The ghost contemplated her, a skeptical look on his. sketch of a face. “Your discretion thus far has been admirable, so I won’t pry into the gaps in that report. At the moment at least. I’ll expect your final report to be considerably more detailed.” He seemed to relax, then grinned at her. “The Kliu are agitated and are trying to wring what information they can out of me. I suspect they lost track completely of the Elang when she vanished from Haundi Zurgile. They’ve certainly lost their smug. You’ve won some time, Shadow, but probably not a lot. I’ll give my resources a shake and see what falls out. Let me know what University comes up with, hrn?”
“Will do. Um… just in case, if you’ve got lines to the Jilitera, it might be a good thing to get them ready to pull. Never hurts to have a backup no matter how convincing the logic.”
4
Pleasantly tired, Shadith eased her way through the crowd to the bar in the corner of the room. The party had migrated to Aslan’s apartment after dinner at The Eager Seagull and was still going strong though the noise level had begun to abate a bit. She searched through the empty bottles, boxes, and more esoteric containers, found a bottle with an inch of Carta Blue in it and refilled her glass.
“Any of the gartienta left?” Aslan caught her by the shoulder; leaned rather heavily against her, breathing a sweetish fog of alcohol past her ear. “Whoo! I’m going to hate myself tomorrow, but it feels good now.”
“What’s it look like?”
“Dumpy black jug thing. Smells like apricots.”
“This?”
“Mm bin.”
Shadith shook it gently. “Something left. Hold your glass out.”
They moved around the edge of the room, found a futon rolled up and pushed against the wall, and eased themselves down on it. “I was wondering…” Shadith said after a moment.
“Why I’m not still on Beluchad? Funding dried up. Yaraka thought we were teaching the locals a bit too much instead of studying how to manage them.”
“You don’t sound unhappy about being kicked offworld.”
Aslan grinned. “I’m not. Left a lot of local students behind and University sprung for a couple splitcoms; the Meruu of Medon Vale are enthusiastic scholars and they like the idea of setting down their history. The Yaraka are going to find that the Keteng and the Fior are rather more than a match for them, I think. Do I ask about you? Got a letter full of restrained enthusiasm from Mum. Well, you know her.”
“I’m in the middle of something. Can’t talk about it now.” The milling groups of talkers split a moment and she saw Mirik melting against Sarmaylen, his battered fingers moving absently along the elegant bones of her shoulder, a sculptor’s appreciation in the delicate touch. “Mirik and Sarmaylen. She understand what she’s getting into?”
“Does anybody ever?” Alsan sipped at the gartienta. After a minute, she sighed. “He doesn’t mean to act like a merd, you know. He just gets so interested in what he’s working on he forgets you’re there, and you can get pissed at him and leave and he doesn’t even notice for months maybe. And there’s always another sighing femme waiting in the wings. She’ll enjoy these first weeks, Shadow. He can play symphonies on a woman’s body.” She smiled fondly at memories that Shadith couldn’t see, but she certainly could feel them through the reactions of Alsan’s body.
Aslan got to her feet and ambled off, heading toward a tall, lean man with a gleaming bald head and a gray-streaked brown beard that reached halfway down his chest. Shadith watched her smooth her fingers along the line of his jaw, saw him smile down at her.
Abruptly she didn’t feel like partying any longer; she looked down at her glass, sighed, and set it by the end of the futon roll where it wasn’t likely someone would kick it over, got unsteadily to her feet,-and edged along the wall till she reached the door.
The air outside was crisp and cold. She took a deep breath and the wine hit her, turning her knees to rubber and churning in her stomach… She dropped onto the edge of a granite planter, lowered her head to her knees, and fought the urge to upchuck everything she’d eaten. What a stupid thing… less sense than Mirik showed when she loped off with that scamjack… gods, I’m horny and hopeless… I want… I want more than I’ve got… why can’t I just pick something and stick with it… sleepy… I’d better get home before I end spending the night on the steps here…, call a jit… I’m in no shape to chain it or to walk…
Cautiously she sat up. She was still a bit dizzy and wine tears blurred her eyes, but at least she could navigate now without embarrassing herself. She hunted till she found the jit pole, then thumbed back the slide and touched the sensor. She leaned on the pole and waited for her transport to arrive, weeping with loneliness and too much wine.
The messager woke her again.
Notice from University to come pick up her printouts, message from Digby informing her that Harmon was on his way to Sauva Kutets, a world in the Sakuta System, one of several newly settled planets in a miniature cluster close to the Saber Arm. “Mouse, it’s called,” he said. “Because of its size and a tail of dust curling off one side.”
Sauva Kutets was a colony in the throes of a savage revolt against the mother world, a planet called Agregossa in a system way out at the tip of the Saber Arm.
… because the Agregossans haven’t fought a war in a long time, depending upon coercion and indoctrination to keep the peace rather than crude and visible force, they’re not very adept at it though they have been learning rapidly. The most recent reports have the Agregossans making an attempt at an embargo of the system, most inept and futile unless you’re unlucky enough to surface in front of their outer patrols. Most of the hostile attention is focused on Sauva’s surface, so keep away from there if you can. Otherwise you shouldn’t have much trouble getting in and out again. Oblique attacks and ingenuity, Shadow. Shouldn’t be hard for you to manage.
5
When Shadith reached the breakout point at the Matta System, the alarm signaled ships too close. She hovered at breakout until the clear-light blinked green at her, then emerged to find she’d just missed a line of three sting ships prowling inside the Limit-Agregossa guards on what was essentially an attempt at embargo on the cheap.
If Agregossa sowed breakout beepers in a globe inside the Limit and kept a dozen interceptors ready to move when one of the alarms was triggered, they might be able to slow the smuggling to a trickle.
Even pulling the patrol back until it didn’t activate a clutter warning on the incoming ships might work. A nose to tail procession hard up against the Limit-like the one she’d just avoided-looked more like punishment detail than guard duty.
Passive receptors as wide and sensitive as she could crank them to prevent other, possibly fatal surprises, worrying about having to drag Lylunda’s ship along beside;her, she slipped into the shadow of a gas giant, then went scooting toward the asteroid belt, the sublight shield drawn tight about the twinned ships, though the hot tail on the Backhoe was impossible to camouflage completely; all the field-sculptors could do was extend the emanation block backward in a slightly flared tube to narrow the chances of detection.
After a few hours of heavy sweating, she edged the linked ships into the Belt, crept along it according to the plan she’d worked out on her way here. When she reached the point closest to Sauva Kutets, she settled into the shadow of a large rock, locked onto it with fore and aft lines, then reconfigured the shield, turning the ships into a craggy node of the asteroid, both to the eye and to most detec systems. The locals were most likely to choose a meeting place that gave them the least possible exposure to Agregossan patrols.