Lee left it to the hotel to show the Earthies to their rooms and suggested as it was late that they meet for dinner tomorrow and to talk at the fifteenth hour. When that got a raised eyebrow, she explained Derf ran on a twenty-hour day and suggested they get a local clock program for their pads that would display the time and allow them to set alarms.
The room was oddly proportioned. The ceilings were high and the doors sized for Derf. The shower stall was big enough to be a water park for a family of four, and a tag on the showerhead said it was the Human version. Why? Water was water, wasn’t it? The toilet had an adapter for humans that covered two-thirds of the opening. A second door turned out to be a connector to the next room, but it was lockable so that didn’t matter. Kamala didn’t explore the small balcony just yet. There was a real Human bed with a mattress and regular sheets and pillows. It would do just fine.
There was a com desk that seemed modern. Kamala was pleased she could access the local net on her pad without any fuss through the hotel. She didn’t have to use their screen. Wider mobile data service would require a day rate or weekly subscription and the cost made her grimace. She needed a currency conversion program too and alerts so her expenses didn’t get out of hand. The government could afford it but indifference to running up extravagant costs was one of those things that could come back to haunt you years later. Kamala had ambitions of advancing to a level where such things were scrutinized.
Jean sent her a message before she could get those basic things done or even unpack her very light single bag.
“Can we talk privately?” he requested.
“They took me to the very next room,” Kamala told him. “I’m not terribly concerned about propriety to have you visit my room midday. There are two doors connecting our rooms, with a gap and sound deadeners on the insides if you want to open yours.”
“That’s fine. I’ll check that out right now,” Jean agreed.
Jean already had his door open when Kamala opened hers.
“This place is built like a fort,” Jean said. “Look how thick the walls are.”
“How nice. It should be possible to sleep without your neighbor keeping you awake all night. I suspect the Derf have good hearing. They have ears like a fox.”
“I’m more concerned the walls have ears,” Jean said.
“You really think they would bother to bug us?” Kamala seemed dubious.
“I always assume all foreigners are monitored in a foreign land.”
“They have a restaurant if you want to go get a drink and maybe a snack. It’s a long time to breakfast local time and I’m hungry. Surely, they won’t bug all the public areas. The noise alone would make it difficult. Truth is I don’t think I have anything to say I couldn’t put on the public net,” Kamala said.
“I’d still expect to be debriefed when I return home,” Jean said.
Kamala started to say something and closed her mouth.
“To the restaurant,” she insisted.
She started to close the door but Jean blocked it with his foot. She took that as a very unfriendly action and took a half step back, not in fear but to give her room to set up a strike if he moved against her. She was smaller and knew her legs were much stronger weapons than her hands and arms. The way she turned slightly and braced off her back foot told Jean he was in trouble quickly if he didn’t explain.
“I don’t want to exit your room with you and I don’t want to leave my connecting door open from my side. I’ll join you in the hall,” he promised.
Kamala nodded agreement but didn’t drop her guard until his door was closed and she heard the bolt slide home. She did the same then and joined him in the corridor.
Jean expected her to try to converse in the hallway or on the elevator down to the first floor. Instead, she was entirely silent and appeared to have dropped the guarded stance she displayed at the door. She walked closely beside him not trying to hang back at all.
The greeter at the restaurant spoke to them in English. He got menus and headed for the favored window tables with a view. He was briefly surprised when Jean asked to be seated at one of the tables by the kitchen doors but altered course and sat them there.
“You want the kitchen noise?” Kamala guessed.
“That and these are always the less favored tables. If any are bugged, they are the least likely candidates. Unless they have them all bugged,” he added suspiciously.
“You are a spy,” Kamala said not bothering to hide her irritation.
“And you were doing those fancy steps back at your room getting ready to show me an Indian folk dance,” Jean accused.
“I’d have tap-danced all over your pretty face,” Kamala assured him. “I saw you telegraphing a block. I can assure you we follow different disciplines. You would have been surprised as you fell because I targeted the knee opposite your expectations. But I’m not trained as an agent. I’m trained as a young girl who my mother wanted to be safe to go visit the market or deal with the spice seller for the household.”
“Grew up in a rough neighborhood?” Jean asked.
“I grew up in an area with three overlapping cultures, none of which respect women.”
“I’m fully representing France’s commercial interests,” Jean insisted. “I’ll report back to the Minister and hopefully we’ll avoid the stagnation the North Americans will experience.”
“After you report to your real boss,” Kamala insisted. “Not that I care. I have worked in the trade office my whole career, not a spook agency. If I’m debriefed by our intelligence people when we return it won’t surprise me. It has happened a couple of times in the past and they had questions that didn’t make any sense to me at all. It’s just our priorities are different.”
“You and your intelligence debriefers or you and me?” Jean asked.
“Yes,” Kamala said.
Jean relaxed a little and laughed at her honesty.
“If we leave it at that, then I see no reason we can’t each do our job and it will never really matter in what order we make our reports when we go back home.”
“Agreed, as long as you don’t try to recruit me to do something stupid or jeopardize my mission by my being with you,” Kamala said. “Screw my side of it up and you’ll rue ever meeting me,” she promised.
Jean looked amused and tried to laugh it off but she was humorless.
The waiter shook his head no when Jean tried to order in French, then took their order easily in English. A corned beef sandwich on rye for him after soup and a plate of petite tenderloin morsels with scrambled eggs for her. They shared a pot of coffee that was surprisingly good.
When the busboy came to clean up after them, he never noticed the steak knife she’d used was missing. There was a whole bin of them and nobody kept count.
* * *
Jeff and April sat down with Lee in her suite early. It was past breakfast but Lee had coffee and pastries for them. They had things to talk over before the Earthies joined them later. They should have enough time to get their systems on the same clock and not be lagged too badly. Sally from the bank would be arriving about the same time too. Other than discussing policy, Lee intended to hand them off to Sally for her to explain the nuts and bolts of the Exploration Society Protection Registry. That would include actual forms for them to take home and publish for explorers to be familiar with them and decide if they wished to use them.
“Did you have any guests left last night?” Lee asked.
“No, you called that. The serving carts were gone and Strangelove even got the extra seating removed. He told us what you said about tossing a blanket over any stragglers. It seemed to amuse him,” Jeff said.
“I don’t think Derf are into private parties much,” Lee said. “But I’m given to understand they cut loose when they have big festivals with multiple clans together. He probably thinks we are pretty tame.”
“I’ll take that as a challenge to shock him in the future,” April said.
“Where is Strangelove?” Lee asked since he stayed so close to Jeff. I got him to promise Clarke to help us later after he did such a good job for you.”
“He said he’s checking surveillance of the hotel after he made sure Jeff wasn’t going out. So, he must not be far,” April said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s giving the Earthies some special attention.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Lee said. “If we get a lot of Earth explorers using our registry, I might have to send a clerk to Central and have an office there where they can file claims and have a local net site that lists all the registered claims to aid developing them.”
“That makes sense, Jeff agreed. “You should be happy to know I’ve decided I’m going to recommend to Heather that Central start using your registry to claim some of the systems and resources we are utilizing close to Human space,” April said. “Not our populated worlds but sources of mining and the systems most likely to be waypoints along routes from Earth to our worlds.”
“That would be welcome. Would you explain what moved you to do that?” Lee asked.
“This registry is a good thing. At the moment, we don’t need it terribly. But after examining your claims documents we saw that we don’t have to open a system up to anyone who wants to bid on using it. We can claim it and keep it closed off for our private use indefinitely. The fact there are claims in Central’s name alone will be supportive. It should encourage others to use the registry. The filing fee isn’t that much compared to opening up a claim to development, but it’s still a little something to support your organization.”
“It will help pay Sally and our rent. We have offices and a clerk to help her now. It sounds like you intend to register enough to be substantially helpful,” Lee said.
“We’d like to help another way,” Jeff said. “Rather than direct your energies to produce jump drives I’d propose you let Central manufacture them for you. At least right now while you have other irons in the fire. You’d still have all the design details to make them yourself if you aren’t happy with our service. But our ships would share all the same drive dimensions, connectors, and mounting points. It should make things much simpler in the future to have one standard.
“Heather has sufficient materials and fabricating capacity to make a little something on each one and still make them cheaper than you could starting from scratch. We need a lot of them so we’ll be gearing up for large volumes. Just replacing the jump drones we’ve lost is critical for us. We lost material it took us years to build up. In my estimation, the facilities at Central are more secure than a plant on Derfhome.”
“The security aspect is a plus for both of us,” Lee agreed. “My guys have had to go to a lot of trouble to spread the work around to maintain security. Building our own plant is the only way we could do any serious volume. Other than, as you say, the little something you stand to make, what else is an advantage for Central?”
“We were hoping you could spend the saved time and coin on improving the design of your reactionless drive. We’d love to see it ready to deploy in ships. I have a fellow in mind, Walter Houghton, who I think would be an asset to work with your researchers to improve that drive,” Jeff said. “I can probably persuade Heather to assign him here. When she hears about the new drive, I’m sure she’ll be very enthused. You wouldn’t even have to pay him. Heather already carries him on the payroll.”
“It’s taking me some time to get everything ready to repossess Providence. I don’t think I want to wait until the Sharp Claws and Retribution can be refitted with new drives. That’s going to be expensive and a lot harder than my Kurofune. Why don’t we take the Kurofune to the Moon with my aircar grappled to my lock to show Heather? We can see if your man wants to come back and if Heather will let him go. With the new drive, it can be a day trip.”
“You have the new mount ready this fast?” Jeff wondered.
“No, but I can send the drive back up and leave it mounted in lunar orbit,” Lee said.
“A ride in the Twool would go a long way towards recruiting Walter,” Jeff predicted. “You can haul it around by only the docking collar without damaging anything?”
“Yes, Alonso was told to design that in at the start and he used the lightest advanced composites unless the prices were just ridiculous. That’s why the next version is going to be even better. The price of new advanced materials drops off month by month. In a year he’ll be able to make an equivalent airframe a couple of hundred kilograms lighter.”
“If you don’t mind discussing it, what sort of power source are you using in the Twool?” Jeff asked. “I can’t believe the normal sort of commercial batteries would be sufficient and you didn’t ask us for a fusion generator or the sort of solid-state storage we use.”
“New Japan has a fusion generator for sale now with much better energy density than a polywell reactor. They’re not cheap but they come in convenient sizes and no begging to buy them. I hate to depend on you for everything,” Lee said.
That didn’t seem to upset Jeff at all.
Strangelove returned and peeked in on them but retreated to the living room to do whatever he was up to.
“What sort of tech is it? Do you have any specs on it?”
“It’s a sintered metal shell with bucky tubes all over it in a high-pressure deuterium environment. It runs hot and the power is generated inside the core with thermo-electric modules. If you don’t let it idle using enough fuel to maintain temperature it takes a few minutes to heat up and come online,” Lee said.
“Very nice,” Jeff said. “Several technologies had to independently mature enough to let them build that by bringing them all together. That’s pretty much how I make things but no one human has time to keep up with the literature in one field much less two or three. It makes it very difficult to develop cross-discipline advances.”
“I thought you might be upset that it’s competition for your devices,” Lee said.
“There’s no point in that,” Jeff said with a shrug. “We’ve guarded the details of our fusion generator to use it to our advantage. After I find out more about the New Japan unit, I may feel it opens the door to offering ours commercially on a wider basis. It comes up off a hard shutdown faster. That may be vital to some users. Having alternatives in the market may allow us to make some money off the design if there is no point in keeping it secret.
“It’s always nice to make a little bit,” April agreed.
“Do you use batteries to bring the unit up to operating temperature?” Jeff asked.
“Yes, and it takes a good chunk of their capacity,” Lee said.
“As our ally, I’d sell you some high-density storage large enough to allow you to lift off without delay and bring up the reactor at your leisure,” Jeff said. “It is still proprietary so you’d have to trust it as a black box. It will self-destruct if you try to take it apart. With this particular device, the problem would be to open it up without making it release the stored energy. It doesn’t take any elaborate booby-trapping at all. We’ve felt much freer to sell them in devices for just that reason.”
“How much would this weigh?” Lee wondered.
“Figure three or four kilograms for the whole thing, in a protective case with bus bar connections suitable to an aircar. It’s what we use in our pistols,” he said, patting his.
“It must be pretty safe if you carry one around at your waist. The next generation aircar is going to be so light we’ll have to leave the pods pushing it into the pavement to keep it from blowing away,” Lee said.
Jeff smiled at the slight exaggeration.
The house announced Sally was downstairs and ready to come up. Lee told it to admit her to the elevator. Strangelove came in from the living room and took up his station against the wall behind Jeff since an outsider was coming in.
“I’ll call and have my drive taken up to the Kurofune,” Lee said finalizing it before Sally arrived.
“My man Clarke is observing in the kitchens and will come up with the food to fix drinks and serve us,” Strangelove told them. Lee hadn’t requested a second server for six people and Strangelove hadn’t suggested it.
The last time Jeff and April saw Sally she was barely into her first Life Extension Therapy. She’d finished that and had had two follow-ups now. Instead of a woman in her early nineties, she looked like a very healthy forty-year-old.
“Are you ready for a show and tell?” Lee asked her.
“Yes, I have hard copies and attached data cards.” She frowned at Jeff and April, struck by a sudden thought. “Should I have brought copies for these two?”
“Not at all,” Jeff assured her. “We’ve examined your material on the local net and were just telling Lee we’ll be registering claims.”
“That’s good. We just got the first claim made remotely yesterday,” Sally said, directing this at Lee. “The relay drone came in from Fargone and had a package with all the data about the claim and the fee for the Fargone ship Magic Cat.”
“The Fargoer’s can be as strange naming their ships as their children,” Lee said.
“And yet I bet they don’t have a single little Hringhorni Jr. running around,” April said.
“And one of them will take that bet because they are nuts that way too,” Lee predicted.
The house computer announced the Earthies were waiting. Lee let them come up and told the hotel kitchen to serve them in a half-hour.
The Indian woman, Kamala, stepped out of the elevator and started straight for them even before Lee waved her over. The far side of the suite where their table sat was across the longest open space in the suite. It ran along the diagonal from the inside corner with the elevator to the outside corner with the doors to the balcony. It was made that way on purpose to make the suite appear even larger than it was. The man, Jean, walked slower and looked around. If his face was any clue he was favorably surprised by the apartment. It was a full quarter of the top floor and much nicer than their second-floor rooms.
Lee offered the hospitality of the bar and informed them there would be a bartender along soon if they wanted anything complex and called them to the table.
Sally was at the foot of the table opposite Lee, and Jeff, and April sat on the long side away from the entry. That left two chairs open for the Earthies. Kamala in the lead grabbed the chair nearest Lee, opposite April, leaving Jean by Sally.
It seemed odd to the Earth people not to have drinks elsewhere and then get called to the table but they went with local custom. They were very comfortable seats so it made sense not to stand around then move. Sally and April agreed to split a bottle of Champagne when Clarke could decant it. Lee opened a bottle of whiskey that was a gift from Jeff and several tried it. They spoke about that being a hobby of his for a bit. Nobody seemed in a hurry to get to business so they just made polite conversation and didn’t push it.
After dinner was brought up and the hotel staff left, Clarke stayed to serve them. Lee offered for him to refresh their drinks if anyone needed that. Jean thought that was a lot to expect of one to serve six but Clarke did it fairly quickly. He took care of the ladies first. Jean wondered if that was an adopted Human custom or already the norm for a matriarchal society. They had three choices of soup, meat, and vegetable. Bread was put on the table in common, with rice and noodles. You’d have to be a very fussy eater or have religious restrictions not to find something.
Kamala was having a side conversation with Lee and Jeff was leaning over having a private word with Sally. Jean asked the server, Clarke, where the washroom was, wondering if he’d understand that or if he’d have to be less delicate about it. The fellow understood perfectly and leaned over giving him quiet directions. It caught the attention of Kamala who looked away from Lee when the Derf leaned in to direct Jean.
Jean quietly thanked him and put his napkin to his mouth like he had a bit of something objectionable he wanted to be rid of and placed his napkin on his plate. Kamala was observant and it didn’t make sense to her. He’d have done that before speaking with their server not after. She frowned but Jean wasn’t looking at her.
Lee was asking if anyone wanted another drink after Clarke cleared the table when Jean stood up to go visit the washroom. Kamala raised a forestalling hand to Lee who was still trying to talk to her. That cut Lee off mid-sentence so abruptly it made everyone look. Kamala reached over and picked up the napkin Jean left on his plate. The little silver egg that fell out hit the plate with a tiny >tock<. It might as well have been a brick in the sudden silence. They all looked at it lying there, inexplicable, and out of place. Jean, knowing what it was recovered first and moved quickly.
Jean spun around to get away from the table and found Kamala’s foot hooked around his ankle. He went sprawling on the floor. Kamala got up to the other side of her seat and turned to face him as he rose. He tried to step around her, and sucked his gut in, and jerked back as she made a lunge with the steak knife she’d stolen at lunch. It was lovely fencing form with one leg trailing and her other hand tucked behind her. It would have run him through if she had a decent foil but the steak knife was far too short. He was trying to get around her again on the side away from the table when Sally smacked him loudly across the back of the head with the Champagne bottle. It didn’t break but he went flying face down as slick as a ship being christened goes down greased ways.
Everybody was watching the two Earthies go at each other in shock. They missed Jeff reaching across to tip the little metal egg in his water glass and rushing to the balcony doors. Strangelove put out his hands to take it but Jeff put a hand out like he was going to stiff-arm him out of the way. That was ridiculous but Strangelove stepped out of his way. By the time Jean was knocked senseless on the floor he was coming back in and slamming the sliding glass door shut. He locked it and stood with his hand on it intent on preventing anyone else from opening it.
April was the first to see Jeff was out of place and looked a question at him.
“It’s some kind of a bot,” Jeff said. “Probably an assassin bot. I have yet to see any of them that are waterproof. It had to be on some kind of delay and would open up when he was off in the toilet. I’m so sorry, Lee. April or I was probably the target and put you at risk.”
“No,” Strangelove said very forcefully before anyone else could speak. “He wasn’t trying to get around Sally to Jeff. He was trying to get through Kamala the other direction to Lee. She was the target.”
They all looked at Lee.
“Oh, yeah. I had that figured out before he got off the floor,” Sally said.
“Welcome to the assassin survivors club,” Jeff said with dark humor.
“You should have handed it off to me and allowed me to take the risk,” Strangelove told Jeff. “That’s my job and what I’m expected to do.”
“I didn’t have time to stop and explain why it needed to be outside,” Jeff said.
It wasn’t exactly an apology but Strangelove nodded.
“What do you expect it to do?” Kamala asked, looking over Jeff’s shoulder at the water glass on the balcony. So far, the little metal egg was as innocent as an olive in a martini.
“If it opens up to deploy legs or wings it will probably short out and that will melt or vaporize the whole thing. It will probably do that just by a good soaking if it doesn’t activate soon. Even if it is waterproof and survives activation, I doubt it can get through this,” he said tapping the door glass. “We made sure the glass was all bullet-proof when we leased. We’ve had the experience of these sorts of bots trying to get to us.”
By this time all of them were crowded around the doors looking at the glass on the balcony. All but Clarke, who Strangelove directed with hand signs. He was turned half away keeping an eye on Jean.
Anything out on the balcony quickly attracted some of the little fliers. They were annoying if you tried to eat out there, always hoping you’d drop some scrap or leave a serving dish uncovered. Lee suspected some other hotel guest must feed them to keep their interest so active.
There were soon four of the little pests sitting on the rail. The little device didn’t flash in a discharge as Jeff expected but instead emitted a stream of bubbles. The motion motivated one of the fliers to launch off the rail to claim it before his fellows. He spread his wings and dropped on it but instead of a graceful landing he fell flat on his face with wings still spread, unmoving.
“Oh crap, it’s a chemical weapon,” Jeff said.
The fliers on the rail got unnaturally still and one by one fell off.
“Probably a neurotoxin,” Strangelove agreed.
“And it was going to kill us all while he was in the restroom,” Kamala realized.
“That means it won’t be persistent and he expected to be able to sit and wait for it to disperse in a reasonable amount of time,” April said.
“I vote we throw the son-of-a-bitch off the balcony,” Kamala said.
Everybody looked at her in shock at how blood-thirsty and crude she was suddenly.
“Oh, come on. Like none of you have ever killed anybody,” she told them. “But if you want to wait until he regains consciousness to toss him that’s fine too.”
“Not going to happen,” Clarke said, feeling on Jean’s neck for a pulse. “He’s a goner.”
“Crap… we can’t cap him now,” April said.
“Throw him off anyway, just to make sure,” Kamala insisted.
Sally still had the Champagne bottle in hand and lifted it to check the level. There was still quite a bit. She hadn’t spilled much wielding it as a club.
“Why don’t we sit back down?” Sally asked Kamala. “There’s still a glass for each of us and you can tell us how you came to hold Jean in such intense dislike.”
“Pour,” Kamala agreed, returning to her seat and started her story.
“So, we agreed at the end of lunch that it didn’t matter if either of us was an agent,” Kamala eventually said after describing how Jean was paranoid about surveillance and alarmed her by blocking her door at their rooms.
“I did warn him that even if he was a spy, he’d regret it if he interfered with my mission,” Kamala explained. “Since we got off to such a bad start, we didn’t speak or get together again today until we came up here. I stayed in and napped to get on the local clock and was happy he didn’t call. I had no idea he’d try to casually kill me and everyone else in the room to accomplish his mission. But I had enough reason to distrust him to keep my knife from our meal together. You can send it back to the kitchen,” she told Clarke. “I don’t think I’ll need it again.”
“They had to substitute this fellow for the French representative sometime before you went to Central,” Jeff figured out. “Where would they have had an opportunity?”
“We all met up at Whoops,” Kamala said. “North America still has an interest section there. I guess your sovereign didn’t want to risk relations with the other nations by going in and cleaning them out.”
“Whoops?” Sally asked.
“World Peace Station,” Kamala said. “Nobody calls it that. International Space Station Three would have been just as bad a name. When do you stop adding numbers? I’d bet the real French fellow is as dead as that one,” she said, nodding at Jean, “and in storage, until they can dispose of him.”
“That seems likely,” Jeff agreed. “Anybody object if I send pix of Jean to one of my own intelligence people on-planet and ask if he knows him?”
Nobody objected, so Jeff took pix with his spex recording and sent it to Jan.
“He’s not familiar to me, but I’m more Eurocentric. He seems to be in an awkward repose,” Jan said tactfully. His tone made it a question.
“That’s because he’s freshly dead,” Jeff said bluntly. “No need for condolences.”
“I know a fellow here with North American connections. May I forward it to him?”
“Sure, go ahead,” Jeff agreed.
“I’ll pass through the sound. No need for him to see you,” Jan said.
“Hey, Sam. I’m calling for Mel. Can you ID this fellow for us?” Jan asked.
“I don’t know him. Hang on while I call Bill.”
Jeff, April, Lee, and Strangelove all traded surprised looks around but said nothing. They all had a history with Sam and Bill and had no idea Mel or Jan even knew them. They’d have recognized him just from his voice.
Bill was in the room so rather than forward the file Sam just called him over.
“Hey, can you take a look at this mug and tell Jan if you know him?”
Bill sauntered over, all relaxed, and stiffened like a cat meeting a big dog.
“That is one dangerous son-of-a-bitch. He does wet work – assassinations – for North America. Tell Jan to stay away from him. I’d say kill him first, but he probably won’t be able to. Is he on-planet?” Bill demanded, visibly upset.
“He is terminated, as the expression goes, with extreme prejudice. No longer a concern for any of us now. Thanks, Bill,” Jan said and ended the call.
“Well, that was interesting,” Jan said. “You didn’t see his face but it scared the ever-loving snot out of the man to think he might be on the same planet.”
“I could hear it in his voice,” Jeff assured him. “He shared Kamala’s assessment of his genealogy too. Thank you for checking.” He didn’t ask how Jan knew the pair.
“You didn’t warn Jan about those two,” April said.
“He already knew their North American connection and Jan is no fool. They did just give us useful confirmation. It’s obvious they didn’t know he was on the planet and they didn’t protect him as a fellow North American asset before they knew he was dead. It seemed a bad time to speak against them when they were helpful.”
“OK, maybe they can be occasionally useful,” April allowed.
“I doubt you have to worry about him having any backup for now,” April told Lee. It had to be hard enough to sub him for the French guy. There wasn’t time to position support for him ahead by conventional ship.”
“Thank you,” Lee finally remembered to say to Sally for her intervention.
“It was obvious he was a baddy,” Sally said, shrugging her shoulders. “The table was in the way for anybody else to get to him.”
“Derf bankers really are full service,” Jeff marveled. That made Sally smile.
“You look a little rattled dear. Why don’t we wait and get together tomorrow to talk about registering claims?” Sally suggested.
“Yes, come back at the twelfth hour,” Lee agreed.
“That works for me too.” Kamala agreed. “I’m not going to be calm and thinking clearly until I settle down and get a night’s sleep. Thanks. See you tomorrow.”
After Kamala was in the elevator and the doors closed, Jeff turned to Strangelove with an odd expression on his face.
“Would you put a watch on her please? I’d like to know if she leaves and where she goes if she doesn’t return tomorrow. Just in case she isn’t what she claims.”
“Did you run software on her?” Strangelove asked.
“Yes, but it’s not infallible. Less so with agents. She may have only told us part of the truth,” Jeff said.
“But you don’t want us to stop her?”
“No, she might take a notion to go walk off her stress or something and still come back. She might also contact somebody and still return,” Jeff speculated.
“I’ll put a camera down her hall and watching her balcony,” Strangelove decided.
“You folks have such interesting, complicated lives,” Sally said.
* * *
“That should make Mel a happy client, who feels we are earning our fee,” Sam said. “How did you know that fellow? I didn’t think our people employed that sort of person.”
“We don’t. I’ve done plenty of inter-agency work and I can’t talk to you about it while there is any chance at all we may end up back on Earth. They’d cap me and have it out of me in no time at all if I ever have to be debriefed. That would be as bad for you as me,” Bill said.