Part 14 (1/2)
”Listen, say we lift them up there, if they can take that monster out, it'll make getting away clean a lot easier. And getting back in. Look, Del, we've got the inside track with these people, an exclusive as long as we can keep the location quiet.”
”That won't be long if your gamble pays off.”
He shrugged. ”One or two trips for me, but Adelaris could have a longhaul market here.”
”Gray or black?”
”Does that matter? Lets you hike your prices.”
”I don't know enough about this place. ...”
The Hanifa came back. ”The clear corridor,” she said, eyes hard on Adelaar.
”Can you leave it and hide what you've done?”
Adelaar ran her tongue over her lips. ”Probably. The wards they're using aren't all that sophisticated. I'll have to put the alarms right before we leave, but. ...” She frowned at the woman, I could see she was thinking keep it simple, you don't want to irritate this one. ”I can loop a path out of the guard circuits and pinch off access. Um, it might be better to set up several corridors, make them operative on different days, um, switch from one to another in, say, a seven-day rotation. They'll be harder to spot that way.
Safer for your people, they won't be coming over in the same place same time every time.”
The Hanifa's eyes glittered, but she controlled her excitement and gave a short sharp nod. ”Can you find the files on suspect Hordar? Perhaps the Sech's plans for dealing with them?”
”I can take a look. Some of that might be stored in local branches.”
”There aren't any. This is the only mainBrain on Tairanna.”
”Your Pittipat doesn't like to share his power?”
”No.” She didn't object to the your this time, too much into getting what she'd come for to worry about little things like that. ”We want those files.”
”Right. I can also erase them, if you want. Turning them over is more complicated unless your equipment can mate to mine.”
”You can fix that.”
”Probably. Not here.” Adelaar had relaxed all over; she was back in her personal groove, selling her services. ”Not for free either. Make me an offer.”
The Hanifa moved her feet apart, set her hands on her hips and prepared to fight. ”For your work and the files, five creampink, ten to eighteen grains.””Seven corridors, files out and erased, eight midrose, twenty grain minimum, for my time, one of your creampinks.”
”Seven corridors, two midrose; for the files, we'll have to see them to rate them, guarantee of one midrose, for erasing them one creampink, bonus points negotiated according to how much is in the files; your work, one creampink.
Eighteen to twenty grains.”
They went back and forth for several more minutes until they settled on a price that pleased both; by that time the dupe run had finished and Adelaar settled to work pulling the Warmaster stats, dumping them in the duper and at the same time flas.h.i.+ng them on a readout so I could look them over and get an idea if a sneakraid was doable. While she was busy with this last, the tall local came inside, murmured something to her leader and went out again.
The Hanifa came over to me and stood watching the stats run past; Adelaar was into schematics now, line drawings of s.h.i.+p segments. ”A guard came nosing about,” she said after a moment. ”Your friend stunned him. He said to tell you it was part of the standard rover pattern, he was expecting the man, it doesn't look like anyone is exercised about the scanners going out, the guard was normal-alert, not hyper.”
”I hear you.” I checked my chron again; seemed like we'd been down here a year or two, but it was just over an hour. ”There's a s.h.i.+ft change coming up in a little while. We'd better be gone by then.”
”You seem to know a lot about what happens here.”
”I'm a cautious man, Hanifa. I like to know what I'm stepping in.”
”How?”
”Observation and experience.”
”Observation?”
”Electronic surrogates.”
”You recorded what they told you?”
”I'm a cautious man, Hanifa.”
”Willing to sell it?”
”Not worth much. Once top security here wakes up to what happened, there'll be changes. Tell you what, I'll throw that into the pot with your suspect files, a little sweetener.”
”Why?”
”Call it good will. Now that I know about you and what you've got to offer, I plan to be back, do some trading for this and that.”
”Rosepearls.”
”Naturally. And whatever else seems worth the trip.”
She gave me an odd look and moved off. Like she hadn't thought through what it meant, us being there. Not until now. There was a big wild universe out there and she didn't know how she felt about linking up with it. Maybe a touch of panic.
I pulled my mind back to what was happening on the screen in front of me. It was looking good. Total complement was around two hundred and more than half of those were support and services, wh.o.r.es, cooks, valets, you name it, everything you needed to keep three score techs, sech snoops and guards happy in their isolation. No wonder they didn't notice us, they wouldn't have noticed a grenade in their laps, to quote one of Pels' favorite expressions.
Why favorite I haven't a notion, some kink in his psyche I suppose. Most of the s.h.i.+p was mothballed. My palms were starting to itch. c.u.mpla doomp, I wanted that s.h.i.+p. There was no way I could afford her, the fuel bills alone would be enough to bankrupt a small empire, but taking it would be so easy. For a minute I indulged in fantasies of charging across the universe with the power of a G.o.d under my hands, then I shook myself back to reality. Probably wasn't enough fuel in her tanks to get her across the system, let alone to the nearest fuel dump.
I still didn't like the thought of trying to nose up to that whale without it noticing me. Hmm. The guards were rotated every half-year local, that meant we could probably pick up someone who'd been up there recently and knew the drill. The screen blanked. I looked around.”That's it,” Adelaar said. ”How long have I got?”
”s.h.i.+ft change ninety-five minutes. Pels got a guard, but he says there's no fuss yet. Don't dawdle over anything you can double-clik.”
”Even doubling, it's going to take the better part of an hour to finish and that's saying I don't screw up somewhere and have to start over.”
”I hear.” I slid out of the chair. ”Don't push it, I'll see what I can do about arranging a meet with our client so we can get paid for this.”
”You do that.” She bent over the eviscerated terminal, forgetting me and everything else but what she was doing.
I went to pump the Hanifa and her women for everything I could get about the local setup.
”Ondar.” A hissing whisper. The Hanifa sprang to her feet as the tall one leaned in the door. ”The fuzzy says he hears lots of men coming toward us and he's going to see about slowing them up, but you should be ready to move.”
I sat where I was, wondering what the Hanifa would do about this. I thought it'd likely be something with flair, she was that kind of leader.
She moved quickly to Adelaar. ”Where are you?”
”Covering my tracks.”