Victory Conditions by Elizabeth Moon Page A

lump on the floor that might have been part of a sandwich, dragging at the leash.
    “Rascal!”
    He had the lump, whatever it was, and gulped it down, then dashed in another direction winding the leash around Stella’s legs, scrabbling at the floor, and giving short yaps.
    Stella followed him, unwinding the leash, with the sense of time passing…she knew, she’d been told, where Toby was sitting—over there, on the left—and that Toby was taken out the back of the place, through the service area and kitchen. Rascal showed no interest in either the booth or the most likely path to the service area. This wasn’t going to work. She herself had no experience with dogs that followed scent trails, but the ones she’d read about kept their noses to the ground and the trail made sense. Rascal looked eager and excited, head up, pulling hard toward the far side of the room at first, but then veering aside to grab another lump off the floor. This time Stella could see the bit of meat in it.
    “It’s not working,” she said to her escort. “He’s just fooling around. I warned them he might not be able to do this.”
    “The girl said it was a sanitation van…but there are hundreds on the station…”
    “Sera Vatta!” Stella turned to see a policeman waving at her from near the entrance. Her heart clenched.
    When she came nearer, she saw that he had a datapad with a visual display up. “Sera, we have a little information, not much. This is combined from the station gravity report and two surveillance vids…a vehicle massing approximately the same as a sanitation hauler and four adults, but not on the normal route of a sanitation vehicle in this branch, moved on this route—” It was highlighted in yellow, Stella saw: inward to the trunk and up two branches, out almost to the tip, spinward. “—and it passed these eight vids on that route, but only two were functioning. We are attempting to ascertain the cause of the malfunction.”
    Enemy action, of course, but they were being correct and polite. Stella said, “Thank you for sharing this information. If you’ll excuse me…”
    “Sera, you should go home and wait—we’ll keep you informed.”
    Stella smiled, nodded, and left the mess behind. “Get us backup,” she said to her escort once they had cleared the line outside.
    “Sera? You aren’t going—”
    “I want medical, some heavy—”
    “Sera!”
    “I am not going to go home and wait. That child will not die or be taken off this station because I did nothing.”
    The escort opened his mouth, then shut it, and instead punched at his datapad. Stella led the way through the still-crowded corridors toward the trunk. The quickest way upstation was the airlifts, which she normally avoided because the pressure changes made her sinuses ache, but this time…
    “Sera, for your safety—”
    “Ganz, I’m wearing armor. And I’m armed. And I’m going.”
    The airlift tube made conversation impossible except by skullphone. It spat them out on the correct branch, and Stella quickly reoriented to the branch layout. Ahead, she saw a meaningful bustle—vehicles, pedestrians, some in uniform. Had they found him?
     
    Toby felt he was making progress. With the medpad lying to his captors, and the paralyzing drug leaving his system, he’d soon be able to do—whatever he was going to do. But how could he get up—when he could get up—without revealing to the room’s audiovisual surveillance that he was mobile? If his abductors were close enough, they could rush in and dose him again before he could get away.
    He accessed the implant’s security cluster—Stella had insisted on it over his protests. He hadn’t believed he needed that stuff. He had bodyguards.
    Now he extended the sonic and infrared probes. The next room to his right had neither sound nor heat signals. Nor did the room to his left. Beyond that, he could not be sure.
    He eyes still stared straight up; he could not see the door or its lock. He