Now, I was glad we'd made that effort. Very glad indeed.
Nine hours later, we reached New Tigris Station.
To my complete lack of surprise, Bayta and I were the only ones who got off there. We watched the Quadrail pull out of the station on its way to Earth and the Bellidosh Estates-General beyond, then went to the stationmaster's office to see about getting a shuttle to the transfer station.
Like most other small colony worlds across the galaxy, the low amount of Quadrail traffic at Yandro meant the shuttles worked on an on-demand basis instead of running a continual loop between Tube and transfer station. Here, apparently, demand was so low that the shuttles weren't even left on standby. As a result, it was over two hours before we finally stood at the transfer station's Customs counter, dutifully answering the standard entry questions, and having ourselves and our luggage scanned for contraband.
I still didn't know how my kwi looked on a Customs scanner. As long as no one challenged it, I wasn't inclined to ask.
"And that's it," the Customs official said briskly as he handed me my lockbox, the final step in the entry procedure. "Welcome to New Tigris. Are you here on business or pleasure?"
"Pleasure," I said. "A friend told us that Janga's Point has some of the best scuba diving in the Confederation. We thought we'd try it out."
"Excellent," he said, his eyes lighting up. Not only visitors to his modest little colony system, but visitors intent on spending money. "I've heard that, too, though I've never had a chance to go there. Now, you do understand that we have only a weekly torchferry service to New Tigris proper, correct?"
"Yes, we know," I said. Briefly, I wondered how many visitors arrived here expecting the daily service enjoyed by real planetary systems. "According to the schedule we saw, it'll arrive in two and a half days?"
"That's correct," he said. "We do have torchyachts for rent, though, if you don't want to wait."
"That's all right," I said. New Tigris's torchferry service was heavily subsidized by the mother world. Torchyacht rentals, unfortunately, weren't. "I assume you have rooms available while we wait?"
"Absolutely," he assured me, pulling out a registration form. "In fact, at the moment we only have one other guest."
"Human?" I asked, snagging a pen from the cup beside the computer terminal.
"A Pirk, actually," the clerk said.
My hand froze midway through writing my name. "A Pirk?" I echoed cautiously.
"Yes, but don't let that worry you." He glanced around and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "This one is actually safe to stand downwind of, if you get my drift."
"Right," I growled.
"No, really—he doesn't smell at all," the clerk insisted. "Damnedest thing. Kind of like when my sister found the one cat in the entire Western Alliance that didn't trigger an instant asthma attack—"
"Yes, very interesting," I interrupted, laying down the pen. "On second thought, I think we'll take that torchyacht after all."
"Yes, sir," he said, taking the half-completed form from me and blanking it. "He really doesn't smell, you know."
"And I'm sure your sister wouldn't mind being locked in a room with a bunch of cats, either," I said. "You have a rental form?"
"Yes, sir," he said, pulling out another form and handing it over.
I glanced at Bayta, noting the stony look on her face, and started filling in the blanks.
An hour later, sitting at the controls of our new torchyacht, I maneuvered us away from the transfer station and turned us toward New Tigris. "I'd been wondering where our Pirk had ended up," I commented as I eased the drive up to full power.
"Now we know," Bayta said, her voice as stony as her expression. "I hope you're not expecting the Spiders to pay for this."
"Why not?" I asked. "Our agreement was salary and expenses. This is an expense."
"We could have waited for the torchferry," she pointed out. "If this girl Rebekah has been all right all this time, another two and a half days probably wouldn't have made a difference."
"Though at some point in every crisis a matter of hours or minutes does make a difference," I pointed out. "But that's not the reason I opted for the torchyacht. Or hadn't it occurred to you that by some standards a non-stinky Pirk could be considered an abomination?"
Her eyes narrowed. "You're not serious."
"Deadly serious," I assured her. "After all, we don't really know how the Modhri sees things. What would be a triple-A-rated blessing for everyone else in the galaxy might be complete anathema to him." I shrugged. "And our Pirk did seem to be watching Tweedledee and Braithewick pretty closely back at Terra Station."
"You're reaching," she said. But her stony expression had softened into something merely annoyed. Annoyed, and thoughtful.
I thought about pressing the point again about the torchyacht rental, decided against it. Ultimately, the decision on who paid for that would rest with Bayta's recommendation. If the Modhri was as involved with Rebekah Beach as I suspected he was, there would be no question that this was a legitimate use of Spider and Chahwyn funds. If he wasn't, this might actually end up being a nice relaxing trip for a change.
Like I really believed that.
FIVE :
The trip to the inner system and New Tigris proper took five days. Bayta and I spent most of that time eating, sleeping, watching dit rec dramas and comedies from the torchyacht's limited selection, and going round and round on the topic of the Modhri and this Abomination he seemed so eager to wipe off the face of the universe.
We didn't reach any firm conclusions, or even any tentative ones. But we came up with a whole laundry list of options, none of them very pleasant, about what the Modhri might actually be up to.
Which meant that by the time New Tigris Control called us with landing instructions we were about as paranoid as it was possible for two Humans to be.
But that was all right. In this business, too much paranoia might annoy people. Too little could get you killed.
The spaceport was a couple of kilometers north of Imani City. It was a pretty casual affair, as landing areas went, little more than delineated rectangles on a reinforced concrete slab. I put us down on our assigned spot, noting as I did so that there were two other rental torchyachts squatting in various places across the field. Apparently, we weren't the only ones who'd decided not to share the regular torchferry run with even a deodorized Pirk.
The Customs procedures were a quick and painless formality, partly because we weren't bringing any luggage off our torchyacht for the moment, and partly because New Tigris needed all the visitors it could get and wasn't about to scare them off with annoying bureaucratic procedures. The official did, however, make a point of carefully scrutinizing my Hardin Industries carry permit before allowing me past his counter with my Glock.
There were two autocabs waiting outside the terminal. We grabbed one, gave it an intersection that my map said was at the edge of Zumurrud District, and headed south.
Imani City, once we were actually traveling its streets, was a pleasant surprise.
I'd seen pictures of the place, of course, and had studied maps of the city and surrounding regions during our torchyacht flight. But most of the reports I'd read had focused on New Tigris's dead-end status. Yet another of Earth's ill-conceived and badly managed colonies, the hand-wringing stories went, that would probably be a drain on the public treasury until the heat-death of the universe.
But someone had apparently forgotten to pass on all that depressing news to the colonists themselves. In the city's center, as well as in most of the neighborhood districts we passed through, the people looked for the most part to be cheerful, optimistic, and showing the kind of energy and dogged determination Human pioneers have always displayed.