Crystal Heat

2

She woke nine hours later with a stiff neck and the message chiming gently in her ears.

Vul’s squeaky voice: Shadow! Caught your name as a watcher. You back for just a visit, or are you staying a while? I’ve got this new project, want you to look at it, see what you think, I need music, a single instrument I think, subtlety over noise, I really do want to talk even if you can’t stay. Come see me, hm?

Digby: Why are you on University, Shadow? I’d like a report, if you don’t mind. Have you found the smuggler? Try to keep traveling times as short as possible, this is a race we’re in, remember?

Aslan’s contralto (Shadith blinked with surprise; she’d thought. Aslan was still on Bйluchad): Shadow, Vul told me you’re back. If you have the time, it’s Mirik’s birthday, near as she can figure it, so we’re having a party in The Eager Seagull, the usual lot, you know. Love to have you come if you can. Tonight, supposed to start around seven, but you, know how these things go.

Shadith checked the timer. Tonight was indeed this coming night. She smiled. “Digby, you can go on hold. I’ve just finished a month of agonizing boredom and I want to play. Hm. On second thought, I’d probably better give him a call. Grmp. He’s going to want more than I want to tell. Do we mention Lylunda’s ship? For sure, we do not. Would that keep him off it? I doubt it. Too many records, all of them transparent to him. Which means, when I leave, I take Dragoi in tow.

Gods! What happens when your life gets so convoluted you forget which is back and which is front. Well, we do the best we can with what we’ve got. I hate this, I’m taking his money, supposed to be doing the job he hired me for. Makes me feel lower than… hm I should make sure he gets his full fee. I owe him that even if I’ve already quit. Looks like the only person I can work for is me. Have to figure out something… but not now. Time for that later.”

Away from his main nest Digby was a ghost of himself, a painted translucent specter, hip-hitched on the corner of a desk in the satellite office he kept here on University, scowling at her as he listened to the carefully edited account of her activities on Hutsarte.

She ended her tale with the delivery of the readouts. “I brought them with me,” she said. “I’ll scan them for you and give you my reasoning after that. Then we’ll see if we agree, hm?” This was the tricky point. If she could get him interested in the data, perhaps she could slide over how she got from Hutsarte to University. She took the pages from the folder, smoothed them out, then fed them one. by one into the slot on the scanner.

After a moment’s pose as the contemplative thinker, the ghost lifted his head, raised a brow. “Not much difficulty there. So, tell me.”

“Harmon,” she said. “With the Jilitera a distant second. The other ship, the shuttles, the transfer station, all of them out of it.” She explained, waited.

“I find no flaws in your reasoning. Why University?”

“The Regents try to keep track of arms dealers and people like that. I was going to give them what I know about Harmon’s activities and run that name through to see if they have a new loc on him. And I thought I’d pull what they have on the Jilitera. Might be unlikely, but they were there.” She shrugged. “You said use your ingenuity and your resources. Just doing the job, Digby.”

The ghost contemplated her, a skeptical look on his. sketch of a face. “Your discretion thus far has been admirable, so I won’t pry into the gaps in that report. At the moment at least. I’ll expect your final report to be considerably more detailed.” He seemed to relax, then grinned at her. “The Kliu are agitated and are trying to wring what information they can out of me. I suspect they lost track completely of the Elang when she vanished from Haundi Zurgile. They’ve certainly lost their smug. You’ve won some time, Shadow, but probably not a lot. I’ll give my resources a shake and see what falls out. Let me know what University comes up with, hrn?”

“Will do. Um… just in case, if you’ve got lines to the Jilitera, it might be a good thing to get them ready to pull. Never hurts to have a backup no matter how convincing the logic.”