"Listen, say we lift them up there, if they can take that monster out, it'll make getting away clean a lot easier. And getting back in. Look, Del, we've got the inside track with these people, an exclusive as long as we can keep the location quiet."

"That won't be long if your gamble pays off."

He shrugged. "One or two trips for me, but Adelaris could have a longhaul market here."

"Gray or black?"

"Does that matter? Lets you hike your prices."

"I don't know enough about this place. ..."

The Hanifa came back. "The clear corridor," she said, eyes hard on Adelaar.

"Can you leave it and hide what you've done?"

Adelaar ran her tongue over her lips. "Probably. The wards they're using aren't all that sophisticated. I'll have to put the alarms right before we leave, but. ..." She frowned at the woman, I could see she was thinking keep it simple, you don't want to irritate this one. "I can loop a path out of the guard circuits and pinch off access. Um, it might be better to set up several corridors, make them operative on different days, um, switch from one to another in, say, a seven-day rotation. They'll be harder to spot that way.

Safer for your people, they won't be coming over in the same place same time every time."

The Hanifa's eyes glittered, but she controlled her excitement and gave a short sharp nod. "Can you find the files on suspect Hordar? Perhaps the Sech's plans for dealing with them?"

"I can take a look. Some of that might be stored in local branches."

"There aren't any. This is the only mainBrain on Tairanna."

"Your Pittipat doesn't like to share his power?"

"No." She didn't object to the your this time, too much into getting what she'd come for to worry about little things like that. "We want those files."

"Right. I can also erase them, if you want. Turning them over is more complicated unless your equipment can mate to mine."

"You can fix that."

"Probably. Not here." Adelaar had relaxed all over; she was back in her personal groove, selling her services. "Not for free either. Make me an offer."

The Hanifa moved her feet apart, set her hands on her hips and prepared to fight. "For your work and the files, five creampink, ten to eighteen grains.""Seven corridors, files out and erased, eight midrose, twenty grain minimum, for my time, one of your creampinks."

"Seven corridors, two midrose; for the files, we'll have to see them to rate them, guarantee of one midrose, for erasing them one creampink, bonus points negotiated according to how much is in the files; your work, one creampink.

Eighteen to twenty grains."

They went back and forth for several more minutes until they settled on a price that pleased both; by that time the dupe run had finished and Adelaar settled to work pulling the Warmaster stats, dumping them in the duper and at the same time flashing them on a readout so I could look them over and get an idea if a sneakraid was doable. While she was busy with this last, the tall local came inside, murmured something to her leader and went out again.

The Hanifa came over to me and stood watching the stats run past; Adelaar was into schematics now, line drawings of ship segments. "A guard came nosing about," she said after a moment. "Your friend stunned him. He said to tell you it was part of the standard rover pattern, he was expecting the man, it doesn't look like anyone is exercised about the scanners going out, the guard was normal-alert, not hyper."

"I hear you." I checked my chron again; seemed like we'd been down here a year or two, but it was just over an hour. "There's a shift change coming up in a little while. We'd better be gone by then."

"You seem to know a lot about what happens here."

"I'm a cautious man, Hanifa. I like to know what I'm stepping in."

"How?"

"Observation and experience."

"Observation?"

"Electronic surrogates."

"You recorded what they told you?"

"I'm a cautious man, Hanifa."

"Willing to sell it?"

"Not worth much. Once top security here wakes up to what happened, there'll be changes. Tell you what, I'll throw that into the pot with your suspect files, a little sweetener."

"Why?"

"Call it good will. Now that I know about you and what you've got to offer, I plan to be back, do some trading for this and that."

"Rosepearls."

"Naturally. And whatever else seems worth the trip."

She gave me an odd look and moved off. Like she hadn't thought through what it meant, us being there. Not until now. There was a big wild universe out there and she didn't know how she felt about linking up with it. Maybe a touch of panic.

I pulled my mind back to what was happening on the screen in front of me. It was looking good. Total complement was around two hundred and more than half of those were support and services, wh.o.r.es, cooks, valets, you name it, everything you needed to keep three score techs, sech snoops and guards happy in their isolation. No wonder they didn't notice us, they wouldn't have noticed a grenade in their laps, to quote one of Pels' favorite expressions.

Why favorite I haven't a notion, some kink in his psyche I suppose. Most of the ship was mothballed. My palms were starting to itch. c.u.mpla doomp, I wanted that ship. There was no way I could afford her, the fuel bills alone would be enough to bankrupt a small empire, but taking it would be so easy. For a minute I indulged in fantasies of charging across the universe with the power of a G.o.d under my hands, then I shook myself back to reality. Probably wasn't enough fuel in her tanks to get her across the system, let alone to the nearest fuel dump.

I still didn't like the thought of trying to nose up to that whale without it noticing me. Hmm. The guards were rotated every half-year local, that meant we could probably pick up someone who'd been up there recently and knew the drill. The screen blanked. I looked around."That's it," Adelaar said. "How long have I got?"

"Shift change ninety-five minutes. Pels got a guard, but he says there's no fuss yet. Don't dawdle over anything you can double-clik."

"Even doubling, it's going to take the better part of an hour to finish and that's saying I don't screw up somewhere and have to start over."

"I hear." I slid out of the chair. "Don't push it, I'll see what I can do about arranging a meet with our client so we can get paid for this."

"You do that." She bent over the eviscerated terminal, forgetting me and everything else but what she was doing.

I went to pump the Hanifa and her women for everything I could get about the local setup.

"Ondar." A hissing whisper. The Hanifa sprang to her feet as the tall one leaned in the door. "The fuzzy says he hears lots of men coming toward us and he's going to see about slowing them up, but you should be ready to move."

I sat where I was, wondering what the Hanifa would do about this. I thought it'd likely be something with flair, she was that kind of leader.

She moved quickly to Adelaar. "Where are you?"

"Covering my tracks."

"How much longer?"

"Five minutes before I can leave the Brain on its own to finish the job."

"How much of it can we destroy without negating what you've done?"

"Worried about them wondering what you've been doing? Don't. I've laid in clues that will tell them you pulled the suspect files; that gives you a reason enough for being here so they won't look all that hard in other directions. They won't find the loops, not without some rather esoteric, well, call it logic. Even I'd have trouble undoing what I've done."

The Hanifa examined Adelaar, then me, her jawline hard through the silky knit of the cowl. "Do you need backup to get you out of here?"

"No. Do you?"

"No." She hesitated. "In case I'm not able to meet you, someone else will be there. Hordar for sure, could be a man or a woman. He or she'll say . . ." She looked around, remembering suddenly that there might be ears tuned to this place that hadn't been there before.

"Don't bother yourself about snoops. Can't happen. Del has blocked access to the interface."

"I hear. Still, um ... he or she will show you this." She jerked up the shoulder drape on her cowl, pulled a medallion on a chain from under her black shirt. She let me look at both sides, then tucked it away again. It was an oval of dark bronze, with an odd b.u.mpy pod on one side and a complicated double glyph on the other. Nice piece. "We're going to leave," she said.

"Before we're trapped in here." She swung back to Adelaar. "What about the scanners?"

"They're down again, I sent an oversurge through. When they try to fix them, the techs will find I've cut them off completely from the mainBrain. The Sech won't be able to get them functioning again until he regains control of the interface." Adelaar was looking smugly pleased with herself and so she should, but there was a condescension in her voice which the Hanifa wasn't appreciating. "If your transport can't reach you before they get organized up top, you might head for the lakeside wall, either go over it or cut through one of the gates there. Don't worry about alarms. The melters? The west wall is off the firing circuits for the next two hours. I've set up some snares the techs will find, um, interesting. Avoiding them will cost time. If you can reach your pilot, let her know that." She paused and the Hanifa started to turn away. "One moment more. After you get loose from here, you've got a free run for a while. I've fiddled something else, blocked all contact with the Warmaster. I can't shut her out permanently, there are too many possibilities for reinstating the link. As soon as the Sech reaches her, he'll have her scanners looking for you. Be careful they don't get a focus on you, they'll fry you. Once they get a lock, they can track a flea on a dog's back even ifthe man operating them has less brain than that flea. It's not quite as bad as it sounds, when the power is ratcheted that high, the field is very narrow, so if you can get under cover before they do the first coa.r.s.e scan, you should be safe enough. Questions? No? That's it, then. Luck kiss you sweet, eh?"

"G.o.d's blessings, Akilla yaba.s.s."

I'll give our Hanifa this, she wasn't stingy with her grat.i.tude; she didn't even seem to be swallowing hard when she called our Adelaar a welcome stranger and wisewoman.

"Nada." Adelaar went back to work. With a small army about to land on us, she wasn't wasting more time on chat.

The Hanifa rounded up her women with an imperious sweep of her arm and took them outside. I unlim-bered the launchtube, fed it a clip and followed her.

One of the raiders was more squarely built than the others, with broad shoulders and heavy arms; she'd been lugging around a powerful crossbow which I'd wondered about, it seemed a clumsy thing on a jaunt like this. Now she loaded it with a four-point grapple and aimed it upward at one of the windows.

Our Hanifa was a lady with flair, no scrambling through ratholes for her. The woman loosed the bolt and it rose through a graceful arc, going up and up, four levels up, until it crashed through the gla.s.s and looped down outside, carrying a thin, knotted rope with it. A hard tug set the hooks, two of the raiders went at the rope like it led to the promised land and started swarming up it. The shooter slapped a second ropebolt in the slot, hit the next window over, slapped in a third, put it through the third window, whap, whap, whap, steady as a metronome. She thrust her arm through the bow's carrystrap and ran at the last rope. The Hanifa sketched a salute in my direction. "I'll leave this one for you." She started climbing.

Pels came scooting down the ramp, back in hunt-mode, little more than a ripple across the stone. "On my tail," he yelled, his whoop filling the chamber with echoes. He'd been rambling around that maze interfering with the arrangements of the guardforce and he'd won us the extra few minutes that let the women get a good start up the ropes.

I put a couple of darts into the tunnel opening and blew down enough rubble to close it off. I started plinking the other exits, one by one, blowing out their sides and ceiling; things got touchy after I'd done five of them, the roof started groaning and shifting, it was an open question whether it'd come down on us before I finished sealing off the inlets. There was a lot of yelling and cursing coming through the noise of the falling stone and someone in one of the tunnels managed to get off some heatseeker missiles, but Pels knocked those down before they got anywhere.

Adelaar came out. "Peculiar, Quale, I didn't believe it till I ran it twice, the Warmaster's mainBrain is slaved to this one. I set a pa.s.sive tap, one I can juice from the tug, tell you later." She eyed the billowy pouf of dust with disfavor. "How do we get out of here?"

"The Hanifa left us a rope." I pointed to it and swallowed a grin. She'd opted out of some of the last-phase planning, too impatient to sit through another bulls.h.i.t session, so she didn't know the emergency bolt hole we'd come up with.

"How nice. I'm supposed to go up that thing with this load?"

"Nope, we're taking Pittipat's private route. Pels?"

"All clear, just dust and cobwebs. All praise to paranoia." Pels came from behind the throne, grinning and brushing at his ruffled not-fur.

The hole was a stupid breach in security; when we saw it the first time, we thought it had to be some kind of subtle trap. k.u.mari flaked that part of the EYEfeed and went over it cell by cell, tracing out every branch. All she found was dust and dark.

Pels tripped the lock on the panel, circled around us and led us up a wormhole that was barely wide enough to clear our elbows and so low I was almost bent in half. It split and split again, but the direction sense he was born with and the practice he got as a scruffy cub scatting about his native subterras kept him on course. You couldn't lose him anywhere underground.We fetched up at the theater close to where we started, emerging through the back wall of the Imper-atorial box. The tiers of seats were groaning and shivering as they would at the tail end of an earthquake and the flags in the well shifted under our feet, but the theater wasn't going to collapse; there was a lot of hoohaw in the gardens outside it, parachute flares bursting over us, spotlights stabbing through fog that was even thicker than it'd been when we came in, yowling cats and howling men rushing about, G.o.d knows what they thought they were doing. Nothing much in here with us, just one guard and his brace of cats. He tried potting me, but I suppose I wasn't much more than a moving blot, because he didn't come close; that's the problem with pellet guns, when you miss you miss completely.

I got him with the stunner and Pels took care of the cats. We swung onto the stage. I was worried about the miniskips, briefly afraid the cats had sniffed them out, but they were where we left them, the only problem was they were slimy with condensation. We strapped ourselves onto the belly pads and took off for the canyon.

I was tired enough to sleep a week and I suspected the others were about the same, though Adelaar would never admit it and Pels hid everything under his fur. On second thought, maybe he was just getting unlim-bered and was sorry the fight was over, it wasn't often he had a workout that used him up. Not that this skirmish had. We were going to lay up at the canyon for a few days, let things cool down and the Warmaster go back to sleep before we left for base. I spent a minute or so thinking about the Hanifa and several more minutes savoring the memories I had of rosepearls and the taste of all that lovely grat.i.tude that was going to grease the way when I came back to open this market. The rest of the trip I drowsed, letting the miniskip fly herself.

In Windskimmer/slipping away from the swirling swarm of hornets at the imperatoriai Palace/ over Lake Golga/storm breaking about them.

The airship plunged south through what felt like the heart of the storm, though it wasn't quite. Everything Karrel Goza knew about flying said get out of there, but he stayed over the lake in spite of the danger so he could minimize the chance someone would hear the motors and talk about it. From what he saw when he dipped to the jetty and dropped the ladders for Elmas and the others, there was going to be trouble for anyone the Grand Sech found someplace they had no business being. He didn't want to drag a trail to Inci.

Lightning crackled around them.

He'd had the cuuxtwok on this far, afraid the techs would get the Palace scanners working again, but there'd been no pulse wigglers slipping along its surface so they hadn't done it yet; he shut the field off, he didn't know its properties, but he thought it might attract a strike. Windskimmer didn't have sufficient lift to rise clear of the storm; she was taking enough of a beating without the threat of being crisped by lightning.

Turbulent aircurrents battered at them; even worse, there were sudden pockets that dropped them into sheeted rain which pounded on them and drove them toward the icy water invisible below them.

Karrel Goza's body was battered and bruised from the restraining straps; he'd jammed his fingers repeatedly as he fought to keep Skimmer upright; one nail had a deep tear. The panel in front of him jerked and vibrated, impossible to read anything on it, he was working from feel and memory, blessing the Prophet's benevolence for giving him so much flying time in this airship that he knew her like he knew his own body. Dimly he was aware of the isyas squealing as they were flung from side to side; even when they tried to hang onto the weatherstraps, the yawing lurches sent them rolling into each other. Elmas Ofka was cursing in spasms as she tried to get control of her chair; from the corner of his eye he saw enough to realize the brake had snapped and the chair was wobbling and swinging erratically; it could come loose and do someone serious injury if he couldn't get this lumbering yunk to climb higher.All things end.

Two hours later the airship beat through the fringes of the storm and settled into a steady drone. Karrel Goza clicked on the autopilot and went limp with relief. He turned his head.

A trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth, Elmas Ofka was struggling to sit up. Holding the chair steady with her shoulder, Harli Tanggar crouched beside her working at the jammed clamps on the re-strainers.

Lirrit Ofka came and leaned on the back of his chair, her breath warm against his ear. "There were times. ..."

"There were." He clicked off the straps, began sucking at his torn finger. He watched Harli wipe Elmas Ofka's face and tip some visk into her mouth from a pouchflask. He tilted his head back, smiled up at Lirrit. "You got one of those?"

She laughed and pa.s.sed him her flask.

The thick, sour drink ran down his throat and warmed some of the soreness and fatigue from his aching body. He snapped the lid down on the leather covered bottle and returned it to her. "What happened back there?"

"You remember those things that went past us?"

"Aliens?"

"Outside aliens. Where the slave ships come from."

"Uh."

"They were after the mainBrain too. One of them lost her daughter, she's here to get her back."

"You talked to them?"

"Talked and talked. There was time for it."

She was almost glowing she was so excited, she was teasing him with it, making him ask. He caught one of her hands, put her finger in his mouth and bit down on it. She giggled and pulled his hair.

"So tell me," he said.