"Pat Rin, goodnight. Sleep deeply. Dream well."
"Sleep well, Inas," he returned, and watched her go lightly away from him, and let herself out of his room.
GWINCE GUIDED THE car to what passed for a curb, set the brake and looked up. Pat Rin could see her worried frown in the reflection of the rear view mirror.
"Boss, I ain't likin' this street too much."
Which only proved her a woman of superior sense, Pat Rin thought. In his recent travels, he had seen bad streets—even very bad streets.
This street was—an affront to the honorable, a blight upon the eye; a dismay upon the soul.
Burned out buildings lined both sides of the pitted road, broken windows gaping like fanged entrances to black and bottomless gullets. There were no trees, nor flowers, as there had been seen on some of the streets under Penn Kalhoon's care; there were no
people
; no vehicles on the street, saving their own.
One house stood, unburned and unbroken, along the whole doleful thoroughfare: A glowering gray pile, protected by a rusty fence which had been draped with a glittering net of metallic spikes.
"Very well," he said, steeling himself, and turned to meet Natesa's eye. She inclined her head, novice to master, with no discernible irony.
"Gwince, please contact Mr. McFarland and have him bring his team in close. Natesa and I will see if Boss Ivernet is at home."
Gwince bit her lip. "Boss, it might be a good idea to wait 'til Mr. McFarland gets here."
"Call now," he said, patient in the face of her concern. "Surely, they will not open fire without first discovering who we are."
He was wrong.
He had taken precisely fifteen steps up the shattered walkway toward the house, Natesa at his back, when the first pellet snarled past his ear. He found his target, fired and leapt in the same instant, coming down heavily on his shoulder behind a pile of broken concrete that might once have been part of a wall.
The air was full of pellets, snarling and whining, pinging off his scant cover. Pat Rin leaned out, found a target, fired and ducked back, face dusted with concrete. He leaned out again—and froze.
Natesa lay, exposed and unmoving, on the walkway leading to the house. Even as he stared, disbelieving, a pellet chipped the stone by her head. He could not tell if she were alive—no, her hand! Surely, her fingers had twitched toward her fallen weapon?
More pellets stormed and he ducked again, measuring the distance with his eyes, ignoring the old, self-taunting voice telling him he was too slow, far too slow. He would not fail in this. He would not leave her out there to die.
Carefully, he holstered his gun. Carefully, he got his feet under him. The storm of pellet fire lessened; he focused on the still figure lying on the broken pavement, took a breath—and ran.
Fleet and desperate, he reached her side, lifted her in his arms and hurtled back toward the dubious shelter of broken concrete.
He almost made it.
HE WAS TOO LATE.
Swearing, Val Con went to his knees beside the still form huddled beneath the curtain edge of the forest. Carefully, he turned her over, wincing as he uncovered the contorted face. Beldyn chel'Mara. She had been a scout, once.
The wound she had taken in the firefight was serious enough, though not by any means a death-wound. No, the agony recorded in the dead face told the tale: Agent chel'Mara had understood that she was being followed—and by whom. Her Loop would have presented the calculation demonstrating that he would catch her before ever she reached her ship; and would further have elucidated her odds of winning an encounter with him, depleted and panicked as she was.
So she had obeyed the implanted orders, and accepted the Loop's Final Routine, suiciding to avoid capture.
Damning the Commander to the torments of twelve dozen hells was futile from this distance—and he had no spare seconds to waste.
Quickly, fingers swift and steady, he went through the dead Agent's pockets, belt and hidden pouches, stripping out everything, even the coins and her licenses. Cramming his harvest helter-skelter into the pocket of his vest, he rose and backed away. Any moment now . . .
"Who is it?" Miri's voice was breathless. He held up a hand, warning her away, counting:
One, two, three, four, five
—
Beldyn chel'Mara's body blazed into white radiance. Val Con threw an arm over his eyes, felt the heat and the stench of burning flesh wash his face, heard the roar of incineration, and—nothing.
Cautiously, he lowered his arm.
The thin grass upon which the Agent's body had lain was lightly scorched. Nothing else remained.
"Who," Miri repeated, from the approximate vicinity of his elbow, "was that?"
He looked down into frowning gray eyes.
"Agent of Change Beldyn chel'Mara."
"Suicide?"
He nodded, and hesitated before he asked his own question, seeing once more in his mind's eye the gate slamming open, hearing the first shots snarl over his head as he hit the ground, rolling; the long body crumpling . . .
"My father?"
"Clonak's got him in a 'doc by this time. Didn't seem too worried. My turn to worry, I guess." She used her sleeve to mop her damp face.
"If we're gonna have this lifemate link—and I ain't saying it's a bad thing, necessarily—then we need to fine tune some stuff. All I knew is you was scared, you was mad, and you was gone. Clonak said it was the Department, and I lit out, thinking they'd managed to snatch you."
"That argues for fine-tuning, indeed. We have a project to embark upon during our unencumbered hours."
"Of which it don't look like we're gonna have that many for a while. These people ain't gonna give up, are they?"
"No," he said, slipping his arm around her waist in a brief, absurdly comforting hug. "In fact, Clonak's news indicates that, far from giving up, the Department is moving into Phase Two of the Plan."
"Phase Two? What's that?"
"They move more openly, dispose of their enemies, disband the Council of Clans, and establish themselves as a government."
Miri's eyes widened. "Are they serious?"
"Very serious," Val Con assured her. "And—much worse—the odds are good that they will succeed." He stepped back and pulled the assorted jumble of Beldyn chel'Mara's belongings from his pocket. "And somewhere in this is . . . ah." He held it up; Miri squinted, and sighed.
"Ship key. Great. Now all we gotta do is find the ship."
"That is not a difficulty," he said, depressing the appropriate button. The device came alive in his hand, quivering with the desire to be re-united with its ship. Val Con closed his fingers loosely around it, and spun, very slowly, on one heel. Three-quarters of the way through his revolution, the key lunged against the prison of his fingers.
"This way," he said softly, and moved off, the key bouncing in his hand, Miri walking silent at his side.
"NO." SHAN said firmly. "We are not going after them."
"Shan, the nadelm and nadelmae of Korval are—"
"What you don't seem to grasp," he said, raising his voice to interrupt his sister and his First Speaker for the second time in an hour. "Is that the nadelm and nadelmae of Korval are
extremely fierce individuals
. Miri Robertson is a captain of mercenary soldiers. She has within recent memory led soldiers into war, survived several battles, retaken an airfield held by a hostile force—oh, and attached an Yxtrang explorer to her command.
"You will recall that Nadelm Korval holds rank as a scout commander. While this is not of itself a guarantee of ferocity, I will tell you that I have it on his authority and on the authority of that same Yxtrang explorer that Val Con yos'Phelium bested a soldier twice his size, and desperate besides, in single combat, each of them armed with a knife."
"Shan—"
"All of which means," he swept on, making his third interruption on the night, "that the universe is more in peril from them than they are from the universe; and that the enemies they cannot vanquish with a glare and a wave of the hand are no one that we want to meet, out strolling in the dawning forest. Furthermore, Erob has dispatched actual soldiers in pursuit of the remainder of this enemy—who and how many they might be.
And
I will remind you that you are Korval-pernard'i. As your subject thodelm, referencing Chapter Eight, Paragraph 15 of the
Code of Proper Conduct
, I
forbid you
to risk yourself while the nadelm is unavailable to us."
He took a deep breath, in preparation of even more forceful arguments, if need be, but she stood silent, staring at him out of a face rather paler than usual.
However, if Nova was speechless, there were others present who were not.
"Bravo!" Clonak ter'Meulen brought his palms together in appreciative applause. "Well acted, sir! Yes!
Well
acted! I'll have the tape, by the gods!"
"Clonak," Shan said, warningly. "I am—"
"No, no, darling, don't speak! You have delivered yourself of a masterful performance. Recruit your strength. Allow me to carry on in your stead." He came forward and bowed, all correct and very High House: Honor to a delm not one's own.
"Lady Nova, how delightful to see you again! Did you enjoy the war?"
She glared, which deflated Clonak not one bit. "Alas, that I missed the more robust episodes. I arrived only hours ago."
"Is that so? Then you will not have met dear Lieutenant Nelirikk! A jewel of the first water, is Lieutenant Nelirikk. I am persuaded that you will like him extremely. As you have heard, he was defeated by your foster brother, the inestimable Shadow, in hand-to-hand combat, winning, thereby, a place of service to your House. A man of many excellencies—and so fortunate that he was with us, when we picked up the others yesternoon. It is of course too soon to predict their own worth to the House of Korval, but I feel certain that they will strive to give good service."
"Others?" Shan repeated, stomach suddenly cold. "What
others
?"
Clonak turned a beatific smile upon him. "Why Hazenthull Explorer and Diglon Rifle, none other, who have only an hour ago given their oaths of service to Lord and Lady yos'Phelium."
Shan closed his eyes.
"Tired, darling?"
"Exhausted, if you will have it," he said, and sighed. "Line yos'Phelium holds service oaths of
three
Yxtrang?"
"I don't doubt but they'll be found useful to have about the house. Indeed, Captain Robertson waxed eloquent upon the point." He paused to smooth his mustache. "I doubt it's occurred to Shadow as yet, though it will—awake upon suits as yet undiscovered, your foster brother!—but I'm certain Daav had the possibility of a breeding pair in his eye." He moved his shoulders. "Well, he would, you know. We are all but products of our training."
"A breeding pair," Shan repeated faintly, but Nova was after other game.
"If you believe for one moment that I will accept that man as Daav yos'Phelium, no matter what sort of hoax you and he have been able to foist upon my brother—"
"Ah!" Clonak cried, slapping his hand to his forehead. "Forgive me! You put me in mind of why I had come to seek you out. Wait, I know I have it here . . . " He made a show of searching his pockets, and eventually produced, with a flourish, a much folded sheet of printout.
"While they had him in the 'doc, I asked the techs to do a gene match. I knew you would care, dear Lady Nova, and sought only to put your mind at rest."
Frowning, Nova all but snatched the proffered paper, unfolded it—
"Korval," she read. "Out of Line yos'Phelium."
"Which is precisely as it ought to be," Clonak said, and turned toward the door. "It has been delightful chatting with you, children, but I must be off now, to find how Shadia goes on. Ta!"
The door slid closed behind him.
"JUST A LITTLE arrogant, ain't they?" Miri asked, settling on her belly under the bush they'd chosen for cover. "No guards, no whistles, no man-traps. Just . . . " She waved a hand at the ship nestled against the wooded hillside, in full sight of anybody who cared to look for it, now that Val Con had puzzled out the key combo and turned off the invisibility routine.
"They depended upon the cloaking device to hide it," he murmured. "And there are no guarantees that the ship itself is free of traps."
"Huh." She glanced at him. "It's probably set up to report back to base, ain't it?"
"There will certainly be a trans-light locator, as had been hidden on Agent sig'Alda's ship," he said, brows pulled together in a frown. "Also, it will be programmed to dispatch a distress call, if it is left too long alone. The Commander is not a fool. He will doubtless have discovered by now that Agent sig'Alda's ship never was in orbit about Waymart. It may be expected that he has caused this ship to carry . . . upgraded security."
"Terrific." Miri glared at the ship, but it refused to dissolve like a bad dream in the brightening sunlight. "We can't just let the damn thing sit there—it's a bomb waiting to go off."
"Agreed." He nestled his chin onto his folded arms, eyes on the ship. "It might be possible to disarm it," he said eventually. "I have Beldyn's license. Using it, I should easily be able to access maincomp and initiate a complete systems shutdown."
"The word 'easily' is bothering me, here."
He turned his head to smile at her. "Of course it is. However, I cannot
easily
envision another course of action, given that the ship is here, four of its Agents are dead, and it is almost certainly going to apply to the Department for assistance when its countdown is done and no one has reported in." He looked back to the ship.
"I suggest that you await me here, with the most of Beldyn's belongings. I will use her license to access maincomp. If I cannot trigger a systems shutdown—if maincomp requires two or more licenses to validate the order—perhaps I can at least reset the timer."
"And give us time to get the other licenses and come back to try again," Miri said. Silently, she went over the plan. It was a nice, simple plan; it had some play in it, and a built-in contingency scheme, which the gods knew wasn't standard for either of them. Still, she didn't like it much and said so.