SWNOVELS Chapter The list
“You can load them up!” a Palanian man in soiled work clothes shouted as he placed the loading area of his heavy van appropriately.
A human in a yellow civilian void body, easily lifted one hundred kilogram crate after another up onto the loading platform. “That’s the last of them for today!” he said, rested, as the Void Body did the strenuous work. Still, it didn’t work without the man, as he stood in the control chamber of the bipedal robot, which was as big as the entire cab of the van and had to move so that the Void Body could imitate his actions.
After the loading work was finished, the Palanian still took care of securing the cargo. “Then we’ll see each other again tomorrow!” he said goodbye and drove away from the storage area, where things were bustling.
The operation was humming and was a real market niche. In the insecure regions of Sector Seven, there were not many companies that dared to transport goods and were able to guarantee their integrity. However, this was only one of the positive changes that had occurred after Kysaek’s blow against Luan’s gang. She had not fully defeated the criminal, but the small-time crime boss was no longer in control, and this went so far that she was able to safely acquire the camp compound in Capon. So Kysaek provided a lot of work in the surrounding villages and with work came financial security which did not mean excessive wealth for the people but it was better times now. It gave the residents self-confidence and they fought for their new lives by forming protection militias.
However, Kysaek just kept his distance from the militias and did not want to be too much in the public eye. People should fight for themselves, although in retrospect she realised that it was not that easy. That’s why, among other things, she had recruited a straw man, or rather a straw squid, a Calanian called Leroq Darath, for the company. Officially, the company belonged to him and the general public perceived it as such. At the same time, he did not know about Kysaek, but merely that she wanted to follow certain paths and protect her rightful fortune with this feint in case something went wrong. Apart from that, running a more complex company required certain knowledge and time that she could not spare. And perhaps she was a little too lazy for that. She actually had some business to attend to, but just then she was still at one of the company’s loading docks and smirked. “As I promised you”
Dios and Kuren had received their ship, a good hover wheel truck, but the two disagreed completely. “That doesn’t count, you realise?!” grumbled Kuren at the wheel.
“It flies, doesn’t it?”
For Dios, it was certain. “You promised us a ship. Flying is not flying.”
“I told you then that I wasn’t talking about a big shi-”
“A ship is a ship, not a hover wheel!”
No, Kysaek couldn’t get out of that, so she made a suggestion. “Then think of it as a ... Temporary solution.”
Reluctantly, Kuren gave her consent. “But only temporarily!”
“My word on it,” Kysaek sighed placatingly as the twins flew off. I have no idea where to get a proper ship and then pay for it. It really was no easy task and Kysaek wondered if she could board one of PGI’s in the near future. It would coincide with her task anyway, but someone would probably give her a ship before she would take one with so few people and the gifting was already extremely unlikely. In the end, however, these were only secondary considerations with which she passed the wait. “Do you have her?” asked Kysaek when she saw Thais coming into the side backyard of the company’s main building.
The Talin had been the same since Re’Li’s return. “What do you think?” replied Thais. She was to get two clearances for the middle levels, which she presented. “You can really say what you want about Central, but foreign currency opens almost every way.”
“And I thought in the city you were allowed to move freely.”
“You would think so, yes,” Thais nodded and walked with Kysaek to a waiting hover wheel. “However, the authorities don’t like to see residents from the lower levels going where they please. Especially when it goes higher up. If patrols catch you without clearance, they’ll hassle you and send you back on flimsy grounds.”
“Flimsy reasons? What are those?”
“Well as a fugitive you are supposed to stay at your location so you are available for any concerns, ha! As if anyone from up there knows where even one person lives in the nether regions.”
“Hardly, they have little control.”
“Exactly, and anything that happens down below nobody cares about as long as it stays down below.”
“Great problem solving by the government, but now I understand why you insisted on the release. We don’t need the hassle.”
Before entering the Hover Wheel, Thais checked her weapons again. “Yeah, we’ll probably have that anyway.”
“Gunfire like I’ve missed,” Kysaek replied. She did the same to the Talin and went through her weapons under her jacket. She carried no heavy arsenal and only a few hidden pieces of armour on her body, like her knees and arms. Anything else might have been too conspicuous and at that she smirked. “Which I find amusing.”
“Amusing? What’s amusing?”
Kysaek raised her plasma pistol beside her head and waved it about. “We’re keeping trouble at bay, looking for trouble. Does that mean we have licence to cause trouble?”
“Licence,” Thais murmured after. The corners of her mouth seemed undecided whether to raise or lower before they arched up to finish. “Let’s fly.”
A little humour to lighten the mood didn’t seem amiss for Kysaek and she climbed aboard as well. With the flight path ahead, she had less to worry about than usual. Not only was the area safer than before, the route through the lawless land was shorter.
It was towards the nearby great wall at Capon, into one of the many flight tunnels that functioned as links between the lower regions and the middle levels. Even the tunnel, however, was so very different from Sector Seven, brightly lit by bright colours, without a dark veil, and the volume of traffic in this narrow space was considerable. Pedestrians filled the pavement zones around the tunnel, in a dense daisy chain of shops and crossings.
The wind pulled through the rolled down window on Kysaek’s side and she enjoyed the flight as she thought about how close and at the same time long apart these two facets of Central were. One minute she was in a slum and a little later in an area where there was at least some semblance of order. A really crazy place, a difference like day to night.
“Are you actually comfortable, with all this business?” asked Thais, not taking her eyes off the track.
“We’re not doing anything bad,” Kysaek replied, and yet a residue of doubt remained in her because of the illegal dealings. That was why she kept telling herself that:we are not doing anything bad. “They are all right. We don’t force anyone to buy certain things and we even create weapons for defence.”
“Which people have to pay for, though.”
“So? Is that wrong?”
“I didn’t take out Luan’s henchmen to help the people, but I know that was your main intention - you wanted to make things better.”
“I wanted to, but that doesn’t mean I can and will solve all the problems around me or give it all away. We have enough problems of our own and that’s why I’m okay with selling the weapons, for example, instead of just giving them away.”
“I’m one of the last people you’ll have to justify yourself to about that,” Thais said. After all that had happened, however, she knew better and that pleased her. “However, you intervene when bullies harass helpless women or give almost our last foreign currency to impoverished strangers. Then you save others from being robbed and finish off the criminals who oppress everyone, and our journey is bound to be a good while yet. I’m sure we’ll have a few more things for you to do. You sure you don’t want to reconsider your answer?”
“We’ve done most of it together and no, I’m sticking to it. I want my old life back and I’m sure you do too. That’s what this is all about and if we solve one or two things in the process, so be it.”
“Yeah, that’s just the way it is,” Thais grinned to herself. It was clear she wasn’t convinced by what she had just heard, but she didn’t push her opinion on her leader. “We have to go from here.”
The Hover Wheel was parked in a long strip mall. Kysaek and Thai’s destination was not far from there, on Central’s edge, which was mostly spaceports and ensured a constant influx of cargo and new arrivals. Unlike their arrival at that time, however, this area was significantly higher up in Central’s powerful frontage and was nevertheless readily used for shady operations. Among these was allegedly the slave trade of criminals to work for PGI. At least that was the information Kysaek’s group had bought from a respected Seeker. Whether this was true and for what purpose the suspected slaves were rounded up, Kysaek and Thais now had to find out, but it seemed conclusive to them: If PGI was doing experiments like on Cipi or wanted to build something with the forbidden technology, they needed a massive supply of test objects and controllable workers.
“You know, I thought this was an ascent,” Kysaek said as she stood on guard. The lower regions were far away and yet she felt anything but safe in this dock area, possibly because of the way it was built. It was to her as if she were walking with Thais along the bottom of a disreputable and tangled ravine and above them there must have been a hundred metres of air to the top, where several air tunnels and connecting bridges linked the two sides at different levels, while lights of flats and shops shone in between “But further up doesn’t seem to me to make any difference to down.”
“Where else would slavers do business?” retorted Thais, far less surprised. “There are thousands and thousands of moorings in Central’s outer ring. But one like ours doesn’t even show up with the bureaucrats. A bit of bribery and sponte this dock is officially out of service, under reconstruction or no longer a dock at all. That’s why they don’t really keep an eye on the situation here.”
“Personal experience?”
“No, but stories from other priestesses at the Disciples back then and don’t even get me started on the private docks.”
“And all this right under the noses of the greatest authorities? Unbelievable.”
Thais couldn’t help smiling bitterly. “Just a fraction of much more. Wait and see what else you will think is inconceivable.”
“You might as well tell me about it,” Kysaek replied briskly, always with one hand close to her concealed pistol. “You are decades ahead of me, or even centuries? Or have you already arrived at the wise millennium?”
“I’m further away from it than you probably realise,” Thais smirked. She was not uncomfortable with the subtle question about her age. “Five hundred and forty-one years I’ve only been roaming this galaxy and I’m still learning new things.”
“Only a few hundred years old? Oh, still almost a baby,” Kysaek laughed softly. “Is that how it works? Am I the more experienced by human standards, considering our shorter lifespans?”
Thais teased a little. “Are you? So you don’t want another report, of my rich experiences?”
“Tough call ... no, you’d better tell. I’d rather have an edge.”
“Then here’s a word of advice from experience: do it yourself, or it won’t shape you.”
That this had to come, Kysaek had guessed. “Why was I aware of that? Well, I’ll have a chance to gain experience in a moment,” she nodded and stopped. The dock she was looking for was close and she looked around.
The most conspicuous thing was the large, open entrance gate, through which a truck was just driving out, and above it was a flight tunnel. A rustic Davoc, with no discernible security uniform, stood guard at the entrance while a few dock workers chatted in the street and were briefly frisked the old-fashioned way by the monkey creature as they entered the dock and then scanned.
“What do you think?” asked Kysaek quietly. “Doesn’t look heavily guarded.”
“No, not that, but the masses will,” Thais surmised, looking up the walls. “There must be two or three dozen of their kind inside.”
“What do you suggest?”
The Talin’s eyes continued searchingly around the entrance. “We should find separate ways in, and by doing so we can cover a larger area inside to find the loading directories.”
“I wonder if there is an intermediary who knows about this too?”
“I don’t think so, but maybe we’ll get lucky,” Thais replied, walking off unobtrusively. “I’ll try a maintenance walkway. I’ll see you inside.”
“Just be careful,” Kysaek said with conviction, tapping against her pistol. “Maintenance walkways can be smelly and treacherous.”
“After Sector Seven, I’m a lot more pain-free about that,” Thais smirked perkily and disappeared from view.
Now Kysaek had to figure out how to get into the dock. Even via a maintenance route? No way! One of the incoming trucks seemed like a good option, or maybe mingle with the workers. The latter rather less so, she thought to herself. All were searched and scanned. A distraction might help, however, but what was it? A questionable Palanian wearing a mixture of flexible clothing and body armour caught her eye and struck up a conversation with the Davoc guard. After a few exchanged sentences, he surreptitiously slipped her something and after a quick look around, she let him pass without searching. So easy? she marvelled. Bribery was actually a good plan, but she couldn’t do that so soon after. It was too conspicuous, so she decided to wait for a van and she didn’t have to for too long. As soon as the vehicle came to a stop at the gate, its control began and Kysaek walked normally along the side of the road. When she was out of sight of the guard, she looked towards a group of dock workers. “This is going to hurt,” she murmured softly to herself, moving her left hand. She used a touch of prismatics and focused those on a passing passerby to give him a shove.
The unsuspecting Skyth victim was thundered against the dock workers. “Hey! Watch it!” growled a Palanian worker.
“Someone pushed me!” the Skyth defended himself. He looked behind him and accused when he first caught sight. “What are you doing?!”
Taken off guard, a talin blinked. “What?” came from her and everything took its course.
A scuffle ensued, which quickly became a scuffle, and as if by itself, more people nearby were drawn into it. It could hardly be called a brawl, but enough was enough.
“Brainless Iknis!” the Davoc guard snorted, leaving her post with her plasma pistol drawn to walk between the mob. “Break it up!”
All eyes were on the little spectacle and Kysaek had a clear path. She walked normally past the rear of the transport and entered the dock. She concealed her weapon as a precaution, but instead of sneaking, she acted like she was a part of everything. It worked well with the dock workers, as they paid little attention to her. “One question,” she addressed a Galig worker. “I’m supposed to report to the boss of the dock- where can I find him?”
“Probably in his office, above the hangar.”
“Thank you,” Kysaek nodded curtly. What worked for the workers, however, she didn’t want to test out on the stooges. So she grabbed a dockworker’s ownerless safety waistcoat at the earliest opportunity and tried to avoid anyone who looked like trouble or carried weapons. She didn’t see many of those, though.
Most of the walkways were unguarded, security cameras were non-existent and in some rooms office workers were doing normal day jobs. It seemed that even criminals had to document everything they did. The bulk of the gang, however, found themselves not at work but at play. In a dusty canteen, a pack of obvious thugs contented themselves with digital as well as old-fashioned games of chance. They were more of a sloppy intervention force than a guarantor of security.
“Ah, a map,” Kysaek muttered to herself in satisfaction. She studied the holographic layout of the dock displayed on one wall and made contact with her partner. “Thais, where are you?”
“Just above the cargo bay, in the hangar,” The Talin replied over the radio. “There’s probably a new transporter coming soon and everyone will be distracted.”
“The guards are already distracted. Dutiful looks different,” Kysaek assured her as she tapped the site plan for herself and aimed at Thai’s position. “I know where we can probably find the boss. You should see a longer row of windows by you. That’s where the control centre and foreman’s office is.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I see it.”
“If I’m reading the plan in front of me correctly, just stay on your catwalk,” Kysaek suggested, looking around. “It’ll take you down the other side, past the control centre. I’ll sort of come from the bottom and we’ll meet in the middle.”
“Sounds good. Thais out.”
Her target was close, which is why Kysaek reached for the plasma pistol and now wielded it with the barrel pointing skywards, for the boss of the dock would certainly not let her convince him to divulge information with lies or voluntarily hand over possible records.
Before that, however, the walls began to vibrate and, despite the thick walls, the sounds of engines echoed through the corridors of the dock. The announced ship brought movement to the facility.
Out of nowhere a group of henchmen appeared, which Kysaek narrowly avoided. “That one’s empty, isn’t it?” murmured a Talin among the criminals.
“This one yes,” a Calanian replied. “He’s been nowhere before and he’s coming for our new merchandise.”
“Let’s herd you out, then.”
Kysaek gritted her teeth. The goods, they were slaves and the way these hoodlums spoke of people made Kysaek angry. She would have liked to shoot off at once, but she realised there was nothing she could do now and Thais had drummed it into her just as repeatedly - no heroics. That was the way it had to be, for now. A few minutes later, however, Kysaek was surprised when she cast a cautious glance towards the rising stairs. Huh, it occurred to her. A human henchwoman was leaning half-sitting and motionless beside the stairs, and Kysaek approached her slowly. Astonished, she checked the pulse of the woman who was still alive. Was Thais so quick and had cleared the way for her?and if so, why did the Talin leave the guard lying around so obviously, now that there was so much activity? I can’t worry about that now, Kysaek thought, and went up the stairs with her gun pointed. To be on the safe side, she took aim at Thais to avoid an accidental exchange of fire.
Unusually, the Talin’s signal came from further up the stairs and, as discussed, the meeting of the two took place in the middle. “Neat work,” Thais said, with regard to the next victim.There was another unconscious guard outside the control room, which made Kysaek more puzzled. “I thought that was you, same as downstairs.”
Thais listened up. “Downstairs?”
“Yes, there is another guard lying there.”
“That’s not my doing, I wasn’t there at all.”
“You weren’t?” retorted Kysaek, with an uneasy feeling in her stomach: was there a third party here? “I don’t like this! We should pull this off quickly!”
“Absolutely,” Thais agreed, aiming her pistol at the door.
Kysaek took the lead and in the control room she was met with a similar sight.
The row of windows to the hangar was sealed opaque, but the workers present were writhing in conscious pain.
A shattering of glass, however, immediately drew Kysaek’s attention to the foreman’s office, followed by flashing red lights and a wailing alarm.
“We were so close!” said Thais, taking the lead to the office, which was a little battered. “Hands up!”
A wild-maned Hishek hissed, stretching her short arms more to her sides than up. “More thieves?! You will all die!”
“We don’t care about gang wars!” surmised Kysaek, aiming at the Hishek’s head as she glanced fleetingly at the open, shattered office window. “We just want all the data regarding the slave transports! Give it to us or I’ll put a bullet in your skull!”
“Your Palanian friend was quicker! I have nothing more to give!”
“Our friend?!”
Thais shakes her head. “She’s trying to string us along and she’s lying!”
“But someone is apparently here too!” said Kysaek impulsively, climbing through the window.
“Are you sure?!” asked Thais distractedly. Just then the hishek snapped its mouth forward, but the Talin’s reflexes were more nimble. She dodged and knocked the lizard out with her pistol.
“Very safe!” nodded Kysaek. She saw a hurried Palanian disappear at the end of the docking bay just then and ran. “Behind there! Come on!” Along with her exclamation, Kysaek’s fast-paced footsteps made a lot of noise on the catwalk below her, so that as soon plasma shots were fired upwards from the dock. The energy charges flew past the walkway and through the narrow metal, just ahead and behind Kysaek but she did not stop, nor did she pay attention at that moment to whether Thais could keep up. The fugitive had a large lead on her and his path would have been difficult to follow, but once Kysaek was out of the ship’s bay, she could hear scattered firefights in the corridors of the premises. Shot guards were also a good indication of the fleeing Palan’s route, which she was steadily closing in on, despite being pinned down briefly at a cloister. Kysaek, despite being outnumbered, fought very aggressively and often broke cover in this confined space. The skirmish also gave Thais the opportunity to catch up with her and together the two sent their adversaries to the ground with a clenched, prismatic shockwave. Kysaek then pointed to the left. “That way!”
“Impressive!” remarked Thais, following in second. “Your prismatics are getting better.”
“I’ll have to start catching up with you,” Kysaek retorted in a boosted tone.
Thais grinned. “You’ve got a few decades left, after all.”
Despite this delay, the fugitive remained within reach.At least as long as he stayed within the area, for a last,dead guard marked the stranger’s exit.
An airlock to the maintenance tunnels was just closing again, which Kysaek activated again. “Faster! He’s getting away!” she said, running ahead, past a dead guard. As she did so, she saw out of the corner of her eye her companion still dragging the dead guard into the tunnel, but Kysaek couldn’t wait for that. Here in these narrow, confusing tunnels, the danger was simply too great that she could quickly lose the Palanian and so she followed his footsteps, deeper and deeper into the remote but illuminated supply routes. All at once, however, everything in front of her fell silent and Kysaek stopped dead in her tracks. Where did he go?!, it went through her mind, with a hasty searching look. She was in some kind of small central chamber, an intersection of many paths. It was the perfect place for an ambush and she was sure the fugitive was lurking here. Her tension rose as she moved as quietly and carefully as possible. Apart from the subliminal hum and rumble of pipes and conduits, only the approaching sounds of Thais reached Kysaek’s ears, but she did not wait for the Talin, for she could be mistaken and the Palanian was no longer here and she needed to know that now. Where are you hiding?, she asked herself inwardly and concentrated her mind to put a prismatic shield over her entire body. Suddenly there was a bang between some pipes and Kysaek rolled sideways. She saw the Palanian with his short plasma shotgun drawn and fired at him several times. “Gotcha!” she murmured, but the man was completely unharmed and stood rigid in his stance, at which Kysaek tried to fire again. Only at the last moment, however, did she realise that the Palanian was flickering -a hologram! Only at the last moment, she could see a rearing shadow on the wall next to the image! Immediately she dived behind a thick switch box as a plasma weapon was fired and the stray charge narrowly missed Kysaek or was intercepted by the box.
“You’d better stay there!” the stranger warned, firing again at the cover. “This has nothing to do with you and is not worth dying for!”
“Someone’s sure of themselves!” countered Kysaek, only raising her pistol over the edge of her cover to fire. There was no falling or gasping. “The question is: are you willing to die for the data! I am!”
“Blind loyalty!” came back from the Palanian, and his quick footsteps sounded. “Or is it stupidity?!“Kysaek came out of her cover and fired at the fugitive, but he disappeared under a parapet. “Very bad idea!” said Kysaek, using her prismatic powers, filled with adrenaline. It made her rip out the thin supports of the parapet and the frame collapsed.
The Palanian came out the other end, where a grating fell on him and half buried him. He lost his double-barreled, sawed-off plasma shotgun in the process and remained motionless with his stomach on the floor.
“I’m really sorry,” Kysaek said as she cautiously approached the Palanese with her pistol drawn. She picked up the stranger’s shotgun as she went and threw it a good distance away, because safe was safe, even if the man didn’t move again. “I guess that was a -in the wrong place at the wrong time-.” Using her prismatics, she pushed the grate off the motionless man and turned him over on his back with one hand to search him.
Suddenly a blade shot out of the Palanian’s sleeve! He was not unconscious and lunged to attack, hitting the pistol pointed at him.
Kysaek lost her weapon, but her prismatic shield was still there and she reinforced it. This caused the blade tip to break off on the next swing against her arm and she converted the shield energy for a counterattack.
It didn’t come to that, however, as the Palanian fired small, paralysing shock spikes from her other sleeve.
Without her shield, Kysaek felt the full effect of the electric shocks and in seconds, she doubled over, wincing, as if thousands of ants were biting her all over or someone was trying to bend her arms and legs.
That gave the Palanian enough time to search for his shotgun, which he put on the shocked woman. “Tough, but not tough enough,” he said, but the hot scatter charges from his plasma shotgun bounced off another prismatic shield far ahead of Kysaek.
Thais had caught up and used the barrier as a wall, hurling the stranger across the room. “That was close!” the Talin commented, glancing only briefly at Kysaek before continuing her attack. A shootout ensued between her and the Palanian, neither of them landing a sore hit, but one thing was clear from it. The stranger knew how to fight back and was tricky. He tried to harness the environment, destroying lights and pipes, creating obstacles. He was even more wary of Thais strong prismatics and used smoke bombs so as not to give the Talin a target.
At the same time, the effect of the shock spikes diminished and Kysaek crawled across the floor, weakened but as swiftly as possible, with a steady gaze on her pistol. Suddenly a bright light shone at her back. “Ah!” she heard Thais cry out and a dull thud to the ground. It must have been a stun grenade and Kysaek spat. The stranger’s footsteps clattered across the ground and she grabbed her pistol. “Stop!” she demanded as she shakily rose to her feet.
The only problem was that the Palanian had his shotgun equally aimed at her. “I have more firepower!” the stranger opined. “If you don’t want me to use it, you will let me go now!”
“You do that, I’ll do it too and we’ll die together,” Kysaek retorted in focus, pulling the trigger back already slightly as Thais agonised with the effects of the flash of light.
“You really want to die for this?” the Palanian asked calculatedly. This was no plain ruffian, like the many in recent weeks. “How much do you get paid for defending the data so vigorously?”
“I don’t get paid anything.”
The Palanian found that hard to believe. “Of course. You’re more than a paid thug or mercenary, and they work for the sheer joy of doing it.”
“If you hope to confuse me with that talk, you are mistaken,” Kysaek returned, moving sideways without ever taking her barrel off her target.
“Fine, keep it to yourself. It doesn’t change anything anyway. Your doggedness merely confirms that I’m on the right track.”
“This is our trail and I’m not going to leave it to some crook. Find another target to rake in foreign currency!” advised Kysaek, squinting at Thais. The Talin would not be out of action for much longer and she made that clear to the man with a wave of her pistol. “Give me the list and we’ll let you go. If not, we have no qualms - this is too important for us!”
“I’ve been in worse situations,” the Palanian replied hardenedly, and a handy pistol came shooting out of his boot-high all at once, right into his free claws and aimed at Talin on the ground. “Compensation.”
Kysaek gritted. “What’s next? Blow yourself up?”
“Unhappily.”
“That wasn’t a yes or no,” Kysaek took a deep breath, trying to see through the stranger. “I’ll pay you whatever you want for the data.”
“My dear, not everyone is after fortune,” the Palanian shook his head. “At least not in this case.”
“Then what is it? What do you want with it?”
“I think manners dictate that I ask another question: What do you want with it?”
“The truth,” Kysaek said frankly, after the stranger might not have been what she suspected.
“Pretty vague answer.”
“Better than none at all,” Thais groaned, rubbing her eyes as she stood up. “But you can do better than that for us. What do you intend to do with the data?”
“Something personal that’s none of either of your business.”
“And he’s talking vaguely,” Kysaek said, after the stranger had closed himself off. It was clear to her, however, that this was no ordinary robbery. It wasn’t about foreign currency or a contract, of that she was certain. It was about a lead, just like Kysaek’s, “I think you’re smart enough and you’ve realised that we’re not one of them.”
The Palanian mistrusted the words. “Possible, or a good ruse. One wrong moment from me and I’m down.”
“Or all of us,” Thais nodded towards a passage. “Who knows if they won’t still pick up our trail. Then it doesn’t matter if we shoot each other or they shoot us.”
“She’s right,” Kysaek agreed. No one here seemed interested in death, but they were even more interested in the data and where it led. So she took a gamble and slowly lowered her weapon. “We can come to some other agreement, can’t we?”
The Palanian didn’t lower any of his weapons, nor did Thais, but at least his curiosity was piqued. “And you imagine that how?”
“Keep the data and give us a copy of it. Then everyone will have what they came for: a lead.”
“Interesting suggestion,” the stranger admitted. His defensiveness, however, remained. “I’m afraid of overlap, though, because this is about routes, numbers and names that presumably lead to a point. If you want me to agree to this deal, I want to know what you intend to do with it.”
“As you told us, it is none of your business,” Thais denied. After all, she had already been rather suspicious of Cipi when dealing with criminals. “Don’t tell him.”
“Either she does or no deal,” the Palanian affirmed. He would not be swayed.
The risk was gigantic, Kysaek was aware of that. If she betrayed her plan, even without revealing her real identity, in the worst case it could alert the target of the data and who knows what would happen then. On the other hand, she didn’t have to come out with the complete truth and the stranger wasn’t that wrong. An overlap would mean even more trouble and she had to minimise that. “We are following up on the purchase of slaves, for a certain company. We need to know who exactly is behind it so we can get closer to the truth.”
“You don’t know? I do. For me, it’s more a question of where. Where did certain slaves end up. That’s what I need to know.”
“You know who has a hand in this?”
“I do.”
Now Kysaek was suspicious. Who was the Palanian? “We paid a Seeker who didn’t even know. Then how can you?”
“I’ve been following my trail for a little longer and I’m also familiar with my realms,” the stranger replied frankly. His calculus diminished as the parties’ objectives were revealed. “Possibly I have misjudged you.”
“The feeling is mutual,” Kysaek nodded. Here, no one had to be anyone else’s enemy, for there were Others announcing themselves. Still distant, unintelligible voices and footsteps echoed through the tunnels, many of them. “Apparently our time is up - are you sharing now?”
“Not yet,” the Palanian replied, but at least he put down his weapons. “You want the who, I want the where. I suggest we go somewhere quiet and look at the lists. If we don’t get in each other’s way, you get your copy and the who from me.”
Thais grinned as her gun remained holstered. “Do the sounds in the tunnel make you nervous? We could still trap you.”
The unnecessary teasing did nothing for the stranger. “I find that hard to believe now, but even if it does, so be it and I’ll wriggle out of it.”
“Very confident,” Thais marvelled, finally putting her gun away. “How come?”
“If I die, you die.”
Kysaek raised an eyebrow. “Are we talking about blowing up again? That was a bluff after all.”
“You can test it, but first we should leave.”
“We should,” Kysaek agreed and set off with Thais and the stranger. Who was he? What did he know? Could he even be a potential ally? That remained out of the question until the three were safe.