She opened her mouth to call, then changed her mind. Hunching her way instead to the nightstand, she switched on the bedside light.
The lamp was set on low, though to darkness-adapted eyes it still was uncomfortably bright. She squinted away from it a moment until her pupils had adjusted, then gave the room a quick scan.
Taneem was nowhere to be seen. Swinging back the blankets, Alison got out of bed. Maybe the K'da was in the bathroom.
And then her eyes fell on the air system grille. Not fastened to the duct like it was supposed to be, but casually propped up against the wall.
Apparently, Taneem had decided to go off exploring.
One of the room's chairs had an especially high back. Dragging it over, Alison leaned it against the wall beneath the opening and climbed up. Carefully, she eased her head into the duct.
Nothing was visible. "Taneem?" she called as loudly as she dared.
There was no answer. Hopping down from the chair, she went to the desk and picked up her pocket flashlight.
And paused. All her tools and disguised burglar equipment were there, right where she'd left them. But the bag she'd taken from Virgil Morgan's Semaline lockbox was gone.
She turned back to the chair, stifling a curse. So that was what had happened. Frost had sent one of his goons in to steal Morgan's papers, and Taneem had woken up and decided to give chase.
The flashlight didn't show much more than Alison's unaided eyes had seen. The duct was still empty, as far as she could see in both directions.
And with that, she had no choice but to conclude that Taneem was on her own. The ducts were too small for Alison to get through, at least not without making a lot of noise. She was actually rather surprised that Taneem had managed it, though she'd noticed that K'da seemed as compressible in some ways as Earth cats.
She would just have to sit here and wait for Taneem to come back. And pray that the K'da wouldn't get spotted along the way.
In the meantime, there was the matter of the detached grille to deal with.
An examination of the corners showed that Taneem had removed the plate by the simple method of slicing through the bolts holding it in place. The tail ends of the bolts were still there, in fact, their now headless ends poking rather forlornly from their holes.
Removing the sheared bolts would be the easy part. Alison's multitool included a small set of needle-nose pliers that would do the job quickly and easily.
The problem was going to be finding something to replace them with. Climbing off the chair again, she turned on all the lights and started a tour of her room. Somewhere, she had to find four bolts—or at least two—that would fit the grille.
Unfortunately, the sheer luxury of the room was working against her. In a freighter or even a normal passenger liner there would be exposed deck or bulkhead plates with plenty of bolts to choose from. Here, all that had been discreetly tucked away beneath softwall and thick carpets.
Fortunately, the bed had been bolted to its pedestal with exposed screws of the right size. Picking four that wouldn't affect the bed's stability, she unfastened them and got them positioned in the corners of the grille.
And with that, there really was nothing she could do but wait. Ship's morning was nearly seven hours away, with Frost probably not stirring for another half hour after that.
But Taneem didn't have nearly that long. She had just six hours from whenever she'd left Alison's skin to return.
Because if she didn't, she would go two-dimensional anyway, and vanish into nothingness, and die.
Putting her flashlight up into the duct to give the wayward K'da something to aim for, Alison turned out the rest of the room's lights and got back into bed. She would not, she suspected grimly, get much more sleep tonight.
Don't panic.
Draycos had told her that himself, Taneem remembered, amid the terror and confusion of that last mad rush through the Rho Scorvi forest. Disobeying her instructions to stay in the rear with Jack, she'd run ahead to the front of the pack, mindlessly trying to get as far away from the danger as she could.
She would have gone even farther, probably, all the way to the river and certain death. But Draycos had seen her, and come over to try to soothe her fears. Don't panic, he'd said. Panic freezes the will and darkens the mind and weakens the muscles. Remember this song.
She frowned suddenly. A song?
Yes. There had been a song, now that she thought about it. A simple little song he'd sung to her as they ran. How had that gone?
Yes, that was how it had gone. Odd that she'd forgotten about it until now. Maybe it was this fresh panic that had brought it to mind.
Maybe that was what Draycos had intended, in fact. That it would return to comfort her when it was needed.
And to her mild surprise, it had worked. Her scales, which had been starting to turn black as fear pumped extra blood into her muscles, had already faded back to their normal gray. A nice color, the odd thought ran through her mind, though not nearly as noble and distinctive as Draycos's own golden scales.
As noble and distinctive as Draycos himself. She could only bless her good fortune to have him as a friend.
She took a deep breath, exhaling away the last of the fear. Panic darkens the mind. Thanks to Alison and Draycos and Jack, she now had a perfectly good mind.
It was time she started using it.
Silently, she backed away from the food preparation area, stretching out with all her senses. Sight was of limited use to her right now, but she hadn't lost her sense of touch or hearing or smell. Somewhere in this root-tangle of ducts were the clues she needed to get her back to Alison.
And suddenly she had it. The low rumble of the ship's engines had been behind her as she left their room. She could sense that same rumble now, much softer than it had been then.
But instead of being in front of her, as it should be, it was coming from her left. Somehow, on her way back, she must have made a wrong turn to her right.
She also hadn't yet passed through the extra-warm area she'd noticed on her way out. She needed to find a left-hand turn, then possibly backtrack a little until she found that spot.
It was still a little scary. But at least now she had a plan. Easing past the food preparation room, she headed toward the next turning spot.