She was, actually, but she didn’t have the leisure time to hear more about how someone had managed to channel the lava.
“Cousin,” she said seriously. “I’ve been told you are a man to see about exotics.”
He smiled deprecatingly. “Cousin, I am the man to see about exotics.”
She nodded. Arrogance will out. “I’ve come into possession of something I shouldn’t have and don’t want. I need to know what it is and how it got to me.”
He tilted his cup toward him and looked into the bottom. “May I inquire, cousin, as to what you plan to do with this knowledge?”
“Wipe the thing out as effectively as possible,” she answered. “It’s making my life very difficult.”
His eyebrows both went up. “That is not a response I am accustomed to.” The server plowed a path to their table. Al Shei found their tab written on its back. She pulled out her pen and transferred over the credit to pay for the coffee.
Uysal waited with an air of complete patience until she had finished. “Can you give me the specifications of this…exotic?” he asked
Al Shei extracted a pair of wafer slivers from her belt pocket and pushed them across the table. “There’s what I’ve been able to learn.”
“Thank you.” He pocketed the wafers and stood up. “Allah’s mercy upon you, Cousin. I shall meet you here again tomorrow at this time.”
“Thank you, Cousin.” She inclined her head. With that, he left.
Al Shei watched him until his white back blended into the shifting crowd and she couldn’t tell him from the rest of the strangers.
Well, that was easy. Al Shei tapped her finger against the rim of her coffee cup. I hope the answers come as easily as the asking did.
Al Shei pushed her cup aside and tried to push her immediate worries aside with it. She gazed at the bustling marketplace beyond the coffee house, considering the possibilities of the day. Definitely she would pray at the mosque. She did not often have the luxury of praying with a large gathering of Muslims. Then maybe a reading or a lecture, and possibly some shopping, and a night in a bed that didn’t need to be folded away in the morning.
Then back to the Pasadena with the information she needed to chase the ghosts out of her ship. And finally, she smiled to herself, back to work. She had to accept that this might be her last run in the Pasadena, but she refused to believe that her relationship with this ship and this crew had to end with a negative balance and shameful dealings. There were still chances to make up for the bad start.
If we can pick up a couple extra packets while we’re here, maybe arrange a fly-by data-grab or two, we can still do it. I’ll talk to Resit about getting us access to the advertising lines.
Confident and comfortable from the combination of warmth, gravity and strong coffee, Al Shei got up and threaded her way between the tables and back out into the market.
The world around Dobbs shifted. She froze. A new pathway opened underneath her and half a dozen packets erupted out of it. They shoved past her and drove themselves down the line. Dobbs felt her private mind bunch up. Those were virus killers.
Without waiting for the Guild Masters’ response, she dove after them.
She overtook them easily and spread herself across the line in front of them. She jolted as they drove into her outer layers. She stretched herself out, examining the architecture of each one as they wriggled against her trying to get through. One of them, realizing she didn’t belong there, began to burrow. Dobbs jerked at the pain and grabbed hold of the thing. It tried to eat into her and Dobbs broke it in two. It became absolutely still. She did the same with the others. She sifted through the fragments, trying to find out where these had come from, and where they were going.
Central communications. She turned over a broken module. They’re onto it already. They would be. She stretched herself a little nervously down the path.
“Go cautiously, Master Dobbs,” came back the voice of Guild Master Feazell. “If Central Comm has spotted it, it may have spotted — ”
The packets hit Dobbs without warning. She recoiled under the blow. They swarmed across her, a dozen, maybe more, crawling, poking things connected by thin streams of shared information. Dobbs snatched at them, but passed right through them. Dobbs swelled herself up, blocking the line and trapping the things in a hollow of herself. They milled around briefly, then they turned and attacked.
Dobbs screamed. The things scythed through her outer layers. Nerve and sense tore to shreds, leaving nothing but patches of confusion behind. Anger shoved behind the pain and Dobbs held on. The things cut deeper. Her grip faltered as her senses ripped open. She couldn’t hold them, couldn’t feel them, couldn’t even find them anymore.
“Here, Dobbs! Here!” The line shot through her and pulled together the hole in her outer self. She snatched at the data stream between the foul, tearing things, twisted it tight and pulled it deep into herself.
…find source of other/harm/pry. Destroy source other/harm/pry. Locate all traveller/spy/destroyer. Destroy all traveller/spy/destroyer. Send back data on location, size, number, needed assistance…
The data streams snapped and the things scattered. Dobbs flinched and grabbed at them. She pulled about half into her and held them. One scampered down the path away from her, the rest scuttled up the path, toward, presumably, their maker.
Dobbs wanted to catch the one heading toward central comm. It was alone and couldn’t do much, but some damage would be done. But there was no time to try to stop it. Her best guides to the Live One were already fleeing her, and building new data streams between them as they went.
Dobbs grit her inner self and raced after them. She buckled the Guild Masters’ line onto one of the things she held and thrust it into the pack. The others absorbed it back into their numbers and did not question it. Dobbs hung onto the line and let herself be pulled along in their wake.
The sun was well past its zenith, but the market crowds showed no signs of thinning, or of quieting. Al Shei squeezed herself between a stall and a cloth wrapped bundles of something that smelled of vanilla. Her foot kicked something hard that clanked. She winced and looked down.
A cleaning drone lay on its side, unmoving, like the discarded carapace of some fanciful metallic insect. Along the thoroughfare she saw other patrons, stepping awkwardly over similar obstacles, cursing or just grunting in surprise. Still metal bodies lay scattered across the street. A flash of sunlight glanced off the side of another as it toppled from a wall and crashed onto a tiled awning.
Reflexively, Al Shei crouched down, and turned over the drone at her feet. There was nothing obviously wrong with it. She tested each of its eight limbs. All of them moved smoothly. She opened the main panel and prodded the wiring. There were no obvious signs of burn-out or corrosion.
A shadow fell across her and she looked up. Two women had positioned themselves directly in front of her.
“Peace be unto you,” said the taller of the two, blandly.
Feeling mildly embarrassed, Al Shei put the inactive drone down and straightened up, dusting her hands off as she did.
“And also unto you,” she answered politely. Her gaze shifted between the pair. They were neatly dressed in loose forest-green tunics and divided skirts. Their kijabs were plain and pinned in place with silver clasps. Their skin was heavily tanned from long days under a desert sun. “May I ask what your business is with me?”
“‘Dama Katmer Al Shei you are under arrest for fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud,” said the shorter woman. “You will please come with us.”