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Ahn-Kha attracted a good deal of attention. She’d seen some Big Mouth jaws hanging in the windows of sea outfitters near the wharf, but she doubted if they’d ever seen Gray or Golden Ones up here. The children, as usual, dashed out into the street to touch his fur or point at his ears, twisting this way and that at sounds of the city. Ahn-Kha bore the circus-sideshow attention with his usual good humor, and began to sing what she guessed was a bluegrass song he’d picked up in Kentucky. Soon he had a throng of kids dancing about him, the girls in little impromptu ring-around-the-rosy circles and the boys doing stomping dance moves that she couldn’t quite place in her experience.
There wasn’t much traffic to endanger the kids, luckily. The sparse vehicular traffic was powered by either natural gas or muscle, though there were a few larger trucks parked in the alleys that seemed to be fitted out for diesel. She’d heard there was still plenty of oil up around the Arctic Circle, and they were near enough.
They passed a couple of parks, some theaters, and a lively strip with cafés and restaurants. German seemed to be the unofficial second language according to the menus in the cheaper eatery windows, French in the tonier ones, but there were a couple of cards in English as well.
The hotel was one of the taller buildings away from the city center, and once out of the denser blocks and in the park ring they were able to follow its roofline to the entrance even without the map.
The hotel reminded Duvalier a little of a ski jump; it had that same triangular shape with an upswept curve. On the curve side there were many little terraces, so each floor had a nice patio looking out on the Gulf of Bothnia. The sunset views would probably be spectacular.
“This is it,” Valentine said unnecessarily as they crossed the street toward the hotel. He might be nervous; he sometimes grew talkative when worried.
There was a revolving door in good condition. The hotel had a double layer of glass at the lobby entrance, probably to keep out the winter weather.
Inside, the decor was sleek, mostly done in muted whites and pale greens. There were dozens of uniformed staff waiting to assist them. Near the front desk, they were met by a large notice board standing on an easel explaining in six languages that the hotel restoration was a two-year project funded by the Baltic League, and when the conference was over it would be converted into temporary housing for refugees awaiting more permanent placement.
Opposite the hotel was the conference center. It ran two levels, with huge glass panels letting in light from the south onto what looked like concourses. If Duvalier hadn’t known better, she would have thought from the exterior it was some sort of art museum or perhaps a music hall. It had a steel arch with cabling that created an interesting, suspension bridge–like network above the door.
There were smiling, friendly-looking blond police officers in pairs wandering around the plaza between the hotel and conference center. They were unarmed save for radios and what she guessed was pepper spray, but they wore tactical backpacks. She suspected the backpacks held more substantial weapons. The roofs of both the hotel and the conference center had two observation points each—two that the casual observer could see, anyway. There was also a checkpoint for vehicles entering the hotel or conference center parking and dock areas, with dogs doing the searches. There were three armored cars of the sort used in the KZ to transport valuables and prisoners to the Reapers parked discreetly around the buildings; they probably held backup forces. Security seemed to be adequate against a single madman or a small unit attempting to shoot up the conference. Hopefully, anything company-sized or larger would be spotted long before it arrived within a few kilometers of the conference.
They had a series of large notice boards in the lobby, each titled with a language or languages. While Valentine went to the desk and took care of getting them checked in to their reserved rooms, she found the English board and read the two sheets of paper tacked there. They had scheduling and information about the conference, a short list of rules, and some notes on translation procedures.
The room situation was odd. Ahn-Kha and Sime, the official delegates, each had a room. “Everyone else” from the United Free Republics and the Kentucky Alliance was crowded into a smaller room with two double beds. Ahn-Kha and Sime unofficially rearranged matters for the comfort of the team. Duvalier warmed to him when he made the offer of his own room to her. She declined, after amusing herself for a moment with the thought of games she could play with hidden microphones if the Kurians had managed to bug the hotel. Then she enjoyed the chance to get a shower with unlimited hot water, something she hadn’t had the opportunity to do since before Halifax. It was glorious.
When she was done with that, she found an unofficial meeting going on between Ahn-Kha and Sime.
As voting delegates, Ahn-Kha and Sime had a special orientation to attend. Ahn-Kha had become all business since their arrival. He’d put on a long, sleeveless robe that Duvalier had never seen before. It was some kind of Golden One formal wear, like a Nehru jacket for musclemen.
The voting delegates also had to designate alternates in case of illness or an emergency that would render them unable to fulfill their duties. Both Sime and Ahn-Kha chose Valentine. Ahn-Kha was at least polite enough to ask her if she was interested in being an alternate. She smiled and declined. Sime didn’t even give her a moment’s consideration.
She wandered around the town a little while the others registered them into the hotel and the conference. It was strange to walk along a street with doorways and shop windows beckoning, but not understand a single word spoken or printed. She recognized address numbers, and the letters were familiar but decorated with accent marks and what she’d learned in Germany were called umlauts.
There was a very old patch of town with tiny wooden buildings laid out more haphazardly. Most were unpainted but in very good repair. She finally came across a permanent metal sign that also looked like a pre-2022 relic and explained that the old town was an example of traditional Finnish wooden architecture.
Off the main streets, there were individual homes, often square and steep-roofed, and small, more-recent apartment buildings. Most of the homes had little patches of garden, some watched over by decorative gnomes or trolls.
There was still a disturbing doubt. Perhaps the Kurians were planning something like their raid on the hotel. Or what if a shadow organization posing as the Baltic League selected this town and had forces positioned already? That seemed ridiculously unlikely, especially among these diligent, spic-and-span Finns.
She borrowed one of the public bikes from a rack in town and took a training ride around the outskirts of town. She went a couple of miles up the roads leading north, east, southeast—the best maintained—and south. At each minor intersection she slowed and hopped off her bike and examined the roadway and the shoulders.
She checked wheel tracks in dried mud puddles and such. It looked like most of the traffic this time of year was on bicycles. There were hoofprints, too, and some footprints.
The one difficulty she had was at the Finnish garrison, right at the edge of town between the bayside and the airport. As she passed the gate, slowing to take a look through the fence at the brick dormitories, a couple of wolf whistles pursued her.
Her mistake was thinking they were compliments. She ended up being pursued by a small silver car with a police bar running all around the roof. Lights zipped around the roof bar like photo flashes.
She was questioned by a sergeant who spoke rough-and-ready English. She explained that she was part of the conference, gave her name and delegation so they could check her out, and waited.
They cleared her and the sergeant told her to “enjoy us exercise air, Kentucky woman!” as he gave her bike—not her butt—a push down the road. These Finns were well behaved.
The Kurians weren’t in the neighborhood, unless there was a very small advance party. If that was the case, they’d probably be Finns, hiding in town with the locals. They’d spot her as a stranger long before she recognized them.
It should be night. Her body told her so, but the sun was still at a height she was used to thinking of as midafternoon. Weary, she turned the bike back toward town.
She decided to relax, at least for her first night. The way things looked, she’d have plenty of time to pedal around checking out back roads. It never hurt to learn the local territory.
They decided that Ahn-Kha and Valentine would acquaint the Finnish security with the intelligence they’d discovered. Ahn-Kha, as a voting delegate, might get more attention from whoever was running the show, and Valentine felt it was his duty to go along and see that the information was treated seriously.
The sleeping arrangements weren’t ideal, but she’d fared worse many, many times. Ahn-Kha gallantly offered to give up his private room to her, but she refused. She suspected that was a relief to Valentine and Pistols. Ahn-Kha had many fine qualities, but his digestion still hadn’t adjusted to the fish-heavy Scandinavian cuisine. On the diet of salty fish, he produced gas that was probably a violation of some international convention on chemical weapons.
