Mighty Good Road

CHAPTER 3

The money arrived as promised, within ten hours of Lo-Moth’s receiving the signed contract, and with it came the survey tapes from Foursquare. Heikki raised her eyebrows a little at the unusual promptness, but reserved passage on the freighter and on the connecting trains for herself, Djuro, and Nkosi. Together, the three reviewed Foursquare’s data, and by the end of the week, Heikki had decided that the tapes were essentially useless.

Djuro, scanning the figures on his own workscreen, nodded. “Yeah, the numbers just don’t match. We’ll have to do it all over again.”

“Which won’t hurt us any,” Heikki answered mildly. “Don’t worry, I took that into account when I made the bid.”

Djuro grunted, acknowledging the hit. “Still, it’s a pain not to be able to trust their work.”

Heikki shrugged, and Nkosi looked up from his own board—which displayed a complicated game pattern— long enough to say, “No problem. We’ll just fly a few extra passes—up near the mountains, that should be exciting.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Heikki said. She stared at her own maps, colored now with the bright red lines of the prevailing weather patterns. At least they were arriving on Iadara during the summer’s calm, not storm— but that just meant that the weather would be difficult, not immediately dangerous. “We’ll have to make friends with someone in meteorology,” she said, still frowning at the map, and Djuro looked up quickly.

“Why not bring someone in from the Loop? At least we’d know they’d be reliable.”

“I’ve thought about it,” Heikki said. “I think what we’d gain in reliability we’d lose in local knowledge. No, our own program’s pretty sophisticated; with that and the local mets, we should be all right.”

Two days later, they left Exchange Point Seven for Iadara. They travelled by startrain to Exchange Point Six—halfway across the Loop, despite its number—and then Heikki sent the others on ahead on the FTLport while she supervised their container through Customs. She had done this a hundred times before, and never yet had it gone smoothly. This was no exception: by the time she reached the entrance to the FTLport, container floating behind her on its grav disks, shepherded by a pair of union handlers, her temper was growing short, and she glowered impartially at both the handlers and the lanky steward, frowning over her manifest. To Heikki’s surprise, however, the steward seemed concerned only that the crate’s mass match the numbers she had been given in the shipping order. Once that had been confirmed, she saw the container aboard without trouble, and turned to show Heikki to her cabin. “Unless you want your partner to show you,” she added. Her tone made her preference clear.

Heikki glanced up the boarding tunnel, and saw Djuro’s wiry figure just inside the circle of the hatch. She hid her frown, and shrugged. “That’s fine with me,” she said, and the steward nodded.

“Rec room and passengers’ mess are on the same level, unless you want meals in your cabin. Times and the surcharges are posted for that. Engineering and control are off-limits—no offense—and you should remain in your cabin any time the red lights are on. Otherwise, enjoy your voyage.”

“Thanks,” Heikki said, but the steward had already turned away, her mind fully focussed on the next piece of cargo to come aboard. Heikki shrugged to herself— she was used to the vagaries of FTLships’ crews—and started up the tube toward the hatch, her single carryall balanced on her shoulder.

At the top of the hatch, Djuro came forward as though offering to take her bag; at the same time, he said, “We’ve got company.”

“Oh?” Heikki waved away the offer of assistance, her eyes suddenly wary.

“Yeah. Electra FitzGilbert, her name is—she works for Lo-Moth.”

“I’ve met her,” Heikki said. “She’s the director of operations, was the director for this particular flight. She belongs on Iadara, not in the main offices—she may just be going home.”

“Do you really think so?” Djuro asked, and Heikki smiled.

“No. But what else can we do? Show me my cabin, Sten, and then we can talk.”

The cabin proved to be about what she had expected, small and spartan, with most of its space taken up by the bunk and the limited-access console wedged into one corner. At least it had its own bath, Heikki thought, tossing her carryall onto the mattress, and the bunk, at least, was reasonably large. “Relax, Sten,” she said aloud. “Even if FitzGilbert is going back to keep an eye on us, what harm can it do? We’re honest—and if she isn’t we’ll deal with her.”

“I hope to hell you’re right,” Djuro said morosely, and looked instinctively for the monitor.

Heikki smiled, “It’s good to be back in the Precincts, isn’t it?”

Djuro flushed slightly. “There are times,” he said, “when a person can’t remember where he is.”

“Let it ride for now,” Heikki said, lowering her voice. “Which cabin is she in?”

“Two upship and across the corridor. They aren’t numbered. I’m in the one in between.”

Heikki nodded. “I’m going to unpack, then. I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Right,” Djuro said, and closed the cabin door behind him.

The freighter left dock on schedule, but Heikki, rereading the tapes she’d received from FourSquare, was barely aware of the shifts of power. She looked up when the bulkheads around her seemed to lurch as the ship went from dock gravity to its own generators, but then returned to her reading. The faint thrum of the engines deepened as the tug cast off, but she heard that only as a counterpoint to the Iadaran wind. Of all Foursquare’s data, the only useful tape had been the record of the locator’s automatic transmissions: it showed routine readings for LTA status and weather alike, then the rising temperature that often preceded Iadaran storms. The LTA had dropped a few hundred meters—normal precaution, in case they were forced to land—and then the transmissions had ceased. Heikki stared at the strings of numbers, seeing instead one of the massive silver-enveloped ships soaring against the brassy Iadaran sky. She could almost see the heat rippling up off the jungle, could hear the first faint hiss of a rising wind…. The crew would have been worried, certainly—back country weather was nothing to fool around with, everyone knew that. She pictured them talking to each other, Firsters murmuring back and forth in their lilting accent, and then the decision to drop lower, perhaps swing off course toward one of the safe-harbor clearings every back country pilot knew about….

She stopped abruptly. I don’t even know if the crew were Firsters or Incomers, she thought, with some surprise. And it might make a difference. She sighed then, and set her workboard aside. The chronometer on the console showed nearly 1900 hours by ship’s time: almost dinnertime, for the passengers. She touched keys, checking the schedule for the first FTL run—it wouldn’t happen until well after ship’s midnight; she could afford to eat a decent meal—and then touched the button that would project a schematic of their planned course and present position on the main screen. After only a moment’s hesitation, she blanked the workboard, locked her tapes into her personal strongbox, and started toward the passengers’ mess.

The larger cabin was surprisingly comfortable: whatever money had been budgeted for the paying passengers had been spent on its fittings. A galley console filled one narrow end of the room, and a much larger media center took up perhaps two-thirds of the long inner wall. At the moment, its green-black surface was broken into facets, each one showing either the ship’s projected course or an elaborate relative-times chart. They meant nothing, of course, but the room’s sole occupant had not bothered to adjust the controls. Electra FitzGilbert looked up as the door sighed back, and gave a curt nod of greeting. Heikki was too well-schooled to show her dismay, but she felt her heart sink. Where the hell’s Sten? she thought, and said aloud, “Good evening, Dam’ FitzGilbert.”

“Dam’ Heikki.” To Heikki’s surprise, the dark woman did not return to the workboard propped beside her tray, but blanked the screen and set it aside. “The dinner isn’t bad at all.”

A typical oblique ‘pointer invitation, Heikki thought. I wonder exactly what she wants? “Thanks,” she said, and turned to the menu displayed on the galley screen. It was typical FTLship fare, heavy on the ubiquitous grains and shipgrown vegetables, but healthy and satisfying. Heikki considered the list for a moment, then touched keys. A moment later, the serving hatch slid open, and Heikki collected the steaming dishes and slid them painfully onto the recessed tray. There was a small bar as well, but she settled for a pot of tea instead—alcohol and FTL travel did not mix well—and returned to the table. FitzGilbert was watching her from under lowered lashes.

“Your partner was in,” she said, after a moment.

“Oh?” Heikki hesitated for a moment, then decided that there was no point in refusing the overture point blank. “Did he eat?”

FitzGilbert shook her head. “He went off with the big man—he said he knew someone aboard?”

Nkosi would, Heikki thought. Pilots tended to have friends—or friends of friends—scattered across known space, precincts and Loop alike, and Jock was not the sort to miss any chance of renewing connections. “I’m not surprised,” she said. “Pilots do know people, and Sten used to be in FTL engineering.” It was a concession, she thought, but a cheap one: anyone could check Sten’s records.

“And you, you’re Iadaran?” FitzGilbert asked.

Not subtle, Heikki thought. Not subtle at all. “I lived on Iadara—with my family—for about twelve years.”

“With your family,” FitzGilbert repeated. “And your mother worked for Lo-Moth.”

It was not a question, but Heikki shook her head anyway. “She was an independent consultant, under contract to Lo-Moth.” I’ll answer about three more questions, she decided silently, and then we’ll see.

To her surprise, however, FitzGilbert did not seem inclined to pursue the subject. “You’ve reviewed the tapes? Ours and Foursquare’s?”

“Yes.” Heikki poured herself a cup of tea, watching the other woman curiously. She could not decide if FitzGilbert were deliberately skirting the edges of insult, or if she were simply naturally ungracious. I’ll treat it as the latter, she thought, at least until proven otherwise. “There are a couple of questions I’d like to ask, since you were the operations director involved. If you don’t mind talking over dinner, of course.”

FitzGilbert scowled, but said, “Might as well get it over with.”

“Gracious of you,” Heikki murmured, and saw the other woman flush.

“What did you want to know?” FitzGilbert’s heavy brows were still drawn together, but she was making some effort to be conciliatory.

“The latac crew,” Heikki said. It was a little frightening, she thought vaguely, how easy it was to slip back into a linguaform she hadn’t used in almost thirty years. “Who were they, regular employees, free-lancers, or what, and how well did they know the back country?”

FitzGilbert took a deep breath, her voice becoming more professional. “They were regular flight crew, of course—Firsters, so they knew the area pretty well. The area they were supposed to be flying over, anyway! They were well off course, or either our flights or Foursquare’s would’ve found them. What more do you need to know?”

“How many aboard?”

“Five—pilot, back-up pilot, systems op, engine techs.” FitzGilbert shrugged. “The usual crew.”

“And you think, as ops director, they’re all dead?” Heikki could not keep the edge of distaste from her voice, and saw FitzGilbert wince, her color deepening again.

“They didn’t walk out,” FitzGilbert said, in a voice too harsh to be anything but false. “Either they were part of a planned sabotage, or they’re dead.”

Maybe I underestimated you, Heikki thought, and let her own voice become conciliatory. “What do you think the odds are? When I was on Iadara, Lo-Moth was well-respected. People didn’t try things like that.”

FitzGilbert looked down at her emptied plate. “I don’t know.”

“You’re the ops director,” Heikki said. “They were your people.”

“They were Firsters, I told you. And I’m not.” FitzGilbert’s voice was deceptively matter-of-fact. “I don’t know what they’d do for me. No, I’d’ve thought, that lot wouldn’t be in on a hijack—but you know as well as I do that’s the way things are done, ninety percent of the time.”

Heikki nodded. “I know. And you’re saying you don’t think this crew would’ve gone along with that?”

FitzGilbert shook her head. “No.”

“So we’ll work on that assumption, anyway,” Heikki said, and saw FitzGilbert’s face ease slightly. “FoursSquare’s tapes don’t seem to be much use. I’d rather work from the original material you have—fresh copies, if possible. We might be able to pick up something they missed.”

“I’ll see to it,” FitzGilbert said. She glanced down at her emptied plate, pushed it aside, grimacing. “If you’ll excuse me?” It was hardly a question, despite the faint rising inflection.

Heikki nodded as automatically, and turned her attention to her own plate. She did not look up until she heard the door sigh shut behind the other woman. Then, sighing, she reached for the shadowscreen that sat in the middle of the table, and ran her fingers across the surface, getting the feel of the controls. The media wall flashed and shifted, until at last she’d found the chronodisplay: two hours until the FTL run. She killed the image, leaving the wall blank, and leaned back in her chair. Not much point in going back to her own cabin yet—there was always the chance that either Djuro or Nkosi would show up—but there didn’t seem to be much use in staying, either. She pushed aside her almost untouched dinner, poured herself a second cup of tea, and curled her fingers around the warmed ceramic cylinder.

And what am I supposed to make of FitzGilbert? she demanded silently, staring at the other woman’s empty plate. I wish to hell I knew if she was meaning to be insulting, or if she’s just inept. Still, I think she did care that the latac crew is—probably—dead, which is one thing in her favor…. She put the thought aside, and reached for the plates. After a moment’s search, she found the disposal chute and slipped them in, hardly hearing the machinery whir up to speed to return scraps and plastic plates to reusable components. I’ll leave things as they are, Heikki thought, and hope we don’t have to work too closely with Dam’ FitzGilbert.

Back in her cabin, Heikki settled herself on her bunk, propping her workboard in front of her, but she could not seem to concentrate on the preliminary search pattern she had mapped out before leaving EP7. Her eyes kept straying to the chronodisplay, its numbers moving inexorably toward the time of translation. She kept at it, doggedly, but knew her work was worthless. When the buzzer finally sounded at the half-hour mark, she switched off her board and set it aside, then stretched out unhappily on her bunk. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached for her remote, and ran her fingers over the shadowscreen until the console’s main screen was tied into the display net. As was customary on passenger ships, the captain had tied the display to part of the visual security system; the picture shifted slowly, and at random intervals, from one corridor or working compartment to another. In the control room, glimpsed only briefly before the duty tech looked up at the camera, frowned, and cut it from the circuit, the ship’s full astrogation team hunched over the consoles, comparing the readings from the buoys at the edge of the Exchange Point’s parent system with the numbers already plugged into their equations. The picture wandered then through the corridors, catching a steward manhandling a balky emergency suit back into its locker, then switching to the special-cargo hold, where a woman in a flat grey cap was running a mass pulser over the last layer of crates. One view showed only indistinct figures crossing the corridor, just out of the camera’s circle of focus: the system stayed with the shot for what seemed an interminable time.

Then, as Heikki had hoped it would, the system switched to the drive compartment at the center of the ship. The Tank—the reinforced housing for the ship’s crystals—loomed in the center of the picture, almost filling the compartment; the dark-goggled engineers, busy at the consoles at its base, seemed almost ant-like by comparison. Light, a light so hard and white that it seemed almost solid, or at best as slow-moving as glacier ice, glowed behind the test-ports, seemed to turn the narrow line of the calibration bar to white-hot steel. Heikki blinked and reached for the shadowscreen to dim the image, even though she knew that the camera was already shielded. Before she could make the adjustment, however, a familiar three-toned chime sounded and the picture went dead. At the same time, the room lighting went red: five minutes to translation, and all non-essential personnel were to stay in their cabins. Heikki grimaced, and braced herself against the edge of the bunk. Sometimes, she thought, sometimes I think it would be better if they left the cameras on, let us watch the purposeful confusion—at least I hope it’s purposeful; Sten always swears it was—and take our minds off what’s really happening, off the fact that space and time, reality itself, are being bent around us, are being persuaded to ignore, however briefly, the laws that usually define the universe—

The red lights dimmed slightly, marking the surge of power that initiated translation. Heikki swallowed hard, feeling the first uneasiness beginning at the pit of her stomach. The sensation grew rapidly, until if she closed her eyes she could feel herself, the ship, and everything around her tumbling end over end, somersaulting lazily, each individual cell, each molecule, trying to turn itself neatly inside out. She kept her eyes open, staring at the red-lit ceiling, hoping translation would end before she was sick. Then, at last, the sensation peaked and began to fade even more rapidly than it had grown. Heikki drew a ragged breath, blinking eyes that watered from the constant light, and shifted slowly to a more comfortable position. The lights flickered again, brightened, and a moment later shifted from red to the normal spectrum. Heikki pushed herself upright, leaning against the lightly padded bulkhead, and ran her fingers through her sweat-dampened hair. The intercom clicked then, and a steward’s voice said, “Post-translation check. Everything all right, Dam’ Heikki?”

Heikki reached to the console to thumb the intercom switch—her hand seemed steady enough, but she did not want to risk the shadowscreen—and answered, “Everything’s fine here, thanks.” This time, anyway, a small, pessimistic voice whispered, but Heikki contrived to ignore it.

“Good-oh,” the steward answered, and cut the connection.

Heikki ran her hand through her hair again, and fumbled with the shadowscreen until she’d recovered the chronometer display. It was late, by ship’s time, and later still by her own internal clock. Even so, she pushed herself up off the bunk and made herself shower, washing away the fever-sweat of translation, before allowing herself to sleep.

There were three more major translations before the ship settled into the almost imperceptible microhops that would position it at the entrance to the Iadaran Roads, and Heikki faced each one with the same dour resignation. There was no chance that she might become acclimated—it took years of constant exposure to build up any tolerance at all, and some people never did—and by the time the ship swung into the Roads she was even glad to see Iadara’s disk on the viewscreen. It was a bright planet, the rich green of the forested islands almost perpetually obscured by swirling patterns of cloud. Nkosi, watching on the large screen in the passengers’ mess, shook his head at the sight.

“My God, those are fast-moving systems. What is the weather like under them?”

Djuro, who was closest, fingered the shadowscreen. Heikki said, mildly, “You were warned, Jock.”

The screen split, one half still displaying the disk as seen by the forward sensors, the other displaying strings of data from the meteorological stations. Nkosi whistled thoughtfully, and stood up to compare the two pictures more closely.

“The average windspeed seems to be thirty to forty-five kph, the humidity looks miserably high—”

“Not everywhere,” Djuro interjected, with a dry smile.

“—and, Jesus, look at that temperature differential.” Nkosi looked up, one finger tracing a line of cloud on the sensor view. “There must be some pretty big storms in there.”

Heikki nodded, looking up at the displays. “That’s the Ledoma River Plain—the area report will be from weather station red north central. You’ll almost always find some storms along the line of the river.”

“Wonderful,” Nkosi murmured, and turned his attention back to the displays.

Heikki continued staring at the picture, remembering the storms. When the thunderstorms came rushing down out of the hills, as they did almost every day in the long summer, the sky would darken, and the air change slightly, in a way you could not define, but only feel. The wind would come then, little tendrils of air licking at your sweaty skin, a touch that swelled to a breeze and then to a wind that seemed crazy-strong, strong enough to lift you off your feet, so that you ran into it, arms outstretched, yelling for it to carry you away. And then the thunder came, and the adults, and then the pelting rain, and you ran for home, to be scolded when you got there, and to hear the old saying quoted one more time, as you towelled your hair dry; summerwind makes dogs and kids crazy.

She shook herself then, putting aside the too-vivid memory; they would do her no good now, would only distract her from the present day. With a frown, she reached for her workboard and called up the paperwork that had to be completed for the landing, concentrating on the details of shipping certificates and import licenses.

Somewhat to her surprise, the freighter landed as scheduled, and the stewards did their best to minimize the chaos of unloading. There was equipment to spare, but no human beings: she and Djuro and Nkosi together jockeyed the antigrav buoyed crates through the glass walled corridors to the customs station. The inspection there was perfunctory, one tired blond skimming through the disks while another ran an ineffectual looking scanning rod over the sealed crates. Neither seemed to find anything of interest. The first clicked keys on his waist-slung keyboard, adding his own certification codes to the collection of papers, while the second peeled iridescent stickers from the roll hanging at her belt and fixed one neatly to each of the containers. It was all done with only the most necessary exchange of words. Not at all like the usual precinct planetfall, Heikki thought, and her eyebrows lifted in spite of herself. Usually, planetary customs were, if not thorough, at least more than mildly curious about strangers, especially on a world as far from the usual passenger runs as Iadara. Either they received orders from Lo-Moth to pass us through, Heikki thought, or there’s something else going on. She thanked them anyway, with the punctillious politeness she always used when dealing with customs, and joined the others in easing the crates out through the last narrow doorway.

There were autopallets for rent on the far side of the barrier, and Nkosi said, “I will get one.”

“Do that,” Heikki agreed, and stood for a moment, squinting into the sunlight that streamed in through the clear, blue-tinged bricks that formed one wall of the terminal. “What do you think?” she asked, after a moment, and saw, out of the corner of her eye, Djuro’s mouth twist briefly.

“It was funny—not like customs at all. Of course, what can you smuggle in that they can’t already buy? I bet security’s a lot tougher, going out.”

“True,” Heikki said, but her tone was less certain than her words. Still, what Djuro said was true: corporate worlds, especially one-product worlds like Iadara, tended to be fairly lax in what they allowed on-planet. And I expect he’s right, she thought, security will be tighter when we leave. After all, they wouldn’t want to risk losing any of their crystals to the black market.

“Dam’ Heikki?” The voice had a ‘pointer crispness, and Heikki looked up sharply.

“That’s me. Are you from Lo-Moth?” She heard crisp footsteps behind her, and realized that customs had finished with FitzGilbert.

“Yes, that’s right. Ah, Dam’ FitzGilbert, it’s good to see you back.” He looked back at Heikki, with a wary, professional smile that included all the off-worlders. “I’m Jens Neilenn.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Heikki murmured. “My assistant, Sten Djuro, my pilot, Jock Nkosi.”

Neilenn managed a polite greeting for both of them, though Nkosi’s handshake nearly overwhelmed him. The Iadaran was a little man, in his middle forties, with bright eyes webbed in a net of wrinkles: permanent middle management, Heikki guessed, and content to remain there.

“Director Mikelis asked me to act as your liaison,” Neilenn went on. “I’ve taken the liberty of arranging rooms for you at the corporate hostel, but if that doesn’t suit your needs, I can make other arrangements first thing in the morning.”

Morning? Heikki thought. Surely that was morning sunlight outside the translucent wall…. And then she remembered. The spaceport was built to the west of the city, along the east-west axis that would protect it from the worst of the winds. She was looking into the sunset, not the sunrise her body had assumed it to be. “That’d be fine,” she said, and saw FitzGilbert frown,

“Why there?”

Neilenn gave her an uneasy look. “I thought it would be more convenient, if Dam’ Heikki wanted to talk to the people in meteorology….”

“She can talk to them from headquarters,” FitzGilbert said. “You can arrange that, can’t you?”

“Wait a minute,” Heikki said. She smiled at Neilenn, made herself hold the smile as she turned to FitzGilbert. “I’d just as soon leave things as they are. There are people—not just corporate people—I’ll need to see in the city.”

FitzGilbert hesitated for a moment, then nodded reluctantly. “If that’s what you want, fine. But the headquarters complex is much—nicer—than the hostel.”

Heikki kept smiling, perfectly aware of the other woman’s real meaning. The hostel would, of course, be perfectly comfortable, even luxurious; Lo-Moth could afford nothing else, for the sake of its own prestige. But it was still in Lowlands, still on Firster territory, and therefore, by definition, inferior. “I’m sure it’ll do fine,” she said, and looked to Neilenn. “I’d appreciate your help in arranging transport.”

“Of course, I’ll have the car brought round,” the little man answered hastily, and fumbled with a touchpad sewn into the pocket of his jacket. “Dam’ FitzGilbert, your car is at the door.”

And that, Heikki thought, with an inward grin, puts us in our place. FitzGilbert nodded perfunctorily, and strode off, her long straight coat snapping behind her like a flag. An interesting woman, Heikki admitted, reluctantly, maybe even a striking one … but I’d give a lot to know why she’s angry at the world. “Let’s get moving,” she said aloud, and stooped to adjust the antigrav unit attached to the nearest crate. The crate rose under her expert touch, and Nkosi slid the autopallet forward neatly, centering it beneath the crate. Heikki touched controls again, returning the crate to a weight that would keep it stable on the pallet, and stepped back as Djuro repeated the process with the second and third, smaller, crates. The entire procedure had taken little more than a minute.

“Dam’ Heikki, sers, the car’s here.” Neilenn blinked nervously up at them.

“Will it be able to take our equipment, or should we arrange for storage here?” Djuro asked.

Neilenn glanced at the pallet. “Oh, we can tow that. Just a minute, I’ll arrange it.” Without waiting for an answer, he scurried across to a multi-screened kiosk, and ran his hands across its shadowscreen. The screen above lit, displaying the face of a man in a hat badged with Lo-Moth’s logo. There was a brief conversation, conducted in a voice too soft for the off-worlders to hear, and then Neilenn blanked the screen and came back, a faint and satisfied smile on his face.

“All set,” he said. “If you’ll follow me?”

The heat beyond the aqua-glass doors was stifling. Heikki winced, the sweat pearling on her body—this was the part one always forgot, the damp heat of the afternoon—and heard Djuro swear under his breath. She glanced back, and saw him pull the hood of his shirt up over his thinning hair.

“Here we are,” Neilenn announced, and pointed to a vehicle drawn up against the edge of the low walkway. It was a typical ho-crawl, squat and broad-beamed, a closed passenger cabin mounted awkwardly in what would normally have been the front of the cargo well. It was the sort of dual-purpose craft that was common on the precinct worlds, slow and unspectacular, but immensely durable either on or off the existing roads. At the moment, it was configured for on-road travel, its wheels, six sets of three soft tires, each group arranged in a triangle, retracted into the wells while the idling fans kicked up a lowlying cloud of dust. Lo-Moth’s logo was painted on the side of the front-mounted engine housing.

“You said you needed a tow, ser Neilenn?” That was the driver, levering himself out through the window of the driver’s pod so that his forearms were resting on the cloth-covered roof.

“That’s right,” Neilenn answered, but the driver didn’t seem to hear him, staring instead at the off-worlders.

“Heikki? Is that you, then?”

Heikki frowned, trying to place the suddenly familiar face. “Dael?” Time had dealt kindly with him, done little more than thicken an always stocky body, and add a scattering of white to his sun-bleached hair. They were much of an age, had become good friends in the two years just before she had gone off-world.

“My God, it is you.” Dael pulled himself all the way out of the pod, still disdaining the use of the door, and

Heikki couldn’t help smiling at the compact strength of the movement. He moved around the nose of the ho-crawl, swinging his hips clear of the hot engine block, and came forward to greet her, at the last moment changing what might have begun as an embrace into an extension of both hands. Feeling suddenly awkward herself, Heikki took his hands, very aware of unfamiliar callouses. From the expression on his face, Dael was feeling the same awkwardness.

“My God,” he said again. “How long has it been?”

“Years, I think,” Heikki answered, and saw a sudden withdrawing in his face. “It is good to see you, Dael.”

The tension vanished from his smile, and in the same instant, Neilenn made a soft, unhappy noise through his teeth. Heikki glanced toward him, recalled to the business at hand, and saw, behind him, a bank of clouds rising out of the southeast. They loomed up over the low-roofed port buildings, their solid shapes turned a bruised purple by the full light of the westering sun. The wind was changing, too, she realized in the same instant, swinging around so that it was blowing from the heart of the rising storm.

Dael had seen it, too. He eyed the clouds appraisingly, then glanced at the equipment-filled pallets. “We better get loaded up and on the road before that breaks. I’ll drop the wheels.”

Heikki nodded, and Nkosi said, “I will take care of the hookup—if that suits you.” He was looking at Dael as he spoke. The Iadaran looked warily back at him, glancing sidelong at Heikki for her verdict before answering. When she said nothing, he nodded twice, a little too vigorously.

“Thanks. I appreciate the help.”

Nkosi nodded, and moved toward the towpad.

“Does this happen often?” Djuro asked, and jerked his thumb back over his shoulder at the swelling clouds. Heikki bit back a laugh, and Neilenn cleared his throat.

“Almost every afternoon,” he said, and frowned up at the sky. “Though this does look a little heavier than usual, I must say. We should be moving out.”

“What about the pallet?” Djuro asked. “Will it be secure?”

Neilenn looked at the driver, who nodded. “If the weighting’s right, it should do.” He glanced back toward Nkosi, still inspecting the towpad, and called, “Stand clear.”

Nkosi straightened, and Dael leaned back into the ho-crawl, manipulating the controls one-handed. Servos whined, clearly audible even above the noise of the fans, and the wheels came down until they just brushed the paving. He cut the fans then, and the ho-crawl settled heavily, the suspension sighing in protest.

“It should do,” he said again, staring at the numbers on his narrow repeater screen.

Djuro looked as though he would protest, and Heikki said quickly, “It’ll be fine, Sten.”

The little man grimaced, but said only, “Then let’s get going. It looks as though that storm is coming fast.”

Dael levered himself back into the ho-crawl and popped the main door. Neilenn lifted it the rest of the way, and gestured for the off-worlders to enter ahead of him. Heikki started toward it, and Dael called, “Why don’t you ride up front with me?”

Neilenn’s back stiffened, and Heikki said hastily, “I’d like that.” She looked back at Neilenn, forcing a smile so as not to offend. “I used to live here, I knew Dael when I was a kid.”

Neilenn swallowed, visibly remembering that she was a company guest, and nodded. “As you wish.”

Heikki nodded, and reached in through the well’s half-open window to trigger the interlock. It was a gesture of old habit, so old that she could no longer consciously remember the reasons for it—and then she did remember, all the old stories about bandits and the need to keep jungle vehicles secure against them, back before the company had tamed Iadara. Neilenn laughed, the sound making him seem suddenly younger.

“Are you a Firster, then?”

Heikki hesitated, the door already half open under her hand, then shook her head. “Not really.”

In the same instant, Dael said, “Near as makes no difference, she is.”

Heikki looked at him in some surprise, an old anger stirring in spite of herself. Twenty years ago, that admission—that acknowledgement, that claim of kinship—would have meant so much more, would have made such a difference…. She killed the thought, and forced herself to smile again at Neilenn. “I told you, I grew up here. I ran with a lot of Firster kids then.”

Neilenn nodded, clearly a little embarrassed by his own unprofessional behavior, and stooped to follow the off-worlders into the passenger compartment. Heikki ducked into the well, settling herself comfortably on the narrow bench seat at Dael’s side. The Iadaran gave her a companionable smile, his hands already roving across the simple controls as he adjusted power plant and brakes.

“All secure back here,” Neilenn’s voice said from the overhead speaker, and an instant later, Djuro said, “I’m still not comfortable about the tow, Heikki—”

“The tow’s all right,” Heikki answered. “Our crates should be secure against rain, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Whatever you say, boss,” Djuro answered, but he did not sound fully appeased.

Dael grinned, and eased a lever backward. Gears groaned, a deep sound of metal against metal, and engaged. The ho-crawl juddered forward, bucking once as its wheels jolted onto the metalling of the main road.

Heikki leaned back against the worn padding, staring out the windscreen at a landscape at once strange and painfully familiar. Many of the old landmarks were gone— Goose Green, for one, the old spacers’ bar, no longer flaunted its string of gaudy show lights along the main highway. Instead, its lowlying, barrel-roofed building had been replaced by a series of sleek towers, many bearing the logos of Precincter shipping firms. A.T. Leigh’s was gone, too, but the Good Times Chandlery had actually expanded, a third—or was it the fourth? —flat-paneled khaki-colored prefab wing jutting out from behind the sand-scarred main building. But the land was just the same, sandy here on the edges of crystal country, bound in place by the ground-growing native clingvines and by more deliberate plantings of imported feather grasses. The latter grew in clumpy stands, man-high or a little taller, a few stalks already sprouting the plumes that would eventually spread their fluffy, pale-pink seed a little further into the relatively fertile midlands between Lowlands and the upthrust central massif.

The road swung wide to avoid a sand wallow, its edges marked by frayed, oncered warning flags whose thin poles were bent into graceful arcs by the still-rising wind. The ho-crawl was pointing inland now, so that she could see the first trees of the midforest, the nearest perhaps two hundred meters from the roadbed, a gnarled, low-growing chaintree with oily, almost-black leaves. Beyond the forest, the mountains of the massif were no more than a smudge on the horizon, indistinct as smoke. That was where the latac had gone down, somewhere up beyond those hills, on the plateau of the ‘wayback, and she was conscious of a faint, almost pleasant excitement, contemplating the job ahead.

“I was sorry to hear about your da,” Dael said, and Heikki recalled herself to the immediate surroundings.

“Me, too. I suppose accidents happen—but that doesn’t make it any easier.”

“Especially not so soon after your mother died.” Dael kept his eyes on the road ahead, and the clouds that had almost reached the zenith. “I looked for you at the funeral.”

Heikki knew she blushed, and was annoyed by her own reaction. There was no reason to be ashamed, none at all, but still she found herself answering the unspoken question. “I was on Embros, off the main net, when it happened. They—the local authorities—weren’t able to contact me until it was too late. He was buried before I could find a ship going off-world.”

Dael nodded sympathetically. “That happens, too, but it’s a shame.” There was a silence, and then he said, “Do you hear anything from Galler, these days?”

Heikki bit back the sudden pulse of anger. Dael of all people should know better than to ask that question…. She kept her voice steady only with an effort of will. “Who?”

“So it’s still like that, is it? Well, your business, not mine.”

“Yes,” Heikki said, and saw Dael’s quick sidelong glance, half of apology, half of sympathy. They were silent again, for longer this time, neither quite knowing what to say to the other. There was nothing between them but their work, Heikki thought, sadly, and shook her head at her own longings. If that’s all there is, she told herself, then make use of it. She glanced at the instrument panel to be sure the intercom was off. “Listen, Dael, you know—or you’ve heard—what I’m here for.”

“I’ve heard.” Dael glanced sideways again, but this time his expression was unreadable.

“What’s the talk? What are people saying?”

“They’re saying a lot of things,” Dael answered, “and damn few of them make good sense.” Heikki waited, and after a moment the Iadaran sighed. “Of the sensible ones. They say the wreck should’ve been found a long time ago. They say it’s a bit late to be calling in experts, when the crew’s probably dead and eaten. They say the Widows and Orphans is planning to sue for the heirs, that’s what they say.”

“So there’s no talk that the crew might’ve been in on a hijack,” Heikki said, interested, and Dael shrugged.

“Not in my hearing, anyway. But then, nobody would talk like that, not while I was around, not even if it was true and half FirstTown was snickering up their sleeves at the company. I work for the company now, and they don’t forget it.”

And they don’t let you forget it, either, Heikki thought.

She said aloud, “It’s still interesting to hear. Thanks, Dael.”

The wall of clouds had passed the zenith, and the first layers were already overspreading Iadara’s sun. The light curdled, became sickly, unnatural, tinged with a yellow-green like an old bruise, and then the heavier clouds reached the disk and the sunlight vanished completely, as though a switch had been thrown. Lightning, a distinct and jagged line, forked through the sky above the city’s clustering buildings; the thunder was drowned in the growl of the ho-crawl’s engine. Heikki frowned and leaned sideways a little, looking out the side window so that she could see beyond the skyline. The city buildings dwindled there to nothing, a few low domes mingling with the scrub and grass. On the horizon, a stark line showed between the trailing edge of the storm and the clear sky beyond. Heikki’s frown deepened, and Dael said, a new, worried note in his voice, “Switch on the U-met console, will you?”

Heikki did as she was told, finding the familiar inset screen-and-keyboard without difficulty. Even as she keyed it on, Neilenn’s voice crackled in the intercom speaker.

“Dael? What’s the weather doing?”

“Channel five’s the metro-port now,” Dael said, to Heikki, ignoring the voice from the passenger compartment. Heikki nodded, and touched keys to tune the machine properly. The screen glowed and displayed a rough map of the city and the port and the roads between them; a moment later, a second image, this one the ghostly, multicolored reflection of the clouds overhead, was superimposed on the brighter map. Two sections of the clouds glowed brighter, yellow, and Dael spared them a few seconds study before he answered the intercom.

“Nothing yet, just potential.”

“Good,” Neilenn said. “Keep me informed.”

“Right,” Dael answered, but the intercom was already off. He glanced again at the console display, then forced his attention back to the road.

“I’ll watch,” Heikki said, and the other nodded, not taking his eyes from the road ahead. Heikki fixed her eyes on the shifting display, watching with some alarm as one of the two yellow spots grew brighter. The local weather station was monitoring the winds in the clouds above, highlighting areas that could produce the dangers—tornadoes, wind shear, devastating hail—for which Iadara was infamous. The pattern stayed steady, bright yellow but not yet shading into the red that would mean real danger, and began to drift off to the south, fading a little as it went. Heikki allowed herself a small sigh of relief, a sound that was drowned in a crack of thunder that seemed to come from directly overhead. She blinked, and the rain poured down.

“That’s that, then,” Dael said, raising his voice to be heard over the rush of water.

Heikki nodded—the rains usually signaled the passage of the storm’s most dangerous phase—and leaned back against the cushions. Outside the windscreen, the rain swept in almost solid sheets across the roadway. Dael slowed the ho-crawl, fighting to see between the blasts of wind-driven water. Lights flared on the control panel as the remotes kicked in and faint lines appeared, projected on the windscreen: a directional grid, and then the linear outline of the road ahead. The ho-crawl rocked sideways with the force of the wind, and Dael muttered something profane under his breath.

Then, almost as quickly as it had risen, the storm began to ease. The wind dropped, and the rain began to fall again, rather than being blown horizontally against the ho-crawl’s sides. The lightning faded, and the banks of clouds began to look less solidly threatening. By the time the ho-crawl drew up at the entrance to the corporate hostel, just outside the 5K Road that was the city’s legal limit, the rain had stopped altogether and weak sunshine was beginning to throw beams through the shredding clouds.

“Here we are, then,” Neilenn said, over the intercom, and Dael looked sideways at Heikki.

“I hope I’ll see you again, now that you’re here.”

Despite the polite words, his tone was less than enthusiastic, and Heikki could not hide a crooked, comprehending smile. It had been too long, they had both changed, had nothing really in common any more. Better not to have met, than to have met like this, when the only tie between them was their work for Lo-Moth. She said aloud, “Definitely, if we can find the time,” and was ashamed to see the fleeting relief in the other’s eyes. She looked away, and reached for the interlock, pushing herself up and out of the well in the same smooth movement.

Djuro and Nkosi were already out of the passenger compartment, and Djuro was checking the crates on the tow. He looked up at her approach, and nodded grudgingly. “Everything looks all right. The seals are tight.”

“Good,” Heikki said, though she’d expected no less, and looked at Neilenn.

“Your rooms are already reserved and confirmed as of this morning,” the little man answered. “There will be a corporate systems Accesscard waiting for you at the desk, as well as the information you requested from the central office. I have also been instructed to inform you that a local expense account has been set up for you, with a five thousand poa line of credit. Ser Mikelis asked me to make clear, however, that this was intended for incidental expenses rather than employment or equipment rental or anything of that nature. For the latter, you need only call the Bursar, and she’ll issue the order. Your projected expenses have already been placed in her accounts.”

“Thank you,” Heikki said, and saw Nkosi staring open-mouthed. She frowned at him, and he hurriedly adjusted his expression, but for once she couldn’t blame him. Lo-Moth was being unusually generous…. She put the thought aside, annoyed with herself for borrowing trouble, and turned her attention back to Neilenn.

“There’s just the question of where to store the equipment, then.”

“Kasib will see to that,” Neilenn said.

Heikki turned, to find herself face to face with a tall, unsmiling man in a high-collared, short-sleeved tunic and loosely woven trousers. The collar button was printed with Lo-Moth’s logo. The man touched his forehead politely, still unspeaking, and Neilenn said again, “Kasib will take it.”

Djuro said, “I’ll give you a hand.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” Neilenn said, and in the same moment, Kasib said, “I can handle it.”

Djuro opened his mouth to protest, and Heikki said quietly, “I think he can manage, Sten.”

Djuro’s mouth closed abruptly. After a moment, he said, “Whatever you say, boss.” He was silent as they made their way into the suddenly cool lobby, and while Heikki collected room keys, information packet, and the promised disks from the desk clerk, who made a production of summoning a scout to lead them to the suite. She glanced warily at Djuro as she turned to the hovering scout, but the little man’s expression was remote to the point of mutiny. She suppressed her own annoyed response, and nodded to the scout.

“You can take us up, please.”

The scout led them through the expensively furnished lobby, and past a first bank of lifts to a second, more secluded row of cars. There was a card sensor in place of the usual panel of buttons, and the scout cleared his throat. “Dam’ Heikki—?”

Heikki handed him one of the cards she had received from the clerk; the scout passed it across the reader face and handed it back to her with a flourish. Heikki said nothing, and the scout looked away.

Lo-Moth had assigned them a comfortable suite of rooms near the top of the building, bedrooms, mini-kitchen, mainroom and workroom. Comfortable, but hardly luxurious, Heikki thought, scanning the working space, and could not help feeling a certain relief. Lo-Moth was finally behaving the way it should. She tipped the scout, and saw the door closed and locked behind him. Djuro still glared at her, but said nothing. Heikki smiled, crookedly, and rummaged in her carryall for the minisec she always carried. She keyed the general search, and then, when that triggered no alarms, tried the more specific common frequency search.

“No bugs,” Nkosi said, and grinned. “Not that I really expected any, in a place this expensive.”

Djuro muttered something inarticulate.

Heikki ignored them both, and readjusted the minisec’s controls so that it shifted from active to passive security, putting out an inaudible field guaranteed to disrupt most of the bugs commonly used in the Loop and Precincts. Only then did she look at Djuro.

“Sten—”

“Why did you let them go off with our equipment?” Djuro demanded. “Damn it, Heikki, they were just looking for a chance to search it.”

“I know.” Heikki shrugged. “At least, I think I know. Maybe we’re misjudging them.” She could hear how doubtful her own voice sounded, and sighed. “And if they do—they’d’ve found a way anyway, Sten. You know that.”

“They might damage something.”

Nkosi made an odd sound that might have been a snort of laughter. Heikki said, “I doubt it. If they do—we call them on it, Sten, get repair plus the nuisance value, and if necessary, we break contract. We’d have a good argument that they violated the contract first, at any rate.” She paused, staring out through the workroom door at the enormous window that dominated the mainroom. The storm had almost vanished over the western horizon, was little more than a distant line of clouds. The sun streamed across a broad swath of perfectly manicured lawn, drew faint curls of vapor from the vanishing puddles at the edge of the metalled access road. “What I’d really like to know,” she said slowly, “is why they want to search the crates.”

“It doesn’t make good sense,” Djuro agreed. His anger had vanished almost as quickly as it had risen.

“Oh, I can think of quite a few reasons that Lo-Moth might want to search us,” Nkosi began, and Heikki smiled sideways at him.

“But do any of them make sense, Jock?”

“That I cannot promise,” Nkosi answered.

“So you’re saying we should ignore it, Heikki?” Djuro asked.

“For now, yes.” Heikki’s smile widened. “Maybe I’m wrong after all, and they’re just being polite.”

“To an independent?” Djuro murmured.

Heikki ignored him. “If not, think of it as giving them the rope to hang themselves.”