“The shelves aren’t that deep. They’re not hung on the wall; they’re freestanding racks. I think they were moved from wherever this unit was before, and were purpose-sized to the more modern recorders. If I’m reading his thought processes right, he’ll assume a searcher will expect it to be at the back, or under something… hidden.” She turned around, eyeing all the shelves.
Major Palnuss, following her gaze, looked along each shelf in turn. “I don’t see—”
“There,” Ky said. She went toward the door, to the narrower rack beside it, with a clipboard hanging from a string and a battered pencil thrust into the clip.
“Why that?”
“Because every shop I’ve ever seen had the formal, official list of what was there—on some kind of tablet or computer—and then it had the real list, usually on actual paper. A clipboard or a spiral notebook, kept where it is handy to the techs but could pass for a sign-in/sign-out sheet if the brass comes by.”
“You think it will be listed?”
“Yes. Even if Kvannis told them not to put it in the official catalog for some reason, they’ll have it here.” She took the clipboard down; Palnuss craned his neck to see the top page. SIGN IN/SIGN OUT.
“I’ll be—is there something like this in the other shops?”
“Yes—I noticed them when we were there. Just like other stores and shops I’ve been in, civilian, merc, military alike.”
She flipped up the pages until she came to something different. “Aha. This is their personal stack map. With initials, how handy. D for drop-offs, CI for currently investigating, R for removals. Item’s accession number. And a column for who dropped it off or picked it up, conveniently labeled WHO. And date. And this at the end is where it is.”
“And you can figure out that code?”
“I think so. The most recent item dropped off was six days ago, by RG, whoever that is. If L2-T means top of the stack on the second shelf of the left-hand set of shelves… now, is that coming in, or going out?” She was facing the back of the room. “I’ll take the one on my left, you take the one over there.”
“What’s the accession number?”
“For this entry? XRM-VTOL-2914M8.” Ky looked at the second shelf on her side without success. Three stacks and the top item in all three had the wrong number.
“Three stacks on this shelf,” Palnuss reported. “Aha!”
“So they mapped facing the door,” Ky said. “Now, how long would it have taken for that item to get here, after I turned it in?” She worked backward through the scribbled notes until she saw IK in the WHO column. Two days after she’d handed the flight recorder in, Kvannis had turned it in here. “Accession number correct, Kvannis’s initials correct, but—no map code. Wait. They put it in and he must have made them erase it.”
“That I can fix,” Palnuss said. “We’re good at forgeries, invisible inks, and the impressions left by pencils. Let me see it.” He dusted it with powder, blew softly, and said, “B. Back, that should be. L… lower or left. Three T. Let’s try the third shelf near the left end, on top. Or, if Kvannis made them move it, somewhere nearby.”
“If he annoyed them enough, they probably put it back where they wanted it,” Ky said. Ky recognized the right flight recorder as soon as she was close enough, on top of the end stack on the third shelf. It had snagged a thread in the pocket of her survival suit, and the short length of orange thread was still there. She checked the number anyway.
“Where do you want it now?” Palnuss asked. “The safes won’t lock.”
“Do you have one in your office that will?”
“Yes, but all my personnel have the combination.”
“And do you trust them?”
“Yes.”
“Then keep it there. It won’t be long, I think, before you or I will be asked where it is. We should know that.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Rafe woke finally and listened to the house. Silence. Was he alone here? It took him several minutes to remember that Teague and the others were out at the base, that the Vatta house had been damaged and he was at Grace’s. His implant told him it was 1600 local time, afternoon of the same day he’d flown in from Stone Crossing. He showered, raising his eyebrows at the bruises the cattlelopes had left on him, but glad the headache had gone. Dressed in slacks and a sweater, he tucked his usual weapons into their places and padded downstairs to investigate.
He found MacRobert in the kitchen giving instructions to a pair of men in uniform. MacRobert looked up sharply, then nodded at Rafe. “I was thinking we should call a physician, Ser Dunbarger.” Formality in front of the guard; MacRobert had been calling him Rafe. “You slept a long time.”
“Being run over by large animals with hooves and horns will do that to you,” Rafe said. “Is there anything to eat?”
“Can you cook?” MacRobert asked. “I’ve got to go back to Grace, and these gentlemen are here as guards, not servants.”
“Well enough for a quick meal. Eggs still in the cooler?”
“Fairly well stocked. Enjoy yourself. The Commandant will be glad to know you’re awake.”
The Commandant—that was Ky, now. “What else has been happening while we were gone?”
“Too many attacks on Vatta,” MacRobert said. “There’s a little brushfire out in the Southwest and a frank attempt at a revolution got started about twelve hours ago in Makkavo—that’s on Dorland. Last we heard something probably related was also popping in Fulland.”
“Heard that yesterday—if it was yesterday. That knock on the head messed up my time sense. Ky and Stella both all right, though?”
“Yes. Ky’s supposed to be interviewed on the news later.”
Rafe rummaged in the cooler, coming out with eggs and a chunk of ham. He put Grace’s smaller frying pan on the stove, added a knob of butter, and took a slice off the ham and diced it. The two guards hitched up their weapons harnesses and left the kitchen, one to the front of the house and one to the back.
“The Vatta legal staff and Grace are both working on your visa status,” MacRobert said, relaxing now that the guards were gone. “It’s too bad you lost your ID jumping a fence. Teague’s safe at the base. Immigration can’t get at him there, and the guards here have been told to say nothing.”
Rafe found the drawer with the whisks in it, and beat up three eggs and poured them into the frying pan. He reached for the diced ham.
“If you added an egg to that, I wouldn’t say no to some,” MacRobert said.
Rafe cracked three more eggs, gave them a brief mix with the whisk, and poured them in, along with the diced ham. “Easier to divide in half,” he said. “And if you don’t want that much, I can manage to get around it.”
MacRobert chuckled. “Always did appreciate a partner who could cook.”
“So we’re partners now?”
“Only in that we’re both working for Ky at the moment. And Grace, of course, though she’s gone odd since the gas attack.”
“Odd how?”
“Blaming herself for not knowing about the deal her father made to get her out of prison, and accepting a political post. She thinks that’s what set the Quindlans off. Which it isn’t; the attack on all the Vattas came before that.”
Rafe dumped a heap of stirred eggs and ham onto one plate and the rest on another, turned off the stove, and carried the plates to the table. “I thought that attack was mostly Osman.”
“Osman wanted Vatta taken down, but so did Quindlan.” MacRobert shoveled in a mouthful of eggs and after a moment went on. “After all, why put in a secret access to your customer’s basement if you’re not planning to harm them? We don’t know when the charges were actually placed, but my guess is that they’d been there a long time.”