Timothy Zahn - Cobra Bargain

He shook his head. "No."

"Me, neither. Which could be a problem... because that's where we're going to hide out for the next day or two."

He didn't fall off the wall, or even gasp in stunned astonishment. He just turned a rock-carved face to her. "We're what?"

She sighed. "I don't much like it either, but at the moment we're slightly low on options." She waved back toward the administrative center. "As soon as they find out we're gone, they'll turn their half of Mangus upside down looking for us. And since they're already scouring the countryside between here and civilization for my theoretical accomplice, going outside the wall isn't going to be any safer. What's left?"

"If we're discovered here, it will be Trofts we'll have to fight," Akim said pointedly. "Will you be as effective a warrior against them as you would be against Obolo Nardin's men?"

Jin snorted, the image of her father battling the target robots in the MacDonald

Center's Danger Room flashing through her mind. "We were designed to fight the

Trofts, Miron Akim," she told him grimly.

"I see." Akim exhaled a thoughtful hiss. "I suppose it really is our best chance, then. All right, I'm ready."

"Yes, well, I'm not. First I've got to go back and get Daulo Sammon, remember?"

"I thought perhaps you'd changed your mind." Visibly, Akim braced himself. "All right, then. Tell me what you want me to do."

He didn't think much of the idea-that much was evident from the play of emotions across his face as she explained it. But he didn't waste any time arguing the point. Unlike Daulo, Akim didn't seem particularly disturbed by the thought of taking orders from a woman. Perhaps he'd had experience with female agents of the Shahni; perhaps it was simply that he knew better than to let pride get in the way of survival.

A moment later she was moving silently through the darkness toward the administrative center as, behind her, Akim pulled the cable back up. At least this time, Jin knew, she wouldn't have to worry about him leaving before she returned.

She hit the wall a little harder this time, rekindling the ache in her left knee. For a moment she hung by her fingertips, gritting her teeth tightly as she waited for the pain to subside.

"You all right?" Akim asked softly from half a meter in front of her.

"Yeah." Pulling herself up, she rolled onto her stomach facing Akim and took the end of the cable/rope from him. "Knee got hurt in the crash and hasn't totally recovered yet. How about you?"

"Fine. Any trouble?"

"Not really," Jin replied, trying not to pant. Even before that last leap over from the housing complex, the jog from Daulo's interrogation cell with the boy in fire-carry across her shoulder had worn her out far more than it should have.

A bad sign; it implied she was getting too tired to give her servos as much of the load as they were capable of. "You were right about him being on the lowest level," she said as she began pulling Daulo up. "Obolo Nardin thoughtfully left a pair of guards outside his door to mark the spot for me."

"Did you kill them?"

Jin's cheek twitched. "I had to. One of them recognized me before I could get close enough."

Akim grunted. "They're all parties to treason. Don't forget that."

Jin swallowed. "Right. Anyway, I found Daulo Sammon strapped to a chair with a set of tubes in his arms and smoke curling around him from a censer under his chin."

"Was he alone?"

"No, but I was able to stun the interrogator without killing him. Okay, here he comes. I'll take his weight; you protect his head."

Between them, they got Daulo up on the wall, draping his limp body over it like a hunting trophy across an aircar rack. "Any idea what they might have used on him?" she asked, trying to keep the anxiety out of her voice as Akim peered closely at Daulo's slack face. The boy was so quiet...

Akim shook his head slowly. "There are too many possibilities." He took Daulo's wrist. "His heartbeat's slow, but it's steady enough. He should be able to simply sleep the drugs off."

"I hope you're right." Notching her light-amps to higher power, Jin gave the

Troft side of the compound a quick scan. "Did you see any activity over there while I was gone?"

"No. Nor on the other side, either."

Jin nodded. "Hard to believe our escape still hasn't been noticed, but I suppose we should be grateful for small favors."

Akim snorted gently. "Perhaps Obolo Nardin expected his son to disobey the order about leaving you untouched."

"You're a cheery one," Jin growled, shivering. "Well, there's no point in postponing this. Watch his head again, will you, while I flip him over the side?"

A minute later Daulo was down, half lying and half slouching at the base of the wall. "Your turn," Jin told Akim. "Don't step on him."

"I won't. How will you get down?"

She felt her stomach tighten. "I'll have to jump," she said, trying not to think about what had happened the last time she'd tried that stunt. "Don't worry, I can manage it."

Akim's eyes were steady on her. "That last jump from the housing roof-you didn't make it by very much."

"I'm just getting a little tired. Look, we're wasting time."

He gazed at her another moment, then pursed his lips and nodded. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, he wrapped it around the cable and held on there with both hands. Rolling off the wall top, he slid down to the ground in a military-style controlled fall. Waving once to her, he knelt and began to untie

Daulo from the cable.

This is it. Dropping her end of the cable to fall beside Akim, Jin lowered herself over the edge to hang by her fingertips. Knees slightly bent, she set her teeth and let go. The ground jumped up to meet her-

And she clamped down hard on her tongue as a hot spike jabbed up through her left knee.

"Jasmine Moreau!" Akim hissed, dropping to the ground beside her.

"I'm all right," she managed, blinking back tears of pain as she lay on her back clutching her knee. "Just give me a minute."

It was closer to three minutes, in fact, before she was finally able to get to her feet again. "Okay," she breathed. If she consciously turned over to her servos the job of keeping her upright... "I'm fine now."

"I'll carry Daulo Sammon," Akim said in a voice that allowed for no argument.

"Okay by me," Jin said, wincing as she eased back down to a sitting position.

"I'll let you carry the cable, too, if you don't mind. But first we have to figure out how we're going to get into that ship."

Akim looked over at it. "Security systems?"

"Undoubtedly." Jin adjusted her enhancers to a combination telescopic/light-amp and made a slow sweep of the unloading tower nestled up to the ship's stern.

"Looks like the twin horns of a sonic motion-detector over the doorway there," she told Akim. "As well as a-let me see-yes; there's also an infrared laser sweep covering the loading ramp and a fifteen-meter wedge of ground in front of it."

"What about that one?" Akim asked, pointing at the maintenance building. "The one the craft's nose is buried in."

"Probably something similar." Jin glanced back along the wall behind them. "More motion detectors and monitor cameras over the gateway to the other half of

Mangus. A reasonably layered intruder defense."

"Can you defeat it?"

"If you mean can I destroy it, sure. But not without setting off a dozen alarms in the process."

"Well, then, what can you do?"

Jin gnawed at her lip. "It looks like our only chance will be to approach the ship from the side. If I can get on top of it, there'll probably be a way to get through the coupling between the unloading tower and the ship proper."

Akim considered that. "That almost sounds too easy. Except for a demon warrior, of course."