The Agent Gambit (6 page)

"Oh," Miri said, bright mouth turning down at the corners. She forced another horrible smile, though her face was beginning to ache. "Well, that's fine, then, Susan. I know a couple lawyers. Real go-getters." She bent to the screen once more and reached out as if to touch the other woman's hand.

Ms. Mylander was made of stern stuff. She did not flinch from the impossible caress, though her mouth tightened.

"Thanks an awful lot for your help, Susan," Miri cooed, and hit DISCONNECT.

She laughed for five minutes, leaning back in the embracing cushions and howling, tears running out the corners of her made-up eyes. When she was sure she could navigate, she went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

Resuming her seat in front of the comm, she began to edit her tape.

LIZ ANSWERED THE DOOR
herself and stood looking down at him.

Val Con made the bow of youth to age, straightening to find her still frowning at him from her height.

"I am here," he said softly, "for Miri's box."

Wordless, she pulled the door wider and let him in. After making sure the locks were engaged, she led him down a short, dark hallway to a bright living room. He stood in the entranceway as she moved to what seemed the only chair-indeed the only surface-not piled high with booktapes.

"Come here, Liaden." It was a command, delivered harshly.

He made his soundless way across the room and stopped before her, hands folded loosely.

She surveyed him silently and he returned the favor, noting the dark hair shot with gray, the lines about mouth and eyes, the eyes themselves, and the chin. This was, he saw, a person used to command, who knew command as responsibility.

"You're here for Miri's box."

"Yes, Eldema," he said gently, giving her the courtesy title of the First Speaker of a Clan.

She snorted. "Tell me Liaden: Why should I trust you?"

He raised his brows. "Miri-"

"Trusts you," she cut in, "because you're beautiful. It's a fault comes with growing up where nothing's beautiful and everything's dangerous-real different from sunny Liad."

He stood at rest, waiting.

Liz moved her head sharply. "So, you grow up on a world like Surebleak, manage, somehow, to get off, finally encounter beauty. And you want to give it every chance. You don't want to believe that a pretty rat's still a rat. That it'll bite you, just as sure." She clamped her mouth into a straight line.

Val Con waited.

"I don't care if you got three heads, each one uglier than the next," she snapped. "I want to know why
I
should trust you."

He sighed. "You should trust me because Miri sent me here. You must judge whether she would do so-besotted as she must be with my beauty-were I a danger to you."

She laughed. "A little temper, is it? You'll need it." She sobered abruptly. "What kind of trouble's she in, she needs to send you at all? Why not come herself?"

"It is not the kind of trouble it is safe to know by name," he said carefully. "It is only . . . trouble."

"Ah. So we all get in that kind of trouble once, now, don't we?" There was no particular emphasis; he thought she spoke to herself. Yet she continued to stare at him until Val Con wondered if he
were
growing another head.

"You're going with her when she leaves? Eh? To guard her back? She called you her partner."

"Eldema, when we go, we go together. I think it very likely that we will outrun the trouble. Lose it entirely." There was no flicker of the Loop, giving the lie to this piece of optimism, for which he was grateful.

She nodded suddenly, then reached to the overflowing table at her side and produced a black lacquer box from amidst a pile of tapes. It was a double hand's width of his small hands wide and twice that long-too odd-shaped to fit comfortably into pocket or pouch.

Liz frowned and fumbled further on the table, locating a less-than-new cloth bag with a drawstring top. She slid the box inside, drew the string tight, and handed him the sealed package.

He stepped forward so claim it, slipping the string over his shoulder.

"Thank you." He bowed thanks. When it became apparent that she had no more to say to him, he turned to go.

He was nearly to the hall when she spoke. "Liaden!"

He spun in his tracks, quick and smooth. "Eldema?"

"You take care of Miri, Liaden. None of your damn tricks. You just take the best care of Miri you can, as long as you can."

He bowed. "Eldema, it is my desire to do just that."

He turned on his heel and was gone.

Liz sighed. She had had nothing else to say, except-but the girl knew that. Didn't she?

She heard him work the lock; heard the door open and close, gently.

After a while, for old times' sake, she went to make sure he'd locked the door on his way out.

MRS. HANSFORTH WAS EXCITED.
It had been years since she'd received a ship-to communication, but still the circuit was as she remembered it: a little scratchy, with occasional odd delays and the constant feeling that the mouth wasn't quite saying what it looked like it was saying.

Of course, it was disappointing that the beam wasn't meant for her, but disappointment was outweighed by the excitement of the event and the chance to gossip.

Yes, she told the dark-haired and serious young lady in the screen, she knew Angus quite well. A nice boy, not given to wild parties or exceptional hours. And his fiancée was a lovely girl. It was really a shame he wasn't in town to receive the message himself . . . .

Where? Oh, with the students off at the University, he and his fiancée had taken several weeks to go to Econsey. They'd wanted some time alone and hadn't had the calls forwarded. Surely, they couldn't have been expecting . . . .

Hadn't known she was going to be in-system? Oh, such a shame . . . But Mrs. Hansforth got no further; after all, this was ship-to, and such things were fabulously expensive. The serious young lady said something about some research Angus had done in his traveling days. Well!

Mrs. Hansforth asked the young lady to leave a message, and was so sorry to find that she'd only be on planet for a few hours. The chance of reaching Angus in that time did seem very small . . . .

Perhaps on the return trip there would be time, Mrs. Hansforth heard. Or perhaps Ms. Mylander would be able to beam ahead next time. But research-you know how it
does
take one about . . . .

Mrs. Hansforth agreed, though she'd never been off-planet, herself.

When the connection was cut, Mrs. Hansforth was sorry. But, still, a ship-to! Why, Angus must be more important in his field than she had realized. Imagine!

MIRI LEANED BACK in the chair
, flipping switches and smiling slightly. Engineering the delay hadn't been hard at all-simply a matter of bouncing her signal off seven different satellites and across the single continental landline about three times. Her new partner had called the unit "adequate." She wondered if understatement was his usual style.

Now, sipping some exquisite coffee, she considered the information gathered. Not much, but maybe something. Flipping another series of toggles, she tapped "Econsey" into the query slot.

The door cycled at her back and she was up, spinning, hand on the gun in her pocket, as Val Con entered, a blue drawstring bag slung over one shoulder. He stopped just inside the room, both eyebrows up and a look of almost comic horror on his face.

She pouted and took her hand off the gun. "You don't like my makeup!"

"On the contrary," he murmured. "I am awestruck."

He slid the string off his shoulder and held the bag out. She nearly snatched it away from him, plopping crosslegged to the floor by the 'chora. The box was out in a flash, and she ran her pale fingers rapidly over the shiny black surface before cradling it in her lap and looking at him.

"How'd Liz do?"

"On the whole, I'd say she came off better than I did," he returned absently, staring at her as he drifted forward to sit on the 'chora's bench.

The hair. Was it really possible to twist, torture, and confine one head of hair into so many unappealing knobs and projections? But for the evidence before him, he would have doubted it. She'd also smeared some sort of makeup on her face, imperfectly concealing the freckles spanning her nose, and done something else to her eyes, making them seem larger than usual, but exquisitely lusterless. The color of her cheeks had been chosen with an unerring eye to clash with the color of her hair, and the blue on her lips was neon bright. Every piece of jewelry-and there was far too much of it-vied with the other for gaudery. He shook his head, lost in wonder.

She caught the headshake and smiled a ghastly smile that consisted only of bending her sealed lips and creasing her cheeks.

"You
do
think I look nice, doncha?"

He folded his arms on top of the 'chora and nestled his chin on a forearm. "I think," he said clearly, "that you look like a whore."

She laughed, clapping ring-laden hands together. "So did the woman at the collection firm!" She sobered abruptly, slanting lusterless eyes at him. "Your face was wonderful! I don't remember the last time I saw somebody look so surprised." She shook her head. "Don't they teach you anything in spy school?"

He grinned. "There are some things that even spy school cannot erase. I was raised to be genteel."

"Were you?" She regarded him in round-eyed admiration. "What happened?"

He ignored this bait, however, and nodded toward the comm. "Murph?"

She sighed. "On vacation with his fiancée in some place called Econsey-southern hemisphere. That's what I know. I was gonna see what else the comm knew when you came in and insulted my hairdo."

"Econsey is situated on the eastern shoreline of the southern hemisphere," he told her, singsonging slightly as he read the information that scrolled before his mind's eye. "It sits at the most eastern point of a peninsula and is surrounded on three sides by the Maranstadt Ocean. Year round population: 40,000. Transient population: 160,000, approximate. Principal industries: gambling, foodstuffs, liquors, hostelries, entertainment, exotic imports." He paused, checking back, then nodded. "Juntavas influenced, but not owned."

Miri stared at him; whatever expression may have been in eyes and face was shielded by the makeup.

"Mind like that and it's all going to waste."

Irritation spiked from nowhere and he frowned.
"Will
you go wash your face?"

She grinned. "Why? You think it needs it?" But she rolled to her feet, box in hand, and headed for her room. Behind her, Val Con flipped open the cover and touched the keyboard plate.

In the bathroom, Miri stripped the rings from her fingers and the bobs from her ears, jangling them along with the necklet and hair jewelry into the valet's return box. A glance at the readout showed that her leathers were at long last clean and the jumpsuit joined the gaudy jewelry. She closed the lid, hit the return key, and turned to the sink.

It took longer to scrape the gunk off her face than it had to put it on-the eyeshadow was especially tenacious-but a clean face was eventually achieved and, moments later, a braid was pinned in a neat crown around her head.

Her leathers slipped on smoothly, sheathing her in a supple second skin; she stamped into her boots, tied the knot in the arm-scarf, and carried the belt with its built-on pouch back to the sleeping room.

Sitting on the edge of the tumbled platform, she picked up the lacquer box and spun it in her hands like a juggler, hitting each of the seven pressure locks in unerring sequence. There was a
click,
loud over the soft drift of 'chora music from the other room. Miri set the box down and raised the lid.

Opening the belt-pouch, she pushed at the back bracing wall until she coaxed the false panel out, and laid it aside.

From the box she took a key of slightly phosphorescent blue metal, a thin sheaf of papers, a badly-cut ruby the size of a Terran quarter-bit, a loop of pierced malachite, and a gold ring much too big for her finger, set with a cloudy sapphire. She stowed each item in the secret space in the pouch. Then she removed the last object, frowned, and sat balancing it in her hand.

The room's directionless light picked out a slash of red, a line of gold, and a field of indigo blue. She flipped it to the obverse, and light skidded off the polished metal surface, snagging on the roughness of engraving. As she'd done a hundred times since she'd gotten the thing, she ran her finger over the engraving, trying to puzzle out the alien characters.

In the room outside her door, the comm unit buzzed once . . . twice.

Miri dumped the disk among her other treasures, sealed the hiding place, and was on her way to the door, threading the belt around her waist as she went.

VAL CON WAS ON HISFEET
and moving as the comm buzzed a second time. He touched BLANK SCREEN and GO.

His eyebrows shot up as he saw one of his four captors of the night before standing in the lobby below, a squad of six ranged at his back, and he shook his head to banish the feeling of creeping déjà vu.

"Mr. Phillips?" demanded the man he recognized.

"Yes," Val Con said, taking the remote from its nesting place atop the comm.

"Mr.
Connor
Phillips," the leader insisted. "Former crew member on the
Salene?"

Val Con strolled across the room to the bar. "It would be useless to deny it," he told the remote. "I was Cargo Master on
Salene.
To whom am I speaking? And why? I left instructions that I was not to be disturbed." He set the remote on the shiny bartop and activated the refreshment screen.

"My name is Peter Smith. I'm working with the police in the investigation of the explosion that took place at Terran Party Headquarters last night."

Val Con dialed a double brandy from the selection list "I am unenlightened, Mr. Smith. Unless I understand you to say that I am suspected of causing an explosion in-where was it? Terra Place?"

"Terran Party Headquarters." There was a real snarl in that correction, then a pause, as if for breath. "We're looking for a man named Terrence O'Grady, who caused the explosion and disappeared. We're asking everybody who's come on-world during the last fifteen days to answer a few questions about the-incident. Refusing to assist in a police investigation, Mr. Phillips," Pete said, with a very creditable amount of piety, "is a criminal offense."