“No.” Aslan sighed. “It gives him too much time to knife us, it’s safer with him dead.”
Adelaar laughed at her. “That’s my little pacifist.”
“All right, make it the clone dead first.”
“Ruin my mood, mmh?” Adelaar straightened. “Fetch my kit over, will you, Lan? I left it by the door there. I might as well use this time to work on the sun-intercept-and a few other notions I’ve had… um-Pels, have the locals finished loading the crew?”
“Just about, why?”
“Tell them I’m going to start launching the pods. The stingers won’t bother them. Then you get hold of the Hanifa and have her order her people back on the tug. When we leave, we don’t want any snags or strays.” She looked over her shoulder at Aslan, eyes bluer than blue and guileless. “Keep the customers happy,” she murmured. “Dead locals don’t trade rosepearls for security systems.”
Aslan wrinkled her nose but said nothing; she wasn’t about to be drawn into that ancient argument. She brought the pack to her mother, then went to stand beside the door, looking out into that absurdly oversized antechamber. Briefly she wondered where Parnalee was and if he suspected he was being out-thought and out-engineered. At least, she hoped he was. The Bridge was empty except for Pels and Adelaar. And her, of course. Elmas and her isyas were carrying their dead to the tug hold and getting them stowed for the trip home. Xalloor was in the tug too, running the wounded through the autodoc, if she’d managed to convince the Hanifa it wasn’t a subtle attempt at assassination. Aslan pressed her lips over a giggle. There’s a product for you, Mama, say the doc performs in its usual fashion. Quale was a long time gone. What was happening down there in the armory? If he couldn’t get in, he’d have been back before this. He should have taken Pels with him; Churri was there, but what use was he? Mama used to tell me when I did something dumb with my pc that I was just like my father, clumsy as a tantser calf. Jamber Fausse and his lot are there; they’re no use, except as strong backs if something needs shifting and for standing guard. I hope they are standing guard. He should have taken Pels. Why isn’t he back yet? Maybe they’re all dead. We can’t look round the ship without breaking Mama’s blocks. Aslan sighed. There was no point standing at the doorway like some stupid chatelaine waiting for her lord to get back from the wars. She grimaced at the image. Oooh-yeha, Lan, you’re worse than a teener reading sublimated sex books. Face it, woman, he’s done everything but come right out and tell you he’s not interested. I wonder why? He’s hetero and I’m not a hag. T’k. She ran fingers through her hair, pushed it off her face. This isn’t getting me anywhere. She walked with quick nervous steps to the station where Pels was working.
Adelaar had turned the launching of the pods over to him while she busied herself doing enigmatic things to the Brain. The dataflow was so quick and so esoteric it gave Aslan a headache. Much more satisfying to watch the pods blow, at least she knew what was happening, the ship’s crew including all its Huvveds were on their way to Tassalga for a bit of involuntary exile. Permanent exile, if the Huvveds had any sense. The way feeling was running among the Hordar, they could end on the chopping block if they got back to Tairanna. The inset showed that most of the locals had cleared out of the loading area; the few left were clearing up odds and ends and loading these on one of the pallets. She recognized Akkin Siddaki and his protйgй the boy thief from gul Brindar, Kanlan Gercik and two of her students from the Mines. The rest must be settling down in the tug. It’s almost over. All we have to do is blow the clone. Then we leave. Then we go home. Then I stir up a mess of trouble for those foul and loathsome Oligarchs. She savored her triumph. They sold me into slavery; they’re as guilty as Bolodo. What a lovely thought. I suppose they’ll claim they had a legitimate contract with Bolodo. Let them try it. University can field a team of ethicists and lawyers that’ll wipe their faces in their own muck till they choked on the stink. And the Chancellors will authorize and organize the team without their usual fuss and obfuscation, not for me, for the Unntoualar. They mean it, dump on him who says anything not my species is my prey, dump it deep and stinking. They’ll go after those Oligarchs with everything they can throw at them. It surely will not hurt my tenure standing that they can throw me at them too. Hmmp. Like Quale says, I’m lagniappe. I wish he’d get back.
15
When the sound from the Bridge cut off, Parnalee stirred drowsily; the brandy was smooth and rather sweet, he’d swallowed more of it than was good for him. His mind was swimming, he had to concentrate to think. “Busy bitch,” he muttered, “You and your treacherous daughter, you’re a set.” He slapped at his face, felt his stomach spasm. “Fool!” He got to his feet, forced back a surge of nausea and by an effort of will whipped mind and body into a semblance of order. The sisterBrain was hobbled until he got rid of the mainBrain. “The point is,” he told himself, “who’s left out in the corridors? How far have they got in the clearance?”
He lowered himself into the chair and swiveled to face the console. “She shut me out of the Bridge, I doubt she could…” His conversation with himself died away as he concentrated on what he was doing.
The sound-search swept through the ship, collecting a series of squeaks and rattles, mechanical hums, the sough of air. Dead sounds. Empty echoes. In the armory, voices, clinks, the scuff of feet, the complex of sounds remotes made when they were forced to the limits of their capacity. Parnalee smiled. “Dealing in armaments now, hmm, Quale? When I get back Outside and spread word around of your scavenging efforts, you’re going to have a problem or two.” Satisfied that he knew what the man was doing and why, he went on with the search.
Nothing. Nothing. Pod bays, the readings showed them empty. “Busy busy,” he murmured. “Good little housekeeper, got your cleaning finished, have you?” He did a more intensive sweep, but there was no evidence of any life forms in the area. Lifter locks. Yes, the tug was in Three. Not much sound in there, the ghosts of voices; he fiddled with the controls, focused on the tug’s lock which seemed to be open, fulminating as he did so against the lack of visuals; he depended very much on his eyes and had trouble imaging from sounds. He began recording the voices; he couldn’t make out the words, they were too broken, but the equipment here was good enough to reconstitute them when he was ready-if he decided he needed to know what was being said, which wasn’t likely, he had other, more important things to do.
The corridors were clean. It was time to move. He thumbed out three stimtabs, tossed them down his throat and followed them with a gulp of stale, lukewarm water from the spigot; he’d have preferred a final swallow of brandy but he had enough alcohol in him. Praise Omphalos it should be mostly absorbed by now. Adding more wouldn’t merely be stupid, it could even be fatal.
He checked the torp to make sure it was strapped firmly down, then went meticulously through one last test of its triggering circuits. The torp was old, not so old as the ship, but old enough to have acquired a degree of fragility inappropriate to a bomb, though it was sufficiently intact to perform its function without going off prematurely as long as he treated it gently as an egg about to hatch while he was moving it. He toed on the lift field of the dolly and guided it toward the interface exit. Since he couldn’t go near the tube without alerting that woman, he had to travel the service-ways. It was going to be a long slow trip, but there wasn’t anyone to threaten him now and he didn’t have to go near the Bridge. The mainBrain lived inside a sphere of collapsed matter close to the heart of the ship; theoretically, only the Captain had access to its coordinates; even the techs who serviced it had no idea where they were; they tubed there and back, the tubeflow coordinates set by the Bright Sister when she was commanded to do so by the Captain.