by Timothy Zahn
She reached the door unseen and repeated Radig's code on the keypad. Too late, she wondered if the system might also be sensitive to fingertip pattern . . . but Obolo hadn't bothered with extra refinement, and with a quiet click the door unlocked.
She opened it just enough to slip through, closing it again behind her and moving immediately to the cover of the nearest hanging curtain. The room seemed hazy, and she nearly choked on her first breath. Chemical smoke, she realized, remembering the unnatural glow in Obolo's eyes earlier. Presumably one of those wonderful mind-stimulating drugs. Keying in her audio enhancers, she slid off her shoes and moved out cautiously in Radig's wake.
Two guards were near the door, hidden from view behind a pair of curtains. Pinpointing them by the sounds of their breathing, Jin moved silently past on her bare feet. Radig's footsteps were easy to follow, and she was within a single curtain of Obolo Nardin's cushion throne when they came to a halt. Squatting down behind the curtain, Jin held her breath.
"My son," Obolo's voice said, his tone oddly grating in Jin's ears—the vocal equivalent, perhaps, of the drug user's shining eyes.
"My father," Radig greeted the elder Nardin in turn. "I've brought you the manifest of the latest shipment. Unloading has already begun; transfer of the special components to the assembly building will begin as soon as it's dark and all the temporary workers are properly confined in their houses."
The familiar shisss-click of a magdisk into a reader . . . Obolo grunted. "Good. Have they begun work on the second computer system yet?"
"They're still setting it up," Radig told him. "They estimate it'll be ready in about two days."
"Two and a quarter," Obolo said with casual certainty. "They consistently underestimate the actual time they'll need."
"Perhaps this time—" Radig stopped as a ping came from the work table.
"Obolo Nardin," Obolo said. Something inaudible even to Jin's enhanced hearing . . . "Command," he bit out angrily. "Specified recorder; last playback."
More inaudible speech . . . but even without visual cues, Jin could sense a sudden tension on the other side of the curtain.
As Radig clearly also did. "What is it?" he asked tautly when the voices had stopped.
Obolo took an audible breath. "The Shahni agent who came in with Daulo Sammon has found the key to the Mongoose Project."
"The Shahni—? You know for certain that's what he is?"
"If I hadn't already, his last conversation with Daulo Sammon confirmed it." Obolo's voice was settling down, drifting almost toward boredom. "His reaction this morning to the subliminals was actually all the proof I needed."
Radig seemed to be having trouble catching up. "You say he knows? How?"
"He was pushed into the discovery by Daulo Sammon, as it happens. There was some fantasy about missile production here, and it goaded the agent into disassembling the phone. Perhaps you were right; perhaps we should have removed the villager right at the beginning."
"But the phone's self-destruct—"
"Worked properly, of course. But you don't suppose for a minute that that really helped, do you? Destroyed evidence is as intriguing to such people as undestroyed evidence."
Radig cursed. "We'd better get some guards to their complex right away."
"Why?"
"Why?" Radig echoed in disbelief. "Because if he gets that information to his superiors—"
"He can't." Obolo was almost glacially calm. "Mangus is sealed for the night, and I've had all outside phone contact except that from this building shut off since he betrayed his identity this morning. Quiet, now, my son, and let me think."
For a moment the painful thudding of her own heart was all Jin could hear. It had happened, her worst fear about this whole penetration: Daulo was in deadly danger. Her legs trembled with the urge to leap out of concealment, cut both Obolo and Radig in half with her antiarmor laser, and get herself and Daulo out of here . . .
"Yes," Obolo said abruptly. "Yes. You will assemble a small force, my son—four men—and take them to the assembly building. The agent's next step will be to try and find some of our special components in undamaged form to take out of Mangus with him."
"How will he know—"
"He'd have seen the final assembly room door this morning when he and the villager left their own area in reaction to the subliminals. He'll remember it and go there first."
"I understand. Do you wish them killed there, caught in an act of burglary?"
Jin's hands twitched involuntarily into combat position: little finger pointed straight out, thumb resting on ring-finger nails . . . "Of course not," Obolo snorted scornfully. "That would merely bring others from the Shahni to investigate why one of their preconditioned agents would stoop to simple thievery. No, my son, bring them back here, alive and unharmed."
"We will eventually kill them, though, won't we?" Radig asked, almost pleading. "A Shahni agent's training won't allow—"
"Of course we won't kill them," Obolo said evenly. "We will do nothing. It'll be the offworlder spy who'll handle that task for us."
Chapter 38
The door to the assembly building was locked, but an unusual-looking tool from Akim's kit took care of it in short order. "Now where?" Daulo whispered as they slipped inside.
"That room we saw when I—" Akim pursed his lips. "You remember—at the end of the hallway the instructor tried to keep us out of?"
"Right," Daulo nodded, glancing out the window beside the door. At Akim's insistence they'd taken a leisurely, roundabout route here from their housing complex, and the earlier twilight had faded now into deep dusk. "What do you want me to do?"
Akim stepped past him to relock the door. "You might as well stay here," he said, not sounding entirely happy with the decision. "This is the door any visitors would be most likely to use. If you see anyone coming, give a whistle."
"A whistle?" Daulo frowned.
"Whistles carry as well in a building as shouts do with less chance of being heard from outside," Akim explained briefly. "Watch carefully."
And he was gone. Daulo listened as his footsteps faded down the hallway, trying to ignore the gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach. So Jin had been wrong all along. It wasn't missiles . . . or was it? There was still that walled-off section of Mangus that none of their instructors had even referred to.
But then what was all this business with the phones?
The tap on the window barely ten centimeters from his face nearly threw him across the hall in reaction. God above! He staggered, trying to regain his balance—tried to shape unsteady lips for a whistle—
"Daulo!" The whisper was barely audible through the glass. His whole body trembling, Daulo moved back to the window.
It was Jin.
Taking a shuddering breath, Daulo stepped to the door and unlocked it. "Jin—God above, but you startled me—"
"Shut up and listen," she growled, brushing past him to peer out the window. "Obolo Nardin's on to you and your Shahni friend. Radig Nardin's gone to assemble a guard force to come here and pick both of you up."
Daulo felt his mouth drop open. "Over here? But how did they know we were coming here?"
"Obolo deduced it. He seems to be running on one of those mind-expanders you Qasamans are fond of." Jin turned back from the window. "No sign of them yet—Radig must figure there's no hurry. Where's your Shahni friend?"
"Miron Akim's down the hall." He pointed. "And he's not exactly a friend."
"Go get him anyway—he's dead too if Radig catches him here. If we can hide you somewhere until you can get out of Mangus—"
"Wait a second, we've got to talk first. I think you were wrong about the missiles. They're playing some sort of game with the phone instead."
She hissed between her teeth. "It's no game, Daulo. My guess is that they're systematically planting bugged phones all over Qasama."
"Bugged?" Daulo frowned.
"Equipped with microphones. Listening devices."
"God
above," Daulo murmured. Phones manufactured in Mangus are very popular among top city officials, Akim had said. And among the Shahni, as well. "But even with microphones in the phones . . . God above. The long-range phone system."
Jin nodded grimly. "That's it, all right. Your marvelous detection-proof underground waveguide has been turned against you. It's tailor-made for this sort of thing."
Daulo clenched his teeth hard enough to hurt. She was right. With virtually every phone in the Great Arc linked through the natural waveguide beneath the planet, it would be childishly simple for any phone conversation to be picked up, duplicated, and the copy routed via that same waveguide back here to Mangus.
With the villages west of Azras one of the few areas immune to that surveillance. One reason why they'd tried so hard to keep him out of Mangus? "Milika's in danger," he murmured.
"All of Qasama's in danger," Jin retorted. "Don't you get it, Daulo? Once this system's completed—if it isn't already—Mangus will have access to practically every communication and data transfer on the planet. And that kind of information translates directly into power."
Daulo shook his head, forehead tight with thought. "But only if they can sift out the specific information they're looking for. And the more microphones they've got planted, the more they'll have to sort through to get it."
Even in the dim light he saw something flicker across her face. "I've got an idea how they might be handling that," she said, her voice heavy with reluctance. "For the moment, though, there's a rather more immediate threat to us: I think they're trying to build themselves an army among their temporary workers. Did Miron Akim have some kind of reaction this morning? I heard Obolo Nardin mention it."
"Yes—said he felt treason in the assembly room. We left for a few minutes, and he was fine afterwards."
"Presumably because they turned the thing off. You ever heard of subliminals?"
Daulo gritted his teeth. Treason . . . "Yeah," he breathed. "If you mix a mild hypnotic gas with subaudible vocal messages, you're supposed to be able to create minor attitude changes in a person."
"We don't use anything like that on Aventine, but the theory's known well enough," Jin nodded. "Is it something common here?"
"I've only heard of it being used as a last-try method with chronic criminal types. It's not supposed to be all that effective." Abruptly, another piece of the puzzle fell into place. "Of course—the temporary workers. That's why they keep hiring new men; they're trying to run as many of Azras's people through their conditioning as they can."
"Azras and Purma both," Jin grunted. "On the way in this morning I saw some loaded busses heading back to Purma. They're rotating their work force between the two cities, maybe hoping neither city will notice what they're doing."
"Yeah. You think they've found a way to make subliminals powerful enough to force people into treason?"
"I don't know," Jin shook her head. "I hope all they're trying to do is sow discontent among the cities' poor. Given your current political climate, even that might be enough."
Daulo nodded, feeling cold all over. "God above. We've got to get this to the Shahni."
"No kidding—and may I suggest as a first step that you go collect your friend and we all get out of here? Radig Nardin could arrive any minute now, and if he finds us we probably won't have any choice but to kill them." She stooped again to look out the window.
Daulo shivered. The way she just automatically assumed who would win such a faceoff . . . "Yeah. Okay, I'll go get—"
"Too late." Peering out the window, Jin hissed a curse between her teeth. "They're coming."
* * *
Stupid, Jin bit out silently at herself. Yes, it'd all been information the Shahni were going to need; and yes, Daulo was the best person to give it to them. But she still should have gotten him and Miron Akim out first.
Clenching her teeth, she looked around the entrance hallway. There was nothing here she could use to fight with; nothing that might realistically allow Daulo to defeat five alert men without killing them. And it had to be Daulo who did all the fighting; if Akim found out Daulo had been talking to her he would probably have the entire Sammon family up on treason charges.
Her eyes fell on an electric socket. Unless, she amended, no one actually sees who it is fighting them . . .
Radig's men were almost to the door now. "All right," she muttered to Daulo. "Get back there—across the hallway—and cover your eyes. Cover them good."
"Then what?" Daulo asked, moving obediently to the spot she'd indicated and raising his forearm across his eyes.
"With luck, you'll grab their full attention when they come in and they won't have a chance to see me. So I wasn't here—you understand? If anyone asks, you took them all out by yourself." Her enhanced hearing was picking up footsteps outside now. "Get ready; here they come."
She flattened herself into the corner behind the door, keying her targeting lock to the electrical outlet and raising her right fingertip to the ready position . . .
And abruptly, the door was flung open.
"Well, well," Radig Nardin said sardonically, sauntering into the entrance hallway. "What have we here?—one of our trustworthy employees overanxious for tomorrow's work to begin? Put your stupid arm down, Daulo Sammon—"
And as the last of the guards stepped across the threshold, Jin squeezed her eyes shut and fired her arcthrower.
Even through closed eyelids the flash was dazzlingly bright. Someone gasped, someone else bit out an oath—and then Jin was in their midst.
It was no contest. Temporarily but totally blinded, facing a sighted opponent with Cobra servos behind her punches, the five men went down like randomly flailing target dummies.
The last thud of a falling body was still echoing in Jin's ears when she heard the gasp from Daulo's direction. "God above," he breathed. "Jin—you—"
"No; you did all this," she snapped at him. The door was still open; throwing a quick look outside, she caught its edge with the tip of her foot and swung it closed. "Don't forget that—it could cost you your life."
Daulo took a deep breath. "Right." He swallowed and tried another breath. "You'd better get going—Miron Akim's sure to have heard all of this."
"I know." Jin hesitated. There was so much more she needed to tell him, but for now they'd run out of time. "You and Miron Akim had better do the same. If you can get out of Mangus before they realize you haven't been captured, you ought to have a good chance."
"What about you? Aren't you leaving with us?"
"Don't worry, I'll be right on your tail," she assured him. "There's something else I have to check out first, but then I'll be heading for Azras with you. Or behind you, anyway—we don't want Miron Akim seeing me."
Daulo clenched his teeth. "Right. Good luck."
"You too. Remember not to use any of the phones in Azras." The faint sound of running footsteps could be heard from down the hallway now. "And be careful," she hissed. Opening the door, she took a quick look around and slipped outside.
Again, the nearby area was deserted. Moving around the corner, where she'd be out of sight when Daulo and Akim left, she crouched down against the building and made a more leisurely scan of the area. There was occasional movement near the center of the black wall dividing Mangus in half, as well as some quiet activity around the housing complex backed up to the wall. Otherwise, nothing. Keying her optical enhancers for telescopic, she focused on the wall.
It was too tall for her to jump—that much was quickly obvious. Half again as tall as the three-story housing complex near it, it was at least a meter beyond her leg servos' capabilities. She'd been taught a lot of climbing techniques, but all of them assumed some kind of hand and foot grips in the surface to be scaled, and a quick study of the wall didn't look especially promising.
Which left ladders, grappling hooks, or the armored gateway. The first two would require equipment she didn't have. The third, on the other hand . . .
It was the obvious way for
her to get in, and for a long moment she seriously considered it. Radig Nardin had mentioned a transfer of material, and if they were going to open the gate anyway, all she had to do was properly disguise herself and walk on in.
Except that her disguise kit was twenty kilometers south of Azras in Daulo's abandoned car. And anyway, if her suspicions were right, Obolo Nardin would hardly have trusted the secret to more than a handful of his closest family members. A stranger—any stranger—would be caught instantly.
A movement from her right caught her eye: Daulo and his companion, walking with forced casualness in the general direction of the gateway she and Radig had entered Mangus by that morning. For a second she wondered if she should perhaps sneak on ahead and help clear the way.
But if and when their escape was discovered, the evidence Jin needed to get could literally go up in smoke. And besides, Daulo had a new protector now. She could only hope that the Shahni picked competent people for their agents.
Taking a deep breath, she headed at a crouching run across the compound toward the wall.
Chapter 39
The courtyard of the housing complex was bustling with quiet activity, the intermix of voices including those of women and children as well as men. Must be the permanent workers, Jin decided as she crept carefully along the roof. Members of Obolo Nardin's family, if the Milika pattern held here; the trustworthy ones, who could be relied on to ignore odd sounds that might come from beyond the wall towering over them.
Though presumably they wouldn't ignore odd sounds coming from directly over their heads. No one seemed to have noticed any noise from her jump up to the roof, but now that she was silhouetted against the overhead canopy all anyone in the courtyard below had to do was look up . . . Gritting her teeth, Jin crouched down a little more and concentrated on keeping her footing.
But she reached the far side of the complex without incident, to find that she hadn't gained as much of an advantage as she'd hoped to. Her rangefinder put the top of the wall at eight meters away and six meters up, and from a standing start—on uncertain footing—it was going to be close. Stepping back a pace, she checked her balance and jumped.
