Timothy Zahn - Cobra Bargain

"Yeah. You think they've found a way to make subliminals powerful enough to force people into treason?"

"I don't know," Jin shook her head. "I hope all they're trying to do is sow discontent among the cities' poor. Given your current political climate, even that might be enough."

Daulo nodded, feeling cold all over. "God above. We've got to get this to the

Shahni."

"No kidding-and may I suggest as a first step that you go collect your friend and we all get out of here? Radig Nardin could arrive any minute now, and if he finds us we probably won't have any choice but to kill them." She stooped again to look out the window.

Daulo shivered. The way she just automatically assumed who would win such a faceoff... "Yeah. Okay, I'll go get-"

"Too late." Peering out the window, Jin hissed a curse between her teeth.

"They're coming."

Stupid, Jin bit out silently at herself. Yes, it'd all been information the

Shahni were going to need; and yes, Daulo was the best person to give it to them. But she still should have gotten him and Miron Akim out first.

Clenching her teeth, she looked around the entrance hallway. There was nothing here she could use to fight with; nothing that might realistically allow Daulo to defeat five alert men without killing them. And it had to be Daulo who did all the fighting; if Akim found out Daulo had been talking to her he would probably have the entire Sammon family up on treason charges.

Her eyes fell on an electric socket. Unless, she amended, no one actually sees who it is fighting them...

Radig's men were almost to the door now. "All right," she muttered to Daulo.

"Get back there-across the hallway-and cover your eyes. Cover them good."

"Then what?" Daulo asked, moving obediently to the spot she'd indicated and raising his forearm across his eyes.

"With luck, you'll grab their full attention when they come in and they won't have a chance to see me. So I wasn't here-you understand? If anyone asks, you took them all out by yourself." Her enhanced hearing was picking up footsteps outside now. "Get ready; here they come."

She flattened herself into the corner behind the door, keying her targeting lock to the electrical outlet and raising her right fingertip to the ready position...

And abruptly, the door was flung open.

"Well, well," Radig Nardin said sardonically, sauntering into the entrance hallway. "What have we here? -one of our trustworthy employees overanxious for tomorrow's work to begin? Put your stupid arm down, Daulo Sammon-"

And as the last of the guards stepped across the threshold, Jin squeezed her eyes shut and fired her arcthrower.

Even through closed eyelids the flash was dazzlingly bright. Someone gasped, someone else bit out an oath-and then Jin was in their midst.

It was no contest. Temporarily but totally blinded, facing a sighted opponent with Cobra servos behind her punches, the five men went down like randomly flailing target dummies.

The last thud of a falling body was still echoing in Jin's ears when she heard the gasp from Daulo's direction. "God above," he breathed. "Jin-you-"

"No; you did all this," she snapped at him. The door was still open; throwing a quick look outside, she caught its edge with the tip of her foot and swung it closed. "Don't forget that-it could cost you your life."

Daulo took a deep breath. "Right." He swallowed and tried another breath. "You'd better get going-Miron Akim's sure to have heard all of this."

"I know." Jin hesitated. There was so much more she needed to tell him, but for now they'd run out of time. "You and Miron Akim had better do the same. If you can get out of Mangus before they realize you haven't been captured, you ought to have a good chance."

"What about you? Aren't you leaving with us?"

"Don't worry, I'll be right on your tail," she assured him. "There's something else I have to check out first, but then I'll be heading for Azras with you. Or behind you, anyway-we don't want Miron Akim seeing me."

Daulo clenched his teeth. "Right. Good luck."

"You too. Remember not to use any of the phones in Azras." The faint sound of running footsteps could be heard from down the hallway now. "And be careful," she hissed. Opening the door, she took a quick look around and slipped outside.

Again, the nearby area was deserted. Moving around the corner, where she'd be out of sight when Daulo and Akim left, she crouched down against the building and made a more leisurely scan of the area. There was occasional movement near the center of the black wall dividing Mangus in half, as well as some quiet activity around the housing complex backed up to the wall. Otherwise, nothing.

Keying her optical enhancers for telescopic, she focused on the wall.

It was too tall for her to jump-that much was quickly obvious. Half again as tall as the three-story housing complex near it, it was at least a meter beyond her leg servos' capabilities. She'd been taught a lot of climbing techniques, but all of them assumed some kind of hand and foot grips in the surface to be scaled, and a quick study of the wall didn't look especially promising.

Which left ladders, grappling hooks, or the armored gateway. The first two would require equipment she didn't have. The third, on the other hand...

It was the obvious way for her to get in, and for a long moment she seriously considered it. Radig Nardin had mentioned a transfer of material, and if they were going to open the gate anyway, all she had to do was properly disguise herself and walk on in.

Except that her disguise kit was twenty kilometers south of Azras in Daulo's abandoned car. And anyway, if her suspicions were right, Obolo Nardin would hardly have trusted the secret to more than a handful of his closest family members. A stranger-any stranger-would be caught instantly.

A movement from her right caught her eye: Daulo and his companion, walking with forced casualness in the general direction of the gateway she and Radig had entered Mangus by that morning. For a second she wondered if she should perhaps sneak on ahead and help clear the way.

But if and when their escape was discovered, the evidence Jin needed to get could literally go up in smoke. And besides, Daulo had a new protector now. She could only hope that the Shahni picked competent people for their agents.

Taking a deep breath, she headed at a crouching run across the compound toward the wall.

The courtyard of the housing complex was bustling with quiet activity, the intermix of voices including those of women and children as well as men. Must be the permanent workers, Jin decided as she crept carefully along the roof.

Members of Obolo Nardin's family, if the Milika pattern held here; the trustworthy ones, who could be relied on to ignore odd sounds that might come from beyond the wall towering over them.

Though presumably they wouldn't ignore odd sounds coming from directly over their heads. No one seemed to have noticed any noise from her jump up to the roof, but now that she was silhouetted against the overhead canopy all anyone in the courtyard below had to do was look up... Gritting her teeth, Jin crouched down a little more and concentrated on keeping her footing.

But she reached the far side of the complex without incident, to find that she hadn't gained as much of an advantage as she'd hoped to. Her rangefinder put the top of the wall at eight meters away and six meters up, and from a standing start-on uncertain footing-it was going to be close. Stepping back a pace, she checked her balance and jumped.

She made it with scant centimeters to spare, her nanocomputer jackknifing her horizontally to let her absorb the impact with her legs as she slammed into the smooth ceramic. Her fingers lunged forward, locked hard over the edge, and for a few moments she hung there motionlessly, listening for any sign that she'd been seen. But the compound remained quiet. Pulling herself up into a prone position atop the wall, she looked down over the edge.