Com traffic is encrypted, so I couldn’t just listen in on someone else’s conversations. But I could see that she hadn’t actually transmitted anything. I guess the dog girls didn’t have fancy radio sensors like mine.
“After this failure they will need to report back to their handler, and receive new instructions before considering another attempt. Which is fortunate, for I have no one to call. I’m the only crewmember who came down on the shuttle, and I don’t dare involve law enforcement. The organization the inugami serve has considerable influence, and local law does not seem well disposed towards androids such as myself. The last thing I want is to create a mess that will trouble my captain. It’s bad enough that I can’t seem to find a source for these flowers I’m supposed to be purchasing.”
“Flowers?” What the heck would she want flowers for?
“A special request for an offworld collector,” she clarified. “I thought it would be easy, but no one seems to sell presence blossoms.”
“Well, of course not. They’re sacred to Gaia. No one on Felicity would dare pick one, and they don’t sell the seeds. You’ll have to sneak out of town and gather them yourself.”
“That is a problem. I’m programmed for work in stations or aboard ship, but I’d be lost out in that wilderness. Does this planet even have a navgrid?”
“Nope. That’s another sinful indulgence of people who’ve lost touch with nature. But, um, I could show you where to find some.”
She gave me a wary look. “I see. And what would you want in return for this service?”
“A ride off this planet,” I told her. “You can do that, right? I don’t care where you drop me off, as long as it’s not some crazy mind control dictatorship. I just can’t stay here.”
She studied me for a long moment. I could see a flurry of encrypted traffic on her datalink now, and I had a feeling I knew what she was looking up.
“You said your name is Alice Long,” she said slowly. “The missing orphan from the Benevolent Goddess Orphanage?”
“That’s me. So we’re even, right? If I was an evil bitch I could use your surrender code on you, but you could turn me in to the port proctors before I could finish saying it. I’m sure your captain would get mad about it too, and I need her cooperation to get what I need. So what do you say?”
“That orphanage is halfway across the continent,” she observed.
“Yes. It was a long walk, and I’m getting really tired of hunting animals for food. Please? I hardly weigh anything, so it’s not like the lift will cost much.”
Her lips twitched. “Indeed, it will not. The Square Deal is not a passenger liner, Alice. The accommodations are Spartan, and the captain may require you to work for your passage.”
“I can do that. I’m not trained, but I’m smart and I’m not afraid of hard work. I don’t need much, just basic life support and a place to sleep. Give me a chance, Naoko. Pleeeease?”
I gave her my best puppy eyes. She gave up on trying not to smile.
“Very well, Alice. If you will help me accomplish my mission here, I will take you with me when I leave and persuade the captain to allow you passage. Until then you shall be my guide. Agreed?”
“Yes!” I couldn’t resist hugging her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! You don’t know how much this means to me, Naoko. You’re saving my life, here.”
“You are welcome, little one. Now focus. We need to finish and be gone before the inugami cause more trouble. Where can we find those flowers?”
“Oh, right. Okay, focused like a laser. Um, how many do you need, anyway?”
“At least two whole plants, suitable for cultivation,” she told me. “There is a bonus for additional specimens, but only a small one.”
“Then we should take at least four. Presence blossoms are delicate, so we might lose one on the trip. We’ll need something to put them in, of course. Do you have access to a private fabber? We should really use hothouse boxes to move them, but buying those from a public fabber might raise a warning flag somewhere.”
“There’s a small fabber on my shuttle,” Naoko said. “I’m checking the database now. A ‘hothouse box’ is a small, controlled-environment container meant for transporting plants, correct?”
“That’s right. You’ll need one about twenty by twenty by forty cems tall for each plant. If you’ve got options look for a stackable model with carrying handles, or maybe one of the fancy ones with a hover unit in the base.”
“A hover unit would take too long to fabricate,” she objected. “Does this seem suitable?”
She sent me a complicated message over the public datanet. I could feel my com software chewing it over, trying to figure out what to do with it. Finally it resolved into a 3D model of an odd-looking hothouse box, and a few hundred pages of technical specs.
“Oh, neat! I didn’t know you could do that with the datanet,” I told her.
She gave me an odd look. “You’ve never linked a fab design before?”
“We didn’t have a datanet at the orphanage,” I admitted. “I figured out how to log in, but I’m still struggling with most of this stuff. It took my implant computer almost a hundred milliseconds to figure out what that file was. Anyway, um, let’s see. Yeah, I think this will work. It says it’s rated for tropical marsh environments, and all K-class biochemistries. Felicity’s plants are all in the K16 family, so that should be fine. Just don’t forget to plug them in when we get back to your ship, and refill them with organic feedstock about once a week.”
“I shall do so. You seem to know a great deal about plants, Alice.”
“That’s mostly what they teach in school here,” I explained. “Gardening and animal care for the little kids, biology and genetics for the older ones, and then stuff like weather management and ecological caretaking for advanced students. It’s kind of boring, but learning it was better than failing all my classes.”
“I’m sure. Well, the boxes will be ready in fifteen minutes, and once they’re built a utility drone will deliver them to us. Now, how do you propose to leave the port? Offworlders are not allowed outside, you know.”
I snickered. “The security here sucks. I guess they figure there’s no reason to worry about people on foot, since there’s nothing around here but jungle and marshland. Can you climb buildings, and sneak? Our best route is over one of the big square buildings on the east side of town.”
“The warehouses? Yes, I can manage that. Which way?”