Read Sister Time-Callys War 2 for Free Online

packed and gone. Aelool and Beilil had taken the position that the O'Neal was making a decision as clan head to preserve a vital asset of his clan, and had also pointed out the "as yet" tiny size of Clan O'Neal and the corresponding magnification of the value of each member. Cally thought that may have been just an excuse, out of blood loyalty from the Battle of Diess.
    If so, she could live with that. Loyalty was loyalty.
    She shook herself out of her reverie as she passed an Indowy with a bay mare, about six and a half hands and clearly gravid, headed down to the trotting ring. Obviously "travelling in pairs" included their equine pets. Hey, whatever worked. It wasn't like they were going to run short on corn any time soon, and hydroponics easily turned out everything else.
    She passed through workroom administration and back into equipment supply. Someone had obviously reported her presence, because Aelool and Father O'Reilly had preceded her and were standing next to a machine she hadn't seen before, chatting. It was a plain gray cube with beveled edges. Small seams outlined shapes on its surface that were probably panels of some sort. Other than shape, the thing it most reminded her of was the slab. God, she missed the slab. She rubbed the small of her back with one hand as she took the small evening bag out of her purse, opened the pouch, and handed it over.
    Father O'Reilly took it without comment and placed one of the keys against a matching shape where it clicked into place, only to click back out almost immediately as a beep nearly too high for Human ears sounded and a spate of Galactic Standard appeared in the air above the device.
    "Cally, what the hell did you steal? " Father O'Reilly asked, looking at the readout.
    " Me? " she spluttered. "You're the one that told me to! I followed that ops plan to the letter." Well, okay, the ops plan did not say get the drawer's override code from your Michon Mentat sister, but it's the thought that counts.
    Aelool's ears had turned in slightly and shoulders tightened in the expression Cally had learned to interpret as "pensive."
    "It is not a disaster. It is simply not useful to us at this time." His tone said not useful ever.

    "What's wrong with it? It was where you said it would be. It looked just like the holograms in the briefing. Is it broken or something?" Okay, bad enough that I have to stoop to being a cat burglar.
    Money's tight, I know that. But I would like to at least not be blamed for someone else's bad intel.
    "Cally O'Neal, it is not that it is broken. And it is not your error. It is that our generator is only authorized to read and execute level three and lower code keys. One of many redundancies in a system designed with the best of intentions to prevent dangerous industrial accidents. It is unfortunately also useful as a tool of political control." Aelool explained patiently, "These are simply more powerful keys. Almost certainly level fours, or perhaps even level fives."
    "But you sounded like they aren't worth anything. It seems like we could at least fence them. Can't we?"
    "No. It is that we cannot use them ourselves and they are too overheated to fence." He sighed.
    "Too hot?" she echoed.
    "Isn't that what I said?" He cocked his head at an angle in a questioning gesture he'd copied from humans and other terrestrials.
    "More or less. So it was a busted mission after all. Sorry. Other than that is there a problem?" Cally would have been the first one to admit that the business side of the organization was not her forte.
    "The Darhel will not be happy. But it was a low budget mission and a small cost to us. And Darhel happiness has never been one of my priorities." His face crinkled, amused.

    "You lost what?!! " The Epetar group executive suddenly understood why the useless, decayed, folth of an underling, Pardal, had insisted on a meeting without any Indowy body servants and had meticulously searched out and disabled the spy devices from rival groups