Cold Welcome

^{CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN}

Teague eased his way along the crowded streets of the shopping district, eastward toward the port area. The shopping district extended a tongue of attractive gentility all the way to the waterfront, providing reasonable access for a tourist while taking him within a short distance of warehouses, transport depots, and eventually the working docks. Occasional whiffs of fish and spoilage eddied along the pretty sidewalks with their cafés and shops. He had been here before; he was certain some of the people would recognize him. His transformation had matured; he felt comfortable now with the different length of leg and arm, with the color of his skin, the texture of his hair, how he looked in the mirror, and how he felt moving around.

Lines had formed at street vendor carts; he opted for the quick-serve window of a café tucked into the side of a street so narrow it might have been an alley. “Whitefish wrap,” he said, just like the man ahead of him, and he had the correct change ready for the hand that reached for it. His wrap, fish and vegetables in a spicy sauce wrapped in a flatbread, matched half the food pedestrians were carrying. Instead of turning back to the street he’d left, he moved on, not hurrying but not loitering, either.

He’d been told, two tendays ago, that down here was “Malines’ place,” a rough quarter to stay away from if he didn’t want trouble. He’d walked down that other street once, straight to the end, briskly, as if he had business at the docks at the end. He had in fact gone into a wholesale hardware dealer, inquiring about a possible job. Now he headed in a different direction, one block over, his electronic kit active, feeding data into his implant, and in his hand a black business folder with an ISC logo on the front. Inside were instructions from a “Region IV Maintenance Education Upgrade Center” directing him to find potential locations for training local technicians to ansible work at ISC’s standards, including the requirements by square meters, electrical service, environmental quality, and so on.

On his own, on the basis of prior trips into the city, he had decided that somewhere in the neighborhood of Malines & Company was the nearest place MacRobert could have been taken for interrogation. But which of the blocks, and which building on that block?

MacRobert, inert and apparently unconscious, listened to the voices discussing what would be done with him. He did not approve, but he did not show—by a flicker of eyelid or a change in heart rate, breathing, or blood pressure—that he was no longer fully under the drug they had used. He’d had just enough time to trigger his implant’s safety mode.

“Dead to the world,” said one of the voices. “The monitors say he’s still deep in.”

“He’s old,” said the other. “Takes longer. Let him be another hour, maybe two. Then the antidote’ll wake him up quick. Now, his heart might give out.”

The sound of feet moved away; a door opened and closed. MacRobert lay still. He assumed the room had surveillance, and he was probably still hooked up to whatever life signs monitor they used. He might not have the two hours—they might return in ten minutes to make sure—but for the moment, he was better off playing dead, or nearly.

Why had they grabbed him today? He assumed whoever had done it was in league with those who’d sabotaged the shuttle, but who, and why? Had someone detected Teague’s and Rafe’s intrusion into their data center? Or his own poking around in Spaceforce assignments? Or was it a general attack on the Rector and those known to be on her staff?

All would be clear later, he reminded himself; he had more to do to make his implant secure in case they probed it. He triggered the next phase of his implant’s safety mode. Certain information disappeared from his access; the top level—the first a probe would find, and what he now believed to be the implant itself—proclaimed itself a replacement module, with a date of placement a year and two tendays before. Its data tree included “Medical History: Current Treatment Plan” and informed him that he was entering Stage 2b Age-Related Dementia with memory loss, speech disinhibition with confabulation, fine motor tremor (stage one), and gross motor discoordination not affecting locomotion; that he also had early-stage cardiac insufficiency, moderate hypertension, and an enlarged prostate, being treated with a variety of medications administered once daily under supervision.

When he queried for more, he found a set of simple instructions: a morning alarm meant get up, then shower, clean his teeth, depilate his face, use deodorant, put on specified clothes in the specified order, check that all fastenings were fastened, to the kitchen, eat breakfast, take the medications he was offered, go to the car, and get in. He could access graphics that walked him to and from approved nearby stores and guided him to appropriate selections inside, then to checkout. In case he wandered, he had access to graphics that would guide him back to Grace’s city residence or automatically call for medical aid if he fell.

The door opened. He lay still. “No change. I told you—it’ll be another couple of hours.”

“Have you made the call?”

“Not yet. She’s in a meeting: no messages.”

So they were going to use him as a hostage against Grace? Good luck with that. He wanted to chuckle at the thought, but knew better. He was old, sick, senile, and helpless under the drug’s control. He felt a sting on the side of his neck, but did not react. A dull scraping, as the probe tried for the emergency implant port, the one that would let them download without damaging his brain.

A flood of curse words, some he’d never heard before but knew by the tone were curses.

“What?”

“It’s a replacement. He must’ve failed a psych eval at his annual physical last year. They pulled his implant and put in a medical message: diagnosis, treatment plan, medications. Next layer’s all the kind of thing these people need. Step by step through the day, help getting to a store, finding what to buy, and so on.”

“How can he be that bad? Why’s he not in care?”

“Rector, probably. She likes him. Maybe she doesn’t mind sleeping with a half-wit; she’s old herself.”

They laughed. MacRobert thought of killing each one slowly, but did not allow himself to move.

“So he’s no use to us? Interrogation won’t work on him?”

“It might. Or he might remember his childhood, his mummy kissing him good night, and nothing since he was five. And he’s of use to us because the Rector cares about him, has kept him with her for a year since he failed the psych eval. That’s our lever. We keep him alive and healthy—well, healthy enough—and see if she’ll cooperate. If not—the ocean is deep.”

“The ocean is deep, and the fish are hungry,” said the other, as if it was a ritual. It probably was. Footsteps moved away; the door opened and closed again.

Two hours to wait. Maybe. Maybe longer. Maybe they’d decide to dose him again, or maybe they’d let him wake up and try questioning him, seeing if he was really impaired. He felt impaired, with the main data banks of his implant closed to him. He put so much in there, and—like anyone used to an implant—didn’t bother remembering what wasn’t needed short-term. That was a daunting thought. He couldn’t now remember the name of the continent Ky was on—he remembered Ky on her last day as a cadet, and something—something important she’d done—but the rest was hazy. He knew, in a vague way, where Spaceforce Academy was, but he couldn’t remember his access code or the phone number. Maybe the Miznarii had a point about implants being a form of humodification.

He did remember how to bring his implant out of safety mode. That would unlock the data banks. But it might be dangerous. He lifted his eyelids just a little. He didn’t know what he was looking for. He should know. He should know if the scary people were there, or had left something to watch him, but—it was too tempting. He performed the mental trick that took his implant out of safety and back into performance.

Yes. He could spell yes. Data poured back into his awareness. Now the blur of a distant wall made sense: gray, lined with acoustic baffling material. If he screamed in here, no one would hear it. The door had the same coating. Surveillance? Most surveillance cameras had a blinking light; he saw none through his lashes. He opened his eyes a little more. No cameras. How odd. His implant informed him he had been completely unconscious for two hours, unresponsive for another forty-three minutes, and the visit by his captors had been seven minutes twenty-eight seconds before. Grace’s meeting would be ending soon, he expected.

Sound baffling had the added effect that he could not hear his captors returning. Not good. He expected they would be back after calling her, to show he was alive, to threaten… and he needed at least a few seconds to put his implant back in safe mode and make it seem the replacement implant of an old man sliding into senility. He didn’t want to do that. Even the short time he’d endured that loss bothered him much more than he’d expected.

His implant informed him that five minutes had passed. Then six. By then he had wiggled his feet, his hands, realizing that he was restrained, though not painfully, where he lay. If he couldn’t even get up, he couldn’t do much about escape—yet. He took several minutes subvocalizing more instructions to his implant. He did not have a drug analysis application, and attempting a skullphone call could probably be detected. He wished he knew what drug he’d been given, and how long it was supposed to act, because surely they’d dose him again if Grace didn’t return their call. Unless they wanted him awake, to see if he really was confused.

And it was troubling that even now, with his implant’s full function connected again, he could not quite remember what he’d been doing when he was taken, how that had happened. He added a few more things to his fixit list, then put his implant back into safety mode and restored covert status.

It felt like being stuck in the aftermath of concussion. Everything he had just been thinking about, had done, disappeared into a fog. Where was he? What had happened? He wasn’t comfortable; he didn’t recognize anything; he did not know the two men who came in to him some interminable time later.

“She’s not going to call.” Teague, ambling along the street with his briefcase and his list of criteria for instructional space, heard that from the hidden spike-mic. Aha. The range of a spike-mic varied with the material of the walls it read through. All the walls around him were brick. He knew the speakers were just inside the brick wall on the same side of the street. A warehouse-looking building, Malines & Company. Ahead of him, a couple of burly men lounged at the entrance. Without breaking stride, he used his skullphone to ping Rafe and walked up to them.

“If it is possible to speak to the building manager?” he said. His accent wasn’t quite Cascadian, but it certainly was not local.

“What are you doin’ around here? Where you from? What’s those papers?”

Teague blinked, squinting a little at them. “It is my job. It is my assignment. To find space to start instructional program for technicians to do advanced maintenance on system ansibles and their boosters.”

One of the men snatched the papers from his hand.

“Excuse me, that is not correct,” Teague said. “Those are my papers.”

“They were. Let’s see—” The man looked at them. “Wait—ISC? You work for ISC?”

“Yes, yes.” Teague nodded several times. “It is my assignment to find space to start instructional program—”

“We heard that already.” The man who held his papers looked at the other one, the one who had moved slightly to block Teague if he tried to grab the papers back. “Cole, this might interest Dugmund. Give him a call.” To Teague he said, “Why are you in this part of town? Didn’t anyone tell you the dock district is dangerous for strangers?”

“It is the daytime,” Teague said, as if nothing could be dangerous by day. “And docks have warehouses and warehouses have empty spaces sometimes. On my world temporary rental of warehouse space costs less than the same in office buildings. It is not… not intending any insult, but it is not as comfortable or fancy as the office space, but for instructional space it can be made useful cheaply as it is not for long-term use. Eventually local educational institutions take over the job of training new technicians, but initially, and to ensure compatibility with all aspects of ISC equipment, only ISC can train.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Cole said. “Our boss would like to speak with you. Our warehouse is usually full, but merchandise does move in and out. An opening might arise at some time; he wouldn’t want to miss out on a deal.” He nodded to the other man without saying his name. “Give him back his papers; he can show the boss.”

Teague considered the advantages of dispatching both of them, but other pedestrians were in view. Instead he went inside when Cole beckoned, into a wide passage with doors open to offices on either side. “All the way back,” Cole said from behind him. Teague’s instruments reported that the offices were fake-fronts, empty, open at the back to the larger space, and that Cole was coming closer behind him. Handy.

Still holding the papers, he let the pick slide into his hand from his sleeve and slowed, closing the distance, turning to his left. “Say—maybe you should give these to your boss yourself—” He held out his hand, offering them.

Cole, startled, stopped off balance, grabbed for the papers, and Teague thrust the pick through Cole’s hand. Its thin sheath shattered; the powerful paralytic drug took hold even as Teague moved in, his right arm around Cole’s shoulder, pushing the pick, now protruding from Cole’s hand, into his chest. He squeezed the handle, injecting more of the drug. Cole shuddered; eyes wide. He could not breathe; he could not speak; he could not do anything but die as the drug reached his heart and then his brain.

Teague swung the now-sagging, inert body over to the nearest fake office door, opened it, and let Cole fall inside. One down. He glanced back. The other man was still outside, had not come to the door to watch. He activated another of the instruments, giving him a view in his implant of the building’s plan. On the ground floor, behind the fake offices, there were ten enclosures, seven of them full of dense material. Merchandise, most likely. Two of the other enclosures were small, only a few meters wide and long. One was larger.

MacRobert, he was sure, would be in one of the smaller ones. But which? He changed the adjustment, added in the spike-mic tuned to human voices.

“We should probably give him another dose. If she doesn’t call soon, he’ll be wide awake.” Voice one, no ID.

“We could just let him stew. It might loosen him up. Nobody can hear him, anyway.” Voice two, no ID.

“You saw the implant scan. Heart condition, brain deteriorating. Probably anything he tells us will be useless.”

“It might influence her when she does call.”

“What if she’s got people looking for him? What if she’s contacted—what was that base you said?—and knows he was never there.”

“She’ll think he was taken there, or en route. Or, if in the city, by someone Spaceforce-related.”

Teague knew where the speakers were now, just outside one of the small rooms. A sound-baffled room. Two voices outside. He changed settings again and wriggled the stunner in his sleeve down to his hand, concealed by the papers. On this level, only two more figures moved around, at the back of the building, isolated by a solid wall up to the next level. Above were a dozen at least, arrayed in rows—the real offices, he suspected.

The passage he was in ended at a door with a window. He went to it, tapped very lightly, then opened it and went in. Nothing, as he suspected; instead of a back wall, a gap to either side and a shoulder-high blank wall beyond it. He hesitated, aware of the camera above this space, and looked back and forth as if confused.

“Hello?”

No answer. He moved to the right, beyond the line of fake offices on the side of the passage he’d come from, into another, its right wall outlining the larger empty room. Ahead of him, two men standing in the passage turned to look at him then moved toward him quickly.

“Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?”

Teague flapped the papers he held. “Ser… Cole? One of the men by the door… he called somebody… you? He said I should meet the boss? He said this way and he was behind me, but then he wasn’t?”

“He must’ve called Dugmund,” the taller man said. “He should have taken him upstairs all the way.” The men exchanged looks. “I’ll go. Won’t be long. You—what’s your name?”

“Edvard Teague,” Teague said. “You can see on my papers—” He offered them, taking a step closer. “It is about seeking rental space for a training facility for—”

“Let’s see, then.” The man reached out. He was in balance, and clearly very fit. The second man, alert and equally dangerous looking, made his earlier kill move too risky. Teague shifted his grip on the briefcase, touching a button on the handle with the inside of his ring finger. As the taller man took the papers, Teague thumbed the stunner control; the second stunner, extruded from the side of the briefcase, caught the second man. Both went down, twitching. Teague stunned them again. The door to the sound-baffled room opened easily; the man on the narrow cot, bound to it, stared at him wide-eyed, frightened. It was MacRobert, but he did not seem to recognize Teague. That must be the drugs they’d used.

He pulled the other two into the room, blocked the door open with a wastebasket so his spike-mic could pick up sounds outside, and sliced through MacRobert’s restraints. Under the blanket, MacRobert was naked, and Teague saw none of his clothes in the room. What he did see was a rolling cart with medications and injectors ready. He injected both men, a full vial each—it might kill them and would certainly keep them quiet. He stripped the one closer to MacRobert’s size, finding an interesting collection of objects he stuffed quickly into his pockets, and turned back to the cot.

MacRobert was sitting up, clear-eyed now. “Teague,” he said. His voice was weak, a little hoarse.

“Yes. Here. Get dressed.”

MacRobert reached for the shirt and shoved an arm into it. “Where are we?” His voice sounded more like him.

“Malines’ warehouse, one of them.”

“Are they dead?” MacRobert had both arms in the shirt and a leg in the trousers.

“Not yet,” Teague said. “Do we need what’s in their heads?”

“Possibly, but we need out of here more, and we need them not to be able to say how.”

“Fine.” Teague loaded the injector again and gave them each two more vials. “That should do it.”

Mac, dressed but barefoot, pulled shoes off the smaller man. He shook his head at the man’s socks, one with a hole in the toe and the other in the heel. “Sweaty, too,” he said, pulling the socks on with a grimace. “And the shoes don’t really fit.” He pulled the closure over as far as it would go. “I may make more noise than usual.”

“Can you run in them?”

“I will run in them.” Grim confidence in that.

“There’s a guard at the front door, that I know of, and the back two-thirds of the building is isolated from this area. Building’s at the corner of Horn and Bleeker Alley.” He was on the skullphone, pinging Rafe with the location as well as telling MacRobert. The phone came live.

“Situation?”

“Three down, subject alive, expect trouble on exit.”

“Can hold ten?”

“No more than six, I’d say. Outside, inside?”

“Get close to the exit. Expect distractions.”

He turned to MacRobert. “Ready?”

“Very.” For a man supposedly suffering the conditions Teague knew had been loaded into his implant, and the aftermath of abduction and drugging, MacRobert looked remarkably alert.

Teague led him back the way he himself had come. When they arrived at the back side of the fake office at the end of the outer passage, he could see through the door the tall door guard coming toward them, talking into a handcom.

“Lovely,” Teague murmured. “Here—take this—” He handed MacRobert a blackjack. “I’ll open the door, and he’s yours. First, anyway.”

The tall man didn’t give Teague a chance to open the door; he yanked it open himself, saying, “I said I’ll find him!” and MacRobert whapped him neatly with the blackjack. Teague caught the handcom before it hit the floor and thumbed it off.

“Have anything less basic?” MacRobert asked, pocketing the blackjack.

“Have a stunner,” Teague offered, handing over his.

“And you?”

“Another stunner in the briefcase, a couple of good knives.”

They headed down the outer passage. Teague glanced at MacRobert just as the older man whipped around and fired the stunner back toward the interior. “Just one,” MacRobert said. “Keep going.”

Noise outside then, and sirens approaching. Then a crash, the sound of bricks or stones clattering down, glass breaking. Teague could feel the impact through his feet. Dust shimmered down from the ceiling.

“Good,” MacRobert said. He was grinning now, eyes bright and face no longer pale. “The party’s started.”

“Party?” Teague asked. “Oh—and I have a pistol in my right jacket pocket, if you want it. Belonged to one of those guys I dragged in.”

“I do.” MacRobert took it, popped the clip. “Spudders. Perfect.” He snapped the clip back in and chambered a round. “You have one for yourself?” He put the pistol in his pocket.

“Yes. I’d rather not display it. It makes me a target.”

“And it’s noisy. Reliable, not stealthy. This stunner’s down to thirty percent.”

They were almost to the outer door. Teague motioned MacRobert to stay back, pulled a ’scope from his right sleeve and bent the end of the fiber to make a corner, then slid it to the edge of the doorframe. The image appeared in his implant. A ramshackle truck had rammed into the corner of the building, doing major damage to the truck and significant damage to the building, scattering bricks and broken glass over the pavement. A man hung halfway out the driver’s side of the cab, bleeding down the truck door. City Patrol cars blocked the street beyond. Patrol officers in riot gear faced an unruly crowd, some of them now turning away as more sirens neared.

The image blanked. Teague’s skullphone pinged. Rafe’s voice: “The moment of exodus is upon us. To the right, slow, stay with me; we want some of this crowd.”

Teague waved his hand; MacRobert and he stepped out, heads down, and joined those already moving to the right. Rafe, in his fat suit but dressed in dirty laborer’s clothes, walked past, giving Teague and MacRobert a good look at his face.

“Got him?” Teague asked MacRobert.

“Friend of a friend,” MacRobert said.

Teague nodded. They had just reached the next street when the crowd behind them roared, other pedestrians broke into a run, and Teague heard the characteristic sounds of riot gas canisters popping. MacRobert started running, a little awkwardly; Teague dropped back to shield him from contact. Rafe turned left at the corner, dropped to a walk, and strode briskly along the uneven sidewalk, staying close to the building. Teague and MacRobert followed, Teague on the outside. They passed an alley with men moving purposefully toward the street, on to the end of that block, and then another. Behind them, a siren burped, whined, burped again. Rafe glanced back but did not slow. The siren came no nearer.

Three blocks, and they were approaching the first office buildings. Another left turn onto a wider street. A vehicle parked on their side of the street blinked lights. “There,” Rafe said. He went to the front door, pointing to the back. Teague opened it for MacRobert, then slid in beside him. Rafe, up front, was talking to the driver as if he knew him.

The car was already in motion, pulling smoothly away, into traffic that seemed completely normal for the time of day, just after midafternoon. Rafe turned. “Teague, MacRobert, this is Inyo Vatta. We are going to Vatta Transport’s hangars at the airport.”

“I’ve met Inyo,” MacRobert said. “Thank you. Who’s that hanging out the truck door, Rafe?”

“The right man,” Rafe said. “There’s another in the back. Both deaders. I was engaged with the second one when you pinged me, Teague.” He sounded relaxed and happy. Teague, remembering Gary’s briefing on Rafe’s past, which had been extensive, understood. Rafe felt the way he did. Action had that effect on some people. “Mac, you should call Grace. Use my handcom; that number will go through.”

“Skullphone won’t?”

“Not until she knows you’re safe, and then only from yours.” He passed it over the back of the front seat while Inyo drove on, neither hurrying nor lagging.

Teague watched MacRobert, then turned away. In addition to the lift he always got in an operation, this was the first time he’d used his new body in a real situation. He was happy with how it functioned, the integration he’d achieved with it. He was, he thought, just as good an operative now as he had ever been, and he knew he’d been one of Gary’s best. MacRobert was talking very softly into the handcom, just a couple of phrases, then he handed the com back to Rafe.

Within a few turns, they were out of the port area completely, passing tall office blocks and then a long gray wall that Teague had learned enclosed the Spaceforce Academy. That arched entrance they passed must have been where Ky Vatta walked out to meet a car very like this after resigning. He wondered why any sane person would lock themselves into the military with all its pomp and ceremony. And now she was an admiral—she must be crazy.

When they reached the airport, they passed the entrance to the main terminal, turning in to General Aviation, and then to a gate marked with Vatta’s insignia. There Inyo stopped and exchanged passwords with a guard in Vatta blue. Teague relaxed as they rolled on toward a group of buildings, all marked VATTA TRANSPORT.

Inyo drove into one of the hangars where several aircraft were parked. One was a smaller, twin-engine craft that—from the number of windows—might hold eight or ten passengers and crew. Its boarding hatch was open, steps placed leading into it. The other was much larger, with no windows, suggesting a cargo craft. Crew in Vatta blue were moving luggage to a ramp-belt into it: obvious suitcases and crates that might contain anything.

“What’s going on?” MacRobert asked. “I need to talk to the Rector, tell her what happened.”

“Other things have happened,” Rafe said. “When we’re really secure, I’ll tell you, but for now—Vanguard’s back insystem, and so is a Mackensee troopship. They came in fast and hard, but they’re still two days out on insystem; shuttles can’t reach the surface until they’re orbital. Spaceforce is not happy about them. So far the merc ship isn’t public, because the Rector put a lock on all space-based communications, to the point of demoting a Spaceforce security commander.”

Teague blinked and held his tongue. His thoughts bristled with questions he obviously shouldn’t ask. MacRobert, however, asked the most salient. “War?”

“Not yet. Not at all, if our side’s fast and clever. I will say, in spite of being around her for almost half a local year, I still didn’t anticipate the depth and complexity of the Rector’s thinking.”

MacRobert laughed aloud. “Boyo, you still don’t know the half of that woman. I don’t. To be perfectly frank—and Inyo, I know you’ll tell her everything we say—”

Inyo snorted. “Me, Ser? I wouldn’t dare not.”

“She could run anything, including Ky’s fleet and two planets, if she wanted to. Luckily for the rest of humanity, her desire for power is mostly confined to one planet and she only micromanages when she has to. Do we exit now?”

“Not yet, Sers. We’re waiting for word from the Rector.”

“Do you know where we’re going?”

“No, Ser, and if I did I couldn’t tell you.”

“All right.” MacRobert turned to Rafe. “You want to be careful with your Ky when you have her back. She’s got a lot of her aunt Grace in her. You may think she’s not as strategic a thinker, but neither was Grace at that age, she tells me. And it’s no insult to you to say you’re going to have to stretch to match her.”

“I’m aware of Ky’s abilities,” Rafe said. “And respect them. We are not competitive. Well, except in marksmanship, unarmed combat, things like that.”

“Good. Who really does shoot better?”

“Equal within five percent. Sometimes she takes it, sometimes I do.”

“Better.”

“And she’s wicked fast in hand-to-hand.”

“She always was,” MacRobert said. “Her Academy instructors had to match her against upper-class cadets by the second term her first year. She was best against taller cadets who thought that gave them an advantage.”

He stretched and sighed with relief. Teague thought some muscle kink had just let go. “She’s really not—well, she was only a cadet when I saw her most—but the one thing that worried me was that although she stuck to the regs, did everything correctly, I got the feeling that her real talent was, like the Rector’s, well outside any box, and the military is all about staying inside boxes until the shit starts flying. It has to be. Military personnel let loose always get into trouble; you’ve got to keep them focused, constrained, until combat situations, then hope they’ve got an outside-the-box ability. Huge problem with training young officers in peacetime. Easiest ones to train and evaluate are the in-the-box thinkers. They do what they’re told with great energy and diligence and precision. Can’t fault that in a cadet.”

Rafe shook his head. “She surprised me when I first met her. I was thinking young, inexperienced, priggish—got part of that from Stella—and figured I could play her. Wrong.”

“Sers, you may exit the car now. I’ve had word, and here comes your escort.”

Teague tensed up, but the two men and one woman coming through a side door were in Vatta uniforms. He read them as allies. Inyo had already opened MacRobert’s door; Teague got out as Rafe did. Some signal passed. “Sera Vatta has already cleared your paperwork,” the woman said. “Sers, you may board now, or freshen up in the crew quarters. Sera Vatta thought you might wish that. Fresh clothes have been provided for all of you.”

“I would enjoy that,” MacRobert said. “If it doesn’t inconvenience anyone.”

“Follow us, please.”

Teague was surprised at the accommodations, but glad to have a shower to himself and his own clothes from the Rector’s house to put on afterward. A buffet was ready for them when he came out.

“We have a scheduled cargo flight in one hour fifteen minutes,” the woman said as they filled their plates. “You will need to board twenty minutes before.”

“What about the other flight?”

“Decoy. It will go to Corleigh, with three passengers as well as pilot and copilot. You will be on that manifest.”

“Risky for the passengers,” Teague said.

“Riskier for attackers,” she said, smiling. “It only looks like a Vatta family passenger plane.” She did not explain further. “Master Sergeant, if you will come into the office, there’s a secure connection to the Rector’s office. She’s waiting for your call.”