When he’d nearly reached the shore of the Wild Half, he heard the scream of a full-power lift and saw the flare of a ship’s drivers burn an arc toward the Break-Point.
“Zoll! She wasn’t heading here, the bint went and nicked the Elang’s ship.” He grinned. “I like her. She’s got class. She really must have come here on a worldship as part of her cover. Din’t have her own, knew one was handy, so she went out and got it.” Neat solution to the problem of getting away from Grinder without handing him her head.
The locals started firing at her. He saw the dot seem to jump sideways, the missiles swerved and missed. Then she was gone.
He tapped the controls, had the flikit berth open and waiting as soon as he reached the canyon. He left the servos to locking the flikit down and raced toward the Bridge. If he could just get into the air fast enough and into the insplit behind her, he could track her. That way he wouldn’t h4ve to bother Fa; he could put off the skin peel he was bound to get when he had to tell him what happened.
“Spy, sweet spy, I owe you a favor. Now let’s see if I can get off this mudball without a sting up my tail.”
13. More Detours
Shadith slid the Dragoi into the berth next to Digby’s ship in the University tie-down, took the shuttle to the surface and a hopper to the main campus at Citystate Rhapsody, an immense complex on the coast of the largest of the three continents. As one who owned Voting Stock, she had a studio apartment in one of the Megarons. She’d kept it even though it was likely she’d not spend much time there, because it meant she’d always have a place to go no matter what happened to the job with Digby.
It felt good to be back, clicking along in a chainchair, basking in the sunlight of a late spring day and watching the crowds of students and Scholars moving through the streets. She didn’t see any faces she knew, but she’d been on Digby’s payroll nearly three years now and gone most of that time; the populations in all the Citystates of University were fluid as mud geysers, shifting and changing with the phases of the moon as it were-the same types, though, over and over, Cousins and non, curiously alike in their common purpose. It was a good place to be, for a while, at least.
Feeling weightless and free, very much like she felt when she left Pillory and crawled out of the exoskeleton, she touched on the light in her apartment, tossed her bag into a chair, and combed her hands through her hair. “Aaaahhhhhhh…” The sound was concentrated pleasure and ended on a brief happy laugh.
She clicked on the viewer, ran through the menu, chose a chamber group she knew, then rambled around the apartment moving to the music, touching her books, the small carvings she’d picked up here and there (cat, she thought, renewing my scent marks), pulling off her clothes and kicking them into a pile, going into the kitchen where she snatched packs of tea from the stasis box and started water boiling on the stove.
She took a long shower, washed her hair, pulled on a robe, settled in a chair with her feet up and the teapot beside her; at first she watched a news summary, then she tuned in a drama by one of the writers she’d worked with when she was taking a course in musical theater.
Vul ri Pustan-ili was a Sparglan from a world he called Makusij, which he said was so far out of touch it was a good thing the local life spans were numbered in centuries rather than decades. He was fascinated by the ephemeral qualities of Cousin views on life and love and was immersing
Twenty minutes into the play, though, she fell asleep.
2
She woke nine hours later with a stiff neck and the message chiming gently in her ears.
Vul’s squeaky voice: Shadow! Caught your name as a watcher. You back for just a visit, or are you staying a while? I’ve got this new project, want you to look at it, see what you think, I need music, a single instrument I think, subtlety over noise, I really do want to talk even if you can’t stay. Come see me, hm?
Digby: Why are you on University, Shadow? I’d like a report, if you don’t mind. Have you found the smuggler? Try to keep traveling times as short as possible, this is a race we’re in, remember?
Aslan’s contralto (Shadith blinked with surprise; she’d thought. Aslan was still on Bйluchad): Shadow, Vul told me you’re back. If you have the time, it’s Mirik’s birthday, near as she can figure it, so we’re having a party in The Eager Seagull, the usual lot, you know. Love to have you come if you can. Tonight, supposed to start around seven, but you, know how these things go.
Shadith checked the timer. Tonight was indeed this coming night. She smiled. “Digby, you can go on hold. I’ve just finished a month of agonizing boredom and I want to play. Hm. On second thought, I’d probably better give him a call. Grmp. He’s going to want more than I want to tell. Do we mention Lylunda’s ship? For sure, we do not. Would that keep him off it? I doubt it. Too many records, all of them transparent to him. Which means, when I leave, I take Dragoi in tow.
Gods! What happens when your life gets so convoluted you forget which is back and which is front. Well, we do the best we can with what we’ve got. I hate this, I’m taking his money, supposed to be doing the job he hired me for. Makes me feel lower than… hm I should make sure he gets his full fee. I owe him that even if I’ve already quit. Looks like the only person I can work for is me. Have to figure out something… but not now. Time for that later.”
Away from his main nest Digby was a ghost of himself, a painted translucent specter, hip-hitched on the corner of a desk in the satellite office he kept here on University, scowling at her as he listened to the carefully edited account of her activities on Hutsarte.
She ended her tale with the delivery of the readouts. “I brought them with me,” she said. “I’ll scan them for you and give you my reasoning after that. Then we’ll see if we agree, hm?” This was the tricky point. If she could get him interested in the data, perhaps she could slide over how she got from Hutsarte to University. She took the pages from the folder, smoothed them out, then fed them one. by one into the slot on the scanner.
After a moment’s pose as the contemplative thinker, the ghost lifted his head, raised a brow. “Not much difficulty there. So, tell me.”
“Harmon,” she said. “With the Jilitera a distant second. The other ship, the shuttles, the transfer station, all of them out of it.” She explained, waited.
“I find no flaws in your reasoning. Why University?”
“The Regents try to keep track of arms dealers and people like that. I was going to give them what I know about Harmon’s activities and run that name through to see if they have a new loc on him. And I thought I’d pull what they have on the Jilitera. Might be unlikely, but they were there.” She shrugged. “You said use your ingenuity and your resources. Just doing the job, Digby.”