Work Text:
I'm sure if I were a biologist, the information session that Ratthi was attending would have been fascinating. It's just that Structural Biology and Xeno-Chemical Targeting aren't my idea of a good time. They didn't seem to be doing much for Gurathin, either.
Ratthi and Gurathin were actual attendees and presenters at the TriCluster Conference on Biology and Biosynthesis, sponsored by AlChemiGen Corporation and TechInstitute Wenshan on station WenKamau. I was supposed to be an attendee too: Gurathin's graduate student, in case anyone asked. We'd arrived two cycles ago on a fast transport called Millotronic, and since then I'd been following both of them around exhibit halls full of weird info-offerings and scientific teams at tables, and then sitting silently through presentations and panel discussions.
Originally, Ratthi had said it would help my role as a grad student if I asked some questions during the Q&A sessions after the presentations, but the looks that both I and Gurathin had aimed at him quickly convinced him otherwise.
You might be wondering why we were even at this event. Mensa had not been happy when Ratthi wanted to accept the conference invitation. But she came around eventually because TechInstitute Wenshan had partnered with Preservation on the expedition before the disaster on Unnamed Survey World 1. Ratthi might learn something useful there, and it would establish that Preservation was still a member in good standing of the local pan-system science consortium. Gurathin had been nagged into signing up to present a paper as well, and Mensa had assigned me to keep track of them. Someone had to, so I agreed.
And now here we were, Ratthi enthralled by the presentation by a team from ChimKosKov in the Corporation Rim, and Gurathin and I sitting in the back, apparently late arrivals, but in reality bored into near-stasis. Gurathin had already presented his paper on multivariable dependence measures for biological data analysis during the previous cycle, and as soon as that was finished, he seemed to have lost interest in everything else the conference had on offer. Right now, he was manipulating graphs on a pocket work-surface and scowling.
I nudged him in the feed. I want to go back and go through my latest surveillance feeds.
I wish had had a decent excuse to follow you, but I'll stay here with Ratthi, he answered. We'd already agreed that one of us would stay with Ratthi at all times, because he was so hyped about the conference that he wasn't noticing security issues at all.
Affirmative, I answered, and I got up and left.
The conference attendees all had rooms in a high-end hotel in a commercial zone adjacent to the technical institute. We had a suite, with two bedrooms, a decent-sized bath, and a common area with seating and a small dining table. I'd taken over the smaller bedroom, and it was now my surveillance center, although you would have to be pretty good at that yourself to figure that out when I wasn't there. `I toggled the exterior door's access indicator to Privacy Please, sat down in my space, and pulled the data that had accumulated since this morning. I was deep into analyzing and tagging it when someone hit the room's entry buzzer.
I ignored it.
It buzzed again. And then it sounded like whoever was out there was just leaning on the touchpad.
I'd taken over the corridor security cameras, of course. I switched to my local surveillance feeds and saw a pale older person of no obvious gender and maybe Mensah's age, leaning their thumb on the touchpad. They were accompanied by a young woman with a skin color near Ratthi's tone and many tiny plaits in her dark hair. They looked anxious, but she looked angry.
I had no idea who they were or what they wanted. They were in ordinary street clothes, and they looked a lot like any of the hundreds of conference attendees I'd seen since we arrived here. I ran their images through the feed of conference attendees and got two positives: Hayan Milward and Karlin Shonessy, both from Aguadulse Global University, on planet Aguadulse, two hops from WenKamau Station. Aguadulse was a freehold world, like Preservation's components, but not close enough to join it. They were a professor, which I knew was a senior teacher and researcher, and she was their grad student.
I pinged Gurathin and Ratthi and sent their images and basic information. What do I do with them?
Ratthi sent, I met them this morning at the beverage hour. This session's about to end; I can be there shortly and we can find out what they want.
Gurathin added: Let them in. I'm sure you can keep them in line and having them stand around at the door will attract unwanted attention.
I signed off, got my face into a polite expression so that I looked less like an annoyed SecUnit and, I hoped, more like a grad student who'd been interrupted while working, and opened the door. "Hello. Come in."
Milward seemed to believe my act. "Sorry to interrupt. but we have an urgent issue."
"Please wait until my faculty members return to explain," I said. I waved them to the seats at the table, and got them each some water from the tiny food prep facility.
Milward complied with this and sat down. Shonessy was still frowning as she sat down. "I'm Karlin Shonessy, and this is Professor Hayan Milward. We're from Aguadulse Global University."
"Yes, I know," I said. It was hard not to wince. That wasn't suspicious at all. I was completely out of ideas for how to get the conversation back on route, so I just stood in front of the door to my room and tried not to stand too still. The visitors exchanged glances and sipped their water, trying to look unworried. They were bad at it.
After eleven minutes and 38 seconds, to the relief of all three of us, Ratthi arrived with Gurathin in tow. "Hi, good afternoon!" said Ratthi. "I see you've met Shan. It's his first conference."
That made then both look at me, Milward's face softening into a kind expression and Shonessy still looking cross. I tried to smile like an awkward human. "Yes," I said.
"You're Dr. Milward and Ms. Shonessy from Aguadulse University, right?" said Ratthi. "How can we help you?" He sat down at the table with them, which drew their attention away from me. Maybe that was on purpose; Ratthi is pretty smart, especially about people.
Milward turned toward him. "I think you attended my presentation," they said. "You may remember that I had an artifact as part of my display."
"Yes," said Ratthi. "You'd found it in one of the seams of possible synthetics that your team was sampling on a survey world near your home system." Gurathin, who had been presenting his own paper during that time slot, made a surprised grunting sound and sat down at one end of the large settee. He frowned at me and made an impatient gesture at the other end of seat.
"Well, we had a locked plex case for it in the exhibit hall, along with the rest of our media presentation, and we returned it there after my formal presentation. But when we went back later, it was gone. The case was locked, as we had left it. But it was empty."
"That's pretty terrible," said Ratthi. He seemed to have turned their attention well away from me, so I sat like Gurathin thought I should.
"It is more terrible than you know," said Milward. "A number of us, myself included, have decided that this item, given when we found it, is a sign of the Unity, the belief system followed by the majority of people on Aguadulse."
There was a pause. "Um, wow," said Ratthi, at last. Gurathin was frowning.
Shonessy's frown deepened, and she clenched her hands around each other. "Professor, most respectfully, I thought we were going to leave that out of the discussion."
Milward sighed. "Like many of our younger colleagues, Karlin has no use for formal religion. But it is a factor, whether she likes it or not, and whether your group feels anything about it or not. The loss of this item will demoralize a large number of our citizens. I am certain that your group will not be surprised to hear that our government has been approached three times in the past local year by corporations trying to persuade us to become part of their polity."
"Yes, and that's what's really important!" Shonessy said. "We found the artifact on the world we call Aguadulse Seconda. Its system is only one hop from our system, and nothing very interesting has been found there previously. The atmosphere is barely tolerable to human beings, and the planet has little water, so no one has cared about it. But the artifact makes it more likely that one or more of these corporations will want to start their own explorations, with an eye to exploiting whatever caused the artifact to be there!"
"It makes no sense that you brought the actual artifact here," I said. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Gurathin turned his frown on me, and Shonessy joined him. It was liked having scanners on me from two different directions.
"We were hoping to attract independent research partners who would join us in dissuading the corporations from claiming Aguadulse Seconda," said Milward.
"You could have made a replica," I said.
Shonessy had been getting increasingly red, so that it was obvious on her brown skin. "I know who you are!" she burst out. "You're not anyone's graduate student. You're Preservation's rogue SecUnit!"
I stood up. It probably looked threatening. Gurathin transferred his frown to Shonessy. "It's an independent citizen of the Preservation Alliance," he said. "There's no reason it couldn't be a grad student."
"He's right!" said Ratthi.
Milward put one of their hands over their eyes. "Karlin, why did you bring that up? And why now?"
"Because we need help! And that SecUnit can do all kinds of things. I've been following all the news feeds: it's a super investigator." She turned back to me. "Look, I'm not threatening to expose you or anything, Citizen SecUnit. But we need that artifact back. The professor is right that a lot of our people are going to just give up and roll over to whichever corporate government offers a deal next, if we don't get it back."
Rathi and Gurathin looked at each other, and then they looked at me. It took all my self control not to excuse myself and hide in my room. After a moment, Gurathin said "We should discuss this among ourselves."
"Good idea," said Ratthi. He turned to the Aguadulse team. "Excuse us. Don't go anywhere."
Milward put their other hand over the rest of their face. Shonessy made a sputtering noise. Of course they weren't going to go anywhere. They wanted the heroic SecUnit to find their magic object.
So we're going to my room anyway. I unlocked the door for Ratthi and Gurathin, then closed it behind them.
There was not a lot of space in my room. The two of them sat on the bed, apparently assuming that I'd want the desk chair. Instead, I went and stood against the one clear piece of wall, looking at the framed artwork on the wall above their heads without really seeing it. That made things seem a little more normal.
Ratthi looked unbothered. In fact, he smiled at me. "You have fans!"
"You say that like it's a good thing," I said.
"I imagine SecUnit finds that as irritating as I do," said Gurathin. "Are we doing this?"
Ratthi shrugged. "It's mostly SecUnit who will have to do something," he said.
"Yes," I said, although it wasn't exactly a question. I started outlining tasks in my head but had to stop. "What exactly would we be agreeing to do?"
"That's a very good point," said Gurathin. "What exactly would we be doing, and why should we do it?"
"We — or SecUnit — would find out who removed that artifact from its case in the display hall in the middle of the day, and then figure out where they took it," said Ratthi, after a moment.
"There's a 92% chance that there are surveillance recordings of the room," I said. "Are we supposed to retrieve the object and return it to Aguadulse?"
"That's what they want," said Gurathin. "But why are we doing this? Given that there are surveillance recordings and that SecUnit can retrieve them, I don't imagine analysis would be a problem. But retrieving the item itself could be both difficult and dangerous, depending on who took it and where they stashed it."
Ratthi threw both hands into the air by his ears and let them fall back in his lap. I thought he looked exasperated. "We're doing it … to mess with a corporation!" he said. "Do we need more than that?"
"Be serious, Ratthi." Gurathin looked grim. "You and I might be arrested for supposed theft and trespassing, depending on how things went. But SecUnit could essentially be killed. To the Corporation Rim, it has no legal status as a being unless they want to make a show of cooperation."
"Would Dr. Mensa think this task was necessary?" I asked.
They both thought about it. "If it would help prevent another world from falling into corporate hands, wouldn't it be worth a risk?" asked Ratthi. "I think that's what she would say. Especially if it would allow another freehold entity to gain a world instead."
"It depends on how much risk this effort actually would take," said Gurathin. "I think we could accept the task of obtaining the surveillance material and analyzing it. If it has the answers we want, then we have another decision to make."
"I am willing to commit to that," I said.
"OK. Let's tell them, if they're still here," said Ratthi.
"They are," I said.
"Of course they are." Gurathin got up and opened the door to the common space. "We're in as far as trying to figure out who took it and what they did with it," he told the others, and then took up his previous station on the settee.
"That's good!" said Milward, their face brightening. (At least they'd put their hands down.)
"How long will it take?" asked Shonessy.
I went back into the common room and stood out of the way, calculating. "It might only take two or three hours. It might take more. I won't know until I have a look at the surveillance records situation."
"I can help you with the analysis," said Gurathin.
That was true. He was effective at that. "Good," I said.
"Tell you what, Dr. Milward," said Ratthi, from the doorway. "I can go with you two to the reception tonight. It starts in about 30 minutes. We can keep our ears and eyes open; maybe we'll learn something. And Dr. Gurathin and SecUnit can work on pulling the recordings and analyzing them. You'll walk me back here, you'll come in to finish some conversation we were having, and our team can tell you if they've found anything."
"You shouldn't be out without me," I said. "That's why I'm here. All three of you are vulnerable."
"There really isn't any choice," said Gurathin. "Besides, whichever corporate entity is behind this — and we don't really even know if that's who is behind the theft — they have what they want. Having Dr. Milward and Ms. Shonessy out in a public space wouldn't be much of a risk, with so many other attendees around."
"That's what Dr. Mensa thought," I pointed out.
"She went off on her own," answered Gurathin.
I looked at Ratthi, hard. "Don't do that. Stay with the Aguadulse team, Dr. Ratthi."
"Will do," he said, but his face looked more serious than his words sounded. He turned to our visitors. "Do you folks need to stop at your rooms before the reception?"
They looked at each other. "No, we're good," said Shonessy. They got up.
Ratthi patted his pockets, checking that everything was where he expected, and then led the way out of the suite.
I locked the door behind me, then checked my connection with Ratthi in the feed, making sure Gurathin was in the loop: You can absolutely ping me if you need me or find something of concern.
Yes, Mom, sent Ratthi. Gurathin snorted.
You're going to be pulling the data first, right? he sent. Is there a shared workspace where I'll find it?
I set one up and tapped him with the access for it. I should have something there for your analysis in five minutes.
Good. I'll get settled. He got up and started rummaging around in the refrigeration unit as I went into my room and shut the door.
I parked myself on the (mostly unused) bed and started feeling around in the feed. I didn't expect WenKamau station to have a really high level of security on their surveillance and monitoring systems, but to my surprise, things seemed to be as locked down much as any of the smaller and more remote Corporation Rim sites I'd hacked. Huh. Maybe TechInstitute Wenshan did security research work here or something. With that in mind, I quickly reviewed the code I had for the larger, more strategic stations I'd infiltrated before trying to go in again.
The review paid off. In seventy-one seconds, I was making friends with WKSecSys. And wow, the surveillance system was every bit as all-invasive as anything at those larger stations. I'd already fixed the surveillance inside our suite, as soon as we'd arrived, but now I did a similar job on the Aguadulse team's suite, and then fixed the surveillance camera system on the corridor segments for both locations.
WKSecSys was only too glad to let me have all the surveillance data for the exhibit hall. As I recalled from my own walk-through early, it was a large space, about 20,000 square meters in floor area, with eight entrances, including a large freight entry. I pulled all the data for the time period the Aguadulse team had indicated, between when they'd last checked their artifact and when they'd noticed it was missing. I subdivided the feeds by section of the room, labeling the areas containing the artifact's case and each entrance for priority attention, and dropped it into the shared workspace. Gurathin acknowledged that he had it.
While he got started on sifting through the exhibit hall data, I wondered where the Targets would have taken the item once they had it. If Aguadulse had reported the theft, a room by room search of the attendees might have happened. I located surveillance data for the entire housing block where the attendees were staying. But I might not end up using it. Point one: the Targets might be personnel resident on the station. Ratthi had explained "preprint" paper abstracts, and maybe agents on the station had arranged for the Aguadulse team to be invited to the conference specifically because of their research. Point two, it might be smarter for the Targets to hide the artifact elsewhere in the station or even off the station.
I starting checking information about ships that had brought conference attendees to the station. The conference registration data had included the ship names and public registry strings, so that took less than a second. But discovering whether any of those ships were still at dock meant a different security system. Fortunately that system's parameters were almost identical to those I'd hacked at other ports, and soon WKPortSys was my good friend as well. As I'd hoped, some of the ships that had brought attendees were still docked. But I was disappointed (although not surprised) to find that there were, in fact, six such ships. Yeah, I wasn't going to slip into and search that many ships in person.
Just about then, Gurathin dropped a flasher into the workspace for my attention. Good. I'd been wondering whether he was making any progress at all.
He had quite a large segment highlighted, and as I streamed it, I saw why it was so large. First, a small but heavy woman in slightly odd clothing, very attention-getting, tripped and flung a container of liquid against the pedestal under the artifact's case. She shrieked and flung her arms in the air. A security guard arrived from outside this section of surveillance recording and had a brief and heated conversation with her, mainly about the fact that she'd ignored the signage that warned attendees against bringing unsealed foods and beverages into the exhibit space. Odd Clothes Woman protested that she had to have her medicinal drink with her because otherwise she'd vomit. And she started behaving as though she was about to do that any second.
Another guard arrived, and Guard 1 had Guard 2 escort Odd Clothes Woman out the exit nearest to a public drinking water station (which would still charge a small sum for dispensing water). Then a team of two cleaning personnel arrived with a complicated-looking cart with lots of manual cleaning equipment and products. The cart had folded arms and various hatches. The cleaning team quickly unloaded a lot of stuff and set it up.
The equipment included a pop-up multi-section screen, a little more than two meters tall. And now the artifact and its case were hidden from the camera view, as was one of the cleaners and one end of the cart.
There was a lot of noise of spraying and then vacuuming. In about 115 seconds, the cleaning team started loading their equipment back into the cart, striking the screen as part of this process. In the next clear shot of the case, I could see that the case was empty, except for something small and white. At this point in the stream, Gurathin had set up a link to a separate small file, which was an enlarged and enhanced static view of this item. It was a sign, printed on card or possibly thin plex, that said "This specimen has been removed for precautionary examination."
I pinged Gurathin. The Aguadulse team never mentioned finding that sign.
No, they didn't, he responded. I was going to check the rest of the data to see whether the sign continued to be there until the Aguadulse team arrived to find the artifact gone. I've already flagged their arrival and the discovery, although I haven't gone over that in detail.
Do that. I'm going to try to get ID on the cleaner crew, and then see whether I can track them after they left the hall.
I needed a lot more surveillance data for this. It made sense to just grab all the data for the conference areas of the station, including the non-public sectors, rather than going in and out of its data store multiple times for little pieces as I figured out where the "cleaners" had gone after their action in the exhibit hall. But at least I already knew how to get what I needed. Soon enough, I had the huge data blob. The ID information was a lot easier. Using the data segment Gurathin had highlighted, I put together enhanced composite images of the two Targets' faces. Then I simply ran that against the file of conference attendees' faces, which included conference personnel as well. Soon I had two IDs: Amice Noquera and Morandi (one name only), both of SynTecticaLabs, a corporate sub-entity of corporation ResourScion out of SydelJanDaarse.
I isolated the smaller data set of conference attendees and dropped it into the workspace, with the ID information and instructions for Gurathin to find out their housing location and if available, their ship ID. Gurathin acknowledged it, then added: I'll have something about that card soon-ish.
Good. I buried myself in the boring detail work of tracking Noquera and Morandi through the corridors of the conference area. After I'd followed them from one of the public exits to the exhibit hall, they'd rolled their cart down the public hallways for a couple of hundred meters, then turned into a short hall with a door at the end marked "Maintenance Crew Only." They opened it with a keypass and rolled the cart inside. Not surprisingly, the space was cavernous but relatively low-ceilinged and irregular in shape. It was filled with blocks of shelving loaded with maintenance supplies, interrupted by blocks of spare furniture and equipment tethered to the floor in case of station gravity instability. The crew took their cart down an aisle that ended in a selection of sinks and water hoses attached to wall taps.
For a few moments they continued their roles as cleaning staff, flushing out the cart's waste fluid tank and putting the vacuum nozzles and hoses into a washing system. Then they had a conversation.
Gurathin pinged me at that point. The SynTecticaLabs personnel are in Room 441, Block B of the visitor housing sector. They are set to check out midday after the closing session of the conference, which is tomorrow evening. They have reserved a meeting room for the morning before their checkout. They are associated with the transport Baminisata.
I checked my ship list. Yeah, Baminisata was on it, out of SydelJanDaarse station, headquarters of ResourScion. Listen to this, I said. This is after they stowed that cart in a maintenance facility.
Noquera: Where're you going to isolate that thing?
Morandi: I can get it onto the ship. I made sure the safe was big enough, and I 'forgot' some data cards that I need for the business meeting just before we pull out.
Noquera: You need to get it out of here. Those hick researchers may decide to go to security, and I don't want them finding it in our space.
Morandi: I already arranged to go, early evening. It took some emo blackmail to get a shuttle, but it's all set.
Noquera: You shameless [crude word].
Morandi: Yeah, whatever works!
There was a pause of nearly thirty seconds. Then Gurathin responded: Can you confirm that someone went out to that ship this evening?
I can try. I have access to the port security system now. Weren't you going to tell me what happened about that sign in the display case?
Sorry.
Huh. Gurathin was usually very detail oriented: it wasn't like him to have forgotten the sign issue. I started sifting through the data that WKPortSys was happy to send me about activity at the port this evening. Yes, there was a record of a courtesy shuttle bringing passenger Morandi to the Baminisata three hours ago and returning fifty minutes later.
Gurathin pinged me again. He'd put together a series of images, spanning a very brief time period shortly before the Aguadulse team had returned to the hall to take a last look at their exhibit before the hall closed for the evening. First the card was there, perched on the little plex stand where the artifact had been. Then, over the course of seconds, it had started to buckle and fade. Soon there was nothing but some fine dust, barely visible in the enlarged video image. And then there was nothing but the little stand.
I need to see you in person said Gurathin.
My room door signal buzzed not five seconds later, before I had a chance to decide how to respond. I opened it, of course. He was my client, in a way. The science officer in Sanctuary Moon had once stated "Old habits die hard."
Gurathin looked like he needed to go to sleep; tired humans make bad decisions. He proved this by stating "You're not going out there alone."
"Dr. Gurathin, I have done many missions like this, including several for Preservation. You haven't."
"I seem to recall manually overriding a security barrier at TranRollinHyfa in time to allow you to escape with us, while chaos was erupting around me," he said. His mouth was one hard line when he stopped talking.
I wanted to tell him that his solid skills with electro-mechnical systems were unlikely to be needed, but maybe that wasn't true. "I need to verify something," I said, and dropped back into dataspace.
WKPortSys had more information than I'd ever need about the various systems involved in launching and retrieving cargo pods, which was how I intended to get to the Baminisata tonight. And yeah, there were indeed some electro-mechnical systems involved, and maybe I might need someone on the port side to lock or unlock something at some point, if my plans didn't survive contact with events.
Maybe.
Make a decision, Murderbot.
"Fine. You're going. You're going to listen and follow directions, unless things get so messed up that I can't send you any directions. I'm dropping you a manual on some systems you might need to override and use."
He looked really relieved, and then his eyes went unfocussed as he pulled down the manual and started scanning it. I dragged my bag out of one of the under-bed stowage compartments and rummaged for the personals kit I didn't need. Inside it was a disguised small energy weapon. "You finally took that training," I said, handing it to him.
He blinked as he came back to me. "Yes. It seemed necessary."
"It's just a stunner. If you don't hit anyone with compromised cardiac function, there won't be a problem."
"So I understand," he said. He checked the weapon, presumably making sure it was in disabled state, and tucked it into a pocket.
The door to the suite chimed gently, signaling a legitimate access by a member of our party. It was Ratthi with the Aguadulse team. "They insisted on escorting me back," he said. "It wasn't even like I had anything intoxicating to drink."
"Dr. Milward did," said Shonessy. She sounded like the useless aide in Episode 221 of Sanctuary Moon, the one who always thought she knew the best way to do everything. She was eaten by a giant plant at the end of the episode.
"I can handle one drink, Karlin," said her professor.
"Your mentor is fine," said Ratthi. "How was you guys' evening?"
"We have a solid lead," I said. "The Aguadulse should go back to their quarters. I hardened the security in their suite so that no one should be monitoring you, but it's still probably a good idea to be cautious in what you discuss."
Milward's expression sharpened and brightened.
"How long do we have to wait?" asked Shonessy.
"Maybe until morning," said Gurathin.
"You can send them a keyword coded message, right?" suggested Ratthi. "That way, even if something goes wrong with the security hack, we could communicate. Like, if you get the artifact back, you could send a message suggesting we meet for breakfast. And if not, you could say I'm not feeling well enough for breakfast."
That made a lot of sense. Sometimes it's easy to forget that Ratthi is actually very smart. "Yes. We will do that."
"Goodnight!" said Ratthi, and they left.
Ratthi stopped smiling and looked at us. "What did you find out?"
"A couple of conference attendees disguised as cleaning staff came in to clean up a well-time beverage spill on the base of the artifact's case," said Gurathin. "They put up a physical screen that hid the cleaning operation. When they were finished and took down the screen, all that remained was a small card that said the item had been removed for evaluation."
"What? Dr. Milward didn't say anything about a card!" said Ratthi
We went over what we'd learned about the situation, including the self-destroying card, the connection of the agents to ResourScion Corporation, and what they'd done with the artifact. "Gurathin and I are about to go down to the docks. I have a plan to get onto the Baminisata, the ship that they're scheduled to leave on the day after the conference ends."
"I'n not feeling so great about staying here while you do that," said Ratthi.
"The more of us who go, the harder it is to be undetected," I said. "Dr. Gurathin has convinced me that he might be useful on the dockside when I transfer to the ship. What would you do, if you came with us?"
Ratthi winced. "Probably trip and set off alarms. Fine, fine. Just get yourselves back in one piece."
I grabbed two hooded jerseys from my baggage and pressed one on Gurathin as we left the suite. "What is this?" he protested. "I'm not cold."
"It breaks up your outline and makes you harder identify," I said. "We're not immediately escaping after this action. I can handle surveillance recordings, but I can't do much about humans' memories, if someone spots us where we're not supposed to be."
Hr was grumbling as he pulled it over his head. I started my code to erase us from the recordings of the corridors as we walked by. I had my bag, with my projectile weapon and other bits and pieces that might be useful, depending on what we encountered. Also I could put the artifact into it. Gurathin had his tool kit, which was now covered by the jersey (it was big on him).
"Break a leg," said Ratthi. as I closed the suite door behind us.
What was that he said? I asked Gurathin, in the feed.
Old, old expression. It's said instead of 'good luck' in the hopes of averting bad luck by welcoming its existence.
Humans are so weird.
We left the public part of the conference housing section via a Maintenance Crew Only door at the end of a stub corridor beyond a vending facility. According to the station plans, this eventually joined up with the port's maintenance area. A couple of times, we had to duck behind shelving units or large pieces of equipment to avoid actual maintenance crew going about their urgent business while most of the station slept.
Finally, we got to my first planned destination. Large and larger crates were stacked on tracked shelving, the rails of which converged at an airlocked hatch. I gestured Gurathin to stop, then pulled some code I'd arranged while sifting through the station surveillance feeds earlier.
Gurathin prodded me in the feed. What's this? What are we doing?
Setting up my ride to the Baminisata. This warehouse has basic supplies for outgoing ships. I’m going to arrange for them to have a couple more crates of matter processor feedstock. Plus one unlisted SecUnit.
Mechanisms were engaging around us. Then they paused.
The next part is your job, I sent. We're going to the docks, and we'll need to be very cautious. Look between my shoulders.
I'd attached and lit a tiny luminous marker on the back of my jersey. You can follow that when I disable the dockside lighting.
Gurathin grunted, but quietly. I led the way to the dockside exit.
The docks were pitch black dark, except for a few static emergency markers. I followed the diagram of the area to a large booth that was clear, vacuum-proof plex from 1.5 meters up. I released the locked door and drew Gurathin inside. I brought up the lights on the control panels slowly.
Good enough, sent Gurathin, when he could see them clearly. He was looking over the control options, clearly recognizing many of them from the manual. Yeah, that was something I actually liked about Gurathin. He was smart.
See the grapple releases for the current item leading the cargo queue? I asked.
Indeed. He indicated it.
On my signal, I sent. Duck down under the wall panels when you're not activating controls; otherwise you're silhouetted in the light from the controls.
He twitched, then slid to the floor. I left him to it and headed back to the warehouse. On my way, I checked my surveillance feeds. No one seemed to have noticed anything we were doing.
There was a locker of "one size fits most" vacuum suits on one wall, in case the airlock mis-functioned. I slipped one on, then checked that the cargo shuttle was in place outside of the airlock. and double-checked that its primitive bot pilot still had orders to deliver the crate to the Baminisata. It was Go on both, so I went to where my crate was poised in the cargo-handling grapples at the loading door. I had to override the lock on the lid to climb inside and then draw the lid shut and re-lock it.
I tapped Gurathin in the feed: Ready. Release grapples.
Acknowledged, and done.
I felt the vibrations as the mechanisms released the crate, then saw in the feed the status of the airlock's inner doors change to open. The airlock cycled, and the crate shifted on the continuation of the rails until it was snagged by the shuttle's grapples. The bot pilot had a code sequence for handling the crate, and when the vibrations stopped, it was locked in place within the shuttle's cargo hold. This space took up 80% of the entire little ship.
I used the brief transit to the Baminisata to make friends with the shuttle's simple, friendly bot pilot. I was fetching an item that a passenger needed from cabin 8. There was no need to worry anybody else about this, I had it under control. ShuttlePilotSys agreed to everything. Sadly, it had no way to ingest media.
The cargo shuttle arrived at the Baminisata's matching cargo hatch, was grappled, and accepted the crate. This pilot bot was much more sophisticated than the shuttle. I had to spend a few minutes negotiating with it to convince it I was authorized to extract something from cabinet 8 and here, have some fresh media. While it was busy with that, I made sure I'd be able to erase my presence from its surveillance records. When that was handled, I switched back to ShuttlePilotSys and made sure I had a return ride.
Then I felt free to unlock the crate and climb out into the Baminisata's cargo hold. I had the ship's deck plans and security zone status report, freshly extracted, and it was trivial to find Morandi's cabin. This was a fairly new ship: things smelled OK, and almost everything was clean and unscratched. I was not surprised, then, that the lock on the safe in the cabin was fairly complex. It took me two minutes and 17 seconds to crack it. Inside was a rather messy package of padded shipping material. I placed it on the desk and carefully unwrapped it. As far as I could tell, the item inside was the Aguadulse artifact.
I thought for a moment. Then I wrapped it up roughly and placed it into my bag. I went to a supply cabinet I remembered passing and checked its contents. I pulled out a power source of roughly the size of the artifact, some plain cleaning wipes, and a small reel of repair tape. Back in the cabin, I opened up the artifact's wrapping again and repackaged it with my scrounged wipes and tape. Then I carefully wrapped up the power source in the artifact's wrappings, attempting to make it look as much as the original package as possible. I tucked it into the safe, put everything to rights, and went back to the cargo hold.
At this point, the return trip in the empty crate via the cargo shuttle felt routine — until Gurathin tapped for my attention in the feed.
SecUnit, I see the dock lights coming on, one after the other, toward the booth as though someone's coming.
Stay down, I answered. You already engaged the grapples, so you don't need to be actually at the controls. I'm coming through the dock cargo airlock now.
Fuck. An actual watchman wasn't in any of the security material I'd pulled. Time slowed to a crawl as grapples released, other grapples closed, and the supposedly empty crate rumbled to a stop on the tracks. I unlocked the crate and slipped out. The warehouse facility was quiet around me. I got myself out of there and ran for the dock control booth as quietly as I could.
There were lights on around the booth. The one good thing about the situation is that meant that the booth itself looked dark. A voice was saying, "Come on, get up. I don't know who you are … ."
I came around the side of the booth. The person who stood there, back to me, looked like a human in light body armor. They were holding a small energy weapon pointed at the floor of the booth. My enhanced vision could make out Gurathin slumped on the floor. I tapped his feed. I'm right here. Stay down.
He did stay down, but he opened his eyes. It was really obvious to me, and apparently to the newcomer too. There was the spit and sizzle of an energy weapon, and a gasp of pain from Gurathin.
So I shot the jerk.
I used both my arm-mounted energy weapons, and I aimed to incapacitate rather than kill. Then I leapt to the stranger's side and put them under for real with arterial pressure.
It was a woman, with a strong build, pale skin, and light brown very short hair. She was wearing the uniform of the security firm I'd noticed around the non-conference areas of the station, and her name tag read Derichs. Her breathing was a little short, but her pulse was OK.
Gurathin was curled on his side, breathing in gasps. Where did it hit you? I sent.
Upper chest, near my right shoulder.
His breathing was already starting to settle. I checked, and his pulse was strong. I'm carrying you out of here.
Gurathin shifted around a little on the floor, settling into a more natural position on his back, knees up. It would also be easier to pick him up now. His face was twisted in pain. As you wish, he sent.
Wasn't that a line from some entertainment? I shook my head and picked him up.
I turned all the lights out around us. I didn't see any lights along the entire dock, so no one was coming for Derichs yet. I scrubbed all records of us and this incident from the surveillance feeds, letting it end where Derichs stopped and cocked her head, as if hearing something. I left the control booth with Gurathin in my arms, locked its door from the feed, and went back into the warehouse facility. We should be good from this point, until we had to go out into the public spaces again. As I headed into the irregular series of corridors and maintenance facilities, I noticed a first aid kit attached to a wall. I set Gurathin down carefully.
What are we doing? he sent.
There's a first aid kit. It might have some diagnostics, and at least I can get you started on pain killers.
The kit did have a diagnostics unit. It told me about what I expected, and basic first aid for a client shot by an energy weapon was something I actually had instructions for. I worked the hooded jersey off Gurathin, wadded it up, and put it beneath his head. I gave him the painkiller tablets and the little bottle of drinking water. Then I carefully pulled up the other jersey he had been wearing earlier and delicately placed an analgesic dressing over the burn from the energy strike. He let his breath in a hiss. Sorry, he sent.
Pain? I don't think there's anything else in here I can use on you, but the pills should start working soon.
The dressing is helping. But it was cold and very unpleasant at first.
As long as we were stopped for the moment, I stripped off the vacuum suit and ditched it behind some shelving. Then I looked at the rest of the stuff in the first aid kit for a moment. Finally I just took it all and put it in my bag. Then I carefully removed the wadded jersey from under Gurathin's head and spread it over the medical supplies before closing the bag. I considered closing up the first aid kit's wall box, but in the end, I left it hanging open, obviously empty. I picked up Gurathin again and continued our journey.
Shouldn't you close it? asked Gurathin, in the feed.
It would be pretty rotten if someone got hurt working back here, and her coworkers opened the kit, and there was nothing there.
Gurathin didn't respond until we were almost at the door into the housing block. Then he sent, You're a good person, SecUnit.
I'm not a person.
We'll just have to agree to disagree about that.
I stopped at the door and reviewed what I knew of the corridors beyond. Can you walk the 116 meters to our suite?
I think so.
I set him on his feet and unlocked the door, then put one arm around him, doing my best to avoid the injury. If someone asks why I'm holding you up, can you act intoxicated?
I'll do my best.
We stepped into the corridor beyond, brightly lit, carpeted, warm, quiet, and most important, empty. I started us off in the right direction. We had only one encounter, with a thin, stooped older woman going the other direction who stopped, puzzled. Gurathin made a retching noise, and I said "Hang on, Jin. We're almost at our suite."
The woman shook her head and said "I always tell my students not to go overboard at the parties at these things. Poor kid, you'll have a hell of a headache tomorrow."
She sounded sympathetic and not suspicious at all. "Thanks," I said.
And then we did reach our suite. Ratthi opened the door for us. His mouth fell open when he saw Gurathin, but he didn't say anything until we were inside and the outer door was closed and locked. "What happened?" he asked then.
"I'd left him in the dockside control booth while I went to the ship. Just as I was getting back, he was discovered by a human security guard, who shot him with an energy weapon."
"Is he going to be OK?"
"I'll survive, Ratthi," said Gurathin. "SecUnit found a first aid kit and started treatment."
Ratthi seemed surprised that Gurathin was conscious. I guess he was really worried. "Is there something else we can do for you?" he asked Gurathin.
"I'd really like to be horizontal, actually," said Gurathin.
"Oh. Oh!" said Ratthi, and went into their room and turned back the covers on Gurathin's bed. I helped Gurathin in and eased him down on the bed. Ratthi started taking off Gurathin's shoes, so I went out and unpacked my bag onto the table in the common area. I sorted out the remaining dressings, pain meds, and anything else that was useful. Then I put the rest of the stuff back into my bag and transferred the artifact bundle to the safe in my room.
Gurathin was in bed when I looked in on him, his eyes closed, with Ratthi sitting on his own bed, a worried expression on his face. The lights had been turned down. I showed Ratthi the pills and bandages. "He can have more of these painkillers in four hours. There are enough for two more doses. The medical information in the feed says the dressing should be changed in 11 hours. Here are three more of them."
"There's really nothing else we can do?"
"If we were somewhere safer, a medic should check him, but he's young and healthy. Usually all someone needs is rest and painkillers after being struck by a energy weapon of that kind. The principal effects are very short-term."
"What about when we run out of painkillers and dressings?"
"I have some normal analgesic pills, for headaches," said Gurathin. "That should be enough, I imagine. And one of you can go into the station tomorrow and buy some more dressings at a pharmacy."
"Oh, right," said Ratthi. He seemed to be calming down. "Good job getting the artifact," he said. "Where is it?"
"Locked in the safe in my room. You need to send a message to the Aguadulse team."
"Oh yeah! But will Gurathin be well enough for breakfast?"
"I don't think I want to go anywhere tomorrow," said Gurathin. "When they come by, let's tell them that I have a bad reaction to something I ate."
"Good," I said. "Ratthi, when you suggest breakfast in your message, also tell them that you have the material they asked about. Then bring them with you when you come back from breakfast, and we can hand them their item."
"I can do that," said Ratthi. "If they don't bring anything to put it in, I picked up a bunch of souvenir satchels and things."
"I want to try to sleep now," said Gurathin.
"I'll put in an order for some bland food for you for breakfast," said Ratthi.
"Great idea," said Gurathin. "Good night."
Ratthi came out and shut the door. He put his interface on, ready to message the Aguadulse team, then looked at me. "That wasn't easy, was it?"
"It was a task well within my capabilities."
"I mean the stuff with the guard, and with Gurathin being injured. What did you do to the guard?"
"Shot her with my own energy weapon, then put her out properly and left her there. Someone will find her eventually, when she doesn't check in."
"Wow. OK."
"Nothing in my intelligence had shown anything but automated security measures there. I was not expecting a human opponent."
"That must have been rough," he said. But he'd turned his face away, so I was able to have my Emotion without him watching. I knew he'd turned away on purpose. Ratthi is like that.
"I'm going to my room," I said, when I was finished.
He looked back at me and smiled. "Good night, SecUnit."
The next morning, Gurathin slept through the arrival of his meal, but his pulse and breathing seemed fine. Ratthi pointed out that he'd only been sleeping for five hours, so we left him asleep. I put his food into the cooler. The Aguadulse team arrived to pick up Ratthi for breakfast, looking like they were trying hard to not to smile too much. Later, they walked him back and picked up their artifact. Ratthi checked in with Gurathin, looked slightly worried that he was still asleep, then went off to give his own presentation on his observations from Unnamed Survey World 1.
The suite seemed very quiet after he was gone. I went to sit with Gurathin, pulling up their room's single chair. In his sleep, the lines of pain had smoothed out, and his mouth was softer. If I had somehow figured out that security guards occasionally patrolled the docks, I could have kept him safe in the warehouse, even if it would have mean slight delays in getting the cargo shuttle grappled to. I put one of my hands next to him, on the bed, feeling his living warmth, and had Emotions for while.
I didn't realize that Gurathin had awakened again until he said "Why are you making that face?"
I snatched my hand back and turned my face away. "Shut up," I said. "Just stop talking. Go back to sleep."
"I think I need some more painkillers."
Of course, he was hours off his next dose. "Here they are. You need some water." I fetched a glass for him.
He took the pills and laid back again. I resumed my post in the chair.
He looked at me for a few seconds, which felt much longer than that. Finally, he said, "You don't need to sit there."
"Yes. I do."
He smiled, so faintly and briefly that I barely saw it. Then he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
The Aguadulse team and their artifact took an early departure that evening, as soon as the scientific part of the meeting ended. Ratthi was so anxious to learn whether they'd successfully started home that he skipped the closing session and the reception afterward. I tracked the system traffic feed for him, and we were all relieved when the report came in that their transport had made it into the local wormhole. He and Gurathin, who was feeling a lot better after all the sleeping he'd done, had supper in our suite.
The next morning, we checked out of the guest housing. Gurathin and Ratthi had breakfast at the cafe by the docks, while I sat with them and pretended to be nursing a cup of tea. In reality, I was tracking the SynTecticaLabs personnel, who were having their morning meeting. We boarded our transport before the meeting was over.
I pulled down a last blob of station security data as our ship was doing its final lockdown before departure. I found two items in it that I shared with Ratthi and Gurathin:
Security Officer Tissho Derichs, who was discovered unconscious in the control room of Station Cargo Dock #3 at 0700 hours yesterday, has regained consciousness but only recalls that she thought she saw someone slumped on the floor of the control room. However, surveillance records do not show any evidence of this. Her weapon was discharged, so it is thought that she had a blackout and inadvertently shot herself. She is recovering in WenKamau Hospital and will undergo further medical testing as soon as it seems prudent.
A wall-mounted medical kit was found open and empty in Maintenance Facility 0400-BZD. Staff are urged not to extract medical supplies from station emergency first aid kits for non-reported injuries. Removal of such supplies for non-duty use is against regulations and punishable by fines and possible demotion.
"Oh no," murmured Gurathin. "Not possible demotion."
But mostly we just sat and fidgeted, until the Millotronic made transit into the wormhole back to Preservation.