Ginbiryol scowled, blanked the screen. He sat tapping his fingers on the chairarm. Slippery. No convictions, only one close call registered. If he gets off the ground, he will be hard to find and harder to catch. He brought up the record of the party, recentered it on Arel.
"Sir."
"Ah, Raqab. Do you know that man?"
Raqab (Number One) inspected the face, shook his head. "No, sir."
"You remember this one, of course." He split the screen and pulled up Shadith's image.
"Yes, sir. Her I remember."
"I understand you know several systems of hand signs."
"Hand and body, sir."
"I want you to watch these two persons and tell me if they are signing and if so, what they are saying."
"What is his profession, sir? That might help."
"Smuggler."
"The systems I know are mostly military, sir."
"I understand. Do what you can." Ginbiryol fiddled a moment, arranged an alternation of frontal images of Shadith and the smuggler, then sat back and waited for Raqab to evaluate and respond.
"There, sir. See that flutter of the girl's fingers as she plays with the zipper? That's a warn-off, universal. His signs-I can't read 'em, might's well forget showing him. Probably he just wants to know what she's talking about. Ah, there, she's spelling something', I think… ah… I can make a guess, there's enough similarity to FLUSN basic… A.R.E.L. Does that make sense? Something, something, has a feeling of more warning, but I can't read it. More spelling. A.L.E.Y.T.Y.S. something S.H.A.D.O.W. something G.I.N.N.Y. S.E.Y.I.R.S.H.I. something, a strong warning, I think, telling him to get away from her fast. That's about it."
"Yes. Well… thank you, Raqab, you may return to your quarters. There will be a bonus added to your stipend to show my appreciation for your efforts."
"Thank you, sir."
Ginbiryol waited until he'd left, then he cleared the station and walked slowly back to watch Ajeri Kilavez at work. She'd wiped half a dozen cells and was using these to organize the search pattern. "Anything yet?"
"Early days, Ginny, barely got the EYEgrid in place."
"Finding that ship has become extremely urgent."
"Why don't I send Puk over there? The lander's got the firepower to take out a considerably bigger ship than that smuggler's pram is like to be. And he could do a backup spiral, the grid's coarse, not enough EYEs to make it finer, even if I ship out the nearest from the Main, they'd get there too late to be useful."
"Yes. Do that. Tell him the smuggler is carrying a message from that girl to the Hunter and has the clout to reach her without wasting time. It seems he is an old friend of hers."
"We're in a nest of them, looks like."
"Yes. It will not be necessary to abort the project if he does slip through the grid, she cannot possibly arrive in less than three months, it will all be over by then. When you get finished there, start the assessment for planting the Banger. When we go, we leave a cinder, let her deal with that if she can."
Chapter 16. How come we're still alive?
Shadith woke in a chill, rolling, yawing darkness.
Fighting back the vomit that rose in her throat, she groped about; by accident or the planning of the designer, one hand bumped a button and a light came on behind her head, pale, whitish gray. She was in a narrow tube with rounded ends like a gel capsule. The uncomfortable hardness pressing on her legs was her harpcase, the lump that prevented her knees from straightening was her travelpouch.-She squeezed her eyes shut.
Memory came in fragments: Kikun shaking her out of a sodden, dream-ridden sleep, at first it seemed just more nightmare when he told her they were about to die… Kikun dancing… Rohant diving toward her, scooping her up, throwing her into… aid an escape capsule, her head banging on something, hard… That's it. Out lights and slide. Escape capsule?
She fumbled around, found a tube marked WATER, pulled it from its clip and sucked in a mouthful of stale, lukewarm liquid. Her throat felt better immediately, but her stomach cramped and she had to swallow fast to keep her dinner down. Ginny! Must have decided we were too much trouble for whatever benefit he got from us. Sent Puk to erase the mistake, sar! the Lute must have enjoyed that. He's wanted to do me since the first time he laid. hands on me. So why am I still alive? Only one answer to that. Kikun. Clowndancer god. He saves us one more time and I'm going to join his congregation. Did he get out, too? Rohant? The cats? Well, don't lay about biting your nails, Shadow, have a look and see.
After another cautious sip at the watertube, she closed her eyes and reached.
Seabird. Like those she watched in Atehana Bay. Out past his usual round. He was gliding in wide circles, shifting from thermal to thermal, the joy of flight permeating mind and body. She settled in him, enjoyed the flight for a few moments, then took hard control of his brain and scanned the water. Her capsule was a bright yellow pill riding on the glittering blue swells. Alone. Being blown along by a strong wind away from the faint line of red that marked the horizon. Blown west. Dawn at my back. Don't see land either way. Just a bunch of clouds. How far out are we?
She sent the seabird spiraling higher, then drove it toward the dawnline.
Two capsules bobbed close together. When the bird flew over them, Shadith tasted at them. The Cats, mad as hell, both of them, I'd hate to be the one opens those capsules. Hmm, means I'm heading the right way. I think.
The bird was growing restive. She tightened her hold and sent him on. Still no sign of land. Long way to swim. Ah! That's a relief.
Two more capsules floated between adjacent swells. She tasted at the nearest and smiled. Kikun. Unmistakable. In good health, as far as she could judge. She blinked. And Sassa. He's got Sassa in there with him, poor damn bird, must be going woowoo shut up like that. No. Ah well, I suppose that's Kikun, too. Rohant in the next. Irritated and bored. Aren't we all. Are not we all. First thing. Get together. All right, fishbreath, go where you want and don't I wish I was you.
She lay back and closed her eyes; her throat was still a disaster, her head was throbbing and her energy level was so low even dying was too much of an effort to contemplate at that moment. I suppose I should eat something. These things are bound to have emergency rations. Tubes of glop. Gah.
After a few minutes of poking around, she found a cache of hipropaste, tubes labeled in interlingue, part of the stores the locals acquired when they bought the flit from some freetrader, gods only knew when.
She squirted the grayish paste into her mouth, hastily washed it down with gulps of water; it was worse than anything anyone had told her. Maybe it was the sensory equipment of this body that made the stuff so foul, maybe the gunk was turning rancid. Whichever was the case, though, it did its work, settled her stomach (more than a little improbably) and cleared her head. She shuddered, gulped some more water and started searching for a seabeast large enough and with the necessary conformation to act as a pushboat. Sar! this is getting to be booorrrring. Get 'em up, ride 'em ow, cowboy, or should I say cowgirl? Get your nose up, whale, and SHOVE! Funny looking whale. A double dozen legs and a grin like a buzzsaw. Slither's big brother and I do mean BIG. Nudge me along. Not like that, dammit! The way Pm collecting bruises I could set up as the tattooed lady any fair. Ease off. Ease off. That's it. Almost there. Easy now, eeeeasy… ouch! Damn. Blessings be, nothing's broke, not even me. Poor old Nagafog, he's in a mood to chew nails. Can't say I blame him, knocked about like this all the time and shut in some subrate cousin to a tin can. Now how do I work this? Line up the pills… hey, the thing's smarter than I thought. And it likes this game. That's right, baby, pit-a-pat us along. Eeeeasy, these pills got breakable innards. That's right, one two three,-straight ahead, that's a lovely little sea monster. Pit-a-pat, gently gently and on we go. Sing a song of silliness, pocket full of peas, four and twenty tentacles awhippin up the seas… heyyyy, baby, talk about whipping along, we're smoking it up. Making the algae cry uncle. Gods! I'm getting seasick. This is NO way to work off a hangover. Why oh why did I drink all that amtapishka squeezing? Uh-oh, we're getting close. What do I want to do now? This is working fine… thing is, can the toothfarm out there handle five? These capsules must be putting out some kind of beep. We could sit and wait for someone to pick us up. I don't want to sit about waiting, I'm tired of playing clever and looking so hard ten steps ahead I don't see the hole in front of me. Let's do it. There's some kind of land straight west, if we go far enough. All right, my little motive power, line up the pretty yellow pills and shove.