Up Against It - M. J. Locke [139]
“They are mistaken,” Jane said. “Elwood Ogilvie is not known for his subtlety, and he’s not going to leave things to chance.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re here,” Obyx said. “Why should you care about what the Ogilvies do to us?”
Jane stroked her lip, studying Obyx. “Let’s assume for the moment,” she said, “that Ogilvie’s representatives have already been to see you. They’ve given you a bit of information—only what they want you to know, of course.”
Sarah was trying to get Jane’s attention with small movements and noises, but Obyx merely seemed amused. “All right. Let’s assume that.”
“They’ve given you a promise,” Jane said, “that the Badlanders will be left alone if you stay out of the coming fight, and a subtle threat about the trouble you’ll reap if you get involved.”
Obyx threw back hir head and laughed. Jane glanced at Sarah. She was glaring, and shook her head minutely again. Jane ignored her warning.
“If what you say is true,” Obyx said, “then whyever should I cooperate with you? If this big fight is looming, it looks to me as if I have nothing to lose and everything to gain by staying on the sidelines.”
Jane smiled, and sprang the trap. “Oh, you have a dog in this hunt, all right. You have the feral sapient.”
Obyx did not react overtly, but hir gaze grew more intent. Sarah and Harbaugh openly gaped—though, Jane suspected, for different reasons.
“Thondu extracted it for you,” she went on, “during the sapient’s attack last night, and you’ve got it hidden away. But it’s useless to you here. It takes up too much room for you to house an active copy in your systems, and you can’t get it off Phocaea. If the Ogilvies find out you have it, and find out what it’s worth, whatever limited—and, I might add, bogus—immunity you’ve worked out for your own people won’t be worth the electrons it’s inscribed on. Your only hope is to get the sapient offworld before Elwood and his fleet of hired hands get here. But your leverage doesn’t extend to Benavidez. You can’t get your courier a berth.”
The silence stretched. Obyx stared thoughtfully at the open air above Jane’s head. “Your scenario is quite amusing. Is it not, Sarah?”
“Amusing is not the word I’d choose,” Sarah replied. “Jane, what is this about?”
“A good question,” Obyx told Sarah. “And I have to wonder about your own motives for bringing her here.”
Sarah stiffened. Jane felt a twinge of guilt. But if she had told Sarah what she had planned, Sarah would never have arranged this meeting. And too much rode on it.
Whatever misgivings Sarah had, she kept to herself. “I assumed you’d at least want to hear her out.”
Obyx’s gaze shifted back to Jane. “Still, all you’ve brought me is conjecture and supposition. You’ve spun a conspiracy from air and paranoia, and want me to put my own people’s lives at risk, for what? What do you want in return? Other than a vague promise to support you, if and when it comes to that.”
“You people can hack a barrier that shuts out ‘Stroiders’ motes,” Jane said. “I’ve seen it myself, on the way here.”
“Yes. And?”
“I want two things. One”—she held up her index finger—“I want you to give me a hack that disables that barrier. Two”—she held up her middle finger—“I want a way to record and send to a remote location everything that happens to me, automatically and instantaneously. I want that signal to be unblockable, and I want that remote location to be unhackable.”
Obyx burst into incredulous laughter. “Absurd!”
“Why?”
Obyx leaned close. Jane could smell hir breath. It was a nice smell—clean and inviting. Her own reaction bothered her. She wondered whether it was a hack, or hir real body chemistry. Nothing was ever real with the Viridians—or everything was.
“Nothing is unhackable, and nothing is unblockable. Nothing.”
Jane stood back. “I have confidence that the Viridians can come closest of anyone I know.”
“But … why? Why would you want such a thing?”
“Because he is a lawyer with access to huge financial resources, my enemy can create a privacy shadow at will,” Jane said. “He uses it against me. And