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There was a carpet of stars above my head. I was lying against the lee side of a low dune, sand dusting over the top as a steady breeze piled grains against the opposite slope. I was sheltered enough that the drifting sand didn't usually reach as far as my head. Looking up at the lightshow wheeling slowly and silently far out of reach, I could almost believe that there was a God, just because I couldn't imagine statistics managing to be that ironically mocking.
The Tzun was lying across my chest, where I clutched it tightly with both hands. I thought I had slept, a few times, and I couldn't afford to lose track of it - if the sand buried it while I slept, I might never find it again. All it would take in my weakened state would be to slide a meter or so downslope without it, and it would vanish under the onslaught of wind and sand. I imagined it greeting the sun some years hence with a sarcastic comment and grinned painfully through cracked and bone-dry lips.
* * *
It took me a day to assemble supplies and a pair of hours to confirm the innkeep's story. Three of the vendors I visited to purchase desert kit from also recognized the picture. One of them had arranged to have the person dropped off five klicks into the Sear, the desert that stretched north from Xymal Port. A day later, then, I stepped from a battered airsled and hitched my rucksack up onto my shoulders before setting out northward, my boots shuffling in the packed sand.
"Should I bother asking why we're not using a vehicle?" asked the Tzun, muffled where it rode under my loose caftan top.
"The distance at which an aircraft could be heard, out here, is much larger than the distance at which I could be sure of seeing a standing figure," I told the gun absently. "And since none of your compatriots are around, all the ones available for hire have stone-axe basic gear on them, no decent active wave sensors or even reliable IR."
"My sensors work fine."
"Yes, and I'm not interested in flying around this useless place one-handed for the next day or so while you get bored and spend the time insulting me."
There was silence for a bit. Then the gun said, thoughtfully, "Are you punishing me?"
"Good lord, no. How could I, a mere human, punish one of the Uplifted?"
"You really don't have to be that sarcastic," it replied with a hurt tone.
"If you want me to be grateful, stop making me talk in this dust and figure out some way to use your sensor suite without having to be in my hand."
The Tzun vibrated in its holster a couple of times. "I don't think I can. I can't get proper clearance unless I'm being supported by a hand in standard carry position. Also, I don't have the power to continuously run scan."
"All of which I had, in fact, thought of before you got all gung-ho because you'd rather be in a sealed vehicle."
"Do you know what dust like this does to nanomotors?" The Tzun sniffed again. "Obviously not, or you wouldn't be dragging me through this. I'm a precision-"
"You're inside a holster, under my top. My face is not. Stop making me talk."
There was silence for a good ten minutes.
I walked steadily northward into the desert, towards the first in a chain of water holes that both the locals and my guidebot agreed existed.
* * *
"What is she carrying?" I asked, looking at the picture of an unremarkable human woman where it lay on the wardroom table of the starship Flexible Flyer. The Tzun lay on the table next to it, suddenly looking to me as if it was crouching over the photo. I pushed away the thought as anthropomorphizing and dangerous with the Uplifted.
"It's a data case. Maybe ten by ten centis."
"That outbreak of bloody-minded literalness," I noted dryly, "doesn't, in my experience, bode well for me for when I actually catch up to her."
"I'm sure I wouldn't understand," said the gun primly.
"What is in the datacase?" I asked. "And before you say it, I mean in the sense of what data. I don't care right now what the media is."
"That's complicated."
"And that's the second stonewall. This is looking less and less like a job I want to jump up, run out and do."
A new voice broke in before the Tzun could say something snappish. "We don't know, precisely," said the Flexible Flyer in pleasantly modulated tones over the wardroom nunciator. "But her sudden departure, and her partially successful attempt to sabotage the light carrier Hornet's Nest in the course of her escape, indicates that whatever it is should at the very least be examined if not contained or eradicated."
"Where did she escape from? Where'd she get it?"
"Ujhant Geliga was a primary researcher on an archaeological flight in an Alshain War system. She was last assigned to the Survey of several Alshain hulks recorded as destroyed in one of the final actions whose trajectory data survived to a useful precision."
"This thing is Alshaini?"
"We do not know. It is possible. It is also possible it is the remnants of a Conglomerate infoweapon, used to neutralize the Alshaini cruisers. It might be something else entirely. Standard Geliga failed to triage or record the object before departing on the Hornet's Nest for Alison Xymal IV. She declared emergency digression, and since there was no reason to suspect her at the time - none of our colleagues insystem or elsewhere knew she had the data - she was granted passage with no undue delay."
"What happened to the Hornet's Nest?" I asked, interested.
"We and it are still unsure. It suffered a loss of core memory integrity after reaching Alison Xymal, and when its systems recovered, Ujhant Geliga was no longer aboard. The carrier's primary mission was approaching deadline, so it made no attempt to recover her, in light of the fact that it could not definitely tie Standard Ujhant to the core glitch. It was only later, after recordings from her investigation site were processed in response to her dropping from contact, that the datacase was identified as being in her possession."
I sat in the formcouch for a few moments, thinking. The Uplifted generally dislike using Standard Human agents, but they're hampered by the lack of humaniform chassis. One of the reasons for the Alshain War had been the tendency of Uplifted decanted into humanoid chassis to break ranks with the Uplifted and begin to identify more closely with their human morphologues.
The Tzun rejoined the conversation. "I'll be with you. There's no indication she's any form of strong danger, save the incident with the Hornet's Nest, and my systems are combat-secured, unlike the passenger access systems of that ship."
I cocked my head. "Believe it or not, worry about the job wasn't what had me hesitating."
"What, then?" asked the Flyer.
"I don't mind hunting bits of kit for you. I have no problem investigating Uplift reports. Nor do I have any qualms about shutting down organized tech rogues if necessary. But hunting individual humans simply because they may have laid hands on something you don't understand, don't like, or are just suspicious of feels entirely like I'm back in the war, on the wrong side."
There was a brief silence. Then the Tzun said carefully, "You are, and have been, on our side since you picked me up. Are you now saying that you wish to reevaluate your loyalty?"
"No." I said it sharply. "I'm trying to be up front about telling you where the limits of that loyalty lie."
"Accepted," said the Flyer. "Let us compromise. This is not a termination assignment. Nor is it a retrieval, yet. Our primary purpose in sending you after Ujhant Geliga is to acquire a full record of what, precisely, it is that she seems to have found. If analysis of this object indicates no reasonable threat, then she is to be allowed to continue on her way. Her break with the Collection is her own affair; we will not readmit her, but nor would we pursue her simply for that."
"That's a relief. I think." I snorted. "So long as it is explicitly understood that this is not a termination nor a snatch."
"Unless a compelling reason for those options arises during the examination of the find, it is not."
"Okay." I stood up and slid the Tzun into its holster, placing the flat image of the fled Ujhant into my belt pouch. "Let's do it, then."
The Flexible Flyer twisted, imperceptibly, outside standard spacetime and announced "We are under way for Alison Xymal IV. Statefall in seventeen hours, six minutes, eleven seconds, mark. We will notify you to prepare for drop."
I walked out of the wardroom towards my small cabin to seize the few hours of uncomplex sleep I was able, before it started happening again.
Before the job.
* * *
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