‘He has,’ Beychae said. ‘I am… I am certainly considering doing what you ask, and for the moment have no urge to return to Solotol.’
‘I see,’ Sma said, ‘I appreciate what you say. I’m sure Mr Zakalwe will do all he can to keep you safe and well while you’re deliberating, won’t you, Cheradenine?’
‘Of course, Diziet. Now; where’s that module?’
‘Stuck under the cloud tops of Soreraurth, where it was before. Thanks to your nova-profile escapades down there, everything’s on maximum alert; we can’t move anything without being seen, and if we’re seen to be interfering, we might start the war all by ourselves. Describe where that capsule is again; we’re going to have to passive-spot it from the microsatellite and then blast it from up here, to remove the evidence. Shit, this is messy, Zakalwe.’
‘Well, pardon me,’ he said. He drank again. ‘The capsule’s under a large yellow-leafed deciduous tree between eighty and… one-thirty metres north-east of the observatory. Oh; and the plasma rifle’s about… twenty to forty metres due west.’
‘You lost it?’ Sma sounded incredulous.
‘Threw it away in a fit of pique,’ he admitted, yawning. ‘It got Effectorized.’
‘Told you it belonged in a museum,’ another voice interrupted.
‘Shut-up, Skaffen-Amtiskaw,’ he said. ‘So, Sma, what now?’
‘Gipline Space Terminal, I suppose,’ the woman replied. ‘We’ll see if we can book you on something outgoing; for Impren, or nearby. At worst, you’ve got a civilian trip ahead of you of weeks at least; if we’re lucky they’ll stand down the alert and the module can sneak out and rendezvous. Either way though, the war may be a little closer, thanks to what happened in Solotol today. Just think about that, Zakalwe.’ The channel closed.
‘She sounds unhappy with you, Cheradenine,’ Beychae said.
He shrugged. ‘No change there,’ he sighed.
‘I’m really most terribly sorry, gentlepeople; this has never happened before; never. I really am sorry… I just can’t understand it… I’ll, um… I’ll try…’ The young man hit buttons on his pocket terminal. ‘Hello? Hello! HELLO!’ He shook it, banged it with the heel of his hand. ‘This is just… just… this has never, never happened before; it really hasn’t…’ He looked apologetically up at the people in the tour group, clustered round the single light. Most of the people were looking at him; a few were trying their own terminals with no more success than he, and a couple were watching the western sky as though the last red smudge there would give up the aircraft that had so mysteriously decided to leave of its own accord, ‘Hello? Hello? Anybody? Please reply.’ The young man sounded almost in tears. The very last dreg of light left the sunset sky; moon-glow lit up some thinner patches of cloud. The flashlight flickered. ‘Anybody at all; please reply! Oh, please!’
Skaffen-Amtiskaw got back in touch a few minutes later to say that he and Beychae had cabins reserved on a clipper called the Osom Emananish, heading for Breskial System, just three light years from Impren; the hope was that the module would get to them before that. It would probably have to; their trail would almost certainly be picked up. ‘It might be an idea for Mr Beychae to alter his appearance,’ the drone’s smooth voice told them.
He looked up at the wall-drapes. ‘I suppose we could try and make some clothes out of stuff here,’ he said doubtfully.
‘The aircraft baggage hold might prove a more fruitful source of attire,’ the drone’s voice purred, and told him how to open the floor hatch.
He surfaced with two suitcases, wrenched them open. ‘Clothes!’ he said. He took some out; they looked sufficiently unisex.
‘And you’ll have to lose your suit and weaponry, too,’ the drone said.
‘What?’
‘You’ll never get on board a ship with that stuff, Zakalwe, even with our help. You’ve to pack it all in something – one of those cases would be ideal – and leave it in the port; we’ll try and pick it up once the heat’s off.’
‘But!’
Beychae himself suggested they shaved his head, when they were discussing how to disguise him. The last use the wonderfully sophisticated combat suit was put to was as a razor. Then he took it off; they both changed into the rather loud but thankfully loose-fitting clothes.
The craft landed; the Space Terminal was a wilderness of concrete lined off like a game board by the lifts that took craft down to and up from the handling facilities.
Tight beam established again, the earring terminal could whisper to him, guide him and Beychae.
But he felt naked without the suit.
They stepped from the aircraft into a hangar; pleasantly forgettable music tinkled. Nobody met them. They could hear a distant alarm.
The earring terminal indicated which door to take. They moved along a staff-only corridor, through two security doors which swung open for them even before they got to them, then – after a pause – came out into a huge crowded concourse full of people, screens, kiosks and seats. Nobody noticed them, because a moving walkway had just slammed to a stop, toppling dozens of people on top of each other.
A security camera in the left luggage area swung up to look at the ceiling for the minute it took them to deposit the suitcase with the suit in it. The instant they’d gone, the camera resumed its slow sweeping.
More or less the same happened when they picked up their tickets at the appropriate desk. Then, while they were walking along another corridor, they saw a party of armed security guards enter from the other end.
He just kept on walking. He sensed Beychae hesitate at his side. He turned, smiled easily at the other man, and when he turned back, the guards were stopped, the leading guard holding one hand to his ear and looking at the floor; he nodded, turned and pointed to a side corridor; the guards set off down it.
‘We’re not just being incredibly lucky, I take it?’ Beychae muttered.
He shook his head. ‘Not unless you count it as incredibly lucky that we’ve got a near military-standard electro-magnetic effector controlled by a hyper-fast starship Mind working this entire port like an arcade game from a light-year or so off, no.’
They were passed through a VIP channel to the small shuttle that would take them to the orbiting station. The final security check was the only one the ship couldn’t rig; a man with practised eyes and hands. He seemed happy they had nothing dangerous on them. The earring jabbed his ear as they passed down another corridor; more X-rays, and a strong magnetic field, both manually controlled, double checking.
The shuttle flight was relatively uneventful; in the station, they passed across one transit lounge – in something of a commotion, due to a man with a direct neural implant seemingly having a fit on the floor – straight into a final security check.
In the corridor between the lounge lock and the ship, he heard Sma’s voice, tiny in his ear. ‘That’s it, Zakalwe. Can’t tight beam on the ship without being spotted. We’ll only contact in a real emergency. Use the Solotol phonelink if you want to talk, but remember it’ll be monitored. Goodbye; good luck.’
And then he and Beychae were through another air lock, and on the clipper Osom Emananish, which would take them into interstellar space.
He spent the hour or so before departure walking round the clipper, just checking it all out, so that he knew where everything was.
The speaker system, and most of the visible screens, announced their departure. The clipper drifted, then dawdled, then raced away from the station; it swung away past the sun and the gas-giant Soreraurth. Soreraurth was where the module was having to keep hidden, a hundred kilometres deep in the vast perpetual storm that was the mighty planet’s atmosphere. An atmosphere that would be plundered, mined, stripped and altered by the Humanists, if they had their way. He watched the gas-giant fall astern, wondered who was really right and wrong, and felt an odd helplessness.
He was passing through the bustle of a small bar, on his way to check on Beychae, when he heard a voice behind him say, ‘Ah; sincere hellos, and things! Mr Starabinde, isn’t it?’
He turned slowly.
It was the small doctor from the scar party. The little man stood at the crowded bar, beckoning to him.
He walked over, squeezing between the chattering passengers.
‘Doctor; good day.’
The little man nodded, ‘Stapangarderslinaiterray; but call me Stap.’
‘With pleasure, and even relief.’ He smiled. ‘And please call me Sherad.’
‘Well! Small cluster, isn’t it? May I buy you a drink?’ He flashed his toothy grin, which – caught in a small spotlight above the bar – glared quite startlingly.
‘What an excellent idea.’
They found a small table, wedged up against one bulkhead. The doctor wiped his nose, adjusted his immaculate suit.