Shadowkill

MEMORY:

It was early days for Voallts Korlach. They’d just opened the compound in Spotch-Helspar, Miralys was pregnant with Lissorn and they had a single Capture ship out bringing in stock for their cages. Rohant was their sole Capture Chief and his cousin Napos ran the ship. In addition to the Dyslaerors they had four Grydeggin trackers in their capture team, a University-trained Katsitoi triad acting as a communal xenobiologist and two Trumpet Viner Cousins as ecologists, setting the pattern for mixed crews that Voallts Korlach continued till the present day.

A series of thefts had been giving Miralys fits. Despite sentries and a triad of watchman androids, someone had been getting to the stock, carrying off small but valuable birds, beasts, reptiles. The thief had twice got close to their most valuable beast, a pure white Mersallan jinnkitt with a base worth of fifty thousand Helvetian gelders, its actual price probably double that. Miralys had already turned down two bidders, because she didn’t like the way they smelled. A third had used a broker; she sent the broker away without bothering to listen to his offer. It was something she and Rohant had agreed on from the beginning. They would not sell so much as a feather through brokers, the buyers had to represent themselves. They wanted to know where their stock was going and what was going to happen to it.

“I was wondering what to do next,” she told Rohant when he got back, “when Zimaryn brought in this card, it made me laugh, there was this mini-holoa up in the left corner, a shovel dancing. Silly thing. Of course I’d heard of Digby and Excavations Ltd. Is there anyone on Spotchals who hasn’t? I wasn’t sure what to think of him and his business and most of all his prices.

“The… well… the exceedingly ambiguous being who sent the card in, I’ll say she for convenience’s sake, was a blonde beauty, I’m not that good at judging the attractions of outsiders, but it seemed to me she was rather past her prime. She sat in the pulochair, crossed her legs and smiled at me, and said her name was Frittagga Addams.

“I tapped my claw on the card and gave her the hoteye.

“‘Why?’ I said.

“‘Five thefts in the past three months. Police nowhere, though they’re trying. Here on Spotchals the P-T-B like to encourage young, healthy, expanding enterprises.’

“‘Young. So right,’ I said. ‘We can’t possibly afford Digby’s fees, even if they’re only half what they’re rumored to be.’

“‘Digby is willing to take his fee in services rather than gelders.’

“‘Specify.’

“‘Digby is a man with a voracious hunger for knowledge. Dyslaera are very little known outside of Dysstrael. He wishes to learn the language and history of your people. Nothing sacred or private, just whatever is public knowledge, what you teach your children. If you will provide a language extract and would agree to come and talk with him once a week for the next year, he’ll consider that sufficient fee for his services.’

“‘Which are?’

“‘He will discover the thief, the means by which the thefts are accomplished and, if possible, recover the stolen stock. He can’t guarantee this last, because he doesn’t know the purpose of the thefts.’

“‘I understand,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to consult the Family first.’

“‘Do that, then come and speak with him. You’ll see.’

“‘Wouldn’t it be better for him to come here so he can see the place?’

“‘Not possible. Come. You’ll see.’

“And then she left.”

“I quoted the brochure to him,” she told Rohant. “I was irritated; he was belaboring the obvious so I might as well respond in kind: ‘To insure flexibility of response and reaction speed in a casing of reasonable size, memory capacity is limited. The intake must be sorted and downloaded every three hours; the three androids must download in staggered series so that at least one is at full efficiency at the moment when one is taken out of circuit. What’s wrong with that?’ I said, ‘It only takes a minute.’

“‘It means that the jacal has an opportunity to raid every hour of the night. He had already acquired plans for your pens, he knows when the full-response droid is as far away as it’s going to get, he chaffs the half-loaded droid, overwhelming its intake, flips in his scoop and gets the target out before the full-response can locate the trouble and cross the intervening space. He can do it over and over again, whenever he wants. If you add flesh guards, he’ll kill them. I take it you’ve moved the jinnkitt once or twice?’

“‘Yes. First night, it was off its feed, we had it in the infirmary. The second time was just before a client was coining to look at it. We were grooming it and playing with it so it would be in good spirits.’

“‘Right. That’s the only reason you still have it. The first part of the answer is simple. Change the routine. New pattern of patrol every night, for one thing. For another, download after one hour, not three. You keep your droids livelier, time down is much shorter, and the change in pattern will annoy the jacal no end.’