Jo Clayton - Shadowkill

“Naturally. When the count is finished, wake me. I want to transfer a third of the net to Helvetia, the rest I’ll bank here. I have to pay my backers.”

“Ah. I see. It will be several hours. Sleep well, you’ve earned it.” He left.

Hadluk winked at her, followed him out.

Kikun wiggled his ears.

Rose snorted. “All right, so I was exaggerating a little. It’s nice to have and I don’t like being cheated. And I knew about the credit-link when I said all that-so what? I meant it. In essence. If the credit-link weren’t available, I’d walk away without a quiver.”

“All right.”

She yawned. “Let’s get some sleep. We’ve got a few hours while they finish the count.”

“I think we ought to talk about…”

“Later, Kuna, later. Plenty of time.”

Autumn Rose pulled the door shut, came in sliding the credit bracelet back on her wrist. “That’s done.” She flung herself into a chair. “Clearing up out there. Getting ready to put all that metal away.” She checked her ringchron. “Two hours till dawn.” She held out her arm. “Mark me, Kuna. I need to know where you are.”

“Why?”

“Just do it, hmm? I’ll explain in a minute. Hurry, we haven’t got much time.”

He widened his eyes, flicked his ears. If she wasn’t going to talk, nothing he could do to make her. He looked past her.

Grandmother Ghost the Lael-Lenox was in the corner sitting on Otter’s back, giggling in a way she had when something was about to hit him in the face. She wasn’t going to talk either.

Sighing with exasperation, he nuzzled Rose’s arm, felt her heat up and tremble. That wasn’t something he wanted to think about so he didn’t.

“All right, that’s done. What now?”

“Hadluk and juhFeyn should still be out there. Take a look and see, hmm?”

He looked at Grandmother Ghost. She nodded. “I don’t have to look,” he said. “They are.”

“Good. Kuna, stun them and tuck them away under one of those benches. We can’t let juhFeyn button up this place, we need to leave without a major fuss. I have to get ready for Barracuda, so I can’t do it.”

“Barracuda?”

“Uh-huh. Second break, he made his move. Came on to me, strong.” She grinned. “Annoyed Sunhawk which I wasn’t unhappy about, you better believe. I made like I was fluttered and flattered by his… um… masculine force. Made an assignation with him for after the count. He wouldn’t come here, the jerk, so. I’m supposed to go across and knock at his door. Twenty minutes on. See?”

“Nice when they do it to themselves.”

“Uh-huh. Got your stunner?”

“Rose.”

“Sorry. So go, will you?”

Hadluk was stacking the last of the gold coins on the second cart when Kikun stepped into the Gameroom; juhFeyn was moving around the room, straightening a pillow or two, checking to make sure the maids had swept properly and all the glass straws, spoons, forks, napkins and other paraphernalia had been cleared away.

Kikun stood in the shallow recess of the doorway, waited until both had their backs to him, lifted the stunner. For a moment he couldn’t touch the sensor, all he could see was Sai falling and falling, hitting the floor, hitting the wharf, falling into the water. His hand shook. Grandmother Ghost slid a hand through the door, pinched him hard. He moved his thumb, hit juhFeyn first, then Hadluk. Then scooted across to them to make sure they were still alive, Grandmother Ghost clucking after him.

The pulse was strong under his fingers. He closed his eyes.

Grandmother Ghost patted him gently, he could feel her soft hands touching him:

All right, baby, all right. Cum-ya, cum-ya, Gramma’s chile.

He got to his feet, began moving the bodies under the nearest bench.

Rose turned slowly. “How do I look?”

She’d washed the coloring agent from her hair; it was blonde and shining, hanging loose about her shoulders like a spill of liquid gold. Her face was fair and flushed with excitement, her eyes were blue again, sparkling with glee and malice. The shining black dress clung to her torso, swirled about her ankles.

“Barracuda will be enchanted.”

She laughed, it was a wild sound, rather like the cough of a cat on the hunt, big cat, lion lady, golden and ready. Kikun’s ears twitched and he was very glad he was dinhast and too alien to be her prey.

She looked at her ringchron. “Time. Let’s go.”

Barracuda opened the door. “Lovely,” he said. “You surprise me.”

“I hope so,” she said and moved toward him, forcing him to step aside.

Kikun tapped the trigger sensor, caught the man as he fell.

“Right.” Rose straightened. “Get that tray, Kuna, faster we move, the better.”

By the time he got back from the kitchen, Rose had stripped out of the dress, changed into tunic and trousers. She’d gone through Barracuda’s suite, cleaned the place, including the case with the shielded com. “I thought I’d leave most of my stuff and clear him out. Might confuse folks about who did what to whom. For a while anyway. Anything moving out there?”

“No. Nothing till we hit the, pad out back.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

Thirty hours later, tired and grimy, but with everything they’d gone in for, they were in their ship on the isthmus and Autumn Rose was talking with Digby.

“We’ve got some strong leads and a prisoner. He’s Omphalos, Kikun says, though his papers say Mimishay Foundation. Kikun thinks the oof’narc knows where Shadith is and the Dyslaera. We’re going to talk to him in a little bit.”

“Wait. If he’s really Omphalos, you won’t be able to touch him with what you’ve got on that ship. Bring him here.”

“Now?”

“Fast as you can kick it. You can do stasis?”

“There’s a box on board.”

“Good, Keep him under, you don’t want him suiciding.”

“That oof’narc? He wouldn’t…”

“Listen, Rose. I don’t care what kind of jerk he is or how much he loves himself, if he’s pushed to the wall, he’ll be dead before you know what’s happening.”

“Right. I didn’t go to all this trouble to waste him. See you soon.”

Unprisoner 1: First Leg On The Shadow Hunt

Weersyll 2 was a small rocky world inhabited by lichen and worms.

Weersyll the star was a hot greenish-yellow dwarf out in the middle of nowhere like a spark that popped from a fire into the middle of a black rug.

After the slavetrading debacle, when Omphalos acquired Bolodo Neyuregg Ltd. through heavily insulated surrogates, the reconstituted Company set up headquarters at the Bolodo substation on Weersyll-there wasn’t a populated world in Known Space that would have them and they couldn’t operate out of a Clandestine Hole.

The new set of Execs made the best of what they had; it wasn’t bad. Weersyll might be in the middle of nowhere, but it was also equidistant from three clusters thick with planetbearing stars, clusters undergoing an explosion of development and lusting for cheap labor they could kick out once the job was done. Ships buzzed in and out every hour of the day and night, customers looking for specific types of laborers, transports bringing in cadres who’d finished their stints, taking other cadres from the domes to the worlds who’d bought their services, still more bringing in new contractees-surplus men and women who preferred the security of the cadres to starving, convicts dumped into bondservice by one world or another, people on the run from some danger or other, seeking safety in the anonymity of a labor cadre. Names didn’t count here. There weren’t even numbers. They were listed by cell prints and vended that way.