They had just gained the railcars, and Shan had slowed somewhat, his head moving from one side to the other, like a hound questing after a scent. Val Con came to his brother's side—
And spun abruptly to the left, his arm rising of its own accord.
"Let's try there," he heard himself say, pointing.
Letters glowed over the doorway—perhaps in true dark they were red, but under the hard light of the New Moon, they were a tired pink.
Wilberforce Warehouse.
There was a pause, weighty behind him.
Val Con took a breath, tasting the night air—cooler still and carrying a tang like ozone. He felt a familiar—and not entirely welcome—sense of anticipation, and bit his lip, trying to still his dancing feet. It was, he thought, necessary that they—at least, that he—go into the warehouse. He took a breath, but the anticipation only built. What if Shan didn't wish to—they were on Port Rule One—Pomerloo was reckoned relatively tame. But, still, Port One—crew were to partner, and back each other. It was Shan's to decide—he had been given leave to trade. The anticipation grew, until his head fair rattled with it; which meant it was one of the true ones—a real hunch—and he would have a headache if he didn't heed it . . .
"Well," Shan said; "why not? Lead on, Brother!"
The jitter of anticipation eased somewhat. Val Con took a deep breath, nodded, and led the way across the rails.
Inside, the light was softer. The anticipation cooled to a mere flutter inside his head, which meant that he was close to . . . whatever. He hoped. Uncle Er Thom knew about the hunches, of course, but he didn't approve. Shan knew about them, too. It had been Shan who had come with him out in the rain when Merlin had gotten caught on a stepping stone in the stream, and would have drowned—or even been swept to the sea—and that had been a hunch. Well, Shan had trained with the Healers, after all, which Uncle Er Thom hadn't . . .
"Now where?" Shan asked.
Val Con moved his shoulders, and looked around them.
To their right was a transparent case, display lights striking sharp shards of light from rows of—blades. Knives were one of Val Con's hobbies; not only was he learning the art of the knife fight from his defense instructor, but he had made two small throwing blades of his own.
He took a step toward the case . . . another, and a third, which put his nose level with the top display row. Off his center by two degrees was a slim dagger in matte black, quiet among its flashier, bright-bladed cousins.
"Shan . . ." he said
"Hey, you kids, get away from there!" a voice said in loud Terran.
Val Con jumped, startled, and bumped his nose against the glass.
"No weapons sales to anybody under twenty years, Standard," the voice continued, somewhat less loudly. "Pomerlooport rules." There was a small pause. "Your friend okay?"
"I believe so," Shan said. "Val Con?"
"I'm well," he managed, turning slowly, and resisting the urge to rub his nose. The person who had shouted was taller than Shan, dressed in a dusty dark sweater and baggy pants. He had a quantity of ginger hair standing on end, as if he, too, had more pressing things to do than bother with combs. His eyes were brown and very wide open.
"Either one of you got twenty Standards?" he asked, looking especially at Shan.
His brother smiled and shook his head. "Alas."
"No," Val Con admitted as the wide brown gaze moved to him. He cleared his throat. "I was . . . interested to see a Monix," he added.
The warehouseman—for he must be, mustn't he?—grunted softly. "Good eye, kid. That's a Monix, all right, an' a fair price on it, too. Problem being, like I said, I can't let you heft it to see if it suits your hand, much less sell it to you if it does. I do that, not only do I get hit with a stiff fine, you arrested an' held 'til somebody old enough comes to pay your fine and take you back to your ship. Ain't fair, but that's how it is."
"I understand," Val Con said. "The law must be honored."
"That's the ticket," the man said, and looked back to Shan. "Interested in anything else?"
"Possibly. May we look about? We promise not to touch any weapons we may find."
"You find a weapon on the floor, you sing out," the warehouseman told him. "There ain't supposed to be any but what's in that case."
"Then my brother is safe from arrest," Shan said, smiling. He reached out and took Val Con's arm in a surprisingly firm grip.
A buzzer sounded from the rear of the warehouse, and the man turned toward it.
"Have fun," he said over his shoulder. "You break anything, you own it."
"Thank you," Shan said politely, "we'll be careful."
The man disappeared down an aisle barely wider than his shoulders. Shan released Val Con's arm and looked at him, eyebrows arched over light eyes.
"Was it the knife?" he asked, his voice low, speaking Liaden, now, rather than Terran.
" I. . .don't—" He paused, considering the jitter inside his head.
"No," he said. "But I don't know what it is."
"Do you know where it is?" Shan asked, patiently.
Val Con took a deep breath . . .
"I know that these things take time," Shan said after a moment. "However, we are exactly pressed for—"
"I know." Val Con looked about him, seeing the thin aisles overhung with boxes, cables uncoiling and drooping down like vines. "Shan, this is your time to trade. If this isn't promising—" It certainly didn't look promising . . .
"We can leave and I can carry you to the shuttle because you'll have a sick headache from not heeding your hunch," Shan finished. "That sounds like even less fun than being scolded by Father for wasting my time on port."
Val Con bit his lip, and spun on his heel. It seemed that there was a . . . very small . . . tug toward the center aisle. He walked that way, ducking beneath a cascade of tie-off filaments. Behind him, he heard Shan sigh, then the sound of his brother's footsteps.
They skirted two sealed plastic boxes that had fallen from a low shelf onto the floor, and the worker 'bot that was trying to put them back.
The aisle opened into a wide space, where a desk sat, drawers akimbo, papers fluttering in the breeze from a ceiling fan.
Drawn up to the desk like a chair was a packing crate; a flattened pillow on the side nearest the desk. Val Con felt something snap inside his head and he walked forward to kneel at the side of the crate.
It was slatted, not sealed tight, and between the slats he could see a solemn red blinking, like a low-power warning light.
He bent closer, intrigued, made out what looked like a battery array, and something else, that glimmered sullenly in the shadows.
He'd seen something like that—yes, signal-deadening wrap. He'd helped Shan and Master Ken Rik wrap some equipment they'd on-loaded a couple ports back in muffles, not wishing to chance that even the sleeping signal might interfere with any of the Passage's live systems. There'd been a power light on that unit, too, but it had glowed a steady gold, indicating that the charge was strong.
"Val Con?" That was Shan, quietly.
He patted the crate. "This," he said, perhaps too loudly.
"Excellent," Shan said. "You'll be a subtle trader."
"I'm going to be a Scout," he said reflexively, and heard Shan sigh.
"What, exactly, is it?" he asked.
Val Con looked at the outside of the crate for a tag; found one almost at floor level, squinted at the faded words, and read them outloud.
"Environmental unit operations module with connectors."
He turned the tag over, found an ancient date and read outloud the rest of the information: "R. Spode Estate, Misc. Eqpt. Auction Lot 42."
Shan looked dubious.
"You're certain," he said.
Val Con nodded, and his brother sighed.
"All right, then. Stay here with it for a moment, will you? There was something in that aisle we just came down that I want a closer look at."
* * *
There had bee
n a burst of brilliance, disorienting. Perhaps it was pain. In its wake came lethargy and a weakening of the will. Not sleep, this, but something more dire. He struggled against it, expending energy he ought best conserve, listening.
Listening for an answer.
No answer came.
He felt. . .movement, or perhaps it was his dying intelligence describing its last spiral. He sank, struggling. . .
Perhaps, indeed, he slept, for suddenly he wakened.
Wakened to a slow and steady trickle of energy. He sought the source, found the physical connection.
Humans wept at such moments. He—he swore an oath, whatever such things might mean in his diminished estate.
Whoever had come, whoever had heard, and heeded his call. That one he would serve, as well as he was able, for as long as he could.
* * *
Shan unsnapped three of the slats and Val Con skooched partway into the crate on his belly, jump-wire in hand. There was a bad moment when it seemed like the battery connection to the shrouded unit was frozen, but a bit of patient back-and-forth dislodged it. The jump-wire slid into the port and seated firmly. Val Con waited a long moment, chin resting on his folded arms, and sighed when the status light snapped over to orange.
"Meter shows juice flowing," Shan commented from outside the crate. "Rather more than a trickle."
"He's thirsty," Val Con said, dreamily, then shook himself out of the half-doze he'd fallen into. "I wonder if we ought to unwrap the main unit."
"We ought not to unwrap the main unit," Shan said firmly. "You do recall that we don't have the faintest notion what it actually is?"
"It's an environmental operations module," Val Con said.
"With connectors. Thank you. Do you see any sign of those connectors, by the way?"
Val Con looked around the cramped space. "I don't—no, wait. The slat directly opposite me is deeper than the one next."
"Oh, is it?"
There was the sound of purposeful footsteps and a flutter of light and shadow as Shan moved to the other side of the crate.
"I see it," he said, followed by the sharp snap of the slat being removed.
"Come out, Val Con, do," he added, and Val Con backed out of the crate on his elbows to join his brother at the workbench.
The low-power light had weighed in their decision to store the environmental module in one of the workrooms off of the cargo section. Also, now that it was his, Val Con was more than a little eager to see whatever it was he owned.
"They look like standard data-jacks," Shan said, laying them out on the bench.
Val Con picked up a black box about the size of his palm with whisker-wires bristling along one side.
"What do you suppose this is?"
Shan glanced at it. "Voice box."
"Of course," Val Con murmured.
"If you're satisfied for the moment," Shan said, "I suggest we lash the crate to the floor. Then, I will tend to my own cargo and you, if you'll allow me to express some brotherly concern, will get something to eat and perhaps a nap before Father returns."
It was a good plan—in fact, Val Con thought, as his stomach suddenly rumbled, it was an excellent plan. He said so, and the two of them made quick work of securing the crate. They left the workroom, walking together as far as the main cargo hall, where Val Con turned right, toward the ship's core and the crew cafeteria, and Shan went left, toward his small private cargo space.
* * *
He attempted to open one camera eye; enough to verify that the absorbent field was still in force—and closed it. The camera module worked, which was a grace given the years on it.
Now that there was energy available, and it having been so many years since an inventory had been done, he applied himself single-mindedly to that, thoroughly investigating every file and memory available to him. When that was done, he devised and solved logic problems, and designed airy confections of tri-spatial mathematics. The ability to plot trajectories, which he recalled as a primary function, was not immediately available to him. He supposed that Roderick Spode had removed the function, but had not cared to likewise remove his memory of it. Such minor cruelty matched his memory of the man.
He was doing his twelfth careful and complete inventory when something . . .changed.
It was subtle, not immediately definable, and scarcely had he noted it than it was driven from his attention by another, and not at all subtle, alteration in his condition.
He could . . . hear.
Small rustling sounds, that was what he heard, each one so precious that he shunted them immediately to core memory, attached to the recording of his astonished joy.
The rustling intensified, sharpening into static, which was interrupted by a heavy thump, and the mutter of—had that been a voice? A word?
Another thump, a crescendo of rustling, and—yes, it was a voice. And the word?
"Damn!"
Spoken with emotion, that word. But which emotion? Anger? Exultation? Disappointment? His own emotions were in a frenzy. By Deep Space Itself, he need to—
To see.
A scene swung into being before his newly opened eyes. A bench, on which he—or rather, whatever housed him at present—rested. Ahead, a wall of tools, some familiar, behind sealed transparent doors, an insulated utility apron and mitts
hanging on the right.
To his right and rear, three crates of varying sizes were lashed to the floor. Directly behind him another crate was similarly lashed, and largely disassembled, half-obscured by a sheet of what was surely a signal-deadening wrap. To his immediate left—his liberator: unkempt dark hair, thin wrists overreaching the cuffs of a rumpled sweater, long fingers moving surely along the connections of what could be a voice-box.
"Where's the port, then?" The voice was soft; the words intelligible after the lexicon function sorted it. Liaden. That might be. . .unfortunate. And, yet—
"Yes!" Exultation was clear.
"Yes!" he echoed, his own exultation somewhat tempered by the cheap portable unit. The clever fingers tightened on the box, as the dark head turned toward him. Bright green eyes considered him seriously from behind tumbled bangs.
A child, he thought, amazed. His liberator was—a child.
"Are you all right?" another voice asked.
His eyes were tight-focused, he realized, and made the adjustment, zooming out until the entire small space was elucidated to him. The child had a companion—taller, white-haired. A parent, perhaps, or a parent's parent.
"Why shouldn't I be all right?" the child asked this taller companion, with perhaps a touch of impatience. "I've bumped my knee before."
"And I've dropped heavy objects on my thumb before," the companion retorted. "That doesn't mean it won't bruise, or doesn't hurt."
"I suppose," the child said dismissively, then suddenly turned more fully toward the other. "Your thumb isn't broken, is it, Shan?"
"No, it's not broken; only bruised. I've had worse doing cargo-shifting with Master Ken Rik. You hit that knee pretty sternly, however, and steel plate isn't the most forgiving surface."
"It's all right," the child said again.
"You should have let it fall," the taller one insisted.
"No, I couldn't have done that; suppose we'd broken it?"
"Whatever it is. Well. What else are we doing this shift, Brother? Or is liberating a so-called environmental unit from its muffle the awful whole?"
"I don't think," the child said slowly, looking down at the voice-box in his hand. "That is—it may not be an environmental unit."
"You amaze me. What might it be, then?"
"I don't know," the child confessed. "I researched the serial number in the manual archives, back a dozen-dozen years. Either the number was mis-transcribed . . ."
"Or it's contraband," the white-haired one said.
The child looked down at the box in his hand. There were slider controls along the side, which he manipulated.
"This isn't a very good voder," he
said. "We ought to find better."
"We? This was your idea, as I recall it. What if it is contraband, Val Con?"
The child frowned. "I don't know. It was exactly this—whatever it is, as you say—that my . . . hunch led me to. I haven't been led to harm by a hunch before."
"Unless you count getting thoroughly soaked and scratched bloody."
"Merlin was frightened. And he likes to get wet even less than you do."
The white-haired—brother?—sighed.
"If there's anything else this shift, let's get to it, shall we? I'd like to get some sleep and you—"
"I only need to make a data connection," the child said rapidly. "The work of a moment. You go, Brother; I can do this."
"Certainly you can. I, however, will remain, as witness. Also, if Father decides to space you, I had rather be at your side, for how I would explain it to Mother, I have no idea."
The child laughed, a merry sound, and picked up a length of cable.
He looked at it hungrily. Data. Information. Input.
"If you don't mind sharing, what data are you connecting it to?"
"Since there is no manual, I follow standard protocols for re-servicing: Power, input, information," the child Val Con said, leaning close and making a connection in the unit that housed him with an audible snap. "As we said—it is possible that this is not an environmental unit at all, but . . . something other. That being so, I thought the best, broadest, and least perilous source of information is the ship's library."
His elder tipped his head, holding up a hand as the nether end of the cable approached the data-board.
"Only the ship's library."
"Yes."
"All right, then; have at it."
The child nodded, and seated the plug.
Had he been human, he would have drawn a breath.
Since he was not, he opened access to surface caches and allowed the data to flow.
* * *
A ripple disturbed the data-stream, momentarily disorienting, then forgotten, a shadow across the sun of input. His was hardly the only demand on the info circuits, after all, nor had he attempted to increase his access speeds or permissions, being a guest account. The library to which he had been given access was broad, but shallow. He understood that it was a popular library, well-stocked with fiction, history, biography, with a small holding of scholarly papers, and technical manuals.
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