He crossed to the bulge of the tower, looked over his shoulder at her. “Come,” he said and palmed open the entrance to a lift tube. “My office is the tower’s top floor.”
At least the office was neat. He gestured to a tupple chair hanging soft and shapeless beside a tall window, waited until she was seated before rounding the desk and settling himself. “A moment,” he said, “there’s some business I have to finish.”
He beckoned Shadith to him, tipped up a sensor plate, touched a sound barrier between Adelaar and them. He looked up at the girl, raised a brow, said something, his mouth blurring so Adelaar couldn’t read it. Shadith smiled, made a quick curving gesture with one hand, spoke rapidly, leaned on his shoulder as he worked the sensor plate. Adelaar watched his hands. They moved with the controlled clumsiness of a craftsman, no flash to them, easy, slow, sure. Long scarred fingers, tapering to spatulate tips, nails cut short, clean but scratched, he didn’t take care of his hands. Too bad. They were the best part of him as far she was concerned. She sighed and looked away. The storm had broken outside, rain streaked the window glass. The valley was green swept with silver, the river cloud-black and rain-silver. Soundless rain, the office was too insulated from the outside to let the patter through. Too bad. Still, the storm gave the room a cozy feel, especially when she looked around again and saw the girl was gone, ambiguous uncertain figure that reminded Adelaar how little real control she had over events.
Quale leaned forward, forearms on the desktop (another of Telffer’s jewel woods), hands clasped, watching her, waiting for her to tell him what she wanted from him.
She touched the controls and brought the tupple chair humming closer to the desk, slipped the diCarx from her belt, laid it in front of him. “Adelaar aici Arash. Droom. In the Hegger Combine.”
He collected the diCarx and fed it into the Evaluator, glanced at the plate. “Ah. Adelaris Security Systems. He looked up, his eyes laughing. “I’ve heard about you, never could afford you.”
She lifted a hand, let it fall. “I have a daughter,” she said. “Tenured Associate. University. Xenoethnologist. Awarded a Grant, permission to study the Unntoualar on Kavelda Styernna. Framed. Torture of a subject. Perversion. Sentenced, death. Sentence commuted to thirty years Contract Labor. Bolodo Neyuregg Ltd. the Contractor. I want her out of that. What’s it going to cost me?”
“Depends on where she is. Do you know that?”
“No. I know how to find out. It took me more than three years to get that far.”
“Those men Shadith stunned, the Directory placed them. Looks like you annoyed Bolodo sometime during those three years and they managed to ID you. Shame, that.” He drew his thumb along his bearded jawline, ruffling the short black hair. “They’re not too worried yet, or they’d ’ve sent pros instead of depending on local talent.” The ends of his mustache lifted, subsided, a shadowed smile. “Assuming there’s something they’re twitchy about that involves your daughter. Otherwise they’d ignore you. It doesn’t cost them anything if you peel her loose, they’ve got their fee. Looks to me like Bolodo’s up to something that’d give them big trouble if it came out. Give us trouble if they think we’re getting close. Hmm.” He sat back, his eyes fixed on her face. “You know what it is. No? You’ve got some idea?”
“Yes.”
He lifted a brow. “Terse.”
“So?”
“Hmm.” His eyelids drooped until his eyes were slits, he brushed the tip of his forefinger slowly back and forth across his mustache as he thought that over. After a moment he leaned forward, tapped in a code that brought a large viewplate unfolding from a slot in the desk top. “Kink,” he said, “Kumari, Pels, Conference.” He looked up. “Bring your chair round here,” he told Adelaar, “but keep your mouth shut, if you don’t mind, unless you’re asked something.”
The plate split into three cells. Furry cuddly type with twitchy ears set high on its head. She didn’t know the species. Milkglass maiden, pale hair thick and silky, pale skin, pale gray eyes cool and intelligent. Hadn’t come across that kind either, interesting. Ropy coils, clusters of succulent black eyes, colored pulse patches, hairy exoskeleton, Sikkul Paems, them she knew. Adult with a yearling bud crouching by ves head. Quale’s Crew?
“Bolodo Neyuregg,” Quale said. “You heard. We start this thing, we’d better be prepared to dodge a lot.”
What’s this? Adelaar thought, Tick’s Blood, do I have to sell all of them? Multiple maledictions on my miserable luck, I hadn’t planned on letting any of this out. Not until after we closed the deal anyway. Why did that girl have to be tied up with him?
The milkglass maiden opened her pale pink mouth (what species? not one of the cousin races, must be some backwater bunch that never made space). “Snatching.” She had a husky purring voice, more life in that than in her face. “Slaving undisguised. What else. Considering what Jaszaca ti Vnok told us.” Her voice was cool, her cool eyes distant. “Spotchals has to suspect something chancy is going on, but they won’t press it as long as no one rubs Spotchallix noses in the mess. I’d say the trade is small but enormously profitable, otherwise Bolodo wouldn’t risk it. They’ve got a strong base in Spotchals, but they’ve got to be careful; they own some pols and some career functionaries; even so, they’ve got potential for problems, remember?”
The fuzzy one lifted a black lip, exposed a yellowed tearing tooth four centimeters long (carnivore, she thought, deceptive little thing). “Yeah, I was in this bar the night before we left. Couple of Bolodo security come in. Hunh. One minute you wouldn’t ’ve noticed a grenade go off in your lap, next you could hear your hair grow. Spotchallix, they like the taxes Bolodo pays, but they hold their noses when they hear the name. If it came out Bolodo was slaving, I’d give them a year at most before they were gone.
Quale brushed at his mustache, nodded. (Why doesn’t he just ask? Is this meant to impress me? Pompous idiot. Oh god, how long do I have to sit here keeping my face straight?) “Kinok,” he said, “you know them the hard way, what do you think?”
The bud Kahat skittered along a heavy tentacle, perched on the voice box; ves umbilical pulsed, ves hairfine digits manipulated the minute sensorboard.
“They are very careful.” The synthesized voice was a sweetly musical tenor, quietly absurd (a Paem playing gentle jokes on vesself, the heavens should open). “They hold records on the meat back to creation or as close as they can get. Keep it legal, keep the record trail clean, if there’s anything gray, wash it white or bury it deep. Ve-who-speaks was sold and sold again without diminishing ves debt one ounce gold, they charge for air, they charge for transport, food, sewage removal, soilage, anything they can imagine and their imaginations are vast. Ve-who-speaks must agree with Kumari; the profit is beyond conjecture great to tempt Bolodo across the line. Ve-who-speaks also believes very few, an inner circle of execs, know of this operation and this circle will not allow information about it to escape their hands; even their nervousness they will clutch tight to their bosoms; for beings who suspect trouble such urgency would be damning. Ve-who-speaks thinks that is why aici Arash has escaped serious difficulty till now. This is speculation, Swar, errors are likely. Say it is this way, in her search for her daughter, aici Arash leaves traces behind that are used to ID her after she is gone; if such happened before she went, she would be dead. So the circle knows her name, connects her with her daughter, realizes her daughter is involved with the secret thing. They do not know precisely what she has discovered, but they must fear she had enough to go looking and that is dangerous. They send word to their stringers to locate and remove her as a matter of swatting a nuisance, no great urgency in it, only a chance for an ambitious outerling to earn company points. They woo Luck but will not trust Her. Ve-who-speaks believes they are now organizing something more serious. Ve-who-speaks says deal with aici Arash, it is no longer possible to stand aside.” The bud Kahat went still, Kinok turned his eye clusters from the screen, turned them back, jolted Kahat into renewed activity. “Shadow comes. Byol tok, Swar. Consider.”