Ginny waved the Pilot to silence and answered himself. “This is the Caprisi Kumar out of Blagn. I claim emergency status, glitch in the splitter. My engine crew are working on it at the moment. The chief is sure the matter can be rectified without outside help, so I have no reason at the moment to bother you down there. I just want a place to perch until the repairs are effected. You may have noticed there aren’t that many systems about.” He rambled on for several minutes longer repeating in other words and a dull monotone what he’d just said, watching the Controller’s eyes glaze over.
Pushed to desperation, the man interrupted him. “Right. Emergency. Be sure you let us know if you’re going to move again.” The screen went gray.
Ginny smiled.
The Pilot raised her blonde brows. “That was easy.”
He slid out of the Captain’s Chair, stood with his hands on the arm. “It is all Traffic Control can do to keep the incoming and outgoing ships apart and at the same time juggle the shuttle slots. They are not about to challenge anyone who provides a reasonable excuse. I will be busy the next few hours, Mertoyl, same story for anyone who gets bothered by our presence.”
He transferred to the workstation, watched the shuttle traffic carefully, chose a moment when the confusion gave even him a headache and dropped a shell to the surface, its tiny fields lost in the soup. It curved through the thin cold air, went to ground over the horizon from the headquarters complex and the clustered mud-colored domes of the Levy Pens.
He shut it down and waited. One hour. Three. No reaction.
He cracked the shell, sent the EYEs flitting toward the Complex, ticks and borers piggy-backed on them.
The EYEs were tiny and relatively slow. It was nine days before they reached their target.
He spent a day exploring the outside of the massive headquarters building and another day insinuating the EYEs through outvents.
Down and down he sent them until they reached the memory banks of the Company kephalos.
For four more days he explored the hardware until he was sure he knew the configuration, then he flew the EYEs where he wanted them and offloaded the ticks and the borers.
And waited.
Nine hours later data began flowing into his kephalos, keyed by Shadith’s cell print. A few clucks and a click and the flow stopped.
He triggered the secondary programs in his tiny vermin army, shifted to the Captain’s Chair and called the Pilot to the bridge. “Be ready,” he said. “Say nothing, just take us out on the route I planned.”
He called Control. “Glitch repaired. Departing now.” The screen lit again. “Wait. What sector?”
“Take grid?”
“Send.”
He tapped the sensor that sent his proposed exit route. He’d worked it out with considerable care, keeping to the least busy sector. It meant he headed nearly straight up, hitting the Limit at a wide angle from the orbital plane. Made navigation difficult once he was in the ’split, but it was more likely to be approved without argument.
“Path approved. Do not deviate, three transport convoys will be surfacing within the next five hours; approach the ecliptic and you will be warned then blown away.”
“Information received. Will not deviate.”
Ginbiryol Seyirshi sat in the Captain’s Chair and smiled at the image of the world dropping away behind him.
In about thirty hours Bolodo Neyuregg Ltd would be out of business again. And Helvetia would be most annoyed if Weersyll accessed it at any time during that thirty hours-which was more than likely considering how busy the place was.
There is a disease about, he thought as he watched the sphere shrink, warn your sexpartners, you posy whore.
Miralys / Digby 2
1
Miralys stormed into the room, threw the flake on a table that appeared at her side, politely provided by the naked man lolling in the bubble hanging under the dome.
Digby stretched out on his stomach among flurries of bright cushions, propped his chin on his palms, and contemplated the Dyslaerin. “That’s a major snit, Miralee, meluv.”
“Read that!” She slapped the table hard enough to make the flake bounce.
As a concession to public form, Digby closed his eyes a moment and pretended to scan what he already knew, then opened them wide. “So? Isn’t it about what we expected? Except, perhaps, their rather excessive optimism as to the sum they’re prepared to accept.”
Miralys snorted, looked round for a place to sit. “I’m in no mood for your games, Digby.”
“All right.” His exaggerated sigh blew like a gale through the veils undulating about the room. “A good host honors his guest’s grouches, even when said guest is self-invited.”
Miralys gave the chair that appeared a hefty nudge with her thigh, then sat, lowering herself with undiminished wariness. “Better adjust your acid levels, Dig, you’re beginning to sound bitchy. What do I do? That lot threw in so many cutouts, it’d take a century to trace them back.”
He acquired clothing and sat up. “I assume you don’t intend to pay the ransom.”
“No. Only to eat the bastards raw.” She curled her lips up and back, baring her tearing teeth in the Dyslaera threat-grin.
“Would you be willing to stall for a while, go through the motions of getting the cash together?”
“Why?”
“Late last night I got a call from Autumn Rose. No no, she doesn’t know where your Ciocan is, but she’s got her hands on someone who may.”
“I thought she was…”
“No, Kikun got them both clear. Seems they overlooked him.”
She scowled at him. “How long have you know this?”
“A while.”
“And you didn’t bother telling me.”
“No.”
Her ears flattened against her skull, she started to get up, then, with visible effort she controlled her anger and resettled herself in the chair. “Why?”
“Kikun identified the enemy. Omphalos.”
“And?”
“Omphalos has ties in places even I can’t reach. Until this moment no one here knew but me.”
“I see. And?”
“One. Don’t talk about this. Two. Rose is bringing a package for me; when it’s unraveled, I should know a lot more. A good possibility, I should have the location of Rohant and the others. Travel time’s around four weeks, so you’ll need to stall. Five million Helvetian gelders, could you raise that if you wanted to?”
“Not from Voallts Korlach. If I went to the Family…” She extruded her claws, sheathed them. “We don’t pay ransom.” Her ears flattened against her head, she brought her claws out again, sank them into the simul-sides of the chair. “If I were serious about this, I’d have to take the Korlach public, bring outsiders in. No!”
“Tss, Mira-lili, you could start negotiations. Make it look right, but they don’t have to go anywhere. Send off your reply, say you’re going to need time, then start looking for buyers.”
“Don’t have to look.”
“What?” Digby snapped his eyes wide. “Someone has approached you. I hadn’t heard…”
Her ears came up, twitched. “I am shocked, Digby all-knowing. Sssah!”
“Don’t tease, Miree me-luv.” He brooded a moment, then smiled. “Omphalos. It has to be.”
“I couldn’t say. The approach was through brokers, Vidloeg Gavinda of Helvetia.”
“Hmm. Using Rohant as a lever into Voallts Korlach. Right. That gives the answer to how you’re going to stall. Start talking with Vidloeg Gavinda.”
Miralys’ ears flattened again, her lips curled back, baring her tearing teeth. She hissed with rage.
“Restrain your instincts, Toerfeles. Go home and get ready to ride and make sure none of your people so much as sneezes beyond your compound walls. You don’t want outsiders noticing, hmm?”
She stared at him, gold eyes blind with fury, then she bounded to her feet, scooped up the flake, and stalked out.
Digby clicked tongue against teeth, then faded from the bubble, sinking into the circuits of his kephalos as he began to ready his House for the Peeling of the Chom.