Earth Afire (The First Formic War 2)

a," said Mungwai. "I will see to it that Mr. Delgado is escorted back to the hospital."

She was dismissing them. The conversation was over.

Imala stood still a moment, then nodded, coming to a decision. "See you around, Victor."

Victor watched her walk out and close the door behind her. Was she really abandoning him like this? Didn't she realize what was at stake here? What if STASA didn't take it seriously? They needed to fight this. They needed to see it through.

Mungwai spoke a command into her holofield, but Victor barely noticed. He was staring at the door, willing it to open. Without Imala he had nothing.

The door opened.

It wasn't Imala. It was two men in security uniforms. They took Victor outside to a car and put him in the back. One of the men climbed in after him, and the two of them rode in silence back to the hospital. The man then led Victor back to his room and made sure the door was locked before leaving Victor alone.

Victor sat on the side of his bed. They were sending him back. He had come all this way, risked everything, and they were tossing him out like space junk.

He thought of Janda, his cousin. If she were here, she would know what to do--or at least she would have Victor laughing and feeling confident again. He thought of Mother and Father and of Concepcion and of the money they had left him to start his education on Earth. Now even school was impossible.

Later that evening an orderly brought dinner. As the man locked the tray down onto Victor's bedside table, Victor considered trying to subdue him and taking his key cards. It would be a pointless attempt, though, he knew. Victor was still getting his strength back, and the orderly looked strong enough to restrain four people at once. Besides, where would Victor go? His data cube held all the evidence and vids, and that was locked up at the nurses' station. He was useless without it.

When the door opened a half hour later, Victor was lying on his bed with his eyes closed. It would be the orderly, come to recover the untouched food.

"So you're giving up?" said Imala.

Victor opened his eyes. Imala stood before him, holding a small duffel bag. She tossed it onto the bed beside him. "I wasn't sure about your size. The clothes you came in didn't have tags on them."

Victor opened the bag. Pants, a shirt, undergarments, shoes, a heavy jacket, a pair of greaves.

"What, you've never seen new clothes before?" said Imala. "Don't just stand there. Get dressed."

She stepped away from the bed and turned around, putting her back to him.

"You're breaking me out?" he said.

"LTD records will show that you were moved to a holding facility for healthy illegals awaiting deportation. The holding facility will have no record of this, so unless Mungwai checks or the two offices compare records, we'll probably go unnoticed for a while."

"How long is a while?"

"A few days. Maybe less."

Victor began to change. "What about the cameras? There are three in this room and more throughout the building."

"I've taken care of the ones in here and those out in the hall. Once we're outside, it's a different story. Wear the hood."

There was a hood on the jacket. Victor slid it on over the shirt and hurried into the pants. She had taken care of the cameras. She had thought of everything, handled everything. And in only a few hours, no less. He suddenly felt a sense of awe toward Imala. She was more like a free miner than he had given her credit for.

"Is this smart?" he asked. "What if STASA comes looking for me for more intel?"

"I doubt they will," said Imala. "Not before your ship leaves anyway. I checked Mungwai's messages. Her contact at STASA is a low-level associate. No clout. His response to her didn't sound too promising."

"You hacked her messages?"

"It's not difficult. Point is, this guy didn't seem like a strong lead. If he passes the evidence along, it'll take time to move up the chain and be verified. But don't sweat it; I've built an alert into our system. If STASA tries to contact you, they'll do it through the LTD, and if that happens, my holopad will let me know. We'll go directly to STASA then."

"You really have thought of everything," he said, fastening the straps on his shoes. "But why don't we go to STASA now? We've got an in."

"We don't have an in. We have a halfhearted nobody with job preservation on the brain. I'm not putting the fate of the world in that guy's hands, and I'm not sitting around and waiting for STASA to get their act together. We're following another lead. Maybe a better one."

"Who?"