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And no one is going to tamper with the ship now, anyway, because
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they know we'll be expecting it." He shook his head in resignation. "I guess I'd better get on with it. It's just annoying.
Somebody out there is very quick on the trigger. And this technology," he said, pointing at the chip lying on the pad,
"is a little too shiny and new for my taste. There's money involved in this. Too much of it, much too much for this part
of space."
Evan nodded, but he was looking at the airlock door. Joss grinned at him a bit. "From the looks of her," he said, "I
think you'd better eat your eggs. You want to keep up your strength, after all."
Evan threw the teacup at him. Joss caught it in midair, looked into it with satisfaction. "I must be getting better at
making the tea," he said. "Go get your eggs and I'll give you another cup."
ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, THEY WENT ALONG TO
Noel's office. He had actually managed to clear the paperwork away a little, and produce a couple of extra chairs. When
they got there, Mell Fontenay was in one of them. Evan nodded to her, and casually sat down in the chair farthest from
her.
Another chair contained a big man in his mid-thirties, another two-meter job, brown-eyed, brown-skinned, with a mop
of brown hair; a man with a face like a friendly puppy's, and a likeable air. "Officer Glyndower, Officer O'Bannion," Noel
said, "this is my deputy, George Klos-ters. George helps me out when there are physical surveys and claim
investigations to be done. He'll give you a hand with your digging today, and act as liaison between you and the
freelancers who'll be helping with the dig."
"Pleased," Evan said, and shook the man's hand after Joss did. It was a considerable grip George had, the kind of grip
a man uses when he's not nervous about needing to prove anything. But the look he gave Evan was cool and
116 SPACE COPS
a touch cautious. It's the uniform, I guess, Evan thought. It was a reaction he had grown used to over
time.
"Noel has been telling me something about your find," George said. "It sounds as if you're going to need a
lot of delicate work with laser drills and so forth, rather than blasting."
"Definitely no blasting," Joss said. "We want the craft as intact as possible. It's going to be difficult,
because of all the fused material around the ship. Its surface is likely to contain evidence of exactly what
happened, but only if we can keep it from being scarred or burnt too badly."
"It sounds to me," Mell said to Noel, "as if this is going to be the kind of work that needs slow, careful
people. Joe Siegler could do it, I think, and Vanya Rostro-povich."
Noel nodded. "Sounds about right, George?"
George nodded. "Besides them," he said, "I'd suggest Lara Vidcic. She's got some pretty good laser
equipment. She and her dad were doing some gemstone work a few years back, and they kept the
fine-tuned stuff around in case they needed it again."
"All right," Noel said. "How soon do you think we can get everybody together?"
"Shouldn't take much longer than two or three hours," George said in his big, gruff voice. "I'll go make the
calls shortly."
"Fine," Noel looked at Joss. "I hear you found a little present in your ship this morning," he said.
"That we did," Joss said, and described the bomb, for George's benefit. "Noel, the level of technology of
the thing is surprising. It's very memory-dense, very smart the palladium-arsenide detector in it is more
miniaturized than I've ever heard of but most of all, the thing is expensive. I'm pretty surprised to see it
out in this part of the world at all. I'd love to find out where it came from. The station keeps some import
and export records, doesn't it?"
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Noel nodded. "They should be in central data processing. Feel free."
"Thanks," Joss said, "I will. I doubt I'll find anything straightforward, though. I think this thing was most likely
smuggled in, and I want to see if I can figure out how. That'll be my morning, at least till the digging is ready to start. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]