The Burning Ground

4. Eureka?

“I think this is the one.” Shadith tapped a sensor and an image bloomed on the forescreen-a Caan smuggler and a slight androgenous figure whose species was as problematic as its sex.

They’d moved to the ship Digby’d provided and were working in a shielded cabin, having run the flakes from the day’s work through a WatchDog to strip away any little surprises OverSec might have coded into them. It was a tedious job, checking names and putative worlds of origin of the seven hundred ninety-one entities who had left Marrat’s Market within or shortly after the theft window, ten hours in all. A surprising number in so short a time, but this was a busy place.

“Why.?”

“One. Because the little one is a fair match in size and build to the cleaner.” She brought up the image of the cleaner from the flake Prehanet had provided. “As you see. Two. I don’t recognize the species. What with one thing and another I’ve come across quite a good percentage of the star-hopping kinds, Cousin and nonCousin, at least those in reasonable reach of the Market. To get into that building you need a specialized ghost; Kikun’s the only one I know who’d come close to that description. Certainly none of those others. Three. The registry of the Caan’s ship. Mavet-Shi. That’s one of Sabato’s Mask Companies. You know the Caan and what they think of arms dealers. Just how happy would he be,” she waggled a finger at the screen, “running on Sabato’s lead? The gadget would be hard to sell without specs and provenance, but high-grade ananiles would go anywhere for top prices. What odds our Caan’s looking to buy himself loose?”

“Hm. I’ve heard of Sabato. How did you discover his connection with Mavet-Shi? I doubt even Digby knows that.”

“Ran across him on Avosing. Selling armaments for the Ajin’s rebellion. I had a very odd and informative acquaintance who told me more than I wanted to know about a lot of things.”

“I see.”

Shadith wrinkled her nose. “Of course, the thief could be hunkered down somewhere in the Market, waiting for the noise to fade, and all this logic is angel counting.”

“I doubt it. A world he could get lost on. Marrat’s is too limited and too controlled.” Autumn Rose examined the two images. “Make one last check. Set search parameters for height, weight, and body profile. Scrap the rest. Seems to me I remember a few that might be almost as good a match.”

The ship’s kephalos found two. One was a rather ambiguous figure in the crew of a Clove’ Matriarch, the second a Cousin arriving in a small, battered merchanter, who claimed Spotchalls as world-of-origin and proclaimed himself a jewel trader.

“Hm. Given that Prehanet’s security is as effective as he thinks, given that your reasoning holds about the cleaner, given that size is the determining factor, your first choice is by far the most likely. Matriarchs are so deep into control that clone must have about as much free will as an industrial ‘bot. The other… we can drone his specs to Digby with the report. He just might be smarter than he looks. Hm.” Rose rubbed at the faint creases at the edge of her eye. “There’s something familiar about your pet. Something I’ve seen recently… in passing, I think, not interesting enough to command attention… doesn’t matter, if I’ve seen it, Digby will have it. Let’s get out of here before the local paranoia takes hold and makes life strange.”