Rusch, Kristine Kathryn - Diving Universe SS3 Read Online Free PDF Page B

hide how angry he had made her.
    “Good,” he said. “You'll see that I'm right. So, in the spirit of cooperation, let me ask a few more questions.”
    She sighed heavily so that he understood what an inconvenience this all was.
    “I need to know how much access we get to the site.” He waited as if he expected an answer to that immediately.
    “What do you mean, access?”
    “Are we allowed in the dig sites? Can we get off the paths near the Spires without damaging something important?”
    She waved a hand. She had no idea, and she wasn't about to tell him that. So she said, “Just list your questions. I'll answer the ones I can right now, and I'll send you to the right people for the others.”
    “All right.” His back straightened, as if she had finally upset him. “I need to know whether we protect from the air as well as the ground. I need to know if we pay attention to ships in orbit. I need to know if we monitor communications—”
    “My god,” she said. “It'll take half my life to direct you people. I just wanted some guards.”
    He ignored that and continued as if she hadn't spoken. “I need to know who you think wants to get onto this site, and if those people have theft or sabotage in mind. I need to know if anyone's life has been threatened.”
    “Sabotage?” she asked, feeling cold. “You think someone might come in here and ruin this?”
    “I don't think anything, Dr. Reese. I need to know what your concerns are. Most importantly, I need to know which members of your staff and crew we can trust, which ones we need to monitor, and which ones we need to watch zealously.”
    She felt a little woozy. She must have been holding her breath.
    “This is not what I expected when I told Scholars to hire you,” she said.
    “What did you expect?” he asked.
    “That you'd come in, stand guard, and let us get on with our work.”
    “We'll do that, ma'am,” he said. “Just as soon as we know what we're guarding, who we're guarding it from, and how much access we have.”
    She hadn't given it any thought at all. Did she want his people to guard the city itself or just the access routes? And what were the access routes?
    And then there was the question of her staff and crew. She didn't trust any of them. She never told them anything except what they needed to know.
    At the same time, she trusted them implicitly. She sent them to work on sites without supervision. She wasn't sure how to explain the contradiction to this man.
    “I take it your behavior is not unusual for your line of work,” she said to him.
    That thin smile rose on his lips. This time, he didn't try to hide the contempt.
    “If you want to hire someone else, go ahead,” he said. “Just remember, in your initial communique with Scholars, you asked for the best security team they could find.”
    She hadn't asked for that. All she had asked for were some guards. Obviously, someone in Scholars figured she needed more than simple guards.
    Dammit.
    He was saying, “They found us. Whoever they send next may not ask as many questions, may not be as annoying from the start, but they may not be as good, either.”
    She wasn't sure she cared about good. She wasn't sure she cared about any of this at all. But he was here. They were here. They'd do as she asked when the time came. Until then, she would stall. “I don't think of my people the way you want me to,” she said.
    He said, “Then maybe it's time you start.”
    * * * *

7
    Navi finally forced herself to look at Zeigler's scholarly works. Since she and her team were orbiting Amnthra waiting for something to come out of the City of Denon—more communications, maybe items in transit, maybe the arrival of more security—she didn't have a lot to do except think.
    And she'd been thinking a great deal since her conversation with Zeigler.
    She kept staring at the holomap. She had brightened the Spires so that they looked almost blinding, although Zeigler said even that wasn't