Winter had tightened its grip on Embrig in the week or so since Warhammer had blasted out of the spaceport. The snow tonight lay in drifts against the buildings along the Strip. Beka shivered in spite of her Mandeynan-style overcoat, and told herself it was the cold.
She didn’t believe herself. I feel like I have a target painted on my back.
So far, though, her disguise seemed to be holding, somewhat to her own surprise. The long coat with silver buttons, the tall boots polished to a high gloss, and the loose white shirt with its elaborate neckcloth and ruffles at the cuffs might be the height of manly fashion in Mandeyn’s northern hemisphere—just the same, Beka suspected that on her the overall effect was more androgynous than anything else.
She’d said as much to the Professor, back in his asteroid hideout, but he’d just shrugged and said, “You get all kinds in a big galaxy.”
He’d even waved aside her offer to dispense with the long yellow hair that hadn’t been cut since the start of her schooldays back on Galcen. Instead, they’d wound up dying the hair an unremarkable brown and tying it off into a queue with a black velvet ribbon, making her the picture—or so the Professor claimed—of a young Embrigan dandy with a taste for violence and low company.
The heavy blaster riding low on her hip, she supposed, was where the violence came in. That, and the Professor’s only concession to what she’d always thought a real disguise should look like, a red optical-plastic patch covering her entire left eye from cheekbone to brow ridge. And as for low company—ahead on the corner, the Painted Lily Lounge flashed its gaudy holosign against the night.
“Remember,” said the Professor, “your name is Tarnekep Portree, and nobody crosses you more than once.”
“I feel like an idiot,” muttered Beka. “A scared idiot.”
The Professor chuckled. “Trust me, the effect from out front is admirably sinister. Ah, here we are.”
The street door of the Painted Lily slid apart before them. They entered, passing through a chilly antechamber whose inner door waited to open until the outer door had closed—a common setup anyplace in the galaxy where the weather outside got more than average hot or cold, and one that had never made Beka nervous before.
First time for everything, she thought, as she turned over her coat to the cloakroom attendant. That left her in shirt and trousers, and feeling even more like a target in spite of the blaster. Oh, well . . . here we go.
The front room of the Painted Lily had a dance floor, a bar, and too many little round tables, all competing for the available space. A small band—brass, woodwind, keyboard, and electronic drums—played a tune that had first been hot the year she’d left Galcen for good.
She hooked her left thumb into her belt, and let her right hand hang casually just below the grip of the holstered blaster. Maybe she had only used the damned thing once in her life, but nobody here knew that. She lifted her chin a little, and gave the room a slow, tight-lipped scan. One or two of the Lily’s patrons had looked up, half-curious, as she and the Professor entered; when her glance hit them, they look hastily away.
It’s got to be the eye patch, she thought. At her left hand, the Professor gave a faint chuckle; Beka wondered if that was what he’d meant by “admirably sinister.”
The Professor, who carried no visible weapons, wasn’t making anybody nervous—but his waistcoat of black moire spidersilk, and his neckcloth and ruffles of white lace, earned him the personal attention of the Painted Lily’s manager.
“And what would the gentlesir’s pleasure be tonight?”
The Professor smiled. “Just a quiet hand or two of cards—ronnen, tammani, whatever’s going on.”
“You’ll want Morven, in that case,” said the manager, with an answering smile. “Double tammani’s the game tonight.”
“Excellent,” said the Professor. “Lead on, good sir. Come, Tarnekep.”
Beka followed the manager and the Professor across the Lily’s crowded floor, dodging waiters, dancers, and little tables. A narrow hallway lit by amber glow-globes in wrought-metal brackets led to the back room where Morven the gambler ran his games. The manager pressed his thumb on an ID plate set into the wall, and bowed the Professor in as the door slid open.
Beka entered unheralded at the Professor’s right shoulder. As the door slid shut, she paused, taking in the harsh yellow light that replaced the outside’s cozy dimness, the gaudy-colored tammani cards falling onto the green baize tablecloth, the gamblers too intent on their game to look up at the latest arrival—and Ignaceu LeSoit.
Oh, damn, we’ve had it, Beka thought in despair. Her old shipmate leaned against the far wall, looking like nothing so much as an out-of-work spacer too broke to play—except for the heavy government-surplus blaster, twin to her own. Which it damn well ought to be, since we picked them up in the same curio shop at Suivi Point when I was the new kid on the Sidh and Ignac was showing me the town.
She dropped her hand to the blaster grip and braced herself for defiance, reminding herself that it wasn’t in her blood, either side, to go down without a fight. But to her amazement no recognition showed in LeSoit’s eyes—only a quick, appraising glance that took in her appearance and categorized her all at the same time.
He nodded to her once, as one professional to another. She nodded once in return before moving to lean against the opposite wall with a casual air only just now borrowed from its original owner. You always did say I learned fast, Ignac’. Let’s hope it’s true.
The Professor slid into the seat to the right of the grey-eyed man shuffling the cards. “Deal me in, Morven.”
The gambler looked up. “I’ve been expecting you,” he said, and began dealing out a new round.
“As well you should have been,” said the Professor, watching the cards falling facedown onto the green cloth. He gathered up his hand and continued. “I would have stopped by to collect earlier, but I had some business out of town. Now—would you be so good as to pass me four of the ten-thousand-credit chips, two of the one-thousands, and the rest in tens and hundreds mixed?”
Morven hesitated. “I don’t have that kind of money right in front of me. When I cash in, I’ll draw your winnings. I pay my bets.”
“Of course,” said the Professor. “Did anyone suggest the contrary? Until then, if you could stake me to a couple of hundred to help me pass the time . . . ”
“No trouble,” said Morven. He slid over a stack of chips—small ones, Beka supposed. Her own skills didn’t go beyond solitaire kingnote and a fair game of ronnen for decimal-credit stakes. She’d never been much for gambling; she worked too hard for her money to enjoy seeing it go out the airlock because she’d guessed wrong about a run of cards. The players around the table didn’t seem to share her prejudice, though. Most of the chips tended to wind up in front of Morven, but as the evening wore on a respectable stack began to grow in front of the Professor as well. She quit counting the hands early on, having discovered that a game of cards, if you don’t care for it, is even more boring to watch than to play. The gilded antique chronometer above the door read well past local midnight when Morven dealt out the cards yet again and announced, “A thousand or better to stay in, gentle sirs and ladies.”
The Professor slid a gold chip into the center of the table. “I’m in.”
Two of the remaining gamblers—a spacer-captain in the colors of the Red Shift Line, and a plump woman in an Embrigan gown of bright green velvet—matched the gold chip with their own. The others looked at their cards, the table, and each other, then laid down their hands.
At ten thousand, the spacer-captain folded, and when the stakes reached twenty thousand the woman in green shook her head regretfully. “It’s not my night tonight,” she said, gathering up her fur-lined cloak. “Another time, perhaps.”
With her departure, the big table was empty except for Morven and the Professor. Across the room from Beka, LeSoit moved a fraction away from the wall, shifting his weight back onto his feet and casting a quick glance in Beka’s direction as he brought his hands clear. She met the glance and followed suit. Now, for certain, was a time to be ready for trouble.
“Twenty thousand,” said Morven again. “Are you still in?”
The Professor lifted two black chips off the stack before him and put them out onto the table. “I’m in.”
The sun had finished setting over Galcen Prime Base in a blaze of red, and the blue-white floodlights of the spaceport were coming on against the dark. Commander Gil watched from behind the safety line as the scheduled Space Force mail courier from the Latam sector settled gently onto the tarmac, and wished with all his heart that he could be elsewhere.
His duties over the past two weeks had not been congenial ones. First had come the unpleasant task of escorting Beka Rosselin-Metadi’s remains, such as they were, from Artat to Galcen. Then had come all the panoply and protocol of a full state funeral for the young woman who had been, however briefly and against her will, the last Domina of Entibor. Organizing that had been bad enough, but at least the details had all been codified centuries before—from the order of precedence for the eulogists to the color of the memorial garlands.
Tonight’s exercise, however, was something else again. “She was a starpilot,” the General had said to Gil. “And her ship was known. They’ll be expecting a wake, down in the commercial spaceport. See to it, Commander.”
Gil went off to do the General’s bidding. This time, he didn’t have any formal guidelines to help him—but anyone who’d made commander in the Space Force had spent time waiting for ships in various ports, and anyone who’d spent time hanging around the ports had seen at least one free-spacer’s wake. Some people even remembered how they’d got home afterward.
After Gil had settled on a day for the wake, he went down to the largest tavern in the port quarter.
“Drinks on the house,” he told the manager. “Send the bill to General Metadi on his personal account.”
The manager was only too glad to make the rest of the arrangements, including spreading the word around the port. For a really high-class wake, with this much advance notice, every spacer in Galcen Prime would probably show up. Noone wanted to risk the bad luck involved in shunning somebody else’s final party. That only increased your own chances of ending up unmourned in a “starpilot’s grave”—spacers’ slang throughout the civilized galaxy for a piece of drifting wreckage.
Gil’s visit to the port quarter took care of the main part of the occasion. But much as the General might like to be down in the spaceport with the rest of the crowd, Gil was determined that neither the General nor his family would be out in public any time soon.
“More beer,” said Gil to himself, and set off to arrange a private memorial celebration at the General’s home.
Now, a week later, thirsty spacers were already starting to line up for drinks at the Circle of Stars, just outside the spaceport gate. Elsewhere in Prime, Gil hoped, other men and women would be setting out for the Rosselin-Metadi estate north of the city—as was the man Gil was meeting, in this last errand of the night.
“He’ll want to fly up here himself,” the General had said, after the latest message from Nammerin. “See that he doesn’t.”
The courier’s ramp lowered to the tarmac, and a man in Space Force dress uniform emerged. He paused to look about at the foot of the ramp, and then headed for the spot where Commander Gil stood waiting.
The new arrival was big and broad-shouldered, but not until he’d almost reached the safety line did Gil fully appreciate his size. Unlike most very tall men, Ari Rosselin-Metadi wasn’t a gangling ectomorph—at a distance, his well-proportioned frame tended to disguise his height. Close at hand, though, he loomed over Commander Gil like a small mountain. At the regulation six-foot distance, he stopped and saluted.
Gil returned the salute. “Lieutenant Rosselin-Metadi?” he said formally. “Commander Gil. Flag Aide. Your father sent me to meet you.”
The lieutenant nodded, more a weary inclination of the head than a response. In the stark glare of the port lights, his face was pale, with blue-purple smudges under the eyes.
“Yes, sir,” he said. The voice was a deep rumble, with the catch of exhaustion in it. Gil had ridden mail couriers on a space-available basis himself a time or two, and suspected that the lieutenant had probably been sleeping on top of the mailbags for a day or more in order to make it to Galcen tonight.
Not exactly what the doctor ordered for someone just out of a healing pod, Gil thought. He looks ready to drop.
“Let’s go,” he said. “The aircar’s over that way.”
The lieutenant was silent during the walk to the aircar. When they got there, he lowered himself into the passenger seat without argument, fastened the safety webbing, and let his head fall back against the padded seat. He didn’t slump or slouch—something about the set of his shoulders convinced Gil that the lieutenant would sooner collapse altogether than betray himself that way—but nevertheless his posture had the boneless quality of near-total exhaustion.
“We’ve got about an hour’s flight time ahead of us,” said Gil, “and Nammerin to Galcen’s a bitch of a trip however you handle it. So you might as well grab a bit of sleep.”
“Yes, sir,” said the lieutenant again.
In the back room of the Painted Lily, the stacks of chips stood just about even.
Neither the Professor nor Morven had spoken more than a few words in the past hour. The game went on in a silence broken only by the riffle of cards, the click and slide of chips counted out and pushed across the tablecloth, and the quiet monosyllables of gamblers intent upon the flow of the game.
Beka had tried to follow the play for a while. She’d stopped after realizing, a bit queasily, that the chips on the table represented more money than she’d ever seen together in one place. Instead, she watched Ignaceu LeSoit, standing relaxed but ready on the opposite side of the room—and when she saw that LeSoit wasn’t watching her, or even the Professor, as much as he was watching Morven, she let her own attention slide casually over to the gambler, and stay there.
It was nearly daybreak by the gilded chronometer over the door when the Professor’s courteous voice broke the silence.
“I trust you will not take it amiss, Gentlesir, if I ask you to count your cards onto the table one by one—slowly.”
“With pleasure, sir,” said Morven, and flipped down the first of his cards. “One.”
I wonder if he really is cheating? thought Beka. And then, Let the Professor worry about the damned cards. You worry about LeSoit. He’s been watching for something ever since the stakes reached twenty thousand.
She heard the sound of another card slapping against the tablecloth.
“Two,” said Morven.
Even then, she almost missed it. Morven laid down a card and counted “Three,” shifting position just a fraction at the count—and LeSoit went for his blaster. She grabbed for her own weapon. You don’t have a chance, girl, the voice of sanity hammered in her head. He’s moving too fast. You’re a hotshot pilot but a damned lousy gunfighter . . .
LeSoit had his blaster clear already, and she could see it coming up to point at her as he stepped away from the wall. Her own piece was hung up on the holster or something. She dragged it free.
She watched LeSoit’s blaster coming to bear on the danger he thought she was, and struggled—too slowly, like swimming in mud—to bring her weapon up in time.
I’m sorry, Ignac’, she thought, with more regret than fear. It looks like you’re going to kill me after all.
LeSoit’s blaster pointed straight at Beka, but no bolt came. Instead the room echoed to the short, angry buzz of a needler, and LeSoit fell forward, his weapon dropping from his hand.
“The game, I fear, is ruined,” said the Professor, turning up his left hand to reveal his tiny palm-gun.
Beka’s own blaster had finished its upward arc from holster to target, and its blunt muzzle pointed unwaveringly at Morven. She couldn’t tell from where she stood if LeSoit was breathing or not, and right now the gambler looked like a good person to kill if he wasn’t.
“Restrain yourself, Tarnekep,” said the Professor. “Your colleague will survive to find himself a more honest employer.”
He made the needler disappear again, and regarded the gambler with a gentle—almost sorrowful—expression.
“What shall we talk about now?” he asked. “Perhaps we should talk about why you were offering heavy odds against a certain freighter captain lifting her ship?”
The gambler swallowed. His face had gone grey-white, like dirty snow. “I take bets on anything people are willing to bet on. Why did you bet that she would make it?”
The Professor smiled a little. “Let’s just say the proposition intrigued me. Who was gunning for her?”
“I don’t have anything to say about that.”
“Scruples, Morven?” asked the Professor. “You amaze me.”
Something small and glittering and knifelike appeared in his hand where the needler had been. Beka saw Morven flinch and close his eyes.
“I see you recognize this little item,” said the Professor. “A relic of the war, like Tarnekep’s blaster there—but a good deal harder to come by. Now, once again: who placed the death mark on Captain Rosselin-Metadi?”
Morven swallowed again, and wet his lips. “All I heard for sure was that Suivi Mercantile Trust was holding the funds.”
“That’s not enough, I’m afraid,” said the Professor. “Tell me more.”
He turned the small bright object so that it caught the light. The gambler flinched again.
“I can tell you who killed the Domina—”
“Old news,” said the Professor. “The blaster man was a psychotic second-generation Entiboran-in-exile named Samos Lerekan, with a grudge against the Republic in general and Perada Rosselin in particular.”
He leaned forward and laid the small object against the side of Morven’s neck. “I was hoping you’d have something better for me.”
The gambler seemed to stop breathing for a second. “I can tell you who switched Clyndagyt for the regular antiseptic at the Council Medical Center,” he said carefully. “But that won’t do you any good.”
“I’m curious,” said the Professor. “Tell me anyway.”
“BeivanVosebil.”
“Beivan,” said the Professor, withdrawing the small bright object a little. The gambler’s eyes strained sidelong with his efforts to see the weapon—or whatever it was—in the other man’s hand.
The Professor kept the object poised a hair away from the skin of Morven’s neck. “Beivan,” he said again. “One of the best. And why won’t my friend Beivan be able to help me out?”
“He had an accident.”
“I see,” said the Professor. “Well, then . . . ”
Beka listened with an odd empty feeling to the names that her father had given her his ship to find. It insulted the ’Hammer somehow, she felt, to say that the ship was worth something as cheap and easy as this—threatening a pudgy gambler in the back room of a spacers’ bar.
I can pay you back now, Dadda, she thought. I wish this felt like enough.
Maybe because the whole thing did feel too easy, she had to look away from the little object that wasn’t a knife, and from the gambler’s pallid, clammy face. Her gaze wandered to Morven’s trained cardsharp’s hands, and she blinked at an unexpected insight: that a good line of patter was the essence of any con.
“Gilveet Rhos handled the electronics,” Morven said, but Beka wasn’t listening anymore. She had already seen how the Professor rewarded answers by moving the small bright object a fraction farther away from the gambler’s neck each time. By now, Morven’s babbling had gained him a good two fingers’ worth of breathing space.
Beka drew a deep breath of her own and let it out carefully. If he makes a move at all, she thought, keeping her eyes on his hands, he’s going to make it now.
Morven ran a good game, she had to give him that. He kept the scared-witless routine going all the way down to the end, when he gave his right hand the twitch that would release a hand-blaster from its hidden grav-clip, and she shot him for it.
The acrid afterstink of a full-power blaster bolt filled the small closed room, overlaid with the odor of cooked meat. Morven the gambler lay facedown on top of his last hand of cards, with most of his head burnt away.
The Professor picked up the hand-blaster from the tabletop where it had fallen, and held it out to Beka. “Yours, I believe . . . my thanks, Tarnekep. I grow remiss in my old age.”
Beka nodded, not trusting her voice much or her stomach either, and took the little weapon. She slipped it into the waistband of her Embrigan-style trousers, and was about to return the heavy blaster to its holster when a hand reached up from the floor to make a grab for the far side of the table.
The green tablecloth began sliding, and the hand scrabbled blindly for a better purchase. By the time Ignaceu LeSoit had secured his grip on the table’s edge and pulled himself to his feet, Beka had both blasters leveled and ready.
She looked at LeSoit’s own recovered and half-aimed weapon and shook her head.
Beside her, the Professor chuckled. From the sound of clicking plastic, he was already gathering up his winnings with a fine disregard for the mess on the table. “I’d take Tarnekep’s advice, young man, if I were you—he’s a gentleman of few words, but what he has to say is usually decisive.”
LeSoit’s eyes moved from the large blaster to the smaller one, and then down to the gambler’s body. After a moment he shook his head. “He’s not worth getting killed for.”
Reversing his blaster, he held it out across the table butt-first toward Beka. “You could have burned me, Tarnekep, but you didn’t . . . I owe you for that.”
Beka shook her head again. “Keep it,” she said, a sudden hoarseness making her voice sound strange even to her own ears. “Nobody owes anybody anything anymore. We’re even.”