only on Redmond,” EightFields interrupted him. “One of the universe’s leading experts on linesmen and line theory.”
Apart from the fact that humans had only settled the one galaxy, there was a whole race of aliens out there whose children probably knew more about the lines than any single human expert. Radko would have bet Ean’s expertise over a whole roomful of people like EightFields, anyway.
“So how does the news of a new line eleven affect line theory?” the reporter asked.
“If it is a new line,” EightFields said. “The New Alliance claims it is, but is it really so?”
Radko checked the date on the interview. Not long after Michelle had been kidnapped, back when people were still arguing whether there really was a line eleven.
“Sounds like he took any opportunity he could to get on the media,” van Heel said. “Or he used to. Haven’t heard anything from him for months.”
“Can you find out where he works? Where he lives?”
“Last known employer, TwoPaths Engineering. But they have fifty sites. His address is here in the city, but then that’s the address of twenty other EightFields as well. Place must be a mansion.”
Han was checking the social pages. “He’s got a sister, Christina, who manages the EightFields estate. A brother, Daniel, who’s a spacer in the Redmond Fleet.”
“Only a spacer?” A founding family would have paid for a promotion for their son. Why hadn’t they? “Find out more about Daniel, Han. Tell me if he gets on with his family.” A disaffected family member might not be so loyal to said family. Or he might be broke. Maybe even sell a stolen report to a woman he shopped from regularly.
She went back to the shop records. “Callista OneLane sold a jeweled brooch to Daniel EightFields sixteen days ago. I want to know if that Daniel is Adam EightFields’s brother.”
Van Heel hacked into the city security system to view the records for the street near OneLane’s premises that day, while Chaudry and Han went painstakingly through each face she brought up and compared it to the image Han got from the social pages.
Meanwhile, Radko worked on five different escape plans. They not only had to find which engineering complex EightFields worked at, but they had to get off Redmond afterward, and the longer they stayed here, the harder it would be to get off.
Maybe they should go back to the original spaceport and convince the pilot who transported the shellfish to take them off.
But how long before he’d be back?
“Got it,” Han said. “It looks like the brother.”
Radko compared the images and had to agree. “So let’s go after Daniel. Find out where he is and when we can get to him.”
There was plenty in the vids about Daniel EightFields. He was a member of a well-off family, he was a lavish spender, and he was often in trouble. Much like the progeny of some of the Great Families on Lancia.
“Looks like his family sent him to the fleet to sort him out,” Han said. “We get them on Lancia. The parents get tired of bailing them out of trouble and send them off to the fleet to learn some discipline.”
Had that happened to Han?
“They’re useless as soldiers, and we can’t send them anywhere dangerous, or their family sues. So they stick around headquarters, getting into trouble, and we have to bail them out. Or we send them off to worlds where, if they do get into trouble, it doesn’t hurt them or us.”
Van Heel hacked the public comms codes, found Daniel EightFields’s comms, and they tracked it until he left the base. Vega was right. She was a class hacker.
EightFields finally stopped at a nightclub.
“Let’s go chat with EightFields the Younger,” Radko suggested.
Their images from OneLane’s shop were circulating on the news vids. According to the news, they were dangerous murderers, and anyone who saw them should call the fleet, not tackle them. Chaudry was unrecognizable as the regen victim, but his short, bulky shape was unmistakable. He looked nothing like the man on the vid, but anyone seeing him would report him because of his size. If the police investigated, they’d pass him over. Provided they didn’t talk to him. If they did, they’d soon work out he wasn’t a native, so they’d probe more.