Dakota turned to look at Severn. ‘You’ve seen one of these fights before, haven’t you? I can tell from the sound of your voice.’
‘Once,’ he admitted, ‘when I was barely more than a kid. Nasty. Never, ever again.’
The fight was now being broken up. Freehold military police in dark uniforms arrived, flashing torches and wielding clubs, and soon the adversaries were pulled apart. Yet there was still that sense they-she, Severn, the Consortium-had been deliberately made spectators to an aspect of Freehold life few outsiders rarely got to see. As if this was some kind of warning, that the Freehold were not to be treated lightly.
‘So how come you never told me about you and Marados?’ Severn asked.
‘Wasn’t any of your business,’ Dakota replied, turning back to him with a smile. ‘It was never anything serious.’
‘None of my business, like you said. But not serious, right?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’
Severn shook his head and pulled her back towards the cot. They tumbled onto it together, burying themselves under the warm blankets.
Some time later Dakota woke to see grey dawn light seeping through the blinds, and carefully touched her temple, where she could still feel the painful throb of her headache.
Ten
Trans-Jovian Space, Mesa Verde
As far as Josef Marados was concerned, the Piri Reis would be scrapped and reduced to its essential components within forty-eight hours of her boarding the Freehold frigate Hyperion. But then Dakota had made some enquiries of Mesa Verde’s stacks, and found that the type of vessel used by the Freehold had an overall cargo capacity of one hundred and eighty thousand cubic metres-allowing more than enough room to hide something the size of her little ship.
Even better, the Hyperion itself was old, the ageing military legacy of a backwater colony. Subverting its security systems surely couldn’t be that difficult.
While she worked desperately on finding a way to keep the Piri intact, she had it display streaming news reports, the bright logo of the Ceres News Service flashing endlessly within the cramped space of the command module. They were still running images of Bourdain’s Rock disintegrating into gravel.
The news services on Ceres were airing a series of back-to-back interviews with anyone who had the remotest connection with Bourdain’s Rock. To her horror, at one point a commentator raised the possibility that the Rock had been destroyed by a rogue machine-head, someone programmed to infiltrate the asteroid and then destroy it.
Security clampdowns were being enforced system-wide, and it became rapidly clear to Dakota how lucky she had been to get inside Mesa Verde at all. Only a few days ago, the scale of the disaster hadn’t been fully absorbed, but now, the entire outer solar system was at a state of high alert.
It was a reminder, as if she needed one, of how badly she needed to get herself very far away, and very fast.
Ready, Piri?
‹All details are logged as planned.›
As she left the Piri Reis, probably for the last time, she felt a deep ache in her chest. But if anything went to plan, she might still come out on top.
The Hyperion started talking to Dakota even as she and Josef were making their way towards Black Rock’s private docking area. It began as a gentle buzz in the background of her thoughts-like hearing an auditorium filling up from down the far end of a corridor. But before long a familiar flood of information descended on her, every scrap of data demanding equal attention: hull stresses, systems integration failures, and a seemingly infinite queue of process queries.
Her Ghost handled this onslaught with practised ease, bringing to her conscious attention only those items that were most genuinely urgent. Although she didn’t yet have physical control over the Freehold ship, it felt a little like slipping on unfamiliar clothes that then grew more comfortable with every passing moment.
She focused her attention on the Hyperion’s cargo hold, but the fresh map data she uploaded from the frigate became blurry once she tried to see what was carried within it.
She realized Josef was saying something to her.
‘… all the security and guidance systems remain in lockdown until you’re ready to take the helm. The passengers themselves will be telling you where to go, but you-Mala Oorthaus, that is-will still have the usual legal right of override. So if they order you to dive into the atmosphere of a star, you can stick them in the brig and still get paid. That kind of thing.’
‘But dumping them into space as soon as we get there and lighting off on my own isn’t approved behaviour, either?’
Josef grinned, but Dakota was pleased to see an edge of nervousness there too.
‘Everything I need is right here.’ She indicated a small bag by her foot.
Josef shrugged gamely as they arrived at the mass transit elevators leading down to the docks. ‘Guess this is it, Dakota,’ he said, coming to a halt. ‘Anything else you need to know?’
Dakota stretched languorously, tired after her long bout of reprogramming the Piri Reis, and enjoyed the way Josef’s eyes took in the shape of her under her clothes.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘What are the chances of them figuring out who I really am?’
Josef smiled reassuringly. ‘Your identity is secure, I can assure you.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m glad you’ve helped me, when I really don’t think you needed to’-Josef started to speak, but she put up a hand to shush him-‘but the Freehold hiring a machine-head for any reason at all kind of stretches credulity, doesn’t it?’
‘What’s your point?’
‘I’m saying perhaps they’re holding something back, something they’re not mentioning. I’ve seen these people in action, Josef. They’d rather go down in flames than face the dishonour of using someone like me as an ally, even as a paid ally.’
‘Look, all I know is that careful enquiries were being made about machine-head pilots, starting maybe a few weeks ago. Not through official channels, obviously. Then you came along looking for a way out, and it just seemed’-he shrugged heavily-‘fortuitous, I guess. Outside of Gardner and the people on board that ship, nobody but me knows about you. That’s all that matters.’
‘Thank you.’
She glanced at him and saw a tiny pinprick of light appear, somewhere above his left shoulder, just on the edge of her perception.