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It still sounded contrary, counterintuitive, but I was too tired to think anymore. I’d hit the wall. Since this morning, I had landed on New Terra after being gone for months, discovered a burglar in my apartment, revealed the abductions to my boss who’d brushed them aside, met with the president, been drugged and abducted, got shocked and taken in to protective custody by a sexy half Copan, half human, and been told the fate of two worlds rested on an abduction taking place.
My body and my brain were tired.
A yawn broke through that I couldn’t stop. “Sorry.” I patted my mouth.
“You must be exhausted,” he said. “Why don’t you get some sleep? Take the room with the big bed at the end of the hall.”
“Okay. I think I will.” I got to my feet. “I’ll help you clean up,” I offered politely.
“Go on. There’s not much to do. I can handle it, and then I’ll turn in.”
“Thank you.” I weaved my way to the bedroom. I didn’t bother to undress. The clothes I had on were like jammies anyway, so I pulled back the covers and crawled into bed. I sank into sleep moments after my head touched the pillow.
Chapter Fourteen
Maxx
After I cleared the table and loaded the dirty dinnerware into the washer, I peeked into the hall to verify Jessie had gone to bed. I inserted a tiny speaker into my ear, retreated to a far corner, and called my partner with my handheld. I should have been in touch sooner. More time had passed than I’d thought. Technically, it was morning.
“I hope I didn’t wake you,” I half whispered in Ara-Cope in case my voice carried down the hall.
“Wake me? I’ve been up all night worrying. What the zigqat happened?”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t contact you sooner. I encountered an unexpected variable.” I recapped how she had been abducted and how I’d gotten her out.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s fine.” I still couldn’t believe our bad luck that the LOP had repatriated Jessie just as the anti-trafficking task force was about to close in on Imana. Or that the mind-wipe drug hadn’t worked on her like it had on the other repatriated abductees. The snafu highlighted pitfalls of organizational compartmentalization—the left hand didn’t know what the right was doing—for which the task force had to accept some blame. The secrecy of our work prevented us from enlightening anyone outside of the task force. “Everything still solid on your end?”
“The slave ship ETA is still the day after tomorrow. Where are you now?”
“The safe house,” I answered. “I can’t leave her alone.” I didn’t have time to build her trust.
“Too much is at stake to take any risks now.”
“She’s different from what I expected.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know what I mean. Forget it.” She was more perceptive, more persistent, and prettier, but my response to her surprised me the most. I hadn’t anticipated liking her as much as I did. I had to keep reminding myself she was just a subject, a witness who could blow my cover. I had to stay objective and focused. My job was to keep her safe, not to get personally involved. It would be hard enough to leave my grandmother behind. It would be ten times harder to walk away from a woman I’d come to care about. Besides, caring could lead to mistakes—like talking too much. I hoped I hadn’t crossed the line. “I told her about Imana,” I admitted.
“What? Are you a pyot?”
“Not everything,” I clarified. “I hoped by sharing some information, she’d trust me a little and would give up trying to escape. I figured if she had an idea what the stakes are, she’d be more apt to comply with the restrictions.”
“There’s an old Earth saying, ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.’ It means, people acting on incomplete information can be dangerous.”
I couldn’t deny he had a point, but responded, “There’s nothing she can do now. The day after tomorrow, it won’t matter what she knows.”
“That’s assuming the abduction occurs without a hitch, and Imana doesn’t suspect any more than she already does,” he said.
“She suspects?” Alarm shot through me.
“No, no. Poor choice of words. She’s become hypervigilant, questioning everything. Her feelers are everywhere. She knew about Jessie two seconds after she landed. But don’t worry; my cover is secure.”
“Are you sure?”
“If she believed otherwise, I wouldn’t be talking to you. I’d be dead.”
