That left Amber Soul.
Strange name. Not in the Banat-Marath catalog. Not in any damned file. Human? If so, she was the ugliest woman Lupo ever saw. Alien? Alien artifact? Wouldn't do any good to run that.
"Lupo."
"Uhm?"
"Call from Goshe. Just had somebody come at him with the right codes, wants a face to face. Name is Kim Chingamora. I ran him. A class three, reliable, second purser on the Medvihn Traveler Federal Lotus. There hasn't been a Medvihn in here in eight years. He took an emergency leave and came here on his own credit."
"He's got something hot."
"Something he thinks will set him for life."
"Clear out. Four, you stay."
Goshe arrived with the guest, did introductions, faded. Four bustled around offering refreshments. The agent, not on the regular payroll, had yielded enough good material to rate the grade three. He said. "This is my first visit to Tregesser Horata. Impressive." He was nervous. He had mortgaged his future to get here.
"Relax. If what you have isn't what you thought, we'll still cover your expenses and lost salary. You've done good work before. You're the kind of operative we want to keep happy."
Chingamora laughed nervously. "Better get to it, hadn't I? If I've got fool's gold, I'll have to hustle back to my Traveler while they're holding my berth."
Lupo nodded.
"All right. I brought a holocasette and a regular video cassette. It's like this: we picked up a passenger at C. Colignonica who wanted to charter a stopover at N. Etoartsia 3. Nobody thought anything about it. The rich do weird things. And a charter is the only way you can get some places. We were supposed to wait at station for her. She was only going to be down a while."
He offered the video cassette. It was a one-minute excerpt from local news reporting the death of planetary governor Myth Worgemuth. Authorities wanted to question an unidentified woman with whom he had been seen talking before his fall.
"The holo ties this up?"
"You be the judge." Chingamora gave Four the other cassette. A shape formed in the projection cube. "Hold this frame. This is the woman we saw publicly, when she left her stateroom. But the day before she was due to leave us, she called the purser's office for help setting up an itinerary that would get her to N. Compeuia. I popped this while I was going over schedules with her. Next frame."
It was not a good holo but it was good enough. Lupo said, "You have an excellent memory."
"I done good?"
Lupo laughed. "You done great. Count on a bonus."
"That's a load off."
"Wait in the outer office while I talk to my technical people."
Chingamora nodded, stepped out. His nervousness had not abated.
"One of Valerena's Others," Four said.
"Yes. Which explains why he's nervous. He didn't know she'd taken over till he got here."
"Going to be some excitement when the news comes."
"Some, yes."
"And Linas Maserang is next."
"Apparently. And it's too late to stop it."
"You think she wanted to be spotted?"
"I don't know. We'll find out. Six!" Six came in. "You catch all that?"
"Yes."
"Assume the Other will head for Tregesser Prime when she's done with Maserang. Find a choke point and go wait for her. Go back in the other room while I talk to Chingamora again."
"One thing first. Valerena called. Almost hysterical, she was so excited. She's off the Guardship. Wants to see you as soon as she gets down."
"All right." He opened the door. "Mr. Chingamora. Staff wants to know if you'd be interested in full-time work." Chingamora looked surprised. "First assignment would be to accompany my assistant to identify and grab the woman who chartered your Traveler. She's been impersonating Valerena Tregesser. We want to know why."
Kim Chingamora looked immensely relieved.
— 76 —
There was enough randomly accumulated data in the Starbase pool to pinpoint the source of the meddlesome methane breathers with a sixty percent chance of being right.
XXVIII Fretensis broke off the Web in a magnum launch. Forty minutes later there was no doubt it had come to the right system.
The Outsiders were completely surprised. But they were not unprepared. Moon after moon came to life and joined the contest. Twenty hours after his arrival, WarAvocat consulted his Deified about the advisability of withdrawal.
IV Trajana broke off the Web as the debate raged. It attacked with a ferocity and self-disregard that left WarAvocat XXVIII Fretensis agape.
Eighty-two hours later, the last orbital fortress succumbed. XXVIII Fretensis assumed a polar orbit around the gas giant. IV Trajana moved into equitorial orbit. Both began probing for targets below.
Such sieges lasted for however long they took. The Guardships had the time.
There would be a small difference this time. This gas giant was but one of a hundred dewdrops on the Web.
Canon did not know. The Guardships had not guessed. Simon Tregesser had not known, either. His Outsider allies had not been frank with him.
— 77 —
Turtle watched Tregesser Prime grow. He was impressed. The system was the most vigorous he had seen in a thousand years. Did it matter that its masters represented everything he loathed in the human species?
It mattered. A lot. But temptation was a siren.
He tried concentrating on getting a feel for Lupo Provik, met on station. Blessed had said a lot about Provik.
Provik did not look dangerous. He was a plain man with no sinister aura. But some were that way. They did not wear their character like a Ku.
Provik seemed interested only in Amber Soul. Why her, particularly?
Another shuttle grounded within moments of theirs. As they debarked, Blessed whispered, "That's my mother. The Chair. What's she up to?"
Turtle saw four of the woman. And she did wear her character where it could be seen.
"Oh, Turtle!" Midnight enthused. "Look! Have you ever seen anything like that? Isn't it magnificent?"
Turtle eyed the white fang of the Pylon, rising through the tiers of Tregesser Horata. It was an impressive sight. And it had a sinister feel. Almost an aura of menace. "Yes. It certainly is."
Valerena felt like hugging Blessed when she saw him. She confined herself to a wave. He returned it uncertainly.
It was a sin they had to eye each other like fighting dogs. Especially now.
Who were all those people with him? One she knew. He was that accountant that had pissed Simon so bad he'd exiled him.
She spied Lupo and his girlfriend, for a moment felt a cold something slide down her spine. But, of course, he would have met Blessed. He had promised to stick to Blessed like a second skin.
Provik left the other party, took charge of her own security. "Lupo, you'll never believe what I've done."
"I doubt if anything you did would astonish me."
"This will get you."
"Save it till we're inside the Pylon. Four days ago we caught a spy here with a camera and sound gun."
"What? Working for who?"
"No telling. She destroyed herself. An artifact created for the trade. We get them all the time. Not much you can do but hope what they get isn't all going the same place."
"I'll bust keeping it in, but all right. What about Blessed?"
"He's going to behave."
She glared at the Pylon. "Its days are numbered, Lupo."
Lupo took Valerena to his office rather than hers. He claimed he had things to do that could not wait. She told him he should have gone before he left the shuttle. That earned one of his tired smiles.
He rejoined her changed, refreshed, relaxed, looking like a new man. She supposed he had taken a stimulant.