The Agent Gambit (73 page)

It appeared, however,
that his thoughts of waylaying them at the stairs were echoed by dozens of locals. The slender walkway was crammed with jostling, shouting barbarians, making a smooth rendezvous with his compatriot impossible.

sig'Alda sat on a bench near the aisle, awaiting his moment, counting through an exercise designed to give patience in frustrating situations. That accomplished, he pondered variables.

He had not known that yos'Phelium was such an accomplished musician-his record had spoken of an
inclination
for the omnichora-yet the sounds of that last piece, though obviously of local origin, had been refined by the agent's contributions into something with merit. And the agent himself-sig'Alda made use of the Loop's recall mode to watch again the last moments of the performance-the agent himself had been unfettered and full of energy. The music had been played with passion by all.

The Loop came up suddenly, without bidding, even as sig'Alda found himself reciting the formula half out loud: "Dispassion, calculation, control, success-"

The probability was .82 that yos'Phelium's actions were inconsistent with those of an Agent on Duty. sig'Alda considered further. Lost without a ship on a barbarian world one might easily give up hope, attempt to throw oneself fully into a new and successful life . . . He shivered, half from the cold that had crept into the hall when the audience had begun to sift out the doors, and half from the thought of attempting to live at all long, depending solely on passion.

Consideration, of course, would have to be given to the possibility that the facial scar-and the Juntavas report of the incident had come from a drunken underling, after all-was the least portion of a grievous and partially disabling head injury. Mere proper Liaden medical attention might be all that would be required to return the agent properly to the fold.

Finally the trio was permitted to move, but so ringed with admiring locals that sig'Alda found his best tactic was to simply attach himself to the tail end of the throng and follow where it led. Eventually opportunity would arise.

As if the thought was the trigger, there was an unexpected event. The bodyguard was separating herself from the group! If he might intercept her, perhaps remove her from the equation, options would be clearer. He hesitated for a moment and saw the crowd close in again around yos'Phelium and the local musician.

With the Loop's approval, sig'Alda moved.

VANDAR:
Winterfair

"Another set?"
Miri asked rhetorically as they walked down the midway. "Is she nuts, or what?"

Val Con grinned and pushed the hair out of his eyes. "At least we have an hour or two to prepare-and to rest."

"Yeah, well, I don't know about you, but I'm strung so high, I wouldn't sleep if you whacked me over the head with a brick."

"Performance exhilaration," he murmured. "It means you sang with all your joy."

"I guess." She stopped, staring at the entrance to the hall, while the wind thrummed against the canvas stretched high above them. "Tell you what, boss. I'm going for a walk first; try to get this exhilaration thing buttoned up. Tell Hakan I'll be back in ten minutes, okay?"

"Okay," he said, squeezing her hand gently. He turned to go in and, vaguely uneasy, turned back in time to see her disappear into the tall crowd, heading toward the perimeter.

The Terran female had stopped, attention apparently engaged by the low-tech transmitting station and the landtrain that housed it. Tyl Von sig'Alda paused some distance back, closer than he liked to a smoky brazier, watching and considering.

The Loop counseled a direct approach and indicated a possibility as high as .99 that the Terran was currently drug-free. Certainly the performance he had just seen it deliver, though rude and barbaric, was inconsistent with an individual operating with Clouded faculties. sig'Alda stepped forward.

As he came to her side, she turned, eyes going wide. He bowed, not low, but enough to flatter and confuse.

"Good day," he said, speaking most gently in Terran. "You are Miri Robertson, are you not?"

Eyes and face had gone wary; stance suggested puzzlement and indecision. sig'Alda smiled, delighted to find her so very easy to read.

"Yeah," she said, her voice firm and fine. "Who're you?"

"A friend of your employer's," he said smoothly. "It has been noted that you have guarded with excellence, in circumstances both trying and unusual. Now that your duty is completed, and your employer going home, he sends me with this gift, indicative of his esteem." Sliding the little packet with its blue dot out, he saw the Terran's eyes widen, heard her breath catch, and saw the pale skin pale further as he pressed the thing into her hand.

"Cloud?" The fine voice rasped a little on the word, and sig'Alda inclined his head gravely.

"We have made a careful study of your preferences," he said, seeing how her fingers closed tight around the plastic envelope. "And when it came time for the gift to be chosen, I offered my knowledge of your tastes, so that the gift would be certain to please. I hope that you will allow yourself to be pleased and to look upon the gift with favor."

"Sure." The voice had flattened, and she stared at him out of sparkling gray eyes, eager, no doubt, to sample what she held so fiercely. "Thanks a lot."

"It is my pleasure to serve," he told her, and bowed once again. He left her still staring with those brilliant eyes, the little packet completely hidden in the clench of her hand.

VANDAR:
Winterfair

The rehearsal hall
was hot, and Val Con was sitting as far away from the corner fireplace as he could, restringing the mandolette and listening to Hakan chatter.

"We could," the younger man was saying, "just replay the set they disqualified-well, not the fourth song, but the first three. Except I hate to do that and take away the impact of that RosaRing ballad of Miri's." He shook his head in wonderment. "And she said she couldn't sing in front of a crowd! There wasn't a dry eye in the house, man-I'll bet you my share of the cash prize!"

"If we win the cash prize," Val Con murmured. "Perhaps we should do a new set, starting with the song that disqualified us."

"Something to that," Hakan said reflectively. Then he stood with a huge smile, opening his arms and hugging Kem, right there in front of everyone. Kem hugged back, steadfastly keeping her eyes away from the shocked faces, and Val Con shook his head to himself, remarking what a bad influence he and Miri had been on Hakan and his lady.

He picked up the last string, tied it, and threaded it, carefully turning the knob and-

The string snapped in his icy, clumsy hands, sweat beaded his forehead and panic blossomed in his belly. Heart stuttering, he dropped the mandolette, tears starting to fill his eyes.

"Cory?"

Val Con looked up with a barely stifled gasp as Hakan bent to his shoulder. "Are you all right, Cory?"

He took a deep breath, reviewed the Rainbow, and managed a shaky smile at his friends. "Nerves. I think, Hakan. I'll go outside and-get some air."

Hakan frowned uncertainly. "I'll come with you, if you want. You don't look so good, man."

"Miri-Miri will be coming soon." He came almost clumsily to his feet, snatched up his jacket, and went raggedly down the crowded room. Hakan looked at Kem, then bent to pick up the mandolette.

He leaned against
the rough wooden wall and filled his lungs with knife-cold air. The violence of the panic had ebbed, leaving a clammy residue of despair in its wake. Val Con focused his attention inward, seeking the source of his feelings-and found it nearly at once.

It was emanating from the song that was Miri.

The terror this time was his own. Coldly he stepped away from it and turned his attention to determining her direction. The song tugged him north, and he went at a rapid walk, barely aware of the people he pushed past and sidestepped.

He turned the corner into a cross-street at a pace approaching a run, passing the infrequent fairgoers and the row of empty craft booths without seeing any of it, all attention fixed inward, where despair had solidified into something drear and nameless, and her song fragmented toward discord.

The man came out of nowhere, wrenching his attention outward with a touch on his sleeve and a murmured bit of the High Tongue.

"Good evening, galandaria. Where to, in such a haste?"

Val Con checked and danced back. The other checked, as well, and Val Con found himself looking at a slight man in a pilot's leather jacket, black-haired and black-eyed, face beardless and golden and curiously lacking in mobility.

"The commander sends greetings, Agent yos'Phelium." His voice was cultured and smooth, devoid of warmth.

Val Con raised a brow. "It must naturally gratify one to hear it," he murmured, "though I protest my unworthiness of such regard." He shifted slightly, testing the other man's reactions.

The man shifted in response, checking the foreshadowed charge, radiating self-confidence and control. "You mistake the matter," he said, "if you believe the commander allows even the least of us to fall from sight, uncounted and unsearched-for." He offered an arm imperiously. "Let us depart, Agent. The commander requires your report."

"My report . . ." Val Con frowned, counting the steps bearing down upon them, then spun and dodged away, putting a group of six fairgoers between them. Whirling back toward the top of the street, he found the nameless agent before him, poised for the throw. Val Con slammed to a halt, an empty craft booth to his left, the agent ready to leap in any direction he picked to run.

"So," the other said, pointing to the empty booth. "We will continue our discussion in there."

"No." Miri, where was Miri? He touched that portion of his being that reflected her-and pulled away, half-shuddering with her dread.

The inflexible face before him was shadowed by some unreadable emotion. "Will you die for so inconsequential a thing?"

Slowly, watching the man tightly, Val Con stepped back, muscles loose and half foolish, as in the
L'apeleka
stance named Awaiting. Cautiously, making no move that might be read as a threat, he opened the door, stepped into the booth, and retreated, though not nearly as far as the farther wall.

The agent came after him, sure-footed and assured as a tiger, and shut the door behind him.

"I will repeat my message," he said. "Agent Val Con yos'Phelium is ordered to Headquarters by the commander's own word, that he may be debriefed, recalibrated, and if necessary, retrained."

Val Con bowed, briefly and with irony. "As much as it grieves me to say so, I find that the commander's words leave me strangely unmoved. Pray carry my kindest regards with you when you go."

"So," the agent said again. His eyes closed, and the next breath he took was noticeably deeper than the one before; but Val Con was already moving to take advantage of that unexpected lapse. The agent opened his eyes, ducked, parried with a fist that came nowhere near connecting, whirled out of immediate danger, and cried out, fully in the mode of Command, "Val Con yos'Phelium clare try qwit-"

A string of no-words, meaningless in the necessity of battle: Val Con stumbled, twisted, and came barely erect, body half-sketching a
L'apeleka
phrase.

"Who secures Liad?" the agent demanded, and Val Con heard his own voice answer.

"The people of Liad."

"Who secures the people of Liad?" the agent persisted. The answer was not the one he would make: It came unbidden and uncontrolled. Even as he heard the words, he tried to shake them away, to form them into something else.

"The Department of the Interior secures the people of Liad," his voice said, while he hated the lie and his body continued, slowly, to move, developing more fully the phrase it had fallen into.

"Who secures the Department of the Interior?"

It was as if there were fog suddenly in the booth, or a shimmering veil between him and the agent. Through it, Val Con read the other's rising confidence and ground his teeth to keep his traitor voice silent.

"Who secures," the agent repeated, "the Department of the Interior?"

It was useless to fight. He grappled with his thoughts, trying to remember just what it was he must not allow, and heard himself murmur, through a mile of fog, "The commander secures the Department of the Interior."

His body continued of its own momentum; he paid it as little heed as the lessening distance between himself and the man who asked these tiresome, tiring questions.

"Who secures the commander?" his interrogator demanded.

"The agents," Val Con's voice told him. "The agents secure the commander."

The man before him smiled. "With what do the agents secure the commander?"

"With actions, and with blood."

"When the commander calls you to duty," the man demanded, the High Tongue knelling like a death-bell, "what do you say?"

Val Con's body twisted silently in the dance; he came to a point of fulcrum and smiled peacefully upon his questioner. "
Carpe diem."

The words were like bright sun, burning away the fog. In the instant of answering, he recognized the
L'apeleka
dance named "Accepting the Lance;" recalled that the one giving ground before him was an enemy; recalled that there had been another answer to the last question, an answer that had made no sense. Miri had given him the proper answer-the true answer-and he had danced it into place in Hakan's barn . . .

"Val Con yos'Phelium," the agent cried. "try clare qwit-"

The cycle went faster that time: Again he was shackled; compelled to reply, mind slowly clouding while his body relentlessly repeated the pattern of "Accepting the Lance."

When the commander calls you to duty," the agent snarled, "what do you say?"

"Carpe diem!"
Val Con cried; and the dance described acceptance while the agent's hand flicked toward his pocket and Val Con loosened the throwing blade.

The knife struck the enemy high in the chest, close to the throat, and bounced away with a hollow
thunk
as the man brought his gun around.