The Agent Gambit (38 page)

What the hell are you doing here, anyway? she asked herself suddenly. Everything had happened so fast. Married. How in the name of anything holy had she wound up married?

"Damn Liaden tricked me," she told the empty hall. She laughed a little. Tricked three ways from yesterday-married and partnered to a Liaden; sister to an eight-foot, bottle-green Clutch-turtle with a name longer than she was; stranded on a coil-blown pleasure yacht around a world her new husband assured her was most likely Interdicted.

"Bored, were you, Robertson? Life not exciting enough with just the Juntavas after you?" She laughed again and shook her head, pushing away from the wall and starting back toward the bridge. Life . . .

The bridge was a racket
of radio chatter and computer chimes in the midst of which a slender, dark-haired man sat quietly. Miri froze in the doorway, heart stuttering, eyes sharp on the stillness of him, remembering another time, not so many days before, when he had been that still and a deadly danger to them both.

Quietly she approached the pilot's board, noting with relief that his shoulders carried only the normal tensions of weariness and concentration-nothing of shock or the abnormal effort of attaining freedom.

Nonetheless, standing unheeded beside him and watching the absorption on his face as he extended a long-fingered hand to minutely adjust a dial, she felt dread stir and chill her, and impulsively put her hand on his wrist, interrupting the adjustment.

"Stop!" he snapped, glancing up quickly.

"Still here, huh, boss?" She pulled her hand away. "Time for a break."

"Later." He turned back toward the board and the senseless chatter coming up from the planet surface.

"I said
now,
spacer!" Her voice carried all the authority of a mercenary sergeant, and she braced herself for retaliation.

His eyes, brilliantly green, flicked to hers, his mouth straight in that look that meant he was going to have his way, come hell or high water-and suddenly he smiled, pushing the hair out of his eyes. "Cha'trez, forgive me. I was lost in the work, and only meant to say that I am attempting-"

"To put yourself in a bad spot," Miri interrupted. "I don't think you been outta that seat for ten hours. You gotta eat, you gotta walk around, you gotta rest-wasn't all that long ago the only things between you and the Last Walk were an autodoc and a scared merc."

There was a long pause during which green eyes measured gray. He was the first to sigh and drop his gaze.

"All right, Miri."

She looked at him suspiciously. "What's that mean?"

"It means that I will take a break now-walk a bit and join you for a meal." He grinned weakly and reached up to brush her cheek with light fingers. "I do tend toward singlemindedness occasionally, despite my family's best efforts." The grin broadened. "I would not have you think that I was brought up as poorly as that."

"Sure," she said uncertainly, sensing a joke of some kind. She pointed at the board. "You still doing the hunt-and-compare bit? 'Cause I can give a listen while you're off-duty."

"It would be of assistance," he said, standing and stretching to his full height. Miri grinned up at him, liking the slim, graceful body and the beardless golden face. She extended a hand to touch his right cheek, and he shifted to drop a kiss on her fingertips. "Soon," he said, and slipped silently away.

Shaking her head at the hammering of her heart, Miri dropped into the pilot's chair and picked up the earphones.

Dinner was prime-grade
Milovian salmon, Boolean pretzel-bread, and water, consumed while seated cross-legged on the carpet amid the desolation that probably had been the private quarters of the yacht's owner.

Val Con ate his ration with neat efficiency, as if he were stoking his furnace with protein, Miri thought; as if taste and variety had nothing to do with the act of eating.

She ate more slowly, weary of the taste but forcing herself to finish every bit of the stuff, and finally she looked up to find Val Con watching her closely.

"This whole ship's a loony bin," she groused. "Triple-A prime salmon, telescopes, dolls, jewelry, secret compartments, and a coordinate page filled with Interdicted Worlds. How come?"

"The luxuries are bribes," Val Con said softly. "And the extra compartments are to hide them. Simple."

"Yeah?" She blinked. "Somebody's trading with Quarantined Worlds? But that's-"

"Illegal?" He shrugged. "It's only illegal when someone catches you."

"Hell of an attitude for a Scout."

He laughed. "Did I ever tell you about my grandmother?"

"Don't know when you would've had a chance. What about her?"

He smiled. "She was a smuggler."

"That a fact?" Miri said calmly. "What's the old lady doing now?"

"Forgive me," he murmured. "I should have said my many-times great-grandmother, Cantra yos'Phelium, co-founder of Clan Korval."

She grinned. "Not likely to go around embarrassing all the relatives then, is she?" Then she did a double-take. "Cantra, like the money?"

"Indeed," Val Con said around a sudden yawn. "Exactly Cantra, like the money."

"Better get some sleep, boss," she advised, hoping against all reason that he would forget about the blithering radio and the strings of signals to be overlaid and recorded.

"Not too bad an idea." He yawned again and without ado stretched out, putting his head on her lap.

"What the hell's wrong with you?"

"I'm tired, Miri."

She glared down at his shuttered face. "And you gotta put your head right there?"

One green eye opened. "Shall I put it on the floor?"

"Should you-I'll tell you what's wrong with you. You're spoiled."

The eye closed. "Undoubtedly."

"Rich kid from the good part of town; never had no trouble; never had to rough it; always a soft place to put your head . . ."

"Inarguably. Absolutely. Cantras and coaches. Satins and silks. Malchek and feeldophin."

She eyed him warily, noting without meaning to the long dark lashes and the firm, sweet mouth. "What's malchek and feeldophin?"

Both eyes opened wide, staring upside down into hers. "I don't know, Miri. But I'm certain they must be something."

"Think I'd learn." She sighed heavily and moved a hand to brush the hair away from his eyes. "I ain't good at sleeping sitting up, though."

"Ah. A compelling reason for me to put my head on the floor, I agree." He did so and opened his arms. "Come to bed, Miri."

Laughing, she stretched out beside him and put her head on his shoulder.

LIAD:
Solcintra

The priority gong clanged,
and Shan was up in an eruption of bedclothes, slapping the stud before he was fully awake.

"yos'Galan," he snapped into the speaker, only then aware of Priscilla at his side.

"Tower here, Cap'n. Sorry to disturb you."

"That's quite all right, Rusty; I enjoy having my rest broken for crew maneuvers. I assume that you
are
doing a dry run and that there really
isn't
a priority message for me lying somewhere around the Tower?"

"Nosir-I mean,
yessir,
there's a message, all right, pin-beamed to you by name, priority wrap, balance in code. Hit about three minutes ago. But here's what's funny, Cap'n . . ."

"I knew there was a punch line! Don't disappoint me, Rusty."

"Yessir. We tagged the source of transmission as local-just north of Solcintra. Thought you'd want to know."

"We're
in northern Solcintra . . ." Shan frowned. "You didn't by any chance send a priority message to me via the
Passage,
did you, Priscilla? There are more seemly ways to get my attention."

"The thought had occurred to me," she admitted, grinning.

"But action did not follow. Well, I doubt it's someone wanting to sell me a cloak." He touched a quick series of keys. "Transmit at will, Rusty-and thank you for your patience. It occurs to me that I'm becoming ill-tempered in my dotage."

Laughter burst from the comm as the receiver lit and beeped. "How long've we known each other?"

"Gods alone know. I recall the day they carried you on-ship, a babe in arms-"

"And you a gleam in Cap'n Er Thom's eye! Tower out."

"Good-bye, Tower." He shook his head and tapped keys-and the screen lit, displaying a bare line of gibberish, the word PRIORITY shrieking across the top margin. Shan sighed. "What day is it, Priscilla?"

"Banim Seconday."

"Ah, yes, and we're in the second relumma, year Trebloma . . ." He keyed in the information, added his ship-code, and stepped back, slipping an arm around her waist. Before them, the screen shimmered, null-words breaking, reforming, then becoming intelligible.

INFORMATION RECEIVED RE PROBLEM VIA GREENTREES.

COME HOME.

"My sister studies espionage. How refreshing." He sighed again and gave Priscilla a slight squeeze before he withdrew his arm. "Adventures, Priscilla! Were you growing bored?"

"Not especially." She hesitated. "Shall I come with you, Captain?"

He reached to touch her cheek. "This is a Clan matter, beloved, not a ship matter; the first mate has no need to be with me. However, I was to have seen Sennel this morning-if you would do the kindness?"

He read her disappointment, a reawakening of the previous night's uncertainties. "Fear not!" he cried with a gaiety his pattern did not reflect. "I very much doubt that this is a clever plot to whisk me away and marry me against my will to some lady from an outworld Clan-"

She laughed in spite of herself as he went across to the dressing room. He was out again in a handful of minutes, sealing the cuffs of a wide-sleeved blue shirt.

"Only see how obedient I am! My father would have expired of astonishment. First mate and captain are to meet with Delm Intassi this afternoon to discuss a possible cargo. If for some reason I cannot go, take Ken Rik with you and present my assurances to Intassi that nothing less than my First Speaker's word would have kept me from such an important appointment."

"Yes." She had flung the balcony door wide and was staring down into the inner garden, her pattern overlaid with the hum that signaled concentrated thought.

Shan stepped to her side and touched her shoulder. "Priscilla?"

She started just slightly, ebon eyes flashing to his face.

"Will you dine with me this evening? It seems we'd best talk again about the maggot in Nova's head." He took her pale hand and kept his eyes steady on hers. "I will marry no other lady, Priscilla. I swear it to you."

Her eyes filled, even as his did. "Shan . . ."

"Yes?"

She took a hard breath, and then the words came in a rush. "Can't we declare ourselves lifemates? If we-act according to Liaden law . . . Nova can't insist you contract-wed if you're life-mated, can she?"

"No, of course not. But Thodelm yos'Galan owes allegiance to Korval. Since we have no Delm, I must ask the First Speaker's permission to a lifemating and-"

"The timing's bad."

"Dreadful might be more accurate." He glanced down at their linked hands, saw the Master Trader's amethyst gleaming against his brown skin, bracketed by her slim white fingers, and looked back to her face. "The last time we were in port I went to the First Speaker to ask her permission . . ."

Priscilla stiffened. "She refused?"

"I never asked. Already the time was bad. I'm a Trader, Priscilla! It's lunacy to deal at a known disadvantage!" The bedside clock chimed their usual hour of rising, and he shifted. "I should go."

"Yes." She loosed his hand and stepped back. "Give my love to your sisters."

"Always." He hesitated on the edge of a kiss, read in her a desire for reserve, and so merely bowed the bow of affection and esteem. "I'll see you soon, Priscilla."

"Walk the day in joy, my love."

LIAD:
Trealla Fantrol

Shan sent the fast
little groundcar through the curve at the top of the hill, slipped the stick, and spun into the drive with a purring uptake of speed. At the base of the first hill, he downshifted in deference to the possibilities of children, cats, and dogs and proceeded at a pace only another pilot might have called sedate.

Damn it, he thought, guiding the car through twists and turns he knew like the rhythm of his own heartbeat. It wasn't like Nova to indulge in espionage! That Department of the Interior had got her worried beyond sense.

Or worried in very good sense. The car slid beneath a flowered archway and continued down a straight road lined with fragrant colmeno bushes. Shan felt a finger of cold down his spine and shivered in the warm Liaden sunshine.

The car negotiated the final right turn, left turn, sharp right, and pulled into a space near the garage doors. Shan got out and slammed the door.

The south wing
was quiet. Despite the lesson of past experience, it seemed as if Padi and Syl Vor might actually be with their tutors this morning-or engaged in quiet mayhem in another part of the house. Anthora's brand-new twins would be sleeping or gurgling in the nursery, charming those who had them in their care into the belief that
this
set of yos'Galans, at least, were as even-natured as they were sweet-tempered.

Nurses were so easy to fool. Shan shook his head and moved with lazy haste toward the main corridor, ears tracking the growing rumble of wheels across strellawood flooring. In contrast to nurses and tutors, Trealla Fantrol's butler was damn near impossible to fool.

They met at the intersection of corridors. The butler rotated the orange glass ball that served as his head and waved two of three arms in salute.

"Master Shan. Good day, sir. The First Speaker awaits you in the study." The voice, male and middle-aged, spoke Terran with the affected drawl of the upper classes and originated somewhere near the plate steel midsection.

"Jeeves," Shan said calmly. "Good day to you. Have you seen the children lately?"

"Miss Padi is in the garden with Mr. pel'Jonna, partaking of a botany lesson. Master Syl Vor and Ms. Gamkoda are engaged in geography, and Miss Shindi and Master Mik are having an early-morning nap."