Dragon and Liberator

"It can be recharged somewhat, yes," Alison said. "But not entirely. Certainly not enough to get us through a whole day or more in the safe."

"Then we must find a new place," the K'da concluded. "Shall I begin a search?"

Alison frowned. Then, suddenly, she understood. The last time they were aboard, Taneem had taken herself on a brief tour of the ship's ventilation system. "It could be dangerous," she warned. "And not just from the ducts themselves. If anyone spots you, we're both dead."

The K'da twitched her tail. "So will we be if we stay here."

"I can't argue with that," Alison conceded. She looked around, spotted the vent in the wall just below the ceiling. "Let's get the grille off."

Three minutes later, Taneem climbed up on Alison's shoulders and cased her head and forepaws into the open vent. "It looks clear," she said, pulling her head briefly back out again to look at Alison. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

Alison nodded. "Good luck."

Taneem put her head back into the opening. Pulling with her forepaws, she slid the rest of the way in, and with a flick of her tail she was gone.

Pulling out her flashlight, Alison turned it to its lowest setting and put it into the duct to give Taneem something to look for when she headed back. She then put the grille back into position, fastening the bolts just tightly enough to keep it in place.

And once she'd done that, there was nothing for her to do but wait.

CHAPTER 4

She waited for a grand total of maybe two minutes. Then, being careful not to make any noise, she set out to explore the office.

The last time she'd been in here, when Frost had had her break into Neverlin's desk safe, he'd kept her in the main room. Her first task, therefore, was to see what was beyond the side door.

There were, as it turned out, two other rooms in the suite. One was a private washroom, the other a secure communications nook with a direct link to the ship's radio and InterWorld transmitters.

There were, unfortunately, no exits from either room.

She got a drink of water from the washroom and then returned to the main office, a fresh idea occurring to her. It was right after she'd opened this particular safe that Frost had fulfilled his part of their bargain and given her the satchel she'd gotten from Virgil Morgan's Semaline lockbox.

More important, that was the point where Frost's interest in the Advocatus Diaboli's various safes had suddenly stopped.

Something in that safe had apparently been very interesting to Neverlin's ally. It might be worthwhile to see what that something was.

She'd already opened the safe once, which theoretically meant she already had the combination. But there was always the chance that Neverlin had changed it since then.

Anyway, it wasn't as if she didn't have a few minutes to spare. Pulling out her burglar's tools, she got to work.

It was just as well she'd checked. Neverlin had indeed changed the combination. Using her MixStar computer to track down the new sequence, she got the safe open.

Inside was a two-inch-thick stack of papers, plus half a dozen data tubes. Setting the data tubes aside, knowing they were probably encrypted, Alison pulled out the papers and set them on her lap. With her light clipped to her shirt collar, she started going through them, wondering which one had caught Frost's attention.

Five pages from the top, she found it.

She had finished looking at the papers, and was going through the desk's drawers, when Taneem returned.

"The ship is very quiet," the K'da said after Alison had helped her back through the opening. "I saw only two humans seated in the main control rooms."

"The bridge," Alison identified it. "Probably Neverlin's night-shift crew. Any passengers out and about?"

"The ducts carry the smell of many Brummgas," Taneem said, a brief shiver running through her. "I think there are also a few other humans."

"Frost and some of his men," Alison said. "At least now we know where we stand. Which is more than Frost can say right now."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I found out why he was almost on my side for a while during our little vacation on Brum-a-dum." Alison held up the interesting paper she'd found. "I helped him find out that Neverlin's trying to do an end run around him."

"What's an end run?"

"Actually, in this case it's more of a double cross," Alison said. "Remember that we figured out earlier how Neverlin was going to get the ships he needed for his attack? That Frost was going to steal them from one of the planets where the Malison Ring is fighting one of their wars?"

"Yes," Taneem said. "Only it was you who figured that out, not us."

"Oh," Alison said, momentarily thrown off-track. "Yes, I suppose it was. But it doesn't really matter who came up with the idea."

"Yes, it does," Taneem said, a bit primly. "Draycos says a person must always give proper credit for cleverness and resourceful thinking. Especially if that same person is equally quick to assign blame."