Timothy Zahn - Cobra Bargain

"Yes, Master Sammon."

Daulo keyed the intercom off and turned back for one last look at the woman.

Where could she be from? he wondered. And why is she here? There were no answers as yet... but that lack would eventually be corrected. For the moment the important fact was that the Sammon family had matters under control. Whether this mysterious woman represented a totally neutral happenstance, or a chance opportunity granted them by God, or part of some strange plot by one of their rivals, the Sammons were now in position to use her presence to their own advantage.

Which reminded him, he still had to clean up before his meeting with his father.

Opening the door quietly, he slipped out of the room.

"Come in," the familiar grating voice came from the opposite side of the carved door; and, steeling himself, Daulo opened the door and went in.

He could still remember a time, not all that long ago, when he'd been absolutely terrified of his father. Terrified not so much by Kruin Sammon's strength and stature, nor even by the man's cold voice and piercing black eyes; but by the fact that Kruin Sammon was, to all intents and purposes, the Sammon family. His was the power that ran this immense house and the mine and nearly a third of the village; his the influence that stretched beyond Milika to touch the nearby villages and logging camps and even the city of Azras, whose people normally treated villagers like themselves with barely concealed contempt. Kruin Sammon was power... and even after the fear of that power had abated somewhat, Daulo had never forgotten the emotions it had aroused in him.

It was only much later that he had realized it was probably a lesson his father had deliberately set for him to learn.

"Ah; Daulo," the older man nodded from his cushion-like throne in solemn greeting to his eldest son. "I trust your trip down the mine went well?"

"Yes, my father," Daulo said, making the sign of respect as he stepped to the cushion before Kruin's low work table and seated himself before it. "The necessity for extra shoring is keeping progress slow in the new tunnel, but not as slow as we feared it would."

"And the job is being done properly?"

"It appeared to be, yes, at least to the best of my knowledge."

"The job is being done properly?" Kruin repeated.

Daulo fought to keep his emotions from his face and voice. That had been a thoughtless qualification-if there was one thing his father hated, it was equivocation. "Yes, my father. The shoring was being done properly."

"Good," Kruin nodded, picking up a stylus from the table and making note on a pad. "And the workers?"

"Content. In my presence, at any rate."

"The mine chief?"

Daulo thought back to the other's face as he'd left the elevator. "Impressed by his own importance," he said. "Eager that others know of it, as well."

That brought a faint smile to Kruin's lips. "He is all of that," he agreed. "But he's also capable and conscientious, and the combination is one that can be put up with." Tossing the stylus back on the table, he leaned back against the cushions and gazed at his son. "And now: what is your impression of our visitor?"

"Our-? Oh. The woman." Daulo frowned. "There are things about her I don't understand. For one thing, she's well within marriageable age and yet is unmarried-"

"Or is widowed," Kruin put in.

"Oh. True, she could be a widow. She's also not from anywhere around here-her clothing is made of a cloth I'm unfamiliar with, and the doctor said she had a low tolerance to monote bites."

"And what of her rather dramatic entrance to Milika? -found alone on the road after some unspecified accident or such?"

Daulo shrugged. "I've heard of people getting stranded on roads before, my father. And even of surviving krisjaw attacks."

The elder Sammon smiled. "Very good-you anticipated my next question. But have you ever heard of someone who was close enough to a krisjaw to be clawed and still survived the experience?"

"There are cases," Daulo said, a small part of his mind wondering why he was being so stubborn. He certainly had no reason to take the mysterious woman's part in this debate. "If she had one or more armed companions during the attack one could have shot the creature off of her, even at that late moment."

Kruin nodded, lips tightening together. "Yes, there's that possibility.

Unfortunately, it leads immediately to another question: these alleged defenders of hers seem to have vanished, djinn-like, into thin air. Why?"

Daulo thought about it for a long minute, painfully aware that his father must have already thought all this through and was merely testing him to see if he came up with similar answers. "There are only three possibilities," he said at last. "They are dead, incapacitated, or in hiding."

"I agree," Kruin said. "If they are dead or incapacitated, Perto will find them-I've sent him to search the road now for just that purpose. If they are hiding... again, why?"

"Afraid, or part of a plot," Daulo said promptly. "If afraid, they will reveal themselves once their companion is proved to have come to no harm. If part of a plot-" he hesitated "-then the woman is here either to infiltrate and spy on our house or else to distract our attention from her companions' task."

Kruin took a deep breath, his eyes focused somewhere beyond Daulo's face. "Yes.

Unfortunately, that is my reasoning, as well. Have you any thoughts as to who would plot against us?"

The snort escaped Daulo's lips before he could stop it. "Need we look farther than the Yithtra family?"

"It could be that obvious," Kruin shrugged. "And yet, I generally credit Yithtra with more subtlety than that. And more intelligence, too-with a new shipment of lumber due in, he'll have more than enough legitimate work to keep him occupied.

Why launch a plot to discredit us at the same time?"

"Perhaps that's how he expects us to think," Daulo suggested.

"Perhaps. Still, it would be good to remember that there are others on Qasama who might find profit in stirring up mischief in Western Arm villages."

Daulo nodded thoughtfully. Yes; and foremost among them were the enemies of

Mayor Capparis of Azras. Capparis's unlikely friendship with the Sammon family-and the easy access that relationship gave the mayor to the mine's output-had been a thorn in the side of Capparis's enemies for a long time.

Perhaps one of them was finally going to try and break the Sammon family's power, to replace them with someone more malleable.

Especially with that strange self-contained Mangus operation east of Azras gobbling up so much of the mine's output lately. Azras and the other cities in the Western Arm were enough of a headache to Milika and its fellow villages;

Mangus and its slimy purchasing agents were as bad in their way as all the cities combined. If someone in Azras thought Mangus's mineral needs would go still higher-and thought that someone other than the Sammon family should profit by those needs... "What shall we do, then, my father?" he asked. "Send this woman out of our house, perhaps allow her to recuperate in the mayor's house?"

Kruin was silent a moment before answering. "No," he said at last. "If our enemies believe we consider her harmless, it gives us a slight advantage in this game. No, we will keep her here, at least for now. If Perto fails to find any companions for her-well, by then we may be able to question her directly about how she survived her journey."

And if that story was patently false...? "I understand. Shall I assign a guard to her recovery room?"

"No, we don't want to be that obvious. As long as she's ill and confined to the women's section the normal contingent of guards there will be adequate. You will alert them to be prepared for possible trouble from her, of course."