The Agent Gambit

by Sharon Lee

  She frowned and shook her head. "Not since I've known him. Not a baby." She took a breath. "Not to say he wouldn't. Just that he hasn't. I think."

  Her gaze sharpened, locking on a movement in the dusk beyond his shoulder. Almost, she sighed.

  "Charlie," she said, very quietly. "I like you, which is why I didn't draw on you and why I'm telling you this: There's a man behind you with a gun. He'll kill you, without an instant's hesitation or a moment's remorse, unless you drop that piece now."

  He hesitated, weighing the chance of it being a lie, keeping the gun where it was.

  She flung out both hands, her face revealing something that looked like fear in the uncertain light.

  "C'mon, Charlie!"

  He dropped the gun and kicked it to one side.

  "That's fine," she said gently. "I'm real sorry, but you're gonna have a headache when you wake up."

  The blow clipped him just above the left ear, hard enough to do the job. He carried her face with him into unconsciousness.

  THE SLEEK BROWN car moved with sedate purpose through the streets of Econsey, toward the mainland and the shuttleport. The windows were opaqued so that the vulgar were denied a view of the vehicle's occupants. The emitter broadcast its message to all with the means to read it.

  "Wasn't that just a bit harsh?" inquired the man in the seat next to the driver.

  "Wasn't which?" she asked, slowing to a stop in obedience to a flashing signal.

  "He will kill you, without an instant's hesitation or a moment's remorse . . . ." he quoted flatly.

  She glanced at him. He was sitting straight in the comfortable seat, staring out the window. The tension in him puzzled her. She eased the car through the intersection as the light steadied and shrugged her shoulders.

  "You have shown that tendency in the past," she said as mildly as possible.

  Perhaps he snorted. Or perhaps he only let loose a breath that had been too long held, all at once, and with a vengeance.

  "I'll try to rehabilitate myself," he said, and there was no inflection at all in his voice. After a moment, he slid down in the seat, moving his shoulders until he found comfort within the cushions, and closed his eyes. "Don't stop for anything," he told her. "And wake me when we get to the port."

  It was her turn to snort, but he did not appear to hear; the rhythm of his breathing told her that he was asleep.

  Irritably, she yanked on the wheel, snapping the car from left to right. He rolled bonelessly with the jerk, his breathing unaltered.

  "I guess you'll want tea and crumpets when we get there," she muttered. She smoothed the car through another curve and onto the main highway.

  * * *

  THE BEST PLACE for a roadblock was on the Econsey side of the last bridge to the mainland, and that was exactly where they'd set it up. Miri sighed and let the car slow fractionally.

  "Hey, sleeping beauty."

  He eased to a sitting position, in no hurry about it.

  "Roadblock," she told him, stating the obvious.

  "Maintain your speed."

  She slanted a glance at his face. He didn't look crazy. But, then, he never did. Well, what the hell. She kept the car on course and steady.

  The roadblock loomed closer, lights flashing, and she could make out the expressions on the faces of the people lining the roadway before them.

  Then something very strange happened. The 'block began to move clear of the road and the guard fell back, holstering their pieces or bringing them to rest.

  Miri took a deep breath, meticulously keeping the pace.

  The roadblock lumbered clear a bare moment before impact. Miri let her breath out in rationed units as the brown car continued its stately progress across the bridge and onto the mainland.

  "Tough Guy?"

  "Yes?" He was settling back into the seat, no doubt arranging himself for another nap.

  "Why'd they do that?"

  "Possibly they judged an interplanetary incident too high a price to pay for stopping and searching the Yxtrang ambassador's private vehicle." He yawned.

  "Oh." She was silent for a short time, digesting his words. "I don't want to pry into your private life or anything, but you didn't by any chance steal this car from the Yxtrang, did you?"

  "To the best of my knowledge, the Yxtrang delegation for this sector is presently on Omenski."

  "Good place for them," she agreed. "Hope they fall in love with the place and never leave." She made a left-hand turn into a wide thoroughfare and then the tower light from the shuttleport was directly before them.

  "Sorry I'm so dense," she said, "but I didn't have a nap. What made the cops think we were the Yxtrang ambassador?"

  "The emitter says we are." He shook his head and sat up straighter in his seat. "I'm afraid I must have read the wrong code out of the manual at the rental office. It was really very hard to read-grainy and flickering. One of the connectors loose, I should think."

  She looked at him. "You wouldn't have had anything to do with that, I guess."

  He turned to face her, eyes wide. "How could I have?"

  "Never mind, I don't think I really want to know."

  The port was less than a half-block distant now and she was beginning to feel loose for the first time since she and Murph had started their negotiations.

  We just might pull it-

  "Oh, damn." She swung the car-easily, easily-into a side street, moved to the end, and turned into a wider avenue, heading away from the tower light.

  "Did you see what I thought I saw?"

  He nodded. "Yes. Checking people as they go in. I'm afraid neither of us can pass for Yxtrang at any distance."

  "Funny, the things you live to regret." She took a breath. "Now what?"

  There was a pause, which she was inclined to think was bad news.

  "Let's get a bit closer to the port and leave the car. If we can mix with a group going through, we might have a chance to confuse things and get by."

  She laughed and made a left; shortly thereafter a right turn headed them back to the port.

  "No plan, but, sister, do we got guts!" She pulled to the curb and killed the power, grinning. "Okay, let's go crash the gate."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE SITUATION LOOKED even worse from the street than it had from the car. Even granting the two of them awesome powers of mayhem and confusion, Miri was ninety-five percent certain that they wouldn't be able to fade through the checkpoint. She didn't bother to ask her companion for the official figures.

  Nor did he offer them, just stood at her shoulder in the pool of shadow they'd chosen as their observation point and silently watched the procedure.

  After a time, she felt him shift next to her. "Let us get a drink."

  She turned her head, but it was impossible to see his face in the inkblot they occupied. "Sounds like the most useful thing we can do," she agreed. "Maybe two or three. Then we can come back and try to bull on through. Won't hurt so much when we get perforated."

  She heard the shadow of his laugh as he moved out onto the sidewalk. "No faith, Miri."

  "None," she said, catching up. "My folks weren't real religious, either. Are we really gonna take a kynak break with the cops and the Juntavas within eight seconds in every direction?"

  He turned down a slender alleyway at the far end of which multicolored neons promised cheap warmth and noise.

  "Why not?" he asked.

  Or, she translated, do you have a better idea?

  She didn't, so she followed.

  THE THIRD BAR was noisiest, full nearly to overflowing with men and women in leathers and other work clothes. It was the perfect place for them to hide, though there seemed barely enough room to accommodate two more bodies, no matter how small.

  Val Con hesitated at the door, weighing the scene, while Miri stood at his shoulder, watching the crowd absently. She stiffened suddenly and he snapped his eyes to her face, looking for a clue to the trouble.

  She was grinning and leaning a bi
t forward, eyes squinted against the smoke. In a moment, she turned to him, grin undiminished.

  "Tough Guy, you're a genius. Let's go." She started forward.

  He dropped his hand, gently encircling her wrist. "Tell me."

  "Part of that mob in there's the Gyrfalks-my old unit." There was no missing the excitement in her voice. She jerked her wrist and he let it go. "C'mon, Tough Guy."

  He followed, afraid of losing her in the press of bodies and the eddying smoke as she pushed and wove her way through, moving with the stride of a person with a goal in sight.

  What the goal was, Val Con couldn't tell. He was satisfied to keep her in sight, and re-established himself at her left shoulder when she caught up against a temporary body-jam.

  The jam sorted itself out and she moved on, he maintaining his position as they broke out into the center of the room.

  There it was less crowded, though a goodly portion of available floor space was taken up by the biggest Terran that Val Con had ever seen: Eight feet tall if he was an inch, shoulders wider than Edger's shell, chest and ribcage said his planet of origin had been just a tad light on oxygen, and there was not an ounce of fat on him. His shoulder-length blond hair was tied back with a black cord. His full beard was curled and very likely perfumed. He was drinking something brownish from a liter pitcher, an arm draped possessively across the shoulders of a slender dark woman who would have dwarfed any man but this one.

  Miri strode straight up to the blonde godling, Val Con just behind her; she stopped with legs braced and hands on hips, head craned upward.

  The godling finished the contents of the pitcher and extended a long arm to deposit it on the bar. His lapis gaze fell upon the face of the woman before him.

  "Redhead! By the highest, iciest, most diamond of the Magnetas! By the deepest hellhole of Stimata Five! By-"

  Words failed him and he reached down, encircled Miri's waist with his huge hands, and threw her upward as if she were a doll; he caught her and gave her a kiss that might have drowned someone less alert.

  She captured his ponytail, yanking on it and smacking the side of his head with the flat of her hand.

  "Jason! Put me down, you overgrown bumblebear!" She swatted him again and Val Con winced with the force of the blow. "Put me-"

  "Down," Jason finished, placing her with the utmost gentleness atop the bar. "Of course, my darlin'. Down it is, and nicely, too. Ah, it's a sight for a man's heart to see you, my small-but there's something amiss! Barkeep! A kynak for the Sergeant, on the double! Or will you have a triple, my love?"

  "A single," Miri said, collapsing crosslegged to the bar and waving a hand at Val Con. "And one for my partner, too."

  Jason's eyes lit on the little man in dark leathers, noting the gun belted for a crossdraw from the right, but seeing no other hardware. The stranger was slender, though with a certain whippiness about him that said he'd do well for himself, hand-to-hand. A fighter, and no nonsense. The sort of person one would want at Redhead's back.

  He shifted his attention to the beardless golden face, encountering eyes as warm and cuddlesome as shards of green glass: Jealous, then. Not the best trait possible, since partners were not always lovers, but who cared, if it kept him sharp?

  "Partner, is it?" he drawled, turning back to Redhead. "Bit exotic for your taste, I'd have thought . . . ." No reason not to hone the little man a shade finer. He looked around. "Barkeeper! Ah, here we are, my love . . . ."

  The barman shoved a glass into Miri's hand and held the other out to Val Con, who looked into the dark depths and dared a sip. He was not quite able to control the shudder that ran through him.

  Miri laughed. "Like this-" she told him, knocking back a quarter of hers. "Don't taste it, for pellet's sake! It'll kill you."

  "It may, in any case." He tipped a brow, half-smiling. "How well does it burn?"

  She laughed again, then turned where she sat, holding both hands out to the woman who approached.

  Small by Terran standards and built along the lines of a bulldog, her very short hair a glossy, unrelieved black, her blue eyes set at a slant in a rosy-cheeked, plain face, she looked efficient and practical. She took Miri's hands, leaned forward, and kissed her gently on the mouth.

  Miri returned the kiss with evident pleasure and kept one of woman's hands captive as she turned back. "Tough Guy, this is Suzuki. She's my friend and Senior Commander of the Gyrfalks." She waved a casual hand at the blond godling. "That's Jase."

  "Oh, cruel, my small," the godling cried. "Heartless, heartless. When I think of the nights I spent sleepless without you-"

  "Without me what, you noshconner-on guard?" She turned back to the woman. "Why do you put up with him?"

  Suzuki appeared to give it some thought. "I believe," she said finally, in a voice that should have been too soft to carry through the surrounding din, "that it is because of the beard. The care he takes of it! The hours spent grooming and perfuming it! Even in the heat of battle have I seen him fondle it. Yes." She nodded. "I do think it's the beard. Though, of course," she added, as one being completely impartial, "the snoring is nice, too. Do you remember, Redhead, when we were on that frontier-Sintathic?-and we needed to set no guards at night, because the animals were so frightened of Jason's snores?"

  There was laughter from the group that had gathered around them and Jason dropped his massive head into his hands and moaned in mock agony.

  More laughter from those around and Val Con allowed himself to relax infinitesimally, putting aside also the desire to set a knife into the godling, for the principle of the thing. He acknowledged a liking for Suzuki: It would be an honor, indeed, to serve in a troop of her command.

  He shifted position to the left of the bar, put down the glassful of horrible stuff-and became aware of someone standing much too close, trapping him next to the counter. He turned the slight amount he was allowed and frowned at her.

  She grinned: a mid-sized Terran; large, the way a lifter of weights is large; a gun on each hip and the hilt of a survival blade showing at the top of the right boot; breasts straining taut the cord that laced her shirt. Her grin broadened and she extended a blunt hand to stroke his arm from shoulder to elbow.

  "A pretty toy, Sergeant," she said over his head. "We fight for him, yes?"

  Miri laughed, snapping off another quarter of her drink. "We fight for him, no. Go away, Polesta."

  "Come, Sergeant, you know me. It will be fair, this fight-a thing for the songs, eh, no matter which may take the prize. Would you pass the chance of a meeting between two such as we?"

  "With pleasure. Where's your partner? You're drunk."

  Sensing an opening, Val Con shifted balance cautiously, but, drunk or not, Polesta was alert and blocked the escape route with a casual hip.

  "The Sergeant will not fight me?" she demanded. There was a strong feel of ritual about the question. Val Con tensed, anticipating Miri's answer.

  "Now you've got it!" she said admiringly. Then, dropping her voice and putting a snarl in it, she said, "Get out of here, Polesta. I don't fight drunks and I don't fight crazies, so you're safe on two counts."

  "The famous Sergeant will not fight," Polesta announced to the room, which had grown much too quiet. "So, I take my prize by forfeit."

  He dove, trying to get around to the right of her, lower than her normal reach-and was blocked for an instant by a pair of leathered legs. He felt her fingers knot in the hair at the nape of his neck to jerk him back, throat exposed.

  Unbalanced, he didn't struggle; he got one leg where it belonged and braced himself for the twist-

  She brought her mouth to his and kissed him-harshly, thoroughly, with lots of tongue and amid roars of laughter from the gathered onlookers.

  He kicked and twisted, not giving a blazing blue damn if it broke his neck, but the move for some reason surprised her and she lost her grip.

  He landed on his feet next to the bar, back stiff, eyes glacial. His face had lost color, Miri noted, and every line o
f him expressed outrage. Not the polite killer here, but a man in a towering fury. She rolled to her feet silently on the bar, ready to back his play.

  Deliberately, he turned his back on Polesta and took up his glass from the bar. He turned back and took a swig of kynak. He rinsed his mouth.

  Then he spat.

  Turning away again, he gently replaced the glass on the bar.

  Huge laughter burst from the crowd as Polesta's face went red as a Teledyne sunset. "No one insults me so!" she cried, and swung.

  He dodged, making use of the space that had suddenly opened around them to get far enough away from her to have room to move.

  She swung again, and he grabbed her arm as it rocketed past, twisting his body so, inspiring Polesta to the heights. At the last moment he clenched himself to take the sting out of the maneuver, and let her go.

  She hit the floor six feet away with a sound like an infant earthquake. Val Con took a deep breath as a man separated himself from the now-silent crowd and went to the inert warrior. After some cajoling, including a few brisk slaps to the face, Polesta was gotten to a sitting position, though she still seemed rather groggy.

  Val Con drifted back to the bar, people slipping out of his way, and settled his back against the solid plastic at Miri's right hand, ignoring Jason's gape. He felt drained-almost exhausted-and wondered briefly why this should be so. The throw had used very little of his own strength, trading as it did on his opponent's momentum.

  Miri shifted at his side, and he looked up at her face.

  "Pulled your punch." It was a statement, not a question.

  "You wanted me to rehabilitate myself," he reminded her, hearing the snap in his voice. He held out a hand. "Give me some of that stuff."

  She gave him her glass, and he drank what was left, properly. He drew a hard breath and let it explode out of him.

  "Awful, ain't it?" she said, taking back the empty and handing it to Jase, who raised his eyebrows. She jerked her head slightly; he assumed a martyred look and went in search the bartender.

  The crowd had split into other patterns now. Across the room, Polesta's partner had managed to get her to her feet. Suddenly, she pushed away from him and started purposefully, if unsteadily, toward the bar.