The Agent Gambit

by Sharon Lee

  "We're playing for joy," she said slowly, shifting so that her shoulder touched his companionably. "Just like I said to Hakan."

  "We are playing for joy," he agreed. "It is the best of all things to play for."

  INTERDICTED WORLD:

  I-2796-893-44

  It was a marvel the place did not take fire. The fairground was a maze of unsound wooden buildings, wooden walkways, wooden trade booths, and scattered mountains of chopped wood. And everywhere there was open flame-braziers, torches, cooking pits-tended by a half-witted barbarian or two, some clearly the worse for a jar or more of the atrocious local spirits.

  More disturbing than the dangerous mix of fire and wood was the crowd itself. That this group of locals was as backward and ignorant as those in the south was expected; that the signs of disease and early aging were on many of them was not unexpected. Yet sig'Alda found the presence of so many infirmities distressing, so that he constantly reminded himself that his immunizations were current and that no disease known to modern medicine was capable of infecting him.

  Out of the crowd bumbled a group of the local young, shouting and shrieking. One lost control of its balance and crashed heavily into sig'Alda, wrapping its arms around his legs in a clumsy attempt to save itself.

  sig'Alda clenched himself into stillness and waited with what patience he could muster for the thing to sort itself out and be on its way. Instead, the cub tipped its face up, a vacuous smile on its fat face in loathsome parody of a proper and well-behaved Liaden child.

  sig'Alda frowned. "Leave," he said curtly, and the round face puckered as it struggled with the meaning of the word.

  "Laman?" An adult swooped out of the crowd and plucked the cub free, smiling to show a mouthful of crooked teeth. "I'm sorry, zamir, but you know what the young ones are!"

  "Yes, certainly," sig'Alda said with scant courtesy, and moved on, counting wooden auditoriums until he came to the fourth on the left.

  The music came up softly: "The Ballad of the RosaRing." They had schooled Hakan for an hour in his pronunciation of "Fly on by," the sum of his singing part. Val Con had a couple backup and fill-in lines, but primarily it was Miri's song to sing.

  The audience, respectful, may have been expecting another set of rounds: what they got was the ballad, in Terran, of a pair of lovers separated forever when an experimental virus got loose on the RosaRing.

  The translation they had given Hakan for the audience had the Ring a resource-rich island cursed with a strain of infectious madness-which to Miri's mind was as close as made no difference. The Ring virus had been deadly, the world it circled rich, and three rescue teams had been shot down by automatics before the fatcats had finally seen the stupid waste of it and quarantined the sector. The lover had been on the last rescue team. For Hakan-for the Winterfair-he escaped.

  Miri sang the last "Fly on by," bowed low to hide her tears-which annoyed her-and lifted her head to the thundering crowd.

  "Forget the words, Miri?" Val Con murmured at her side, and she laughed, breathlessly.

  The crowd kept them at the front of the stage a moment more, then Miri unshipped her harmonica, ripped off a quick zipping sound with it, and the trio launched into the high-spirited Benish standard, "The Wind's Going My Way." The harmonica added a zest to the song Miri liked, and she dropped back to make room for the maneuver they had practiced.

  Hakan dove for the piano, and passing Val Con the guitar, then Val Con was at the front lights, picking the tune rapidly with the harmonica's support. Some in the crowd laughed; there was even a sprinkling of premature applause, and, over on the side, the green light glowed steady.

  They increased the speed of the song again, and once more, Miri watching for Val Con's signal. It came and they stopped, all together, bowing on the same instant.

  The crowd stood, cheering and applauding and stamping their feet as the emcee stood uncertainly on the stage side, prepared to step up; but she stepped down instead as the cheering took up again.

  "This never happens," Hakan whispered.

  "No?" Miri said. She moved to the mike.

  "Thank you! Thank you all!" she called, and the crowd grew quieter. "We are almost out of music now-" There was laughter as she paused to catch her breath. "But we know one more. Would you like to hear it?"

  The audience roared assent, and Hakan stood transfixed.

  "Zhena-" he began, but Cory was already back at the piano, and Miri was saying, "On the beat," with the hand-twitch that was the signal for "The Windmill Whirl." Hakan caught up his guitar and began to play.

  DUTIFUL PASSAGE

  "Be certain," Priscilla said for the third time, because that was the ritual-and because she distrusted his mood, all emotion bright and hard-edged and deliberate.

  Shan folded his shirt neatly onto a chair and looked up at her, amusement flickering through eyes and pattern. "Come now, Priscilla, am I as faint-hearted as that?"

  "You did say," she reminded him, "that it was madness for both captain and first mate to risk themselves when the Clan was in danger." She slid her trousers off and straightened, stern and lovely in her nakedness. "There is risk. One or both of us could die, if the Goddess frowns." She leaned forward, holding him with eyes alone. "Be certain, Shan."

  "Well, I did say so," he agreed, sitting down to pull off his boots. "But that was before we had assassins at Trealla Fantrol, and the Clan spread to the Prime Points, and the Passage taking on weapons. All very well and good for Val Con to send a message telling us to stay out of trouble while he and his lady vacation. We're in trouble, damn him for a puppy!"

  He unfastened his belt and sighed. "We need him, Priscilla. There's a reason why the Delm is chosen from yos'Phelium, and if the Ring falls into yos'Galan's keeping, we serve only as First Speaker-in-Trust, surrendering it with a sigh of relief the first moment duty allows."

  He finished undressing, folded his trousers atop his shirt, and stood straight. "And now?"

  "Now." She came across the room in a smooth glide and wrapped her arms around him, her breasts pushing into his chest as she kissed him deeply and thoroughly. When she was certain of his arousal, she stepped back, motioning to the bed. "Lie down."

  Wordless for once, he obeyed, his eyes not moving from her face.

  Priscilla nodded. "There is sometimes a danger, when you are soul-walking, of forgetting the pleasures and the pains of the body. Remember them, and cherish them all, so that when you come home, joy will ease your way back in."

  She sat on the edge of the bed and touched his cheek very lightly, allowing him an instant to read all the tenderness and love she held for him, allowing herself the same instant to embrace the singing brightness of his regard for her. Firmly, then, she closed it off and composed herself to teach.

  "You will enter trance," she instructed. "You will do this with all inner doors open and unguarded, with nothing at all left behind your Wall. You will remain in trance, awaiting my summons. It will be my responsibility to carry us both to your brother. It will be your responsibilities to keep your essence centered and balanced, and to be sure that you have left a connecting line between your soul and your body." She paused, considering him. "Can you do these things, Shan?"

  "Yes."

  "Be sure," she said, though nowhere in all the Teachings was a fourth asking of that question required. "Because, if you lose your lifeline or can't maintain your balance, I'm not strong enough to keep us both alive."

  "I understand," he said. "I'm to stay in one piece and keep the way home clear. No matter what."

  "No matter what," she agreed. "Even if something goes wrong. If I seem to fail, or you reach out and cannot find me-come back to your body!" She read his objection and repeated her order more gently. "Come back to your body, even if you think you're without me. Remember, my body is here, too. If I can, I will come back to it."

  "And if you can't . . ." He closed his eyes, and she waited, listening to the hum of his thoughts, watching the interplay of needs and desi
res. At last he sighed and opened his eyes. "All right, Priscilla. May your Goddess have room in her heart to forgive me."

  "She forgives everyone, my dear." She touched his bright hair. "Whenever you're ready."

  Again he closed his eyes, and she watched him bring down his shields and his protections, extinguishing alarms-all with deft skill. He entered the trance quickly, his pattern thickening as he went into the second level, then thickening again, reinforcing itself and shining with the energy of his will. He achieved the final level, heartbeat slowing, breathing long and deep and leisurely, his pattern so solidly formed that it seemed to overlay and partly obscure his physical self.

  Priscilla waited a bit longer, analyzing pattern and body. Only when she was satisfied that both were sound, that both trance and soul-shield were solid and unlikely to fail, did she lie down beside him and begin her own preparations.

  INTERDICTED WORLD:

  I-2796-893-44

  Tyl Von sig'Alda stood in the noisy, smelly hall, watching his prey on stage. He had seen the sketch in the primitive newssheet, of course, yet the actual sight of a Liaden gentleman with his face marred in such a way was nearly as unsettling as the noisome proximity of so many locals.

  There was a small percent chance that yos'Phelium had seen him from the stage and, a smaller percent chance that the Terran bodyguard had, though the Loop noted the imprecision of attempting to calculate the reactions and alertness of a chronic user of Lethecronaxion. If yos'Phelium had seen him, completion of the mission could proceed rapidly. Events, however, would seem to wait upon a contretemp upon the stage.

  The precise nature of the difficulty was not apparent. The Terran bitch was near incoherence-not unexpected in a drug-taking sycophant-and the local on stage also displayed attitudinal positions consistent with anger.

  yos'Phelium had been standing quietly at the bodyguard's side. He now attempted to say something to the female local, which interrupted him with a brisk hand-wave and stepped to the front of the stage.

  At the bulky microphone it spoke in a stilted, slurred version of the language sig'Alda had picked up through sleep-learning; he surmised that it was being formal in order to add legitimacy to the delivery of negative information.

  "Our judges, zhena and zamir, families and friends, have asked you to do as they and disregard this performance of the Snow Wind Trio. In order to avoid disqualification the group will be required to play a set of the correct number of songs after the performance of the solo guitar semifinals because they overplayed in time and number-"

  All around him the crowd roared disappointment and disapproval; the stands themselves shook. The female's announcements were overwhelmed for some moments-sig'Alda's Loop went into action, informing him that the likelihood of an actual riot was small.

  sig'Alda brought his attention back to yos'Phelium, who had begun packing instruments in a businesslike fashion. The Terran was speaking urgently to the local male, all some distance from the female announcer at the microphone.

  Carefully sig'Alda began to move against the crowd. yos'Phelium would have to descend the side steps from the stage. With fair fortune, sig'Alda would intercept him there, and they could depart this place and return to the calm dignity of Liad.

  It appeared, however, that his thoughts of waylaying them at the stairs were echoed by dozens of locals. The slender walkway was crammed with jostling, shouting barbarians, making a smooth rendezvous with his compatriot impossible.

  sig'Alda sat on a bench near the aisle, awaiting his moment, counting through an exercise designed to give patience in frustrating situations. That accomplished, he pondered variables.

  He had not known that yos'Phelium was such an accomplished musician-his record had spoken of an inclination for the omnichora-yet the sounds of that last piece, though obviously of local origin, had been refined by the agent's contributions into something with merit. And the agent himself-sig'Alda made use of the Loop's recall mode to watch again the last moments of the performance-the agent himself had been unfettered and full of energy. The music had been played with passion by all.

  The Loop came up suddenly, without bidding, even as sig'Alda found himself reciting the formula half out loud: "Dispassion, calculation, control, success-"

  The probability was .82 that yos'Phelium's actions were inconsistent with those of an Agent on Duty. sig'Alda considered further. Lost without a ship on a barbarian world one might easily give up hope, attempt to throw oneself fully into a new and successful life . . . He shivered, half from the cold that had crept into the hall when the audience had begun to sift out the doors, and half from the thought of attempting to live at all long, depending solely on passion.

  Consideration, of course, would have to be given to the possibility that the facial scar-and the Juntavas report of the incident had come from a drunken underling, after all-was the least portion of a grievous and partially disabling head injury. Mere proper Liaden medical attention might be all that would be required to return the agent properly to the fold.

  Finally the trio was permitted to move, but so ringed with admiring locals that sig'Alda found his best tactic was to simply attach himself to the tail end of the throng and follow where it led. Eventually opportunity would arise.

  As if the thought was the trigger, there was an unexpected event. The bodyguard was separating herself from the group! If he might intercept her, perhaps remove her from the equation, options would be clearer. He hesitated for a moment and saw the crowd close in again around yos'Phelium and the local musician.

  With the Loop's approval, sig'Alda moved.

  VANDAR:

  Winterfair

  "Another set?" Miri asked rhetorically as they walked down the midway. "Is she nuts, or what?"

  Val Con grinned and pushed the hair out of his eyes. "At least we have an hour or two to prepare-and to rest."

  "Yeah, well, I don't know about you, but I'm strung so high, I wouldn't sleep if you whacked me over the head with a brick."

  "Performance exhilaration," he murmured. "It means you sang with all your joy."

  "I guess." She stopped, staring at the entrance to the hall, while the wind thrummed against the canvas stretched high above them. "Tell you what, boss. I'm going for a walk first; try to get this exhilaration thing buttoned up. Tell Hakan I'll be back in ten minutes, okay?"

  "Okay," he said, squeezing her hand gently. He turned to go in and, vaguely uneasy, turned back in time to see her disappear into the tall crowd, heading toward the perimeter.

  The Terran female had stopped, attention apparently engaged by the low-tech transmitting station and the landtrain that housed it. Tyl Von sig'Alda paused some distance back, closer than he liked to a smoky brazier, watching and considering.

  The Loop counseled a direct approach and indicated a possibility as high as .99 that the Terran was currently drug-free. Certainly the performance he had just seen it deliver, though rude and barbaric, was inconsistent with an individual operating with Clouded faculties. sig'Alda stepped forward.

  As he came to her side, she turned, eyes going wide. He bowed, not low, but enough to flatter and confuse.

  "Good day," he said, speaking most gently in Terran. "You are Miri Robertson, are you not?"

  Eyes and face had gone wary; stance suggested puzzlement and indecision. sig'Alda smiled, delighted to find her so very easy to read.

  "Yeah," she said, her voice firm and fine. "Who're you?"

  "A friend of your employer's," he said smoothly. "It has been noted that you have guarded with excellence, in circumstances both trying and unusual. Now that your duty is completed, and your employer going home, he sends me with this gift, indicative of his esteem." Sliding the little packet with its blue dot out, he saw the Terran's eyes widen, heard her breath catch, and saw the pale skin pale further as he pressed the thing into her hand.

  "Cloud?" The fine voice rasped a little on the word, and sig'Alda inclined his head gravely.

  "We have made a careful st
udy of your preferences," he said, seeing how her fingers closed tight around the plastic envelope. "And when it came time for the gift to be chosen, I offered my knowledge of your tastes, so that the gift would be certain to please. I hope that you will allow yourself to be pleased and to look upon the gift with favor."

  "Sure." The voice had flattened, and she stared at him out of sparkling gray eyes, eager, no doubt, to sample what she held so fiercely. "Thanks a lot."

  "It is my pleasure to serve," he told her, and bowed once again. He left her still staring with those brilliant eyes, the little packet completely hidden in the clench of her hand.

  VANDAR:

  Winterfair

  The rehearsal hall was hot, and Val Con was sitting as far away from the corner fireplace as he could, restringing the mandolette and listening to Hakan chatter.

  "We could," the younger man was saying, "just replay the set they disqualified-well, not the fourth song, but the first three. Except I hate to do that and take away the impact of that RosaRing ballad of Miri's." He shook his head in wonderment. "And she said she couldn't sing in front of a crowd! There wasn't a dry eye in the house, man-I'll bet you my share of the cash prize!"

  "If we win the cash prize," Val Con murmured. "Perhaps we should do a new set, starting with the song that disqualified us."

  "Something to that," Hakan said reflectively. Then he stood with a huge smile, opening his arms and hugging Kem, right there in front of everyone. Kem hugged back, steadfastly keeping her eyes away from the shocked faces, and Val Con shook his head to himself, remarking what a bad influence he and Miri had been on Hakan and his lady.

  He picked up the last string, tied it, and threaded it, carefully turning the knob and-