She took a sip of her drink. “There are a couple of AAnn observers here on Fluva. They might have the necessary skills.”
This time when he shook his head, it was with greater certainty. “Still need an expert authority on-site when you’re doing that kind of real understated work, or so I’ve been told by the folks who’d know about such things. And I’ve sure as hell never seen no lizards sneakin’ around the facility.”
She forced herself to remain patient. “If not the Deyzara, or the Sakuntala with or without AAnn assistance, then who?”
Now that the time had come to get specific, he wavered. Fighting down a paroxysm of impatience, she reminded him again that whatever he said would be held in strictest confidence. As he leaned over the table toward her, his already soft voice was tempered even further by palpable concern.
“It’s just that, working late at night, there ain’t a lot to see. So when there is something to see, you kind of take notice of it, you know? I didn’t think nothing of it when I saw it. Seemed perfectly natural to me at the time. But later, afterward, after that bioprospector fella’s skimmer went missing and then the rescue team’s also, it kind of got me to thinking.
“See, there was this one time I saw someone working on the prospector’s skimmer, real late—and it wasn’t him. Next night, I hear that there had been some minor glitches in the port surveillance system. A few days later the system goes down again, for just a little while. That same time it goes down, I seen the same guy working on the skimmer that goes out with the rescue team. Both times, the guy doing the work didn’t notice me.” He smiled wanly. “I’m not a real noticeable type, you know? I don’t stand out. And I don’t move around too much or make much noise when I’m doing my work. Took me a while to put everything together.” He shrugged again.