They made their way through the first set of gates to the baggage windows, and Nkosi volunteered himself and Alexieva for the tedious job of waiting for the crates to appear. Heikki, genuinely grateful, dug a handful of transfer slips out of her belt pockets and gave them to him.
“I will not need all of these,” the pilot protested, halfheartedly, and Heikki shrugged.
“Send your own stuff wherever it’s going, and if you haven’t used up the credits, flip me the excess sometime.” She glanced over her shoulder, and saw an unexpected and familiar figure standing at the entrance to the transport concourse. Santerese lifted a hand in exuberant greeting, and Heikki felt her own heart lift. “Keep in touch, Jock,” she said, and tried not to turn away too quickly.
“Oh, I shall,” Nkosi called after her, laughing. “We have not yet completely settled accounts, after all.”
Heikki turned back, flushing in embarrassment, and Nkosi waved her on. “Which we will do when you have settled your contract, I know. I will contact you tomorrow, all right?”
“Right,” Heikki agreed, relieved, and made her way through the crowd to Santerese. Djuro was there before her, but Heikki ignored him.
“Marshallin,” she said, and the two women embraced.
“Lord, doll,” Santerese said, heedless of modest language, and held her partner at arms’ length. “It’s good to see you back.”
“It’s good to be back,” Heikki said, aware both of the foolish inadequacy of her words and of Santerese’s impish acknowledging smile. “How’re things?”
“Well enough,” Santerese answered, but there was a note in her voice, a hint of restraint, that made Heikki look sharply at her. Santerese shook her head once, and said, “Let’s get back to the suite, and get Sten fed—”
“That’s not necessary, thanks,” Djuro interrupted, with a slight smile. “I just want to get a draft, if I can, and then I can be on my way.”
Heikki saw Santerese’s almost imperceptible sigh of relief, and knew Djuro had heard the same restraint in her partner’s voice. Thank you, Sten, she said silently, and opened her mouth to suggest they take a floater across the stations’s central volume, when Santerese said, with an almost perfect imitation of her usual breezy tone, “As it happens, Sten, I can save you the trip. I brought a voucher here, if you can bear to take LloydsBank.”
Djuro lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll take what I can get, Marshallin.” He paused, hazel eyes darting from one to the other as he took the slim card from Santerese, visibly considering further questions, but in the end said only, “I’ll be in touch.” The words were as much a threat as a promise.
He started away—toward the common transport tubes, Heikki saw without surprise, but she could not muster amusement at the little man’s habitual frugality. “What’s wrong, Marshallin?”
Santerese made a face. “Nothing’s wrong, precisely—or nothing’s wrong, yet.” She shook her head—annoyed with herself, Heikki knew, and offered a tentatively consoling hand. Santerese accepted it with a smile, but the response was abstracted. “Let’s get back to the suite,” she said, “and then we can talk.”
As bad as all that? Heikki thought, chilled, but let the other woman draw her away toward a waiting jitney. Santerese was unusually silent on the long ride back through the station corridors to the suite of rooms that served as both office and living quarters, and Heikki found her nervousness contagious, so that she barely noticed the familiar landmarks passing outside the jitney windows. At last the machine drew to a stop at the end of the corridor that led to their pod, and Santerese popped the canopy with a sigh of relief, saying, “I was beginning to think we’d never get here.”
So was I, Heikki thought. She followed Santerese down the twisting corridor that led to the stairs, nodding to the securitron on duty at the head of the stairway, and then rode the movingstairs down the three levels to their suite. The staircase seemed slower than ever, and it was all Heikki could do to keep from breaking modesty and start striding down the stairs at twice the stair’s sedate pace. She shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, and Santerese gave her a wry glance, but said nothing until they were finally inside the suite.
Even then, she didn’t seem eager to begin, but glanced instead toward the kitchen alcove. “I’ll start some coffee—”
“Marshallin,” Heikki began, but the other woman did not seem to hear.
“—and that tape I told you about, the one you thought was from your brother? It’s on the desk in the workroom.”
“Screw my brother,” Heikki said, and Santerese gave her a flickering smile before she sobered again. “Marshallin, what’s going on?”
Santerese sighed, her mobile face suddenly grave. “I think maybe a drink’s better than coffee,” she said, and palmed open a wall storage space to produce a bottle of amber liquid and, after some search, two glasses. Heikki accepted what was poured for her, but stood waiting. Santerese sighed again. “Since you asked, I had Malachy ask some questions about the contract, and I spoke to Idris Max about Tremoth. It was just checking, all the lightest feelers, nothing more…. But somebody took it all wrong. The answer—well, take away the legalese, and Lo-Moth’s lawyers, pardon me, Tremoth’s, it’s them who’re handling it, not Lo-Moth—” She seemed to have lost the thread of her sentence, and paused to recover it. “Take away the legalese, and they’re threatening to go to the Board, accuse us of illegal procedures, archaeology—failure to report antiquities, improper handling and so on.”
“What?” Heikki’s hand tightened painfully on her glass, and she loosened it with an effort. “That’s ridiculous—we’ve been triple certified, and everything.”
“They hint they have evidence. Nothing so direct as a threat, of course, but they do drop hints,” Santerese said. She sipped her drink, and gave a tight smile. “Which they won’t use, as long as we don’t pursue this contract.”
“Galler,” Heikki said, with a decisive venom that surprised even herself. “That son of a bitch.”
Santerese was looking at her in some surprise, and
Heikki bared teeth in an angry grin. “This is just the sort of thing he’d do. Where’s the cube?”
“In the workroom,” Santerese answered, her voice a little wary now. “Heikki—”
“What?”
Santerese seemed to swallow what she had been going to say. “What makes you think he’s responsible?”
Heikki laughed. “This is the sort of thing he’d do, the sort of thing he always did do. Haven’t you noticed that we haven’t had a bit of luck since he showed up again?” Santerese’s eyebrows lifted, but Heikki stalked into the workroom before the other woman could say anything. After a moment, she heard Santerese call after her.
“Why don’t you bring that cube out here?”
Heikki swore to herself, unreasonably unwilling to follow any suggestions, but then curbed her temper and hefted the message cube. It was heavier than it looked, and she stared at it with loathing, almost ready to blame that, as well, on Galler’s machinations. The irrationality of that brought her back to her senses a little. She laughed, with a touch of real amusement this time, and went back into the main room.
Santerese was waiting exactly where she had left her, her glass still held a little above waist level, her face, its only expression a sort of polite neutrality, turned toward the door. Heikki, recognizing the signs, set the cube on the nearest table, and said, with an effort, “All right, ‘Shallin, I’m overreacting.”
Santerese’s expression did not change. “Yes, you are.”
“You don’t know my fucking brother,” Heikki retorted, stung, and then gestured an apology. “He’s more trouble than you can imagine, always has been.”