Qiwi's taxi continued its slow coast upward. From this distance, the rockpile was a craggy jumble, Diamond Two in sunlight, the glare obscuring all but the brightest stars. It might have been a wilderness scene except for the regular form of the Qeng Ho temp gleaming off to the side. With augmented vision, Qiwi could see the dozens of warehouses of the L1 system. Down in the shade of the rockpile were Hammerfest and the distillery, and the arsenal at L1-A. In the spaces around orbited the temp, the warehouses, the junked and semi-junked starships that had brought them all here. Qiwi used them as a kind of soft auxiliary to the electric jets. It was a well-tended dynamical system, even though it did look like chaos compared to the close mooring of the early Exile.
Qiwi took in the configuration with practiced eyes, even as her mind considered the much more treacherous problems of political intrigue. Ritser Brughel's private domain, the old QHSInvisible Hand, was outward from the pile, less than two thousand meters from her taxi; she would pass less than fifteen hundred meters from its throat.Hmm. So, what if Ritser had kidnapped Luan Peres? That would be his boldest move ever against Tomas.And maybe it's not the only thing. If Ritser could get away with this, there might be other deaths.Ezr.
Qiwi took a deep breath.Just take one problem at a time. So: SupposeFloria is right and Luan still lives, a toy in Ritser's private space? There were limits to how fast Tomas could act against another Podmaster. If she complained, and there was any delay at all, Luan might die for real—and all the evidence could just...disappear.
Qiwi turned in her seat, got a naked-eye view of theHand. She was less than seventeen hundred meters out now. It might be days before she could wangle a configuration this slick. The starship's stubby form was so close that she could see the emergency repair welds, and the blistering where X-ray fire had struck the ramscoop's projection flange. Qiwi knew the architecture of theInvisible Hand about as well as anyone at L1; she had lived on that ship through years of the voyage here, had used it as her hands-on example of every ship topic in her schooling. She knew its blind spots....More important, she had Podmaster-level access. It was just one of the many things that Tomas trusted her with. Until now she had never used it so, um, provocatively, but—
Qiwi's hands were moving even before she finished rationalizing her scheme. She keyed in her personal crypto link to Tomas, and spoke quickly, outlining what she had learned and what she suspected—and what she planned to do. She squirted the message off, delivery contingent on a deadman condition. Now Tomas would know no matter what, and she would have something to threaten Ritser with if he caught her.
Sixteen hundred meters from theInvisible Hand. Qiwi pulled down her coverall hood, and cycled the taxi's atmosphere. Her intuition and her huds agreed on the jump path she must follow, the trajectory that would take her down theHand 's throat, in the ship's blind spot all the way. She popped the taxi's hatch, waited till her acrobatic instinct saidgo —and leaped into the emptiness.
• • •
Qiwi finger-walked down theHand 's empty freight hold. Using a combination of Tomas's authority and her own special knowledge of the ship's architecture, she had reached the level of the living quarters without tripping any audible alarms. Every few meters, Qiwi put her ear to the wall, and simply listened. She was so close to on-Watch country that she could hear other people. Things sounded very ordinary, no sudden movement, no anxious talk....Hmm.That sounded like someone crying.
Qiwi moved faster, feeling something like the giddy anger of her long-ago confrontation with Ritser Brughel—only now she had more sense, and was correspondingly more afraid. During their common Watches since that time in the park, she had often felt Ritser's eyes upon her. She had always expected that there would be another confrontaion. As much as it was to honor her mother's memory, Qiwi's fanatical gym work—all the martial arts—was intended as insurance against Ritser and his steel baton.Lot ofgood it will do, if he pots me with a wire gun. But Ritser was such an idiot, he'd never kill her like that; he'd want to gloat. Today, if it came to it, she'd have time to threaten him with the message she'd left Tomas. She pushed down her fear, and moved closer to the sound of weeping.
Qiwi hovered over an access hatch. Suddenly her shoulders and arms were tense. Strange, random thoughts skittered through her mind.I willremember. I will remember. Freaky craziness.
Beyond this point, her only invisibility would be in her Podmaster passkey. Very likely that would not be enough.But I just need a few seconds. Qiwi checked her recorder and data link one last time...and slipped through the hatch, into a crew corridor.
