ART had a set of spreadsheets ready but I didn’t want to scare them off with a figure that was too high. “How much were they paying you before you were terminated?”

Rami said, “It’s two hundred CRs per cycle for each worker for the limited term of contract.”

It didn’t sound like this would take more than a cycle. “You can pay me that.”

“One cycle’s share of the contract?” Rami sat up straight. “Really?”

Ter reaction meant I’d asked for far too little, but it was too late to correct the mistake. I did need to give them a reason why I was willing to settle for a small amount, and I decided the partial truth was better. “I need to go to RaviHyral, and I need an employment contract to get there.”

“Why?” Tapan asked, and Rami nudged her by way of admonishment. “I mean, I know we don’t have a right to ask, but…”

Don’t have a right to ask. That wasn’t something that had ever applied to me, before PreservationAux. I told the truth again. “I need to do some research there for another client.”

Like ART, they understood the idea of research, especially proprietary research, and they didn’t ask any further questions. Rami told me they were scheduled to leave for RaviHyral during the next cycle, and said te would put in the request for the private employment voucher. I arranged to meet them in the mall near the access for the shuttle embarkation zone and then left. I released the security camera as soon as I was out of range.

I got back to ART and huddled in my favorite chair and we watched episodes for the next three hours while I calmed down. ART monitored the transit ring’s alert feed in case someone had realized what I was, but there was nothing.

I told you so, ART said. Again.

I ignored it. I hadn’t been detected, so now it was time to think about the rest of the plan. Which now involved keeping my new clients alive.

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

I MET THEM AT the embarkation zone. I had the knapsack, which was part of my human disguise, but the only important thing I was carrying was the comm interface from ART. It would allow us to communicate once I was down on RaviHyral and let me continue to have access to ART’s knowledge bases and unsolicited opinions. I was used to having a HubSystem and a SecSystem for backup and ART would be taking their place. (Without the part where those two systems were partly designed to rat me out to the company and trigger punishment through the governor module. ART’s freedom to weigh in on everything I did was punishment enough.) I had inserted the comm interface in a built-in compartment under my ribs.