Horizons

NINETEEN

AHNI USED THE LINK THAT LAIF SHOWED HER TO SUMMON Kyros, who nearly dropped dead on the spot to judge by his sputtering fury. “Thanks a lot,” his voice snarled over the link. “Kidnap his kid and then show him my hole. Why the hell did I get myself involved with you in the first place?

That’s what I get for listening to Dane. I almost hope Dragon Home security gets to you before I do.”

“Your safe place is still safe,” Ahni snapped. “Smuggling wasn’~ exactly on Li Zhen’s mind and it still isn’t.”

“I hope Dane was right about you being an empath and I hope you’re telling me the truth,” Kyros snarled.”Not that Zhen won’t probably remember soon as all this is over. But by then I’ll be gone. I’ll send you the bill for relocating.”

“Do that.” Ahni shut down anger with a moment of Pause. “And charge me for a ride back to NYUp, will you? I need to find Noah. Do you know him?”

“No.” Kyros was calming down at least.”What does this Noah have that you need.”

“A link to the real person behind this.” She hoped. “Kyros, I’ve got to find him.”

“What about the others?”

“They need to stay here for now.”

Silence hummed across the link and she said a small prayer that Dane had trusted him for a reason.

“Be there in a bit.” He sounded weary. “Be ready. I have to play hide and seek. I hear the system is on alert. Courtesy of the CSF. Throwing their weight around.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

“So you’re heading back and just leaving us here again?” Laif glowered at her, one arm hooked through the webbing of a storage net. He looked haggard. “And why shouldn’t he just come back and blow the lock anyway? Get his stuff and get out?”

“Because if it could stand vacuum, he wouldn’t keep it here.”

“Thank you for your comforting words.”

Ahni looked past hin. Ren was playing with Koi’s family. How many more like him, she wondered?

She’d seen that couple in the scrum field park. Maybe they went to the hub garden, maybe that was part of Dane’s secret world… playground for the new generation.

“Do you think Li Zhen can do anything?” Laif drifted close. “He really didn’t say a whole lot. You’re the one who seems awfully sure that he’s on our side. I didn’t pick up much on that band, myself.”

“He… intends to do something.”

Laif gave her a dubious look.

A silvery chime sounded in the cavernous space, saving her from a reply. “That would be Kyros.” Ahni pushed off, hurtled across the dark beyond the light toward the lock. Heard Laif shout behind her.

Sure enough, the lock irised open as she approached, closed behind her, but not before she caught a glimpse of Laif hurtling across the lighthouse. No, he did not want to be left behind. Kyros was still cocooned in his webbing. “Hurry up.”

She pulled webbing across her, had barely secured it when the little ship whipped out of the dock, pinning her into the straps. “Why the hurry?”

“Got clipped by a search beam on the way in. Means they’ll have upped frequency of the sweeps in this sector. Happens automatically. Think of hide and seek in a desert, sweetheart. We better hope we find the next rat hole before a beam picks us up.”

Ahni stifled a gasp as the ship leaped sideways. Acceleration pinned her against an invisible wall briefly, then the giant’s hand released her, and she hurtled forward a third of a meter, the strap cutting painfully across her chest as they stopped her from crashing into the forward hull. Por the space of a few heartbeats she was weightless, adrift, then that giant’s hand slammed her again, forcing the air from her lungs in a grunt. Her stomach knotted and she concentrated on not throwing up.

Without warning the acceleration ended. Once more the webbbing cut into her chest and abdomen, sent her bouncing back and forth in her tether, like a ball at the end of a short elastic cord. Kyyros blanked the holofield and turned to spill her momentum. “We’re there. Go find Noah. I hope a few important gods are smilling on us and the guy knows something.” The hull opened.

The hub lock once more. Deja vu. “Can you wait here?”

“Why not?” Irony bittered his words. “They’re gunning for anything without ID out there right now. You don’t know how close you just came to meeting vacuum, girl.”

She stretched her senses to the limit, in case the CSF were still searching for Koi and his fanlliy and shot forward through the green light, aiming for the small private elevator. Her trajectory took her close to Dane’s bower and as she neared it, she felt a stranger’s attention. CSF! An instant later, Noah slipped from the bower, his pale skin reflecting the green light as he looked furtively around.

“Noah!” She shot toward him, reaching for him as she closed, urgency burning her, because she still felt the ‘aha’ attention. “They know we’re here, let’s go.”

Without a word they rocketed through the leafy space between the columns. They reached the private elevator, shot through the open doorway. Noah slapped the control plate, yelled “four” as they both spilled their momentum with a thud of palms and shoulders against the padded wall. Ahni rebounded, felt Noah’s hand close on her arm, stopping her sideways drift. They both hit the “ceiling” hard as the elevator dropped and Noah hissed a curse as he grabbed for a strap, missed. The small private car dropped fast and before either of them could react, the car halted.

They fell.

Ahni twisted, trying to drop feet first, didn’t quite make it. She landed hard and sideways, felt her ankle give. Pain spiked up her leg and she curled protectively as she hit the wall. She heard Noah’s explosive grunt, then a gasped curse. The elevator door remained closed as Ahni rolled to a sitting position. Noah was picking himself up, across from her, a rapidly coloring bruise on his face prommising a black eye, rubbing his shoulder. “You okay?”

“I don’t think so.” She held out a hand, let him pull her upright. When she tried to put weight on her left foot, she hissed through her teeth, her leg instantly buckling.

“Damn.” Noah caught her before she could fall, an arm around her waist. “Broken?”

“Maybe just a sprain,” she said through clenched teeth. “Let’s get out of here.”

Noah scooped her into his arms.

“No,” Ahni said sharply. “Might as well wear a sign look at me if there are CSF down here. Are there?”

Noah nodded, eased her to the floor. “Open,” he said and the doors whispered open.

Just in time. The elevator chimed a warning as they crossed the threshold and the doors instantly closed behind them with the feel of snapping jaws. Some kind of override, Ahni thought. She drew a deep breath, pain like a white hot knife stabbing upward to her hip. “Just a second.” Nobody in sight. The empty corridor suggested curfew down here, too, now. “Don’t let me fall and don’t do anything for the next minute.” She closed her eyes as Noah’s arm tighttened, summoned Pause. She looked inward, assessing the damage. No break, torn tissue, hyperflexed ligaments, lots of minor and painful damage.

Suppressed the pain response. With a sigh she opened her eyes, put weight on her damaged foot. Stood straight.

Noah was looking at her with a mix of curiosity and mild alarm.

“Thought you passed out for a second.” He looked down at her foot, now firmly on the ground. “What did you do? Heal yourself?” A hint of awe colored the question.

“I wish.” She shook her head. “I can shut out pain,” she said, “But it’s dangerous. If I touch something hot, for example, I won’t feel it.”

”You’re walking on a broken ankle.”

“Bad sprain.” She shrugged.”Where do we go and fast?”

“My apartment.” He jerked his chin. “This way.” He offered her his arm and she leaned on it, trying to spare her injured foot as much as possible.

“They posted a curfew,” Noah said, as they made their way down the nearly empty corridor.”You’re supposed to have a reason to be out or face house arrest. I got stopped on the way to the elevator, but I’m listed as a temp employee of Admin, so the woman let me go. Here.” He paused at an unmarked door, palmed the lock.

“Nice and close to the elevator,” Ahni said gratefully.

“Yeah. Convenient. Dane found it for me.” He helped her across the threshold.

She hadn’t been in a residential apartment up here. Noah’s was spare, with the curved walls of the upper levels, painted a soft salmon color. Wall hangings in shades of bronze, gold, pink and green picked up the color of the walls, giving the space a warm, bright feeling. A folding futon bed stood open and a kitchen wall faced it with a low table and a pile of floor cushions in between. The lights set into the floor and upper walls filled the room with the yelllow light of a summer afternoon.

“Sit here.” Noah guided her over to the futon. “Get your foot up.” He grabbed a cushion stuffed it under Ahni’s outstretched leg, then turned to the kitchen wall. Her ankle was already badly swollen. “Here.”

Noah returned with a thin towel filled with ice. He set it down and worked her flat heeled slipper off her foot. “That looks bad.” He wrapped the compress around her foot. “You better not walk on it.”

Ahni brushed that aside. “What were you doing in the bower?” “Looking for Koi. They’re gone. I guess the CSF rounded ’em up. My fault. If I’d told him about Cleo and the Con in time…” He buried his face in his hands again.

“They’re safe, Noah,” she explained rapidly, fended off his eager questions.”Noah, all we can do for Dane at this point is to find the people behind this and prove that it didn’t happen on its own. That’s the only way to keep any shred of Dane’s plans alive. And we’re running out of time.”

“Yeah, right, got it.” He wiped his face on his arm, hard and angry now, edged with purpose.”You were right. It was classic Taiwan language, wasn’t even a tough encryption. What did he think, that nobody would ever try to read it?”

“Probably.”

“I think it’s a blackmail file… it’s got a ton of information on it. Hang on.” He crossed the room in a single stride, picked up a holodesk from the floor beside the low table, nearly threw it down on the futon beside Ahni. “On,” he snapped. “Dot-file open. This is the asshole who talked Cleo and the others into diddling the Con.”

A face appeared in the field, next to a full view of a skinny man standing straight and relaxed, his eyes seeming to focus on Ahni’s face. Three dimensional letters glowed golden in the blue mist. As Ahni moved her head, the letters seemed to move with her so that they were always readable. Del Schriner-Gerard. Ahni recognized the narrow, mixedEuro face with the hard, focused stare. He had stabbed the tourist and had started the riot near admin. An ID code icon shone silver beneath his name.

”That’s the one!” She clenched a fist.”We give the ID to the CSF. No matter how good he is, they’ve got to at least have DNA proof that he was involved with the murder. There’s our wedge.”

“There are two more.”

The holo shimmered and reformed. The man’s face, an African-euro face looked vaguely familiar, but the connection eluded her. Again the holo shimmered and reformed.

Ahni sucked in her breath and stared, all thought suspended. Tania’s broad fair face smiled at her, the honey colored hair tossed casually over one shoulder. Her dark eyes seemed to look into Ahni’s, and her smile taunted.

”You okay?” Noah touched her arm. “You know her?”

Ahni laughed a single, hard note. “I thought so.”

In a flash of connection, she recognized the African-Euro man.

Xai had hired him as Security at the family compound. He was Gaiist, she remembered. Xai had joked about it.

“Ahni?” Noah touched her arm again. “So what is this about?”

“I don’t know yet.” But she had all the pieces now, just needed to see the picture. Ahni pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes until red light webbed the darkness there. “We need to go to the CSF

commander with this and give them my brother’s name as well.” She touched the holo base, blanked it. “I need to talk to Li Zhen again.” Because Xai was indeed playing a double game here, and Li Zhen didn’t know it. And what the hell was the game? Two Gaiists. What interest would the Gaiists have in the platforms? It also occurred to her that Tania was quite capable of the meticulous planning that had gone into the agitation campaign on NYUp. Tania and Xai?

“So now what?” Noah asked.”We give this to the CSF commander… and then what?”

“Do you know anything about the Gaiists?”

“Oh. Them.” Noah rolled his eyes. “Some. I surf the downside media for Dane. Did you know they don’t like us? They’re pretty quiet about that, but you can find it if you look for it. I don’t get why. I mean their whole idea is to make the Earth all clean and pristine, right? So why not send a bunch of people up into orbit? But I guess they’d rather see births really really controlled and keep everybody down there.” He shook his head. “Bunch of crazies if you ask me, but pretty harmless I guess.”

Maybe. Ahni touched the holo base. “Just how much do the Gaiists dislike the Platforms?” They didn’t have enough time to chase any more shadows here.”Noah, can you search this question from here?

Maybe look at the last year of downside media?”

“Yeah, I can.” Noah nodded, his brow furrowed. “I have a really good AI, so I can do a thorough search pretty fast. I’m a good Synthesist. I kept… keep… Dane up on Earthside media about the Platforms.” He looked away, dismayed by his slip of tense.

“See what you can find out,” Ahni said wearily. Holding pain at bay required a lot of energy. “You’re looking for anything the Gaiists have had to say about the platforms for, say, the past two years at least.”

She closed her eyes, allowing the pain to seep into her consciousness. Her foot throbbed with a dull red agony, and she leaned back against the cushions on the futon, forcing herself to relax, putting that pain into the back of her mind, making her body rest. Vaguely, she was aware of Noah speaking commands over his link, the hum of the ventilation system, the rush of blood through her veins. Where was Dane right now? For a moment, an image formed in her head; Dane sitting on a bench, his expression bleak. It vanished, and she wondered what machinery Li Zhen had put into motion.

“AHNI? ARE YOU awake?” Noah’s voice jolted her from a state beetween sleep and waking and she sat up, stifling a gasp of pain.

“Here. I made some tea. And I thawed a couple of sandwiches from the kitchen wall.”

He had unfolded a small table beside the futon. A mug steamed beside a sandwich on a plate. Ahni picked up the mug as he got fresh ice for her foot and replaced the soaked towel with a dry one. The tea helped. She didn’t think she was hungry until she bit into the sandwich. Then, suddenly, she was starving, and bolted the soy cheese and sliced vegetable stack ravenously. The food made her feel a lot better.

She drank some more tea and sighed as Noah ate his own sandwich. He was worried. “What did you find out?”

“The Gaiists say some scary stuff.” Noah popped the last bite of bread and veggies into his mouth. “Not so much to the popular media, but to small, real local meetings. In person. Like our town–plazas.” He shook his head. “Those transcripts are hard to find, too. Nobody much cares about those little grass-roots local gettogethers, so only the fringe media reports on ’em. And a lot of those reports that do happen seem to have been deleted from media archives. Good thing I already had some search paths set up, or I could have been at this for a week. But that’s the kind of thing we keep an eye on up here — groundswell opinion. We’ve got some media connections, you know, and we can do a little nudging downside when we need to.” He gave her a crooked smile that masked guilt. “How do you think Cleo and the others could do such a good job up here?”

“This is very organized.” She eyed him.

Noah nodded, looked away. “We all share it… Dane’s vision. We all know what our kids are gonna look like. And the Gaiists…” He shook his head. “I should have picked them up before.” He frowned.

“But I sort of assumed that they were a harmless environmental group and since we’re not part of Earth, they didn’t care about us. Boy was I wrong. And they’re covering their tracks, too–blipping those archives… just in the past few months, looks like.”

“What do they say about the platforms?”

“That we are going to suck Earth dry, drain the resources. Become enemies and take over Earth. Mine it. Ahni, it’s not rational.” Noah shook his head, his eyes dark. “Why would we take over Earth? We left there. And it’s so much easier to drop stuff down from the Belt than drag it up from downside. Why would we become enemies? But you know what scares me? The major media never gets any of this stuff. Why not?” He frowned. “Why have they kept this hatred of the Platforms so quiet? And it’s hatred, Ahni. They don’t just want to see the Platforms controlled, or limited, they want us destroyed.” He sounded shaken. “Their approval rating is really going up, too. They do all this community service stuff — right down at that real local level. They’re the big community heros. I put it all on a data sphere. In case we need it.”

”They’re building popular opinion to blindside established politicians.” Ahni squeezed her eyes shut. “If the Gaiists wanted to destroy the Platforms…” She bit her lip. “Noah,” she said softly. “How would you make everyone on Earth fear us up here? How would you make them hate everyone? Not just Koi’s family?”

“You’d drop a rock on ’em,” Noah said flatly. “You drop a good sized rock, just big enough to take out a city, and they’ll empty us out–if they don’t just shoot holes in us.” Horror expanded in his eyes. “That can’t happen,” he said, his voice hushed. “We’ve got lookouts everywhere. And the rock jocks can deflect anything in time. Or blow it up.”

“Noah, could someone subvert the Con? Bring CSF up here if you didn’t want them to?”

He paled. “Point taken. You don’t really think… yeah, you do.” He looked away, his face all sharp edges. “Ahni, there are a lot of safeguards in place. I just don’t think it could happen.”

He was pleading, not asserting and that scared her. “Kyros brought me over from his ‘safe place’,” Ahni said wearily. “He said that the security system had been alerted, that we had to be careful because they were running all kinds of scans to find stray ships.” She let her breath out slowly. “They didn’t spot us, Noah. And I think… he has brought rocks down here before. How big a rock would you need?”

Noah looked down at his hands, lmotted in his lap. “I’d like to say no one would do that… not for all the credit there is,” he said slowly. “But you know–the miners–they’re kind of an odd bunch. You don’t go be a miner because you want to get rich. It’s a long way out there and it’s… it’s a long way. I don’t know that… dropping a rock on Earth would mean all that much to some of them.” He shook his head, like someone waking up from a nighttmare. “I just don’t think you could do it. We’d spot it, coming in.

That’s our whole argument for us bringing rocks down to orbit. We can’t miss ’em.” He glared at her.

“Earth has warning beacons all over the place this side of the Belt. We’ve got rock jocks out grabbing every scrap of floating junk.”

“Kyros will know.” Ahni swung her legs over the side of the futon. “I need to talk to Kyros and then I need to find Li Zhen.”

“The Chairman of Dragon Home?” Noah looked aghast. “Are you crazy? He’s totally against secession.”

“No, he’s not,” Ahni gathered herself, the pain threatening to break through her control. “He has a son, Noah. Like Koi. And my brother intends to betray him.”

Noah stared at her, silent and considering. “It’s all out the lock now anyway. I’m not sure anything we do right now is going to save Dane. So hey, why not knock on Zhen’s door and ask him to play?”

Ahni put weight on her foot, fought down dizziness. Okay, she could make it. Took a cautious step.

Another. Noah put his arm around her and she leaned on him, which helped. They made their way out into the hall. “We’ll have to get back up to the hub without getting arrested,” she said as they made their way down the hallway. “I want Li Zhen in on this before we go to the CSF commander. He has more clout here than I do.”

They were lucky and met no CSF in the hallway. Clearly, the force was stretched thin and as long as no crowd gathered, they were probably content to keep track of this level mostly through the vid eyes. The few residents they passed neither looked nor spoke.

They reached the elevators without incident, and Ahni used her implanted hardware to override the lock and send the car clear up to the hub, as she had on that very first trip here. The diminishing weight on her ankle was a blessing, and by the time they donned the straps and Ahni floated free, she was able to relax some of her tight control. Pushing off with only one foot, she made her way back to Dane’s private lock, her senses tuned for anyone who might be watching for intruders, felt a familiar prod of intent behind them as they neared the lock.

”Wait, Noah.” She caught a planted tube. “We don’t have to find Li Zhen. He just found us.” She turned to face him as he arrowed toward them out of the green distance. As he neared, Ahni recognized the small, handheld tracking module in his hand. Idiot, she thought. Of course he had planted a beacon on her. She had never thought to scan herself for one.

He spilled his momentum neatly, drifting gently, two meters away. “This is the one who was to find the data for you?” he asked her in Mandarin.

She nodded. “Noah, meet Li Zhen.”

Noah nodded, tense and nervous.

“Li Zhen, Xai is playing a double game with you,” she said harshly. “He intends to betray you the same way he betrayed our father. He means to destroy Dragon Home and all the platforms.”

”What do you know?” the chairman snapped. “Why should your brother betray me?”

“He serves another master, Li Zhen. The Gaiists. I have proof. They mean to empty the platforms. That proof is in public space, and I have the links.”

“Show me.”

She handed him the data sphere on which Noah had recorded his synthesis of his media search on the Gaiist movement against the platforms. Li Zhen pulled out a pocket desk, dropped the sphere into it.

Minutes crawled by as he skimmed through the information. Finally he looked up, humming with reaction.

“I talked to Nilsson,” he said in English.

Ahni’s chest tightened and she drew a labored breath.

“Where is he?” Noah broke in. “Still on NYUp?”

“I do not find that our goals are… dissimilar.” Li Zhen iggnored Noah, switched back to Mandarin. “I will hear what you know about Huang Xai and what you suspect him of.”

“For that we need Kyros.” She pushed off, heading for the lock, flanked by Li Zhen and Noah both. The lock didn’t respond to Ahni’s palm when they reached it. “Kyros?” She felt a moment of fear that he had left after all.

“Who’s with you?” Kyros’s growl rumbled from the speaker.

“Li Zhen, Kyros. We need you. Fast.”

Silence. Ahni held her breath, her eye on the small green telltale that indicated pressure in the lock, waiting for it to turn yellow, then red, as Kyros blew the lock and took off. Said a small prayer to her ancestors that if he had stuck it out this long, he’d stay.

The lock melted open and she let her breath out in a rush of relief. Kyros faced her, his expression hard.

“You owe me a lot.”

”Yes.”

Li Zhen pulled himself past her and through the lock without a word. Kyros gave way before him, still nervous, keeping distance between himself and the Chairman of Dragon Home.

“We are here. With your miner.” Li Zhen faced her as the lock sealed behind them. “Explain.”

“Kyros.” Ahni drew a deep breath. “I think there is a plan to… drop a good sized rock on Earth.” She felt rather than heard Li Zhen’s reaction. “Could someone play hide and seek with someething that big?

Like you played it coming over here?”

“A rock?” Kyros’s eyes narrowed. “Why the hell would anybody want to drop a rock on Earth?”

“To shut down the Platforms,” Ahni said. “All of them. Say they dropped something less than 100 meters in diameter. It might explode in the atmosphere, but it would cause enormous devastaation if it came down anywhere near a population center. And it’s our worst nightmare. You’d have the world population calling for the end of the Platforms in one voice.”

“Why, damn it, why?” Kyros looked shaken.

“Because to the Gaiists, the Platforms are an alien cancer, an enemy of the planet and the planet is their goddess,” Ahni said. “They are behind the uprisings in NYUp.” She turned to Li Zhen. “Elder Brother.”

She switched to Mandarin. “Did you know Xai was working with them? Did he tell you that?” She reached into her singlesuit, handed him the data dot. “This needs to go to the CSF commander. It is the data file of the others who are involved with this.” And I will match you betrayal for betrayal, she thought.

“Your agenda will be destroyed if their agenda succeeds. Which master does my brother serve here, Li Zhen? Where will your son grow up, Elder Brother? Will your father welcome him?”

Li Zhen took the data dot from her. Pocketed it. “I will examine this.” His face and tone were cold and closed. He looked at Kyros spoke English. “Miner, you have not answered her. Is it possible for someone to bring a small M-type asteroid into the gravity of Earth without our beacon satellites’ detection?”

Kyros looked from Li Zhen to Ahni.”Yes,” he said.

“There are some crazy folk out in the Belt,” Kyros went on. “I guess… if you had contacts on Darkside, on the moon, you could find ’em. Even the real crazies have to come in once in awhile, and everybody knows who they are. We all sort of give ’em a wide orbit,” He frowned, thinking hard. “There are a few I know of who could pull it off… get a rock through the screen. They… uh… do that already.” He looked away from Li Zhen. Swallowed. “They’re real careful about it–a few people have gone out of their airlock because they got careless. But the money is real good if you do. Real good. A couple of the beacons… don’t reeally work. Looks like it from this end, but it’s a fake picture, you know? There’s some real talent out there in the fringe. You got to stick with small rocks–under 250

meters. But if you know the screen… there are holes. You use hull mounted receptors and every time you come down to Darkside, you record when the scan beams touch the ship. You do that long enough, you swap your data around with like minded folk, and pretty soon you got a nice three D map of the sentry shell.”

He gave them an uneasy shrug. “Believe me, it ain’t the solid sphere they like to brag about downside.

More like a big net and it’s got a few good sized holes in it. It could happen. And…” He let his breath out in a long sigh. “I always listen to the close-in chatter when I’m down here, and a couple of days ago, I heard someone say they thought they saw a rock going through. Nobody looks too close. If you’re towing a rock, your butt’s on the line and you’re carrying heavy hardware to deal with the curious.

Everybody but the sentries steers clear of incoming–when it has a rider. And… this one had a rider.”

“So there’s a rock down here in Near Earth?” Ahni said softly. “All set to drop?”

“Dunno about all set to drop. Who the hell would drop a rock?” Kyros looked away. “I don’t know where it is. Probably half refined by now.”

“Find out.” Li Zhen said softly. “Now.”

Kyros bristled.” Can you find out?” Ahni put in quickly. “Kyros, could you ask people in the… the chatter… to tell you if they saw something? It’s going to get dropped.”

“One rock looks like another if you park it,” he grumbled, his stare fixed on Li Zhen. “Folk don’t talk about that kind of thing. Even between us.” He sighed, looked at Ahni. “I can try,” he said. “And I know a couple of local… parking places. Some big holes. Bounce from the Platforms makes ’em. Down here, it’s a lot easier to hide a rock. The Platforms are looking for little local threats — junk and stuff that can bust a hole in the Platform hull or at least bang it up good. Everybody figures we’ll stop the big stuff before it gets down here. Once you park the rock, you cut it up and move it. You move under power, you don’t aim to hit anybody and you’re pretty much invisible in the traffic.”

He was worried, and that scared Ahni. “Can we go check out the parking spots? Li Zhen, you can take the data to the CSF commmander. Maybe they can pick up these people. They may be on Dragon Home,” she said to Li Zhen. “At least some of them.”

For an instant, Li Zhen’s face tightened as if to refuse, his anger a lightning flash between them. Then he looked away. “I will look for them there before I go to the commander,” he said.

“I don’t think you have a lot of time.” Kyros looked grim. “You bring a rock down here, you don’t sit on it and have a picnic. While you’re fetching the marines, I’d better start looking now. Damn, we need Dane.”

”Nilsson, why?” Li Zhen narrowed his eyes.

“He was a miner for years and he still gets along with everybody. He’s got an in with NYUp Admin and he pulls strings. People trust him and he knows the parking places, too. He has a ship and he could help us look.”

Li Zhen considered. “Nilsson is Council property. From what you say, we do not have enough time for a Council argument. If…” he looked at Ahni, “you are correct about the intended course of events.” He looked from her to Kyros. “I hope that you are not. Begin looking.” He palmed the lock open and pushed himself through. It sealed closed behind him.

“So is he going to do anything or not?” Noah stared after him. Ahni looked at Kyros. “I’m coming with you to look.”

“No.” Kyros turned his back on her.

“Yes.” Ahni pushed off with her good foot, slammed into the ship’s hull in front of him, killing her momentum with a slap of her palms that sounded like a shot in the small space. “I can hear them Kyros.

My brother. The Gaiist. I’ll know if they’re close, even if your instruments can’t spot them. It’s an edge.”

Kyros met her glare for a moment. Then his shoulder slumped slightly. “You.” He looked back at Noah.

“You get this end. Here.” He pulled a portable link from his suit, spun it toward Noah. “That’s the link to the old lighthouse where your Administrator and Dane’s kids are hiding out. They’ve got enough air and supplies for about ten days, okay?”

Noah caught the link, looking uncertain. “What should I do?”

“I don’t know.” Ahni shrugged. “Whatever you need to. Make sure Laif and Koi’s family are okay.” She pulled herself into the ship behind Kyros, grabbed the webbing as the closing hull cut off Noah’s protest.