He couldn’t tell if it was the one who’d accompanied him earlier. “Right, what kind of data have we pulled in so far? Melvyn?”
“Ashly and I got around to the five major defence contractors, Captain. The only orders coming in are for upgrades to the asteroid’s SD platforms, and there’s precious few of them. We got offered some magnificent discounts when we asked about supplying Lady Mac with new systems. They’re absolutely desperate for work. Mzu hasn’t ordered any equipment from anybody. And nobody is refitting starships.”
“Okay. Beaulieu?”
“Nothing, Captain. Daphine Kigano disappeared within fifteen minutes of arriving here. There’s no eddress for her, no credit records, no hotel booking, no citizenship register, no public record file.”
“All right. That just leaves us with Ikela.”
“He’s dead, Joshua,” Dahybi said. “Hardly the best lead.”
“Pauline Webb was very keen to stop me having any contact with T’Opingtu’s management. Which means that’s the direction to take. I’ve been reviewing every byte I can find on Ikela and T’Opingtu. He came to the Dorados with a lot of money to start up that company. There’s no mention of where it came from; according to his biography he used to work for a Garissan engineering company as a junior manager. Which doesn’t add up.
“Now if you were Alkad Mzu, on the run and in need of a starship that can deploy the Alchemist, who are you going to go to when you get here? Ikela fits the search program perfectly: the owner of a company which manufactures specialist astroengineering components. Remember she fooled the intelligence agencies for close on thirty years. Whatever plan she formatted with her colleagues after the genocide, it was well thought out.”
“Not perfect, though,” Ashly said. “If it was, Omuta’s star would be turning nova right now.”
“The possessed glitched it for them, that’s all,” Sarha said. “Who could anticipate this quarantine?”
“Whatever,” Joshua said. “The point is, T’Opingtu was probably set up to provide Mzu with the means to deploy the Alchemist. Ikela would have made sure that policy continued in the event he didn’t live long enough to see her arrive.”
“Which he did, but only just,” Ashly said. “It must have been the agencies who snuffed him.”
“But not Mzu,” Melvyn said. “This media campaign backing her sprang up too quickly after the murder. Somebody knows she’s out there. Somebody with a shitload of influence, but not in contact with her. It’s going to be almost impossible for us to snatch her with public opinion being whipped up like this, Captain.”
“Which is exactly the intention,” Dahybi said. “Though it’s more likely aimed at the intelligence agencies rather than us.”
“We’ll deal with that problem if we ever get to it,” Joshua said. “Right now our priority is to establish a trace on Mzu.”
“How?” Sarha asked.
“Ikela has a daughter; according to his public record file she’s the only family he’s got.”
“She’ll inherit,” Beaulieu said bluntly.
“You got it. Her name’s Voi, and she’s twenty-one. She’s our way in to whatever organization her daddy built up in preparation for Mzu.”
“Oh, come on, Joshua,” Ashly protested. “Her father’s just been murdered, she’s not going to make appointments with perfect strangers, let alone tell us anything about the Garissan underground, even if she has any data. Which is questionable. I wouldn’t involve my daughter in anything like that. And the agencies will be wanting to question her, too.”
Joshua wasn’t going to argue. As soon as he reviewed Ikela’s public record file he’d known Voi was the link. Ione would call it his intuition. She might even have been right. The old burn of conviction was there. “If we can just get close to her, we stand a chance,” he said firmly. “Mzu can’t afford to remain here now. She’s going to have to make a break for it, and sooner rather than later. One way or another, Voi will be involved. It’s our best shot.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you,” Dahybi said. “It’s as good a chance as any. But how the hell are you going to get near her?”
“Weren’t you listening?” asked one of the serjeants. “Voi is female and twenty-one.”
Joshua grinned evilly at Dahybi.
“You have got to be joking,” the stupefied node specialist insisted.
“I’ll just lie back and think of the Confederation.”
“Joshua . . .”
Joshua burst out laughing. “Your faces! Don’t worry, Dahybi, I’m not that conceited. But she will have friends. There are quite a lot of rich entrepreneurs in the Dorados, their kids will cling together in their own little social clique. And I am a starship owner captain, after all. One of them will get us in. All I have to do now is find her.” He smiled broadly at his crew, who were regarding him with a mixture of umbrage and resignation. “Time to party.”
Prince Lambert sealed the straps around the lanky girl’s wrists, then activated the sensenviron program. His bedroom dissolved into a circular stone-walled chamber at the top of a castle tower, its bed at the centre of the flagstone floor. His male slaves began to file through the iron-bound door. Ten of them stood around the bed, looking down dispassionately at the spread-eagled figure.
He took the remote response collar from under the pillow and fastened it around her neck.
“What is it?” the girl asked, anxiety rising into her voice. She was very young; it was highly probable she’d never heard of the device before.
He kissed her silent, and datavised the collar’s activation sequence. The technology was a bastardization of medical nanonic packages, sending filaments to merge with her spinal cord. He could use it to manipulate her body into reacting exactly how he wanted, fulfilling each of the fantasies in turn.
“Do hope I’m not interrupting,” one of the slaves said in a sharp female voice.
Prince Lambert gave a start, jumping up from the bed. The girl wailed in dismay as the collar began to knit smoothly with her skin.
He cancelled the sensenviron program, retrieving the reality of his darkened bedroom, and stared at the tall skinny figure which replaced the muscle-bound slave. “For Mary’s sake, Voi! I’m going to change this bloody apartment’s door code, I should never have let you have it.” He squinted at the figure. “Voi?”
She was pulling her chameleon suit hood off, allowing her little crown of dreadlocks to wriggle free. A wig of unkempt gingerish hair was held carelessly in her hand. Her clothes were standard-issue biosphere agronomist overalls. “I want to talk to you.”
His jaw dropped. One hand gestured ineffectually at the girl on the bed, who was tugging at the straps. “Voi!”
“Now.” She went back out into the living room.
He swore, then datavised a shutdown order at the collar and started to open the strap seals.
“How old is she?” Voi asked when he emerged into the living room.
“Does it matter?”
“It might to Shea. Has she found out about your little kinks yet?”
“Why the sudden interest in my sex life? Do you miss it?”
“Like a sunbather misses birdcrap.”
“That’s not what you said at the time.”
“Who cares?”
“I do. We were good together, Voi.”
“History.”
“Then why have you come running back?”