The drone dropped into the hole left by the descending bed. Himerance produced a scroll screen, letting it unroll and hang in the air in front of them, displaying the view the drone had as it made its way up the short corridor beneath the room, heading into the cliff. A small underground car shaped like a fat bullet sat in front of a dark tunnel.
“Getting anything?” Yime asked.
Himerance shrugged. “Nothing much,” he told her. “There is a variety of surveillance tech in here. Place is like a history of bugging through the ages; whole tiny networks of linked spy-tech and outdated eavesdropping gear splattered about the entire suite.
Lot of stuff that’s probably lost, forgotten about. Many tiny dead batteries in here. Ancient stuff.” The ship, only a couple of hundred kilometres over their heads, was targeting one of its main Effectors on the city, the hotel and the suite. If there was anything useful here, it would find it.
“Most recent is equiv-tech stuff,” Himerance said, relaying what the ship was finding. “Passably … NR stuff.” He looked at Yime.
“NR?”
“Probably. It’s recent,” Himerance said, “and working; it’d be relaying what we’re saying now if I wasn’t blocking it. Synched into hidden hotel cameras and comms-intercept gear too.” Himerance nodded at four different points in the room. “Sprayed on: in the wall hangings, drapes, on the surfaces of paintings and embedded in the rugs.”
“Anything recorded?”
“No; and no idea where it would have transmitted to either,” Himerance admitted.
“Would it have registered Veppers using his sinking-bed escape route?”
“Maybe not,” Himerance said, gazing up at the great thick fold of curtains which could envelop and surround the bed. “Not if these were drawn.” He squinted. Yime could almost feel the ship overhead shifting the focus of its Effector by minute fractions of a degree. “No spray-on surveillance on those,” Himerance confirmed. “And they’re a lot more hi-tech than the simple organic woven material they look like. Shield you from most interference once they’re drawn right round.”
Yime sighed. “I don’t think he’s here,” she said. “I certainly don’t think she is.”
Stopping here had been an easy enough decision; the direction they’d approached the Sichultian Enablement from, Vebezua had been almost directly en route. Sichult itself still seemed the best place to find both Veppers and Lededje Y’breq, but taking a quick look at the last place they had a definite fix on Veppers had seemed to make sense and cost them only a couple of hours.
“I’m still not getting what’s going on with the Restoria mission,” Himerance said, sounding puzzled. “Some sort of comms blackout
now. Something’s happening out there, at the Disk.”
“Smatter outbreak?” Yime asked.
“Those fabricaria ships are more than smatter,” Himerance said as they watched the drone retrace its flight back down the tunnel towards them. Yime knew the ship already felt torn between taking her where she wanted to go, and joining in whatever action was taking place out at the Tsungarial Disk.
“There’s some sort of full-on battle going on out there,” Himerance said, frowning now. “Beyond the Disk, on the fringes of the Enablement; way too hi-tech for mere smatter. I do so hope that isn’t the Abominator class arriving. If it is we may genuinely have a full-scale war on our hands.”
The drone reappeared in the hole the bed had left; Himerance snapped the scroll-screen closed again and tucked it inside his jacket.
“What about the explosion on Veppers’ estate?” Yime asked.
“Nothing new. News blackout.” Himerance paused. “Actually, something new. Couple of agencies Veppers doesn’t control reporting members of his entourage killed and injured in some sort of flier crash; survivors arriving back at Ubruater at one of his private hospitals.” Another pause. “Hmm. Guess that counts as speculation.”
“What does?”
Himerance looked at her. “Reports that Veppers might be dead.”
“I’d better let you go. You take care. I mean, I’m staying; this Demeisen unit right here is sticking with you, but me myself I, the ship; I have to stick around here, see what’s up. Sleeve-rolling, palm-spitting time for me. You get to stay inside the shuttle inside this element, this shiplet. It’ll take you on to Sichult.”
“Okay,” Lededje said. “Thanks for the ride so far.”
“My pleasure. Take care. See you later, I hope.”
“Me too.”