Mark Tiedemann - Chimera

"I knew you were the right gato to talk to about this. I always appreciated your honesty."

"Ha ha. Your wit hasn't improved much."

"But my credit has," Coren said.

Damik regarded him skeptically. The waiter came and cleared away his salad plate, then set his dinner before him. Damik appeared to notice none of this, eyes fixed on Coren.

"Do you remember," Coren said as the waiter left, "all that business last year involving Clar Eliton and the assassinations at Union Station?"

"Lot of dead Spacers. So?"

"More than that -quite a few Terrans were killed or hurt, too. It was complicated. For a time, Rega Looms was suspected. In the course of doing my job-covering Rega's butt, technically-I learned a lot of details about a lot of people, mostly people I'll never meet and never deal with. But there've been exceptions. You, for instance."

Coren leaned forward, as if preparing to confide in Damik. "We knew each other for…what? Six years before I left Special Service?"

"Something like that."

"In all that time I never knew you were a Managin. Did you even know that yourself, or did you simply neglect to enter it in your file?" Coren spread his hands. "None of my business, really. Before last year, none of anyone's. But they turned out to be less than simply embarrassing to someone like you. They turned out to be-can you guess, Brun?-a security risk. Now imagine that. A bunch of fringe idiot anti-Spacer sociopaths an actual security risk. I'll tell you, Brun, I got a real laugh out of that when I heard it the first time. I thought, 'Don't those people at the Terran Bureau of Investigation have anything better to do than upgrade their lists of the possibly dangerous all day long? They should be after real criminals, real threats, real detriments to society.' "

"You thought all that, did you?"

"Yes, I did. I thought all that. But that was then. Today I thought, 'I wonder what the director of ITE would say if he knew his freshly-promoted chief of inspection at the Baltimor Station used to be one of those sorts?' And I decided to find out what you would think of it first."

Coren sat back and smiled across the table at Damik.

Slowly, Damik picked up a fork. "Is that all?"

"No, no, no. You were a real follower back then. I've got your name attached to at least four other groups like the Managins. But to be fair, only two of those ever got serious attention from the TBI. " Coren watched Damik cut a piece of his cutlet and fork it into his mouth. "So, how's my credit now?"

"Still not good enough." Damik grinned crookedly. "I'll tell you this, they're all corporate types at the high end. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the guy getting out from rehab this week is one."

"Alda Mikels? Is he the one you deal with."

"I told you, I don't know names-"

Coren shifted in his chair, leaned on his forearms over the small table. "I asked, is that who you deal with?"

Damik moved back. He studied Coren with narrowed eyes for several seconds. Finally, he shook his head. "Mikels is in jail-how could he do anything with baleys? Look, Coren, that's as much as you get-"

Coren sat back. "Let's see, besides the Managins, you were part of the Campaign for Terran Rights-they were the ones who shut down the vats feeding Calcubay District several years back. About the time you were an active member, under the name of…" Coren looked upward in mock concentration. "Ah, I remember. You called yourself 'Damil Bruller: Then there was-"

"Enough."

"What's the problem, Brun? No one can hear us." Coren gestured at his hemisphere.

"How big a file do you have on me?"

"Big enough. Come on, Brun, I don't have any desire to ruin your life. This has nothing to do with you. I just need to know how to find the people who would have had oversight on the last shipment of baleys out of Petrabor that you so innocently arranged. Seriously, who do you deal with? Who helps you afford real pork?" Coren took his own fork, reached across the table, and delicately worked loose a small piece of the gravy-soaked meat. He popped it into his mouth and smiled. "Very good."

"You don't need to know that."

"I'm afraid I do, " Coren said flatly.

Damik let out a long, low breath-nearly a growl. "Two people come see me to arrange things: a woman named Tresha, and a man named Gamelin. At least, that's what she calls him. He never speaks-I assume he's just muscle, he's big enough. "

"Tresha what?"

"The bank is closed for the day."

Coren studied Damik's eyes, then shrugged. He picked up his hemisphere and dropped it back into his pocket.

"You don't ever come talk to me again, Lanra," Damik warned. "We're done."

"Oh, I wish I could promise that. I really do." Coren smiled. "Enjoy the rest of your meal." Coren entered a bar down the corridor from the restaurant, ordered a drink, then went into the restroom. He shrugged out of his jacket, pulling it inside out, changing it from a dark green to a light blue. He broke a small vial in his hands and smeared the thick liquid through his hair, which turned black in less than a minute. He washed his hands before returning to his drink.

Damik walked by a few minutes later. Coren gave him several meters before he sauntered after him.

Damik went through the motions of surveying for a tail, but Coren suspected that his skills were long unused and inadequate. Within two intersections, Damik stopped looking behind him, and picked up his pace.

Coren followed him to a high speed walkway that carried them south into the vast financial district that filled a lot of the area between Baltimor and D.C. He got off after ten kilometers and used a public comm. Coren counted off two minutes, twenty seconds. Damik left the booth and skipped across the accelerating lanes to continue south.

Another ten kilometers. Coren took off his jacket and tied it around his waist. Damik had apparently decided no one would follow him from here and never bothered to do another survey. Coren moved closer out of contempt, as if to dare Damik to recognize him, but the man never glanced back.

Damik got off in a warehouse sector. He descended three levels, to a home kitchen, and took a position leaning against one massive pillar. He stood out in this T-class area and drew a lot of odd looks, but he remained where he stood, feigning ambivalence.

Coren turned his jacket out again, slung it by one finger over his shoulder, and skirted the edge of the kitchen till he found a table recently vacated. He sat down before the remains of a late, vat-based dinner, the rich yeast-and-grain aroma thick in his nostrils. He gripped the nearly empty glass of beer and pretended to be enjoying the last of it, keeping Damik in the corner of his field of vision.

About ten minutes went by before anyone approached Damik. An older man in an innocuous black jacket and gray pants came up to him. Coren slipped his optam out, adjusted its range, and waited. Just before Damik and the old man were about to turn away, Coren smoothly raised the device and recorded them.

They moved away from him. The last Coren saw of them, the old man put his arm around Damik's shoulders and patted him in an incongruously paternal manner.

Coren swallowed a painblock. The throbbing along his neck and shoulder began to ebb. He did not want to take the time to see his doctor, though he knew he should-he still did not know how badly he had been injured in Petrabor.

He crossed the avenue to the open arcade. Shops alternated with private offices along both sides. Coren breathed in the mingled smells of several restaurants and food vendors. At this hour he saw few people. Later, the place would be as crowded as it had been during the height of the last shift.

The door he sought turned out to be plain blue bearing a small nameplate: RW ENTERPRISES.