“We’re not infected.”
“What? How do you know? How can you be sure? You dashed away from the base as if...” As if he had been trying to outrun a plague.
“There’s a test. A scan. I took it.”
“But I didn’t. Jenny didn’t—”
“I can tell you for certain, Maria—you and Jenny are not infected.”
She supposed she would have to trust him. “So,” she said. “Shuloma Station. What will we find when we get there?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But I trust my friend, and I know that we’ll be safe. If we’re careful.”
“Then by all means let us be careful.”
He gave her a beautiful smile, and her heart warmed within her. They would be safe, she thought. Yes, she trusted him, absolutely, and so she would trust whoever he trusted. She reached out and took his hand, and they sat together, peacefully, almost as if they were at home, and it was evening, and they were enjoying the time that they were spending together before it passed.
And, not far behind them, but beyond the range of their scanners, a little ship corrected course, and began to follow them again.
I F W ALKER HAD harboured any illusions that the Expansion enjoyed total control over its citizens, a few hours in the company of Yershov on the Baba Yaga put that notion to rest. Administering a large empire was a difficult task, and it was much easier, on the whole, if citizens stayed put. Travel between worlds was expensive, the permits and passes needed were cumbersome, so that on the whole people tended not to bother, and enjoyed what their home worlds and immediate systems had to offer them. It made life easier all round.
But some people always manage to find a way to slip past the authorities, and Yershov, it seemed, was one of those people who had the knack. But then people did get away sometimes, Walker reflected: renegade telepaths exhausted from the strain of being used for governmental purposes; the odd libertarian who wanted to live out the fantasy of the open road... And it was easier to let these people go than try to prevent them all from leaving. They were better out of the Expansion than spreading their dissatisfaction within, infecting others with their resentment. Whether this courtesy extended to senior officials from the Bureau who, until only a few short days ago, had been privy to some of the Expansion’s most sensitive secrets was yet to be determined. But Andrei, at least, seemed to think that Yershov was up to the job.
And so it proved, incredibly. The Baba Yaga rose clumsily from her berth in St Martin’s Docks, lumbered halfway around Hennessy’s World at high altitude and then, when she was as far as she could be from Venta and her troublesome air traffic control, heaved herself up into orbit.
“Why is nobody stopping you?” asked Walker.
“She’s old,” said Yershov. “Nobody quite believes the ion traces she’s leaving. So they write it off as noise.” He gave a toothy smile. “Sometimes being old means you’re invisible.” So slowly, steadily, and—apparently—invisibly, the Baba Yaga made her way to the edge of the system. “Helps we’re going out,” Yershov said. “Early warning defence systems point outwards. Not as concerned about people escaping as they are enemies invading. Trying to get back to Hennessy’s World would be a whole different ball game. But leaving? There’s a few blind spots here and there. We’ll get to one of those, then phase.”
“How do you know Andrei Gusev?” Walker said, suddenly.
Yershov gave her a sly look. “I was wondering when you’d ask that.”
“And your answer?”
“We met during the war with the Vetch. Gusev needed the odd cargo taking from point A to point B, no questions asked. I obliged.”
Gunrunning, Walker assumed; arming the human populations of worlds overrun by Vetch invaders. A dirty job, making money from the suffering of others.
“You got a problem with that?”
“What you do in your off-hours is
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