Timothy Zahn - Cobra Bargain

The north chamber turned out to be a cozy corner of the curtain-walled maze that was Obolo's throne room. "Quite a mouse track you have here," Jin commented to

Radig as he supervised the chaining of her ankles to Daulo's and Akim's. "I'll bet someone who knew what he was doing could hide out for hours without being spotted."

Radig threw her a glower. "A feeble attempt, woman. Your companion isn't here."

"You sure?" she asked blandly. The more she could get them chasing each other in circles, the better.

But he just ignored her, and a moment later left with the other guards. Well, it was worth a try, Jin told herself, and turned her attention to Daulo.

To find him glaring bitterly at her. "So," he growled. "It seems Moffren Omnathi was right-you did come here to spy on us. We took you in and healed your wounds... and in return for our hospitality you lie to us."

The tirade was totally unexpected, and for an instant she stared at him in confusion. But only for an instant. In her peripheral vision, she could see Akim watching them closely... "I'm sorry, Daulo Sammon," she said with cool formality. "I regret having had to deceive your family. If it helps any, I never planned to involve you or anyone else on Qasama with my mission."

"That mission being...?" Akim put in.

"I suppose it doesn't matter anymore if I tell you," she sighed, looking around the curtain walls surrounding them. No sounds of breathing; no body-sized hot spots showing on infrared. Which meant Obolo was relying on more sophisticated electronic methods of listening in on the private moments he'd so graciously granted his prisoners. Smiling grimly to herself, Jin activated her omnidirectional sonic. "My mission," she said quietly, turning back to Akim, "is essentially the same as yours: to stop Obolo Nardin and Mangus."

"Indeed," Akim said coldly. "So once again you reach down from the sky to interfere in matters that are ours alone."

"Can we forget politics for a minute and concentrate on the problem at hand?"

Jin growled. "Or don't you understand just what Obolo Nardin's got going here?"

"He's tapping into Qasama's communications network," Akim shrugged.

Jin stared at him in disbelief. "And that doesn't worry you?"

"Of course it does," he said, eyes steady on her face. "But the scheme is self-limiting. Yes, he can listen into the Shahni's conversations, and that certainly must be dealt with. But you have to realize that the more communications he copies, the longer it's going to take him to find the ones he wants. At the rate he's making and distributing these phones, his entire system will eventually collapse under its own weight. If it hasn't already done so."

Jin shook her head. "I wish it were that simple, but its not. You see, he doesn't need to sift all these conversations and data transfers by hand. He can do it with computers."

"With computers?" Daulo frowned. "How?"

"It's very simple. All he has to do is have the computers scan each conversation for preprogrammed words or names-"

"And he then has to listen personally only to the ones containing those words,"

Akim interrupted her. "Credit us with a little sophistication, offworlder-the method is well known. But for the scope you accuse Mangus of indulging in-" He shook his head. "Perhaps you don't realize just how much information is transferred around Qasama in a single day. It would take computers far more advanced than any available on Qasama to handle it all."

"I know," Jin said quietly. "But Obolo Nardin's computers didn't come from

Qasama. They came from the Troft Assemblage."

For a half dozen heartbeats the others just looked at her, Daulo with his mouth hanging open, Akim only marginally less thunderstruck. Daulo found his voice first. "That's insane," he hissed.

"I wish it were," Jin said. "But it's not. There's a Troft ship parked right now in the other half of Mangus."

"Which you can't show us at the moment, of course," Daulo growled. "How convenient."

Jin flushed. Daulo was carrying this hostility act entirely too far. "I'll see what I can do later to remedy that-"

"And what," Akim interrupted her, "would the Trofts stand to gain from such a deal?"

Jin turned back to him. "I don't know how much you know about the Trofts, but they're not the monolithic structure you might think. The Assemblage is basically nothing more than a loose confederation of independent two- to three-system demesnes in constant economic and political rivalry with each other."

"Like the villages and cities of Qasama," Daulo muttered under his breath.

Jin glanced at him. "Something like that, yes. My guess is one of those demesnes has decided humans are more of a threat than we're worth, and is trying to do something about it."

"By helping Obolo Nardin gain political power?" Akim frowned.

"By uniting Qasama," Jin corrected quietly. "And then using your world as a war machine against us."

Akim's eyes flashed. "We don't need alien help to hate you, offworlder," he bit out. "But we don't make war under alien orders, either."

"If Obolo Nardin succeeds, you may not have much say in it." A sound caught

Jin's ear. "Someone's coming," she hissed, shutting off her sonic.

A second later the curtain was pulled aside to reveal Radig and a handful of men. Radig looked rather annoyed, Jin noted; at a guess, his eavesdropping on their discussion had been something less than successful. "You-offworlder-put these on," he snarled, throwing her a tangle of male clothing. The same clothing, she saw, that she'd worn as a disguise that morning in Azras. "And then what?" she asked as one of the guards stepped forward to unshackle her.

He ignored the question. "That one-" he pointed at Akim "-will be coming with us to the assembly building. You, on the other hand-" he smiled chillingly at Daulo

"-we'll keep alive a little longer. Though you probably won't like it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jin demanded.

"Get undressed!" Radig snapped.

"Tell me what you're going to do to Daulo Sammon."

One of the guards stepped forward, raised his hand to slap her-

"No!" Radig stopped him. "She's to remain unmarked." He glared at Jin as the guard reluctantly stepped back. "And you ought to be thankful my father doesn't want your body to show evidence of any other activities, either. Otherwise we would be postponing your execution by a few hours."

Jin glared right back at him. "You would have found it surprisingly unrewarding," she said evenly. "What are you going to do to Daulo Sammon?"

"Interrogate him, probably," Akim spoke up grimly from beside her. "They're still looking for your companion, remember?"

Jin glanced at Daulo's expression. "I've already said he's beyond your grasp," she told Radig.

"Get undressed," the other repeated coldly. "Before I allow my men to forget my father's orders. All of his orders."

For a long moment Jin seriously considered letting them try it. But this wasn't the time or the place for that kind of a confrontation. Swallowing her anger, she changed into the other set of clothes, doing her best to ignore the watching eyes.

It seemed darker, somehow, out in the compound, and it took Jin most of the short walk to the assembly building to realize that it was because the housing complexes were now completely dark. The timing was no doubt deliberate; whatever

Obolo and his son had planned, they wouldn't want any witnesses around to see it.

The suspense didn't last long. "Let me explain what's going to happen," Radig said in a conversational tone as the two men holding Jin's arms positioned her in front of the building's entrance. "You, a spy and enemy of Qasama, were trying to steal our technology. Fortunately for Qasama, this alert Shahni agent-" he waved at Akim, held by two burly guards a few meters in front of her