Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory by Martha Wells

Author:Martha Wells
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

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Ayda is in the station hotel suite that they took for SecUnit and the members of the survey team while they were all reporting to the council. Pin-Lee, Ratthi, and Gurathin are still staying here with Arada and Overse, who are back now after a quick trip down to the planet to see their family. Bharadwaj, who has her own quarters on the station, has dropped in, and Volescu who is on planet now has been sending them his own work via the station comm.

Now that the furor over corporate murder and abduction is dying down, the survey needs to finish its reports so the council can decide if they want to pursue their claim on the planet. Ayda could work with them on the feed from her office, but she likes being here, sitting on the couches in the common room and talking face to face, the floating display surfaces filled with their data and collated notes. SecUnit is tucked into a chair in the corner, probably watching media in its feed. It’s good to have it there, too.

“It’s a relief to finally be getting this done.” Pin–Lee flicks between different displays. She’s working on the contract they would offer to the corporate body who “owns” the planet in question. In the Corporation Rim, everything has to be owned by someone.

Overse, sitting with Arada’s bare feet on her lap, gestures in frustration. “It would be closer to being done if Ratthi’s tables weren’t all over the place and all the links broken. What were you thinking, Ratthi?”

“I was planning to sort it all out the day GrayCris started trying to kill us, it was very distracting,” Ratthi protests.

“I’ll do it,” Ayda finds herself saying. “Can you send me that file?” She shouldn’t do it, at least not now, so late in the station’s day. She should go back to her family in her quarters soon. But it’s easier here, where everyone knows what happened and no one feels the need to ask questions or is trying to get her to tell them everything is fine and she is exactly the same as she was the day she left. Work is a good excuse.

Pin-Lee has already pulled up another file and is frowning slightly. “I need to review our billing, too. Oh, this is ridiculous, we’re not paying for their extra power overrun, there’s no way they can prove that was us…”

SecUnit must be watching Pin-Lee’s feed where the billing documents are, because it says suddenly, “You didn’t get the Retrieved Client Protocol?”

They had offered it to Ayda on the gunship after the attack, standard for clients who survive traumatic incidents like being abducted and held hostage by corporate rivals. “No, no, I didn’t.” She didn’t want a corporation’s excuse for a trauma support specialist poking around in her emotions. She almost adds, I didn’t need it, which would be a dead giveaway. And then it occurs to her, a giveaway of what? What is she worried about giving away, here among these people she trusts with her life.

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