Wilken seemed to accept that, or at least didn’t ask any more questions. It sort of made sense. It was a security consultant’s job to be skeptical of their clients’ assurances that everything was fine. (SecUnit clients, at least, only assured each other that everything was fine while you stared at the wall and waited for everything to go horribly wrong.)

Abene and Hirune walked the security consultants into the Port Authority now, where they had quarters with the skeleton station team. They were talking about a full briefing, team prep, and a departure time sixteen hours from now. Miki the human-form bot followed, then stopped. It turned, and looked up at the drone I was riding. Its head cocked and I could tell it was focusing in on the camera.

I let the drone go, its memory of the temporary takeover blanked. It sent a confused reorientation request to the PA’s system, then wandered off back to its patrol route.

Miki didn’t move, still staring into the dark with the opaque surface of its eyes. The feed was clear, it couldn’t know I was here.

Then Miki sent a directionless ping. Just a call into the dark, checking to see if there was anyone out there who wanted to reply.

I checked myself for signal leakage, tightened my walls, and reminded myself to be careful. Just because the station feed was silent didn’t mean no one was listening. The GI expedition would be running their feed off the systems equipment they brought with them, but someone on the station staff was giving the lifter bots orders and maybe still checking the security reports.

This place was so quiet, maybe Miki had picked up the marker ad I’d tripped. Maybe it had heard a whisper in the otherwise empty feed, and that was creepy enough it even bothered me. Finally, it turned and followed its owner into the PA complex.

I slipped out of the cubby and went down the dark hall to find a better hiding place.

*   *   *