Timothy Zahn - Cobra Bargain

She was, if anything, a bit long on her guess, and a second later she found herself gazing down from midair at the roof of the Sammon house. Fortunately,

Daulo's great-grandfather had gone in heavily for ornamental stonework when he'd built the place, and it was no effort to find hand and foot grips as her upward momentum peaked and she started the downward trip. Taking care not to make noise, she clambered up and across the slightly slanted roof to its peak. From that vantage point she could see across much of the village; and there, perhaps a kilometer away to the west, was the wall.

It looked about as she would have expected it, given the pictures brought back from Qasaman villages further north and east. The main part was a three-meter height of tough ceramic, hard and thick enough to withstand a charging bololin, with its inner surface painted to blend in with the forest just beyond it.

Unlike the others she'd seen, however, this one had a bonus: an extension of some kind of metal mesh that added another two meters to its original height.

Midway up that fence, holding on with all four feet, was the spine leopard she'd heard.

Jin chewed at her lip. Below the animal, moving around in a purposeful manner, were a handful of figures armed with large handguns. She strained, but even with optical enhancers at full magnification, she couldn't tell if Daulo was among them. Probably not, she assured herself. He couldn't have gotten there that fast.

And even as she watched, a car pulled up beside the wall and Daulo got out.

For a few seconds he and the men already there conversed. Then, two of the men set up ladders and climbed to the top of the main wall, staying well to either side of the spine leopard. Below them, Daulo and one other raised their guns in two-handed marksman's grips. Apparently they were hoping to kill the predator and grab the carcass before it fell to the ground outside.

Idiots, Jin thought, heart pounding in her ears. If stray bullets or ricochets didn't get the men up there, there was a good chance the spine leopard's death throes would. With their decentralized nervous systems spine leopards weren't easy to kill, certainly not quickly.

The multiple flashes from the guns were like sunglints off rippling water in her enhanced vision. She bit at her lip... and by the time the quickfire stutter of the shots reached her it was all over. Before the spine leopard had even sagged completely against the mesh the men on the wall were in front of it, hands poked through to grip the animal's forelegs. Two more men-Jin hadn't even noticed them get up on the wall-grabbed the top of the mesh and pulled themselves up and over to the spine leopard's side. Another second and they'd each taken a hind leg in one hand; hanging onto the mesh with the other hand, they heaved the carcass over the top to flop onto the ground inside the wall.

Carefully, Jin let her breath out, an odd shiver running up her back as the two men climbed the mesh again to safety. Of course these people knew what they were doing-they'd had a whole generation, after all, to figure out how to deal with the spine leopard legacy the Cobra Worlds had given them. There was little need for her to worry about the Qasamans on that account.

Which meant she could concentrate all of her worrying on herself.

Daulo was getting back into his car now. Carefully, Jin retraced her steps to the edge of the roof. With her leg servos and ceramic-coated bones there to take the impact, the fastest way down would be to simply drop straight back into the courtyard. But the noise of the impact might be loud enough for someone to hear, and after seeing that display of firepower she wasn't in the mood to risk drawing unwelcome attention. Licking her lips, she hooked her fingers into servo-strength talons and started the long climb down the stonework.

She'd decreased the distance by nearly a full story by the time her auditory enhancers picked up the hum of the outer door opening. Clenching her teeth, she let go and dropped the rest of the way to the ground. By the time Daulo came looking for her she was seated on a low bench beneath a fragrant tree, waiting for him.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Oh, sure," he nodded. "It was just a razorarm stuck in the wall. We got it without any trouble."

"Good," Jin told him, standing up. "Well, then, I suppose-"

She broke off abruptly as the courtyard did a mild tilt around her. "Are you all right?" Daulo asked sharply, stepping to her side and taking her arm.

"Sudden flash of dizziness," Jin said, swallowing hard. Even with her servos doing most of the work, her rooftop sightseeing trip had apparently taken more out of her than she'd realized. "I guess I'm not as recovered as I thought I was."

"Shall I call for a litter?"

"No, no, I'll be all right," she assured him. "Thank you very much for bringing me out here-I hope I didn't take up too much of your time."

"It was my pleasure, Jasmine Alventin. Come on, now..."

He insisted on walking her all the way back to her suite, despite her protestations that she really was all right. Once there, he also wanted to awaken Asya, and it took the best part of Jin's verbal skills and several minutes of whispered debate out in the hall before she convinced him that she would make it from doorway to bed without further assistance.

For a long time after his footsteps had faded down the hall she stared at the ceiling above her bed, listening to the pounding of her heart and thinking about those quickfire weapons. For a while there she'd actually started to relax in the comfort and luxury of the Sammon house... but that warm feeling was gone now. The entire planet of Qasama is one big fat enemy camp, Layn had told them again and again.

Now, for the first time, she really believed it.

She awoke to the delicate aroma of hot food, and opened her eyes to find a truly massive breakfast set out by the window seat. "Asya?" she called, climbing out of bed and padding over to the table.

"I am here, mistress," Asya said, appearing from the other room and touching her fingertips to her forehead. "How may I serve you?"

"Are we expecting company for breakfast?" Jin asked her, indicating the size of the meal.

"It was sent up on the order of Master Daulo Sammon," Asya told her. "Perhaps he felt you were in need of extra nourishment, after your illness. May I remind you that your meal yesterday was as large as this?"

"My meal yesterday followed a five-day fast," Jin growled, staring in dismay at the spread. "How am I supposed to eat all this?"

"I am sorry if you are displeased," Asya said, moving toward the intercom. "If you'd like, I can have it removed and a smaller portion brought up."

"No, that's okay," Jin sighed. She'd been taught since childhood not to waste food, and the sinking feeling that she was about to do exactly that was sending reflexive guilt feelings rippling through her stomach. But there was nothing that could be done about it now. Sitting down, she took a deep breath and dug in.

She managed to make a considerable dent in the meal before finally calling it quits. Along the way she noticed something that hadn't registered the day before: each variety of food, whether served cold or hot, remained at its original temperature throughout the course of the meal. A classy trick; and her eventual conclusion that there were miniature heat pumps or microwave systems built into each of the serving dishes didn't detract a bit from its charm.

Charming or not, though, it was also a sobering reminder of something she still had a dangerous tendency to forget: that for all their colorful customs and cultural differences, the Qasamans were emphatically not a primitive society.

"What would you do next, mistress?" Asya asked when Jin finally pushed herself away from the table.