Eyes narrowing, the mechanic scanned his coworkers. “Not one of the people in here, surely. I know all these folks pretty good. There isn’t one I wouldn’t trust with my life.”
“Who said anything about people?” The visitor’s eyebrows rose slightly.
Realization dawned on the mechanic. “Oh. I see. Who, then?”
“Like I said, I got a couple of ideas.” The visitor turned to depart. “Just keep one thing in mind. All these poor, put-upon Deyzara who keep flooding into town? Isn’t it true that their kind will do anything for money? Anything.”
Angling toward a pair of techs working on the engine of a transport skimmer, the visitor headed across the hangar floor. Behind him he left one preoccupied mechanic alone with his thoughts, including a few unsettling new ones.
12
They were being watched.
They had all overslept. Not that anyone had an appointment to keep. The marvelous moss bed Jemunu-jah had found nestled in the crook of four intersecting blue-green branches of a strong kapolu tree was more than a meter deep and probably hundreds of years old. That didn’t keep Hasa from eagerly bedding down in the middle of the softest part, blissfully indifferent to the deaths of the thousands of growths that were crushed beneath his weight. The result was the best night’s sleep he’d enjoyed since the crash of his skimmer.
Sitting up and adjusting his rain cape, he saw that he was the only one awake. That was unexpected. His own experience-toughened reflexes notwithstanding, the Sakuntala Jemunu-jah would normally be the first one to awaken to the presence of an unseen intruder. Both he and Masurathoo relied on the Sakuntala’s forest skills to warn them of the presence of any especially furtive visitor. But the native slept on, indifferent to any imagined visitation. As he lay on his back with both ears relaxed, his tufted tail stretched out to one side, it was possible to envision his completely relaxed form not responding to every single presence.