“You can’t use this shipboard, sir,” the guard said, holding up the comm access set and the data wand.
“No, I understand. Last time out, your people provided a shielded locker.”
“We can do that, sir,” the guard said, with obvious relief. Inexperienced consultants sometimes insisted that they would not give up any of their equipment . . . they got no more contracts. The other guard, Arhos noticed, was calling someone in Fleet territory, and soon a lowly pivot appeared with a luggage truck and a lockable container for the restricted electronics.
“You don’t have to lock it up now,” the guard said. “If you want to place calls from the Fleet areas, that’s permissible from any blue-coded booth. But before boarding—”
“We understand,” Arhos said. He knew there would be another search before they boarded.
The Fleet area of Comus Station had its own eating places, its own bars, its own entertainment and shopping outlets and even public-rental sleeping. They had plenty of time before their ship left.
“What exactly is your area of expertise, Dr. Asperson?”
Arhos allowed his mouth to quirk up at one corner, restrained amusement at the naivete of the question. “My degrees are in logical systems and substrate analysis.”
The young officer blinked. “ . . . Substrate?”
“Classified, I’m afraid,” Arhos said, with a little dip of the head to take the edge off.
“Lieutenant, I believe you have duties forward,” said the lieutenant commander at the head of the table.
“Oh . . . of course, sir.” He scurried out.
“I’m sorry,” the lieutenant commander said. He wore no name tag; none of the officers aboard such a small ship wore them. “Please forgive us—we’re not usually carrying civilians—”
“Of course,” Arhos said. “But you understand our situation—?”
“Certainly. Only—I didn’t recognize your firm’s name.”
“Subcontractors,” Gori said, grinning. “You know how it is—we used to work for the big firms, one and another of us, and then we struck out on our own. Got our first jobs as sub-subs, and now we’re all the way up to subcontractors.”
“It must be hard, going out on your own after working for a big company,” the officer said. Arhos thought he was buying the whole story.
“It has been,” Arhos said. “But we’re past wondering how we’re going to pay the rent.”
“I imagine you are,” the officer said, with a knowing smile for the quality of the clothes they wore, the expensive cases they carried.
“Not that it’s easy profit,” Arhos said, putting in the earnest emphasis that impressed the military so well. “We’re working harder than we used to—but it’s for ourselves. And you, of course.”
“Of course.”
At Sierra Station, they had no customs to pass, nothing but a long walk down one arm of the station and out another. An escort, ostensibly to ensure that they didn’t get lost; civilians did not wander the Fleet sections of stations—especially stations this near the borders—without an escort. In the comfortable ease of someone who had not intended mischief anyway, the team ambled along, chatting aimlessly about the food they’d had, and the food they hoped to have.
Koskiusko’s docking bay was actually a shuttle bay. Here, Arhos handed the contract cube to the ranking guard, who fed it into a cube reader.
“I’ll call over, sir, but it’ll be at least two hours before a shuttle comes in. The little pod’s halfway over with an arriving officer, and the shuttle’s already loaded with cargo—no room for you, and it’s down at Orange 17 anyway.”
“No problem. Is there someplace to get a drink, meanwhile?”
“Not really—there’s a food machine just down the corridor there, between the toilets, but nothing really good.”
“Nothing edible” grumbled another guard. “Station food service’s supposed to replace those snacks before they turn green but—”
“We could call in for something,” the first guard said. “They deliver from civ-side, but there’s a fee—”
“That would be great,” Arhos said. “The ship we came in on was skewed five hours off Station time by the last jump, and I for one would enjoy something. And if it’s near a break for you—”
“No, thank you, sir. Here’s the order list . . .”
“Ever been aboard a DSR before?” asked the bright-eyed young man who escorted them from the docking bay.
“No . . . main station yards, a couple of cruisers, but no DSR.”
“Let me get you a shipchip,” the youngster said. He touched a control panel, entering a sequence so fast that Arhos couldn’t figure out the placement of sensors on the unmarked surface. Something bleeped, and tiny disks rattled into a bin below the panel.
Arhos looked at his and wondered how to activate it.
“Voice,” the young man said promptly. “It’ll project a route from your position to the location you name—for the low-security areas, that is. If you need access to the high-security areas, you’ll have to get it reset. That’ll be in ship admin, which it’ll guide you to. I mean, I will, that’s where you’re going first, but any other time—”
“Thank you,” Arhos said. Behind him, the rest of the team murmured appropriate thanks as well.
They were passed from desk to desk in the admin bay, collecting ship’s ID tags, access cards for a variety of spaces, and a new set of shipchips. Then someone came to fetch them to the admin offices of the 14th Heavy Maintenance Yard.
“We don’t have slideways, but we do have lift tubes,” they were told. “Don’t try to hitch a ride on the robocarts—they’re programmed to stop if they sense extra mass.”
They spent the first several days looking over the inventory, and discussing their plan with the senior technician, a balding master chief named Furlow.
“I think Headquarters has its nose up its tail again,” Furlow said at the first meeting. “Rekeying all the weapons guidance codes? That assumes the people doing the job are competent and loyal.” He gave Arhos a sideways look. “Not that I’m saying you aren’t, but it’s too big a job to go without hitches.”
“You’re probably right,” Arhos said. “But I’m not going to pass up a contract . . . it’s how we make a living.”
“Yes, well . . .” A heavy sigh. “I know you’ve got clearances from transcendent deities or something, but on my watch, these weapons are my responsibility and I’ll have one of my people with you.”
“Of course,” Arhos said. “We don’t want any misunderstandings either. This is the protocol we were sent—I’m assuming you have the other part—”
“Yes, sir, I do.” The chief took Arhos’s version and peered at it. “Scuzzing waste of time, but it’ll work. How long did you tell ’em it’d take?”
“Five minutes per weapon, an hour to retool between types. That’s what it took on the racks they mocked up for us to bid on.” Arhos allowed himself to smile. “We were one minute faster than the next fastest on each, and a solid ten minutes faster in retooling. Then when they had us work on a patrol craft, we were able to work that fast even in tight situations. We weren’t told what your inventory was, of course. We’re just supposed to do it until it’s done. Then when the other ships return from deployment, we’ll do theirs as well.”
“I imagine,” the chief said, “that there weren’t many people that wanted to spend a standard year or more out here in Sector 14.”
“Not that many,” Arhos admitted. “Fleet had a lot of contracts to hand out for this work, and most of ’em were either bigger, smaller, or in more popular places. We happened to fit the profile for this one—and we performed well in the test series.”
“Umph.” The chief didn’t look any happier, but at least seemed slightly less hostile. “Well, you have your work cut out. We store the weaponry for all of Sector 14. There’s no rear supply depot out here, because of security concerns—Sierra Station gets a fair bit of civilian traffic, and we know some of it’s Bloodhorde agents.”