Command Decision Read Free Page B

knew—that wouldn’t work. The safety interlocks prevented any excessive power surges. Nor should they have been able to trace his location from the ansible’s response. But no one who wouldn’t speak to him should have been able to initiate the call.
    Finally he heard, dimly, voices talking. Not talking to him, but talking somewhere in the pickup range of whatever unit they were using. He boosted the sensitivity, shunting the input to storage for later analysis.
    “…the light’s green. It has to be connected.”
    “…not in the index. A private ansible? Would he have had a private off-list ansible?”
    “…knows? ’Sposed to be the son’s private number, but nobody’s there—”
    “It’s connected.”
    “Could be in automatic mode. If it’s designed for relays or something.”
    Three voices, Rafe decided. Too far from the pickup to tell much about them, at least without signal analysis.
    Then, loudly, “Hey! Answer me!” Male voice, not above middle age, used to having its orders followed.
    Rafe said nothing.
    “Got to be on auto,” the same voice said, this time in a normal tone. “I don’t hear a thing.”
    “So he lied to us. Not his son’s number—”
    “Or his son has it on auto but with no pickup message.”
    “We should leave him a message,” a more distant voice said.
    “Not until we know where he is,” the closest voice said.
    The connection closed with a snap; Rafe sat a long moment without moving before he unplugged the cable and re-coiled it into its place in his bag.
    Two and two in this case made a very unsavory four. The most likely
he
to have told them the number was his father. He would not have given that number except at great need, probably under duress. That and the trap on the house number, the immediate tail put on what should have passed as an innocent businessman, the empty house…all that suggested an organization with enormous resources, if not the government itself, operating with the government’s consent if not approval. Remembering what Ky and Stella had told him about the attacks on Vatta on Slotter Key, he wondered if the pirates had somehow intimidated the Nexus government into letting them kidnap the head of ISC. Or if they had infiltrated some group within ISC.
    Not likely, he decided. The men had not sounded like expert ISC communications technicians; they’d used none of the jargon peculiar to the trade. That meant they might not be able to trace the ansible relay beyond Nexus and thus could not find him. On the other hand, they might have a skilled technician in their organization, or even captive.
    Either way, Genson Ratanvi and his food processing needed to disappear in a way that would not alert anyone to anything. He would have to leave the planet, or appear to, on his way back to Cascadia. It was almost dawn…an energetic businessman with a digestive upset might well be up and making calls, hoping to find a place on a ship home. Then again—he’d been here only a day. Would he give up so easily? No. Nexus had other cities, other suppliers. Surely the man would travel around, unhappy stomach and all.
    Rafe logged on to the hotel’s travel information site and soon had an itinerary that gave him a reason to be in every major city over the next four weeks. He declined the hotel’s booking agency and made the reservations himself, choosing to change carriers here and there. With excellent communications links, Nexus travelers were spontaneous in their schedules; no one would notice particularly if someone on a scheduled ferry or flight didn’t show up, especially if the passenger called in.
    By the time Rafe came down to breakfast in his business persona, he had determined that the contact attempt had originated here on Nexus; his illicit and—he hoped—undetectable probes of the Nexus ansible had gotten him that far. The origination code for the call was not his father’s, and he didn’t recognize it. He would have to hack into the main