Ammonite

“Both of you will report directly to me, until I say otherwise. Your immediate superiors will be informed.”

Danner said nothing about formalities. They did not ask.

Given Company’s recent actions a ceremony, with its pledges of loyalty, would mean nothing.

“Sit down, please. All of you.” They did. Danner felt momentarily lost. Company doesn’t matter anymore; my commission means nothing. She took a seat among them: Letitia and Lu Wai sitting close together, Kahn picking something out from under a nail. Good women. Her silence lengthened. “I trust you,” she said eventually. “I hope you trust me.” Another pause. “I need… I need your help to make some decisions.” Danner waited for the looks of pity or contempt—decision-making was her job, her burden, no one else’s—but their attentiveness did not waver. She wondered why she was finding this so hard. Trust them, she thought. Just trust them. “Dr. Hiam, on Estrade, and her two crew need to be brought down from orbit. I thought that between us, we could find a way to do it safely—without anyone on the Kurstbeing any the wiser. It goes without saying that the longer we can keep things here looking normal, the longer we have to organize ourselves before Company does whatever it is they’re going to do. Every extra day helps.”

Silence.

“Basically, we need to get the gig up there, on an apparently normal mission—”

“Taking someone up.”

“—and back down again, containing four people when it should only contain one pilot, without Kurstgetting suspicious.”

“Why don’t we just ask around and see who wants to get off-planet, there’s bound to be someone, then send her up with the pilot?”

Danner shook her head. “I daren’t. The fewer who know about this and are in a position to communicate with the Kurst, the better.”

“Are you asking for one to us to volunteer, then?” Letitia asked slowly.

“Not yet.”

The silence was long. Danner watched the snow fall outside. Last winter, the snow had formed drifts of eight or nine feet in places. Hiam had assured her that this winter would be milder.

“What’s Kurst’s position relative to Estrade?” Kahn asked suddenly.

“I’m not sure.” Danner tapped a request into her comm. “Variable, according to this.”

“A regular variable?”

“Yes.”

“And are the two sometimes out of line-of-sight, obscured by Jeep itself?”

Danner tapped some more. “Yes.”

“Ha!” Dogias crowed, reaching over and poking Kahn on the thigh.“Ana, you’re a genius.” She turned to Danner. “How long would the two be out of line-of-sight?”

Danner sighed, and requested that information. “Six hours.”

“Long enough?” Dogias asked Kahn.

“Maybe,” the Mirror said thoughtfully. “Tight, though.”

“Maybe you two would like to explain.”

Kahn gestured for Dogias to take it. “The Kurstis a military vessel, equipped with the best in sensors and detection equipment. I should know, my assignment before Jeep was working on a cruiser’s systems. The only thing is, when the object you want to scan is obscured by a large body, you have to use a separate set of sensors, which need careful and exacting reprogramming, or”—she grinned—“rely upon rough data. Very rough data. If we send up the gig during this six-hour period, they’ll have to choose. So what they’ll do is check their rough data first.” She looked to Kahn for confirmation. The Mirror nodded. “All we have to do is make sure their rough data will satisfy them enough so that they don’t feel the need to go through all the trouble of the second, more accurate scan.” She stopped, pleased with herself.

“And?”

“And so as long as we stick something alive on that gig, they won’t know if it’s human or not.”

“An animal?”

“As long as it’s big enough,” Dogias said.

Danner wondered where they could find an animal big enough.

“Would it have to be one large one? How about several small ones?” Lu Wai asked.

“That should do it.”

Danner considered. It could work. They could even pilot the gig up by remote. The less personnel risked, the better. Tapes of conversation should satisfy audio requirements. Yes, it could work. For the journey up. “What about the rest?”

“How badly do we need the station’s systems?”

“We need them. They control the satellites: our communications and microwave relay, weather information…”

“More than we need the Estradecrew?”

“Personnel come first,” she said firmly to Letitia. Do they? a little voice whispered. What about Relman? “Why, what were you thinking?”

“If we rigged the platform to explode a few minutes after the gig took off Hiam and the others, then it’s likely that no one would bother with a complicated check of the gig on its way down on a routine mission. They’ll be too busy trying to find out why the platform blew.”

“There must be a better way.”

“Maybe we could rig some other explosion—maybe one of Estrade’s OM vehicles or something.”

Kahn nodded thoughtfully. “That might be possible.”