"I am that."
Sten made a decision. "Strip."
Mahpney bristled, then caught himself and swore. The kid had it. He tore off the coveralls, then pulled off his boots. Hefted one experimentally, then slammed it against the wall. The heel shattered, and bits of the tiny transmitter scattered across the deck.
Sten nodded. "That's how they followed you. You can put the coveralls back on."
He stirruped his hands, and launched Bet back into the vent. She reached down, gave him a hand, and he slithered up.
Turned, inside the vent, as Mahoney flat-leaped up, caught the edges of the vent with both hands and levered himself into the airduct.
"A bit tight for someone my age."
"It isn't your age," Bet said.
"We'll not be making light of our elders and their pot-guts."
"Follow us," Sten said shortly. "And no talking."
Mahoney blinked again as Sten put his knife away. . .seemingly into his arm. Then he ran after Bet and Sten, down the twisting duct.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"NO, FADAL. FOR some reason I. . .remember what an empire is," Oron said.
Mahoney started to ask. Sten shook his head.
"Intelligence?"
"Eyes."
"Ah. And you will then want my people. . .and myself to be your eyes?"
"No," Mahoney said, "I'm too close to being blown."
Oron looked inquiringly at Fadal. She was blank.
"Thoresen wouldn't have top Security men on me unless he was pretty sure who I was."
"Thoresen. . .head of the Company. Your enemy," Fadal whispered.
"You want?"
"I must have confirmation of Thoresen's plan. I've blue-boxed into the Exec and the central computers, and there vas nothing on Bravo Project except inquiry-warning triggers."
"This. . .Thoresen. He must have it personally."
"Probability ninety percent plus."
Sten broke in. "What happens if it's there? And you're right?"
"We'll send in the Guard. The Emperor will set up some kind of caretaker government. Things will change. For the Migs. For everyone."
"Not good enough," Bet said.
"We'll be dead by the time your clottin' Empire arrives. Or don't you know? Us Delinqs don't live to get old," Sten said.
"Sten is right. A runner from another gang passed the word. . .when?"
"Two shifts ago," Fadal said.
"He saw patrolmen at the warehouses. They were drilling with. . .riot guns," Oron said, and smiled at his successful memory. "They will be conducting an extermination drive soon. And we are now too many to evade them."
"How many in your gang?"
"Fifteen now," Fadal answered.
Mahoney calculated quickly. The tiny Imperial detachment had its own airlock. The inquiry wouldn't be too loud if he got what he wanted. . ."Passage offworld. For all of you. To any Imperial world."
Sten discovered he'd stopped breathing. He took a deep breath and looked disbelievingly at Mahoney.
"I can do it. You people raid Thoresen's quarters. Bring me anything that says Bravo Project. Which you can deliver on the ship. The Empire keeps its bargains."
"I do not think there's any need to. . .debate this. Is there?"
Mahoney stood up.
There wasn't.
The patrolman stalked to the end of his beat and stopped. He yawned. Then turned and started back down the corridor.
Sten oozed from the vent in the wall. . .breathe. . .breathe. . .pace. . .pace. . .forward. Moving up on the guard. Keeping in time. Eyes on the patrolman's back. Closing. In step. Inside the three-meter awareness zone. Eyes off target. Mind blank.
Sten's left hand curled around the patrolman's neck. Cramped the big man's head hard back as he drove his knife deep into kidney. Breath whuffled. The man gargled. Sten sidestepped as the corpse voided, then dragged the patrolman back to the vent and stuffed him in. He ran down the corridor, to the beginning of the Exec section. Found the paneling and pried.
When the Delinqs had pored over the complete plans for The Eye that Mahoney had blind-dropped for them in the Visitors' Center airways, they'd found the key.
Evidently the Execs were more delicate than Techs or Migs. Most of the passageways, particularly those around the higher-echelon areas, were subdivided with an inner, noise-insulating wall.
The paneling came clear, and Sten beckoned. The other fourteen Delinqs poured out of the vents and streamed toward him. One by one they slithered into the wallspace. Oron was in the middle, blank-faced. Fadal guided him into the inner wall. Sten cursed silently, and hoped Oron's memory would return quickly because if they failed, most of them would die in The Eye. Even if a few managed to get south again, into Mig country, there'd be an endless stream of extermination drives.
Again, Sten realized there was no choice. Bet grudgingly agreed. And then vacillated between eagerness to see new worlds and worry about whether they'd fit in. Sten figured that was a lucky sign.
The wallspace narrowed. Sten sucked his chest in. Must be a collision door. His chest stuck for a minute. Sten nearly panicked, then remembered to empty his lungs. He slid through easily.
They huddled outside the great double doors to Thoresen's quarters. Sten curiously touched the material. Rough. Grainy. Like fatigued steel. But rougher. Sten wondered why Thoresen didn't have the surface—it appeared organic—worked smooth.
Bet set the pickup to another frequency, and touched it to the door. Eyes closed. . .her fingers ran across the pressure switches. Inaudible pressure increased/decreased in Sten's ears. There was a click. The main lock was open.
Bet extracted a plastic rod from her pouch. Touched the heat button, and positioned it carefully in the middle of the door's panel. On the end of the rod, heated to human body temperature, was a duplicate of Thoresen's index fingerprint. Sten wondered how Mahoney had obtained it.
The door chunked—the Delinqs grabbed for weapons—and swung open.
Sten and the others cat-walked inside.
Time stopped. They were in space. They were in an exotic, friendly jungle.
They were in the very top of The Eye. Thoresen's quarters. The cover to the dome top was open, and space glittered down at them. Sten was the only one who'd seen off-Vulcan. He had enough presence to softly close the doors and look around.
There was no one else in the dome.
A garden. With furniture here and there, flowing gently into flowering wildness, as if someone had removed the walls, ceiling, and floor of a very large house, leaving in place all of the implements of living.
The Delinqs moved, recovering.
Sten spotted a motion detector swiveling toward them. He ran forward and leaped, knife plunging through the pickup. Sten spotted other cameras and pointed. The Delinqs nodded. Moved forward, fading into the unfamiliar shrubbery.
Sten, Oron, and Bet kept together, looking for what would be an office. At one side of the dome was an elaborate salle d'armes. Blades and guns of many worlds and cultures hung from the dome panels. And, on the other side, an imposing, free-floating slab that had to be a desk. Behind it, the most elaborate computer panel Sten had ever seen. Nearby stood a stylized sculpture of an enormously fat woman. Maybe.
Sten looked at Oron questioningly. His eyes gleamed bright. He waved them at the sculpture.
Sten and Bet slid up to it. It had to be. A narrow UV trip beam crossed in front of it. Sten took a UV projector from his belt, flipped it on, adjusted the intensity, and hung it in front of the pickup across the chamber.
It took several minutes to find the tiny crack in the sculpture. Sten fingered all projections on the sculpture. It wasn't that simple. Probably a sequence release that would take forever to figure out.