"You know, we can get you a chair," Frost said.
"No, thanks," Alison said, making little marks in the notebook as if she was taking actual notes. Taneem's job today was to see if she could get a better look at the spots where the two cables and the wall connected.
For a few minutes Alison stayed as she was, pretending to listen to the sensor's output and making more little squiggles in her notebook. Then she felt Taneem shift again on her skin, and there was the touch of K'da claws on her right side. Alison half turned, moved the sensor to a new position, and then resettled herself against the door a few inches farther to her right.
The next three hours were spent mostly in silence. There was an occasional clink as she rearranged the components of her equipment, or a muted clunk as she attached or reattached the various sensors. Sometimes she would accidentally kick the safe as she moved around it. Twice during the morning a messenger slipped in to deliver a murmured message to the Patri.
But aside from that no one spoke. The three watchers, for that matter, hardly even moved in their seats. It was, Alison reflected grimly, rather like working in a tomb.
A little before noon, she finally called a halt. "I need to go back to my room for a while," she informed the others. "I need to do some thinking."
"You can't think here?" Frost asked.
"I want to lie down," Alison explained. "Humans do their fastest thinking standing up, but they do their best thinking lying down."
The Patri stirred in his seat. "It is stalling," he rumbled.
Alison turned to him, her mouth gone suddenly dry. There hadn't been a single scrap of doubt in that voice that she could hear. "I'm not stalling," she protested. "All I want to do is—"
"What do you mean, Patri Chookoock?" Neverlin cut her off, his eyes suddenly hard and cold.
"It makes the same moves over and over," the Patri said. He gestured toward the safe, his eyes never leaving Alison's face. "Today it does the same as it did two days ago."
"I'm checking my readings," Alison put in before Neverlin could say anything. "Some safes have floating codes and chron flippers."
"It is stalling," the Patri accused again. "It cannot solve the puzzle and thus seeks an opportunity to run away from it."
And out of the corner of her eye, Alison saw Frost stiffen.
She flicked her eyes toward him. But whatever it was she'd seen had instantly been buried behind an expressionless face. "With all due respect, I'm not going anywhere," Alison said. "I've got twenty thousand riding on this." She raised her eyebrows at Neverlin. "Forty if I can do it before Mr. Arthur finishes his Easter egg hunt."
Neverlin's eyes narrowed. "Look, Kayna—"
"Actually, I think we could all do with a break," Frost cut him off smoothly. "In any event, it is almost lunchtime. Kayna can eat in her room and take whatever thinking time she needs. When she's ready, we can all meet again. Is that acceptable?"
Neverlin had switched his narrowed-eyed stare to Frost. But he merely nodded. "Fine with me. Patri Chookoock?"
"If it is ever ready," the Brummga growled.
"She will be," Frost promised. "Come on, Kayna. I'll take you back to your room."
Neither of them spoke until they reached Alison's slave-level room. Alison walked inside; without waiting for an invitation, Frost followed. "Isn't it interesting how the human mind works?" he commented conversationally as he closed the door behind him. "I've been watching you for two weeks without a clue. And then, a single offhand comment from a fat, ugly lump with stuffed cabbage for brains, and suddenly it comes clear."
Alison held her breath. If he'd gotten a clean look at her in the Rho Scorvi forest . . .
"Running away." Frost leveled a finger at her face, his casual manner abruptly gone. "You're a deserter from the Malison Ring."
Alison's breath went out in a huff. Bad enough, but not as bad as she'd feared.
But definitely bad enough. "The what?" she asked. It might still pay her to play stupid.
It didn't. "Don't waste my time," Frost bit out. "Your hair's different—shorter and darker—but I remember the face from the newslist. You joined up about eight months ago, went through basic, then disappeared the week you were sent to your first post."
"All right," Alison said as calmly as she could. "I admit it. I got scared and ran."
"Oh, you didn't get scared," Frost said. "And you didn't just run. Because I also remember that your training camp CO reported there might have been a breach in his computer system during the six weeks you were there."
Alison grimaced. So she'd left a trail behind her on that job. Between the Malison Ring and the Whinyard's Edge, she wasn't running up a very good record here. "I was just trying to clear out my record," she said, letting a little tremor drift into her voice. "I knew I couldn't handle the job, and thought—"
"Spare me," Frost snarled. "I've had about as much of you as I can stomach."
"Okay, fine," Alison said, dropping the tremor. "Game's over. I'm not exactly thrilled by the company, either, if you want to know the truth. But you still need me."
"Maybe not as badly as you think," Frost said. "Like you said, the game's over. So here's what's going to happen. You're going back to that room—today—and you're going to open that safe."
Alison stared at him, her throat tightening. "I can't," she said. "I don't know how to deactivate the self-destruct bomb."
"Then you'd better figure it out, hadn't you?" Frost advised coldly. "Because if it goes off, the Patri will have you shot." He shrugged. "Either way, I'll be happy."
Across her back,Alison felt Taneem shifting position. Quickly, she put a warning hand on her shoulder. "Can I at least have an hour to think?"
"Sure," Frost said, opening the door again. "Take all afternoon if you want." He leveled his finger again. "But sometime before midnight tonight, you're going to open that safe." Stepping out into the corridor, he closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER 24
For a long minute Alison just stood there, staring at the closed door, her mind skidding like an out-of-control bobsled.
One way or another, she was going to die tonight.
Taneem bounded out of her back collar. The sudden weight threw Alison off balance, and she barely caught herself before she could slam into the wall. "I'm sorry," Taneem apologized as she turned back around. "I came off too quickly."
"No, it's okay," Alison said, looking at the K'da with a surge of guilt. Take care of Taneem, Jack had told her just before he'd disappeared on Semaline.
Instead, Alison's failure was going to get her killed, too.
"Are you worried?" Taneem asked, stepping closer and peering into Alison's face.
"Yes, I'm worried," Alison told her honestly. "In fact, I'm terrified."
The dragon twitched her tail. "How may I help?"
Alison sighed as she sat down on the edge of the bed. "I don't think you can," she said.
"You will solve the problem," Taneem said firmly. "I know you will."
Alison looked away from that earnest dragon face. "I don't think so," she said quietly. "I'm stuck, Taneem. I can't figure out what the people who designed the safe were trying to do."
She started as something settled onto her lap. She looked down to see Taneem's head resting there, those silver eyes gazing up at her. It was so exactly like the way her old Newfoundland used to do that it brought tears to her eyes. "You're very clever, Alison," Taneem said. "I've heard both Jack and Draycos say so."
Alison had to smile at that. "Jack actually paid me a compliment?"