This street wasn’t far from Star Street and was busy this late summer morning. She was rather like a boulder diverting the flow momentarily of the traders, crew, and others moving past her in a steady stream. When she started to get annoyed stares, she sucked in a breath and plunged inside.
The Greeter ’bot having been programmed to admit her whenever she called, Shadith walked through into the inner office without having to wait. The office manager looked up. “Yes?”
“I need a Clear room and a connect to Digby. Tell him I’ve got the location and I’m ready to report.”
“We’ve just swept Two. Touch the announcer and I’ll let you through.”
“Thanks.” Shadith left and walked down a short
She seated herself by the desk, moving her shoulders uneasily as the door slid shut and sealed itself. This was a bit too much like a cell to please her. If Digby got irritated enough at her quitting, it might run from security to prison between one breath and the next. She told herself that was crazy, he’d never shown any inclination to over-control his agents, but the unease wouldn’t go away. She leaned back, closed her eyes. While she was waiting for the connection to,;,so through, weariness swept over her and she drifted into a doze.
She woke with a start as a soft chime announced Digby’s arrival. When she opened her eyes he was sitting in a simulated armchair behind the desk, still in his professorial guise. He leaned forward, a lock of shining gray
“I had reasons for making the full, report here, Digby. I’ll explain them later. First, the location. In the Universal Catalog, the sun is listed as 87950 KLD MLYD. One of the stars in the Callidara Pseudo Cluster. The world in question is third from the sun. The xenobi’s name was Prangarris, a Herthite. He’s dead, by the way. The Taalav wrapped him in a crystal cocoon, then proceeded to follow him into death, leaving very few traces behind. A few crystals and some decayed organic matter with enough definition left to identify it as Taalav.”
“The transplant didn’t take?”
“From what I saw, definitely not.”
“The smuggler?”
“You told me we weren’t required to produce her. I see no reason to turn her over to the Kliu; they’ll have what they want. At the moment she’s on Wolff, visiting Aleytys until it’s safe to get on with her life.” She leaned forward, set a flake on the desk. “The complete report, everything I’ve done, everything I’ve learned about Hutsarte, my expenses-it’s all there.”
“So you’ve pulled it off again. Congratulations, Shadow. Good job.” He leaned back, the chair creaking realistically as he shifted his non-weight. “I have a feeling you’re not happy about this.”
“Vm not.” She went through the speech she’d worked out with Aleytys, finished, “When I saw they were dead, the problem went away. But when you lean on luck, it melts under you and you fall on your face. Who knows what I’ll come up against next time. So. No next, time. Why I’m here on University. No point in going all the way to Spotchalls just to say I quit.”
She pushed the chair back and got to her feet. “It’s been interesting, Digby. But it was a mistake from the beginning.”
He said nothing, didn’t try to stop her, simply watched as she left the room.
3
She was yawning as she palmed the lock on her apartment; all the strain of the job, all the suspicion and the chewing over and over of what might happen, how she could counter it, all that had caught up with her and weariness was like a blanket smothering her. What she wanted more than anything was to stretch out on her bed and sleep for a week.
Instead, she put on water to boil for tea, logged a call through one of the Rhapsody skipcoms and had a shower while she waited for it to go through.
Aleytys raised a brow. In the screen her face was slightly distorted and her skin had acquired a greenish tone, but her voice came through clearly enough. “I see you survived.”
“I took your advice and was tactful.” Shadith patted a yawn. “Spla, I’m tired. All tensed up and ready to act, then the whole thing just dribbled away. Whatever. Tell Lylunda she should probably hang about for the rest of the month, but after that the heat should be off her.” She yawned again. “You talked to Harskari yet?”
“About an hour ago, matter of fact. She says the injection is taking just fine and the new plants she picked up are thriving. She’ll be going back for more in a few months, give the source time to settle down. Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
“Probably I’ll go see if Swarda’s home. I need to talk to him. Then I’ll probably go have a look at Harskari’s garden.”
Aleytys’ mouth twitched; it wasn’t a smile. “I might join you for a few months. I’m tired of the sniping round here. Nice that your severance was a friendly one. And go get yourself some sleep, Shadow. You can start your new life tomorrow.”
Shadith came to awareness abruptly.
She was, seated in front of a sensor board. In a familiar pilot’s chair. She was on the Backhoe. Her body leaned forward, her hands lifted, began moving over the board, entering a destination code. She watched the code print out on the main screen, committed it to memory automatically, then realized with dull horror that she couldn’t turn her head, that no part of her body answered her will.
This was confusing.
She’d meant to leave the Backhoe in the University tie-down. If Digby wanted it back, he could send someone to fetch it.
She should have been frightened and angry. She couldn’t feel anything.
It was as if she were back in the Diadem, looking through the body’s eyes, but with no connection to the other senses or to the body’s emotions.
Her mind barely worked. A word or an image rose to awareness, then faded. A long time later a new thing welled up to take its place.
day 1
Digby
Digby’s techs…[[image of Tron Ga working over her body with humming, blinking readouts, fitting the exo to her, adjusting the probe blockers]]
day 3
know me. Template…
[Nothing. Blackout.]
day 6
…tailored…
… Zombi…
… no.
Mind…
mindlock…
… no.
day 8
[Nothing. Blackout.]
…both…
Clearroom…
… yes.
[[image of self waking, seeing Digby seated behind the desk]]
And so it went, word by word, dredged up from the edges of her mind, putting the picture together. There was time, plenty of time, nothing to do while the Backhoe ’splitted toward its enigmatic destination and her body moved to someone else’s programming, feeding itself and keeping itself clean-nothing to do but struggle to think, to understand what had happened to her.
day 15
At measured-intervals her awareness left her for about a day. It wasn’t sleep, it was as if someone had touched a button and turned her off. The timer on the sensor panel told her how long she was gone, but she had no internal sense of time passing and that bothered her a lot-all the more because she could do nothing about it.