Hammer and Crucible by Cameron Cooper (easy books to read txt) 📗

sleep. As I could no longer reem him out for slovenliness, I ignored his appearance.

“I couldn’t absolutely confirm what they build there,” Lyth said. “The data is obscure and conflicting. The research center projects are easier to find, and quite unremarkable, which makes it likely that the research function of the base is a blind.”

“A fake front over a pile of misdirection?” I asked.

“Yes, which leads me to the inescapable conclusion that this is one of the locations where the Shield puts together array gates.”

“The actual gates themselves?” Juliyana said, her interest deepening. She frowned at the rotating moon. “You mean, we’ve uncovered the location?”

I could understand her incredulity. Where and how the Shield put together the jump gates was a closely and ruthlessly guarded secret. The myths about the manufacturing process had driven gossip for as long as the empire had existed.

When I was a child, we had scared each other into shivers by describing how the gates were made of spare parts of humans who had died, melted onto metal…and sometimes not so dead humans were used, and their screams were how ship AIs found the gates.

The gates were biomechanical—the Imperial Family had never denied that. How the biomass integrated with the mechanics was where the secret lay. Also why biomass was needed at all…

One could take advanced education degrees studying the jump gates and the array, yet only the most gifted academics were ever invited to undertake such study. The degrees were administered by the Imperial Shield, of course. Public handbooks outlining the degrees showed a range of subjects surrounding the array and the gates, but nothing about the function of the gates themselves. It was likely another deliberate omission, because even course subject titles and descriptions might hint at processes they didn’t want to share.

“This might be a construction location,” Lyth told Juliyana. “It would not be the only one, if it is. But it could also be a way-station that only constructs a component of a gate.”

“That, I can confirm,” I said. “I’ve seen the family records when the Carranoak barge found McCreary Landing. Imperial Shield ships came through the barge gate and put together the gate for McCreary Landing right there in space. And there were fourteen ships—each with a separate part. The gates are only put together into a functioning whole in their final position.”

Juliyana looked disappointed. “I wanted to see how big they really were.”

“Two kilometers across,” Lyth said. “Except the barge-towed gates, which are much smaller.”

Juliyana rolled her eyes at him.

Dalton made an impatient sound and pointed at the revolving moon hanging over the navigation table. “So, Moroder is on this station…somewhere. It looks small standing over it like this, but there are a lot of places in those buildings where he might be. We can’t land next to the front gate, lean out and beckon him over. And we can’t sneak in there and hunt for him. They’re going to notice the Lythion floating overhead, and that’s presuming we can make it past all the security layers guarding this place.”

“You can’t get in there,” I said. “It’s Imperial Shield and a gate facility. We won’t get near it in this ship, even if Lyth knows how to fake Imperial ship IDs—”

“Not yet, but I’m working on it,” Lyth said.

“—and you can’t get in there by devious methods,” I finished. “We can’t coax Moroder to come to us, either, because the Shield will saturate any travel he takes off the moon with tethers and tracking and security screens that will probe down to the DNA level anyone who comes near him. Anything that entices him off-planet will make them suspicious.”

Dalton scowled. Juliyana chewed the inside corner of her mouth, looking unhappy.

“You can’t get in,” Lyth said, “but Sagai Skylark can.”

“Who the fuck is that?” I demanded.

Dalton laughed. And kept laughing. He swung away from the table, holding his sides, his shoulders shaking.

Juliyana frowned, watching Dalton. Then she looked at Lyth, her expression demanding an answer.

Dalton swung back. “Oh, let me,” he said, sounding breathless, smiling hugely. His gaze met mine. “Sagai Skylark is an exotic dancer. And she does resemble you.” His smile radiated even harder. “Especially with the right makeup and jewelry and…clothes.” His gaze shifted down and back up to my face.

My cheeks burned, which irritated the shit out of me. I glared at Lyth. “I can’t pretend to be her and just turn up. It will raise their suspicions, too.”

“Sagai Skylark has consented to putting on a performance at the base,” Lyth said. “The contract was signed over a year ago—she is so in demand that her calendar is filled far ahead.”

“Please say this is the only way,” Dalton begged Lyth.

“I believe it might be,” Lyth replied.

Dalton gave a happy sigh.

Which did nothing to allay my irritation. “One,” I said heavily, “they will scope her DNA when she arrives, to make sure she’s who she says she is.”

“I can get around that,” Lyth said. “A simple switch of records—purely temporary.”

I wanted to growl. “Two,” I added, “there is a real Sagai whatever out there. What do we do with her? We can’t have her turn up on the base, too.”

“I can take—” Dalton began quickly.

“No, Juliyana can do it,” I interjected. Then I grimaced, for I had committed myself. “I don’t want you anywhere near the woman,” I told Dalton.

“Besides, Major Dalton should be there to question Moroder,” Lyth said.

“I’m supposed to put him in my pocket?” I asked and wondered if Sagai’s clothes even had pockets. I suspected not.

“There are two side airlocks where personnel can enter the base, but they can only be opened from the inside,” Lyth said. “I can overcome the locking mechanism so that security is not alerted to the opening, but it is a pre-Accord lock. It requires a human hand to actually open the doors.”

“Me,” I concluded. Before the Ordi Accord, which had been signed five years before I resigned, all airlocks anywhere required manual manipulation for safety reasons. A human