Which was why he was about to burgle her cabin and search her luggage.
It had taken Vassily nearly two weeks to reach this decision, from the moment he determined that Martin’s nonstandard PA module was, not to put too fine a point on it, toast. It was a week and a half since the fleet had begun its momentous homeward voyage, first jumping across to the unpopulated binary system code-named Terminal Beta, then successively hopping from one star to the other, winding back more than a hundred years every day. Another four weeks and they would arrive at their destination; nevertheless, Vassily had taken his time. He’d have to be delicate, he realized. Without proof of treason he couldn’t act against either of them, and the proof was obviously under diplomatic lock and key. Whatever he did would be ultimately deniable — get caught and, well, burgling a diplomat’s luggage was about as infra dig as you could get. If anyone found him, he’d be thrown to the wolves — probably not literally, but he could look forward to a long career auditing penguins at the south polar station.
He picked an early evening for his raid. Martin was in the wardroom, drinking schnapps and playing dominoes with Engineering Commander Krupkin. Sitting on in Lieutenant Sauer’s security wardroom, Vassily waited until Colonel Mansour left her room for some purpose; his monitors tracked her down the corridor to the officer’s facilities. Good, she’d be at least ten minutes in the shower, if she stuck to her usual timetable. Vassily tiptoed out of his cubbyhole and scampered toward the lift shaft, and thence, the passage into officer country.
Pulling her cabin door shut behind him, he looked around cautiously. In almost every respect, her room was just like that of any other officer. Built like a railway couchette, there were two bunks; the upper one configured for sleeping, and the lower currently rolled upside down on its mountings to serve as a desk.
Two lockers, a tiny washstand sink, mirror, and telephone completed the fittings. One corner of a large trunk protruded from under the desk. The inspector didn’t travel as light as a naval officer, that was for sure.
First, Vassily spent a minute inspecting the chest. There were no signs of fine hairs or wires glued across the lid, and nothing complicated in the way of locks. It was just a slightly battered leather-and-wood trunk. He tried to lever it out from under the bunk, but rapidly realized that whatever was in it was implausibly heavy. Instead, he unlatched the desk/bunk and folded it upward against the bulkhead.
Exposed to the light, the chest seemed to smile at him, horrible and faceless.
Vassily sniffed and reached for his pick gun. Another highly illegal tool of the Curator’s Office, the pick gun was an engineering miracle: packed with solenoid-controlled probes, electronic sensors, and transmitters, even a compact laser transponder, it could force just about any lock in a matter of seconds.
Vassily bent over the chest. Presently he confirmed that UN diplomatic luggage was no more immune to a pick gun than any other eight-barrel mortise lock with a keyed-frequency resonance handshake and a misplaced faith in long prime numbers. The lid clicked and swung upward.
The lid held toiletries and a mirror; after a brief inspection, Vassily turned to the interior and found himself confronted with a layer of clothing. He swallowed. Unmentionables mocked him: folded underskirts, bloomers, a pair of opera gloves. He carefully moved them aside. Beneath them lay a yellow silk gown.
Vassily flushed, deeply embarrassed. He picked up the gown, unfolding it in the process; confused, he stood up and shook it out. It was, he thought, wholly beautiful and feminine, not what he’d expected of the corrupt and decadent Terrestrial agent. This whole fishing expedition wasn’t turning out they way he’d imagined. He shook his head and laid the gown on the upper bunk, then bent back to the chest.
There was a black jumpsuit beneath it, and an octagonal hatbox. He tried to pick up the hatbox, and found that it wouldn’t move. It was solid, as heavy as lead! Encouraged, he picked up the suit and draped it over a chair. Beneath it he found a slick plastic surface with lights glowing within it. The chest was only six inches deep! The entire bottom half of it lay below the surface on which the false hatbox rested, and was doubtless full of contraband and spying apparatus.
Vassily poked at the plastic panel. It reminded him of a keyboard, but lacking ivory and ebony keys, and with nowhere to feed the paper tapes in. It was all disturbingly alien. He poked at the panel, hitting an obvious raised area: runes blinked, access forbidden: geneprint unrecognized.
Damn.
Sweat poured off his neck as he considered his options. Then his eyes turned to the contents of the trunk he’d heaped beside it. It wanted a familiar skin sample? Hmm. Gloves. He held them up. Long women’s gloves. They smelt faintly of something — yes. Vassily rolled one inside-out over his right hand, up his arm. He touched the raised plinth: processing … authorized. A human body sheds five million skin particles per hour; Rachel had worn these very gloves, therefore—
A menu appeared. Vassily prodded at it blindly. Option one said sears foundation design catalog, whatever that meant. Below it, free hardware foundation gnu couturier 15.6; then dior historical catalog.
He scratched his head. No secret code books, no hidden weapons, no spy cameras. Just incomprehensible analytical engine instructions! He thumped the plinth in frustration.
A deep humming filled the room. He jumped backward, knocking over the chair. A slot opened in the top of the hatbox. A demented clicking rattled from it and something spat out. Something red that landed on his head — a wisp of lace with two leg holes. Scandalous. With a grinding clank, the hatbox extruded in short order a shimmering tulle ball gown, a pair of spike-heeled ankle boots, and a pair of coarse-woven blue shorts. All the clothing was hot to the touch and smelled faintly of chemicals.
“Stop it,” he hissed. “Stop it!” In reply, the trunk ejected a stream of stockings, a pair of trousers, and a corset that threatened any wearer with abdominal injury. He thumped at the control panel in frustration and, thankfully, the trunk stopped manufacturing clothing. He looked at it dizzily. Why bring a trunk of clothing if you can bring a trunk that can manufacture any item of clothing you want to wear? he realized. Then the trunk made an ominous graunching sound and he stared at it in ontological horror. It’s a cornucopia! One of the forbidden, mythological chimeras of history, the machine that had brought degradation and unemployment and economic downsizing to his ancestors before they fled the singularity to settle and help create the New Republic.
The cornucopia grunted and hummed. Thoroughly spooked, Vassily looked to the door. If Rachel was on her way back—
The hatbox opened. Something black and shiny peeped forth. Antennae hummed and scanned the room; articulated claws latched onto the side of the box and levered.
Vassily took one look at the monster and cracked. He left the door swinging ajar behind him in his helpless flight down the corridor, disheveled and wild-eyed, wearing an inside-out opera glove on one hand.
Behind him, the freshly manufactured spybot finished surveying the insertion zone. Primitive programs meshed in its microprocessor brain: no operational overrides were present, so it established a default exploration strategy and prepared to reconnoiter. It grabbed the nearest non-fixed item of camouflage and, stretching it protectively over its crablike carapace, headed for the ventilation shaft. Even as it finished removing the grille, the hatbox clanked again: the second small robospy was born just in time to see the yellow gown disappearing into the air-conditioning duct. And then the luggage clanked again, preparing to hatch yet another …