So they just walked the street, still flush with finance. She had her card, and, just the way she’d figured her father, he’d gone all softhearted and extended credit bit by bit to his one and only daughter, worrying how she’d get along. He’d go on extending it. He’d hope she’d call. She would, tomorrow.
Papa needn’t worry. Noble said he had a friend who’d let them sleep over in a safe place, upstairs of Michaelangelo’s.
She was going to do it with Noble tonight, if they didn’t find Random. With Noble, who was older than she was. She really was going to do it, if they turned up alone in a room in Michaelangelo’s, and she thought maybe Noble wasn’t thatanxious to find Random, having ideas of his own. She knew just how it would play out. She’d made a few decisions for herself. Finally. And her mother couldn’t stop her.
8
BLOODY HELL, was Brazis’s opinion of the entire damnable situation. He sat at his desk and punched physical keys on one of two secure consoles that could direct and redirect the taps. He more than canceled the security hold on Procyon’s tap code: he keyed through a general permission, any relay, any contact, anybody that could possibly get hold of him, all over the station, was open to Procyon’s code.
They had a complete blowup on the Gide affair. Gide was in hospital by now, and Procyon, who’d been an eyewitness, hadn’t answered since the incident.
In desperation he tapped in on Drusus, waking him from off-schedule sleep. “Drusus. Procyon’s in trouble. I need someone who can physically recognize him to get out on the street right now, find him, and walk him home.”
“Yes, sir,”Drusus answered muzzily. “But I’m supposed to go on at noon.”
“Don’t quibble. Auguste can handle it. Just go. Fast. Procyon may be injured. Fifth level, sector 4, section 15, headed toward Blunt, for a start. He’s not answering his tap. The finder works only intermittently. He’s taken some sort of damage. There was apparently an explosion.”
“Explosion, sir?”
“Don’t ask. Just go.”
The whole Project stood on its ear. Interfering with Marak’s taps wasn’t what he’d like to do, especially now, and he knew Marak was outraged and they would have to calm that situation down, but Drusus knew Procyon socially: Auguste didn’t. Drusus knew Procyon’s body language—stood a chance of finding him on a crowded walk, which his other sources hadn’t done in half an hour of trying. He had three reliable men out looking, now contacting Procyon’s sister, Procyon’s parents, Procyon’s known friends, to advise them where to call if he needed help and contacted them—but Procyon didn’t know any of those agents, and neither did the sister, who might deliberately misdirect them, thinking to protect her brother.
His best hope now was that Procyon might not run from Drusus.
“Sir.”
He read the incoming signal. Jewel. Tap-courier, assigned to tail Governor Reaux. He’d just asked her to approach Reaux, who’d gone to the hospital where they’d taken Gide.
“I’m with Governor Reaux now, sir.”
Shift of mind. Fast. “Are you secure?”
“Yes, sir. I’m at the hospital, in a secure area. He’s anxious to talk to you.”
“Good. How is Gide?”
“Alive.”Jewel had amped, at the risk of a painful whiteout. Reaux’s living voice came through at near ordinary volume. “Where’s Stafford? Have you got him?”
“I’m trying to find him at this very minute. He didn’t have anything to do with this attack. We’re afraid he’s injured or worse, that he’s been snatched.”
“Who did it? Who attacked the ambassador?”
“It assuredly wasn’t us, Governor.”
“It assuredly wasn’t my office. And I’m sure Earth didn’t try to assassinate its own representative.”
“Stranger things have happened, Governor, in recorded history. But let’s assume mutual innocence. That leaves us dealing with radical groups, yours or mine. My office is scrambling to find out about the ones on our list. In the meantime, I have a physical search out after Mr. Stafford, in case he’s gotten away on the street. He may be injured, and it’s possible your police search is spooking him to run. Call off your dogs. Let me find him. I have various people searching.”
“I have an armed ship out there asking questions I can’t answer. I have inquiries from Kekellen.”
“I have no doubt. Count this office a third alarmed source, equally perplexed. What’s Mr. Gide’s condition?”
“A glancing wound to the ribs. Shock. Hysteria. Some inhalation damage. It’s not the physical wound, understand. That’s relatively minor. But his containment was breached. He can’t go back to his ship. Ever. He insists Stafford set up the attack. The security guards are both dead—hit with neuronics, I’m told. They didn’t have a chance.”
“Stafford has no weapon. Penetrating the mobile unit can’t be a handheld proposition. Neuronics isn’t a street weapon. We’re climbing the ladder to more than the usual criminal element, Governor.”
“An armor-piercing shell. We found its launcher in the bushes, no prints, bioerase strong in the area, no trace left for the sniffers.”
“All professional skills. Well-financed skills.”
“How can I be sure they weren’t yours?”
“Not mine. Not Procyon’s, I assure you. I have no interest at all in blowing up the ambassador. Procyon doesn’t even know how to fire a gun, let alone a launcher. Any evidence within the mobile unit?”
“Slagged. Slagged, completely, likely a command from the ship. If Gide hadn’t gotten out of it—”
“Kind of them, though I can understand it. So they’d have killed him if he were still lying there unconscious. Neat and tidy, isn’t it?”
“I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.”
“I’m not fond of it either, let me assure you. His shell was breached, and they didn’t give a damn whether he lived or died. Can my people get access to that unit, slagged as it is?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know its status at the moment.”Reaux sounded completely rattled. Likely he wasn’t lying about his being out of touch with elements of the situation, not having the advantage of a tap, and had no idea what disposition his police had made of the unit. “I’ll try to find out.”
“I’ll try to find Stafford in the meanwhile.”
“While I have a ship out there questioning whether it can believe my office in any particular.”
“That ship has no choice but take your word for what happens here, since its precious occupants won’t come on board station, will they? They can threaten. But they won’t use the ship’s guns on Concord with the ondatsitting here, assuming they’re not stark raving crazy.”
“No, but they can use agents embedded in the population.”
Threatening Reaux’s life. “So can we, if they try. We can defend ourselves, and we extend our protection to our governor. Breathe easy. They don’t want that kind of trouble. We’re not an easy target.”
“Antonio—”Quieter. Realizing, perhaps, the enormity of the promise he’d just extended. So law-abiding. So careful, this governor. Reaux would never think of defying assassins sent after him…not to the extent of having them shot on strong suspicion.
Hisagents certainly would take care of such a problem, if he spotted it. “Is Mr. Gide conscious at the moment?”