Hulik didn't mind; she thought it was funny. And Meren was enough of a trouper that she would have mud-wrestled the entire female cast if that was what the part had called for.
"Why are you so sure they haven't spotted us?" Pausert asked. There were bits of what appeared to be the com strewn all over the floor in front of the unit, and he was pretending to repair it. Pretending, because the com was working just fine, and the bits were nothing more than the results of Vezzarn's scrounging, acting as camouflage, while the Leewit listened to chatter on headphones and Goth worked out whether the chatter was coming from inside the Petey B or was just the usual sorts of traffic outside of it.
"Because they're spreading themselves too thin," Hulik said firmly. "And I'll tell you something else—even if they have our descriptions, or some of us, anyway, that doesn't mean they're going to trust those descriptions. I wouldn't. Because I would know that any smart quarry would have already changed as much about himself as he could."
"So they are basically looking at everyone." Well, that was comforting. "Hmm. So a really smart quarry wouldn't change himself at all?"
"Or would do exactly what we've done: put ourselves into a position where our appearances change constantly." She nodded at him. Pausert was still wearing his Mercutio hair because it was perfectly comfortable to wear—quite natural-seeming, really, but a royal pain to take off and put on. Tomorrow the makeup specialist would take off the foxy hair and replace it with Bottom's unruly haystack, and he'd wear that all day, for the same reason. Rehearsals had just started for play number three, the Scottish Play, and as King Duncan he'd have gray hair that worked for both the part of the King and of the King's ghost.
Most of the other actors did the same. Only when they doubled a part, as Alton did with Romeo and the Prince of Verona, did they use true old-fashioned wigs that could be put on and taken off quickly, but were horrible and itchy to wear.
"Great Patham, we must be driving them mad!" he exclaimed gleefully.
Hulik nodded. "We couldn't have picked a better place. Even if they're looking for two young Karres-witch girls, they can't be sure that they have the right girls, or even that they should be looking for girls at all. There are dozens of families here with children the right age. The little Wisdoms could be posing as boys, as midgets, or as even as something in the Freak Show."
The "little Wisdoms" were freakish enough as it was anyway, he thought. He didn't say it out loud, though.
"Well, good. I want them as confused as possible; that can only be to our benefit." He thought of something else. "So, how are they fitting in?"
It would be very awkward if these people were used to being with a showboat. The tall tales spun about every member of a showboat crew would not distract them too much, and once they got themselves oriented, it wouldn't be long before they got onto the truth—or figured out that if nothing else, sign-on dates and the identity of the ships welded to the frame would be found in Himbo Petey's own records.
"According to Pul, like desert-cats in a swamp. Which argues for them being ISS agents. I would think that the pirates would know better—or would have operatives that spent time on a showboat in the past."
"The ISS isn't stupid—"
"No, but this far out in the hinterland, what you get are agents that were put out here because they weren't good enough to be entrusted with truly important postings, or were stupid enough to do something that made it necessary to transfer them where they couldn't do much harm. If they aren't ambitious, they're going to be unhappy because their comfortable paper-pushing existence has been interrupted by a tedious, possibly dangerous job. If they are ambitious, they're going to be blundering about doing plenty of wrong things, because they don't know that what they need to be good undercover agents won't be found in a book." Hulik sighed. "They get posted out to places like this because at least there's a smaller chance that they'll get themselves killed or do something to anger someone important."
Pausert hesitated, then asked the question that had been lurking in the back of his mind ever since Hantis told them about the plague. "Hulik, what are the odds, do you think, that someone high up in the ISS is infected by Hantis' Nanites?"
She leaned back in her chair, and licked her lips. "You do know how to ask the nasty ones, don't you? Truth to be told, I think it's quite likely, odds of up to fifty percent. I've thought that ever since that ISS goon overrode your safe-conduct from the Empress."
She began ticking things off on her fingers. "Whoever it is knows about Karres witches, believes in them, and wants them. Whoever it is does not have the Empress' best interests at heart, and does not want whatever information it is that we carry to get to the Empress. Whoever it is knows about Hantis and Pul, and possibly wants them disposed of as well." She shrugged. "Now, that could cover both someone high up in court circles who has ambitions for becoming Emperor himself or working for someone who does—but it covers someone in the ISS infected by the plague equally well."
Pausert's heart sank; but then he, too, shrugged. "I suppose it doesn't make much difference at this point, does it?"
"No. Whoever is behind this is high enough up in ISS circles that if Hantis can't do anything, we're on our own for the moment."
She looked pensively at a poster on the wall advertising romantic getaways on Beta Caeleen. Goth had been sticking them up to cover the paint splatters from the first appearance of the little silver-eyed vatch. It seemed an eternity ago.
"I used to like being a lone operative," she said, sounding oddly plaintive. "In fact, I used to like being an operative, period. I must be getting old. It isn't fun anymore. I find myself wishing I had a lot of people at my back, and that I was doing things using my brain rather than a gun, things with a lower chance of getting me killed. A desk has begun to look a lot more attractive than it used to."
Pausert stared at her. "You aren't actually thinking about settling down, are you?"
"It has its merits," she said wistfully. Then she shook her head. "No, not really. You know how it is. Everyone wants what they don't have, and then, if they get it, half the time they discover they don't want it after all."
Pausert wasn't fooled. She was thinking about it! He tried to imagine it. Hulik do Eldel, in a little house, behind a desk. Maybe even married, and with children!
Great Patham! What would any children she raised be like? Worse than young witches, even, probably wreaking havoc on their kindergarten, playing "pirates and hostages" with real Blythe guns, breaking into the creche offices at night to rifle through the teacher's desk, looking for blackmail material . . .
"It wouldn't suit you," he said firmly. "You'd be bored before the first day was over."
"You're probably right," she replied, still sounding wistful. "Still, with the right set of circumstances, the right job, and the right partner . . ."
CHAPTER 17
"We're getting closer," said Sedmon to Sedmon. "At Hanson's Reach we missed them by weeks. Maybe we can catch up finally on Tornam."
"Provided we don't have to clean up any more messes along the way," cautioned the second Sedmon. "Eliminating Imperial agents is a dangerous pastime."
The first Sedmon shrugged. "He was too curious as to why we wanted descriptions of the cast of the Petey Byrum and Keep. The lattice ships do get watched. They're good cover, mind you. I think we need to look into investing in one, someday."