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sat up straight.
Who?
Nobody she could think of was gunning for her right now angry with her, yes;
ready to do her the dirty in any underhanded way they could, yes. But not
killing mad, not enough to hire muscle to go after her. And this man was
obviously muscle of some sort. His whole body screamed retired mercenary.
But why would a retired mercenary accept a pick-up job on New Destinies?
Not a mere, then.
So, he was a cop. And he was watching the
Wyal.
But why were they watching her? Dilton hadn't had time to sic this guy on her,
even if he'd the guts to do it.- Neither had Dyson, whoever he was, because he
couldn't possibly have reacted this fast to the little scam she'd just pulled
on his buddy. He probably didn't even know about it, at least not yet.
Her mind went to the small mysterious package she was carrying for Central
Worlds Security. Did
New Destinies know about it? Were they after it? Was it something that would
incriminate her?
Joat frowned. She wasn't about to risk her ship for some CenSec song and
dance. The package was supposed to be dropped with the local operative at The
Anvil, one of the bars around the rim of the station. She glanced at the time,
she was due there in one and a half Earth standard hours.
Joat gritted her teeth. So I
owe them. That doesn't mean they own me.
More to the point, it didn't mean they could endanger her ship.
She'd drop it all right, and then she'd tell them what they could do with
their special courier packages.
"Rand, I gotta go."
"Now? Before unloading is completed?"
"You see that osco on monitor four?"
"The unloading supervisor?"
"Yeah. He's a cop."
"He can't be, Joat, he's wearing a supervisor's uniform. The police uniform
for this port is very different, I assure you."
Rand put a holo snap of a local policeman on screen for her edification.
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"I know what a cop looks like, Rand, in or out of uniform. And that's a cop,
and he's watching us."
"I'm impressed by your prescience, Joat. Why is he watching us?"
"I don't know and I don't intend to find out. I'm going out the side door."
"The . . . ? Joat, we don't have a side door."
"I'm going out the service hatch and into the station via one of theirs," she
said, briskly closing out the file she'd been idly working on while waiting
for clearance.
"That's illegal . . ." . "I know that, but . . ."
"And dangerous!"
"I'm relying on you to help me avoid getting caught," she explained. Joat
wondered how Rand would choose to respond, for she'd given it almost complete
autonomy. It might decide to have nothing to do with this scheme, which would
complicate things tremendously.
"Could we talk deal?" Rand asked smoothly.
Joat's eyebrows went up and she cocked her head.
"Excuse me?"
"That exasperation program . . . ?"
Joat frowned and folded her arms thoughtfully. Then she sighed.
"Okay, deal, you can erase the program. Now will you help me?"
"I'll do my best." Rand's voice conveyed pride in self combined with
disapproval of her plans.
Joat supressed a smile. Sometimes Rand was downright prissy. She wondered if
she'd unintentionally programmed it that way it couldn't have caught it from
her behavior, that was sure.
"Don't worry Rand."
"When you say not to worry, worry becomes imperative."
"Where's the stations nearest service hatch to
Wyed?"
she asked.
Rand threw a schematic on the screen, replacing the smiling policeman. Wyal
was represented by a blinking yellow dot, the nearest service hatch blinked
red.
"Now, show me the surveillance cameras."
A pause, then Rand indicated them on the schematic in blue.
"Whew," Joat sighed. "They have pretty good coverage. Any chance you can hack
into the surveillance network and simply run a tape of empty space while I'm
out there?"
"Doubtful. With so many suspect elements sharing the station's amenities, New
Destinies has a fairly sophisticated security system. Something of that
complexity would probably activate an alarm."
"Fardles." She drummed her fingers on the console. "What can you tell me about
the lock?"
Rand threw up another schematic. "It's a standard design. Nothing complicated,
with the usual tell-
tales in place." As it spoke small arrows blinked on indicating the areas
spoken of. "There are cameras in the corridor outside the service hatch."
Joat brushed her hair back.
Time for another trim, she thought inconsequentially. She went to a locker at
the rear of the bridge compartment and palmed the sensor. It opened, and she
began to take out various useful items and slot them into pockets and less
obvious hiding places in her taupe overall;
also in her belt, in the heels of her boots, and one or two in special
cavities in her molars.
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