Han scowled.
Radko led them out of the building. The wind nearly blew them away. She’d forgotten the wind. She would have liked to walk faster, but they had to move at van Heel’s pace. Van Heel was trying to hurry, but it was obvious every step was painful, and pushing against the wind didn’t help.
“I’m sorry I—”
“Save it, van Heel. There’s no need to apologize for being injured in the line of duty. Not unless you were being stupid.” Then Radko smiled at the other woman. “It will be nice to have you whole again, I admit.”
“You think it will be nice.” Van Heel paused. “I can’t wait.”
“Is this the first time you’ve been injured?”
Van Heel nodded.
She was holding up well.
“Have you ever been injured?” Chaudry asked.
“A few times. I had a dislocated shoulder and a hairline fracture in my ankle not that long ago.” Radko smiled at the memory. “What they call friendly fire.”
Had Ean accidentally injured any others on her team? Bhaksir and the others didn’t know when to step aside.
“Someone on your own side? But that’s—”
“He was saving our lives at the time.” And the Alliance. Not to mention acquiring a fleet of spaceships for them. “You’ll like him, Chaudry.”
She missed him.
Four hundred credits didn’t buy much of a medical center. It was clean, but the prefab walls were full of holes and the equipment so old that Radko didn’t recognize the model.
“I’d almost rather stay injured,” van Heel said.
The medic looked tired, and his scrubs, while clean, had a brown stain down one side. Someone had bled on him, and he hadn’t gotten rid of the stain.
“Blaster wound,” he said, as if he saw them every day. “You’re lucky it hasn’t turned septic.”
Chaudry bit off a protest, then meekly followed the medic into the room. Radko and Han came with them.
“I don’t normally do this with an audience.” Yet he didn’t kick them out. He swabbed van Heel’s injury, then dropped the swab into a scanner and inspected the readings. “At least it’s clean. Someone knows something about cleaning wounds.”
Radko silently pointed to Chaudry.
The medic nodded and disinfected a patch of van Heel’s uninjured skin, then sliced a small piece off. The disinfectant must have had numbing properties, for van Heel didn’t complain.
What happened if your whole skin was too badly burned to take a starter sample from?
“Regen takes hours. There’s no point staying around to watch it.” The medic put the sample into nutrient, then slid the sample and nutrient into a small opening on the side of the regenerator.
Radko got the hint. “We’ll leave you here, Chaudry, while we look around. Call us if anything happens.” A proper regeneration required three sessions. She’d bet none of this doctor’s patients ever stayed for more than one.
Radko used the noncitizen chit Bergin had given her, and more credit chits, to hire an aircar. The money was running out faster than she’d like, but she didn’t want to use her own credit unless she had to.
The aircar had a massive engine and enormous stabilizers. They found the reason for them as soon as they took off, for the buffeting wind was strong.
The first thing Radko did when they were in the air was bring up the satellite views of the street TwoPaths Engineering was on.
The buildings here were buttressed up against the castle wall. Had it been Lancia, Radko would have assumed that TwoPaths was part of the family of the Factor of the Lesser Gods because Lancia would never allow a commercial company—especially not one from another world—so close to the castle. All it would take was some well-placed explosive—they had some with them—and they could blow a hole in the wall and get into the palace.
She didn’t need to zoom in to see that the TwoPaths building was well protected, for it had the characteristic wavy outline of a building covered with a security netfield. Which meant she wouldn’t get inside without blowing the net. It was a lot of security for a site TwoPaths listed as a warehouse.
Lucky for them, a net generator was big—it worked on similar principles to a Pandora field diffuser—and the generator itself was normally situated outside. Not only that, people who relied on such nets tended to think they were enough security.
They wouldn’t have much time once the net was down. TwoPaths would have a private security firm on call.
There was a yard on the east side, with a generator-sized structure close to the wall. There would be a door behind that, for someone had to service the generator.
So, get in, take out the generator, and enter via the back door.
Abutting the yard was another shop. They could blow the wall, but they couldn’t hide the fact they had been there. They could misdirect, however, and make people think it was an assault on the palace.
Radko turned her attention to the shop next door. It was a sweet shop that—according to the travel guides—was famed throughout the Worlds of the Lesser Gods. Radko had never heard of it.
She clicked off the screen, and said to Han, “Let’s be tourists.”
They used the aircar to hop from one major tourist spot to another around the Factor’s palace, checking out potential escape routes.
“The wind in this place,” Han said, as the aircar rocked. “I’d hate to live here.”
Radko was glad of the powerful engine and stabilizers; otherwise, they would have been blown from one side of Aeolus to the other.
“It’s huge,” Han said. “Almost as large as the palace at Baoshan.”
It was. She landed the aircar as close as she could, and they explored further on foot.
TwoPaths Engineering was a blank, featureless building. There were no windows on the lower level and only a few on the levels above. The blue shimmer of the security net was noticeable here on the ground. The street was full of cameras. They’d never get in unannounced. Radko’s initial plan, using the sweet shop, looked the most promising.
The line for the sweet shop was out the door.
Radko had plenty of time to check the location of the cameras. There was one on the outside of the shop, and one camera from TwoPaths facing the shop door.
A discreet plaque outside the TwoPaths door stated, THESE PREMISES ARE PROTECTED BY MES SECURITY.
Once inside the sweet shop, she could see a rear door behind the counter which led to a cool room or a kitchen. A conveyor belt of sweets rolled in from out the back, continuously replenishing the supply. The servers were human, part of the archaic charm of the shop. As she waited to be served, Radko looked up, pretending to be bored. There were two cameras, both of them aimed toward the counter.
How much protection did TwoPaths have out the back?
What was she looking for when she got in? The report itself? Or evidence of what Redmond was doing there? Both, if she could get it, and most importantly of all, information on why they expected to have access to a twelve soon.
They took a room in a hotel close to the TwoPaths building. It was a tourist hotel, horrendously overpriced because of its proximity to the castle. Radko checked the street views. No one went into or came out of TwoPaths Engineering.
Van Heel came back whole and new-skinned.
Chaudry was pleased with the result. “But you will be careful,” he said. “Really, you should have three sessions of regen. This is only the first.”
“I can use my arm,” van Heel said, flexing it. “And it doesn’t hurt anymore. I’m happy.”