Galler’s media suite was a miniature console set into the far wall, its controls and screen usually hidden behind a folding screen that matched the kitchen divider. He glanced back at her approach, but did not lift his hands from the keyboard.
“There’s coffee on the hob, and stuff in the cooler.”
“Thanks,” Heikki said, dryly. She drew herself a mug of coffee, shuddered at the array of sweets on the cold shelves above the microcooker, and came to lean over her brother’s shoulder. “Any luck?”
“Depends on what you mean by luck,” Galler answered. He typed a final command and leaned back, studying the screen. Heikki frowned at the array, but could make no sense of the unfamiliar corporate codes.
“What am I looking at?” she asked.
“I accessed the low-level maintenance programs that security uses to carry out some of its sweep/scans,” Galler answered. “These are the trigger codes, things that will be automatically reported to a human operator, in descending priority.”
“So tell me what it means,” Heikki said, and sipped her coffee.
Galler smiled without humor. “Basically, the system’s set to pass any ticket purchase for EP7 to a human operator, or any of my listed credit numbers, or any of your cards.” He touched a section of the screen, and highlights sprang up beneath his finger. “Unless you’ve got some that aren’t listed?”
Heikki studied the numbers, shook her head regretfully. “They’ve even got the private accounts, not just business, and my Club numbers.”
“I thought it was too much to hope for,” Galler said. He lowered his hand, and the highlighting vanished.
“What about a roundabout route, say EP4 to EP3 or EP1, and buy tickets there for EP7?” Heikki asked.
“Possible, if we used cash,” Galler answered, “and if this program didn’t catch us.” He touched keys again, and a new set of codes appeared on the screen. “They’ve set up a watch at the station axis, tapped into the regular security cameras—with the Authority’s permission,
I might add—with a program that matches photos of us with images from the passenger scan, and rings all kinds of bells if there’s a match.”
“Exactly what happens?” Heikki asked.
Galler made a face. “All right, they don’t send every goon on the Point to the station axis. But the images do go to human operators, and they make a decision.”
“Damn,” Heikki said softly. So much for plan one, she added silently. Security camera images were notoriously fuzzy; it would have been easy enough to find someone, some drunk or druggie down on its luck, willing to go to the station and trigger the alarms for them, letting them slip past in the resulting confusion.
“How much cash do you have, anyway?” Galler asked.
Heikki shrugged. “Not enough for a ticket, but I can sell something, pawn something.”
Galler shook his head. “They’re watching that, too.”
“God damn,” Heikki said again. This was the first time in her adult life that she had been cut off from the financial networks, regular and irregular, that linked the points of the Loop and even the Precinct worlds into a coherent whole. It was a bad feeling, frightened and helpless together, and she summoned anger to block out the rising fear. “Who the hell do they think they are?” she began, and Galler grinned.
“The richest corporation on this Point, Gwynne.”
Heikki glared at him. “So?” She looked back at the screen before he could answer, and mercifully he said nothing, leaving her to her thoughts. They were cut off from the usual means of travel, all right, she thought, which leaves us—what? FTLship, conceivably, though that was even more expensive than the trains, but neither EP4 nor EP7 are regular FTLports. Even if there were a ship or two in, the docking facilities were so limited that it would be easy for the securitrons to monitor all traffic in and out. “There’s one last possibility,” she said aloud, and saw Galler’s eyebrows rise. “We ride free.”
“Absolutely not,” Galler answered flatly.
“Do you have a better idea?”
After a moment, he looked away. “No. But it’s still too dangerous.”
“What do you suggest, then?” Heikki asked, with as much patience as she could muster. “Waiting around until the securitrons relax their guard?” In spite of her best intentions, sarcasm tinged her tone. “Bearing in mind that most of what’s looking for us is computer-based, and doesn’t get tired, need a lunch break, or go off duty at 2100—”
“No.” Galler sighed, and touched keys to begin extricating himself from the system supervisor. “I suppose you’re right, at that. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
So do I, Heikki thought, but knew better than to let her doubts show in her face or voice. “It’s going to take a little time,” she temporized. “And I need some information. Can you get me a detail map of the Axis, especially service corridors?”
“In a minute,” Galler answered absently, most of his attention on the screen.
“Then I’ll want a schedule of freight runs, and the cargo carried, for the next few days—as far in advance as you can get me,” Heikki went on.
“That could be difficult,” Galler said.
“As much of it as you can,” Heikki conceded. “But I need some information.” Her mouth twitched upward into an involuntary smile, and she was glad Galler could not see her. He did not need to know that she would be doing this for the first time, based on Sten Djuro’s two-minute scare story for people new to the Loop. Come to think of it, she added silently, it doesn’t make me feel any too confident, either.
“I suppose you want all this without alerting any of the watchdogs?” Galler said.
“Of course.”
“I’ll do what I can. Go take a shower or something, I’ll let you know when I have it.” He looked over his shoulder then, visibly assessing the crumpled skirt and shift. “There’s clothes in the left-hand wall that might fit you.”
Heikki grinned, and did as she was told. As she had more than half expected, the clothing—presumably belonging to Galler’s most recent lover; on second glance they would suit the secretary Shen quite nicely—was of neither a style nor a shape to compliment her own angular body. It was, however, clean and unwrinkled, and after some searching she found a not-too-fitted shift and a straight-bodied overvest that would not look too much as though she had rifled a younger sister’s wardrobe. The shoes were impossible, and even if they had not been painfully small, would have been hopelessly impractical. Heikki shook her head at the thought of trying to slip unseen into a cargo crate while wearing bright red heels at least eight centimeters tall, and slipped her feet back into her own flat station shoes. The plastic knife in its thigh-sheath presented the greatest problem. The shift’s walking slit was cut too low for easy access, and in any case the overvest prevented a quick draw. In the end, Heikki wedged the knife and sheath into the vest’s front pocket, and hoped she wouldn’t have to use it.
By the time she returned to the main room, the hard printer was chattering to itself in one corner, and Galler was studying yet another screenful of information.
“I wish I knew what you were looking for,” he said without turning, and Heikki hid a grin. So do I, she thought, and then Galler swung around to face her. “Well, at least you look less frumpy.”
“Thank you,” Heikki said, with a sweetness she wished would poison. The printer had stopped, and she crossed the room to pick up the folds of recyclable paper.
“That’s just the first installment,” Galler said, “and the inquiries are scattered. The rest will be coming in over the next few hours.”
Heikki nodded absently, scanning the closely printed listings. It was more secure to do things that way, even if it did make her job more tedious. Still reading, she felt her way to the couch and settled herself there, reaching into her belt for a marker.
“You’re welcome,” Galler said, with a sweetness that matched her own. Heikki glanced up, momentarily abashed, but managed a
shrug.
It took her most of the day to work her way through page after page of freight listings. Most were obviously unsuitable—the cargo was either too valuable not to be carrying the most advanced electronic seals as well as the standard railroad locks, or carried loose, like grain or seed crystal, or toxic enough to make riding with it impossible. By the end of the day, however, she had marked a dozen or so cargos that might be suitable, and flipped back through the pages to study them more closely. Two she eliminated at once: both left the station just after a shift change point, when the loaders would be entirely too alert. Three more were crossed off when she noticed that the shipper was either Tremoth itself or one of its subsidiaries. Another five were hard-pack cargo, each item packed in its own individual inner crate. Possible, she thought, but hardly comfortable. Still, with any luck that sort of sacrifice won’t be necessary.
She sighed, scanning the remaining listings. All were acceptable, and she lacked the experience that would help her pick out the most likely. Two left at mid-shift, the other three closer to the end of the time: that’s as good a way as any to decide, she thought, and flipped through the pages again. One, bolt fabric on the last leg of its journey from the mills on Jericho to manufacturers on the Loop, was scheduled to load and leave at about the time the loaders should be taking their mandated break. If I know dockers, Heikki thought, they’ll see the point in hell before they’ll give up one nanosecond of their personal time. That’s the run we want.
“Galler?”
“Yes?” Her brother appeared with an alacrity that belied his bored tone of voice.
“I think I’ve got one.” Heikki held out the sheaf of papers, folded now so that the freight run she had chosen lay at the top. “This is what we want.”
Galler took the pages from her, studied it dubiously. “If you say so.”
I do say so, Heikki thought. She said, “It leaves tonight, too, late but not so late we won’t have a crowd to cover us going into the Station Axis.”
“Well and good,” Galler said, “but what do we do once we get there?”
Heikki grinned, enjoying her brother’s uneasiness. “Leave that to me.”
They left for the Station Axis toward the end of the third shift, when the mid-class shopkeepers were closing down their operations and the mainline data clerks were ending their eight-hour day. They fit in well with the slow-moving crowds, Heikki thought, boarding the omnitram, last of three, that would take them into the lower levels of the Axis. Her pale overvest and shift matched the clothes worn by a dozen other women sitting on the tram’s lower deck, and Galler’s moderately tailored suit did nothing to call attention to them. Even so, it took all of Heikki’s concentration not to glance around at every stop, scanning for securitrons. She fingered the toolkit Galler had tucked into her pocket, and hoped it would be more use than her knife. At her side, Galler bent over a lapscreen, data lens to his eye as though busy with last minute work. At the second stop, Heikki frowned, and then leaned over to murmur in his ear, “It would be more convincing if you turned it on.”
Galler looked up, startled, then blushed deeply. He flicked a switch, and the status light came on in the machine’s side panel; he adjusted the screen image with a sweep of his hand, and returned to his apparent industry. Heikki controlled the desire to giggle, and stared instead out the tram’s nearest window.
The crowd changed as the tram drew closer to the Station Axis, partygoers, amateur and professional alike, mingling with higher-status businessmen on their way to the trains. There were still enough midrange workers to hide them, Heikki thought, and saw Galler frown.
She glanced over her shoulder involuntarily, and saw nothing, but her brother was still frowning. She jostled him deliberately then, and leaned forward as if to apologize.
“What’s wrong?”
Galler made a face. “Nothing. I thought I saw someone I knew, that’s all.”
I hope you’re wrong, Heikki thought, and leaned back in her seat. In spite of her best intentions, she could not keep her eyes from roaming around the car, scanning each unfamiliar face for some sign of recognition. She saw none, and relaxed against the hard plastic just as Galler said softly, “No.”
Heikki looked at him, and he shrugged slightly, head down as though he were concentrating on his lapscreen.
“It is him.”
“Has he seen you—recognized you?”
“I don’t know.” The frustration in Galler’s voice was barely under control. “I don’t—I can’t tell.”
“So pretend you don’t see him,” Heikki said, and wished with all her heart that she had more effectual advice to give.
Then, at the next-to-last stop, Galler gave a sigh of relief, and Heikki looked sideways past him to see a tall man with thinning hair making his way down the tram’s narrow steps. “Is that him?” she asked, and Galler nodded.
“So he didn’t see you,” Heikki said, and in that moment the stranger glanced back toward them, his eyes fixing briefly on Galler before he turned away and lost himself in the crowd. Or did he? she wondered, and said aloud, “Who was he?”
“Another liaison for Tremoth,” Galler answered, and Heikki made a face.
“So we have to assume he did see you. What then?”
Galler shrugged, annoyed, and Heikki waved the question away. Of course he couldn’t answer, not in this crowd, she thought, and anyway I don’t really need him to tell me. There’s not a lot of places we could be going on this tram except the Station Axis, so we have to assume the securitrons will be alerted when we get there. And that means following plan two. Wonderful. I just hope half of what Sten said—was it only three days ago?— was true.
The tram slowed, grinding to a halt against the worn bumpers of the lower Axis platform. This was the lower-class section of the Station, the transit platforms that served the employees of the railroad and of the companies that served it. Most of the people filing off the tram would be night clerks, Heikki thought, handling freight. The others would be heading for the cheap but trendy—and often dangerous—clubs that lay below the main Axis, or simply going on a walk through the entrance plaza, dreaming of wealth they would almost certainly never achieve. She let herself be carried along with the crowd toward the wall of transluscent mosaic that formed the exit, as always a little surprised by the sameness of the people here and on all the other Exchange Points. She was aware that Galler was close behind her, his lapscreen closed and slung now over one shoulder, but she did not look back until they had passed through the automatic doors into the Rotunda.
Overhead, an immense lens of pressure-tested triglass admitted light from the artificial strip-suns of the entrance plaza, its color transmuted by the lens to an oddly amber shade. It was a stormy color, vaguely unnerving, and people did not linger in its circle, pausing only long enough to find their direction on any one of the dozen display kiosks before setting off decisively. Heikki stopped just outside the ring of strongest light, pretending to study a kiosk displaying a gaudy series of nightclub advertisements, and waited for Galler to join her.
“Such taste and discernment,” her brother’s voice said at her shoulder, and Heikki did not bother to hide her grin.
“I thought one of them might be to your taste.”
“No, thank you,” Galler answered, with austerity. “Now what?”
Heikki glanced up toward the triglass lens, feeling the familiar vertigo as its shape distorted distance as well as light, giving the illusion of far more height than could possibly be there, then looked away. “Follow me.” Without waiting for an answer, she turned toward a cluster of unnumbered corridors that led off to the right.
“Those are employee access corridors,” Galler said uneasily, and held his lapscreen more tightly.
“I know,” Heikki answered, with what she thought was commendable nonchalance. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her vest, however, loosening the plastic knife in its sheath. The back corridors of any train station were always dangero
us, filled as they were with any station’s least skilled, and most exploited, workers; anyone who wasn’t part of one of the rail unions was considered fair game. “If your friend saw you,” she said aloud, “he’ll have alerted the security upstairs, right?”
“He may not have recognized me,” Galler said, halfheartedly.
“Do you want to take the chance?” There was no answer, and Heikki nodded. “Right, then. Come on.”
The access corridor was filled with the hard blue light that dominated any ‘pointer working space. Heikki blinked in its brilliance, and slipped her data lens from her belt left-handed, her right hand still on the hilt of her knife. She held the lens to her eye, fingers awkward on the bezel, but at last triggered the map she wanted. Access to the loading areas was further on, through a series of feeder tunnels that sloped up from the warehouses five levels below their feet. This particular corridor joined a secondary feeder a hundred meters on, and that secondary tube would take them into the main feeds. The only trouble, she thought, trying to walk, to move as though she had business in this part of the point every day, is that those areas are bound to be busy now. Djuro’s advice had been to enter the loading platform itself, going directly to it from the passenger platform. Unfortunately, Heikki thought, that was no longer possible.
“Hey, you.”
The voice came from a side passage. Heikki turned to face it, lifting an eyebrow in her best ‘pointer manner. “Are you talking to me?” she demanded, and heard Galler’s sharp intake of breath behind her. Don’t screw this up, Galler, she prayed silently, just play the flunky and everything will be fine—
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