by Corey Ostman
Plate looked up. “Is what?”
“Is hungry,” said Grace, quickly. “I am, anyway.”
Plate stood and rubbed his forehead. “Hmm. Five hours. Yeah, hungry’ll do it.”
Grace helped Plate gather his tools. “I could go for a whole mountain of pucks. How about you?” she said. “My treat.”
“Actually, I’ve a liquid of my own invention—” began Kyran.
“Wish I could,” said Plate, “but I gotta slush in a few. I’ll just grab some pucks and go.”
“Can’t it wait an hour?” she asked.
“Nope,” said Plate. “Shift is scheduled. An hour late, and I’d miss slushing for three rises.”
“Ok,” she said. “I owe you.”
Plate nodded, grinning. “Yes, you do.” He grabbed his tool clutch. “See you later, Gracie! You, too, Doc.”
The huge roider pulled out of the room. Soon Grace heard the exterior door open and close. Plate was gone. She sat down on the edge of her bed and considered the new prison pod.
“Before you ask me,” Kyran said, “I’m too tired to move. Besides, just because the jail is done it doesn’t mean you can waltz off today and hope to catch Lee. How about I wrangle some nutrient bulbs and we can just stay in and relax?”
Grace nodded. “But I’ll catch him,” she said. “If not today, soon.”
“Whatever trouble Lee gets into, you can be certain that Renken will be there waiting to catch you catching him.”
“I’m not worried about Renken,” she said.
“You should be,” said Kyran. “He’s the real problem on Ceres.”
She shrugged. “Mhau will back me up.”
“Mhau? She’s sided with Renken as often as she’s sided with me or Jacob. They’re friends, and she’s known him longer than you,” said Kyran. “I like Mhau, but she’s got her own problems. Don’t expect her to be there for you if you run into trouble.”
Grace sighed. He was right, of course. It was never as simple as pursuing justice. Renken would be watching, as would most of the bode. She had to have an ironclad reason to bring Lee in. Her short tally of crimes according to Ceres culture was interrupted by a bark from Tim.
“Oh!” he said. His face flickered and he pivoted, sailing from the room.
“Where’s he going?” Kyran asked.
“No idea.”
“Yes!” The PodPooch’s voice was audible from the exam room.
Grace heard the clang of metal hitting metal.
“Tim?” she shouted.
“What are you doing?” the doctor yelled as he bounced into the hallway. Grace followed, nearly crashing into Kyran with her poorly-controlled momentum.
Tim was a meter to the right of the main door. His jaws were attached to a seam along the wall, and he had braced himself by his front paws. The metarm plate held tight in his mouth, alloy groaning under the force.
“Tim! Stop that!” Kyran shouted.
He bounded over just as the PodPooch wrenched the plate from the wall. Tim released his jaws and watched as the hunk of metarm took two seconds to drop to the floor.
“Bad dog,” said Grace, amused. She was used to Tim, certain he’d explain himself eventually.
Kyran, his face flushed, stammered angrily, reaching for the loose plate. “F-first you make me rig that st-stupid jail, and now—”
“Look—look!” Tim said, extending his right paw to the open hatch.
Grace bounced next to the still-seething Kyran and looked inside. Along the rough, extruded interior of the Bode-6 superstructure was a conduit. It was covered in fine gray dust, the red logo of Italitech-Bransen barely visible on its surface.
“ITB,” said Grace. She leaned back again. “So what?”
Tim’s mimic fabric pulsated in alternating stripes of yellow and green.
“Grace, don’t you recognize the design?”
“No.”
“I don’t either,” said Kyran. “Not that you’ve bothered to ask.”
“An ITB dust snake made Bode-6,” said Tim. “That means these are ITB promenade panels. Same as they use in Port Casper.”
“A blurp network?” Kyran said.
Grace turned to Kyran. “Don’t you guys use it?”
“No,” said Kyran. “I didn’t even know it was here.”
Grace looked at the open panel. “So what you’re saying, Tim, is that the bode is wired for network coverage? Data gathering? Could I track Lee Larchmont with this?”
“It’s a non-standard design for promenade panels,” Tim said. “This may be why they haven’t been used.”
“Do other bodes on Ceres use blurp networks?” Grace asked Kyran.
“Not that I know of, no,” he said. “It would presuppose a lot more spending power than your average roider has. Looks like ITB was being optimistic.”
“I want to connect it,” said Grace.
Kyran shook his head. “It’s not that—”
“Simple,” said Tim. “I’ll just—”
“No,” Kyran said, putting a hand on the PodPooch. “Remember what I said, Grace? The bode is watching you. Connect this with Tim, and you’re sure to set off alarms. It’ll look underhanded.”
Tim huffed.
“What do you suggest, then?” asked Grace.
“Do things the bode way,” said Kyran. “Cultivate a patron.”
Chapter 17
No matter the location of her exercise, no matter how long she’d been away from Red Fox Academy, Grace still heard her drill sergeant when she pushed herself.
“Pull, dammit! Keep up speed,” she huffed, tugging along the nearly deserted arc of Spiral-4. Most of the slush teams were out today: a perfect time to test the rediscovered blurp network. Mhau’s idea.
Grace was surprised at how quickly the engineer had agreed to activate it. She’d expected some resistance—an attachment to privacy, perhaps, like cloisterfolk would. But Bode-6 was firmly under compstate, and as such a protector needed no warrants to carry out surveillance. Mhau’s only hesitation was that she was worried someone else had discovered it first.
Grace wondered about Mhau. Kyran’s caution had underscored the fact that she really didn’t know her. Grace liked what she’d seen so far. An engineer living a gutsy lifestyle in a male-dominated environment? Grace’s kind of person. But Mhau, like Kyran, was also too willing to compromise where the law was concerned. Did Mhau see less savory uses for the blurp network?
Another spoke loomed ahead. Time to check with home base.
“Talk to me,” Grace panted into her ptenda, leaning her head near her wrist, not taking her eyes off the spiral ahead. She was coming up on a turn, moving fast, and didn’t want to overshoot the target.
“Stand by,” Mhau replied. “Kyran is uploading his IDs into the PodPooch.”
Grace smiled. Kyran had used privacy as an excuse to connect Tim directly to the blurp network. He’d told Mhau that the PodPooch chassis would firewall the IDs and offer simple command access. Simple command access. If only Mhau knew what was going on inside Tim Trouncer. Ha! If only I knew.
“Ok. Your PodPooch has found a test target,” Mhau said. “Blurp indicates a single individual. We’re looking for visual confirmation. Left on Spoke-G, twenty meters. Castle G36?” Grace noticed the change in Mhau’s voice. Is Mhau unsure about me visiting G36, or about the blurp network itself?
“Got it,” Grace said, she tapped her ptenda for the Bode-6 overview graphic. G36 was light blue, a maintenance room.
“Slow down, Grace—you’re close,” Tim said.
“I know.”
“You know what?” Mhau asked.
“I know where I’m turning,” she amended aloud. I’d better remember to subvocalize.
Grace grabbed the ceiling straps and brought herself to a stop, straining against the load on her biceps. Looking right, then left, she launched down Spoke-G.
“Nearly there,” she said. “Is the target still inside?”
“Yes,” said Mhau.
/> G36 was halfway down the spoke. Nondescript, like every other portal in the hall. Seemed strange that it would be a maintenance entrance with a posted sign. She floated to the security scanner, let go of the overhead strap, and dropped slowly to the deck.
“Well?” she breathed.
“Patience,” Tim said. “Codes are forthcoming.”
“Kyran, you didn’t tell me you had maintenance access codes.” Mhau’s voice on the open comm circuit.
“He didn’t.” Tim chuckled in her dermal dot.
Grace’s ptenda flickered and an access string appeared. Finally. She input the code and the door slid open.
It was dark in the room. A splitting snore reverberated into the hallway and stale air flicked her nostrils.
“We can hear the target,” Mhau said. “Blurp audio is online.”
“What is that noise?” Tim asked.
“Snoring,” said Grace.
She needed light, so she unholstered Marty and fingered the targeting laser. It came alive with a gentle hum, its backscatter illuminating the small chamber in a dancing red glow, mixed with pale light coming in from the spoke.
With her left hand on the entrance frame, Grace slowly moved into the room. The snore came from her right. As her vision adjusted, she saw a figure huddled between two crates. She brought Marty’s beam to just above her target.
“Jacob Rander,” Grace said, surprised.
She heard Mhau sigh. “Yes.”
Grace looked around. The room was small: a storage locker. Rander seemed to be using some of the crates as furniture. It’s pathetic, Grace thought. A licensed protector is nothing without pride. She looked again at Rander, his hair greasy and his face unevenly shaved. It’s hard to imagine you were raised cloister.
She switched off Marty and brought the gun back into her jacket. Then she bounced backward into the hall and closed the access door.
“Blurp locator worked like a charm, Tim,” she transmitted silently.
“Naturally,” the PodPooch replied.
Grace smiled. Of course you’d say that.
“Send me another target?” Grace asked over the voice comm.
“No need. It works,” Mhau said, her voice a little shaky.
A roider sped by Grace, all mechflesh and in a hurry. She nodded and waited for him to recede from earshot.
Test complete.
Chapter 18
Tim stretched his mind. He visualized the perimeter sensor readings surrounding Bode-6. At first, he was among terse data packets in the outer spiral, but as he wound around the station, the sensors fed his senses. He could feel the station breathe, hear the peak and pulse of roider conversation, feel his paws stretch out with crawlers scurrying off to gather slush.
As he reached the center of Bode-6 and its comm beacon, he suddenly viewed the base from a satellite high above. To the sky in the east was a silver mote of ship: though visually distant, it bristled with telemetry. Tim saw vectors race from the ship, arching above Bode-6 and then spiraling down toward it. It was the belt cruiser Marmutt, and it was on final approach to the colony.
“The Marmutt will be here soon,” Tim said.
He heard shuffling at his side.
“Another ship, another round of extortion,” said Grace. “Approach Control has cleared it for Chamber Three.”
The ship loomed larger now, flecked with vector and regulation tags. Tim pawed the tags, looking for cargo data. How many people was Lee expecting to extort? There were basic organic vats for puck dispensers, some parts he recognized would belong to the dust snake, and… three heartbeats?
“Grace, there aren’t any passengers aboard,” he said.
Tim heard more shuffling, then a familiar pressure against his mimic coat. Warm. It felt good when Grace touched him.
“What do you mean, no passengers?” she asked.
“Three crew aboard, and nobody else.”
“Great,” Grace huffed. “Mhau? The Marmutt has no passengers.”
She’s using her ptenda to talk to Mhau. He saw its output interact with the synchronous satellite.
“Repeat again. Did you say listen? That’s it? Listen?” Grace said.
Tim noted the raw incredulity. Listen was never part of Grace’s plan. Not enough action for her. He was glad Kyran had talked her into bringing Mhau aboard. With two of the clash members advising Grace, she had to slow down.
“Uh huh. Ok. Listen.” Grace cut the connection. She harrumphed.
“We’re just supposed to sit here.”
“I know,” Tim said, feeling twenty-seven metarm fibers contract into a wicked smile. “And listen.”
Surveillance seemed a fine idea. He loved the anticipation of data and the euphoria as it crested and washed over him. Earlier in his PodPooch existence, he had anxiety when integrating multiple senses. It was more difficult to walk with his eyes open than closed, for instance. Then, on Mars, he’d learned to listen to thousands of simultaneous robot transmissions. The worry of overload made him feel anxious at first, but as he gained confidence he’d felt wonderfully alive. Now swimming in massive data comforted him with its unfettered boundaries. Eventually, he’d integrate all that the PodPooch chassis had to offer.
The Marmutt maintained altitude just above the colony as vectors from Bode-6 stretched out, pointing the way home. The craft gracefully banked and began its slow descent, corkscrewing toward the surface. The three heartbeats winked with further data, identifying: Captain Vak Loorden, Mate Sylvia Gonzalez, Specialist Jon Olsen.
Curious, Tim spread his attention to Grace’s tags. Her ID included her 0016-Alpha Waiver designation from Red Fox Academy and her ITB protector credentials, now defunct. He knew if he wanted to dig deeper, he could unearth all of her academy records. Her purchasing weaknesses. Her childhood allergies. But that data didn’t begin to describe Grace Donner. Not the Grace he had nursed back to health, not the Grace to whom he had devoted so much of his blue gel matrix. He realized at once that with all the tantalizing bits of information, some of the most interesting data were tagless.
“What’s Lee doing now, Tim?” Grace asked.
Tim directed his mind into the bode, his snout tunneling into the outpost Grace had called a cinnamon roll, sniffing each colonist ID.
“Lee is moving,” he said. “Moving quickly.”
“Where?”
“Spoke-B, now. Heading toward the outer spiral.”
“Toward the Marmutt’s docking chamber?” Grace said.
“Likely,” Tim said. “Also, he’s breathing rapidly. Out of training?”
“Not according to his last physical,” Kyran said.
Tim wriggled, trying to stretch his blurp consciousness closer to his target. Lee isn’t out of breath, he realized.
“He is talking to his father,” Tim said.
“Can you—” Grace began.
“Yes. I think I can grab both sides of this conversation. They’re near a blurp panel.”
Reading blurp data was not like hearing a conversation. Blurps functioned by gathering data and matching it to advertisements. First came names. Lee Larchmont. Renken Larchmont. Vak Loorden, captain of the Marmutt. A sizable funds transfer, setting off all sorts of credit summaries. Someone named Jeanne Loorden, not tagged to a person at Bode-6. Specialist Jeanne Loorden. Tim dug frantically. Spouse? Offspring? Parent? He pawed but couldn’t make the connection.
“What’s going on, Tim?” Grace asked.
Tim rewound. “The elder Larchmont is telling the younger to take care of Captain Vak Loorden.”
He felt Grace lean against his chassis again.
“Take care of?”
“Renken’s transferred a sizeable credit balance to his son: one hundred fifty thousand.”
“A bribe?”
“Because of somebody named Jeanne Loorden.”
“That’s the roider killed last month,” Kyran said. “The death that Jacob witnessed.”
“And did nothing about,” added Grace.
> Kyran began to respond, but the words dissolved as the disparate data channels Tim was frantically trying to tune suddenly locked into place. Their combined amplitudes spiked and he felt joy as he attenuated to a comfortable level. Blurp became conversation.
“What about Rander?” Renken’s voice. Tim heard Grace inhale.
Lee laughed. “Too Inked to care.”
“Will he take the money?”
“Of course,” Lee said.
“And if he doesn’t?”
“He will.”
The Larchmonts arrived in Chamber Three just as the Marmutt lumbered into dock. Tim noted the IDs and positions of ten roiders ready to unload. As the ship dropped to deck, they jostled into position, cycling between complaining and bragging.
“What’s happening?” Grace hissed.
“The ship has docked. Lee is going aboard.”
“Why can’t we hear?”
“No blurp network on the ship. If they left the hatch open…”
Tim gnawed on the blurp circuit, exposing it. At some level, he knew he was increasing amplification, but it felt more like he was chewing a delicious bone. When he saw “Captain Vak Loorden” ripple near the audio, he piped it through to Grace and Kyran.
“Transmit it,” said Vak Loorden.
“Pleasure doing business with you.” Lee.
“Keep a recording of that,” said Grace.
“Yes,” said Tim. “Lee is exiting the ship, by the way.”
“Then I think it’s time to gather some more data,” said Grace. “The physical kind.”
• • •
Jacob’s ptenda beeped. He tried to ignore it, staring at the opposite wall. He sat on the cold floor, his back against a crate, but he could still see the sky in the distance, the river disappearing into haze. If he could just find that half-alert state between dreaming and waking, he’d see the fish and hear the water. It might last for an hour longer.
The second beep was louder.
“What!” he howled, swatting the unit.
“We need to meet.” Lee’s voice. “I’m headed your way. Be there in three minutes.”
Jacob was losing even the sky, now. He sighed.
“Three minutes,” Lee repeated. “Scrape yourself together.”
