Page 134 of Alien Burn

“Come.”

“It may be late.”

“I'll tell you if I'm too tired. You needn't decide that for me.”

He smiled a little.

“A developing habit of mine.”

“I've noticed.”

The call ended. He washed his hand before returning to work.

Stron contacted him after the medical visit.

Adryel had needed treatment for a wound along her ribs. The news made Dhomhes briefly incapable of a civil answer. He waited until he could ask the practical questions without making Stron endure his anger too.

Then Stron told him about the chip.

It was safe. Adryel had hidden it in his family crest before the flight; he knew now what he had been carrying. Burk had gone after a thing she no longer had on her body.

Stron gave him the rest with Adryel's permission. She had worked as a waitress in one of the Rhysgarrds' clubs. She had copied financial records and other files, and kept recordings of conversations the family had never expected a server to save.

Dhomhes looked at the freight inquiry still waiting on his desk. Adryel might have carried the missing part of it all the way to Kantenan.

He asked for a protected examination copy when she was ready to provide one. Stron would ask her. The original stayed where she had put it.

With a named suspect and Adryel's account, the Kerde office released the lodging record it had withheld from his broader inquiry. Sret had died in the same unit listed on Adryel's application. Nine days later, Adryel had enrolled. Burk's request to question her was attached to the file, along with his questions about the Rhysgarrds.

Dhomhes put the returned record beside Stron's account. They would need Adryel's statement when the medic cleared her. For tonight, no one outside this call needed to know who held the chip.

“Who knows?” Dhomhes asked.

“You. Us.”

“Keep it that way for the moment.”

“I wasn't planning an announcement.”

“I thought I'd ask before you commissioned the banners.”

Stron made a sound with very little humor in it.

“What are you doing about him?”

“Finding out who comes looking.”

There was a pause.

“You think someone will?”

Dhomhes looked at the holding-block plan on his desk.

Burk had been close enough to Adryel to seize her. He had failed and survived. Whoever had helped put him there would want to know what had happened, and whether he had managed to get the evidence despite the failure.

“I think someone will find the uncertainty uncomfortable.”

“Keep it away from Adryel.”