Without a word, Arron reached into his pocket and laid down the chit card he'd charged from the Bioverse cashier system. Cabal picked it up and squinted at the codes.
“This is six thousand from the First Banking Enclave of Earth.”
“That's right.” That's everything I've got, Cabal, it's going to have to be enough.
Cabal put the card down and took another swallow of beer. “What do you want?”
Arron leaned forward. “I want you to cut through the Bioverse web and find the contingency plans for the Dedelphi project.”
There had to be contingency plans. There had to be a list of what the corp would do if the Confederation broke apart, or at least broke the contract There was no way on this side of heat death they would just shrug and walk away.
Cabal's eyes widened in an expression of surprised innocence. “What makes you think I could do that?”
Arron snorted. “Come on, Cabal, I'll admit I'm blind, but I'm not deaf. You said you were an info-runner. That you specialized in getting information to people who don't have it.” Come on, Cabal. Are you going to make me say system cracker?
Cabal fingered the card for a moment. “All right. But I'll need a portable and a room that is both blind and deaf.”
Arron nodded. “I've got a portable, and I think we can arrange the room.”
Cabal opened his mouth and closed it again. Arron knew he wanted to ask what was going on, and was very glad when he didn't.
He did not want to have to explain the game he was playing.
Chapter XVIII
The Nussbaumer Redirection Proposal flew through the seniors. The veeps, led by Brador, got behind it and pushed. Back in the Solar system, the presies decided it might just work and gave it the go.
In just under forty-eight hours from the time she stood up in Brador's meeting, Bioverse set aside Dedelphi Base 1 conference room Al as Lynn's command center. She had all the wall screens lit up at once to keep in constant touch with her subcommittees. Trace and R.J. worked the conference table while she threaded between the assorted offices. Her new implant flashed reminders at her constantly. A patch cord ran from her temple to the table in front of her. Every order she subvocalized went straight to the main computers.
The word PIETER blinked in front of her eye.
Lynn touched the screen to what Trace and R.J. were calling spy central. “How're we doing on the sat count, Pieter?” As part of their surveillance, both the Getesaph and the t'Therians had launched a series of the very small, disposable spy satellites Praeis had told her about two weeks and a million years ago.
“We've identified six out of the eight satellites. We've got five t'Therians and one Getesaph, but we think they're getting ready to send up more.” Pieter, an oak-colored man, typed frantically at his own keyboard as he talked and always seemed to have a significant portion of his mind elsewhere. “Of course this count is dependent on who manages to shoot down what over the next couple of hours.”
“How's the decoding going?” Lynn zapped a note across to Trace about repeating this update to Brador. There's a nice symmetry to the whole situation, she thought privately. The Getesaph tapped and decoded our communications system, now we're doing the same to them.
“We've got the AIs burning through it.” Pieter hit a final key, looked at the results on his screen, and smiled in triumph. He looked up, fully present for a brief moment. “We should have that for you in two hours.”
“Great,” announced Lynn. Without ceremony, she cut the connection there and threaded down to Shelly Greene in bioengineering R and D. “How are we coming with immobilizing the t'Therians?”
Shelly had a broad face that wrinkled up like a prune when she was thinking hard. Now it was smooth and cheerful. “We think we've got it, Chief. We've got a template for a yeast that eats oil. Turns it into a lovely sticky meringue. We can seed the harbor with it. It'll seize up everything tighter than tight.”
“Okay, that's good. Let me know when it's ready to drop down, so we've got people in place to work with it. Thanks.” She cut the thread.
“How are you going to handle the aftermath of immobilizing them?” asked Trace, looking up from her spot at the table.
Lynn shrugged, as if it were all obvious. “We'll apologize profusely and offer to clean it up, and send word to the Getesaph that while the cleanup is going on we're protecting the t'Therians.”
R.J. looked serious. “You're going to need Keale's help with that.”
“He's already offered,” Lynn assured him. She'd been shocked when it happened, but accepted the help gratefully. “What do we hear from the negotiators?”
“We've just had word,” R.J.’s gaze unfocused as he looked at something displayed on his implant. “The Ui Shai and the Fvrona have just said they want to be relocated.”