Dael nodded sympathetically. “That happens, too, but it’s a shame.” There was a silence, and then he said, “Do you hear anything from Galler, these days?”
Heikki bit back the sudden pulse of anger. Dael of all people should know better than to ask that question…. She kept her voice steady only with an effort of will. “Who?”
“So it’s still like that, is it? Well, your business, not mine.”
“Yes,” Heikki said, and saw Dael’s quick sidelong glance, half of apology, half of sympathy. They were silent again, for longer this time, neither quite knowing what to say to the other. There was nothing between them but their work, Heikki thought, sadly, and shook her head at her own longings. If that’s all there is, she told herself, then make use of it. She glanced at the instrument panel to be sure the intercom was off. “Listen, Dael, you know—or you’ve heard—what I’m here for.”
“I’ve heard.” Dael glanced sideways again, but this time his expression was unreadable.
“What’s the talk? What are people saying?”
“They’re saying a lot of things,” Dael answered, “and damn few of them make good sense.” Heikki waited, and after a moment the Iadaran sighed. “Of the sensible ones. They say the wreck should’ve been found a long time ago. They say it’s a bit late to be calling in experts, when the crew’s probably dead and eaten. They say the Widows and Orphans is planning to sue for the heirs, that’s what they say.”
“So there’s no talk that the crew might’ve been in on a hijack,” Heikki said, interested, and Dael shrugged.
“Not in my hearing, anyway. But then, nobody would talk like that, not while I was around, not even if it was true and half FirstTown was snickering up their sleeves at the company. I work for the company now, and they don’t forget it.”
And they don’t let you forget it, either, Heikki thought.
She said aloud, “It’s still interesting to hear. Thanks, Dael.”
The wall of clouds had passed the zenith, and the first layers were already overspreading Iadara’s sun. The light curdled, became sickly, unnatural, tinged with a yellow-green like an old bruise, and then the heavier clouds reached the disk and the sunlight vanished completely, as though a switch had been thrown. Lightning, a distinct and jagged line, forked through the sky above the city’s clustering buildings; the thunder was drowned in the growl of the ho-crawl’s engine. Heikki frowned and leaned sideways a little, looking out the side window so that she could see beyond the skyline. The city buildings dwindled there to nothing, a few low domes mingling with the scrub and grass. On the horizon, a stark line showed between the trailing edge of the storm and the clear sky beyond. Heikki’s frown deepened, and Dael said, a new, worried note in his voice, “Switch on the U-met console, will you?”
Heikki did as she was told, finding the familiar inset screen-and-keyboard without difficulty. Even as she keyed it on, Neilenn’s voice crackled in the intercom speaker.
“Dael? What’s the weather doing?”
“Channel five’s the metro-port now,” Dael said, to Heikki, ignoring the voice from the passenger compartment. Heikki nodded, and touched keys to tune the machine properly. The screen glowed and displayed a rough map of the city and the port and the roads between them; a moment later, a second image, this one the ghostly, multicolored reflection of the clouds overhead, was superimposed on the brighter map. Two sections of the clouds glowed brighter, yellow, and Dael spared them a few seconds study before he answered the intercom.
“Nothing yet, just potential.”
“Good,” Neilenn said. “Keep me informed.”
“Right,” Dael answered, but the intercom was already off. He glanced again at the console display, then forced his attention back to the road.
“I’ll watch,” Heikki said, and the other nodded, not taking his eyes from the road ahead. Heikki fixed her eyes on the shifting display, watching with some alarm as one of the two yellow spots grew brighter. The local weather station was monitoring the winds in the clouds above, highlighting areas that could produce the dangers—tornadoes, wind shear, devastating hail—for which Iadara was infamous. The pattern stayed steady, bright yellow but not yet shading into the red that would mean real danger, and began to drift off to the south, fading a little as it went. Heikki allowed herself a small sigh of relief, a sound that was drowned in a crack of thunder that seemed to come from directly overhead. She blinked, and the rain poured down.
“That’s that, then,” Dael said, raising his voice to be heard over the rush of water.
Heikki nodded—the rains usually signaled the passage of the storm’s most dangerous phase—and leaned back against the cushions. Outside the windscreen, the rain swept in almost solid sheets across the roadway. Dael slowed the ho-crawl, fighting to see between the blasts of wind-driven water. Lights flared on the control panel as the remotes kicked in and faint lines appeared, projected on the windscreen: a directional grid, and then the linear outline of the road ahead. The ho-crawl rocked sideways with the force of the wind, and Dael muttered something profane under his breath.
Then, almost as quickly as it had risen, the storm began to ease. The wind dropped, and the rain began to fall again, rather than being blown horizontally against the ho-crawl’s sides. The lightning faded, and the banks of clouds began to look less solidly threatening. By the time the ho-crawl drew up at the entrance to the corporate hostel, just outside the 5K Road that was the city’s legal limit, the rain had stopped altogether and weak sunshine was beginning to throw beams through the shredding clouds.
“Here we are, then,” Neilenn said, over the intercom, and Dael looked sideways at Heikki.
“I hope I’ll see you again, now that you’re here.”
Despite the polite words, his tone was less than enthusiastic, and Heikki could not hide a crooked, comprehending smile. It had been too long, they had both changed, had nothing really in common any more. Better not to have met, than to have met like this, when the only tie between them was their work for Lo-Moth. She said aloud, “Definitely, if we can find the time,” and was ashamed to see the fleeting relief in the other’s eyes. She looked away, and reached for the interlock, pushing herself up and out of the well in the same smooth movement.
Djuro and Nkosi were already out of the passenger compartment, and Djuro was checking the crates on the tow. He looked up at her approach, and nodded grudgingly. “Everything looks all right. The seals are tight.”
“Good,” Heikki said, though she’d expected no less, and looked at Neilenn.
“Your rooms are already reserved and confirmed as of this morning,” the little man answered. “There will be a corporate systems Accesscard waiting for you at the desk, as well as the information you requested from the central office. I have also been instructed to inform you that a local expense account has been set up for you, with a five thousand poa line of credit. Ser Mikelis asked me to make clear, however, that this was intended for incidental expenses rather than employment or equipment rental or anything of that nature. For the latter, you need only call the Bursar, and she’ll issue the order. Your projected expenses have already been placed in her accounts.”
“Thank you,” Heikki said, and saw Nkosi staring open-mouthed. She frowned at him, and he hurriedly adjusted his expression, but for once she couldn’t blame him. Lo-Moth was being unusually generous…. She put the thought aside, annoyed with herself for borrowing trouble, and turned her attention back to Neilenn.
“There’s just the question of where to store the equipment, then.”
“Kasib will see to that,” Neilenn said.
Heikki turned, to find herself face to face with a tall, unsmiling man in a high-collared, short-sleeved tunic and loosely woven trousers. The collar button was printed with Lo-Moth’s logo. The man touched his forehead politely, still unspeaking, and Neilenn said again, “Kasib will take it.”
Djuro said, “I’ll give you a hand.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” Neil
enn said, and in the same moment, Kasib said, “I can handle it.”
Djuro opened his mouth to protest, and Heikki said quietly, “I think he can manage, Sten.”
Djuro’s mouth closed abruptly. After a moment, he said, “Whatever you say, boss.” He was silent as they made their way into the suddenly cool lobby, and while Heikki collected room keys, information packet, and the promised disks from the desk clerk, who made a production of summoning a scout to lead them to the suite. She glanced warily at Djuro as she turned to the hovering scout, but the little man’s expression was remote to the point of mutiny. She suppressed her own annoyed response, and nodded to the scout.
“You can take us up, please.”
The scout led them through the expensively furnished lobby, and past a first bank of lifts to a second, more secluded row of cars. There was a card sensor in place of the usual panel of buttons, and the scout cleared his throat. “Dam’ Heikki—?”
Heikki handed him one of the cards she had received from the clerk; the scout passed it across the reader face and handed it back to her with a flourish. Heikki said nothing, and the scout looked away.
Lo-Moth had assigned them a comfortable suite of rooms near the top of the building, bedrooms, mini-kitchen, mainroom and workroom. Comfortable, but hardly luxurious, Heikki thought, scanning the working space, and could not help feeling a certain relief. Lo-Moth was finally behaving the way it should. She tipped the scout, and saw the door closed and locked behind him. Djuro still glared at her, but said nothing. Heikki smiled, crookedly, and rummaged in her carryall for the minisec she always carried. She keyed the general search, and then, when that triggered no alarms, tried the more specific common frequency search.
“No bugs,” Nkosi said, and grinned. “Not that I really expected any, in a place this expensive.”
Djuro muttered something inarticulate.
Heikki ignored them both, and readjusted the minisec’s controls so that it shifted from active to passive security, putting out an inaudible field guaranteed to disrupt most of the bugs commonly used in the Loop and Precincts. Only then did she look at Djuro.
“Sten—”
“Why did you let them go off with our equipment?” Djuro demanded. “Damn it, Heikki, they were just looking for a chance to search it.”
“I know.” Heikki shrugged. “At least, I think I know. Maybe we’re misjudging them.” She could hear how doubtful her own voice sounded, and sighed. “And if they do—they’d’ve found a way anyway, Sten. You know that.”
“They might damage something.”
Nkosi made an odd sound that might have been a snort of laughter. Heikki said, “I doubt it. If they do—we call them on it, Sten, get repair plus the nuisance value, and if necessary, we break contract. We’d have a good argument that they violated the contract first, at any rate.” She paused, staring out through the workroom door at the enormous window that dominated the mainroom. The storm had almost vanished over the western horizon, was little more than a distant line of clouds. The sun streamed across a broad swath of perfectly manicured lawn, drew faint curls of vapor from the vanishing puddles at the edge of the metalled access road. “What I’d really like to know,” she said slowly, “is why they want to search the crates.”
“It doesn’t make good sense,” Djuro agreed. His anger had vanished almost as quickly as it had risen.
“Oh, I can think of quite a few reasons that Lo-Moth might want to search us,” Nkosi began, and Heikki smiled sideways at him.
“But do any of them make sense, Jock?”
“That I cannot promise,” Nkosi answered.
“So you’re saying we should ignore it, Heikki?” Djuro asked.
“For now, yes.” Heikki’s smile widened. “Maybe I’m wrong after all, and they’re just being polite.”
“To an independent?” Djuro murmured.
Heikki ignored him. “If not, think of it as giving them the rope to hang themselves.”
CHAPTER 4
Heikki spent the next few hours at the communications console, arranging for the rental of a fastcat, an on-road machine lighter and faster than a ho-crawl, and eminently suited for city travel. After the encounter with Dael, she was reluctant to run into anyone she’d known from the old days, and was glad to rely on the relative anonymity of the communications net. Only contacting the Explorers’ Club’s local representative required a face to face meeting—ostensibly, she wanted to check what her membership could bring in the way of local privilege; actually, of course, she wanted to tie in to whatever local networks the local representative had managed to infiltrate, and that required a personal touch—and at least the name was not one she recognized.
Ionas Ciceron was listed in the city’s business and services index as a private meteorological consultant, with an office in the Portside district. That area was inexpensive but respectable; Djuro lifted an eyebrow at the address.
“Problems?” Heikki asked, and kept her voice calm with an effort.
Djuro shook his head. “Weathermen—especially poor weathermen—don’t usually act as Club Reps, that’s all.”
Or belong to the Club in the first place, Heikki thought. “Yes, but…” she began, and Nkosi grinned.
“Nothing has been normal yet on this planet. Why should the rep be any different?”
“Classist,” Heikki said, to Djuro, and shook herself, hard. “The ‘cat’s waiting. Let’s go.”
She left the two men at the expensive end of the 5K Road, where the equipment rentors generally kept their show lots, and turned the ‘cat back toward town, threading her way through the minimal traffic to the Portside district. This was one of the newer parts of Lowlands, where the low, mostly one-and two-story buildings were finished with dull bronze-colored insulating tiles. The streets were broad, but empty, most workers hiding inside, out of the morning heat. Once she had found the Frozen Pool—it was actually a broad black-metal sculpture of a pond crammed with the local wildlife, birds and various small amphibians, even a fish caught in the act of leaping half out of the mirror-bright “water”—it was easy to find Ciceron’s office. She worked the ‘cat into one of the narrow parking slots, and made her way into the building.
The lobby was cool and quiet and empty, blank-walled except for the dull grill of a mechanical concierge. Heikki crossed to it, and pressed its almost invisible button.
“Gwynne Heikki, for Ionas Ciceron.”
For a long moment, there was no answer, but then at last relays clicked, and she heard the faint indistinct hiss of an open channel.
“Dam’ Heikki,” a voice said, from a speaker set somewhere in the ceiling. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect you so early. Please, do come up.”
“Thank you,” Heikki said, and waited. A minute or so later, servos hummed, and an almost invisible section of wall slid back, revealing a moving stair. A new voice—the building’s computer, Heikki guessed—said,
“Please take the stair. Movement will stop at your floor. Enjoy your visit.”
Heikki bit back her instinctive answer, and stepped onto the stirring stairway. It rose, slowly at first, then faster and more smoothly, curving up and around a massive central pillar. Heikki could see other offices, the ones on the lower, more expensive floors, each with its shaded-glass frontage and a human secretary visible behind it to prove the operation was worthwhile. As the stairway approached the fifth level, it began to slow down, slacking off tread by tread. Heikki clutched at the handrail to steady herself, and was looking down as the machine ground to a stop and she stepped off onto the mirror-floored landing.
“Good morning, Dam’ Heikki.”
She looked up quickly—she hadn’t seen anyone as the stair approached—to see a small man standing in an open doorway at the far side of the stairwell.
“Ser Ciceron?”
The little man bobbed his head in acknowledgement. He was a perfect miniature of a man, Heikki thought, bemused. His head barely reached her shoulder—and she was not excepti
onally tall herself—but he was so strikingly handsome, and carried himself so gracefully, with an assurance long unconscious of his size, that it was she who was outsized, not he who was diminutive.
“Do come in,” Ciceron continued. Heikki smiled, and stepped past him into the office. It was a typical business property, reminding her of the suites she and Santerese had rented for years, but the media wall had been half blocked off by an elaborate cloud chamber, only a third of its surface visible from the working desk. Heikki could not help raising an eyebrow at that, and Ciceron smiled crookedly.
“I do rather more simulations work than anything else, Dam’ Heikki. Despite my other responsibility.”
“I beg your pardon,” Heikki said automatically, and settled herself in the client’s chair. “However, it is as Club representative that I’ve come to see you today.” Deliberately, she left other possibilities dangling, knowing that Ciceron would know what she had been hired for, and saw the little man’s smile broaden briefly.
“Of course, Dam’ Heikki. How can I be of assistance?”
“I need recommendations,” Heikki said bluntly. “I expect you know why I’m on planet.”
She waited then, curious to hear his response. After a moment, Ciceron nodded. “The missing latac. Yes, I heard they were hiring off-world to find it.”
That, Heikki thought, was an odd turn of phrase. “Locals couldn’t handle it?” she asked, and allowed a note of contempt to seep into her voice.
Ciceron frowned. “They didn’t try.”
“The Firster problem?”
“No.”
Ciceron’s voice changed subtly, and Heikki swore to herself. She’d missed it, whatever it was, and he knew she knew less than he did now. She kept her face expressionless, and said, “I need a pilot, one with back-country experience, and a lot of it—someone reliable. And I need a guide, also reliable, preferably someone who knows the massif well.”
“What would you mean by reliable?” Ciceron did not reach for his workboard, but steepled his fingers above the desktop. There was amusement in his voice that did not reach his eyes.
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