Part IV. ‘Dates’

 	Yuri wake up, and stretched lazily. Dream was so good. Too bad, Simons
can’t stay a night into hotel, but need return to ship... She had hinted
slightly, that she may go with him, but either he don’t get it, or he
turned her offer down. Yuri hoped, the first option was right one.
	Rolling over, she with sigh stand up and walked to bathroom. The day
was starting, and for her - a hard day. Maybe Jamies will be more
promising that Simons late night...
	Kei was already up, and meet her soon, when they descended for a
breakfast. Yuri was slightly annoyed, when the receptionist hinted, that
the breakfast in number will cost more. It wasn’t their money, they was
spending, and at the end someone will ask a report for all expenses...
Lets not anger gooses.
	They was now dressed into civilian costumes, their uniforms well hidden
under them.

	Yuri waited at the exit. At half one there was a report of landed
shuttle, and soon she noticed Jamies running toward her.
	They meet, and she only now noticed him a head higher that she. Jamies
swept her up and turned around, before short kiss on cheek and release.
	Yuri was smiling, despite the fact, for a second she considered beating
him. He was overacting, but in funny way. And he looked good, despite
arriving straight from shuttle.

	Kei was bored. A dangerous combination. She had checked two bars so
far, and into each need reject offer ‘spend a time, you will never
forget’. This was third, but the scenario was turning out same.
	Kei sampled offered drink. It tasted not bad, she had drunken worse.
And this one was a free. The six men and women group was throwing a
party, and they was spending money on left and right. Kei slowly pulled
drink through straw and listened to the conversations.
	There was many. About the taxes and government. About the police and
the contrabandists. Then one talk caught her attention.
	“... we meet them at Sigma II. Appeared from nowhere and bah! Lucky, I
was on last stage of hyperjump, so I simply pull throttle and jumped. I
can bet , they was looking funny, staying with long noses...”
	“Good work, German. But the Rich wasn’t so lucky...“
	“Yes...”
	Kei look at the speaker - small man, with fresh scar on the left side
of face. She cant say from such a distance,. what had caused it. But she
take man on notice.
	Few min. later, German stand up, and into slightly swinging steps
leaved bar. Kei drop few credits on bar and followed. Things start get
interesting.

	Yuri smiled at Jamies and slowly cursed by herself. What century were
these people? Jamies was playing same game as Simon last night. Careful
approach, promises, veiled hints, but nothing more. Okay, if not
pleasure, then at least information she will get out from him.
	“You always are meeting ships at ‘Tyre’?”
	Jamies smiled, showing row of snow white teeth. “Me and three hundred
ninety nine others.”
	“So many?” Yuri asked, not believing the heard digit.
	“Five shifts, eighty people on shift.”
	Yuri let the subject drift away, but there wasn’t something clear. That
many personnel may be need for a huge reload-resort station, like ones
around Earth or at core UG worlds. No need for so many on simple docking
station for space-only ships, that ‘Tyre’ definitely was.
	“And sometimes I wish, there will be more, when there is big traffic.” 
	“Isn’t it boring - to sit and wait, and see same faces around day from
day?”
	“It is... But it forgets after some time. And then... you are one on
one with the Universe... The Silence... And the stars... Have you
noticed, how they look back to us? I still hope, that some days we will
meet another sentient race, and then we will be no more alone...”
	*Philosoph*, Yuri mentally sighted. *Im having a date with #$%&ing
philosoph. If Kei finds out...*
	But she remained at chair, slowly sipping low-alcohol drink and
carefully questioning Jamies. At least, it was a free information...

	Kei climbed out from car, followed by row of curses. She turned and
shouted back at driver, who too was jumping out from limo.
	“I said I will return with money!” Kei said angry.
	“Like hell! No way you are going somewhere!”
	Driver run around car and tried to catch Kei’s hand. He regret it
immediately, when Kei twisted his hand and crashed him into car doors.
She was ready to say ‘cease-fire’, when driver’s boot caught her under
knee, making her right leg numb in instant. Her hold weakened, and man
twisted free.
	“You will pay for it,” he promised, wiping blood from his cut lip. “I
will beat the price out of your skin!”
	Kei quickly made a standard breathing exercise to calm nerves. Who had
know, that she will meet retired bodyguard.
	“Listen, I said I will get money...” she tried last attempt to end this
without broken bones.
	Driver throw a punch at her face.
	“Okay, I tried...”
	Kei let her academy training take over.

	Kei walked into hotel reception room, holding kerchief at her nose.
That man had been good fighter, she need admit. If not for the age...
	“Excuse miss, you not feel good?”
	“Keys. Room 208.”
	Receptionist look at Kei, and without word handled her set of keys.
	“Anachronism,” Kei steamed, walking over hall to the staircase.

	When girl had disappeared after turn of stairs, receptionist get enough
courage to leave post and peer outside. What he see, make him feel glad,
he hadn’t pressed questions. Poor cab driver had get up on feet, but had
problems with walking around car.

	When door lock cracked, Yuri raise head from pillows.
	“Kei?” she asked.
	“Yea...” come nasal reply.
	“You all right, Kei?” Yuri concerned stand up, get a light halat around
shoulders and entered common room.
	“No...” Kei sniffed, testing integrity of her nose. “I’m not right!”
	“What happened?”
	“Enough beating for three cases... U...” Kei sulked. “That driver was
last straw!”
	“Meet some muggers?” Yuri asked, while she filled icepack from the
fridge.
	“Stupid barfight,” Kei reply, falling into chair, after discovering
that her nose still will be with her.
	“Here.” Yuri returned with pack. “And now tell the story.”
	“Well, while you was taking good time with Jamies, I walked off my legs
through the bars around the spaceport. And get an invitations from all
types, I meet.” That was a exaggerated statement, there was been only
two invitations, both from former UG fleet personnel, but Yuri don’t
need to know that. “It all went O.K., till one leech decided go from
words to deeds. I shoved him the wrongness of his statements, but he had
few fellows as well, and they decided me being wrong with their buddy.
Next moment there was a chaos...” Kei stopped talking, to again check
her nose.
	“Well, and?”
	“And after I beat third one, arrived cops. Crashed through the doors
like storm-troopers and get us all. Hauled wounded to hospital, others
to jail.”
	“Kei in her element...” Yuri sighted.
	“Worse follows. They took me in too - one leech accused me for starting
the fight. Gone through the full program...”
	Yuri looked at her partner.
	“What in ‘whole program’?” she asked, suddenly serious.
	“Fingerprints, retina scans, drug-tests, blood samples...”
	“Kei you idiot!” Yuri screamed. “Do you know what you have done?”
	“No. We are new here, so they will not find...” Kei stopped suddenly.
“You mean?”
	Yuri was already into her room, frantically setting up her desk and
connecting it to planetary information network.
	“They are part of UG now, they may ask the central databases! What you
think they will say, when they found our real identities? “Top WWWA
agents undercover at recently independent worlds go into barfights”!
Media will have a field day!”
	“Do you think, they will ask? It was simple bar brawl...” Key was into
doorway, still holding ice at her nose.
	“Maybe not, but maybe yes. I’m not taking risk. Kei, why you don’t call
me as soon as get out?”
	“Someone into that chaos picked my purse...”
	Yuri can’t stop laugh, despite seriousness of situation.

	“Come on, come on...” Yuri was tapping fingers at the desktop, waiting
for communications to establish. “What police predict it was?”
	“You think, I asked?” Key sighted. “I can remember only address. And
only because one cop called a cab for me. Lucky, sergeant allowed.”
	“Okay, logging in.”
	Yuri closed her eyes, shutting off any outside interference. She had
tested Trofar defenses, and found them tough, but now she need take them
in frontal assault.

	Virtual reality. A termin, that describes, saying nothing. Any system
has her own look, her own laws. There is much common, but anyway, the
differences can be found out only hard way.
	Yuri slowly traveled around traps, set up for people, like her. Lucky,
her hacking software had passed customs, and she was defended now.
Anyway, brain-fryers was here. In very small quantities, but was. More
was a wise traps for computerized hackers, who more rely on their
mechanic parts that their minds.
	Her first impulse was a wonder. The planetary infosphere was so weak.
Like it may be when it all started a hundreds of years ago. Too weak for
a planet with the five millions citizens, and one, who boosted with the
pride of being a central planet into whole sector.
	Yuri passed a transport control system, and noticed hole, that was
discovered and patched in all UG systems two years ago. She stopped, and
applied same patch here from her own resources - otherwise it was
invitation to new hacker to show himself. For herself she made mental
note to send warning to WWWA econ corps about the poor status of Trofar
computer networks. Now, when it will be together with UG, the sharks
will arrive here by hundreds, better get prepared that fight results.
	The police databanks was protected better. But not too good to stop her
from breaking through. Passwords her desk hacked without stop. Guardian
showed some intelligence, but Yuri managed to substitute his checklist
with one, she had added himself as top level user, and it stepped back.
Then there was a request tracers. It was easy, she throw to them fake
addresses, like bones to dogs. It get so easy, she near passed one very
sophisticated, who wasn’t fooled with her standard tricks.
	Yuri stopped again. This one has an algorithm, she had never meet. Very
good. She with admiration run around him and substituted the warnings
into the delivery subroutines. If not the weakness of other systems, it
may give her problems. She copied its code to the desk memory for later
check, and proceed.
	One can be said about trofarian police - it was a quick-working. All
data about the barfight was already entered, along with the data of all
caught participants. Kei including.
	Yuri quickly read through the list of persons and made a copy of it to
her desk too. After politeness of Jamies and Simons, the rudeness of
assault on Kei was atypical. Soon she found out the answer - three
listed as ‘prime suspect’ was engineer and two guards from UG transport.
What to think...
	Against them and ‘Keith Sinclair’ was note - “requested check of
identity data from UG databanks”. Yuri cursed speed of communications.
	Tracks of request was hard to follow. Yuri caught few replies from
local databases - empty, of course. Then there was replies from the UG,
the closest sector central planet had same day/night cycle as Trofar,
and reply was send already. Yuri copied it too, as it contained data
about two of three assailants. She delayed one reply about ‘Keith
Sinclair’, to make up fake later, if she can stop the arrival of the
true replies.
	Then Yuri leaved police banks and hacked into communication center. FTL
communication block was same standard issue as into UG, and she quickly
added few more orders to it. Now, in addition to the ordinary work, it
will send to her all leaving messages with keywords ‘Kei’, ‘Yuri’,
‘Keith Sinclair’, ‘Ilona Magioani’, and ‘Dirty Pair’. In case of last
order, there was requested additional information processing of finding
out the senders address and a way of message. All incoming messages with
the same keys will be ‘delayed’, until she will look at them and allow
proceeding.
	That set up, Yuri returned to the police databank and start make up
false report of the ‘Keith Sinclair’, citizen of UG, noticed on
exceeding speed limits few times, and on not paying taxes once. She
overlook the data last time and feed it to the databank.
	So... It was done... Yuri last time look for some very sophisticated
traps, found none, and relaxed, logging out.

	Yuri blinked, blinded by light into room. *Get carried away*, she
sighted, pressing hands against temples and slowly pulled out interface
cable from socket hidden into hair behind her left ear.
	“Yuri?”
	Kei was leaning toward her, strange mix of concern and sorrow on her
face.
	“Its O.K. now. I set up fake replies and a trap for real ones, if
someone bothers to send them. We are safe for a time.”
	“Yuri, I’m so sorry...”
 	Vidphone choosed this moment to ring with melodic tone.
	“I will get it.”
	Kei pressed button. On screen appear face of receptionist.
	“I’m sorry, but there is police down here, together with a badly beaten
man. He declares, you need pay him...” receptionist said weakly.
	“Kei?” Yuri looked at her partner.
	Kei groaned in despair.

	***

	Okey, sorry for such a late delay, get some problems in RL.
AS always, latest stuff can be found at my homepage. See .sig file.

						Aivars
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       Aivars Liepa           Dept. of New Inform. Technologies
 Latvian Academic Library     mailto:aivars@www.acadlib.lv
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