Шарон Ли - Agent of Change

Another wrist-flick and the slender dirk was merely a polished stick: knife to ornament. He reversed it and held it out.

Miri hesitated. "I ain't a knife expert—just about know how to use a survival blade."

"If anyone gets close enough to grab you," he said, all reason, "pull it out, flip it open, stick it in, and run. It is not likely you will be pursued." He extended it further. "Simplicity itself, and a precaution only."

She looked from the knife to his face; when she finally accepted the thing, she took it gingerly, as if she much preferred not to.

"I," she announced, "am being bullied."

"Undoubtedly."

"Lazenia spandok," she said, rudely.

His eyebrows shot up. "You speak Liaden?"

"Well enough to swear and pidgin my way through a battle plan. And if ever anybody was a managing bastard, you are. In spades." She turned toward her room, experimentally flipping the hidden blade out and in.

Behind her, he murmured something in Liaden. She whirled, glad the blade was closed.

"That ain't funny, spacer!" The Trade words crackled with outrage. "I ain't a young lady and I don't need you to tell me to clean up my talk!"

"Forgive me." He bowed contrition and dared a question. "Where are you going?"

"To refresh and adorn myself. I've only got about five hours or so, after I decide what shoes to wear."

And she was gone, leaving him to wonder at the sudden bite of bereavement and at the impulse that had led him to address her in the intimate mode, reserved for kin. Or for lovers.

Chapter Seven

THE DOOR CLOSED with a sigh that echoed her own, and she spun, flipping the stickknife onto the desk.

Nasty little toy, she thought, wrinkling her nose as her hand dropped to the grip of the gun on her leg. Just as deadly, surely, but somehow—cleaner? More straightforward? Less personal, maybe?

She shifted slightly, then caught sight of herself in the bed mirror and stuck her tongue out.

Miri Robertson, Girl Philosopher, she thought wryly.

Ilania frrogudon . . . . The echo of Tough Guy's murmuring voice contradicted her and she froze, biting her lower lip.

Liaden was an old language, far, far older than the motley collection of dialects that passed for a Terran language, and divided into two forms: High and Low. High Liaden was used for dealing with most outsiders, such as coworkers, strangers, nodding acquaintances, and shopkeepers. Kin were addressed in Low Liaden—long-time friends, children ... But never a person considered expendable.

Yet at least twice he'd begun the motions that would have killed her, automatically, efficiently. She might have brushed her death a dozen times with him already; it had taken her time to realize what the mask of inoffensive politeness he sometimes wore was meant to conceal.

His other face—the one with the quirking eyebrows and luminous grins—was the face of a man who loved to laugh and who called heart-music effortlessly from the complex keyboard of the 'chora. It was the face of a man who was good to know: a friend.

A partner.

She moved to the bed and lay back slowly, imposing relaxation on trained muscles.

"A Scout ain't a spy," she informed the ceiling solemnly. "And people ain't tools."

She closed her eyes. Scouts, she thought. Scouts are the nearest there is to heroes . . . . And he'd said First-in Scout. The best of the best: pilot, explorer, linguist, cultural analyst, xenologist—brilliant, adaptable, endlessly resourceful. The future of a world hung on his word alone: Would it be colonized? Opened to trade? Quarantined?

Miri opened her eyes. "Scouts are for holding things together," she clarified for the ceiling. "Spies are for taking things apart."

And that babble he'd given her about tools!

She rolled over, burying her head in the basket of her crossed arms, and relived the moments just passed, when she'd known he was coming across the 'chora at her.

Gods, he's fast! she marveled. Suzuki and Jase would give a year of battle bonuses to have that speed for the old unit, never minding the brain that directed it.

Never mind the brain, indeed. She wondered why he'd checked himself those times she'd seen her death in his eyes. She wondered why he'd trusted her with that deadly little blade, why he'd spoken to her ... And she wondered, very briefly, if he truly were crazy.

It seemed likely.

The thing to do with crazy people is get lots of room between you and them, she said to herself.

She rolled to her knees in the center of the great bed, bracing her body for the leap to the floor. Time to flit, Robertson. You ain't smart enough to figure this one out.

"Leave!" she shouted a moment later, when she'd moved no further. Damn Murph and the money. Damn the Juntavas and their stupid vendetta. Damn especially a sentence spoken in a language that might have been her grandmother's but never had been hers.

Yes, and then? Damn the man who had twice—no, four times—saved her life?

You're a fool, Robertson, she told herself savagely. You're crazier than he is.

"Yeah, well, it's a job," she said aloud, shoulders sagging slightly. "Keeps me busy."

She kicked into a somersault, snapping straight to her feet as the roll flipped her over the edge of the bed. On her way to the bathroom, she paused at the desk and picked up the little wooden stick. So easy to hide ... She thought of Surebleak and the one or a dozen times in her childhood when such an instrument would have been welcome protection. Memory flashed a face she hadn't seen in years and her hand twitched—the blade was out, silent and ready.

"Aah, what the hell," she muttered and closed the knife, carrying it with her into the bath.

Sometime later, bathed, robed, and damp-haired, she called up the valet's catalog again. She frowned at the first selection, trying to place what was different, and nearly laughed aloud in mingled outrage and amusement.

No price was displayed.

All right, she thought, beginning the scan. If that's how he wants it. I hope I bankrupt him.

It took her longer to realize that she was trying to figure out which clothes might please him, which clothes might make him receptive to an offer to share that immense bed with her this evening.

"Pretty, ain't he?" she asked her reflection sympathetically, then sighed. Pretty and dangerous and fast and smart and crazy as the six of diamonds. She cursed herself silently, wondering why she hadn't recognized the emotion before. Lust. Not just simple lust, of the passing-glance variety, but lust of the classic Lost Week on Moravia kind.

Looking around her—and back at the clothes in the valet's tank—she wondered if he might be interested in a Lost Week sometime. Then she cursed herself some more. Since when did she have a week to lose?

* * *

CONNOR PHILLIPS'S SERVICE record, reluctantly provided by Salene, included a holo, which was duly copied and sent around to cops, firefighters, and disaster crews present at the "fire" at the Mixla Arms.

Sergeant McCulloh stepped forward immediately. "Yeah," she told Pete, "I seen him. Redhead kid, him, an' four turtles all left together." She corrugated her forehead in an effort to aid memory. "Said his name was something-or-nother-yos-something. Geek name. Dunno hers. 'Nother geek. Talkin' Trade with the turtles—something about all traveling together for a couple days . . . ." She shrugged broad shoulders. "I'm real sorry, Mr. Smith. Coulda kept the whole bunch right then, if I'd known."

"That's all right, Sergeant," the Chief of Police said, forestalling Pete's frustrated growl. "Now, did you overhear anything that might have indicated where they were going?"

The sergeant shook her massive head. "Nossir. Only that they should all go together."