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"If I knew of a reward posted for you, you would be dead." Yavobo's gun never wavered. "What do you want from me?"

The cockiness left Albek as the color left his face. "I've been warned that an assassin is after me. I'm posting a reward for you to get the killer. I don't know who it is, and there may be more than one. That's what I want taken care of."

"You can't post a reward before a crime has been committed," replied the Aztrakhani. "That's not a bounty."

Albek laughed, an edge of hysteria in his voice. "I'm sure not going to post one after I'm dead. I don't want to wait for this crime to be committed. Consider it crime prevention."

"It's contract killing."

The gun had not moved from Albek's forehead. He looked past the weapon to the warrior behind it. His voice quavered. "I 
wouldn't know who to put a contract on. Please. I need your help."

After an eternity of heartbeats, Yavobo nodded. He lowered the gun and holstered it. "We'll talk," he said, and walked away.

It was a moment before Albek could walk steadily enough to follow.

Smugglers know what
a client buys, when it's bought, and oftentimes, what it must be used for. If there was one weak link in Reva's line of work, it was her necessary but vulnerable tie to Holdouts.

She traded only with those she had checked out personally. That included surveillance, to see how they did business when they didn't know they were observed.

Lairdome 7 and Comax Shipping Supply—"Bulk and Custom Cryocases"—was easily found. Reva began her routine. A walk-by past the Comax freight bay pinpointed Lish, the only human among six labormechs. That's smart for a new Holdout, Reva thought, built-in loyalty and erasable memory in the "employees." That'll save her problems in the long run.

Reva squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a moment. When she opened them, the macro cells expanded on the contact lenses she wore for this work. Focal planes altered, and she saw Lish as if she were only three meters away.

Lish was slim, petite, and looked young. A pretty face, but with a hard cast to the mouth, a frown of concentration while she directed the assembly work of her mechos. The woman was not native to Selmun III: she was too fair, without the right cast to her features. Her hair was blond, buzzed short on sides and back, green-tipped at forelock. Not a Lyndir or a R'debh style, that. Reva couldn't place it.

She squeezed her eyelids shut again, and Lish receded to a proper distance. It was time to take up a surveillance post in an out-of-the-way place. Reva had already identified the security monitors and where to stand to avoid their sweep pattern. Surveillance was the boring part of her work, but without it the rest couldn't be done. It was like prepping for a hit: Reva stuck out days of observation, tailing, and data-tracing at times when she thought Lish asleep. Slowly, the Holdout's routine emerged from the minutiae of daily living.

On the surface, there was nothing remarkable about the woman's life. Then, on closer examination, the real pattern came clear: coded vidcalls, late-night runs to deep ocean, deliveries at odd hours. Reva suspected she met with smugglers ducking the Customs net just long enough to land hot on the water, drop their cargos, then lift.

That was a big risk. No wonder she could get goods like time patches. It would be no time at all before the Imperials had her trussed and spitted for her enterprising breach of the law.

Reva decided to move closer after a late-night ocean run. Undoubtedly smuggling business was going on then. It was the perfect time to slip in, have a listen, see how she liked the attitude. Did Lish take unreasonable risks? Did she have a volatile temper? Did she have good security? Against persons without Reva's talent, that is. Those and other details would tell her if this was a Holdout she wanted to deal with or not.

And I better hurry, she thought. If they're doing hot drops, time patches won't be available much longer.

Reva walked through the cargo bay, past labormechs assembling cryocases. Normally they would alert Lish to an unauthorized entry—but Reva did a fine dance between the Lines, walking forward in the moment when a mech turned away, ducking behind a case in the precise moment before it turned back. It was precognition made practical: a knowingness of what was about to happen, and the option to avoid it if she wished, or use it to her advantage.

Security is poor, she noted. Mechos easy to bypass, and the side office connecting with the main one made Lish doubly ac- J cessible.

The manual door between the two offices was laughably simple to unlock. Reva slid it open a crack; saw and heard Lish in conversation in the room beyond.

"You're not meeting my suppliers," the blond woman was saying, temper ringing in her tone. "And I'm not using your 'help' on my drops."

A cheerful voice soothed her anger. "No, no. Do not want those things. You misunderstand offer!"

Reva knew the voice immediately. Karuu continued. "Is simple-clear. I help pick up drops because your business grows so much you move more volume. Profit increases because I distribute your goods, guaranteed at least double your current distribution. All this for a reasonable share of those profits. Yes?"

Lish considered the offer. Then a calculating look came over her face. "Profit sharing will be split as if my distribution were doubled, even if you're moving less volume than that. If you move more, my share goes up. Agreed?"

Karuu squirmed in silence. "Agreed," he capitulated.

Reva sighed. Lish was taken in by the Dorleoni's sincerity.

I was like that once, she reflected. Before I learned better.

She listened at the door a moment longer, hearing the "deal" concluded on the other side, and shook her head as she slid the panel shut. She was strongly tempted to ignore her misgivings about this new Holdout.

I might warn her about Karuu, she considered, talking herself into it. Besides, I need a time patch.

Questions about the
hex-pack special led Reva directly to Lish and a private conference. Lish dealt straight and to the point. Time patch delivery was promised in two days. Credits-changed meters, half now, half later; a pickup time and place were arranged.

As Reva put her credmeter away, she decided to take the gamble. She caught the smuggler's eye. "By the way," she said, "that deal Karuu made with you? He'll sell your goods to his middlemen and pay your profit out of that. Then his middlemen turn around and resell the stuff for five times what you made. Karuu pockets his share of that, too, and you don't see any of it. Be forewarned."

Lish stiffened. "How do you know about my business?" she asked coldly.

"Don't worry. No one else does."

Lish didn't let it rest. "How do you know what Karuu's going to do?"

Reva shook her head. "I know him. I know this business even better. Look—Lesson Number One. It never pays unless you own the distribution. Build your own network, and watch your back. You'll make enemies while you get rich."

Lish studied her for a moment, then reached into her vest anc pulled out a triangular blue chit. She tossed it to Reva, wh plucked it out of the air handily.

"A guest pass into my place," explained the Holdout. "The address is on it. I'll be there after the end of this month. Conic visit. Maybe we can do more business."

Reva doubted that. She glanced at the chit,
TYREE LONGHOUSE BANEKS CAPE
 was engraved on it. She knew Selmun III well, but that name was unfamiliar.

"Where's Baneks Cape?" she asked.

Lish pointed one sculpted nail to the ceiling overhead, "Des'lin," came her one-word reply.

Ah. Selmun IV, called Des'lin by the natives. An ice world, settled by R'debhi emigrants and others, a place of taiga, snowy wastelands, and touchy Vudesh clansmen. It was the first place Reva had gone for training as an assassin. She knew it well, and could tell Lish was no Des'lin native.

"Lived there long?" the assassin asked.

Lish smiled openly, amused. "Come visit. We'll talk about it."

"It's out of my way," Reva said dismissively.

"You ever have anything to sell? Come see me. I'll give you a good deal."

"We'll see." Reva was unsettled by the overture and the impulsive gift of the pass. She left abruptly.

His first day
with Albek Murs, Yavobo checked out a government skimboat before the Senior Advisor stepped on board. The pilot resented the frisking, and the Captain protested the search
 
loudly until Yavobo tossed him against a bulkhead. Broken ribs made it difficult to shout.

Word of Advisor Murs' new protection traveled fast. The trans-
j
port office banned Yavobo from official vehicles, and since Albek | refused to move without him, this necessitated the use of private transportation for his many Shelf-hopping junkets. There was never a second protest against the warrior searching a vessel the Advisor traveled in. Yet Albek found that, for all the extensive traveling he did, it was getting harder and harder to find a boat that consented to carry him and his entourage.

Soon he was forced to lease a hydroskiff and hire a pilot of his own, an arrangement with which Yavobo found fault.

"This is not safe. When you travel always in the same boat, you are easy to identify."

"If other boats would take me," Albek said pointedly, "that wouldn't be a concern."

"They will take you," responded Yavobo. "It is I they refuse to let on board."

"We've been over that already."

"If you let me follow in a second skiff, I will be more effective. I will be free to pursue any trouble once it is encountered."

"And what if it's encountered on the skiff I'm on?"

"We have agreed you are not in much danger from your countrymen."

"What? A R'debhi probably put the contract out on me, and you tell me—"

The Aztrakhani cut Murs off before he could get started. "I am referring to those who travel with you in the same vessel. They are unlikely to be hired killers. And I am here to screen them. Attack from inside the vessel is unlikely when you are traveling between deepsea domes. If I were in another skiff..."

Albek tuned out the warrior's lecture on what he would do in a second vessel. The alien seemed far more intent on chasing and capturing an assassin than on preventing the attack in the first place. Albek was irritated with himself. He remembered once again Yavobo's disclaimer that he was a bounty hunter, not a bodyguard.

And I, Albek thought glumly, had to insist on a contract.

The Senior Advisor's
trip to the Obai Shelf deep domes was publicized well in advance. Reva had no problem learning the time of his departure. In planning the hit, she relied on Murs' reputation for punctuality. It was an obliging habit of his, since his untimely demise depended on his following a tight schedule.

Three hours and twenty minutes before the Advisor's departure, Reva began assembling the IDP materials in a workplace provided by Karuu. It was painstaking work with delicate materials; an unsteady hand could lose her a finger or a limb. But her hands were steady, and the time patch assembly went like a manufacturer's demo. When done, she had two hours and twenty minutes to plant the device in a critical place on the Advisor's hydroskiff. When Albek Murs was twenty minutes short of his destination, over the deep ocean drop, his ship would suffer a fatal hull breach.

Two hours, twenty minutes. Reva was dressed in an aqua-colored cold-water bodysuit, a breather mask at her waist. The outfit was common in Amasl, and no one paid attention as another R'debh native took the magtube to the waterfront, the thronging interface between sea-people and landers. Concealed inside her suit was the time patch, a slender packet of death lying between her breasts. A slight unsealing of her bodysuit and the patch could be pulled out when needed; in the meantime, there were no odd lines to arouse suspicion.

Reva left the tube, checked her breather, and allowed herself to submerge in the nearby watercourse. She had forgotten this feeling and reveled in old sensations renewed: the contrast of cool water against her exposed skin and warmth inside her bodysuit; city sounds carrying through liquid to thrum, magnified, in her ear; plankton and microorganisms dancing like silt in the rich water. Then, focusing on her job, she kicked out with long legs and swam for the marina.

It was supposedly a secure area, with controlled-access gateways abovewater and a caged-off boundary below. A simple bypass wire fooled the perimeter alarm into ignoring the gap Reva made with fusion cutters. She was undetected. There were few passersby in this part of the harbor, and though she was in plain sight, the depths at twenty meters were ill-lit by sunlight. And of course, she monitored the Lines, ready, if need be, to move to a Mainline where she would pass unnoticed.

She had identified Murs' slip and learned the maintenance routine long before she picked the time to do this job. She looked up to get her bearings. Docking slips hung overhead, dark, irregular grid slashes rippling against the watery sky. She headed for the slip she needed and rose slowly through the water until she could read the underhull registration marks. Yellow alloy, black markings were clearly visible this close to daylight. This was the right skiff.