Part 6 (1/2)

'Eye shadow and special non-stick lipstick, make mouth all slippery and bright-coloured,' said the Qink. 'Guaranteed to last all night.'

'Well,' said Roz, 'how could I pa.s.s up on that?' She handed over more of her bearer bonds and put explosives, detonator, perfume, eye shadow and lipstick into her carryall. Now she had enough equipment to stage a major terrorist incident. That or open a small brothel.

It was a simple matter to join another tour group, get back into the foundry and then slip away when they reached the main press.

Hidden behind a pitted metal stanchion she listened to the tour guide's voice echoing in the large, machine-filled s.p.a.ces, talking with synthetic enthusiasm about the economics and gross numbers of mineral rape.

The control box was just where Susanti said it would be. Roz opened it to find a series of cable junctions, their colour coding faded with age. It took her ten minutes to rig the charge and seal it up again.

She was sure Chris would have done the same job in three minutes. But would he have thought of doing it? The Doctor would have just browbeaten the controls into doing what he wanted. Or more likely, revealed that he'd been personally involved in the construction of the press and had left a back door for himself, because you never knew when it might come in handy.

She finished just in time for the second tour to arrive. After cleaning her hands with the wipes she'd brought with her she joined the back of the party.

56.Once again she listened to the robot reeling off the statistics of the top plate and describing how it had once been used to form the mega-ingots. A million tons of ma.s.s, cras.h.i.+ng down, unbreakable and unstoppable.

She hoped, if it ever came to that, it would be enough.

The Doctor was waiting for her at a table outside a teashop on the Piazza Jemison. He was leaning back comfortably in his chair, an elbow propped on the arm, a book obscuring his face. A steaming teapot with two cups waited on the table. Roz sat down.

The centre of the plaza was a park with a sculptured playground. Children played, well-cared-for human children in brightly coloured dungarees and T-s.h.i.+rts. Their parents watching over them from the slatted wooden benches on the edge. This was the 'respectable' end of Fury, where the original inhabitants attempted to hold back the tide of tawdry exploitation that came with the military. Roz didn't think much of their chances.

'Any problems?' asked the Doctor.

'None so far,' said Roz.

The Doctor put the book down. 'Have you got it?'

'Of course.' Roz pa.s.sed him the dataslip. The Doctor inspected it for a moment and then slipped it into his pockets.

'Good,' he said. 'That should make things easier.' He reached for the teapot. 'Shall I be mother?'

'How's Chris?'

'Fine. Looking for a suitable s.p.a.cecraft.'

The tea came out a delicate colour. Definitely not a local brew.

Roz reached for the sweeteners.

'Don't do that,' said the Doctor. 'It spoils the taste.'

Roz withdrew her hand, took the cup instead. 'When are you leaving?'

'Tomorrow morning.'

'Do you want me to come?' She sipped the tea.

'Better that you stay here.'

'Why's that?'

'If I'm right about what's on Iphigenia, you could be in a considerable amount of danger if you came with us.'

'More than Chris?'

57.'Much more than Chris,' said the Doctor. 'His life doesn't have nearly so many possibilities as yours. And anyway, I don't intend him to get anywhere near it.' The Doctor unwrapped a packet of Sainsbury's digestives and offered her one. 'Have you called your sister yet?'

Roz shook her head. 'Too risky,' she said. 'Sensitive military zone like this, hyperwave traffic is bound to be monitored. We don't want any complications, do we?'

'No,' said the Doctor and grinned at her. 'At least none that we don't create ourselves.'

They sipped their tea in silence for a while. The Doctor watched the children playing.

'There's an N-form operating in this city,' said Roz.

'Ah,' said the Doctor, 'I was afraid of that.'

He was just an ordinary-looking man, dressed in last decade's fas.h.i.+onable cheesecloth suit, with a matching wide-brimmed hat and tooled leather brogues. Just an outsystem businessman idly window shopping across the street from her hotel.

Roz would have missed him completely if she hadn't taken the precaution of making two pa.s.ses in front of the hotel at ten-minute intervals. Mr Cheesecloth was in front of the same window both times. It couldn't be coincidence no window display was that interesting.

She'd been blown. The question was: was Mr Cheesecloth official, unofficial or freelance? Animal, criminal or vegetating?

Roz walked past the hotel for the third time; he didn't react.

Which meant either he didn't have a description of her, or they were already in her room and he was just there to give them advanced warning she was coming up.

d.a.m.n, the Doctor's whatsit device was up there along with her emergency ID and the rest of her bearer bonds. She should have stashed them somewhere else but it wasn't easy walking this side of the street she used to be the one pretending to window shop.

One thing was for certain: she couldn't keep walking around the block.

She stopped in front of a stall that sold beauty aides. The Qink looked at her and then quickly pulled its braincase halfway into 58 its chest. 'Me different Qink, me don't follow old ways no favours, no guns.'

'Relax,' said Roz. 'I want to buy a wig.'

The Qink's braincase emerged cautiously. 'Just a wig?'

'That's right,' she said. 'And while you're at it, you can tell me where I can get some depilatory cream.'

She knew as soon as she stepped inside that her room had been turned over. It was a good job, a frighteningly professional job, with everything replaced exactly as it had been found. Too exactly that's what gave it away. They didn't know who she was, then. If they had known she was an Adjudicator they would never have risked searching her room.

Roz put down her bag and checked the wardrobe door. The single hair she'd stuck across the bottom was intact. A very slick search indeed.

How had they tracked her? Not through the bearer bonds: they were untraceable. Not through the Qinks: they never squealed and you couldn't use a mind probe on them. Private Susanti, a.s.suming that Mei Feng had kept her word, would remember nothing more suspicious than a failed date. Besides, she'd given Susanti the wrong name. The last security check point she'd pa.s.sed through, the last definite visual image of her, would have been the automatic simcord taken when she used the transmat to get down from Aegisthus Station. Two days ago.

Why had they taken so long to find her? It suggested that they were following an electronic trail. No matter how careful you were, no one moved through the Empire without leaving a trace.

The Order then? No, they would have just grabbed her at the first opportunity.

h.e.l.l, grabbed nothing she'd have been shot while trying to escape. To the corrupt hierarchy of the Adjudicators she was a threat because she knew too much, and the honest ones thought she was bent. Either way you sliced it, she'd have been toast by now.