Timothy Zahn - Cobra Bargain

Especially since they might withdraw their support from her if they knew the truth?

"Jasmine Alventin!"

She started and twisted around. Daulo was beckoning urgently to her as he opened the car's left-hand rear door; the chauffeur was already in the front seat.

Heart thudding in her throat, Jin jogged over to join them. "What is it?" she asked, pulling open the right-hand door and sliding in the back beside Daulo.

"One of our people noticed a Yithtra family truck coming in by the south gate,"

Daulo said, his voice tight. "It had something like a tree trunk sticking from the back, covered with some kind of cloth so that it couldn't be seen.

Jin frowned. "An unusual tree they don't want anyone to see?"

"That's what our spotter thought. It occurred to me that there's something else of that shape that they might be even more anxious to hide from sight."

Jin's mouth went dry. A missile? "That's... crazy," she managed. "Where would they have gotten something like that?"

Daulo's eyes flicked to the chauffeur. "Whatever it is, I want to try and get a look at it."

The chauffer sped them down the spoke road to the Small Ring, turning counterclockwise onto it. "The simplest route would be to take the spoke road directly from the south gate to the Small Ring," Daulo muttered. "But in this case... I'm going to guess they'll turn instead onto the Great Ring and take it to the Yithtra section, then come down that spoke road to the house. What do you think, Walare?"

"Sounds reasonable, Master Daulo," the chauffeur nodded. "Shall I run that in reverse and see if we can catch them?"

"Right."

Guiding the vehicle expertly through the pedestrian crowds, Walare curved around the Inner Green, passed the spoke road from the south gate, and continued on toward the grand house Daulo had identified some days earlier as that of the

Yithtra family. Another spoke road angled off just before it, and Walare turned down it. Jin looked back at the house as they headed away, noting the liveried guards at all the visible entrances-

"There," Daulo snapped, pointing at a small truck far ahead down the spoke road.

Jin keyed in her optical enhancers for a look at the truck's three occupants.

All three looked oddly tense, but none seemed especially suspicious of the car approaching them. A minute later the two vehicles passed each other, and Daulo and Jin both spun around in their places.

There was indeed something cylindrical poking awkwardly out from between the truck's rear doors; and it was indeed swathed heavily in some kind of silky white cloth. "Follow it," Daulo ordered Walare. "Well, Jasmine Alventin?" he added as the car swung into a tight U-turn.

Jin pursed her lips, trying to estimate the object's length and circumference.

"It's not very big, if it's what we think it is," she told him. "Rather obvious, too."

"Point," Daulo admitted. "Especially since they've got regular log carriers they could have used to bring something like that in without it being seen at all.

You think perhaps it is nothing but a tree trunk brought in to stir us up?"

Jin chewed at her lip. It might be possible to glean something even through all that cloth. "Let me try something," she said. Leaning her head out the side window, she keyed in her optical enhancers' infrared capability.

The reflection/radiation profile was strong and dramatic; and even with the background clutter from the truck and pavement around it, there was no room for doubt. "It's metal," she told Daulo.

He nodded grimly. "I'm sure you realize what this means. The Yithtra family's made a deal with Mangus."

"Or else they stole it. Which could get the whole village in trouble."

Daulo hissed between his teeth. "Trouble from agents seeking to retrieve it?"

Or straightforward retaliation, Jin thought. But there was no point in worrying

Daulo with that one. "Basically," she told him. "On the other hand, we've now got a chance to pick up some information without having to go all the way to

Mangus for it."

He stared at her. "Are you serious? We can't break into the Yithtra family house."

"I didn't think we could," Jin told him tightly. "That's why I'm going to have to do this here and now."

He said something incredulous sounding, but she was too busy thinking to pay attention. There were a dozen ways to take out a vehicle, but all of them would instantly brand her as a demon warrior. To their right, another of Milika's marketplaces stretched alongside the street, teeming with potential witnesses to anything she tried.

Potential witnesses... but also potential diversions. "Pull up closer to the truck," she ordered the chauffeur. "In a minute I'll want you to pass it."

"Master Daulo...?" the other asked.

"Do it," Daulo confirmed. "Jin-?"

"I'm going to jump out as you start to pass and get into the truck," she told him, eyes searching across the marketplace booths ahead as she lowered the window. Somewhere out there had to be what she was looking for...

There-right beside the street fifty meters ahead: a group of six customers holding an animated discussion beside a vendor of food and drink... and four of the six carried mojos on their shoulders. "Pull up," she ordered Walare. "Daulo

Sammon, I'll meet you back at the house." From the corner of her eye she saw them closing on the truck ahead; activating her target system, she locked onto the bellies of three of the mojos. Even in the glare of full daylight, she knew, it was going to be a calculated risk to fire even low-power shots from her fingertip lasers. But there wasn't anything she could do about that except cross her fingers and pray that no one noticed them. Walare had them directly behind the truck now, and was starting to pull around; and as the food booth shot past,

Jin fired three shots in rapid succession.

It was all she could have hoped for. The birds' screams pierced the air like a triple siren, followed immediately by an equal number of human bellows. Jin got a quick glimpse of the scorched mojos tearing furiously around through the air as everyone nearby scrambled for safety from the birds' unexpected behavior; and as the sudden ruckus audibly spread behind her she wrenched the car door open and flipped her legs out onto the pavement. For a second she held onto the door for balance as her feet caught the stride; then, shoving the door shut, she surged forward. Her timing was perfect: with Walare halfway into his passing maneuver, her side of the car had been directly behind the truck, out of view of any rear-facing mirror. A two-second quick-sprint put her beside the cylinder's bouncing nose; grabbing the edge of one of the open doors, she pulled herself up and through the gap and into the welcome shadows inside the truck.

She took a shuddering breath, acutely aware of the time limit now counting down.

In five minutes or less the truck would reach the Yithtra house, and if she didn't get out before then, she might very well have to shoot her way out.

Crouching down beside the cylinder, she tore away its silky covering... and froze.

The cloth wasn't just cloth. It was light and tight-woven, with cords tied between it and the cylinder.

A parachute.

And the cylinder beneath it was smooth and white, with black scorch marks liberally splattered over its surface. Marks that nevertheless didn't obscure the lettering on the loosely fastened access panel:

TYPE 6-KX TRANSFER CONTAINER: FOR GOVERNMENTAL SHIPPING USE ONLY.

God above, she thought numbly. The Yithtra family hadn't bought or stolen a missile, after all. They'd found something far worse: a goodbye present from the

Southern Cross.

A present for her.

For a long second her mind seemed to be on ice, skidding along without control.