Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

She surprised me. She laughed full out, a pleasant noise over the faint hum of the interface and the ticking of the shutdown readouts, made me feel like smiling for the first time since she jumped us; those other grins and grimaces were just policy. She waved the tall chunky one over and told her to get to it, called a little one who looked like she was made of springsteel and hard rubber and sent her up into one of the holes to keep watch there and pot anyone who showed his nose. She gazed thoughtfully at Pels, then nodded and waved him after the women. When he was gone, she set her hands on her hips and looked me over. “I understand about her,” she nodded at Adelaar, “Why you?”

“Gelt,” I said. “It’s how I make my living. She hired me and my Crew to help her find her daughter and on top of that I collect so much a head for every captive I bring back.”

“Crew,” she said. “You have a starship.”

“I didn’t walk here. The lists in there, they’re going to say something like this person arrived at such and such time, he was sold or rented to such and such an individual living in such and such a town. We need someone to get us to the right houses. Or lay out maps for us.”

“That might be arranged. We can talk about it next time we meet. Mostly he rents them, Old Pittipat I mean.” She scratched at her chin with the barrel of the darter, stopped that when the front sight snagged in the knitted cloth that covered the bottom half of her face. “You noticed the Warmaster.”

“Hard to miss.”

“What do you know about ships like that?”

“It’s big. If it set down here, it’d grind this city to dust and just about empty the lake. When it has its full complement on board, it carries six or seven thousand, which includes crew, support personnel and strike force. You have any idea how many men your Pittipat keeps up there?”

She made a soft angry sound. “Not mine.” She tapped the darter against her hip and went back to watching Adelaar. After a minute she said, “I don’t know. Maybe she can get the Brain to tell us.”

I took a look at what Adelaar was doing. “When she has a moment free, shouldn’t be long now, I’ll see what she can turn up.”

“How much to take us up there?”

“More than you or a dozen like you could afford.”

“You don’t know what I can afford.”

“Maybe not, but you don’t know how nervous that thing makes me.”

“Bolodo takes pay in rosepearls. Other things too, but mostly them. Have you seen rosepearls?” That straightened me up and got me interested.

Adelaar had mentioned the profits from the slaving, but she hadn’t gone into details. I still wasn’t willing to risk Slancy in something so close to a sacrifice mission, but if that Warmaster were seriously undermanned which I suspected from the way it acted, hmm, it was an interesting thought. “I’ve seen a few, didn’t know where they came from.” I kept my voice easy, noncommittal, but I don’t think I fooled her much; she could smell a deal, but she was smart enough not to push it. “Let me find out what the Brain says,” I told her. “I don’t consider suicide an acceptable option.”

“Nor I.”

Adelaar started digging through her pack again; apparently she was in solid, because she brought out the duper and began attaching it to the black box. After the marrying was done and the run started, she went a little limp, scrubbed at her face with her sleeve and swung her chair around to face me; she looked a bit like she’d been having great sex with an inventive group, tired but with a kind of glow to her. “She’s a slow bitch,” she said, “it’ll take maybe twenty minutes to get it all. Aslan first, then I’m pulling everything she’s got about Bolodo. When we get back, those skells won’t know what hit them.”

“You think you could dig out what’s in there on the Warmaster?”

“Explain.”

She listened while I sketched the Hanifa’s proposition. Not quite a proposition yet, but a suggestion that we might work out some sort of accommodation. I could see the spark of interest in her when I mentioned rosepearls. It looked a lot like mine. She listened without saying anything and after I finished, sat staring at the floor for several minutes. Finally she looked up. “Aslan first.” The words hadn’t much force behind them. She’d spent time, sweat and a lot of her gelt to reclaim her daughter, but teasing a profit out of her pain was so seductive a thought it almost obscured her original purpose.

“Agreed,” I said, “that’s in the contract.”

“We need to make sure we’ve got legs for getting out of here.”

“Right. Slancy ’s my income, I’m not hazarding her; you know how hard it is to get hold of a good ship. The tug’s different. We could pick up another like her in a couple of months.” I gave the Hanifa a half-grin, making sure she felt she was in the game; whether this happened or not, I wanted her kept sweet. With rosepearls in the pot, I was definitely coming back here once this business was finished. “Just looking won’t hurt.”

“Uh-huh. I think we’ve had this chat before.”

“I hear. Crew and me, we run on equal shares once Slancy ’s serviced.”

“Five shares?”

“Four. Kinok/Kahat count as one. Five with you. One time.”

“Done.”

I shifted to the Hanifa. “If the brain says it’s doable, we’ll do it, say you and I agree on terms.” I gave her the grin again. “Anything else you’d like to buy?”

She thought that over a minute. “I need to talk to my people.”

I checked my chron. “Plenty of time. The dupe run has to finish before my friend can pull the Warmaster stats.”

Adelaar watched the woman gather her raiders together and start whispering at them. “Until a year and a half ago, local, a little over two years std., Aslan was here. Right here, inside these walls.”

“What happened?”

“She disappeared. Ran. There’s some more, but I haven’t tried reading it yet.”

I nodded at the confa group. “Maybe one of them knows.”

She pushed absently at her hair, her face gone blank, her eyes narrowed. I hadn’t a clue what she was thinking. “Not here,” she said finally.

“Mmf, maybe you better explain that some more.”

“This is no place to twist answers out of anyone, too many ways we can get dumped on; besides, I left my kit behind, didn’t think I’d need it.”

“Twist answers. That’s not too swift an idea.”

“Rosepearls.”

“I can see their shine in your eyes too.”

She managed a thin smile. “I won’t dispute that. You think you can trust them?”

“Not half. Fanatics. They’ll do whatever they want to do and hell with any contract.” I yawned. It was getting later by the breath and I was tired. And I was getting nervous, stuck in this hole, waiting for the locals to pour on the troops. “Whatever they come up with, you keep hold of the data until they provide the pearls.”

“We agree on that much anyway.”

“Listen, say we lift them up there, if they can take that monster out, it’ll make getting away clean a lot easier. And getting back in. Look, Del, we’ve got the inside track with these people, an exclusive as long as we can keep the location quiet.”

“That won’t be long if your gamble pays off.”

He shrugged. “One or two trips for me, but Adelaris could have a longhaul market here.”

“Gray or black?”

“Does that matter? Lets you hike your prices.”

“I don’t know enough about this place…”

The Hanifa came back. “The clear corridor,” she said, eyes hard on Adelaar. “Can you leave it and hide what you’ve done?”

Adelaar ran her tongue over her lips. “Probably. The wards they’re using aren’t all that sophisticated. I’ll have to put the alarms right before we leave, but…” She frowned at the woman, I could see she was thinking keep it simple, you don’t want to irritate this one. “I can loop a path out of the guard circuits and pinch off access. Um, it might be better to set up several corridors, make them operative on different days, um, switch from one to another in, say, a seven-day rotation. They’ll be harder to spot that way. Safer for your people, they won’t be coming over in the same place same time every time.”