Chapter 22

* * *

"I keep hoping it's just such an invitation to visit." Krain grinned wryly. He was sitting in a chair. His arms were bound behind his back, and the high backrest forced him to bend forward.

"It is." Alex nodded, closing the door tightly behind him, and after waiting for the characteristic quiet hiss and clicks of the locks closing, he continued:

"You're my personal guest. How do you like the atmosphere?"

"I'm a simple man." Krain shrugged, still squinting at Alex. "I don't know about nobility. The furnishings are the most luxurious I've ever seen. I'm embarrassed to be in one."

The atmosphere was indeed more luxurious than ever. Alex ordered that the "guest" be placed in a room inside the "personal area," intended for the prince and the closest cronies. Of course, not to impress the rebel with the elegance of the decoration, but to minimize the number of witnesses who could see him. Inside the rooms of the "personal zone" there was no visual recording, there were far fewer servants than on the other floors, and all of them were brought in, not from the locals.

And I don't need witnesses at all. Alex sighed mentally, pulling out an injector from his jacket pocket.

"Are you going to torture me?" Krain asked in no uncertain terms when he saw the injector.

"Why torture?" Alex shrugged indifferently. "Just having a chat with my dear guest over a cup of Lima Serum."

"By yourself? Without any helpers? That's quite an honor. The princes haven't tortured me yet."

"Enough of the snark." Alex snapped at him, who didn't like what was going on either. "What helpers? If you say something under the serum about the Anti-Imperial Alliance in front of witnesses, I'll be in a lot of trouble."

"So maybe we shouldn't?" Krain asked without much hope.

"It is necessary," Alex barely audibly exhaled and added in a full voice. "The attackers haven't been interrogated yet, but the guys say they look a lot like 'broken' Sociar slaves. I have no idea who they are." He admitted sincerely as he began to roll up the rebel's sleeve. "But they say there are a lot of them in the Anti-Imperial Alliance. And anyway, there are only three possibilities as to why this attack was possible: they followed me, they followed Lord Lister, or they came with you. And if they came with you, I'd really like to know if you knew or if you were being used."

"And what if I knew?" Squinting angrily, Krain asked. "Are they going to shoot me right here? Or would they take me to a place with cheaper carpets first?"

"Logically, in that case, you should have been the accidental victim of that attack, catching the occasional blaster shot during the shootout in the alley," Alex answered honestly. "But I won't do that, at least not this time. But our relationship will stop being buddy-buddy."

Alex pulled a cylinder of "Lima serum" out of his pocket and charged the injector.

"Actually, that thing is very harmful." The rebel said quickly, squinting at the metal snout of the injector hovering near his shoulder. "It affects the brain."

"I know, so I'll try to make it quick and inject the neutralizer right away."

The injector hissed briefly, leaving a spreading red stain on his arm.

"And I was burning my skin on Tallana while I was looking for you, you shit-eater..." Krain grimaced, writhing in pain.

"I got you out of the Transit Station alive." Alex reminded me tiredly, sitting down in the chair opposite.

The serum was working fast, and the rebel was in no shape to continue the pique, so Alex started the interrogation, trying, as he promised, to be as quick as possible, limiting to only the most necessary questions.

Krain knew nothing of the assault. He had come to the capital to deliver a report to Plenipotentiary Representative Liora on the activities of their cell in the Tail Sector, and to be a liaison between the rebels and Alex if necessary.

And they didn't plan to contact me right away. Alex noted in his mind. Krain had a letter for me, but it was supposed to be delivered in three or four decades when I would have gotten used to the assignment. Makes sense.

But four days ago, Krain had been approached by the local leadership to facilitate a meeting with Lord Lister, which didn't surprise him at all. The lord, with a high court position and young, was a possible valuable ally. After the events on Tallana, they knew each other personally. He had contacted Liora and received the go-ahead to help the central sector and to send a letter to Lord Cassard as well. Liora felt two meetings in a row with a high nobleman might pose more of a problem than one meeting with two at once.

My appearance at this meeting was not part of the organizers' plans and is the result of Ms. Liora's amateurishness. And if you take the guards I brought in out of the equation, the attackers would have succeeded.

The picture appeared pretty clear, and Alex hurriedly injected the neutralizer.

After receiving the injection, Krain was panting heavily as if after a grueling jog, and by the time Alex uncuffed him, the rebel was shivering:

"You couldn't just ask all that, could you?" Krain said with difficulty, his gaze slowly returning to normal.

"When you get assassinated every ten days, you kind of stop taking the word for it." Alex shrugged, feeling guilty deep down. "After the serum, they recommend either stimulants or alcohol. Which do you prefer?" He asked, and rising from his chair, pulled closer a large tray of drinks levitating nearby at waist height.

Instead of answering, Krain snatched a bottle of strong liqueur from the tray and quickly managed to get the lid off and, despite his trembling hands, tipped it into himself, taking a few greedy sips:

"I wish a zwigolot fuck your lordship." Krain wheezed and pulled the neck away from his lips, looking at the label of the bottle. "Is that your way of apologizing?" He asked with a smirk, taking another sip. "A drink for the price of a flyer?"

"Do I have anything to apologize for?" Alex raised an eyebrow as he poured himself a tincture of tarium. "Did I take advantage of you and set you up? Or maybe I brought some enforcers with me to the meeting, putting the others in mortal danger?"

"Are you implying that I own you?" Krain asked with a squint, and after another sip from the bottle, he added with a sigh. "Well, maybe I am."

"Not that it's you personally." Alex clarified, thoughtfully chasing the emerald liquid through the glass, which exuded a fresh, slightly spicy flavor. "But for Liora, and the rebels in general, I'm sympathetic to you, and this is such a set-up in return. What's it like for you? Is it okay to be a victim of revolutionary expediency? I mean, you've been set up. If that attack on Lister had been successful, you'd be the first one they'd be looking for."

"I'm a small bug." With a philosophical look, Krain shrugged. "For breeding or bait. Mistress Liora is a larger fish, a girl with connections, but no one will cry for her either. While I was paralyzed, I heard something that sounded like big politics. A bigger figure might get shredded in a soup like this, not like me or Liora."

"And what is the interest of the Resistance in this great policy, that it is worth breaking relations with two lords at once?"

"The shadows know." Krain shrugged again. "Depends on who you ask. There's no united Resistance. The gathering is this: I'm a maxi. Liora is a republican-legalist. Our gnarm, though he denies it, looks like a cartel fighter, or maybe he's from the Union of the Free, or maybe both. The young students are for everything good against everything bad. And they all have their own interests and views on how to live after the empire is gone."

"Maxi?" Alex asked, who guessed from the context that he was talking about a political group, but no more.

"Well, there was a maxi." Rebel was a little embarrassed. "Probably more of a mini now..."

"I have no idea what it means," Alex admitted hastily to prevent Krain from slipping into a lengthy self-exploration.

"Well, maximum and minimum utopian programs." The rebel obviously expecting to see some recognition in his eyes, but not finding it, explained. "Maximum program means to withdraw and concentrate all production resources for the fastest creation of the technosphere, with the fastest exit to self-sustaining, and therefore to the level when the technosphere will begin to provide people. Well, the minimum program implies operating exclusively with tax money. The elements of the future technosphere will be ordered from existing manufacturers, which, of course, will be noticeably slower... But if you think about it, there will be much less resistance to this approach, which means..."

"I got it." Alex interrupted again, though he was interested to hear about the differences between local communists and socialists, but now there were more pressing problems. "Are these 'broken slaves' or what do you think they are, really from yours?"

"Probably," Krain admitted reluctantly as if it were something embarrassing. "There are plenty of them in the Alliance."

"I'm told slavery has been outlawed for twenty years."

"It is." Nodded the rebel. "That's why they don't like the Empire."

"For the abolition of slavery?" Alex clarified, who thought he had misunderstood.

"Uh-huh, nasty business." Krain nodded again. "The Sociarians trained slaves: when the master is satisfied, a drug is injected into the bloodstream - pure bliss. If he's not happy, the painful shock goes directly to the brain. A few years of such training and few people have any will of their own."

"Sounds pretty nasty." Alex nodded, involuntarily wrinkling his nose as well.

"That's what I mean." Krain hummed. "Plus, there's the religious moment... In general, when slaves were freed, almost a third of them killed themselves. From grief and horror that they were left without masters. And there were a lot more of them in the Resistance. Now, of course, they're much less. It's been more than 20 years since the liberation. There are no new ones, but the old ones are leaving."

"Any idea why all the attackers were from the 'broken'? Do they have any special interests in imperial politics?"

"The Shadows know. They must have some special interests. They're usually zealous synths, and the head of their church, the Queen of Sociara, is kind of captured here in the capital, or whatever reason. I've always tried to stay away from them, to be honest." The rebel added trustingly and took a small sip from the bottle. "Or maybe someone else brought them in as fighters. They are crazy, with no fear of death. They've often been involved in forceful operations."

"Yeah..." Stretched Alex, who couldn't get rid of the feeling that the answers were confusing him even more. "It turns out: Republicans, Maxis, Minis, Gnarms, Ex-slaves, and just students. Any idea who exactly out of this political vinaigrette might have wanted to attack Lord Lister?"

"Viineegeretaa?" Stretching out the syllables, Krain asked, looking at Alex in surprise.

"Salad is like that." Tiredly he waved it away. "Especially gourmet."

"I tell you, the demons know." Krain returned to the subject of the question. "I can, as an apology, tell you who asked for a meeting with Brenor..."

"Nah." Alex hummed, setting his glass back on the tray. "It'll be not enough."

"Not enough?" the rebel wondered. "What do you want, your lordship?"

"Droid hacking specialist needed." His Lordship said, stepping forward and lowering his voice a half-tone. "A lance or whatever they're called. Right now, and preferably not a rebel, but someone from the side."

Krain thought for a few seconds, digesting what he'd heard, his face showing that something in his head didn't add up:

"And the reasons you don't want to use yours are none of my concern." He finally suggested. "Did I get that right?"

"It's complicated." With a sour smile, Alex answered evasively.

The rest was full of nuances: Dudo thought it wouldn't be too difficult to open the droid, but he needed specialized cryptographic equipment, the " lance". It wasn't available. He could try to buy it, but that would conflict with his promise to give the droid to Lord Lister within twenty-four hours. It would be possible to "borrow" what was needed from the scouts of the House of Fyron... But they would definitely snitch it, at least to their superiors. This set of contradictory demands became a real headache for Alex, who really wanted to know what kind of revelations Baron Assaro had left in his posthumous note.

"So? Can you help?" Alex asked again, making sure desperation didn't creep into his voice. It's easier to get results when the counterpart doesn't know he's the only option.

Almost the only one. He corrected himself mentally. He could probably think of something else, but the other options would probably be worse.

The rebel thought for a moment, pensively gazing at the ceiling with a groggy look:

"I knew one lance about five years ago." Finally, with a sigh, he gave out. "He specialized in droids. I don't know if he's still working or not, but if he is, I'm telling you right away, he's a weird guy."

"I only care about the result."

* * *

The aerocar stopped at the ground, and Krain, who was sitting at the control panel, clicked the headlight switch, making a piece of gray metal wall with unreadable graffiti disappear into the darkness. The side door rattled with metal, and Dudo was the first to come out, followed by Alex.

The walls of the buildings went infinitely high, melting into the darkness broken only at the very top by the sparse sparks of signal lights, making it seem as if they had stopped at the very bottom of a huge well. The air smelled of chemistry and piss, and garbage rustled and crunched beneath their feet.

"Well, atmosphere," Alex muttered quietly, wrinkling his nose involuntarily.

"You just don't do anything stupid," Krain warned again in a half voice as he closed the aircar behind him. "And stay natural, or they'll be all over you." He added, nodding toward the flickering lights that were clearly moving toward them.

They were lanterns, five at least, bright cones of white light bouncing chaotically on the walls and sidewalk, sometimes flashing a bright white star when aimed directly at the eyes. Judging by the movement, the owners of the flashlights were literally running toward them.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, we'll give you a light!" The voice of one of the lantern-wielders was a little disrupted by the rapid running, and its sonorousness suggested a child.

"We will light! We'll light!" They were surrounded by a group of grimy boys, about ten years old at most, with bright flashlights in their hands.

"Back off," Krain growled, shoving them aside. "You better watch the car." He added conciliatorily, tossing a couple of coins that the kids had caught.

"Shall we go?" He turned to Alex and Dudo, and without waiting for them to answer, he moved forward down the dark street, shining his lantern and unbuttoning his cloak with his free hand so that he could see the belt with the blaster hanging from it.

"Let's go." Alex nodded. He unbuttoned his jacket to make it easier to reach for his weapon and pulled from his pocket a pair of large, rounded, dragonfly-type goggles with a thick upper rim. The local equivalent of night vision goggles. Besides, Dudo said they protect against flashes, too.

He put on his goggles and fumbled for the half-recessed power button on the edge of the rim. The darkness remained dark, but bright orange outlines flashed around all objects, including people, as if someone had traced them with a glowing marker.

"A little different than I expected," Alex muttered, looking at the black spot where Dudo's face had been, outlined in a glowing outline. "But it's navigable."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

He waved his hand to Dudo, and they moved to follow the rebel, having to pick up their pace.

Above my head, pipes and wires were intertwined in a network of bizarre patterns, leaving only tiny gaps in the pale yellow sky in my night-vision goggles. Underfoot were black spots of puddles and piles of garbage because of the complexity and numerous contours in the illumination of the glasses, more like wide, faded Christmas trees nestled at the bases of pillars and on the corners of buildings whose massive gray hulks with long narrow windows overhung the street like ancient fortresses. Numerous side alleys were often blocked from the sides and top by improvised constructions of plastic, metal, and almost cardboard sheets and it seemed that someone lived in these partitions. At least the glasses caught the occasional movement of some lines.

It was early evening by local time, and despite the darkness, they occasionally came across locals: loners who preferred to huddle in some niches, entrances, and groups of young people who gave them appraising glances. The appraisal ended with glances, laughs, and muffled phrases behind their backs. Alex strongly suspected if it weren't for the fact there were three of them with Dudo, who could fit three ordinary people at shoulder width, and not the blasters dangling ostentatiously on his belt, the appraisal could have been a different kind of math, more "proactive."

There was a third category of local inhabitants - "mannequins." Alex even lifted his glasses to look with his own eyes because it seemed strange that there was a mannequin standing in the middle of such a street. In the light of Krain's lantern, it was visible that it was a man, frozen, staring into the void, with a wet trickle of saliva from the open mouth. Then another one came along, and another. Standing still and staring into the void, they often met in groups - different people: young and not so young, ragged and dirty, and more or less decently dressed, men and women. There were even a couple of girls, quite pretty in their outlines, sitting on the steps of one of the entrances, looking somewhere into infinity, together with a diverse group of similar "mannequins" surrounding them.

All these guys were obviously under something very serious, and the strangest thing was that many of them were frozen in some very uncomfortable poses, standing bent almost to the ground.

"What's with the bent?" Alex whispered as he approached Krain.

"The usual acrobats." Shrugging, the man replied.

"Acrobats?"

"You know, the ones hooked on the Feint. Do they call them something else in the Tail Sector?"

"I have no idea what we call them. Is their posture part of the effect of the Feint?"

"Kind of." Krain nodded. "At high doses, they say it feels like falling. That's what bends them. Like they're falling. The slowest fall of your life, after which there's no getting back up." He finished, clearly a quote of some kind.

"Yeah..." Alex looked back with a slight shiver. "The atmosphere makes me want to get out as soon as possible..."

Not that he was scared. The landing bots could reach monstrous speeds in the atmosphere, and they could get here from the duty zone in a minute and a half. There was nothing to be afraid of. They would definitely last a minute and a half to two minutes with their shields. But they wanted to stay here less and less. The people frozen in the darkness, with saliva flowing from their mouths, created an unpleasant and creepy impression, as well as the whole neighborhood in general

"The atmosphere is as usual." The rebel grinned and added in a whisper. "What, your lordship, are you afraid to be near the peasants?"

Alex replied with a long, expressive look but then remembered he was wearing huge glasses:

"That's a funny joke." He finally replied. "I doubt there are many people here who would refuse to be anywhere else. Why should I be the exception?"

"There'll be plenty of people who'd be lucky to be here. Take my word for it. Even in the capital, there are worse places than this."

"There's always a worse place." Alex shrugged. "Do we have a long way to go?" He decided to change the subject.

"Almost there. Over there with the big gate." The rebel pointed with a flashlight toward another gray hulk a hundred meters ahead, with a wide double gate of ribbed metal whose original color had long since disappeared under the layers of graffiti. "One moment..." Krain mewled a little. "As I said, don't mention that you're of Kassard lineage, secondarist, or from the Tail Sector at all. Lance is... He's generally weird about that."

"Okay." With an indifferent look, Alex shrugged. He planning to keep his incognito anyway.

He, slowing his step slightly, turned to Dudo:

"Your job is to oversee the technical process." He reminded him again in a whisper. "You're the only one of us who understands it, so if this lance starts to do anything wrong, get involved right away."

"How to intervene?" Dudo clarified. "Politely or effectively?"

"Effective." Alex cut him off. "Don't bother with it, as long as the droid stays in one piece."

When he reached the gate Krain pressed the intercom button on the wall, whose panel was wrinkled and even a little melted at the edges:

"It's Rogue." He said, waiting for a loud beep. "I called today about a job."

The intercom speaker beeped again and wheezed with static: "Come in." The gates moved with a metallic rumble and parted just enough to let the man in, but no more.

"Let's go," Krain repeated, nodding his head toward a gap in the gate, behind which his glasses made out the orange outline of some kind of machine and squeezed inside.

Alex cautiously entered next. The gate led to a rather spacious garage, littered with all sorts of technical stuff, in the center of which a small open-top flyer, rather battered by life, hung near the floor. Literally battered. The bright contours displayed by the glasses only emphasized the numerous violations of geometry. At the far end of the garage, there were double sliding doors, the kind you'd expect to see in a supermarket.

Hoping that at least there should be some lighting, Alex switched the mode of his goggles. The garage was indeed illuminated, a few stained panels under the ceiling casting a bright yellowish light. But he didn't take off his goggles anyway, just in case - it's a conspiracy, and it protects from flashes.

Carefully going around the rubble of some spare parts, they came to the sliding doors, the glass part of which looked like a lollipop because of yellow light and frozen lightning cracks. Behind the doors was a stairwell, quite clean in contrast to everything else.

"Open up!" Krain knocked forcefully on the doors. Unlike the ones in the store, these didn't even think about opening themselves.

It took about half a minute before the doors hissed apart:

"Come downstairs." A man's voice came from the floor below.

The floor below was a real hacker's lair. At least it was fully in line with Alex's expectations.

The very spacious room, a little smaller than the garage, was illuminated by the even cold light of the ceiling panels. The entire opposite wall from the entrance was occupied by a local supercomputer. A cluster, or maybe even several at once. Above the rows of coal-black racks of the cluster, there were a bunch of different monitors, but even this was not enough. Fragments of the wall to the left and right of the monitors were allocated for projection zones, on one of which there were some graphs, and on the second the image of the garage through which they passed, the view from above.

Hovering beside all this cyber splendor was a large black chair that slowly turned toward them as all three entered the room.

The first thing that caught his eye was the large arched keyboard under the armrest of his right hand. It was probably the first time Alex had ever seen a keyboard here. There were voice interfaces everywhere, and keyboards, as had been explained to him, were the domain of professionals. The potential professional, a very thin man of about forty with a goatee and distinct bald spots in his thin dark hair, met them sitting in his huge chair with a squeamishly bored expression.

"What have you got there?" He stretched lazily, finding the strength to nod to the others. His swamp-colored eyes were not naturally dilated, and Alex suspected there were a lot of drugs in there, too.

"The droid, as I said." Krain took the lead in full accordance with the prior arrangements. He gave Dudo an expressive look, and he pulled a small white disk out from under his jacket.

Alex, taking advantage of the fact that his participation in what was going on was not required at all, looked around with interest.

Right in the center of the room was an unimpressive glass table with a bowl of dry snacks and a scattering of cushions for sitting around it. But behind him, near the wall opposite the cluster, completely invisible from the stairs, was something more interesting. It is covered by a blanket of dense silver fabric. There stood something intermediate between a dentist's chair and a surgical table. Beneath the cloth cover the outline of a woman's body was unmistakable. It ended just above her breasts revealing snow-white shoulders and wide-spread arms held by special supports. A flawless face with a bright sensual mouth. The eyes of the beauty lying on the table were closed, and one could think that she was asleep, or even dead, if her skull were not divided into two halves, just above the line of red hair, shining with chrome of open panels and complex grips, on the place where a person's brain should be.

Android? Cyborg? It was the first time Alex, saw something like that. He didn't know what he was looking at, but the authenticity was striking. Had it not been for the open head, so obviously demonstrating the artificial nature, he would never have thought that it was not a human being.

"It's a droid, isn't it?" Just in case, Alex turned to the others.

"Who?" the host, who was looking at the messenger droid with fascination, didn't immediately realize what he was talking about. "Аh... What did you like?" He grinned understandingly, realizing who Alex was asking about. "Yes, it's a droid, but don't drool. You'll never have the money or the passion for one of these."

"Just, first time I've seen something like that." He replied, ignoring the smirk of demonstrative superiority on Lancer's face.

"Of course you do." He clucked his tongue with a look of proud ownership. "Real pre-war stuff, gentle voice, no nasty buzzers in the drives, and it doesn't shake like the newer Church of the Flame-designed stuff."

"The Church of the Flame?" Alex frowned. Not that he was well versed in the local political process, but as far as he knew, the church certainly didn't regulate droids.

"What did you think the Inquisition decides things?" Lance snorted, starting to connect some wires to the small disk of the messenger droid. "They're enforcers, they do as they're told, and the Throne of Fire makes all the decisions."

"Not the Emperor?"

"And who's the Emperor?" Re-questioned the Lance looking at Alex like an idiot. "A former fire monk! And there are no ex-monks."

"So the Church of the Flame runs everything?" Hiding a smile, Alex teased. He was beginning to understand why Kryn had warned about the weirdness and asked him not to mention the Secondaries, the Kassard clan, or even the Tail Sector.

"What did you think?" The man gesticulated excitedly, forgetting about the messenger droid. "The secondarist, they're everywhere. If there are even two of them, that's it. They'll go out for a smoke, get acquainted instantly, then they'll drag each other everywhere, and promote each other. They have taken over everything, their people and influence are everywhere..."

"What's up with the droid?" Krain intervened. He must have known this might take a while.

"Nothing special." The host grew bored again and added with a shrug. "It can be opened, but it's a real dynamic cipher, so you'll need a lance, and that's money."

"And who are we here to see?" Alex asked without hiding his smile.

"For the best, damn, Lance, you've ever seen in your life, lad." He snarled. "And I was talking about this lance." The chair turned again toward the cluster posts and shifted slightly to the side. The master bent down and pulled out a long black tube from behind the racks. "Here." He said proudly, placing it on his lap with difficulty. "This is a seven-component lance. Once connected, it will rearrange its structure to crack this particular cipher, and that's it. Quantum states. and connections are determined only once, well, and other stuff..." He waved his hand. "The main thing is that after that, it goes to waste. So, money upfront."

A closer look showed that the lance tube was not actually round, but rather square in cross-section, but with very rounded edges, and was made of separate sections of black plastic, each of which was clearly a separate device, and of which there were seven. Dudo had already told him about the one-time use, so there were no surprises.

"How much is that in glitter?" Krain continued to negotiate.

"Five hundred for the job and six hundred for the lance."

"How much?" Krain squinted, genuinely offended by the quoted price. "Eleven hundred? For cracking a droid? Tell me you're counting in creds."

"Nah... It's a danarii." The host grinned, stroking the tube in his lap like a large, dark cat. "Look, I don't question where you got this." Reconciliatory, he continued. "But I'm not blind. The droid has the palace security seals on it. It always costs more to haul shit this big. Just for the risk.

Krain cast a questioning glance at Alex, clearly wanting to know what he thought of such a robbery.

I don't care at all. He shrugged in response, I'm here for results.

The rebel understood without words:

"The shadows are with you." He sighed, turning to the lance again. "Eleven, so eleven."

"Then get the money out." The owner smiled with anticipation.

There was no problem with the payments because even before flying here, Alex had given Krain five thousand danarii just for this purpose.

After counting the money and stashing it away, the owner became very active. Connecting the lance tube to the droid and the lance to the cluster, he began to give commands to the cluster, sometimes supporting them with quick keystrokes on the keyboard. Soon it was over, and he settled back in his chair, occasionally glancing at one of the monitors that displayed a report on the decryption process. There was something about the "preparation of group surface masks" and the percentage of the "augmentation core" solution. It was the kind of thing where the words seemed to make sense, but the meaning didn't even begin to emerge, but Dudo, who was watching carefully, was calm, which meant that everything was being done correctly.

The waiting time dragged on. Lance was just lounging in his chair, quietly tapping a rhythm on the armrest out of boredom, occasionally glancing attentively at the guests. Krain was sitting on one of the cushions near the table, lazily crunching snacks that looked like small tubes. Dudo, doing what he always did so well, was acting like a pillar, watching carefully what was going on. Alex wandered around the room with interest in everything.

Of course, the droid girl under the blanket was the most interesting. Not only because of the seductive curves and the aesthetic pleasure of looking at the pretty face. But also simply because of how different it was from the familiar, shaking, chrome-plated drones with rattling voices. The technological pinnacle of droids looked completely different, far more impressive, in every sense. He could only guess what else of what he had come to think of as the norm, or even the maximum of local technology, was not really so.

"And how much does one of these cost?" Finally, he couldn't stand it after a few minutes.

"You don't have that much, and you never will."

"Most likely." Alex nodded in agreement. "But a man must have a dream." He added with a smile. "So, for how much?"

"This one's mine. Not for sale." The owner said with dead seriousness.

"For any money?" Alex raised an eyebrow. It wasn't that he really needed this particular droid, he just wondered how much it was a matter of principle.

"Any." He gave an emphatic answer. "You see, kid, this isn't a doll from a cheap techno parlor. She's got personality, character, and manners. And it's so much better than any woman you've ever met. If you try it once, the biological analog won't work."

"Such a difference?" Alex hummed doubtfully, shifting his gaze back to the droid girl. She looked gorgeous, of course, but somehow doll-like, Kayrin was more gorgeous, and Isalaya was brighter and hotter.

But I don't think it's fair to compare them to noblewomen. He corrected himself mentally. They have a very different ability to create looks. Taer said that Kayrin's beauty was the result of a biosculptor's work. Most ordinary women probably look a lot paler.

"Women aren't programmed to make you feel good." Sighed the host. "She is programmed to."

"That's true." Krain suddenly agreed, stopping his crunching for the moment. "Those guys who used to grind iron on ships aren't very good with women. So it's best not to start."

"You compared." Lane snorted. "The ones on ships usually can't even talk straight. So... Vibroblocks on legs."

"How much does a similar one cost?" Alex was curious about the price difference between a regular droid and something like this. "Or is it the only one of its kind?"

"No, if you look hard enough, you can find it. Six thousand danarii, maybe."

"Not bad..." Alex stretched, ordinary droids cost about a thousand or even less.

"That's right." Lance grinned again. "Plus you'll get in trouble with the law, but you're used to that."

All that was left to do was nod in response. For some reason, trouble with the law was involved in most of what he did.

It took lance, the device, about half an hour to find the key to the cipher that locked the droid's contents. When the device finally cracked, there was a new burst of activity of rapid-fire voice commands and keystrokes:

"Here." Lance held out an info-stick to Krain. "Here's everything on the droid."

He was about to turn back to the cluster and press something on his keyboard again, but at that moment Dudo literally yanked him out of his chair, putting his blaster to his temple and locking his neck in an elbow grip.

Almost at the same moment, one of the ceiling panels swung aside, and a red-haired arm manipulator with a weapon popped out from there, immediately taking Dudo in its sights.

"That turret." Wheezed the gripped host dangling in mid-air, hopelessly trying to loosen the grip with his hands. "Programmed it myself... With the biomonitor. If anything happens to me or anyone tries to get out, it'll put everyone down."

The turret looked like an industrial arm with the local equivalent of a rifle attached to the end, a long-barreled blaster. His and Dudo's shields could withstand a dozen or two hits from such a weapon.

"What happened?" Alex asked calmly, having stopped looking at the turret.

"Instead of deleting the data, he just hid it," Dudo explained without loosening his grip.

"Does it do any damage to the droid?" That was really important. I'll give it back to Lister and maybe use it as evidence.

"No." Dudo shook his head,

"Аh..." Alex stretched out with a smile. "Someone decided to make money twice on the same case? Not nice..."

"I think there's been a misunderstanding that has led to a dangerous conflict," Krain spoke quickly, squinting warily at the turret. "And we will resolve it now, calmly, without firing."

"Let him let me go." The host sobbed, thrashing in Dudo's steel grip.

"That would be premature." Alex objected. "We haven't had our conversation yet."

Ignoring the turret that immediately took aim at him, and Krain's eyes widening in horror, he walked over to the chair, and standing up so that he could cover the rebel with his shield, leaned over to the wheezing Lance, bringing his hand up to his face and showing his pinky finger:

"Look, it's a pinky." He said in a husky voice, making sure the spear's gaze was focused on his finger. "I won't even move it to do anything to you. And it's not that I'm reverent about the miracle of human life, it's just that I don't need to. See, the thing is, whoever buys this data, the first thing they're gonna do is deal with you. Not just kill you, but do whatever it takes to erase the fact that you exist. Do I make myself clear?" He paused.

The host tried to nod, but it failed:

"Yes." He wheezed.

"Great." Alex smiled at him, continuing. "Then, if you're a smart guy. You yourself, without any pressure, will do everything in your power to destroy any trace that we were here, and more importantly, that this messenger droid was here. Simply for your own survival. But what if I don't." Alex grinned. "Then no." He spread his hands. After all, it's hard to stop a man who's determined to die.

"Let him go." He turned to Dudo.

"And the data?" Re-questioned Dudo still not releasing his victim.

"Let him decide for himself whether to live or die." Alex shrugged indifferently.

Dudo loosened his grip, and Lance collapsed back into his chair, breathing heavily and holding both hands to his throat.

"I need such services from time to time." Alex continued as if nothing had happened, addressing the still trying to catch his breath. "So I hope for further mutually beneficial cooperation. If you'll be alive, of course." He added with concern.

"Hr...okay." He wheezed and quickly typed a complex combination of keys on the keyboard, and the turret retracted back into the ceiling with a quiet whirring sound.

"You know, you might be immortal in there. The Flame is keeping you safe or something." Krain said irritably as they stepped outside. "But think about the rest of us. I thought I was about to see The Bright Edge. The Shadows know how he programmed that turret. What if it had opened fire?"

"I'm wearing a shield." Alex shrugged.

"Oh, great! His lordship is wearing a shield." The rebel hissed indignantly, making an effort not to raise his voice. "I'm not wearing one!"

"That's why I came up here to cover you with my shield." He explained tiredly.

"Ah...well..." Embarrassed Krain, clearly not even thinking of that option. "Thank you, of course... But at least give me some warning."

"I'll try." He nodded.

The rebel moved forward again with the lantern, and he and Dudo followed a little behind.

"Well, what's your objection?" Alex asked in a whisper as they left, noticing that Dudo was not happy.

"Your will, your lordship." Dudo's huge shoulders rose up slightly and also lowered. "But there was no need to leave him the data. Especially now. Angry people can act even to their own detriment just to hurt the offender."

"Then he'll be killed," Alex smirked. "Barons are killed, and they won't be so nice to such a small thing. Of course, there is a risk of leakage, but potential opponents already know better than we do what's in that droid. And as for the others, we don't know who else was involved or who else the old man told before he died. Anything else?"

"There is nothing, your lordship," Dudo answered, but Alex thought there was some reticence.

"Spill it out, come on." He suggested, poking Dudo lightly in the side. The side was soft because of the anti-blaster foam the jacket was stuffed with.

"When you were talking to that Lance..." Dudo paused, obviously choosing his words. "Your manner was reminiscent of Daim Diltar. The new Daim Diltar." He clarified with some concern in his voice.

"Really?" Alex was sincerely surprised, and receiving an affirmative nod, only shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I'll take that as a compliment. She's got a knack for effective communication. I guess multiple viewings of that interrogation had an impact..." He added thoughtfully. "I don't know."

* * *