walls in the registry computers. I feel confident that it will bring the needed data—but we will only have this one chance."
"You mean it will trigger counterprograms?" Dane asked.
Nunku waved her hand. "It is so."
"Will that bring the Monitors here?" Rael asked quickly, looking around the nest.
"No, for next I was going to request that thee insert it somewhere. It matters not where, though preferably in the console belonging to some knave who hath done thee ill, for the entry point will be traced. The data will not be directed to thy ship or here, but to a general mail drop down in the Shver area, at one of the rental accesses."
"And if they find out?" Dane asked. "I’ll be walking into a trap?"
"Thou must sound the drop first, from somewhere else," she said. "That’s easy enough. If they’ve breached it, you’ll know, for I’ve arranged for that too: you’ll only hear this signal if the ferret hasn’t been violated. The moment it is, it will self-destruct." She tabbed the audio on her console, and they all heard a bell tone in four distinctive notes.
"So they won’t know where you are, but they’ll know someone is in the system," Rael said. "And they’ll want to find out who."
Nunku nodded. "It’s a risk—" She stopped.
Rael turned her head, heard a faint whistle.
"Comes Liuqeeq," Tooe chirped.
Everyone waited in silence, Dane looking soberly down at the chip in his hand. A minute or so later the whistle came, louder, and then a tall, furred being jetted in, spiraling down expertly and stopping himself by catching hold of a tube just above Nunku’s area.
"I talk," Liuqeeq honked in a strange version of Terran. "I talk to Fozza, Fozza talk to Zham of Clan Marl, talk to Kanddoyd ally, find out—yes, Clan Golm hire roofnub chase Solar Queen captain."
"Roofnub—thugs," Rael translated to herself.
"Clan Golm, eh?" Dane said, with a martial grin. "Well. That helps narrow down the choices for where to insert this thing." He brandished the chip. "Ever heard of baseball?"
Nunku and her klinti all shook their heads.
"Well, it’s a Terran game, an old one, but all you need to remember is this: three strikes and you’re out. Clan Golm just made three strikes." He spun the chip in the air and caught it. "Now they’re going to be out."
"Golm not good," Liuqeeq said.
"Clan Golm get three strikes of fate," Tooe chirruped with immense satisfaction, and she and the others started jabbering in their own language as Dane, grinning, looked on.
Rael turned to Nunku. "Meanwhile, let me give you these mineral supplements, which ought to help you."
Rip Shannon dug into the hot food that Mura had prepared, listening as Tang Ya, Steen Wilcox, Craig Tau, and the captain talked at the other table.
"I probably could design something," Ya was saying. "Or even Rip over there—he’s got a knack with the data-running. The problem is, we don’t know the system here, which has to be at least several hundred years old, and it’s not human-designed."
"I thought computers ran more or less on the same principles," Jellico said, rubbing the blaster scar on his cheek.
"Bits and bytes," Tau said, smiling.
Wilcox leaned back, his long, somber face thoughtful. "It’s true enough when you look at the basics. But past that—and with a computer system as old and as complex as Harmony’s doubtless is, you’re soon past it—you come to variations in design which can differ as much as languages and customs do. Age adds its own idiosyncracies. Given enough time, someone as good as Ya here could figure out how to crack the system, but we don’t have the time."
"Speaking of time." Jellico’s hand dropped. "Thorson has been gone
too long. I don’t like having to depend on these Spin Axis people, for to all intents and purposes they are criminals."
Rip thought about Dane, and as before, he got a brief but vivid picture of his fellow apprentice. "He’s on his way," he spoke without thinking.
The others turned to study him. The captain and the other control deck officers merely looked surprised, but the medic’s eyes were narrowed in an odd expression.
"How d’you know that?" Ya asked.
Rip shrugged, the image gone. "I don’t know for certain," he admitted. "I guess it’s just a logical guess: he’s been gone long enough."
The odd expression was gone from the medic’s face. Tau now looked mildly interested as he lowered his jakek bulb and said, "Maybe Jasper knows for certain. Where is he?"
Rip felt the same flash, and said, "In the lab with the cats." It came out without thought.
The captain looked across at Tau, who smiled blandly, then he grunted. "Hope you’re right, Shannon. We need to get moving if we’re going to act at all."
They all returned to their meal, no one speaking until the clatter of boots on the deckplates indicated arrivals.
Dane Thorson, Tooe, and Rael Cofort appeared, all of them looking pleased. "Got it," Thorson said, brandishing the type of chip that Kanddoyd computers took. "All we have to do is get it into the system."
Tang Ya gave a quick frown. "I suppose we can do that here, if I design an interface—"
Rael Cofort raised a hand. "No, it has to be somewhere else. Nunku says her ferret will probably be traced to the port of origin."
"So," Dane said, turning to Rip with a grin, "we thought we’d make a little visit to the Jheel of Clan Golm who was so helpful, and start things there."
"But he’s gone, isn’t he?" Rip asked. "Festival of the Dancing Sprool? Three months’ hibernation?"
"Tooe’s friend Momo went over there to check, and he’s right at his desk," Dane said. "In fact, it’s almost all Shver on duty right now."
Wilcox whistled softly. "What arrogance!" he exclaimed. "Did he really think we’d never go back there again?"
Rael Cofort’s fine brow quirked ironically. "We Terrans might look all alike to most Shver, but we don’t to the Kanddoyds, at least to the ones who work at the Trade registry. I’m sure he has friends among the facilitators who would warn him if the Queen's crew is coming, and then he could conveniently disappear again."
"Either that or just pull the silent treatment again," Rip said.
Cofort frowned slightly. "It does seem significant, doesn’t it, this coincidental proliferation of Shver behind the counters at communications?"
"Nobody messes with Shver," Rip said grimly.
"Except us," Dane added, grinning.
Rip liked the look of that grin. It promised action. Rip was very ready for some action. "When are you going?" he asked.
Dane shrugged. "Captain?"
Jellico gave a curt nod.
"No time like the present," Dane said, and he looked up at Rip. "Coming to help?"
"Wouldn’t miss it," Rip said, putting his half-eaten meal in the cooler for later.
They managed to get a maglev pod to themselves. As soon as the doors hissed shut, Rip said, "He’s bound to remember us. Won’t that make a problem?"
"Not if Tooe and I go in first and decoy him," Rael Cofort said.
Rip looked over at her in surprise.
Dane grinned. "She said she wouldn’t be left out. And it does make things easier for us. We simply stay out of sight while they distract the Jheel, one of us is on hand to distract anyone else who might see, the other inserts the chip and gets it started, then—" He clapped his big hands. "We’re in."