Crossways Read Online Free PDF Page B

after things, so the ship will be available if you need a bolt-hole. Cara and I are going to check out a potential home space. I’ll let you know if we find somewhere we can all hang our hats. After that we all have decisions to make about where to go from here. If you have to get in touch with your families, limit what you tell them. Remember there’s a warrant with your name on it. Don’t give your family the responsibility of keeping your secrets if the Trust knocks on their door.”
    â€œWhat about me?” Kitty Keely asked.
    â€œWhat about you?” Kitty was trim and fair, maybe a couple of centimeters shorter than Cara. It was easy to see how the two women fell into the broad category of Ari van Blaiden’s
type
, yet Kitty didn’t interest him at all. She was pretty enough in a superficial way, but his attraction to Cara wasn’t all about beauty.
    â€œYou didn’t promise me anything more than Crossways, and I appreciate I didn’t do so well with
Solar Wind
’s foldspace jump, but I’d really like to stick around. Do I lose myself here or am I joining the team?”
    â€œGood question. Until a few days ago you were on the side trying to kill us.”
    â€œYou know I wouldn’t have signed up for that if I’d known what I was getting into.”
    Ben glanced sideways at Cara.
    *She’s telling her own truth as far as I can judge, but what do I know? I believed Ari, too. At first, anyway.*
Cara was the first to admit that her Empathy skills were intermittent at best.
    Ben dipped his head fractionally in acknowledgment.“We’ll decide how permanent it is later when we know our next move, Kitty. Stick with Gupta for now. He’ll find you something to do.”
    She gave him a tight little smile and turned back toward the ship as everyone dispersed, leaving Ben and Cara with Wenna and Ronan Wolfe, the dashing young doctor who had worked with Ben on several missions before Olyanda and was, along with Wenna, one of the survivors of the ill-fated Hera-3 debacle.
    â€œAren’t you two going exploring?” Ben asked.
    Ronan shrugged apologetically. “As your doctor I feel obliged to make sure you two follow my instructions to take it easy. Besides, Jon has drawn guard duty, so I find myself temporarily without a partner.”
    â€œAnd since I never had a partner in the first place, you’re stuck with me, too,” Wenna said. “I’m too old for singles bars. Besides, I’ll set off every scanner alarm I pass through until I register this with Station Security.” She touched her right arm, prosthetic from the bicep down, with her good left hand, a self-conscious gesture that Ben still winced to see. She’d survived Hera-3, but not without injury.
    She was right about the scanners. Crossways was particular about security. With a population laced through with criminals, opportunists, misfits, mercenaries, and free-thinkers, it had to be.
    It was good to have the
de facto
president of Crossways on their side, though. The extra layer of protection was useful. Garrick owed them for the platinum deal, which would make him several million credits richer as soon as Olyanda started to produce, though that was still six months away.
    Only the Trust had lost out. And Ari van Blaiden, of course.
    They passed through the vast hangar lined with three ship-servicing gantries, two in use, one idle. The whole place was gray medonite, clean and workmanlike, but with touches of individuality: Mother Ramona’s simple “R” logo and Norton Garrick’s colors, dark green with a red flash. One of the ships in dock was Garrick’s private yacht, cigar-shaped with a crystal observation deck topside, the other a guppy-shaped runabout, unmarked, that looked as though it had met with some trouble. Ben supposed trouble was an everyday thing for someone in Mother Ramona’s line ofbusiness—the softer side of crime, but