The Agent Gambit (65 page)

He bent forward to lay his lips against hers, meaning only to comfort her, but he felt the passion flare and stood, cradling her in his arms.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

"Holding you." He was laughing softly. "Shall I put you down?"

"Naw. Just trying to remember the last time somebody picked me up and lived." She closed her eyes, apparently engaged in a mental tally. "Been awhile," she said presently. "I must have been ten or so."

"Not such awhile, then," he said. "Five or six years?"

"More like eighteen or nineteen." She snorted. "Soft-soaper."

He raised a brow, eyes traveling the short length of her. "So many?" he asked earnestly.

"At least so many."

He brought his gaze back to her face. "But-when shall you grow tall?"

She laughed. "Just as soon as you do. You gonna stand around and hold me all night?"

"There is merit to the suggestion," he allowed, "but I think instead that we should go to bed."

"You do, huh? I ain't tired."

"Good."

DUTIFUL PASSAGE

She went without anyone
to guard her body, but the way was known and she had relearned caution. Time enough had passed for the seed to grow into consciousness. Time and past to have gone for an answer.

The familiar aura flared; she traveled the time required and knew that she need travel no farther.

Cautiously she opened an inner path and found herself again confronted with that bewildering array of defenses. Expanding the path, she discovered him at the core: asleep, at peace, shimmering slightly with the faint violet glow indicative of lust energetically expended.

There he lay, and there she saw him, and for all of that he was as unreachable as if she had never found him at all. Priscilla experienced a strong desire to grab his shoulders and shake him awake, demanding to know what under the smile of the Goddess had possessed him to build such a citadel around his soul. Had she been in body, she might even have done so.

As it was, she imposed Serenity upon herself and turned her attention to the bridge, stark and beautiful, and followed it to the scintillant pattern of the lifemate.

Once again that one was asleep, soul locked lightly behind a single portal. Priscilla allowed the shape and flavor of that barrier to grow before her inner eye and saw suddenly and with surety a large, wooden door, keyhole ornate with shining metal, wood gleaming with age and loving care.

She expended will, came close enough to try the latch-and paused to allow the landing to solidify about her.

The lifemate thought with extreme care, Priscilla understood suddenly, and formed her analogs with a firmness approaching physical solidity. A landing was necessary to accommodate the door, and a landing had thus been crafted; it would be discourteous to accost the door outside of context.

It was at the very instant that the landing came into itself, just a moment before she narrowed her attention to accommodate only the latch, that she perceived sitting on the floor just outside the door: a package.

Priscilla brought her concentration to bear, discerned the familiar yellow-and-black stripes of the Galactic Parcel Service, and found further a lading slip filled out in a round, clear hand:

For Priscilla Mendoza only.

Sign here:
_______________________________________

Laughter almost destroyed concentration and sent her on her way home with neither package nor contact.

Sternly she embraced Serenity, then considered the analog minutely before signing her name, tearing the top slip away, and tucking it securely between handle and latch. She paused then and performed the action that, in body, would have been the laying of a hand in benediction upon the door.

"Goddess love you, sister."

Obedient to the other's necessity, she bent, picked up the package, and turned at last to go home.

ORBIT:
Interdicted World I-2796-893-44

Tyl Von sig'Alda
studied the planet below him with fanatic precision. He measured magnetic fields, tracked weather patterns, and located likely volcanic faults and tectonic features. He compared the star's light constant against Scout files, compared once again the computer model against the actuality, and knew within a tolerance even the commander must accept that he was very near his quarry at last.

His information so far was excellent; the Scout was to be commended for the accuracy of her report. The cloud of debris orbiting the third planet had proved to contain a high quantity of isotopes and alloys not yet discovered in nature.

There were identifiable fragments collected on the second day-a metallic screw of Terran standards and a ceramic nimlet used in adaptive purification systems were the first things recognized-and more on the third.

The Loop showed him a percentage verging on certainty that he had found the remains of Val Con yos'Phelium's escape vessel.

Satisfied, sig'Alda assigned to the computer the tedious task of backtracking the cloud to a common origin and turned his attention to radio transmissions.

He was not much disappointed when the study of transmission frequencies, strength, and patterns showed no obvious sign of a call for help from the world below. It was not to be expected that a former Scout would announce himself as an extraplanetary and demand entry to the most powerful transmitters on the planet.

Dutifully sig'Alda called up the first of the four "survival models" the Department had provided.

The first assumed that yos'Phelium wished to remove himself from the planet with the utmost speed and cared not into which hands he fell-Scout, agent, rogue, or trader. That reflected the "average survivor" model, and sig'Alda did not think such would be the case. Nevertheless, he had the computer check for the model: voice broadcasts in Trade, Liaden, or Terran in standard galactic frequencies; Trade-code broadcasts superimposed on planetary broadcasts; and sideband broadcasts using planetary frequencies in either code or voice.

The second-his own choice, based on exhaustive studies of the man-was the "informed survivor" model. It presumed discretion: one would not broadcast indiscriminately in galactic language from a planet under interdiction. Instead, any broadcast would be on Scout or Departmental frequencies, with a slight possibility that it might also be on a private Korval frequency. Code or timed bursts would be used to attract attention to the proper frequency, at which point the listener would respond, creating a dialog and an opportunity for a brief exchange in code or voice.

The third was the "intentional survivor" concept, and the key to it was that yos'Phelium had
chosen
this world in particular. He would be waiting, according to that model, for a message, or for a particular time or event-or he had chosen what the Scouts dignified as eklykt'i-to be among the Unreturned. In that circumstance he would need to be tracked and found and, perhaps, persuaded, which was not a task sig'Alda contemplated with any degree of eagerness.

The fourth was the "victim of circumstance" model, and sig'Alda gave it the least credence of all: the submodels had yos'Phelium dead or hopelessly wandering a savage world. sig'Alda grimaced. As likely
he
would wander about doing nothing as would yos'Phelium-even more likely, according to the Loop. After all, yos'Phelium had been a Scout commander, a man with a gift for evaluating worlds, for learning languages, and for prospering in alien environments.

The computer having provided a target continent-that with the heaviest overlaying of smog, to sig'Alda's sighing dismay-he went through the files obtained from Scout headquarters, found the appropriate language, and slid it into the sleep learner. In a few hours he would know the names of the mountains and seas, the right way to hold a cup of tea, and the political system as it was at last report.

Setting the computer to wake him if it discovered a match of any the four survival models, Tyl Von sig'Alda relaxed into trance began to learn.

A command of the local tongue
failed to soothe his loathing for things not Liaden. The language reported by the Scouts was without subtlety. Unless one was of the elite, there was little to distinguish oneself from others; it was difficult to proclaim precedence or authority-and slightly more difficult for males than for females.

The society itself was bucolic. While one could insult others, it was not a culture where an accidental insult was likely to result in a blood feud or even a fistfight.

The Scouts had indicated that the rate of change was unspectacular, though they had warned that local technology was reaching the Suarez point, the point at which technological advance might become the focus of three or four generations of society, society itself becoming fragmented until the growth was assimilated.

The sleep tapes had also given him a look at the food, which was uniformly off-putting. He could look forward to the flesh of game animals in many areas, as well as fruits and vegetables that would be old by the time he ate them, the world's shipping systems being woefully underdeveloped.

sig'Alda sighed. The creatures there-aside from his quarry-were barely sentient, by any thinking person's standards. Their goals were limited by their backwardness, their vision shortsighted, by testimony of their language and culture-the whole world populated by faulty genes.

There were times when the Scouts, with their insistence on independence for such "developing" worlds, produced nothing but ugliness and waste. Were Liadens merely put in charge there the world would quickly become productive and useful. Once the Department was able to arrange things properly, such waste would be eliminated.

In the meantime, Tyl Von sig'Alda studied the files on local costume, confirmed that at least there was no need to change his skin tone or have the autodoc graft on a beard. He brightened at the thought that yos'Phelium would also not be changing-or hiding-his appearance much.

He studied also the computer grid, ran probability checks, and finally targeted his first search-site: a large, industrial city on the southern shore of the bottle-shaped continent. All he knew of yos'Phelium indicated that he would establish his headquarters in such a place, which was what pitiful vanguard of technology so backward a world could muster. From that point, yos'Phelium would have access to the world's most powerful transmitter; would have quick access to new innovations; would be able, if need be, to influence a group of locals to do his bidding and serve his ends. Also, the climate was somewhat warmer than the second-choice site, farther north.

Well satisfied with his choice, the Loop showing a CMS of .45 and a CPS of .76, Tyl Von sig'Alda prepared to invade Vandar.

DUTIFUL PASSAGE

"Good evening,
Priscilla. Delightful to see you return."

She fumbled, found the mechanism, and opened her eyes. "Shan."

"How kind of you to recall. Perhaps after a moment you'll also recall that you promised to cease exposing yourself to this danger." His eyes were silver ice, his pattern a webwork of fury and terror.

"What in
hell
were you doing?" he snapped, terror rising even above anger.

What had she been doing? She struggled, squirming further into her body-and memory returned with a burst of half-hysterical laughter.

"Priscilla . . ." He was out of the chair, gripping her arms, shaking her where she lay on the bed. "Priscilla!"

"I was-Mother love her!-I had to pick up a package!" She grappled with the laughter, hiccuped into sense and stared up into his eyes. "I have a message from your brother."

Face and pattern went very still. "Indeed."

"Actually," she amended, slipping from between his hands and sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, "I have a package from your brother's lifemate. I assume it holds a message."

"But not from Val Con himself."

Impossible to read all the nuance there. She shook her head. "Val Con has-many protections. I tried twice-awake and asleep-and couldn't reach him. I-" She met his eyes squarely. "Some time ago, I went soul-walking and left a message with the lifemate: an image of you, an image of me, and the message, 'We are looking for you. Help us,' loaded with familiarity, family-caring." She paused, then added softly, "Lina kept watch over my body."

"Did she? What a gift it is to have friends."

She winced. "Shan-"

He waved a big hand and sat suddenly beside her on the bed. "Never mind. You'll have told Lina necessity existed, which it certainly does. For Korval." He looked at her, and the anger was gone completely, the terror fading fast. "Your melant'i is very difficult, Priscilla. Forgive me."

"Lifemates," she said, hearing the Seer-cadence echoing in the words, "are heart-known. He is my brother, too."

"A theory Nova would be just as happy not to entertain. But we are drifting from the subject of your package." He sighed, and she felt him working, shifting internal balances; wondering, she saw him sculpt intuitive understanding and shadowy theory into a clearly recognizable seed-thought.

Healers are not taught such things, she thought. She wondered, not for the first time, if years of close association had sharpened and altered both of their talents.

"Perhaps I can understand how you might leave a message with my brother's lady," Shan was saying, turning his construct over in his mind. "But I cannot for my heart see how she could have left you a package!"

Priscilla grinned. "You've had training, love; and she hasn't had any. She doesn't know it's impossible to leave packages in your mind for pickup." Laughter escaped again. "And she seems to have left it, and I seem to have brought it away-so I suppose it's not impossible, after all!"

"Brought it away . . ." He glanced around the room, eyebrows up. "You tell me you have this package with you."

"Oh, yes." She touched it within herself, reading the lading slip and seeing the angular slant of her own signature.

"Might I see it, Priscilla? Understand that I would never doubt you-"

"Of course." She laid her hand over his, then heard his sharp intake of breath as his inner eyes perceived it.