Page 112 of Sky Song
When Lyle stopped talking, Cricket asked the one question that she had for him. “Why now, Lyle? I thought you wanted to find the missing records first to get a clearer picture.”
His eyes didn’t flicker, black and cold. But his tone was mild. “We can’t wait anymore. Your access to the lab is crucial. Without it, getting in will be so much harder.”
Cricket wilted. “I messed up, didn’t I? By confronting Yanet about the tablet. You think I’ll get fired.”
“You didn’t mess anything up. Every mission is fluid, situations develop, and we should adjust.”
“But what about the rest of the records?”
“We might find records in the supply room.”
Ren sipped his coffee. “What are you asking of us, Paloma and I?”
Lyle held himself at ease in the chair, but his posture was controlled, a tiger ready to spring. “I need someone to jam the hospital security system. And another someone who’s not shy of using weapons to provide cover.”
Ren and Paloma shared a long look.
“Not saying we’re the right people,” Ren started, “but out of curiosity, how do you expect to pay for our help? It’s a tricky mission, and we all know you don’t have any money.”
“I can find money, if that’s what you want. But money is only good if you can buy what you need.”
Ren’s eyebrows rose and he cocked his head, alien-like. “And what is it that you have that money can’t buy?”
“Me,” Lyle said simply. “I have skills money can’t buy. Your kind of money, at least.”
Ren’s face conveyed skepticism, as he no doubt intended. “Okay, I’ll bite. What can you do?”
“I can fly.”
“What can you fly?”
“Whatever you want, Schirrenth,” Lyle said in a beguiling whisper.
“How about taking large transports through tenuous gasses of a galactic halo?”
Lyle inclined his head. “If necessary.”
“Hide a freighter from enforcers in cosmic dust?”
“It’s possible.”
“Conceal cargo bulk from radars?”
“Conceal? I can make an entire transport vanish, like it never existed. Any transport. Anywhere. For a time or forever.”
“Fascinating.”
“It’s hard, I admit.”
“What about warfare?”
Lyle hesitated. “What do you think?”
“I think,” Ren leaned over the table, “that you’re as full of shit as this cup is full of coffee. Nobody can do what you said you can do. Nobody with any intergalactic piloting knowledge would even say things as stupid because they would know better. You’ve never ‘piloted’ a catamaran in a pond, much less flown a freighter. Try again.”
Lyle’s eyes seemed to have briefly cut to Paloma.
She bit a nail. “I will check him out,” she grudgingly offered.
