Heikki looked down at her drink. She knew perfectly well what Djuro was saying, but shook her head irritably in rejection. “They’ve been jerking us around since we took the job. I don’t think they should get away with it.”
“Damn it, Heikki, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Djuro said.
Heikki took a deep breath, controlling her anger. “I grant you, not directly. Fine, we have to hand over the data, and I’m willing to do it. But I also think, given how strange this job has been right from the beginning, that we should keep certified copies of every disk, and put Malachy onto the question.”
“You are thinking of suing Lo-Moth to make them show cause for ending the contract?” Nkosi asked.
Heikki nodded. “That’s right,” she said, and looked at Djuro. “It’s self protection.”
The little man shook his head. “You’re the boss, Heikki.”
That’s right, Heikki thought. She said, suppressing her impatience, “I think we have to know, for the sake of our reputation, if nothing else. If they want to keep things quiet, that’s fine, but I don’t want us to suffer for it.”
Djuro made a face, but nodded reluctantly. “You’re right,” he said, after a moment, and nodded again.
It was more than she had expected, and Heikki dipped her head in unspoken thanks. “I’m going to contact the Marshallin as soon as possible.”
“There is a direct line available into the Loop,” Nkosi said.
“Probably monitored,” Djuro said.
“Quite possibly,” Heikki agreed. “However, we’re not doing anything wrong, remember? We’re within our rights to check this out.”
“I know,” Djuro said softly. “I just don’t like it.”
At least he didn’t remind her that he had objected to the job from the beginning. Heikki stood, feeling the past days’ work in every muscle. “I’m going to try and get the Marshallin,” she said, and went on into the workroom.
To her surprise, Iadara and EP Seven were roughly congruent, and there was an opening in the transmission queue. She gave the synchronizer Santerese’s mailcodes and then her own bank payment code, wincing a little at the cost quoted her. Then there was nothing to do except wait, pacing, for the connection to be established. Nkosi appeared in the doorway, offering more to drink; Heikki let him refill her glass, and returned to the communications station.
It took a little less than an hour to establish contact, an unusually short turnaround. Heikki settled herself in front of the room’s cameras, waiting with a familiar impatience while the media wall lit and slowly focused. The image flickered steadily despite the compensating enhancements as the transmission passed through the distortion of the open warp, but it was all too recognizably Santerese. Heikki smiled, the day’s events momentarily forgotten in the sheer pleasure of seeing Santerese again, and saw the same delight in the other woman’s grin. Predictably, it was Santerese who spoke first.
“Well, doll, I was expecting to hear from you, but not like this.” Her tone sharpened abruptly. “What’s up? I was on the verge of calling you myself.”
“Murphy’s law, according to Jock,” Heikki answered, and saw Santerese’s smile widen. “We’ve lost our job, too—not precisely lost it,” she amended, “since we’re getting paid, but the effect is the same.”
Quickly, she outlined what had happened, first the job and then Lo-Moth’s reaction, and finished, “So I was wondering if you could get onto Malachy for me, have him check out our legal position.” She hesitated, then said slowly, “Do you remember Idris Max?”
“The transit cop you were living with when I met you?” Santerese asked.
“We were roommates,” Heikki said, with some annoyance, and Santerese gestured an apology.
“Sorry, doll. Do you want me to talk to him, too?”
“I think it might be useful. I hear he’s with the Terran Enforcement now; he might be able to tell us if there’s anything we ought to know about Tremoth.”
“I’ll do that,” Santerese said, her hands already busy on a shadowscreen.
“So what were you going to call me about?” Heikki asked.
Santerese hesitated, finally said, with unwonted seriousness, “You remember I asked you if you had a relative, doll? Named Galler?”
Heikki paused in turn, not knowing what to say. This was not the way she would have chosen to explain things to Santerese, at a distance and over a flickering ultima line, but there was no evading the question. “Yes,” she said at last, and couldn’t think how to continue.
“Yes what?” Santerese said, after a moment. “Yes you remember, or yes, he’s related?”
“Both,” Heikki said. “I had—have—a twin brother named Galler. We lost contact a long time ago, and frankly I’d rather not regain it.”
“It may be a little late for that,” Santerese said. “When I got back from Pleasaunce, there was a message cube waiting for you, and the sender’s listed as G. Heikki. So, unless you’re sending yourself letters. . . .” She let her voice trail off.
Hardly likely, is it? Heikki thought, but bit back the angry comment. There was no blaming Santerese for this, only Galler—and only herself, for allowing herself to be found. She said, her voice strictly controlled, “What does he want?”
Even on the cloudy screen, she could see Santerese’s shrug. “I don’t know. The cube’s palm-sealed, love, no way for me to play it. Do you want me to send it on, or do you think it can wait till you get back?”
“Let it wait,” Heikki said. She paused then, considering, and ran her hand over the shadowscreen. It would take physical mail almost a ten-day to reach them—the main Iadaran FTLship had just made planetfall, bringing Santerese’s cube; the next scheduled landing was almost a week away—and by that time she and the others would be on their way back to the Loop. There was really only one other possibility…. “You know as many shadow-sides as I do,” she said abruptly. “What’s the odds of their fixing the seal?”
Santerese made a face at her through the pulsing static. “That’s illegal,” she said firmly, in a tone that was intended to remind her partner of the open line. When Heikki did not respond, she sighed. “It’s the new model cube, Heikki. I doubt it could be done.”
“Then it’ll have to wait,” Heikki answered. “We’ll be home in a ten-day anyway.”
“Good enough,” Santerese said, and smiled. “I’m looking forward to it, doll.”
Heikki smiled back, looking for an excuse to prolong the conversation despite the expense. There was none, and she knew it; her smile twisted slightly, and she said, “I think that’s everything.”
Santerese nodded with equal reluctance. “Nothing else here.”
“Then transmission ends,” Heikki said firmly, and watched the screen fade.
It took less than a day to make the necessary arrangements for their return to the Loop. A cargo FTLship on a semi-scheduled run was due to land at Lowlands in a little under a local week; as Iadara was its last stop before swinging back to Exchange Point Three, the captain was only too happy to fill her otherwise empty compartments with paying passengers. Somewhat to Heikki’s surprise, Lo-Moth made no objection to covering the additional costs for equipment transfer—she had more than half expected to have to have the heavy crates shipped on a fully scheduled corporate flight. Maybe it was the fact that she had made no official objection to ending her job and handing over unedited, unanalyzed data; or maybe, she thought, with an inward frown, it was someone’s—Mikelis’s?—oblique apology for the situation. She put the thought aside as unimportant, and flipped the voucher numbers to the captain’s agents back in the Loop. An hour later, the receipt numbers and confirmation were flashing on her screen, and the transport chits were in her diskprinter’s basket. Heikki allowed herself a sigh of relief—she had been worried, irrationally, she knew, but undefinably uneasy—and locked the disks into her travel safe.