The Ship Avenged

Chapter Twelve

"Sal?"

"Yeah?" he looked up from The Anvil's accounts at his secretary.

"That fine that Mr. va Riguez wanted paid?"

"Yeah?" he said again, with exaggerated patience. This particular employee seemed incapable of just saying what was on his mind.

"Can't do it. Mr. va Riguez's account says insufficient funds."

Sal grunted and reached for the note-screen in his secretary's hand. He skimmed through the bankers' jargon until he reached the amount of the fine.

"Oi vey!" he exclaimed. "That can't be right."

"I double checked it, Sal. That's the right amount."

"A hundred and twenty thousand credits! You gotta be kiddin' me. What the hell did Simeon-Hap do for a fine that size?"

"I couldn't find out." The secretary shrugged. "It's confidential." Sal just looked at him from under lowered brows.

"Get me Dyson," he said at last. "Now."

Graf Dyson shrugged. "She had to be fined, Sal. She entered the station illegally."

Sal gave him a look. "A hundred and twenty thousand?" he said.

Dyson threw up his hands and leaned forward. "Look," he said, "Clal va Riguez says to me, make it a big fine. Use your discretion. And she ticked me off." He leaned back and shrugged. "So I did what he said."

Sal rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, he told me to pay it. But his account says insufficient funds. I don't think he expected it to be this much." He gave Dyson a hard look. "He didn't set a ceiling?"

Graf didn't like Sal's attitude. This wasn't even his affair and he was getting really pushy. Besides, Graf's dealings were supposed to be confidential. And this conversation was lasting way too long.

"Look, maybe you're right, maybe there's been a misunderstanding. Have va Riguez call me. We'll straighten it out."

"He's not here," Sal grumbled, still looking like he was waiting for a concession.

"What is this?" Dyson snapped, suddenly angry. People were supposed to come to him hat in hand and to say thanks when they left. He'd had dealings with Sal before and hadn't gotten the respect he thought he deserved. "I don't discuss your business with other people. I won't discuss va Riguez's business with you. He has a problem, have him get back to me. I don't hear from him, I figure he wants this fine to stick. You," he snapped a finger towards Sal, "I don't wanta hear from." And he disconnected.

He leaned back thoughtfully. Maybe I should reduce it, he thought. Mr. va Riguez had told him no more than twenty thousand. Yeah, but if I lower it now, Sal will think he's scored one off me. Dyson grimaced.

Then again, if va Riguez has gone missing then maybe he never intended to take care of this. And Dyson was experienced enough to know that to an operation like Joat's twenty thousand might as well be a hundred and twenty thousand. So. I'll leave it. If he contacts me, I'll say I misunderstood. If he doesn't, New Destinies gets a little richer. He grinned. And Sal gets a message. Don't mess with Graf Dyson.

Sal leaned back in his chair. He wasn't happy about not being able to follow va Riguez's orders. The man was a good customer, and he represented another, more shadowy, good customer that Sal had been doing business with for years.

Besides, he'd learned early in life who was safe to cross and who wasn't. Dyson, it depended on the circumstances, but basically he was a lightweight. But Clal va Riguez… that was a dangerous man.

I better put a message in the pipe, he thought unhappily. That way I'm covered. If it was important, Clal, or one of his associates would get back to him. If he heard nothing, Then I'll assume no action is called for.

The Chadragupta Rao's hull gave a shudder as the dockside connectors went home and Rohan's gravity took over. Metal and composites crackled and sighed in reaction as weight and pressure altered. Fresher air poured in; the Rao had problems with life-support, redline maintenance no Company ship or chartered freelancer would tolerate.

Bros Sperin stood easily on her command deck, adjusting to the lighter gravity with automatic ease, equally easy with the hostile glare of the Rao's Captain. For that matter, the only eyes on the wedge-shaped deck that weren't hostile were the four Sondee orbs right behind him. They were probably bright and shiny…

"Far as I'm concerned, Sperin, you cease to exist when you walk off my deck. You got that?"

The spacer was a pale, flaccid little man. He smelled like a locker full of sweaty clothes. But then, so did his whole ship. The bridge went darker as screens powered-down, only the monitors and standby readouts still active.

Bros nodded, his eyes cool. The little needler in his cuff was ready, but he didn't think he'd need it.

"All debts are paid," he said evenly. "And in the event that you find it necessary to alert the Family to my presence…"

The little man stiffened.

"You can tell them I'm here to find a friend in trouble. It's a personal thing."

The spacer's pale brow furrowed in confusion.

"But of course," Bros said gently, "I'd be very disappointed if you did tell them I'm here."

The spacer jerked his head in a negative. "All debts are paid," he said sourly.

They were in the shadowy reaches where organized crime brushed and merged with the fringes of Intelligence work. It was the only way to keep things functioning at all-the old lex talonis, eye for an eye.

"Thanks," Bros said with a smile and a slap on the back that staggered the little spacer. "I knew I could count on you."

He hefted his duffel to his shoulder and walked out, deck gratings ringing under his magnetic boots, each stride a little sticky. Seg!T'sel trotted after him.

"I still say we should be disguised," he whispered.

Bros smiled for the monitors and put an arm around the alien's bony shoulders; they felt warm under his hand, hotter than a human metabolism, and the pattern of bones was more like a lattice than a framework.

"Think of it this way, Seg," he said, between clenched teeth-natural, and it also activated his scrambler. That was a system sophisticated enough to feed a false conversation to the audio pickups. "How many Sondee do you see around here?"

They were out of the docking bay and into a concourse, full of crowds skipping on and off slideways or calling for little robotic shuttlecars, heavy with the scent of ozone. Most of the crowd were humans of various types, the odd Ursinoid, a scattering of other species…

"One or two," Seg said.

"And how many of them are wearing eyepatches, or wigs, or walking with canes?"

Seg opened his mouth, then shut it with a snap. The bony plates within went tok.

"Nine humans out of ten can't tell one Sondee from another, unless there's something unusual about the Sondee. On your homeworld, you get seen as you. Here you get seen as a Sondee. Grasp the principle?"

A wordless grunt. "But you should be wearing a disguise."

Damned if I'm going to wear a rubber nose, either, Bros thought. He shrugged. "Disguises are more trouble than they're worth unless you absolutely need one."

"But they'll recognize you."

"Who is they?" Bros asked.

"Well," Seg temporized, "who are we looking for?"

"At the moment, Joat Simeon-Hap. Ultimately, the Kolnari. Joat's on our side… mostly, so we want her to recognize me. The Kolnari will kill you whoever you look like. But the Family will want to know what you're trying to hide. So they'll take you aside and ask you questions until they're satisfied. And Seg… they're very hard to satisfy. So our best disguise is to look like ordinary spacers."

Seg nodded solemnly, and then nearly fell flat as they stepped onto a slideway. Bros clenched his teeth again and put a hand under the Sondee's not-quite-an-elbow.

They'd left the docking area behind. The tunnels and arcades beneath the crater floor engulfed them, two more anonymous spacers in worn coveralls, carrying the record of their lives in their duffels through the jostling crowds. They passed innumerable cheap hostels burrowed back into the rock, CHEAP ROOMS and CLEAN BEDS blinking in holographic colors outside their barred doors. The drab hostels gave way to chandlers' offices, advertising electronics, software, graving docks, power systems.

"It's not quite what I imagined a pirate haven would be like," Seg whispered.

"Piracy's a business," Bros said. "Ships are ships. They need fuel and parts and maintenance. A lot of other business goes through here, too-some of it even legitimate."

"But I thought it would be something more like-"

The slideway divided around a dropshaft. Bros took them off and into the open darkness. They drifted downward, and images played before their eyes.

"-any species, any combination for-"

It was hard for a member of another species to be shocked by human tastes in erotic entertainment, but Seg managed it. All four eyes bulged slightly, then blinked in unison, a disconcerting sight.

"-come one, come all, contestants welcome-"

This time the naked shapes were muscular and lithe, sheened with sweat and blood, long curved knives in their hands.

"-nothing too exotic at the Torture Pit-"

Bros closed his own eyes, wincing slightly. "This is the entertainment level," he said. "Want to stop and see the sights?"

"Ah… no."

"Good. Let's get some business done, then."

Seg cocked his ears at a cacophony of voices, human and alien, clashing music from various bars and an assortment of street sounds from air-scrubbers to ground cars.

"Still, what energy there is in that sound!" Seg exclaimed as they stepped out of the shaft into a more placid level. He turned to Bros his eyes shining. "I'm working on an opera in my spare time," he confessed.

What Sondee isn't? Sperin wondered.

"One day I will work this-" he gestured with both hands towards the street before them "-into my overture."

Sperin smiled and nodded. Not bad kid, Seg. And how I wish he wasn't here.

"We better get moving," he murmured in Seg's ear whorl. "We look like a couple of rubes standing here."

"I thought you said Rohan was fairly safe?" Seg protested.

"Safe is a relative term," Bros said. "If we were in a Sondee swamp, for example, we'd probably be safe from wild animals, since they're generally shy around people. But even there, smearing yourself all over with beef gravy might be considered putting too much temptation in their way. If you get my drift?"

Seg's ear whorls colored slightly and he nodded.

"Which way?" he asked.

"We'll check the bars along here," Bros said. "I've no idea where Joat might be, but my information is that her crew has a fondness for dockside bars."

"These entertainments do not seem too raucous," Seg said.

Well, the one with the two girls and the Nuruzian lizard was a little much, Bros thought, scanning the crowd. On the other hand, the really unpleasant places were unlikely to attract Joat's crewfolk, which was a relief. You had to wade through sewage often enough in this business…

Seg made a grand gesture. "Garзon!" he called. "Madder music and stronger wine!" He blinked diagonally when Bros looked sharply at him. "Classical reference," the Sondee said.

"I read Dobson too," Sperin said dryly, and Seg's ear whorls flushed a deeper blue.

The waiter brought a bottle of surprisingly good port from Ceres-the planet, not the asteroid-and Bros gave a realistic wince as the display on the tray showed the deduction from his account. In actuality, the expense account was one of the few real perks of the trade; he sipped at the smooth nutty flavor. The best of everything ended up in Rohan-at a price. A bowl of raisins, pecans, and dried gunung went down beside it.

"This tastes much better. Sweeter." Seg threw back his glass and poured another.

Great fardling voids, as Joat is wont to say, Bros thought; this time his wince was genuine. For one thing, that was a lousy way to treat a fine wine; for another… Sondee metabolized alcohol faster than humans, but not that fast.

For a moment he thought that Seg had burst into song, but the voice was deeper and more gravelly. A human voice, one he recognized, singing La vie en Rose…

Alvec had his head together with a brawny blond wearing a shy, enraptured smile as he crooned.

Things can't be too bad if Alvec's out picking roses, Bros thought. He motioned Seg to remain seated and moved up behind Joat's crew.

"Al!" he said and slapped the man on the shoulder.

Al looked up questioningly, his eyes blank.

"Alvec Dia," Bros insisted.

"Yeah," Alvec agreed slowly. "Who're you?"

"I'm Joat's friend from New Destinies. I'm the guy who told her to check this place out. Hey, listen buddy," Bros pulled out a chair and sat down, leaning towards Alvec confidentially, "I'm looking for a berth. You think maybe Joat can help me out?"

The woman was looking at him and scowling. Bros saw recognition flicker in the other man's eyes, but the face remained mildly friendly, if you could say that about something that looked like it had been pounded out of rough wrought iron.

"I dunno," Alvec said. "We're kinda full up right now."

Bros kept smiling, and ground his foot into the reinforced toe of one of Alvec's boots under the table. Come on, you imbecile, there's no time for let-the-spook-twist-in-the-wind games here!

"Well, why don't we let the Captain decide?" Bros asked reasonably. "I'm good at what I do. You can always use a good hand, right? What's the Wyal's berth number? I'll go ask her."

Alvec's smile grew wider, and he let his hand drop to the blond woman's.

"Why doncha tell me where you're stayin'?" he asked. "I'll have her get in touch… later. I'm sort of busy. Not that you're not welcome or anything, old pal, but…"

"Aw, c'mon, buddy. I can get the number from central registry. I just wanted to save the credits." And keep the Family watchprograms from getting tripped.

The blond shifted nervously, aware of the undercurrents and not sure she wanted to be around them. Bros thought that decided Alvec.

"SJ 467-Y," he said. "But the Captain isn't there right now."

Bros grinned.

"I'll take my chances. Maybe she'll be back by the time I get there. Thanks buddy." And he slapped Alvec's shoulder one more time.

Alvec watched him leave, his eyes speculative.

"Who's that?" Rose asked.

"Oh, friend of the Captain's," Alvec said and gently took her hand. "You were telling me something about yourself," he said and kissed her fingertips. "I think that's much more interesting."

Bros withdrew his credit chip from the meter and dragged Seg out of the ground-car by his sleeve. Then he leaned the young Sondee up against the docking mechanism while he activated the Wyal's com to announce their presence.

Seg began to sing snatches of his opera-in-progress in a light and very pleasant baritone; much to the amusement of passing spacers.

Wonderful, Bros thought in exasperation. Nothing obvious about you is there, Mr. Wannabe? On the other had, it could be worse-he could be in disguise. Nobody was really surprised when a drunk started singing, and a Sondee just couldn't sing badly.

There'd been no answer to their hail. Not even from Joat's elaborate AI. That had to mean something was wrong. After all, it wasn't as if the thing could go on shore leave.

He moved to the lock, and shielding his movements as best he could with his body, placed a small and very illegal device above the lock mechanism. In seconds he was able to enter the Wyal, drawing Seg in after him.

Joat cut off the connection with Nomik Ciety's data link and turned to Rand.

"Did that…?" Before she could finish asking if the cutoff had helped, they were reconnected with a sharp plink. She turned and cut the link again, again it reinstated itself.

As far as she could tell something was flooding rapidly into her comp, but nothing was going out. At least not yet.

And there was only one way to do anything at all. No human brain reading code could deal with this in the sort of time-frame necessary. But the alternative was hideously dangerous; if you linked yourself directly, your software was vulnerable.

Her hands danced across the console.

Cutting the link only delayed the worm program's progress for seconds at a time, but she continued to do it. Yet it continuously broke through everything she could throw at it. Subtle stuff. Whoever thought this up knew their hand from a hacksaw.

Cold sweat flowed down her forehead into her eyes and beaded her upper lip, tasting of salt and despair. Her hands grew tired and clumsy at the controls, and her fear for Rand distracted her. More than once she'd regretted being human, never more so than now. She wasn't fast enough, she wasn't calm enough, she was losing Rand! Here I had to go and design an AI that was my friend. It wasn't even a real person, just a very good imitation…

"Fardle." Her hands picked up the interfacer unit and snapped home the connector. It settled over her head, blocking vision and hearing. She was alone in a world of darkness.

"Execute."

… standing on a featureless plain that stretched to infinity in every direction.

The air smelled dead, with a sterile metallic tinge. The ground underfoot was some gray metal, grooved in endless parallel lines. Scattered about were boulders, each a geometric shape, squares, polyhedrons, eye-hurting things like angular Mцbius strips.

Overhead the sky opened its eye. Threads dropped from it towards her, writhing, sentient eyelashes like velvet serpents. They wound around her wrists and pulled her upward. Behind her the metal plain suddenly collapsed, turning sandy and friable, then melting into a smooth bath of liquid that smelled sickly-sweet beneath her. The thick sugary surface moved, sluggish and smooth, as things squirmed beneath it.

exterior interface compromised, off/on circuitry compromised.

The eye blinked closed around her. Within was a garden, green and yellow and purple, in bright primary colors that looked too artificial to be tangible; yet she could feel the grass beneath her bare feet, smell the cinnamon scent of the flowers. A figure walked towards her with jerky quickness, a figure shaped like a man sculpted out of living water.

help… meeee… it said, in a breathy whisper. Something stirred in the middle of its forehead, between blank silver eyes.

Joat reached in and grasped the tendril, pulling it out into the light. It came easily, and then slid through her fingers. The end of it split and split and split again, into hair-thin threads that reached for her eyes and ears and mouth.

A knife appeared in her hand; where the edge moved, the stuff of space split and bled chaotic patterns of moving light. She used the knife to section the onrushing tentacle, then again, so that there were four ends. Those she wrapped around her wrists, moving hands and arms in an intricate pattern that tied the tentacle into a huge knot whose convolutions led the eye down and away along a path with no ending. More and more of it flowed out of the water-sculpture figure, turning it clear and transparent. The silvery fingers came up and began to knot and twist at the body of the tentacle themselves, and…

… she fell forward into the figure's open mouth.

Stone jarred beneath her feet. She was in a library, an ancient library of leather-bound books in shelves that reached towards the dark coffered wood of the ceiling. Gilt flaked from their spines, shining in the light of the burning logs in the big stone fireplace that occupied one wall. A stranger in a plush smoking robe was sitting in an overstuffed leather armchair beside the fire, eating books. His mouth stretched as each folio-sized volume was pushed home; then he belched slightly and took a sip from the snifter of brandy in his other hand, before reaching for a new volume. Gaps stood on the shelves, like raw wounds, bleeding sorrow.

There was another chair and table on the other side of the fire. Joat sat in it, and opened the book lying closed. The page was blank, but columns of figures and letters appeared as she ran her finger across it. Pages flipped forward, and then she was standing with the book held open before her.

"Perhaps you'd like to eat this?" she said.

There was no mind behind the eyes that looked up a her, only hunger. The figure's hands snapped out and dragged the book near; she braced her feet and hauled backwards, but the strength in the fetch's arms was beyond her. The book plastered itself across the avid face of the eater.

His lips parted in a vast dolorous gape to take it in, but the book grew faster. Joat could feel it sucking at the skin of her fingertips as she released it; the leaves closed around the eater's face, and now his hands were scrambling to pull it free, but the book wriggled forward, growing, licking hungrily at his skin. The head began to squeeze forward into the jaws of the book, and the figure rose and staggered off across the library. As its substance flowed forward into the pages it dissolved, matter breaking up into a whirlpool of off/on/off/on/off, databits streaming into their new matrix.

The walls of the building shook as the book finished its task and fell to the floor.

Joat stooped to pick it up, and-

Bros stood, watching the figure slumped in the chair. He could see the sweat running down from below the padded rim of the interfacer unit; figures scrolled by on the screen before her, blurring in their speed.

His teeth clicked together in shock. Direct interfacing like that was illegal, outside carefully-supervised research settings. There was no telling what could happen when you linked your brain's own operating code with a comp system like that!

And there was nothing he could do; interrupting would be more dangerous than leaving her be. He felt an enormous upwelling anger, and wondered at it even as the muscles of his neck and shoulders tensed in rage.

What's it to me if the idiot kills herself? A waste of potential, yes, but-

Joat started convulsively and threw the interfacer helmet aside. Sweat darkened her flax-colored hair and plastered it to her skull; dark circles stood out like bruises beneath her eyes. Bros opened his mouth to speak, or bellow.

"Get out of here," she growled, turning back to her work with obsessive intensity. Her fingers blurred across the keyboard.

"Gotta be sure, gotta be sure," she muttered to herself. "Got it."

Bros craned his neck, trying to make out the flying stream of data. Joat did something and its progress slowed enough that the individual characters could be made out. They were some sort of encryption, vaguely familiar. He leaned forward for a better look and thoughtlessly placed his hand on her shoulder.

The punch was so unexpected that it almost connected. His hand snapped up to catch her fist, moving automatically to clench and stab at a nerve junction. Joat sprang to her feet then, putting the coiled strength of her body behind a head-butt aimed at his jaw and strong enough to shatter bone. Bros yanked her off balance and spun her around, twisting her captured hand up behind her back.

But gently, he didn't want to hurt her and he sure didn't need to add to her hostility. That nearly cost him a broken pubic bone as her heel drove backward. He staggered away, curling around the pain in his lower gut, and Joat writhed free like an eel.

Is she on drugs? he thought, breath wheezing out behind clenched teeth. Blank ferocity met his eyes, and he forced himself into the ready position.

Seg watched in astonishment as the two Terrans wrestled. Why are they fighting?

Bros had assured him that Joat was on their side: He glanced at the screen where she'd been sitting and his attention was caught by a familiar symbol. Ah, yes, he knew this one.

Flexing his fingers to loosen them up, Seg took Joat's seat and began to work.

query; identity.

He entered it and continued, all twelve fingertips hitting the board microseconds apart. Yes, it was the program-and very neatly tied up in mid-operation, if in an unorthodox way. But it was all there, ready to come out the minute the AI's own defense program relaxed. Better to deactivate it completely…

"Thank you."

Seg looked up, blinking each pair of eyes in sequence. A voice-program too; very good, perhaps a little flat on the intonations.

"You're welcome," he said. "That ought to do it. And this will set it to eating itself. You can let it go, now."

Joat froze. The cable-strong arms that pinioned her relaxed.

"Will you stop trying to kill me, please?" Bros said in her ear.

"When you stop trying to break my arm."

They rolled free and stared at each other warily. "Spook," Joat muttered, disgust in her tone.

"Maniac," Bros Sperin replied, then smiled at her. The grin caught her unawares, and she found herself smiling back. It was crooked, but genuine.

"Is that another spook?" she said, moving towards her control couch. "And what the fardling void is et doing with my AI?"

"Yes, I am a spook," the Sondee said. "Seg!T'sel, male, weapons development specialist. I'm clearing up this infiltration program. I helped design it, it was stolen-it's all on a need to know basis."

Bros smothered a snort at the sound of the phrase.

"I do, really, really, need to know," Joat began dangerously.

"Yes, I think we do," another voice said from the entranceway.

Joat and Bros turned. Joseph stood there, arms crossed; in his right hand was a compact, chunky-looking weapon. Bros recognized it; chemical-energy sliver gun. Messy, but very effective; the length of duramet tubing Alvec was holding in one hand and tapping into the palm of the other probably would be, too.

"How long have you been there?" Joat asked.

"A few minutes."

"And you just stood there?" she demanded in disbelief.

"Watching you, as long as you were winning," Joseph said. "Mr. Sperin is, in a sense, our employer… and has valuable information. About a man who may well have dealings with the Kolnari."

"Right," Joat said. "You can tell-"

The com chimed and the three of them looked up in quick surprise at the forward screen. The respond yes/no blinked on for a second, then the screen went to two-way in a manner supposedly impossible.

A thickset man in late middle age was staring back at them. I've seen corpses with more expression, she thought.

"Good evening Mr. Sperin," the stranger said in a mellow, cultured tone. The small hairs bristled on the back of her neck.

"Good evening," Bros said pleasantly. "Joat, this is Chief Family Enforcer Vand Yoered."

Vand nodded, his heavy face wearing a neutral expression.

"Captain," he said quietly. "And Mr.!T'sel. I'm a great admirer of your work, sir," he told the young Sondee. "It's a pleasure to have you as our guest."

Seg turned to Bros and whispered, "See! I told you I'd be recognized."

Vand stared at him for just a moment, as though put off his stride by that simple statement, then he turned to Bros and Joat.

"You're all friends, I take it?" he asked with a raised eyebrow and a sardonic glance at Alvec's club and Joseph's sliver gun.

Joat blushed and shrugged, moving herself out of Bros's vicinity.

"I've never met Mr.!T'sel before," she said, "but Bros and I are well acquainted and any friend of his, as they say."

"Mr. Sperin broke into your ship, Captain. With a device so illegal that I believe CenSec is the sole owner of the remaining few. We don't allow that on Rohan."

"That's a sort of challenge we've made to each other," Joat said, laughing nervously. "He, uh, breaks into my place, I break into his and we try to keep our security arrangements ahead of our creativity."

She couldn't seem to figure out what to do with her hands when she was through speaking. She wanted to cross her arms, but was afraid that would look too defensive. She dropped them to her hips, then settled for clasping them behind her back.

Oh, Ghu, a Family Enforcer. No, make that the Chief Family Enforcer. Sperin had been back in her life under ten minutes and already she was looking death in the face and lying like a trooper on his behalf.

CenSec Intelligence was building up a heavy account of favors owing.

"That's fascinating," Vand said slowly. "My information reports that you two had no contact prior to a meeting on New Destinies."

"Actually," Bros said, "we've known each other for some time. I first met Joat on SSS-900-C, just after we drove off the Kolnari."

The Enforcer's eyes lit. "Ah!" he said, "how very interesting. The Kolnari."

That was a clear request for information, one to be denied at Bros's peril. He decided to take a chance and ignore it, offering only part of the truth.

"I'm here on a personal mission," he said. "I heard about Joat's trouble on New Destinies and came to offer her my assistance. I'm hoping she'll go back there with me so that we can get this thing straightened out."

"And… the presence of Joseph ben Said on her ship…? This is an accident? The Bethelite head of security comes to Rohan, visits Nomik Ciety, this is unrelated to you in any way."

"That is between Joat and Mr. ben Said," Bros said grimly. "I assumed he'd returned to Bethel as I had strongly urged him to do."

"What about this evening's attempt to break into Nomik Ciety's comp?" Vand asked, his face closed now.

"That is personal," Joat declared vehemently. "Very. A family matter." She stressed the word "family," and the Enforcer raised a brow.

"I'm inclined to believe that at least," he said smoothly. "Only family can provoke that degree of bitterness." He paused and sat considering them for a time. "All right," he said at last. "I'll let the matter drop. For now. But I warn you, do not interfere with our respected citizens."

Only a slight pause drew a line of irony under the phrase. "Nomik Ciety enjoys the Family's protection while he is our guest on Rohan. None of you will in any way interfere with his business here."

He looked directly at Joat. "There will be no further attempts to break into his comp. Is that understood?"

The three of them nodded. And be good children, Joat thought to herself sarcastically. It was a while since she'd been scolded; she'd forgotten how unpleasant the sensation could be.

"Excellent, then this interview is at an end. Don't stay on Rohan too long, Mr. Sperin. You're liable to prove too great a temptation to some of our more impulsive guests. And frankly, as my staff is somewhat overextended at the moment, we might not be able to adequately protect you." He reached out and cut the contact.

The three of them drooped as though someone had cut their strings. Breath went out in a communal sigh.

"Rand!" Joat called.

"Sssshhhhh!" Seg whispered, waving his hands, palms out, at her and Bros. "Ssshh, ssshhh, ssshh!" Then for good measure he placed one upraised finger against his suckerlike mouth and turned to the com. His fingers flew over the controls and then, following a graceful whirl of his wrist, he pressed his forefinger with dramatic finality on the cutoff switch.

"Now," he said, "we may talk."

Joat stared at him for a moment, then turned to Bros.

Bros was staring at Seg with a speculative glint in his eye. "You're sure he's gone?" he asked.

"Oh, absolutely," Seg said comfortably. "And locked out too. That is until the next time we access the com… or someone calls in. But then, we can just lock 'em out again." He folded his arms across his chest and looked smug. "Can't we?"

"Rand?" Joat called, her voice tight with anxiety.

"Present." Its voice was flat and abstracted.

Joat frowned. "Are you all right? You sound different."

"Regrettably, I am different. Several sections of my memory were infected by the worm program and partially destroyed. I decided to simply erase those sections and reboot them from storage. I've lost a great deal of my personality and a small amount of vocal inflection. On the plus side, I was able to erase the infected sections without tripping any eggs. A worm program this aggressively vicious often leaves a small bundle of encryption that can start the whole business over again."

"I took care of that," Seg volunteered, raising his hand.

"Thank you," Rand said. "Joat, I was able to find and hold onto a transmission from Ciety's files before the worm's attack became too overwhelming. If you like, I can concentrate on decoding it before repairing my other programs."

"Yes," she said fervently, "please." Then Joat turned to Seg, where he still sat at the com. She took his hand in both of hers and looked him in the eyes, two of them anyway. "I'm in your debt," she said softly. "If there is ever any way that I can be of service to you, you have only to ask."

Seg's face and ear whorls suffused with color and he began to stammer in embarrassment.

"You-yer-you're p-perfectly welcome, Captain. I'm a uh, a weapons specialist and as an adjunct to m-my usual interests, I-I-I sometimes develop worm programs like this one. That one rather, since it's gone." He laughed inanely and hurried on. "I helped to develop it, in fact. That's how I recognized it so fast and knew how to neutralize it."

Joat blinked, a little taken aback by that revelation.

"Yes," Rand said, "I thought it had a certain Sondee subtlety to it. Almost a rhythm."

"Precisely!" Seg exclaimed and began an earnest conversation with Rand.

Joat turned to Bros. He stood with his feet apart, arms folded across his chest, watching her with an unfathomable expression in his dark eyes.

"Thank you for bringing him," she said, indicating Seg.

Bros smiled. "You'll have to excuse him, he's not at his best. We did a pub crawl halfway across the docks looking for you or your crew and my young friend imbibed pretty heavily."

"If I can forgive him for writing the fardling worm in the first place, I can forgive him for anything, I suppose." She turned to smile fondly at the young Sondee. Then she glanced at Bros from the comers of her eyes. "So, what are you doing here?"

One of the things I like about you is that you don't beat around the bush, Joat. He fought the urge to smile, knowing she'd think he was being condescending.

"I've come to call you back," he said. "Your part in this mission is canceled."

"Oh?" she raised her brows. "Perhaps I'd better bring you up to date."

"As I've already indicated, I know about your debt to New Destinies. Twenty thousand credits, Joat! How in blazes did you manage that?"

Joat studied him. His face expressed annoyance, but his eyes were amused. She wondered if he'd found out about her relationship to Ciety or if he was recalling her because of the debt. Though he'd gotten the amount wrong. Sperin was really gonna squeak when he found out it was one hundred twenty thousand. She suppressed a wistful sigh. Irrelevant now, she thought.

"I'm afraid the situation has grown just a liiitttle more complicated," she said. Holding up her hand with the thumb and forefinger almost joined to indicate a tiny amount. "Nomik Ciety bought my debt from New Destinies. I can't leave until I work it off."

Bros felt his jaw start to drop and clenched his teeth so tightly that tendons danced in his face and neck.

"And…" she flinched from admitting it, but forced herself to continue. "I lost my temper and knocked him on his ass."

Bros closed his eyes and sighed. "Oh, well, it could be worse. You might have killed him."

Joat began to shift her weight from foot to foot, not sure if she was embarrassed or annoyed.

"So I can't just leave," she said with a shrug.

"No," he agreed in a voice gone leaden. It went without saying that CenSec could hardly buy her debt from Ciety without blowing the operation completely.

Damn. It wasn't the first time he'd thrown an agent in much deeper than he intended. These things happened; but they always bothered him, and this time more than most. Meanwhile, the Benisur Amos remained lost and the Kolnari were still at large, and it was going from a probability to a certainty that they had the Sondee bio-weapons. There were larger issues at stake than his highly personal concern for one woman.

Whoa, boy! Bros thought, startled. No more complications. Admiration, that's all. Avuncular admiration, that's all you feel.

Rand broke in: "How will we answer Nomik Ciety when he asks us why we were trying to break into his comp?"

Joat shrugged and, with some relief, broke eye contact with Sperin. "I'll tell him that I was looking for the debt contract to erase it."

"And what about why you were looking for coded transmissions particularly?" Bros asked, dubiously.

"I'll just tell him that I didn't think New Destinies would want it known that they're selling honest merchant captains into virtual slavery to criminals these days. So I figured it would be in a coded transmission."

"How diplomatic," Bros remarked, brows raised.

"Blow it out your ears, Sperin," Joat suggested through clenched teeth.

The com chimed. Joat threw herself into the couch that Seg hurriedly vacated; at her wave they all moved back out of pickup range. Silken appeared, looking crisp in a jade-green blouse, her hair pulled severely back, her expression remote.

"I need to speak to you in private," she said. "I've sent some of our security people to escort you here. They'll be there shortly."

"It's a little inconvenient," Joat said.

Something flickered like lightning in Silken's eyes, anger or amusement or perhaps both.

"I'm sure it is," she said. "That's not my problem. We need to talk. Don't keep me waiting or you'll experience whole new levels of… inconvenience."

She cut off the transmission and Seg once again locked down the com before anyone spoke.

"Well," Joat said, "looks like I'm going visiting. If we ever want to see Amos again, or find those Kolnari."

Joseph opened his mouth and then closed it again; he made a quick complex motion and the weapon in his hand disappeared.

Bros tried to ignore the leaden feeling in his gut. "Do you think it's wise?" he said.

"I think it's necessary, or the mission's gone," Joat said. She looked back at him. "And that's what's important, isn't it?"

I hate this job, Bros Sperin thought. I really do.