Slip Point by Karalynn Lee

in the first place.”
    “There were compelling reasons,” he said. “And what’s done is done. Now we have to get her back. That’s your job.”
    She nodded grimly. There wasn’t any way she could turn this mission down now, knowing what she did. But she still wanted more details. “You said there was another passenger,” she reminded the premier.
    “So I did,” he said. “There’s the pilot, whom you’ll be taking in, as well as an…attendant.”
    Not only the girl, but her driver and maid as well? “The more people, the harder you make it.”
    “The pilot will be able to take the girl in the Sparrow once you breach the barricade. The Speaker insists on the attendant.”
    “I suppose the Speaker has a lot of leverage,” she said.
    “She’s desperate to see her child, as any mother would be. And she can’t leave Albarz, not when she’s in the middle of talks with the aliens. Naturally, I’m interested in keeping her happy so that a treaty will be possible.”
    “You’re still holding talks?” she asked, startled.
    He sighed. “Wouldn’t you, if your planet were hostage to them? They haven’t threatened us, but they’re unimpressed by us so far, and they’re sure to have superior technology.” There was an envious note to his voice. Albarz was supposed to be the seat of the hottest tech companies, but apparently it didn’t compare to what the aliens had. “And the girl will become critical if something happens to Speaker Zakiyah.”
    “You’re not worried about bringing her into a quarantine zone?”
    “There’s been no opportunity for biological contamination. I promise you that.”
    “If you’re so sure of it, why the quarantine? Just prove to the Senate that there’s no alien disease.”
    He smiled grimly. “It’s not a quarantine against contagion. They’re worried about cultural contamination. Technological. Anything that threatens their control. We’d nearly given up ever finding other sentients. And then they appear to Albarz, where we happen to have a mutant who can communicate with them? It promises an imbalance of power.”
    “In your favor.”
    He nodded.
    She hadn’t intended to become embroiled in an interstellar dispute. But she could easily see some greedy bastards on the Senate declaring the quarantine for exactly the reasons the premier had described. Certainly the aliens’ arrival hadn’t been hailed as a great scientific and diplomatic leap, as once dreamed of.
    “So back to the job,” Shayalin said, focusing on the elements she could control. “Take a Swallow and its pilot to Cuoramin, grab the girl, then take them past the barricade to Albarz and let them find the Speaker on their own?”
    He nodded. “Bringing the pilot along will let you leave as quickly as possible once your part is no longer necessary. And I don’t trust you with the Speaker’s location. The Purists are trying too hard to find out.”
    She quirked a brow. “What makes you think I’m not one?”
    “We have a full psych profile on you from ten years ago,” he said. “We had our best people build a new one based on all the recorded encounters with you since. You’re a xenophile. You love new places, new people, new experiences. The Bellers can only bring more of that. And you avoid violence when possible. You don’t want war.”
    “You can’t be basing your trust on a ten-year-old profile.”
    “It’s a confluence of factors,” he said. “And you’re the best of a bad lot.”
    That certainly was a vote of confidence. “All right,” she said with a sigh, “I’ll do it.”
    “Good,” he said briskly. “We’ll pay you handsomely. Both before and after.”
    She held up a hand, thinking. “I don’t want anything special now.”
    “But after?”
    She hoped her father wouldn’t kill her. “Pardons. For me and my father and our crews.”
    The premier didn’t blink. “You’ll have to give up your ships.”
    Shayalin glowered. “No.”
    “We’ll settle you on