Vytln cocked his head. “Who?”
“The dock worker! The one who bringing us to your brother. The ship was empty then.”
“Empty, except for Alred,” Tanin reminded her. “He wouldn’t let someone interfere with the ship while we were gone.”
“He might not have noticed,” Vytln said, catching her thought. “If it was completely dormant, just attached, and wasn’t sending any signals into the ship, he won’t see it. Like the busted pipe where Haven used to sleep. If it’s not fully connected to him, so he’s blind to it.”
“And if it’s already attaching,and thengets a signal, like when we are contacting our client, it’s too late. He’s surprised and locked out before he is even knowing it’s there.”
Vytln frowned. “That would have to require someoneknowingabout Alred. About what he can do and what his potential weaknesses are.”
Which they kept secret, precisely for that reason. That and, as a recall, he would be forced back to his planet if it was found he was out without permission.
“Your brother is having contact in the peacekeepers,” She started slowly. “Maybe he is finding out from them?”
“Except Captain Ikvar doesn’t know about Alred,” Garnet said, shaking her head. “He locked himself in his core when we attached to their ship. He hid from their scanners. And Ikvar’s tolerance of us is only because he wants to see how reformed criminals from Rik-Vane behave. He wouldn’t step in to protect Alred from his people demanding him back. He’d probably do it because he’d consider it the right thing and it doesn’t involve sending Alred back to Rik-Vane.”
“Besides,” Vytln added, “my brother isn’t that smart. He definitely wouldn’t know about Alred. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to resist telling us that he knows. He’s too arrogant to keep something like that to himself. And even if he was, he doesn’t have access to the kind of technology that would be required tohijack Alred. He’s not like a normal AI. Taking over him in the system is near impossible.”
“But not completely,” Sorbet added, expression dark. “Our old guild, they would have the access and ability to take over Alred. And they certainly would have the ability to detect him, if they hadn’t found out about him some other way. They’d also be able to either infiltrate or force a neutral weapons manufacturer to give us a false job to get us here so they could make us get the signal required in order to hijack us like this.”
Vytln’s jaw tightened. “And my brother is exactly the type to hire an assassins guild to do something like this.Especiallyif they come courting him for business. If they played to his ego, he’d hire them like it was a favor.”
“Which the guild would do,” Sorbet assured him. “They have no pride. We have no feeling. We are nothing. That is how we are taught, and how we live.”
“So, they approach my brother, offer to bring us to him, he hires them,theyget the job from the weapons manufacturer, and we…”
“Have a cargo hold full of explosives,” Trove finished tightly. “We’re essentially a bomb right now.”
“I can’t get control of the ship back,” Sway said, shaking his head and looking back at them. “I’m trying, but whatever is attached to us is sophisticated enough to keep out even Alred. I’m definitely not getting through. The best I can do is try to track our movements through subspace. I can’t tell where we’re going, but I can tell you approximately when we’re going to swing out. From the momentum and how we’re moving, I’d say we have about three days before we do.”
“And are blown up,” Trove said, his expression darkly humorous. “I always knew I would die by fire. I just thought it would be slow and painful.”
“Actually,” Goldie started, “the force of the blast would be what-”
“Not now,” Grace cut her off gently.
Tanin looked at Vytln again. “Can we find whatever is attached to us?”
“Maybe,” he said, frowning. “But if Alred doesn’t know about it, then it’s likely not inside of the ship. If someone came inside while we were gone, he wouldn’t let them through the storage room, much less near anything important. And they wouldn’t be able to hide from him.”
“Haven did.”
“But they don’t have her termites. The only reason she could hide from his cameras and sensors is because of those, and because she made careful sure not to directly walk in front of his cameras for long periods of time. And, yes, it is possible they have something similar, it’s more likely that whatever they attached is on the outside. Alred’s vision there is a lot less acute, and we were docked in a busy station. It would be easier for someone to sneak in close without him noticing.”
“Which means we can’t get to it,” Tanin summarized.
“Not so long as we’re in subspace,” Vytln agreed. “It’s not like real space. We can’t just put on an envirosuit and go out of the ship. If it’s out there, and I’ll bet it is, we won’t be able to detach it. Not until we arrive.”
“And by then, we’ll be dead,” Trove smiled brightly.
“Shut it,” Garnet glared at him. He just shrugged.
“We can still search the ship,” Tanin said. “No point in disregarding the possibility that it's inside. They can’t get to us in subspace, so we have three days to look. Haven, can your termites interact with the outside of the ship in subspace?”
She blinked, surprised by the question. “I… don’t know,” she admitted. “I’ve never tried. There was no reasoning to. But the ship nanobots can reaching the shields outside, so my termites could following those same tracks to get there. I… I can try.”
“Good.” Tanin nodded once. “You try to get your termites to search the outside of the ship. Vytln, you and I will lead the others in searching the inside. Sway, keep trying to get us out. To change course. Anything.”
