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  “When, exactly, is Michelle’s contract with the Darhel overdue? I see nothing explicit in here about an inside man, and we’d need one. Does she have a man inside or doesn’t she, and if not, what are your plans for how we would get a man inside, ourselves, before the whole endeavor becomes moot?”

  “Her contract doesn’t go into default until May, but she’s not confident of being able to hold off a contract court, if the Epetar Group chooses to convene one, for more than about two Earth months.” She pointed to the folder. “As you inferred from that, she does have someone inside, but his willingness to help us is limited to helping influence any hiring decisions in our man’s favor.”

  “A hiring decision in our favor. Or, knowing who our applicant is, he could be setting a trap. He could get caught, himself, and give our man up. Of course, no operation is without risks.” The priest propped his chin on steepled fingers for a moment.

  “I understand that your sister wants this device, and I understand that she’s willing to pay very well for its retrieval.” His tone was pained, and she knew this wasn’t good. “But nothing you’ve shown us so far gives us good enough assurance of team survival to make it worth the hazard. Also, there’s no operational benefit to our organization. Thanks to your own efforts, we do have some financial breathing room. But for strictly financial supplementation, there are safer options. We have always reserved this level of risk for operations with a specific strategic goal. Unless you can show me how this qualifies, I’m afraid we’re going to have to decline,” he said.

  It was not at all what Cally had expected Father O’Reilly to say, and she was temporarily at a loss for words.

  “Cally, it’s not that I’m indifferent to your family interest here, or the Clan O’Neal interests, for that matter. It’s that now, more than ever before, we have to reserve major risks of trained assets to operations with major, long-term, strategic significance.” He sighed. “I would love to be able to say yes. And I have heard enough from the Indowy to have a great deal of respect for Michelle O’Neal. I’ll give you this much. If you can either bring her on board with the organization or show me why this operation has serious strategic implications that we have so far missed, we’ll reconsider.”

  “Excuse me. External mind control of human beings doesn’t have serious strategic implications? And as a pure business matter, on board or not, have you considered how much having a Michon Mentat owe us favors means to this organization?” Cally blinked in disbelief.

  “It’s strategic if they really have a working prototype. Just because Michelle thinks they do or are about to doesn’t mean she’s right. I know a lot about what someone with her capabilities can do, and I’m not questioning that it’s impressive. I also know that her ability to spy on the immediate environs of another mentat, without alerting him and triggering exactly the kind of conflict she’s trying to avoid, are limited. I need hard evidence. A schematic, a workable theory of function, information about the origin of the device, a man inside — hard evidence.”

  “All that? You don’t want much. What if you’re wrong?”

  “Not all that, just enough of it to be going on more than fears and hunches — even hers. I have to calculate our risks. I can’t do that without hard information. For something this big, I’m afraid Michelle’s unsupported word, very good though that may be, isn’t enough.”

  “The assessment of a Michon Mentat, to the point of being willing to actually get involved in something, isn’t enough.” Cally was still. Shit, Father O’Reilly is never this unreasonable. I don’t think I’m going to get any more out of him than this. Not today. Fuck. Well, I’ll just get more and try to catch him in a better mood.

  “If it means that much to her and she’s that sure, recruit her. That would be worth enough by itself to justify the risk. Cally, I’m sorry, but you’re thinking like a human. I have to look at Michelle’s request as if an Indowy of the same level had made it. And her motives and ends may not be our motives and ends,” O’Reilly said.

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Believe me, it does. This is academic, you know. She has to be basing her assessment on something. It’s enough for her to risk, even herself. But it may not be enough for us to risk. You need to meet with her. It’s time for her to show some of her cards.” The priest looked pointedly at the door, clearly dismissing her.

  What the fuck’s eating him? I dunno, but I’d better find out.

  Chapter Six

  Cally made sure she snagged Willard Manigo for lunch. He was more plugged in to the grapevine than any three other people in the organization. She had checked the menu and had shelled out for a bottle of steak sauce to go with his soyburger, and even managed to find him a Snickers bar that was only a week past its sell-by date.

  Then she waited until he got in line before sliding up behind him.

  “Hey, Willard, how’s it going?” she said.

  “Well, hi, Cally.” He grinned. “It just amazes me to see you here.”

  “Heh. Okay, so you don’t miss much. Grab a table with me?” she asked.

  “Sure. Especially since I figure you’re pretty much the reason chocolate chip cookies have made it back onto the dessert menu.” He gestured towards a corner near the conveyor belt. Not quite on people’s path out, it was still close enough for the kitchen clatter to muffle their voices.

  She walked across the room with him, dodging tables and other diners, sharing a friendly greeting on the way with the people she knew well enough to be almost friends with. The steel of the chair legs squeaked on the tiles as they pulled up to the table. Even with Galplas flooring, it didn’t matter. It seemed to be a law of nature everywhere that cafeteria floors had to squeak.

  “See the Old Man this morning?” he opened, picking up the steak sauce and dousing his burger. He looked at it doubtfully and gave it a few more shakes. “Hey, thanks for the stuff.”

  “Yeah, I saw him. And, well… he didn’t seem too glad to see me,” Cally said.

  “I think you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, again,” he said.

  “What, is it just me?”

  “I don’t think it’s that. It’s… well the Crabs are pissed about the heist, and they could cut the trickle of low code keys and tech we’re getting down to nothing if they wanted. And we’ve started having problems holding full-time staff because the food and pay suck — ideology only goes so far when you’ve got a family to feed. And we lost a couple of agents in Durban last week. The last few days just haven’t been good. I tell ya, my department is running fifty percent understaffed,” he said, palming the candy bar and making it disappear under the table.

  “Not a great time to put more stress on the father’s plate.”

  “No.” He shook his head, taking a big bite of his burger.

  Wednesday 10/20/54

  Cally checked into a temporary room on base and pulled out her PDA. O’Reilly wants more, I’ll get him more. I hope. She logged onto the Perfect Match site, which had obviously had a recent web redesign. She had gone to the site, just to check it out, after one of the teenage girls on the island had mentioned it to a friend in one of the hand-to-hand courses. Of course I was just checking it out. To make sure it was safe.

  The redesign had not changed the site for the better. A background of lurid pink hearts clashed against the fuschia and orange-red backgrounds of sappy pictures that looked like they’d been swiped from the covers of bodice-rippers. Bright yellow buttons for everything from links to hit-counters to awards of dubious provenance littered the bottom of the page, seemingly at random. The text and frames couldn’t seem to decide what color to be, and the company logo at the top of the page actually blinked. It looked like another company had decided that do-it-yourself was cheaper than hiring art talent.

  Blech! I hope Michelle will forgive me. Okay, where’s the pesky forum? There.

  She thought for a minute. “MargarethaZ: Apollo555, I have eyes only for you.” Okay, so it’s trite. At lea
st it doesn’t stand out in amongst all this sappy crap. Vanna69 wants to do what? Now that’s just gross. Eww. She logged off, wishing there really was such a thing as brain floss.

  “You know the people you meet on those places all look horrible,” the buckley commented. “And just last week, a man was killed in his sleep by a girl axe-murderer he met in a chatroom. Fifty-seven percent of ‘singles’ online are actually married. Twenty-two percent are ki—”

  “Shut up, buckley.”

  “Right.”

  “Buckley, go secure. Where’s Granpa?” she asked.

  “In the gym. Did you know that ninety-three point two percent of all sports inj—”

  “Shut up, buckley.”

  “Well, you did ask the question! Why ask me a question if you don’t want to—”

  “Shut up, buckley.”

  “Right.”

  Papa O’Neal was doing his morning chin-ups when Cally walked into the otherwise empty gym, having taken time to change into her own workout clothes before taking the bounce tube down to level three. The black shorts were okay, but the red leotard was on its last legs. She clung to it because it had that blessed option, a built-in sports bra. And not one of those flimsy ones, either. This one actually worked. She walked over to the bar and began stretching, waiting for the young-old man to finish his set.

  He dropped lightly from the bar, flexing his knees as he hit, and walked over to her. His T-shirt was dark and wet in big patches, his red hair darkened with sweat. He grabbed a clean towel out of the box at the end of the bar and turned to her, wiping his face.

  “So, mission a go?” he asked. To anyone who didn’t know the inner workings of Bane Sidhe society, it would have seemed odd that Cally led the team instead of her grandfather, who, after all, had more experience. The truth was, he didn’t have time. Clan O’Neal administration had eaten up so much of his days with things he couldn’t delegate that handing off leadership to her had been the only way he could be assured of any meaningful time with Shari and the kids. Besides, she was good at it. So he had explained, anyway.

  “Not yet,” she said, stretching into a vertical split.

  “Not yet?” he coughed. “Whaddya mean not yet? Hello, job. Hello, paying job. Hello, life and death mission on the side of good and right? Not yet?” He started absently patting the nonexistent pockets on his shorts and T-shirt before sighing and letting his hands drop. “Okay, what the fuck’s going on?”

  “What isn’t? The Crabs are pissed and are threatening to fuck with our code key supply, the Old Man’s about that far away from a nervous breakdown,” she held her fingers about a half inch apart. “And of course, it’s all my fault. Okay, not really. Just the wrong place at the wrong time. Anyway, O’Reilly wants more hard evidence that Michelle is either right about this thing and the threat level, or he wants her on board. One or the other.”

  “Say that again.” O’Neal was ice.

  “He didn’t deny the mission, Granpa.” Cally put a placating hand on his chest. “He just wants more of her cards on the table, his words, before we commit. It’s a pain in the ass, not high treason.”

  “No. That join-up shit—” His clenched hands were relaxing slowly and smoothly. A bad sign.

  “Like you wouldn’t know about bargaining chips, Granpa? He wants to know the mission’s not going to be another bust — and I can’t believe I’m defending this.” She sidestepped casually, putting herself between Granpa and the door. “But I guess I am. Get pissed after I talk to her, if he doesn’t approve the mission then.”

  “We’re doing it. All that’s left to be decided is if they’re coming along or not.”

  “Fine. But don’t nuke our bridges unless you have to, get it?”

  He held a hand up, finger pointed at her, about to say something, but then dropped it to his side.

  “Right. Don’t nuke the bridges. Got it,” he sighed. “Make it so I don’t need to nuke ’em, Granddaughter.”

  “Yeah, but no pressure, right?” Cally put her head in her hand for a minute before looking back up at him. “I’m staying over another night, at least. You guys can either fly back and I’ll drive, or whatever. I know we just planned on a one-day trip.”

  “Right. I’ll call Shari and tell her not to hold dinner.”

  Friday 10/22/54

  The Cook Retail Center was Chicago’s newest shopping mall. Cally pulled the old Mustang in and parked. The spot was way back from the entrance, but it was the closest one she could find. No matter how the economy in general was suffering, the fat cats in the federal bureaucracy were getting plenty. Like a gold rush town, to a limited extent the cash rolled downhill. It was a small mall, all cream walls and chrome. When they said the plant foliage had variegated colors, they really meant it. They had plants — or the equivalent — from Barwhon and a good half dozen other planets. The Barwhon stuff she recognized right off. The purple was a dead giveaway. And the place was busy, for a weekday. Maybe I shouldn’t have come just before lunch. There were other choices.

  If I’m going to be meeting Michelle more than once or twice, she has to get out of those damned conspicuous mentat robes. Could she scream, “Hi, I’m Michelle O’Neal and I’m on a planet where I’m not supposed to be,” any louder? Cally found a chain store well known for subdued but dressy casual clothes. As a trained observer, having seen Michelle twice, she had a perfect memory of her sister’s size for everything but shoes. It wasn’t hard to find a cream sweater and tan slacks. She added a tortoise-shell rooster clasp so the mentat could do something more conventional with her hair than that bun. Conservative, but nice.

  The big reason she had chosen this mall had to do with the very upscale Chinese restaurant at one of the side entrances. It was one of the contact points Stewart had given her. Someplace where her money was no good and her privacy absolute. The Bane Sidhe expense budget didn’t run to business lunches anymore.

  Normally, she couldn’t have afforded any place this nice and would, therefore, have avoided it like the plague. She never, ever lived above her visible means — it was the first thing Bane Sidhe internal security looked for when they swept for moles. But with the bonus, she could afford a good meal out, and the Old Man knew she had a high-level meeting. Besides the tongs had a good reputation for actually delivering privacy when they sold it. If paid not to ask questions, they asked no questions. Not that I’ll actually be paying. I didn’t get to the top of the profession without knowing when to take a calculated risk. Necessary mission, this gets the job done, saves scarce resources. In this case, my own. I’m not touching that seed capital for more than the girls’ Christmas until it’s had the chance to get together with those stock tips and make babies.

  Recognition was as professional as she could want. A word and a hand sign, a particular place at the counter, and a waiter discreetly ushered her to the back room, handing her several menus. If the manager was surprised when he asked her if she would be expecting anyone and she said her friend would find her, he gave no sign. He simply left and presumed his guest knew her own business. Michelle appeared seconds after the door shut behind him, robed, as always.

  Cally carefully didn’t sigh. “Okay, we can’t have lunch without the people up front seeing you enter in the normal way. Hey! Don’t go!” This time she did sigh, in relief, as Michelle stayed there but raised an eyebrow. “Here. I got you some street clothes. Change and do your thing, showing up in the ladies’ room. Nobody really ever notices who goes in and who comes out, but they will notice if you’re in this room without entering it. Go ahead and change here. At least nobody’ll come in without knocking. Oh, and your code keys are in the bag.”

  Michelle’s eyebrows arched higher in her otherwise impassive face, as she took the bag but made no move to change clothes.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes. I won’t look, all right?” Cally said.

  Michelle carried the clothes over to a corner, looking at Cally pointedly until she turned her back. A few moments later the Mic
hon Mentat handed her sister her folded robe and disappeared. Before she left, just for an instant, Cally saw her feet. Birkenstocks?!

  When Michelle walked back in, she was obviously ill at ease in clothes that were, for her, so unusual.

  “So how long has it been since you’ve worn anything but these robes?” She put the garment, which she’d been holding on her lap, into one of the now-empty shopping bags.

  “Earth styles? Fifty years. The cut and fabric of clothing has changed over the years for utility reasons, even on Adenast. And the first colors were inharmonious for human well-being. But our changes have had nothing like the frequency and variety you have here. Clothing is counterproductive for the Indowy, and we — they and us — do not see the point in having to turn around and replace things over and over again every couple of years, or worse, like less Galactized humans do.”

  “How do you stand it?” Cally couldn’t help asking.

  “I wanted to ask how you do.” Michelle chuckled. “Having to buy replacement clothing as often as you do would deplete my pay very quickly. Not to mention my time.”

  “It’s a trade-off. We probably pay about the same, when you get down to it. But most of us like to shop.” Cally grinned, eyes twinkling.

  “Leisure. The amount you have is unheard of on Adenast. Converted for differences in reckoning time, my schedule would work out to about ninety hours a week, Earth time. Some more, some less.”