Timothy Zahn - Cobra Bargain

"I've already been paid to bring Kruin Sammon a reply, should you wish to send one," she continued, struggling to keep her face and voice impassive. Deep in the back of her mind, alarm bells were beginning to go off. Something here wasn't quite right... "However, in that event, I would need time to prepare myself-"

And without warning the scene ahead of her was abruptly rimmed by red.

A jolt of adrenaline surged through her as, reflexively, she held her breath.

Suddenly it all clicked: the long delay back at the changing room, the careful scrutiny Obolo Nardin was giving her, the breeze blowing in her face... a breeze undoubtedly laden with sleeping drug. They'd considered what to do with her, decided that the message cover was nonsense, and were taking the appropriate action.

At her sides, Jin's hands curled into fists, nails digging into the skin of her palms to ward off the drug's effect. She might be able to stun Obolo with her sonic and get out of here... but the hanging curtains could hide a hundred other men, and even now she couldn't afford to give herself away. On the other hand, she couldn't hold her breath forever, either, and she'd probably already inhaled enough of the stuff to put her under before she got too far, anyway. And Obolo was still staring at her. Still waiting...

Waiting for her to collapse? All right, she decided suddenly. "I-Master Nardin-" she began drunkenly, using the last of her reserve of air; and rolling her eyes up, she collapsed to the floor.

She'd made sure to let her head roll so as to face away from the direction of the sleep breeze, but the stars of her impact had barely cleared away before the air now playing at the back of her head was shut off anyway. Footsteps came slowly around one of the curtains... stopped at her side... "That was quick,"

Radig Nardin's voice said. "Even for a woman."

"She's a soft offworlder," Obolo replied contemptuously. "If this is the best our enemies can do, we have little to fear from them."

An iron spike seemed to drive itself up through Jin's stomach. God above-they know who I am! But how-?

"Perhaps." A hand pulled at Jin's shoulder, rolling her over on her back.

Keeping her eyes closed, she activated her optical enhancers, keying for zero magnification and the lowest light-amp setting. Radig peered at her face a moment, then straightened up again to face his father. "I'll have her body searched for tiny instruments before we confine her."

"As you choose, my son, but I doubt there's any need."

"Her clothing yielded nothing-"

"You're forgetting the crash of her spacecraft," the elder Nardin cut his son off. "She carries no devices because none survived with her."

"Perhaps. Have you decided yet what to do about Daulo Sammon?"

"Why, nothing, of course-his father has offered us a deal," Obolo said, heavily sarcastic. "Didn't you hear his message?"

Radig glanced down at Jin again. "You'll forgive me, my father, if I fail to see any humor in the situation. Or do you consider it impossible that the Sammon family has in fact made an alliance with this spy?"

"Hardly impossible," Obolo grunted. "Unlikely, though."

"Then let me get rid of him," Radig urged. "As long as he's here, he presents a danger to us."

"True. Unfortunately, removing him at this point may be even more dangerous.

Tell me, have you identified the man who came into Mangus with him?"

Radig's lip twitched. "Not yet. But he's probably just someone else from that bololin dropping of Milika."

" 'Probably' isn't good enough," Obolo said coldly. "The Shahni know the woman is on Qasama, and they know she stayed in the Sammon household while in Milika.

This man could well be a Shahni agent assigned to Daulo Sammon, either as protector or as jailer."

"But in either case, why accompany Daulo Sammon here?"

"She is here, is she not? Whatever she and our enemies know or suspect, it's not impossible she might have shared that knowledge with Kruin Sammon."

"But then allowing an agent of the Shahni-"

"Radig Nardin." Obolo's voice was like the crack of a whip. "Control your fears and think. As far as the Shahni are concerned, Mangus is an electronics firm-nothing more. If we behave openly, they'll have no reason to doubt that.

If, on the other hand, we make an inflated presentation of plucking Daulo Sammon from among the workers and throwing him outside our wall, will this agent's curiosity not be aroused?"

Radig took a deep breath. "It's still dangerous, my father."

"Of course it is. There's no profit without danger, my son. If your nerve threatens to foil you again, concentrate on that."

"Yes, my father." Radig glowered down at Jin. "And for what potential gain do we risk keeping this one alive?"

Obolo snorted. "You consider keeping a woman alive to be a risk?"

"She's not a normal woman, my father-she's an agent of the Cobra Worlds. That makes her dangerous."

Abruptly, Jin noticed that the red border was still around her vision... that it was, in fact, getting thicker... as the view itself seemed to be fading away...

No! she told herself furiously, trying to fight the sleep flowing over her mind.

Come on, Jin-hang on. But it was too hard to muster the necessary emotion. And it was so comfortable here on the floor...

Her last memory was that of rough hands digging under her armpits and legs, lifting her up and floating her away...

"...The screen in front of each of you will display a brief summary of each of the steps I've just outlined," the instructor concluded his presentation, waving his hand over his podium toward the rows of equipment-laden tables in front of him. "If you have any questions tap the 'help' key; if that still doesn't do it, tap the 'signal' key and someone will come to your work station. Any questions?

All right, then. Get to it, and remember that the future of communication on

Qasama may depend on you."

Shifting his eyes to the screen attached to the work table, Daulo suppressed a grimace and picked up a circuit board and a handful of components. He hadn't really expected to be given a missile casing and told to load a warhead onto it... but assembling telephone circuitry was hardly what he'd hoped for, either.

"Not wasting any time getting us to work, are they?" he murmured.

He glanced to the side in time to see Akim's shrug. "They're paying all of us quite well," he pointed out.

Daulo gritted his teeth and plugged the first component into the circuit board.

He'd been trying to pique Akim's curiosity about Mangus itself ever since being ushered off the bus, and had yet to make any impression on the man. Akim was on the trail of a female offworlder, and he clearly had no intention in being distracted from that single-minded path. "At least it explains why they don't bother hunting down their previous workers," Daulo commented, trying another approach. "If everything they do here is this simple-minded it's just as easy to teach a new group from the beginning."

Akim glanced up and around, and for a moment Daulo hoped he might argue the point. But he merely nodded. "Inefficient, to some degree, but not overly so," he said, and returned his attention to his own circuit board. "Certainly helps spread a little extra wealth around to Azras's poor."

"Right," Daulo muttered under his breath. "Obolo Nardin is just as noble as all creation."

"If I were you," Akim said coldly, "I'd try and forget my village prejudices and concentrate on the task at hand. Do you see anyone here who could be the woman in disguise?"

With a sigh, Daulo gave the room a careful scan, the image of Jin getting into

Radig Nardin's car rising up to haunt him. "I don't think so."

"Keep an eye out," Akim told him. "They may occasionally rotate workers between groups."