The Agent Gambit

by Sharon Lee

  "But?"

  "But I would rather fill a cup with wine that we share."

  She slid across the rock floor until she was next to him. "You have wine?"

  "It is here," he said. "Though I should tell you that it is Green Nogalin. A large bottle of it."

  Her brows rose. "That's the aphrodisiac? The one banned on about three-quarters of the Terran worlds?"

  "So it is."

  She shook her head. "And I thought Edger was an innocent." She paused. "Husband?"

  Thank you, gods, he thought. "Yes, my wife?"

  "Please open the wine."

  He smiled and leaned close. "In a moment-"

  Miri was on her feet, gun in hand, with the first siren shriek. Val Con was already far down the hall, strobe beams throwing his shadow crazily over the rock walls.

  "The control room-quickly!"

  They ran.

  "What is it?" she demanded, braking to a halt just inside the door.

  "Distress beacon." He was at the board, hands busy, head tipped up at the tank. "But I don't see-ah."

  He upped the magnification and Miri saw it, too: a drifting bulk that could only be a ship. Keeping her eyes on it, she slid her gun back into its holster and went slowly toward the board.

  Val Con moved his hand and began speaking in slow, distinct Trade. "This is Scout Commander Val Con yos'Phelium on Clutch vessel in tangential orbit. We hear your distress signal and will attempt a rescue. Reports required: damage and personnel." He touched the pink disk, listening.

  Miri came up behind him. "You can't bring non-Clutch people onto this ship with its goofy drive! It'll make 'em crazy!"

  He shook his head, frowning at the tank. "Isn't that better than being dead?"

  She put her hands on his shoulders, her eyes on the ship drifting in the tank. "How come I gotta answer all the hard questions?"

  * * *

  TWO THINGS HIT ship's comm as they dropped into normal space: the keening wail of a distress beacon and a clear, measured voice announcing name, location, and intention to rescue.

  Tanser leapt out of his chair, swearing at the pilot. "Get me some magnification! Where're they coming from-there!"

  A mid-sized asteroid floated to their starboard, oriented above them and the wreck. The pilot increased mag, as ordered, then did a doubletake and ran the screen as high as it would go.

  Without a doubt, a smaller rock had separated from the larger, falling as if thrown toward the wreck.

  Tanser grinned. "Hide us," he snapped.

  "Huh?"

  "Hide us! Hurry up, asshole! You know what's on that thing?"

  The pilot was making rapid adjustments, nervously edging the ship into a flotilla of space junk. "No, what?"

  "Them kids Hostro wants."

  "How you figure that?" the pilot muttered, sweat dripping like icicles down his face as he matched speed with the junk and eased into the center of the drift.

  "That's a Clutch ship, right?" Tanser asked, purely to draw out the revelation of his genius.

  "Yeah," the pilot allowed.

  "Well, Scout Commander Val Con yos'Phelium don't sound Clutch to me. Ten'll get you one the only people on that rockship out there is one little girl and her boyfriend. Real nice folks, they are, coming down to help out somebody in trouble." He settled back into his chair, sighing in self-satisfaction.

  "So what're we gonna do, Borg?" the pilot asked, since the question seemed to be expected.

  "We wait till they're on that wreck and then go get 'em." Tanser sighed again and permitted himself the luxury of a grin. "Caught like rats, Tommy. Gonna be so easy, it's almost a shame."

  JEFFERSON SAT BY the bouncecomm, staring at it in frustration. It had stopped sending fifteen minutes before, and a cursory inspection of its innards had failed to provide him with a clue as to this malfunction. He slammed the lid down and went to the local unit to summon a comm-tech, on the bounce.

  His fingers were shaking so badly, he had to punch the number twice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  VAL CON MATCHED speed and drift, fastened their pod to the entry port of the disabled vessel, and traded air.

  The sensors, as near as Miri could tell, showed that the air in the other ship was good; no leaks were detected. Terrific. They were going to have to go inside. Because there might be survivors, too hurt or too scared to answer; or the board might be blown . . . . Miri put a hand to her gun, making sure it was loose in the holster.

  Val Con locked the board and turned to grin at her. "Ready?"

  "Never readier," she lied. She didn't like it. Not at all. It smelled. It reeked.

  He went first, rolling through the matched locks and into the unknown. There was a minute's silence before his voice drifted back to her. "All right, Miri."

  She gulped air and rolled through, landing on her feet, gun out, in the hallway beyond. Illumination was provided by emergency dims, and gravity was a shade light. The only sound was the hum of the life-support system.

  Val Con was moving silently down the hall. She saw with a certain amount of relief that his gun was out, as well. Following him reluctantly, she considered whether it was worthwhile mentioning that there was no one alive on this tub.

  Robertson, she asked herself, very earnestly, you psychic?

  No, Sarge, she replied.

  Good, she approved. Now, get the lead out and cover your partner's butt.

  THE INFORMATION that a half-hour's intensive research had provided on the Clutch was clarifying, but not encouraging.

  Hostro's lawyer, when appealed to, gave him to understand that the word of a Clutch person in matters of contract was considered wholly binding. In the nine hundred Standards that Terrans had been dealing legally with the Clutch, the Clutch had never broken their word in any matter.

  "I wouldn't worry about it, Justin," his lawyer told him comfortably. "The Clutch promises, the Clutch delivers. Never known to be an exception; no one's ever heard one lie . . . ."

  Justin Hostro thanked his man of business cordially and cut the connection, turning his attention to the files that the efficient Matthew had so rapidly obtained for him.

  There was a great deal of speculation regarding the exact social structure of the Clutch-it was generally felt to be highly complex and extremely competitive. Justin Hostro scanned the data rapidly, searching for he knew not what.

  Fact: At one time the warlike Yxtrang had considered the Clutch fair game. There were many documented attacks of Yxtrang upon Clutch vessels as late as eight hundred Standards before.

  Then, the attacks ceased. It was observed to be the general rule that, given a Clutch vessel and an Yxtrang chancing across each other in normal space, no incident occurred. The Yxtrang passed on, as did the Clutch.

  Justin Hostro had an uneasy feeling that he knew why this was so. And if the Yxtrang were afraid of the Clutch . . .

  He closed the file and sat quite still, his hands folded precisely before him, his eyes regarding the scene just beyond the edge of his desk.

  He was still lost in that regard when Matthew announced Edger and Watcher's return.

  * * *

  THE ONLY PERSON left on the Terran ship was in no condition to be rescued. In fact, Miri thought dispassionately, about the only thing he was in condition for was colander duty. Whoever had shot him had been insanely thorough about it.

  Val Con straightened from his examination of the body, shaking his head. "Yxtrang," he said. The word told a wealth of stories, none of them happy.

  "How do you know?"

  He waved a hand. "They use tiny pellets with fins on them to cut as they enter; their guns are bored for maximum spin . . . ."

  She sighed. "Think I'd learn not to ask you these questions." She spun slowly, checking out the storage hold in which they stood. "How'd they get in?"

  "Matched speed and latched on." He shrugged. "It would be easy to force a storage hatch, since the mechanism is built not to withstand abuse-"

  The ship sh
uddered with the impact of a locking magnet on the hull, and from the next hold came the anguished groan of machinery being forced against its will.

  "Oh, hell," Miri breathed.

  Val Con was moving, swinging back toward the hallway. "Go!" he snapped. "Get back to the pod!"

  She stared at him. Run? It was no good to run from Yxtrang.

  He grabbed her arm, pivoted, and let her go with a push. "Go! Get the hell out of here!"

  She ran, sensing him, swift and silent, at her right shoulder, and was absurdly relieved.

  Suddenly she realized that Val Con was no longer with her.

  Miri braked, cursing, and flattened her back against the wall, trying to see in both directions at once. Two feet downhall was a side corridor. She forced herself to think back: When exactly had he vanished?

  It was impossible to know: He had been there, and then he had not. But he'd been gone before she'd passed that intersecting hallway, or so she thought.

  From the holding section came the voices of men and the sound of boots against metal floors. Miri bit her lip. If she managed to top the best spurt of speed she'd ever had, she might reach the pod in time to figure out how to seal the latch against them.

  Val Con's back there, damn his eyes! she cursed silently.

  Miri unglued her back from the wall and moved cautiously down-corridor. She was four or five feet farther from the pod when the first shot was fired. She froze, listening to the sounds of confusion and voices yelling-Terrans!-and heard another sound that he could not have anticipated.

  Several pairs of footsteps were still bearing down on her position.

  Miri spun and dove for the cross-corridor.

  JUSTIN HOSTRO ROSE and bowed to Edger, then indicated a seat.

  The T'carais inclined his head in response and remained on his feet. "The decision I am here for as a simple one," he told the man. "I expect that you will be able to tell me what you have chosen in very few words. It is hardly worth the effort to sit, in such a case."

  Hostro bent his own head and cleared his throat. "It is my decision, as an Elder of the Juntavas, to let your kin go with their lives. A message to this effect has been relayed to those I sent to search.

  "I should, however, inform you that I am the most minor of Elders of my Clan and cannot, therefore, speak for the more senior Elders. It was their word that set me and my-immediate family-to work on the apprehension of these members of your Clan. The-eldest of our Elders is most anxious to obtain certain information from Miri Robertson, and it is reasonable to expect that such inducements to speech as he would employ would render her unlikely to live long.

  "Thus, you should understand that, though I have agreed to let your kin retain their knives, Miri Robertson is still considered an outlaw by the eldest of our Elders. There is a price upon her head-small, should she die in the capturing; larger, should those who trap her be skilled enough to keep her alive. The man who is also your kin is of no importance to the Eldest. But, if he is still with her when she is taken his life will be forfeit."

  Edger took several Standard minutes for consideration.

  "I understand," he said finally. "It is enough for now that the immediate threat posed by you and your close kin is removed. You will, of course, provide me with the name and planet of the eldest of your Elders, so that we may discuss the matter fully, for all the families of your Clan."

  Hostro licked his lips. Ruin. Ruin and most likely death. He looked at that future and considered the other he had been offered; then he took a breath and performed what was perhaps the only act of heroism his life had encompassed.

  "Of course," he told Edger. "I would be delighted to provide you with an introduction to the eldest of our Elders."

  THEY'D MANAGED TO cut Val Con off from the corridor. Four were in the ransacked far hold-three Juntavas and himself.

  One of the three became a bit ambitious in his aim and acquired a slug in the arm for his presumption, but that sort of thing could not continue long. He had to get out. Soon. Sufficient time had elapsed for Miri to have reached the pod and sealed it, though she could not pilot it-a lapse in her education he intended to rectify the moment current difficulties were resolved.

  He cracked his gun, sighed, and reassembled it. He had to move soon, even if nothing- Across the room, there was an empty click: The man stationed near the door was temporarily out of ammunition.

  Val Con moved.

  He put his last two pellets into the man who had aspired to marksmanship, and lodged his throwing knife in the throat of his companion, who was so foolish as to rise above his cover to take aim. Reversing his gun, he used it as a club, smashing toward the shooting hand of the one survivor.

  The man saw it coming and dodged-but lost his gun as it slid out of wet fingers. Val Con flipped the spent gun to his right hand and brought Edger's blade to his left; glittering and sharp and deadly, it flashed in toward the other's belly.

  The man jumped back, rolling, and came up with a length of metal pipe in his hand.

  Val Con slid to the left, but the Juntava was quick and swept out with the pipe, keeping him from the door.

  Val Con dove forward, parrying with the gun-but the pipe shifted, snaking sideways and twisting, and the gun spun out of nerveless fingers as he danced clear, his face stinging where jagged metal had sliced it.

  The Juntava sensed the advantage of his longer reach and swung the pipe again. Reaction threw Val Con's left hand up to ward off the blow, crystal blade in his grip.

  And his opponent leapt back, swearing, his advantage negated: The knife had shorn away nearly a third of his weapon.

  SHE COULD SIT down here and pick them off all day long and far into the night.

  As a tactician, Borg Tanser admired her for it. As force leader, he hated her for the three men dead at the mouth of her snug little hallway. There were other alternatives, of course. For example, they could just leave and evacuate the air from the wreck.

  He considered the various angles to that and decided against. The bounty was higher-a lot higher-if she was delivered alive. If only he could come up with some way of luring her out of that damn cul-de-sac!

  Suddenly Tanser froze, head snapping back toward the holding bays. The gunfire had stopped. He crept several feet down-corridor to be sure.

  Silence. And no hail from the men he'd left to take out the boyfriend.

  Dropping back to the mouth of the corridor, he spoke into the ear of his Second and moved off with rapid caution, gun at the ready.

  THE MAN SCREAMED as the blade sheared through the muscle and tendons of his upper arm, but he managed an awkward spin that sent him out of range and bought him time to take his weapon into his other hand.

  Val Con flipped his blade, catching it by the point. It was not a throwing knife, but when one had no choice . . .

  The explosion and the pain were simultaneous-he was spun half-around with the force of the blast. He loosed the blade at the man who stood, gun in hand, in the doorway, before blackness claimed him. He never felt the second blow as the pipe cracked across his skull.

  MOREJANT STOOD OVER the fallen boyfriend, pipe still at the ready, his arm bleeding badly. Tanser threw him a clamp from the kit on his belt.

  "Where's Harris and Zell?"

  "Dead." Morejant rasped, seeming loath to relinquish his guard over the figure on the floor. "Would've had me in another minute-sure glad you come along." He bent over the body, peering, then straightened and looked at Tanser.

  "Boss, I think he's still breathing. You wanna finish 'im off?"

  Tanser's attention was on the knife buried to the hilt in the steel wall two inches from his head. He levered it free and whistled softly: the crystal was unmarred, the edge unbroken. He thrust it in his belt.

  "Boss?" Morejant repeated

  "Naw." Tanser holstered his gun and came forward. Leaning over, he got a grip on the back of the boyfriend's collar and heaved him up to hang like a drowned kitten, blood dripping off the front of his shi
rt and pooling on the floor.

  "Wrap yourself up," Tanser snapped at the staring Morejant, "and get a gun. We're gonna talk to the Sergeant."

  THEY'D BEEN HANGING back for the last fifteen minutes-still there, but out of range. Every so often one of them would lob a shot inside, just to see if she was awake, she guessed. She didn't bother returning the favor.

  The lull in activity had given Miri the opportunity to reload her gun, check remaining ammo, and think deeply on the inadvisability of disobeying a superior officer, not to mention straying one step from her partner's side when it looked like they were in for a hot time.

  None of these thoughts were particularly comforting, nor were they useful. She banished them and shifted position; her attention was abruptly claimed by a movement at the mouth of the corridor.

  Miri raised her gun, waiting for the man to get into range. But all he did was heave the bundle he carried in his arms forward, so that it struck the floor and rolled, well inside her range.

  She sat frozen, gun still steady on the figure at the mouth, eyes on the man who lay too still, legs and arms every which way, graceless.

  No, she thought. Oh, no, Val Con, you can't be . . .

  "Sergeant?" boomed the sitting duck at the top of the hall.

  She did not raise her eyes. "What the hell do you want?" she asked, her voice flat with hatred.

  "I just wanted to tell you, Sergeant, that he ain't dead yet. We'll fix that, though, if I don't see your gun and your belt tossed up here within thirty-five seconds."

  She licked her lips. "How do I know he ain't dead now? Take your word for it?"

  "That's your gamble, Sergeant, not mine. You got another fifteen seconds."

  Jamming the safety up, she snapped to her feet and hurled the gun with all her strength.

  It hit a foot short and skidded to a stop against Tanser's left boot. A moment later, belt and pouch repeated the maneuver.

  Tanser laughed. "Temper, temper. Now, you just walk on out here like a good girl-real slow. Don't want you to trip and get yourself shot 'cause somebody thought you were tryin' something fancy. We lost five men between you and the boyfriend, Sergeant. Proud of yourself?"