Off the conversation area, convenient to both it and the sleeping section, was a bathroom with separate shower and swirl tub enclosures.
Alison spent the first half hour wandering around the suite, the bug detector from her lip liner pencil humming in one hand, the other hand resting casually on her shoulder in silent warning for Taneem to stay put. The Advocatus Diaboli's original builders would hardly have included surveillance equipment, but she thought Frost might have tried to throw something together in the four hours he'd had to play with.
He had. He'd installed two microphones, though so amateurishly that she hardly even needed her detector to find them. One was behind the desk's privacy panel, the other by the bed behind the intercom speaker. She got rid of both, then swept the suite again just to make sure.
And when she was finished, she kicked off her shoes and socks and climbed into the squishy-soft bed. Pulling the comforter all the way up to her chin, she settled down for a quiet conversation. "Taneem?" she murmured. "How you doing, girl?"
"I'm frightened," Taneem murmured back. Her voice was shaking, her two-dimensional body sliding restlessly along Alison's skin. "I'm sorry."
"That's okay," Alison said, trying to hide her own growing fears about this whole thing. "You've been very brave."
"This is the same human who tried to kill us on Rho Scorvi, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is," Alison confirmed. "But that's all right, because he doesn't know who we are. Or rather, who I am. We absolutely have to make sure that he never finds out about you at all."
"Because he wants to kill Draycos and all others of our kind?"
"Wants is the key word," Alison agreed. "But he's not going to, because you and I and Jack and Draycos aren't going to let him. That's why we're here."
"Is it?" Taneem asked. "Or is it the money he promised you?"
"No reason I can't have both, is there?" Alison asked, keeping her voice light.
For a moment Taneem didn't answer, but there was a definite sense of discomfort to her silence. Alison waited her out, wondering if all K'da were like this or whether Draycos had been pounding his warriors' ethic into her during their language lessons. "Perhaps we should have run," Taneem said at last.
"Unfortunately, there was never any safe time when we could have done that," Alison said. "From the moment Mustache grabbed my arm, we were stuck."
"I could have helped you," Taneem said, a bit hesitantly.
Alison's mind flashed back to Taneem's reaction the first time she'd been forced to kill. "Even with your help, it would have been dangerous," she told the K'da. "The two men on Semaline were never close enough together that we could have been sure of taking both out before they could fight back."
"What then is our plan?" Taneem asked. "Or do we even have a plan?"
"Of course we do," Alison assured her, trying to sound more confident than she felt. "We do what Frost wants and open his safe for him."
"Because of the money?"
Alison pursed her lips, mindful of Taneem's still limited intelligence and understanding. "Taneem, do you remember Jack and Draycos talking about the upcoming meeting that's supposed to take place between the K'da advance team and the full refugee fleet?"
"Yes, of course," Taneem said, sounding a little insulted by the question.
"And you also remember that we don't know where that meeting's supposed to take place?"
"Of course," Taneem said again. "That's why we went to Nikrapapo, to see if we could learn the location from the Malison Ring computer there."
"Right," Alison said. "Only it's starting to look like Frost and his friends don't actually have that information. Not yet. I think it's in this safe they want me to open."
"Why haven't they opened it themselves?"
"Maybe they tried and couldn't," Alison said. "I think that's why they've been chasing so hard after Jack these past couple of months. His Uncle Virgil used to be one of the very best at this sort of thing."
"Then you also must fail in your attempt," Taneem said. Some weight came onto Alison's shoulder as the K'da lifted her head partially from the skin. "If the location is in the safe, you must not open it."
"I wish it was that easy," Alison said. "But it's not. They've got four safes—maybe only three if the one on Draycos's Havenseeker was too badly wrecked in the crash—and the whole Orion Arm to choose safecrackers from. Sooner or later, somebody will get one of them open."
"Then perhaps we can destroy it?" Taneem suggested hesitantly. "Perhaps we can destroy all of them?"
"We can't do that," Alison said. "There are just too many things we don't know."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, for instance, what happens if none of the advance team shows up at the meeting point?" Alison asked. "Do the refugees just wait there until someone does? Do they go home? Do they continue on to Iota Klestis, which Neverlin and Frost already know about?"
Taneem's glowing eyes seemed to dim a bit. "I don't know," she admitted.
"Neither do I," Alison said. "Besides, this is way too good an opportunity to pass up. Ever since Draycos's team was attacked, he and Jack have been playing catch-up."
"What does that mean?"
"Neverlin and his buddies have always had the initiative," Alison explained. "That means they were always deciding what to do, and Jack and Draycos were always having to react to their action and try to block it. But if we can get to the refugee fleet information first, we'll finally be ahead of the game."
"The game?" Taneem echoed. "Is that what this is to you, Alison? A game?"
Alison was still trying to come up with a good answer for that when, behind her, there was a soft click and the stateroom door slid open.
"What do you want?" she demanded, sitting bolt upright as Dumbarton and Mrishpaw strode into the room. On her shoulder, she felt Taneem's weight vanish as the K'da again flattened herself and moved out of sight. "How dare you just waltz in here?"
"Can it, kid," Dumbarton said. "Colonel wants your clothes."
"My what?"
"Gotta scan 'em," he said.
Alison clenched her teeth. With Taneem riding her skin . . . "Fine," she said. "Go on out. I'll toss everything out to you."
"Just do it," Dumbarton growled, not making the slightest move toward the door. "We haven't got all day."
"I'll tell Colonel Frost," Alison threatened.
Striding over to the intercom on the nightstand, Dumbarton jabbed one of the buttons. "Colonel?" he said. "Dumbarton. She's being uncooperative."
"I just want a little privacy," Alison called toward the intercom.
"You think you've got something we haven't all seen before?" Frost countered.
"Colonel—"
"You got two choices, kid," Frost cut her off. "Take 'em off yourself, or Dumbarton and Mrishpaw will do it for you." There was a click, and he was gone.
"Well?" Dumbarton asked.
Alison glared at him. "Fine," she gritted. Rolling to the opposite side of the bed, she put her hand on the edge of the mattress as she threw off the comforter and swung her legs over the side.
And to her horror felt a surge of weight on the back of her hand as Taneem dropped off onto the floor.
Alison clamped down hard on her tongue, potential disaster flashing in front of her eyes. Taneem clearly had it in mind to hide under the bed. Only it was a pedestal bed, fastened to the deck, with barely a three-inch overhang.
For the moment, the K'da was out of the mercenaries' view. But Dumbarton was already headed back around the side of the bed, clearly intent on catching up with Alison and making sure she didn't waste any more of his time. As for the Brummga, all he had to do was unglue his big feet from the floor and take three paces to his left and he would likewise get the shock of his life.