And then, suddenly, Taneem was gone.
Alison twitched violently in reaction. The movement bumped her head against the self-destruct bomb set into the safe's ceiling.
She rubbed gingerly at the spot. As if she'd needed that reminder that her fate was now directly tied to Taneem's. If the K'da had fallen wrong and disappeared into that strange fourth-dimensional space, then Alison was also dead. Either her air would run out or someone else would open the safe and the bomb would blow her head off. . . .
She was almost startled when, with no fuss at all, the safe door swung open at her feet.
She blinked sudden tears of relief from her eyes as Taneem's gray-scaled face peered in at her. "You were right," the K'da said, her jaws cracking open in a wry smile. "Number twelve was a squiggle with a line through it."
"Ah," Alison said, filling her lungs with fresh air as she worked her way out of the safe. Stretching stiff muscles, she looked around.
The room was dark except for the handful of small red night-lights marking the door and the tastefully concealed emergency kit. Another door led off one of the side walls, its lack of red night-lights showing that it wasn't an exit.
"What now?" Taneem asked quietly.
"Shh," Alison warned, touching her finger to her lips. She pulled out her mascara tube again as she moved carefully to the door. If Neverlin had any brains, he would have left guards outside in the corridor.
He had. Two of them, she guessed, from the sounds of their breathing.
Just as carefully she backed away again to the farthest corner of the office. Taneem, her silver eyes glittering in the darkness, padded silently over to join her.
"There are bad people out there?" the K'da murmured.
Alison nodded. "Two, I think," she said. "But don't worry. It doesn't sound like they're planning to come in and snoop around."
"Unless we give them reason to do so."
"So we make sure we don't," Alison said, trying to think. Originally, a quiet look around had been first on her list of things to do. Once she had some idea of how many men and Brummgas were aboard, she would have a better idea of where the two of them might be able to hide for a few days.
Unfortunately, both parts of the plan required her to leave the office. With a pair of Malison Ring mercenaries standing guard a foot outside the door, that was going to be a little tricky.
"I see no place where we may hide for long," Taneem said into her thoughts. "Unless your breath mask can be restored?"
"It can be recharged somewhat, yes," Alison said. "But not entirely. Certainly not enough to get us through a whole day or more in the safe."
"Then we must find a new place," the K'da concluded. "Shall I begin a search?"
Alison frowned. Then, suddenly, she understood. The last time they were aboard, Taneem had taken herself on a brief tour of the ship's ventilation system. "It could be dangerous," she warned. "And not just from the ducts themselves. If anyone spots you, we're both dead."
The K'da twitched her tail. "So will we be if we stay here."
"I can't argue with that," Alison conceded. She looked around, spotted the vent in the wall just below the ceiling. "Let's get the grille off."
Three minutes later, Taneem climbed up on Alison's shoulders and cased her head and forepaws into the open vent. "It looks clear," she said, pulling her head briefly back out again to look at Alison. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
Alison nodded. "Good luck."
Taneem put her head back into the opening. Pulling with her forepaws, she slid the rest of the way in, and with a flick of her tail she was gone.
Pulling out her flashlight, Alison turned it to its lowest setting and put it into the duct to give Taneem something to look for when she headed back. She then put the grille back into position, fastening the bolts just tightly enough to keep it in place.
And once she'd done that, there was nothing for her to do but wait.
CHAPTER 4
She waited for a grand total of maybe two minutes. Then, being careful not to make any noise, she set out to explore the office.
The last time she'd been in here, when Frost had had her break into Neverlin's desk safe, he'd kept her in the main room. Her first task, therefore, was to see what was beyond the side door.
There were, as it turned out, two other rooms in the suite. One was a private washroom, the other a secure communications nook with a direct link to the ship's radio and InterWorld transmitters.
There were, unfortunately, no exits from either room.
She got a drink of water from the washroom and then returned to the main office, a fresh idea occurring to her. It was right after she'd opened this particular safe that Frost had fulfilled his part of their bargain and given her the satchel she'd gotten from Virgil Morgan's Semaline lockbox.
More important, that was the point where Frost's interest in the Advocatus Diaboli's various safes had suddenly stopped.
Something in that safe had apparently been very interesting to Neverlin's ally. It might be worthwhile to see what that something was.
She'd already opened the safe once, which theoretically meant she already had the combination. But there was always the chance that Neverlin had changed it since then.
Anyway, it wasn't as if she didn't have a few minutes to spare. Pulling out her burglar's tools, she got to work.
It was just as well she'd checked. Neverlin had indeed changed the combination. Using her MixStar computer to track down the new sequence, she got the safe open.
Inside was a two-inch-thick stack of papers, plus half a dozen data tubes. Setting the data tubes aside, knowing they were probably encrypted, Alison pulled out the papers and set them on her lap. With her light clipped to her shirt collar, she started going through them, wondering which one had caught Frost's attention.
Five pages from the top, she found it.
She had finished looking at the papers, and was going through the desk's drawers, when Taneem returned.
"The ship is very quiet," the K'da said after Alison had helped her back through the opening. "I saw only two humans seated in the main control rooms."
"The bridge," Alison identified it. "Probably Neverlin's night-shift crew. Any passengers out and about?"
"The ducts carry the smell of many Brummgas," Taneem said, a brief shiver running through her. "I think there are also a few other humans."
"Frost and some of his men," Alison said. "At least now we know where we stand. Which is more than Frost can say right now."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I found out why he was almost on my side for a while during our little vacation on Brum-a-dum." Alison held up the interesting paper she'd found. "I helped him find out that Neverlin's trying to do an end run around him."
"What's an end run?"
"Actually, in this case it's more of a double cross," Alison said. "Remember that we figured out earlier how Neverlin was going to get the ships he needed for his attack? That Frost was going to steal them from one of the planets where the Malison Ring is fighting one of their wars?"
"Yes," Taneem said. "Only it was you who figured that out, not us."
"Oh," Alison said, momentarily thrown off-track. "Yes, I suppose it was. But it doesn't really matter who came up with the idea."
"Yes, it does," Taneem said, a bit primly. "Draycos says a person must always give proper credit for cleverness and resourceful thinking. Especially if that same person is equally quick to assign blame."
Alison grimaced. "Let me guess. Jack was grousing again about me opening the other safe for Neverlin?"
"Actually, at the time I believe they were discussing your plan for getting through Frost's security cordon into the Chookoock hangar back at the Ponocce Spaceport," Taneem said. "Jack thought your Trojan Horse idea was very clever."