“You lie,” he muttered at the machine. “You lie in the teeth you haven’t got.”
“That takes sentience,” Aleka whispered. “We’ve contacted a sophotect.”
“Highly specialized, a node in the network,” Kenmuir deemed. “It’s best to have some flexibility, not a simple, blank refusal.” He sighed. “We could continue the pretense, I suppose, and call up those ancient disputes, but I’m for going straight on ahead.”Aleka raised a hand. “Wait a minute. Let me think.”
Quietude lasted. The faint colors thrown by the mandala window onto the wall opposite had noticeably shifted downward since she and Kenmuir arrived.
He glimpsed that she had turned her regard upon him, and looked back. Her eyes were gold-flecked russet. “This is mucho important business,” she said very softly.
“Yes,” he answered for lack of a better word.
“Somebody high, high up wants it kept kapu. The haku, the kahuna—I don’t know who or what, but I think that in the past it got the Teramind’s attention, and can get it again.”
Chill touched him. “Could well be.”
“Is the purpose bad?”
“Perhaps not. Why mayn’t we decide for ourselves?”
“Do you still want to go through with this?”
He considered for an instant. “If you do.”
She nodded. “Yes. But listen. You remarked that keeping information squirreled away—for a long, long time, as this has been—that needs more than a lock. It needs flexible response. Bueno, will the guardian really be satisfied with a DNA scan?”
“That was all it demanded.”
“Anything more might be too clumsy.” And anything less, Kenmuir reflected, such as a facial or fingerprint identification, was too easily counterfeited. “Still, if I were in charge, knowing that Lilisaire is on the prowl, I’d take an extra precaution or two. Like instructing the guardian to notify me if anybody does make entry, legitimately or not.”
Kenmuir started where he sat. “Huh! That didn’t occur to me.”
“Nor to me till just now. I may be wrong, of course.”
“But if you’re right—“ Thought searched wildly. “Venator wouldn’t sit and wait. He’ll be busy, quite likely far from here.”
“So he’d want the guardian to contact not only him, but agents closer, who can pounce fast.”
“The police?”
“Not local police. They’d wonder why they were ordered to arrest a couple of persons harmlessly using the public database. Those persons might’tell them why, and they’d tell others, and folks would wonder. Me, I’d have the crack emergency squads of the Peace Authority alerted, around the planet, to be prepared for a quick raid, reasons not given but the thing top secret.”
“As a recourse—“ Protest rose in Kenmuir’s throat like vomit. “Are we going to let this possibility paralyze us?”
“No,” Aleka said. “But we’d better scout around first.”
She gave herself anew to the equipment. It told her the nearest Authority base was in Chicago Integrate. “Allowing time to scramble, an arrowjet cpuld bring a squad here inside half an hour,” she reckoned. Kenmuir, who knew virtually nothing about constabulary, mustered courage. Maybe he could at least flash a message to Zamok Vysoki. It must go in clear. However, since the Moon was in the sky, it could beam directly to a central receiver there, and—and be intercepted by a surveillance program, and provoke immediate counteraction—“What we’ll need to know is whether they do scramble,” Aleka was saying. “Hang on.”
Her fingers danced. The patience schooled into a spacer had strength to hold Kenmuir motionlessly waiting.
After a time he chose not to number, Aleka leaned back, wiped a hand across her face, and mumbled, “Good. We will know.”
“How’s that?” he croaked.
“I’ve set it Up. Traffic Control will inform us if and when any high-speed unscheduled flyer leaves CI in this general direction.” She shook her head. “No, no, nothing special, no break-in. The sort of informationa civilian might have reason to want. For instance, we could be studying atmospheric turbulence effects, or some such academic makework. I just had to figure out how to request it.”
His belly muscles slackened a trifle. “Then … if it happens .”. . we’ll have twenty or thirty minutes to get to your volant and away?”
“Not that simple. TrafCon will oblige a mOka’i every bit as readily as us, if not more so. Easy enough to get the registry of a vehicle that left here a short while back, and know exactly where it is while it’s moving. We’H’ve got to land somewhere close by and be off like bunnies.” Aleka sighed. “I trust Lilisaire will ransom my poor flyer, or buy me a new one. Unless you and I end up where we won’t have any need of personal transport.”