Banned From Argo -- Chapter 6

 

6.

 

Our Lady of Communications won a ship-wide bet
By getting into the planet's main communications net.  

Now every time someone calls up on an Argo telescreen

The flesh is there, but the clothes they wear are nowhere to be seen.

 

            Her room at the DeFarge Hotel was quietly elegant, but Lt. Nyota Upenda Uhura was more concerned with its datanet linkage.  For one thing, the room had its own private comm-line, with a meter that counted and billed only for time used, which meant that if she wished she could spend hours net-surfing without anyone from the main desk calling up to ask questions.

            She lay sprawled on the big bed, wearing nothing but a soft caftan, with a whole potful of hot chocolate sitting on the bed-table nearby, her heavy-duty laptop comm-board linked up and screen scrolling.  Paradise!  Nothing to do for days and days but indulge in her pet pastime, and if it cost a month’s pay it would be worth it.  Datasurfing out in space was like searching for pearl oysters in an often deep and empty sea, but surfing planetside was more like strolling across a lush tropical island looking for the best in coconuts.

            Well, there were plenty of coconuts to choose from.  She watched the datalines scrolling up the screen, and flagged the ones that looked interesting.  Hmm, there was an intriguing title: Realm of the Midnight Marauders.  It sounded like a bunch of kids swapping vid-games, probably worth a brief look.  She poked a button, reflecting that this was really more direct, more realistic, than talking to a comp-voice – not to mention quieter, just in case anyone should pass by in the hallway outside.

            There: Realm of the Midnight Marauders.  Its logo proclaimed it to be A Gamers’ Forum and Defense Committee – huh? "'Defense' committee"? – and the entry protocols were surprisingly fierce.  Some really smart kid had set them up;  she had to work hard to get through them.  What in the worlds…?

            Once she broke through to the discussion-threads menu, the mystery became a little clearer.  ‘Games, Suppression of’, ‘Holovids, Suppression of’, ‘Legal Resources’, ‘Political Resources’ – exactly what was happening on Argo?  What gang of idiots was trying to suppress common entertainment, and why?  Uhura picked ‘Games, Suppression of’ and punched in.

            “—fear of ‘escapism’,” rolled across the screen, attributed to a correspondent named ‘Clarion’.  “Why should anyone fear ‘escapism’?  Because it implies that society is worth escaping from!  It’s fear of a slave revolt, plain and simple.”

            Uhura gave herself the title of ‘Dark Lady’, and cut in.  “Excuse me, I’m new here,” she tapped.  “Just what’s being suppressed, by whom, and why?”

            There was an instant’s pause, and then the screen began lighting up with hit-indicators.  In five minutes, the screen noted 34 new messages, and Uhura hadn’t read through more than three of them.  She spent the next hour getting a fascinating picture of Argo society – legal and electronic.  It was an impressive insight. 

            “Quite simply,” ‘Clarion’ summed it up, “The Argo government is trying to limit the amount of time anyone can spend, per day, either watching holovids or playing computer games.  Full-Virt holosuites are limited to adults only, training programs only.  Holovids are inspected and strictly censored before being released for public viewing.  The government is trying to find ways to censor the entire datanet, having little luck as hackers evade them, and they’re threatening really outrageous penalties for anyone they manage to catch.”

            “I’ve seen this before, on other worlds,” Uhura answered.  “It’s usually a precursor – or a clear indication – of tyranny.  Does the Argo government know that suppression of this kind could cost it membership in the Federation?”

            That set off a fresh flurry of comments and questions.  The datatraffic grew so thick that the sysop was obliged to cut in with the request that people take this topic over to ‘Political Resources’ where it belonged.  The screen quickly emptied as the discussion moved to its proper zone.

            Uhura considered joining them, poured herself a fresh cup of hot chocolate, then got another idea.  She pulled out of the thread, punched back to the menu, and tapped in: “search: Protest, electronic”.

            Whoa, that one had entry protocols and watchdogs she couldn’t believe!  Uhura threaded her way through them, even ducking down into the procedural sub-basement routines a couple of times, before she got to the subject proper. 

            The first entry was comparatively harmless: instructions on how to ‘not spam but blizzard’ the net with short protest messages, such as “Sign Petition 233: Stop Censorship”, entered by ‘SewerRat’.  The second entry, by ‘NightFlight’, described procedures for leaving messages with every elected official on the planet.  A third, from ‘Bar Sinister’, told how to hack into the controls for the light-strip around one of the larger commercial buildings downtown so as to add the message: “Sign Petition 233”.

            “This is basically harmless stuff,” she punched in, using her code-name ‘Dark Lady’.  “So why the ferocious secrecy on the information?”

            Right away the screen flashed back: “Who are you, and how did you get in here?” – signed only by ‘Sysop’.

            “I’m the Dark Lady of Communications,” she typed back, a little annoyed, “And I know my business.  How about answering my question?”

            She could almost see the anonymous readers pausing to think that over.  Then another message stitched itself across the screen.

            “Are you the Dark Lady of the ship that just came in today?” asked someone named ‘Cassowary’, “And is your middle name Upenda, and do you have an unreal lion’s tooth pendant?”

            Right there, Uhura guessed who it was.

            “I sure am,” she typed back.  “And is your middle name Dover, and didn’t we meet on Argelius Four last year?”

            “Yes, yes and yes!  J”  came back at her.  “Don’t say another word.  We must meet.  You say where.”

            “No, your choice,” she typed back.

            After a moment, an address appeared, and a time.

            “A date already, and I wasn’t even trying,” Uhura chuckled.  She typed in her acknowledgement and promised to be there in two hours.  Then she signed off, closed the computer and got up to look over her wardrobe.  Ray Dover Carlotti, as she recalled, was well worth dressing up for.

 

                                                            *           *           *

 

            Uhura took care to arrive early and look over the environment.  The address turned out to be a wine-garden of the kind frequented by the musical and theatrical set.  It was elegant, quiet and discreet, and Uhura picked out a seat at what she considered the best place.  It was a small round table in a corner, half-screened by a graceful potted mimosa tree, and lit only by the candle in the amber glass on the table’s center.  The light reflected subtle metallic gleams from her satin red-bronze-and-gold caftan, and glimmered from her bone-bead necklace and bracelets.  She had ordered a local gold-colored wine in a balloon glass, and as she heard footsteps approach the mimosa tree she lifted the glass to her lips.  It caught the candlelight at just the right angle, and looked as if she were drinking molten gold.

            Ray Carlotti, pushing his way past the mimosa tree, was momentarily turned to stone at the sight of her – just as Uhura had intended.

            “Ray,” she smiled, setting down the glass, “Come, sit.  It’s been entirely too long since we last met.”

            “Uhh, oh, yeah.”  Ray stumbled over his own feet, and almost fell into the table’s only other chair.  Half his navigation problem was that he couldn’t take his eyes off Uhura.

            She grinned.  The passing years hadn’t made him any more graceful, or subtle.

            Ray Carlotti was tall, gangling, built like a string bean, with hands and feet too big for his body.  He’d left adolescence behind ten years ago, but still looked like an oversized teenager.  Corrective surgery had cleared up his nearsightedness, but he still held his big dark eyes open wide, as if he’d been peering at a computer screen too long – which he probably had.  He fit the centuries-old stereotype of a classic Computer Nerd to perfection, even unto holding down a six-figure job as an independent computer consultant.  Starfleet had tried to recruit him, and so had several Starfleet-supplying companies, but he refused to have anything to do with them – and made a fortune anyway.

            “Duhh, hello, Nyo,” he managed to say, still staring at her.  “Uh, are you still working for the Agents of Oppression?”

            “Sure thing,” she smiled back at him.  “Are you still an unregenerate Anarchist?”

            “Now and forever.”  He managed to wrench his eyes away from Uhura long enough to signal to the waiter.  “And my current job has only further convinced me that I was right in the first place.  Uh…”  He changed gears, looking harmless, as the waiter strolled up.  “I’ll have an Eirse Coffee, thank you – extra sugar.  So, how’ve you been, Nyota?”

            “Doing quite well, really.”  Uhura watched as the waiter moved away.  “So, what in the worlds are you doing on Argo?”

            “Arrrgh, sabotaging my own work!”  As he warmed to his subject, Ray’s gawkiness faded away.  “The local government hired me to update their system, ‘broaden’ it, they said.  What they really wanted was some way to listen in on every electronic conversation on the planet!  I couldn’t believe it, told them they were in danger of violating their Federation charter, all that.  They said to steer as close to the edge of the law as I could without stepping over it – at least, not in any detectable way.  Detectable!  Right there, I knew what I was dealing with.”

            “But why, Ray?” Uhura marveled.  “That’s what puzzles me about all of this: the censorship, the rationing of entertainment, now the spying on their own people – it’s not as if they were fighting a war, or even expecting one.  So why?”

            “’Tis the nature of the beast,” Ray sneered.  “Some people need war for an excuse, and some people don’t even need an excuse.  You’ve noticed that Argo’s very big on Respectability?”

            “I’ve heard a few things.”

            “Well, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Respectability, control, strong central government –- oh hell, they’re into corporate feudalism, and you know where that leads.”

            “Oh no,” Uhura groaned.  “I thought everybody had learned better, centuries ago.”

            “You forget,” Ray glowered, “Argo is a very old colony, one of the first.  When all the old Centralists and Corporate Feudalists and Neo-Puritans got thoroughly discredited on Earth, where do you think they went?”

            “That explains a lot,” Uhura murmured, remembering Federation history.  In the first century after the development of cheap stardrive, every religious cult, political faction, philosophical school and even artistic movement had gone out to colonize new worlds and put their ideas into practice.  A few had been spectacular successes, some less successful, and many had failed outright.  The failures had usually fallen back on the general culture of the burgeoning Federation for support, but others had mutated as necessary in order to survive.  Some had mutated extravagantly, others not very far – just enough to look acceptable to the Federation Membership Board.  “So, under the skin of Respectability, there lies…”

            “—A nasty little oligarchy.”  Ray made a face, then smoothed it out quickly as he saw the waiter returning.  Ray took his Eirse Coffee and thrust a handful of local currency at the waiter, who gawked at the amount, then retreated quickly before Ray could change his mind.

            “So anyway,” Ray resumed, “What I wound up giving them was a sort of emergency override, so they could break in on communications all over the planet to give warning if they had some world-wide emergency.  That much I had to let them do.”

            “Was this before or after the cultural censorship started?” Uhura asked.    

            “During!  That’s been going on for quite a while.  Being Neo-Puritans, they secretly believed that anything people enjoy is somehow evil.  They especially hate anything the kids enjoy; they’re desperate to brainwash the kids into being good little employees and taxpayers before they’re old enough to get the vote – and, with it, what little independence an adult here can get.  They especially don’t want the kids to see, hear or do anything that might encourage them to think for themselves – and maybe think of breaking the corporate mold.”

            “That explains the hatred of ‘escapism’.”

            “Right,” Roysmiled.  “That’s also why I’ve been taking my time setting up the new system for them, so I have an excuse to stay on-planet.  I spend my spare time setting up the underground computer networks and giving them all sorts of useful information.”

            “’Information is the door to freedom’,” Uhura quoted, grinning back at him.  She could almost picture the scene: the stuffed-shirt bureaucrats versus the scruffy techno-anarchist.  She could almost pity the stuffed shirts.  Almost.  “It still doesn’t quite add up, Ray.  Does Argo have any neighbors close enough to conquer quickly, and is the planetary government building up its military?”

            “No, and no.”  Ray slurped his coffee with a brief expression of bliss.  “Before you ask, yes, I thought at first that they were doing all this social-control crap because they planned to go out and start an empire; that’s the usual way such societies go.  But for one thing, that would turn the rest of the Federation against them, and even the craziest power-junkie wouldn’t be that stupid.  Second, no, there’s nobody close enough to go out and conquer quickly and efficiently.  Hell, I think the nearest inhabited planets are the Andorian colonies, and nobody with any sense wants to tangle with them.  No, there’s something else going on.”

            “If they’re not setting up for conquest, then why are they doing this?”

            “The next best reason: money.”

            “They’re enslaving their own people for money?!”

            “Think: Argo’s been trying to get the best of both worlds: keeping a money-making wide-open trade port up in orbit, and their safe, controlled, cultural ‘purity’ groundside at the same time.”

            “Quite a balancing act.  How successful have they been?”

            “Not very.  Now they have two political factions – call them the Middleclass and the Rich.  The Middleclass want a wide-open groundside port city too, and free trade, and they’ve been growing in political power lately – especially since that scandal about the planetary governor and the maid in the coat-closet.  There’s a forced election coming up, and it looked as if the Middleclass party might win, for once.”

            “Hmm,” Uhura considered.  “The obvious move is for the Rich party to make some trade concessions fast: take the wind out of the open-city faction’s sails.”         

            “That, and give up some of their control over the spaceport.”  Ray took another hit off his coffee.  “In other words, make a deal with Starfleet.  How many fortunes have been made selling munitions to armies?  Or, in this case, shipyard and shore-leave facilities to navies.  That would make up in money what they lose in control of the port.  But in any case, the space-trade exposes their people to dangerous ideas about freedom and self-reliance – so it’s censorship time, with a vengeance.”

            Uhura rubbed her forehead and thought about that.  “But something still doesn’t make sense here,” she said.  “I saw stories all over the net about the government ‘cleaning up’ the spaceport.  If the Rich Respectables have been running the port, what is there to clean up?”

            “Some very dirty money.”  Ray licked coffee-foam off his lip.  “For decades the Rich party has been putting up this big ‘respectability’ front to its citizens, while secretly running the port as a red-light district – and collecting fat bribes to let the ‘illegal and immoral’ trade go on.  There are even rumors about them letting Orion slave-traders come through.”

            “Ye gods!” Uhura gasped.  “If Starfleet Command knew—“

            “Right.  That would shatter the whole deal.  Goodbye big money and power.  Hmm, in fact, you’ve already thrown a small monkey-wrench into the works – your ship, I mean.”

            “Us?  How?”

            “You came ahead of schedule, with very little advance warning.  The Argo government had to clean up the dockside fast, before your crew could see anything that wasn’t Respectable.  That’s why they’ve been raiding the shipyard end of Port City all day, and it’ll probably go on all night.  At least that will keep them too busy to chase computer-freaks for awhile.”

            “You know,” said Uhura, eyes narrowing, “I hate hypocrisy almost as much as I hate censorship.”

            “Nyota Upenda, I know that look.  What do you have in mind?”

            “…So the kingpin is this false front of Respectability, is it?  Well, nothing punctures a stuffed shirt like a good dirty joke.”

            “Nyota…”

            Uhura pulled her minicomp out of her voluminous sleeve and began jabbing its buttons.  “I’ve worked on tricorders,” she muttered.  “Just a few minor additions, just a few little adjustments…  There.”  She shoved the minicomp at Ray so he could see its screen.  “First, can you get me those parts?  Second, can you get me into the main communications complex?”

            Ray looked at the list, and his eyes grew very wide.  “Uh…yeah,” was all he said.

            “How soon?”

            “Tonight.”  He snickered.  Then whooped.  “Oh yes, tonight!  They’ll be too busy with their raids to notice.  But once you’ve hooked it up, what will you do with it?”

            She told him.

            He laughed so hard he fell off his chair, startling the waiter.

 

                                                            *           *           *

 

            With her makeup washed off, hair pulled tight under a close-fitting turban and eyes hidden behind tinted engineer’s goggles, draped in a shapeless tan-colored technician’s jumpsuit, Uhura was unrecognizable.  Ray had to look twice to realize that the approaching tech with the battered toolkit was indeed his co-conspirator.

            “Did you get everything?” she whispered, glancing up at the neon-tinged midnight sky.

            “Oh yes,” he grinned, tapping the larger and even more battered case in his arms.  “Pray step into my beat-up groundcar, m’lady, and we’ll go infiltrate the enemy’s lair.”

            “How did you get it all so fast?” she asked, wriggling her way into the cramped vehicle.  The seat, she noted, was littered with technical manuals.

            “Through the Undernet, of course.”  He snickered as he slid into the driver’s seat.  “My friends were happy to help.”

            “Your friends?”  Uhura sat up.  “How many friends, and how much did you tell them?”

            “Oh, just three or four.”  He started the engine.  “Hey, they won’t tell anybody – at least not until we’ve finished and got away clean.”

            “How much do they know, Ray?” she insisted.

            “Hey, no more than they could guess by looking at the parts I asked for.  That’s why I had to talk to four of them, so nobody would get the whole picture.”

            “But they all talk to each other, don’t they?” said Uhura, seeing all hope of secrecy go down the drain.

            “Oh no!”  Ray gave her an indignant look as he swung the car out onto the road.  “They don’t even know each other.  They’re not all in the same news-groups, or even in the same town.  Why, a couple of them are on ships in orbit.  There’s no way—“

            “What ships?”

            “Well, the Althashayn…”

            “That Andorian scout?  Ray, you know how Andorians gossip!  What’s the other ship?”

            “Uh, well, the Enterprise.”

            “Myship?!”

            “Hey, don’t worry!  My contacts won’t talk.”

            “Just who are your contacts, Ray,” Uhura growled.

            “My lips are sealed,” he said, steering onto a darkened service road.

            “Ray…”

            “Uh, well, you know Commander Thelin’s a really serious computer-gamer…”

            Uhura relaxed slightly.  She knew Thelin.  The Andorian was of clan Norothriv: old aristocracy, used to politics and intrigue, knowing when to keep their antennae curled and their mouths shut.

            “And who from my ship?”

            “Uhm, you know Janice Rand?  She spends a lot of time on the discussion boards.”

            “Yes, I know her.”  Uhura slumped in relief.  Randwas a friend, and wouldn’t go spreading tales.  “How much further?”

            “Huh?  Oh.  Right up here at the end of the road.”

            Sure enough, ahead lay a sprawl of buildings.  From the center of them sprouted a huge transmission-mast.  The parking lot below it was almost empty, and most of the building’s windows were unlit.

            “See?  Nobody here but a skeleton-crew,” said Ray, pulling into the parking lot.  “We’ll walk right through them.”

            “Hmm, just one thing you haven’t explained,” Uhura considered as the engine thumped to silence.  “When the solid-waste impacts the rotor-blades, the officials will hunt frantically for someone to blame.  They won’t know me, but they’re bound to identify you.”

            “No they won’t,” Ray preened, handing her an identification badge.  “My ID’s as false as yours, and the only guy inside who could recognize me is the friend who’s letting us in.”

            “An inside man, Ray?”

            “Hey, where did you think I got the last bit of equipment?  The Undernet Is Everywhere!”

            “Good thing I brought my communicator; we just might need an emergency beam-up.”

            “Then good thing your friend’s minding the transporter.  Now look normal.”

            Wondering what Ray’s idea of ‘normal’ was, Uhura followed him across the parking lot and into a side door of the main building.  Sure enough, the door’s scanner recognized their badges and let them in. 

            Beyond the door lay a corridor, with lights at energy-saving dimness and numbered doors to either side.  Halfway down it stood an open cargo elevator.  Inside that was a simple badge-reader and keypad.  It accepted Ray’s badge without comment.  He pushed buttons, the doors closed and the elevator sank toward the basement.  They’d seen no one so far, and Uhura couldn’t believe their luck would last.

            It didn’t.

            When they stepped out of the elevator, they all but ran into a uniformed security guard.  He was late-middle-aged, noticeably overweight, with a uniform that was gaudy with decorations and tailored to disguise his paunch.  The minute he saw them, he struck a menacing pose and twiddled his fingers around his stungun.

            Ray, with studied nonchalance, started to walk past him as if he were part of the scenery.

            It didn’t work.

            “Who’re you?” snapped the guard, stepping in front of him.  “And whatcha doing here at this hour?”

            “Inspection and maintenance,” Ray growled back, flapping his badge.  “We gotta get Subsection 21-B cleared before morning.”

            “Inspection?  At this hour?”  The guard glowered accusingly, hitching up his shoulders to look taller – which only made his belly look bigger.

            “Of course at this hour,” Ray retorted, sounding just the right shade of impatient and annoyed.  “Low-traffic hours, low power-draw, no busy bureaucrats to get in the way.  You mind?”

            “Yeah, I mind,” huffed the guard, sticking his elbows out and twiddling showily with his stungun.  “Nobody told meabout any inspection.”

            “Yeah?  Well, Third Engineer Dusenberg told meto get it done tonight,” Ray snapped back.  “You wanta call him, he’s up in 387 right now, going over the readouts.  Maybe he’ll be happy to get yanked away from his boards for diddly-squat, and maybe he won’t.  Go on and call him.”

            Challenged, the guard pulled out his clunky communicator and played with it, looking to see if Ray looked worried.  Ray only looked expectant and gleeful.

            Inspired, Uhura said to him – loud enough for the guard to hear: “How long is this going to take, Harry?  Remember, we’ve got to get down to the sewage plant sometime tonight.”

            Ray caught the hint and ran with it.  “Hey, don’t worry,” he chortled.  “If we don’t make it, he’ll catch the flak.  We get double-time-and-a-half, no matter what.”

            That decided the guard.  “G’wan, get outta here,” he growled, stepping toward the elevator doors.  “And don’t try any cute stuff.”

            “’Cute stuff’?” Uhura couldn’t help adding as they strolled off down the corridor.  “What’s cute about a grade-2 inspection?”

            “Who knows?  Who cares?” said Ray.

            The elevator doors whooshed shut behind them.

            “Typical,” Ray added.  “This culture breeds bullies.”

            “What will happen to your friend Dusenberg when the guard gets questioned?”

            “Heh!  Dusenberg’s not in tonight.  My buddy’s got a bypass on 387, so any calls up there tonight go to him.”

            “Neat.  Where are we really going?”

            “Not to Subsection 21-B.”

            In fact, they went to Subsection 41-A, which was down the corridor, around a corner, down a shorter corridor, around another corner, and at the end of a short passage.  Ray used his badge to open the door, revealing a bank of connections and relays.

            “There you are, milady,” he said with a flourish.  “I think bank number 14 is what you want.”

            “You stand watch,” said Uhura, peering at the spaghetti-tangle of cables.  “This may be easier than I thought.”

            She took the two cases, laid them flat on the floor and opened them.  Ray edged to the corner of the passageway and stuck his nose, one eye, and one ear around it.  Uhura eyed the bank of connections once more, then reached for a tool and a module.

            Looking back, she remembered that there had been times when she’d worked faster – but there hadn’t been many of them.  Ten minutes of cutting, splicing and calibrating was all it took.

            “Done,” she whispered, carefully closing the door.  “Let’s pack up and get out of here.”

            “Shh,” said Ray, closing the cases.  “We’ll have to at least pass Subsection 21-B, just in case we run into that lout again.”

            Actually, it was a different lout they ran into: a Mark 3 roving robo-camera whining up the corridor toward them, lenses jiggling. They were just past Subsection 21-B when they encountered it, so their alibi looked good.

            “Piece of cake, like I said,” Ray drawled to Uhura, pretending to ignore the little robot.  “Didn’t really need anything but dusting.”

            “We get the double-time-and-a-half anyway,” Uhura replied. “And you know something would go wrong if we didn’t inspect.”

            They walked around the robot as if it were an inconveniently-placed potted shrub, and strolled on down the corridor.  The elevator door was about fifty meters away.

            The robot turned around and followed them, hooting plaintively.

            Ray and Uhura traded glances, and then looked for hidden security-sensors.  They didn’t see any signs of them, but there was still a chance of someone watching and listening – through the robot, at least.  They couldn’t ignore the thing’s hooting.  They stopped and turned.

            “Hey, we got an escort,” said Ray, trying to sound amused.

            “They want us to inspect that, too?”  Uhura did her best to sound tired and indignant.  “That’s not in our work-order.”

            “Maybe it’s a warning or something.  Won’t hurt to look.”  Ray squatted beside the machine and peered at it. 

            On the robot’s housing sat a small screen and keyboard.  On the screen flashed the tiny words: HOW’S IT GOING, RAY?  --SUPERGLUE

            ‘Superglue’?Uhura wondered.

            Ray smothered an oath, and tapped on the keyboard: WENT FINE.  LET US OUT, CLEAN AND FAST.

            Instead the screen displayed a new message: DID IT WORK?

            Ray frowned and tapped back: CALL AND FIND OUT AFTER WE’VE LEFT, DAMMIT.

            I’VE GOT A LOT OF MONEY RIDING ON THIS, replied the screen.

            Uhura gave the machine a slit-eyed glare, getting some nasty ideas.

            DOUBLE YOUR BET.  NOW GO HOME, Ray tapped.

            The robot obediently turned around and went back the way it had come.

            “Just as I thought,” Ray said clearly, for the benefit of any hidden sensors.  “Set to infra-red, and following our heat-signature.”

            “Enough free repairs,” Uhura matched him. “Come on, our next job’s waiting.”

            Nothing else followed them.  Nothing kept the doors from opening for Ray’s badge.  Nothing stopped them from strolling across the parking lot, getting into the groundcar, driving out the gate and away.

            Only when they were safely on the road did Uhura bring up the idea she’d been chewing on for the last several minutes.

            “’A lot of money riding on this’, Ray?”

            “Uh, yeah.”  Ray squirmed a bit in his seat.  “Ol’ Superglue likes to make bets on everything.  It’s just his style, nothing to worry about.”

            Uhura could think of plenty to worry about.  “Just what bet did he make, Ray?  And with whom?”

            “Why, he bet we’d succeed, of course.”  Ray grinned nervously.  “Bet nearly 500 creds.  So did I.”

            “With whom, Ray?”

            “Uh, well, Thelin set it up.  Us against his whole crew.”

            “’Us’?!  You mean, you and me and all your suppliers against his crew?  You said you didn’t tell anyone what we were up to!”

            “I didn’t!  I mean, I didn’t mean to.  He figured out most of it, and wouldn’t give me the receiver-heads until I told him the rest of it.  Then he set up the bet.  But hey, don’t worry; Andorians are really honorable about gambling, and none of them would try to sabotage the mission.”

            “So a whole scout-ship full of Andorians knows who we are and what we did!  How long do you think they’ll keep the secret, Ray?”

            “Hey, forever!  You know how Andorians are about honor.  At any rate, the word will never get back to the Argo government.  And besides—” He gave her a desperate smile.  “Think of the money we’ll make.  I’ll cut you in for half the profits, of course…”

            “Damn right, you will.  And drive faster.  I need to clean out my hotel room and beam back to the Enterprise, ASAP.”

            “Huh?  Why?”

            “Because, any minute now, one of those jolly gamblers is going to make a ship-to-shore call, just to see if we succeeded.  How long do you think it’ll be before the word spreads?”

            “Oh.”

            Ray put his foot down, and the groundcar leaped ahead.

 

                                                            *           *           *

 

            All of ten minutes later, Uhura had herself and her gear beamed up to the Enterprise.  Yeoman Rand met her with a wide and knowing grin.  At the very least, she suspected something.

            “Thanks,” said Uhura, deciding against a change of clothes, only pulling off her turban and goggles.  “Now could you please beam me and my gear to…  What was that hotel Scotty mentioned?”

            “The Hotel Avalon,” Rand chirped.  “And congratulations, Lieutenant.  Your hack went perfectly.  Want to see?”

            “You were in on it too?” Uhura groaned.  Nonetheless, she stepped toward the console to peer at its viewscreen.  “How much did you make on the bet?”

            “A good 200 creds.  Come and look.”

            Uhura looked at the screen.  Sure enough, there stood an Argo Port Citybureaucrat, droning off a list of repair-schedule updates.  Only an experienced communications expert would have noticed the slight rippling in the air around him which signified tricorder emissions at work.  From his slightly bored expression, he saw nothing amiss in his immediate world.

            But as far as the screen showed, he was completely naked.