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them.
‘The LeVine Trust has us tied in knots,’ said Joel. ‘The first thing the Company thought of was to wake the T4 pilot and ask her about Jalo. They all trained together, so she might know something. But apparently the whole of New Earth would raise hell if we tried it.’
‘Joel, what do you think of that idea?’ said Kin.
He met her gaze. ‘I think it’s despicable, what else?’
‘So do I.’
She stayed at the satellite until Joel had finished setting the system, and watched while he activated the circuit that broke the long-chain artificial molecule that was the Line. Now Kingdom was on its own.
She didn’t stay to watch him ready the freeze room.
Her private boat had been left in orbit near Up. Technically she was on leave until she joined the rest of the team at Trenchert, where the advance parties had already cleaned the atmosphere and strengthened the crust. Months ago she had planned to stop off at Momremonn-Spitz for a look at the new Spindle excavations there. There had been rumours of another working strata machine.
Right now it seemed less than important. She slammed the airlock’s inner door shut behind her.
‘Salutations, lady,’ said the ship. ‘The sheets are aired. We are fully fuelled. Shall we run you a bath?’
‘Uhuh.’
‘We have the course computed. Do you wish a countdown?’
‘I think we can dispense with all that excitement,’ said Kin wearily. ‘Just run that bath.’
When the ship boosted the bath water slopped gently against the edge of the tub, but did not spill. Kin, who had been brought up to be polite to machines, said: ‘Neat.’
‘Thank you. Five hours and three minutes to flickover.’
Kin soaped an arm thoughtfully. After a few minutes she said: ‘Ship?’ ‘Yes, lady?’
‘Where the hell are we going? I don’t recall giving you any instructions.’
‘To Kung, lady, as per your esteemed order of 338 hours ago.’
Kin rose like a well-soaped Venus Anadyomene and ran through the ship until she dropped into the pilot chair.
‘That order,’ she said softly, ‘repeat it.’ She watched the screen intently, one hand poised over the panel that would open a line back to Kingdom Up. Joel wouldn’t have frozen himself yet, the process took hours. Anyway, a machine could just unfreeze him. The important thing was that the station had a big enough transmitter to punch a message through to the Company. She recognized the touch of Jago.
The transmitted order had been simple enough, prefaced by the ship’s call sign and Kin’s own code. It had come over the normal ground-to-orbit channels. It could have come from a dozen transmitters while work on Kingdom was being completed.
It had ended: ‘A flat world. You, Kin Arad, are a very curious person. Cheat me and you will forever wonder what sights you missed.’
Kin’s hand dropped – and didn’t touch the message switch.
You couldn’t build a flat world.
But then, you couldn’t come back if you were a Terminus pilot.
And you couldn’t duplicate Company scrip.
‘Ship?’
‘Lady?’
‘Continue to Kung. Oh, and open a channel to the screen in my study.’
‘Done, lady.’
It was wrong. It was probably foolish. It would certainly get her fired.
Be there or forever wonder.
She filled the hours by relearning Primary Ekung and reading the supplements to the planetary digest. It appeared the kung now had a Line, but no one had got around to banning ship landings on the world itself. Nothing much was banned on Kung, even murder. She checked and found it was now the only world in local space that actually allowed ships to land under power. Was that relevant?
Kung was hungry for alien currency. There wasn’t a great deal Kung could produce that humans could use, except a whole variety of pneumonia-type illnesses, but there was a lot Kung wanted. It was trying to start a tourist industry …
Kin had been there. She recalled rain. The kung had forty-two different words for rain, but that just wasn’t enough words to