“—and back down again, containing four people when it should only contain one pilot, without Kurst getting suspicious.”
“Why don’t we just ask around and see who wants to get off-planet, there’s bound to be someone, then send her up with the pilot?”
Danner shook her head. “I daren’t. The fewer who know about this and are in a position to communicate with the Kurst, the better.”
“Are you asking for one to us to volunteer, then?” Letitia asked slowly.
“Not yet.”
The silence was long. Danner watched the snow fall outside. Last winter, the snow had formed drifts of eight or nine feet in places. Hiam had assured her that this winter would be milder.
“What’s Kurst’s position relative to Estrade? ” Kahn asked suddenly.
“I’m not sure.” Danner tapped a request into her comm. “Variable, according to this.”
“A regular variable?”
“Yes.”
“And are the two sometimes out of line-of-sight, obscured by Jeep itself?”
Danner tapped some more. “Yes.”
“Ha!” Dogias crowed, reaching over and poking Kahn on the thigh.“Ana, you’re a genius.” She turned to Danner. “How long would the two be out of line-of-sight?”
Danner sighed, and requested that information. “Six hours.”
“Long enough?” Dogias asked Kahn.
“Maybe,” the Mirror said thoughtfully. “Tight, though.”
“Maybe you two would like to explain.”
Kahn gestured for Dogias to take it. “The Kurst is a military vessel, equipped with the best in sensors and detection equipment. I should know, my assignment before Jeep was working on a cruiser’s systems. The only thing is, when the object you want to scan is obscured by a large body, you have to use a separate set of sensors, which need careful and exacting reprogramming, or”—she grinned—“rely upon rough data. Very rough data. If we send up the gig during this six-hour period, they’ll have to choose. So what they’ll do is check their rough data first.” She looked to Kahn for confirmation. The Mirror nodded. “All we have to do is make sure their rough data will satisfy them enough so that they don’t feel the need to go through all the trouble of the second, more accurate scan.” She stopped, pleased with herself.
“And?”
“And so as long as we stick something alive on that gig, they won’t know if it’s human or not.”
“An animal?”
“As long as it’s big enough,” Dogias said.
Danner wondered where they could find an animal big enough.
“Would it have to be one large one? How about several small ones?” Lu Wai asked.
“That should do it.”
Danner considered. It could work. They could even pilot the gig up by remote.
The less personnel risked, the better. Tapes of conversation should satisfy audio requirements. Yes, it could work. For the journey up. “What about the rest?”
“How badly do we need the station’s systems?”
“We need them. They control the satellites: our communications and microwave relay, weather information…”
“More than we need the Estrade crew?”
“Personnel come first,” she said firmly to Letitia. Do they? a little voice whispered. What about Relman? “Why, what were you thinking?”
“If we rigged the platform to explode a few minutes after the gig took off Hiam and the others, then it’s likely that no one would bother with a complicated check of the gig on its way down on a routine mission. They’ll be too busy trying to find out why the platform blew.”
“There must be a better way.”
“Maybe we could rig some other explosion—maybe one of Estrade’s OM
vehicles or something.”
Kahn nodded thoughtfully. “That might be possible.”
Danner looked from one to the other. “Any other ideas? No? Right, Kahn and Dogias, I want you to work up the details of what we’ve discussed. Bring them to me by…day after next?”
Dogias and Kahn nodded.
“Good.”
“Ma’am?” Lu Wai asked.
“Yes, Serg—” Danner smiled. “—Lieutenant.”
“What about Relman?”
“Let her go.”
“Ma’am?”
“She’s suffered enough. Confiscate her wristcom, and Cardos’s, and send them off on some make-work mission. As far from here as possible.”
“Cardos is a cartographer.”
“Then have them start mapping the area south and west of here. That should keep them busy for a while, and give Relman time to think. She’s safe enough as long as she can’t communicate with the Kurst.” She stared out of the window. “We need every healthy woman we can get. There’s so much work to be done. We’ll have to prepare for wholesale evacuation of Port Central, in case the Kurst decides to sterilize this area.” Sterilize. How easy it was to use euphemisms.
The sky was solid gray; the snow was still falling.
“I miss the sky,” Danner added, to no one in particular. “The thought of never again seeing a light blue Irish morning above wet green fields makes me want to weep.”
“I like it here,” Dogias said.
“I miss home,” Lu Wai admitted, “but I don’t think we’ll ever see it again.” She touched Letitia’s hand. “This isn’t such a bad place. It could become home.”
Danner suspected that for Lu Wai, home was wherever Dogias was. “And you, Ana?”
“I was born on a station orbiting Gallipoli,” Kahn said. “Earth isn’t home. The place they’d send us if we ever left here certainly wouldn’t be home. This may not be, either, but it’s a good enough place.”
Yes, Danner thought, it may be a good enough place, but how would they live here? And when the dust settled, what would be her place on this new world? She was a military and security commander; all she was good at was giving orders. She knew nothing of communities and the way they worked. She wished Marghe were here; an anthropologist would be invaluable.
“If only we really knew what it’s like to live amongst these people,” she said, frustrated.
Letitia and Lu Wai exchanged glances. “But we do,” Letitia said slowly. “Kind of.
Or, at least, Day does.”
“Day? Officer Day, the one that got rescued from the burn by that skinny native, before the virus hit?” Dogias nodded. “But she’s dead. Isn’t she? The virus.”
“I believe she’s listed as missing, ma’am,” Lu Wai said.
“You mean she’s not dead?” The truth hit her. “You know where she is!”
“Yes.”
The sled hummed next to what was left of the northern perimeter gate as Lu Wai ran it through ground checks. Though it was only midmorning, it was dark enough for twilight; wind drove thick snow almost horizontally through the gloom. Inside her hood, Danner kept her eyes slitted against the flakes and half walked, half ran across the grass to the sled. Dogias was on the flatbed, securing the last of the supply cases.
Danner tapped her on the shoulder. She had to shout over the wind. “Remember, tell her it’s all unofficial. According to the records, she’s still listed as missing, and it’ll stay that way no matter what, unless she wants it different. Tell her anything you think will persuade her, but just get her here.”
“Do my best,” Dogias shouted.
The foul-weather cab hatch slid back and Lu Wai leaned out. “Let’s get going.
The weather will only get worse.”
Dogias jumped down from the flatbed and slid into the front seat; Lu Wai pressed the hatch-seal button, cursed, and began to crank it down by hand.
The sled lifted off the ground with a whine. Snow hissed underneath it and bit at Danner’s ankles.