With a nod to Ruth, Ivan took a few steps so he was standing directly behind Annie.

"Mr. Nahara," Annie said, shaking his arm gently.

Nothing.

A bit louder.

"Mr. Nahara?"

His eyes slid open. Mere slits. But perfectly clear. She had the distinct impression he hadn't been sleeping at all.

Closing his eyes ... wishing this would all go away.

No, he'd been feigning sleep.

Because maybe if you have a secret-a secret that's against the law-maybe you'd find it awfully hard to sleep.

"How are you feeling?"

"Feeling?"

He licked his lips. Sat up a bit in his seat.

"Your leg ... those bites."

"Oh, my leg. Yeah. Right." He cleared his throat and sat up as best he could with the safety harness on.

"Not bad. Still some pain, but I can manage. I should be fine until we can get to a med center. Omega Nine, they have a full-"

Annie patted him on the shoulder and smiled, cutting him off.

"Glad to hear it. Oh. One more thing..."

Her hand now clamped his shoulder. Hard enough to make him wince. Ivan was hovering close behind her.

Glad he's got my back, she thought.

"We need to know who you sent that message pod to and what it contained."

Now Nahara's eyes widened, maybe taking in the fact that Ivan wasn't simply standing there listening-an innocent bystander.

He had a pulse pistol in his hand. Lowered. But at the ready.

"Message pod?"

Lulled by Nahara's apparent grogginess, Annie missed the next move as his right hand dropped down to his lap and undid his safety harness. The click of the latch sounded unusually loud.

Ivan shifted behind her, but Nahara moved remarkably fast, considering the pain he had to be feeling from his leg wounds.

In a flash, Nahara pulled a gun from a holster strapped to his right leg.

He sprang to his feet, grabbed Annie by the throat, and spun her around, so they were both facing Ivan.

The gun pressed into the back of Annie's head just above her right ear.

Ivan's voice was low and measured. "Mr. Nahara. We know it was you. And we also know why."

Nahara was silent, but his expression said: Oh, do tell.

"Put down the gun, and we'll talk."

Nahara snorted.

"You won't get much farther without your pilot."

"We have the copilot."

Annie looked calm, even with the gun pressing hard against her head.

"I know my brother," Ivan said.

"Your brother?" Nahara said, stunned.

Ivan nodded. He didn't want to have to act. Things could get messy with bystanders so close. "I know what Kyros wants and is capable of getting ... especially from someone like you."

The gun metal felt hard against Annie's skull.

She knew, if Ivan went for a shot, a quick spasm in Nahara's hand could no doubt squeeze the trigger.

Her brains and fragments of her skull would decorate the wall.

I'm getting a bit tired of having guns pointed at me, she thought.

But Nahara's eyes, wild and wide, stayed on Ivan.

Theory number two is looking pretty damned good about now, Annie thought.

"I don't know anything about your brother or what he might want. I-"

If there was an opportune moment to make a move, Annie knew this was it.

She lurched forward-dropping her head-and swung her arm around where she knew the gun would be.

With a quick chopping motion, she brought her forearm up, sweeping Nahara's hand. Ivan stepped around Annie, knocking her aside as he closed his hand around Nahara's, putting his thumb between the trigger and the trigger guard.

"No shooting today, compadre," he said evenly.

With a quick twist of his wrist, like he was removing a bottle cap, he gave Nahara's hand a sharp turn. Something in Nahara's arm snapped, and the gun dropped free.

With a grunt, Annie saw Ivan push Nahara back into his seat.

The man let out a loud puff of air when he landed. He gripped his wrist, which had gone limp.

"You broke my damn wrist!"

"Be grateful that's all I broke."

Annie straightened up and brushed herself off. Composing herself.

"Collar him?" Ivan asked.

"No other choice," she said.

She walked over to the compartment by the cockpit entrance, opened it, and grabbed the neuro-collar.

When she returned, Ivan had his hand closed around Nahara's throat, pushing his head back against the headrest.

"Just restraining him until you get him collared," he said, even though he looked like he was ready to twist Nahara's head off his neck.

Nahara stared at him, bug-eyed.

His tongue hanging out of one side of his mouth like a thick, pink slug wedged between his teeth.

Annie wrapped the collar around Nahara's neck and snapped it tightly. Then she activated it. A green light came on, and Nahara sagged in his seat like a sack of potatoes, instantly immobilized.

"All righty, then," Ivan said, turning back to Nahara. "Let's see what you've got that my brother wants so badly." A glance back to Annie. "Am I violating any passenger's rights or anything?"

"Violate away," she said.

Ivan turned back to the immobilized man.

"I already have a pretty good idea what it is..."

And Annie stepped back as Ivan started patting down the Road Authority officer, rifling through his pockets and patting his body up one side and down the other, all the way to his shoes.

Ivan stopped.

And grinned.

"Bingo," he said softly.

32.

THE DATA CRYSTAL.

Annie watched Ivan rip open the hidden pocket sewn into the left leg cuff of Nahara's pants.

A small, transparent cube dropped into the palm of his hand. Grinning broadly, he straightened up and then handed it to her.

"I'm guessing you don't have to worry about any lawsuit from him," he said, looking at Nahara. "What's the jail time for smuggling?"

"All depends on what's on that data crystal," she said, taking it from Ivan.

"Then let's go look."

Back in the cockpit, with Jordan watching and Ivan leaning against the door frame in the entryway, Annie held the data crystal up high, between her thumb and forefinger, and rotated it slowly.

It glistened like a wet diamond; but its surface was curiously cold and dry.

"I'm guessing this isn't just any data crystal. Can you-"

She kept staring at the smooth, clear crystal, studying it ... watching the light play along its facets, fragmenting into shimmering rainbows that danced across the cockpit walls and ceiling.

"Take a look?" she said. "Sure-"

Leaning over the console, she slid the crystal into an empty port near the SRV's systems screen.

She passed a hand over the console, and the stream of information about the SRV's engine-the waves of energy coming off the Road, all the temperature and atmospheric readouts that monitored every inch of the ship-all vanished.

And in its place, the logo of the World Council appeared.

Another wave, and the logo vanished, replaced by a data dump that flashed by before she could make heads or tails of it.

"Whoa. Do you know what you just did?" Ivan asked.

Annie shook her head.

"Unless I'm wrong ... I think you just accessed World Council proprietary code without a password."

"That's not possible," Annie said. She looked at Jordan.

"It is if you alter the crystal," Jordan said. "And for a World Council data crystal, that's a felony with a mandatory life sentence."

The data was still streaming by, incomprehensible numbers and figures.

But Annie made no attempt to stop it.