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Alicia let herself sag against the bulkhead and sucked in a deep, lung-stretching breath. Dear God, she'd known Tisiphone was good, but the Fury's performance had surpassed her most extravagant hopes. She doubted they were likely to meet a brighter, more conscientious customs inspector than young Lieutenant Giolitti, and she no longer doubted their ability to razzle-dazzle him if they did. It had been u
"Of course he did not," Tisiphone observed. "You are correct about his intelligence—a very bright young man, indeed—yet it is far simpler to suggest things to intelligent people, for they have the wit to add the details with little prompting. And," she added graciously, "you and Megarea were wise to suggest that we create your "crew's" personalities in such detail. It allowed me to project personalities with much greater depth."
"Yeah." Alicia drew another breath and straightened. "Still, you seemed to be concentrating pretty hard. Could you have handled more people?"
"I believe so, yes. Numbers of minds are not the difficulty, Little One, but rather the detail of the illusion I provide them with. Of course, it would be wise, in the event that we must deal with several people at once, to include a disinclination to discuss their inspection at a later date lest they discover too great a degree of similarity among their recollections."
"You're probably right," Megarea put in, "but unless there's a glitch in the documentation, one-man teams are the rule out here."
"I know." Alicia stepped back into the lift and punched for the flight deck. "Are we clear on our docking and service fees, Megarea?"
"Sure. Tis cooked the books just fine when she dropped our flight log on them, and Ms. Ta
"What about service perso
"No sweat. Lieutenant Chisholm dealt with them, and they'll be waiting for our shuttle to pick up the consumables. We're go
"You're a sweetheart," Alicia said fervently. She'd been astounded by the verisimilitude of the computer images and voices Megarea could produce. It was a good thing the AI could, too, since they had to convince anyone who got curious— No, scratch that. They had to keep anyone from getting curious, which meant they had to provide crewmen other than Captain Mainwaring in one form or another. Megarea's ability to carry on com conversations, or even several of them at once, would be invaluable in that regard.
"Thanks. You and Tis did pretty good, too."
"Yet could we have accomplished but little without you, Megarea. It is the combination of all our skills which makes us formidable."
"You got that right, Lady," Alicia agreed. "But I take it no one raised an eyebrow over your faces?"
"Nary a twitch. Wa
"Sure." The lift slid to a halt and Alicia stepped out onto the flight deck. "Let her roll."
"Watch monitor two."
The flat screen flickered for just an instant, then cleared with the face of a thin, auburn-haired man with heavy-lidded eyes.
"How do I look, thir?" the image asked, and Alicia gri
"That'th eathy for you to thay," "Lieutenant Chisholm" returned aggrievedly. "You haven't been teathed about it all your life. I tell you, it'th been a real pain in the ath for me!"
"Do you say that, or do you spray it?" Alicia giggled, and the image raised a hand into the field of the pickup and made a rude gesture.
"Oh, that's perfect, Megarea! Of course, I imagine poor Chisholm won't be handling much of the com traffic, given his lisp."
"No." Chisholm's baritone was replaced by a soprano and the image changed to that of a square-faced, silver-haired woman Alicia recognized as Ruth Ta
"So I see," Alicia propped a hip against a console and gri
"Okay, I think we're set. But if it's all the same to you two, I need a good night's sleep before I get started hunting up a cargo."
"Right." The screen blanked as Megarea returned to direct contact, and Alicia started back towards her quarters, shedding her tight jacket as she went. She tossed the garment to one of Megarea's waiting remotes, which whisked it neatly into a closet.
"Uh, say, Alley," Megarea said as she undressed, "you haven't had time to go through the full data download from the MaGuire port admiral, have you?"
"You know I haven't." Alicia paused with her blouse half off. "Why?"
"Well, I didn't want to worry you with it while Giolitti was aboard, and I wouldn't want to give you bad dreams or anything, but we're in it."
"What do you mean, 'we'?"
"I mean the "we" that stole me from Soissons orbit. Specifically, Captain Alicia DeVries and the illegally obtained alpha synth starship Hull Number Seven-Niner-One-One-Four."
"Indeed? What has the data to say of us?" Tisiphone asked curiously.
"It's not real good."
"Meaning what?" Alicia asked sharply. "That they know where we're headed or something?"
"No, not that bad. But there's an entry in here all about you, Alley—says you broke out of psychiatric detention and have to be considered extremely dangerous—and another bunch of crap about me. Fairly accurate summation of my offensive and defensive capabilities, though they're playing a lot of the details close to their chests and they don't say diddly about the other things I can do. No, what bothers me is this last little bit."
"What last little bit?"
"The one that says Fleet's offering a one million-credit reward for information leading to your location and interception," Megarea said. Alicia swallowed, but the AI wasn't quite done. "And the last little section that says the Jungian Navy's officially adopted Governor General Treadwell's instructions to his own Fleet units." Alicia sat down on the bed with a thump as Megarea finished her report.
"It's a shoot on sight order, Alley. They're not even talking about trying to get us back in one piece."