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r r
Maybe we could get the robots to come here, he said.  There s still
the ship. I should go have a look at it.
 That s something we should do together.
 Why? What s hidden there that you don t want me to find?
Katherine crossed her arms and sighed.  If you re going to be
suspicious of me all the time, this isn t going to work.
 I m not suspicious of you! Derec exclaimed, throwing his hands in
the air.  I just don t understand why you don t seem to want to let me
out of your sight.
 And I don t understand your hurry, Katherine said stiffly.  You say
that we re a team, but you want to go run off and do everything
yourself.
 The hurry is because we want to get there first, Derec said
impatiently.  We don t want anyone else taking it.
She looked at him quizzically.  We ve been here six weeks. Do you
really think that they pulled us out and then locked the ship up
somewhere until we could claim it? Think! That s an alien starship.
How long do you think it took them to realize they d never seen one
like it before not just the design, but the whole technology? This is a
frontier base. Do you think they just take it in stride when an
unregistered ship shows up with two injured humans aboard?
Belatedly, Derec understood.  So they ve been all over it.
Photographed it, X-rayed it, the whole works. They might have even
torn it down, sent pieces of it out on Fariis to the district offices.
They re probably wondering about us, too.
 Of course they are. That s why I sent Dr. Galen away.
 Do you think he s been spying on us?
 All robots are spies for their masters, she said bitterly.
 What? Derec asked, surprised by her intensity.
 Nevermind, she said.  I just think we ought to play innocents
abroad for a while, do all the things they expect us to until we
understand what kind of game we re in.
 Be helpless and worried. Play dumb.
 Just so, Katherine said.  Sometimes it s the smartest thing you can
do.
At their request, Dr. Galen had a multicom brought to the ICU and
tied into the station net. Very quickly, they learned that the Rockliffe
Station welcome mat was a bit threadbare.
The station manager was fully scheduled until the following morning
and thought that they really wanted to talk to the dock supervisor
anyway. The dock supervisor was conducting an overhaul of the dock
pressurization system, a priority task which had to be completed in
the shortest possible time, and had they tried the dispatcher?
The dispatcher couldn t answer their questions without clearance
from the security chief, who deferred to the associate manager for
station operations. The AMSOP was one step down the ladder from
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r r
the station manager and probably the robot to which they should have
been recommended in the first place.
The AMSOP was busy at the moment but would be free in an hour if
they wanted to make an appointment. It seemed to be the best they
could do, so they took it.
 So what do we do while we re waiting? Derec said as he turned off
the viewer.
 We could spend the time getting to know each other better 
 Should I entertain you with stories about my family?
She laughed a nice laugh.  Maybe not.
 You could tell me stories about my family.
 No, I couldn t.
 Katherine the only person who knows anything about me is you,
Derec said pleadingly.  Why don t you tell me some of it now?
 Not yet.
 Still following Dr. Galen s advice?
 This really is the best way, she said, touching his hand.
 It doesn t feel like it to me, he said gruffly.  All right. Tell me about
you, then.
 It s boring, she warned.
He cocked an eyebrow.  Being hijacked by an alien spacecraft was
boring?
 My life is boring. That s the first exciting thing that ever happened.
She added,  Except it wasn t exactly a hijacking.
 Tell me about it. What was the name of your courier ship?
 Golden Eagle, out of Viking. We were carrying a diplomatic pouch to
Frier s Planet 
At least in a first reading, the story had the ring of truth.
According to Katherine, she and her robots had been outbound from
Viking on the courier ship Golden Eagle, along with a pilot and two
diplomats. Just before they were about to make their Jump at the
fringe of the Viking system, the pilot spotted Aranimas s ship,
apparently adrift.
Taking it for an uncharted wreck in part because of its appearance
and in part because they could not raise it on any channel they
abandoned their exit trajectory and went to investigate. Suddenly they
were fired upon, and their ship disabled. Katherine and the robots
were taken off the courier by the Narwe, and then the courier was set
adrift. A short time later the courier exploded, probably, Katherine
said, because of a bomb that had been placed aboard.
There were no screaming contradictions in the story, but there were
several little points that nagged at Derec. Katherine was vague about
just why she was on the courier. At first she seemed to want him to
think that she was part of the diplomatic mission. But even though
she wanted him to think that she was old enough for such duty, she
clearly was not.
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r r
When he questioned her on it, she hastily explained that she had been
a passenger, using the courier instead of a commercial carrier
because she wanted privacy. He wondered aloud at a courier taking
on passengers. She responded by hinting that she was important
enough to justify any exception that might have been required.
But the biggest sticking point, and the one on which he kept his own
counsel, was the behavior of the courier pilot. Couriers carried
important people, emergency supplies, engineering prototypes,
irreplaceable documents. It didn t make sense that a courier pilot
would endanger his cargo by poking around a wreck. It seemed far
more likely that the pilot would report the sighting to the Patrol post
on Viking, then make his Jump on schedule.
Derec recalled that the first time her capture had come up, Katherine
had quickly changed the subject. He wondered now if that was
because she didn t have her story ready. Perhaps he was being fed
half-truths as some sort of test Dr. Galen s prescription for crippled
minds. If so, he resented it.
But the arrival at last of the Assistant Manager for Station Operations
pushed those thoughts to the back of Derec s mind. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]