“What happened?” Jessan asked. “Did you stun him after he got me with that needler of his?”
Tarnekep shook his head. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean … ‘not exactly’?”
“He never shot you at all,” said Tarnekep. “That was me.”
Jessan struggled to sit up. “You shot me?”
“No. Not shot. I used the rest of that cylinder of Sonoxate gas our late passenger Vorgent Elimax had in his luggage. Flooded all the passageways and open spaces with it after you left, then sat in the common room for hours wearing one of those damned respirators, waiting for you to get back.”
He nodded. The movement made his head reel. “Good idea. I wish you’d told me first, though.”
Tarnekep bit his lip. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For all I knew, you were going to meet somebody who would tie you up and introduce you to the joys of active interrogation—and there would go our cover on Ninglin. But what you don’t know you can’t tell, so I made certain we had a surprise waiting that you didn’t know about.”
“I suppose you’re right. But next time, could you pick a surprise that won’t leave me with a head full of dirty grey fuzz? This stuff feels worse than a hangover.”
“You didn’t look very good, either,” said Tarnekep. From the way his mouth tightened on the description, it was an understatement. “That’s why I brought you in here.”
“Bad reaction,” Jessan said. He tried to stand up but sank back down onto the bunk, his head spinning. “Muscle cramps and vertigo … we haven’t got time for this. If you check the medikit in the locker over there, you’ll see a row of hypo ampules.”
“Got it,” Tarnekep said a few moments later. “I see them.”
“Okay—I need the third one from the left.”
“Orange label, coded six-zero-three-D?”
“That’s it.”
Jessan took the ampule Tarnekep handed him and pressed it against the vein in his arm. He felt the usual brief stinging sensation, and forced himself to breathe slowly and evenly while the medication did its work.
When he stood up again his head was clear and the bulkheads no longer wavered when he looked at them. The cabin air was chilly against his flesh, however, and he realized belatedly that all his clothes were lying in a crumpled heap next to the bunk. He thought about putting back on the garments that Tarnekep had removed, but decided against the effort. Instead, he crossed over to the clothes locker and took out a green velvet Khesatan lounging robe lined in gold spidersilk—a bit overstated for his taste, but appropriate enough for the persona he cultivated these days.
“That was the first time I ever tried breathing Sonoxate,” he said, slipping his arms into the full sleeves. He wrapped the broad silk sash around his waist and tied it neatly. “Just how far under did it put me?”
“Far enough,” said Tarnekep. The pilot’s face, Jessan noted, was still pale, and his whole bearing was tense and edgy. “If I’d known about that six-zero-three-D thing I wouldn’t have wasted so much time.”
“Don’t worry; the stuff in that ampule wouldn’t have worked until I was conscious anyway.” Jessan selected a needler and a wide-beam stunner from the collection of small arms in the locker, and slid them into the pockets of his robe. “Gentlesir Olver is probably awake himself by now. Give me a moment to get the Professor’s little box of horrors out of storage, and we can soothe our nerves by asking him a few questions.”
Tarnekep Portree palmed the lockplate beside the cabin door and the panel slid open. Out in the common room, Jessan sniffed at the air but failed to detect any trace of the gas that had felled both him and Lars Olver.
“You won’t smell it,” Tarnekep assured him. “The stuff is practically odorless. Anyway, I flushed the ship to atmosphere right after I scraped you up off the deckplates and took care of your friend.”
The captain waved one hand at the unconscious form of Lars Olver, strapped securely into an acceleration couch in the common room. The buckles had been pulled well out of Olver’s reach, effectively imprisoning him.
“He’s no friend of mine,” said Jessan. “I never saw him before tonight. Just as well, I suppose. It makes asking the questions a bit easier.”
He ducked briefly into the unused crew cabin that served these days as extra storage, and came out again with the black medikit from the Professor’s asteroid base.
“All right,” he said to Tarnekep. “Let’s do it. Will you want me to bring him round, or shall we wait until he comes to on his own?”
“We don’t need to wait.” Tarnekep strode over to the couch and slapped the bound man twice across the face, first with the palm and then with the back of his open hand. “He’s awake.”
The captain moved away from the couch to a chair beside the common-room table. He turned the chair around and sat with his long legs straddling its seat and its back coming up to the frothy lace ruffles on the front of his shirt. Light from overhead glittered off the topaz stickpin in his spidersilk cravat. He pulled his blaster and leveled it at the prisoner.
“Okay, Doc,” Tarnekep said. “If he dies like the last one, he’s all yours. Until then, he’s mine.”
The man’s eyes were still closed, but Jessan thought he saw a faint shiver of reaction on the otherwise immobile face. Tarnekep pressed on, regardless.
“There’s no point in shamming, Olver. I know you can hear me. So make it easy on yourself and everybody else and tell me who you thought you were meeting today.”
Olver’s eyes remained shut, but after a long pause he spoke. “I met someone I was told to meet.”
“You aren’t helping yourself any by dodging the question,” Tarnekep said. “Here’s a different one—who are you?”
“I’m Lars Olver,” the man replied stubbornly. “I’m a shipping agent, and I was trying to meet a man about a cargo.”
“You’re lying,” the captain said. “You screwed this one up big time. Your name is Ignaceu LeSoit, you’re a killer for hire from the other side of the Net, and you just tried to kill me.”
The bound man’s eyes snapped open. For a long moment he and the captain looked at each other, and Jessan saw his expression change: from stoic despair to a shocked and even more hopeless recognition.
Jessan felt a stirring of unease. He already knows Captain Portree. And the captain knows him.
But Olver—or LeSoit. as it seemed his name was—remained silent. Tarnekep hefted his blaster meaningfully. “Come on, LeSoit. Have you forgotten that much about what happened the last time?”
LeSoit shook his head.
“You told me back on Mandeyn that you owed me one,” Tarnekep said. “Remember that, Ignac’?”
“And you said we were even.” LeSoit’s. voice was hoarse and he was sweating. “New deal, new hand.”
Tarnekep favored the bound man with a thin smile. “Right—and you lost. Pay up.”
“That’s no good. You’re the one with the blaster, and I’m fresh out of chips.”
The captain regarded LeSoit with a speculative expression. “Maybe you’d be interested in a different game, and a chance to win some of those markers back.”
“Captain,” said Jessan uneasily. “Are you seriously considering—”
Tarnekep turned a dangerously bright blue eye in his direction. “I did something of the sort at least once before, remember? And with a damn sight less to go on.”
“I recall the occasion,” Jessan said. “I believe the alternative I offered was shooting me out of hand. That might be the safer course this time.”
“I thought about shooting him,” said Tarnekep, “back while I was waiting to see if you’d wake up. But right now I’m disposed to be friendly.”
LeSoit moved his head slightly to a position where he could take in Jessan and Tarnekep together. “These days I made a point of not working for my friends,” he said. “It makes professional decisions a lot simpler.”
“Ah,” said Tarnekep. The answer appeared to please
the captain, Jessan wasn’t sure why. “Tell me one thing, Ignac’: did you know who you were setting up to get hit?”
LeSoit shook his head. “The captain of the Pride of Mandeyn, is all. Nobody gave me a name, and I didn’t ask.”
“Good enough,” said Tarnekep. He slid his blaster into its holster and stood up. “Okay, Doc, you can let him loose.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Jessan shrugged. “Your call, Captain. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He went over to the couch and undid the buckles, leaving their former prisoner to remove the webbing himself. LeSoit pushed himself awkwardly to an upright position—the captain had not been gentle with the restraints—and sat rubbing the life back into his arms.
“Well?” said Tarnekep. “Are you in on the game?”
LeSoit nodded. “With pleasure—Captain Rosselin-Metadi.”
Space Force Headquarters at Galcen Prime was a good six hours by aircar from the Retreat, in the high mountains to the far north and west of the spaceport city. The nearest inhabited area of any size, the town of Treslin, didn’t have landing facilities for anything larger than small atmospheric craft. Neither did the Retreat itself, which let out the chance of cutting travel time by taking a suborbital shuttle.
Nevertheless, neither Ochemet nor Gremyl considered telling their unpleasant news to Master Errec Ransome any other way than face-to-face. From a security viewpoint, they didn’t really have a choice. As long as they intended to keep the General’s disappearance secret, no other means of transmission could be considered safe. “I know four or five ways to get around a secure line,” Gremyl said, “and I’m not an expert.”
Nor could they call Master Ransome to Galcen Prime for an emergency conference. Metadi would have done it, and no question, but Ochemet and Gremyl knew their limitations. The Master of the Adepts’ Guild might have obeyed Jos Metadi’s summons for old times’ sake, but the Space Force had no authority over him.
They flew into the sunset out of Prime, and soon overtook the night. For a while they talked of the situation back at Headquarters, and what the forensic reports might reveal about Quetaya’s death, but eventually they exhausted all the possibilities for conversation and sat in silence. Gremyl handled the controls of the aircraft—the need for secrecy had kept them from bringing along a third man as pilot—while Ochemet slept briefly.
The lights of towns and cities underneath them thinned out as they drew closer to the mountains. Ochemet stretched his arms and legs as far as the safety webbing would allow, then reached over to pick up the comm link.
“We’ll be passing over Treslin in a few minutes,” he said. “Time to let the Retreat know we’re coming.” He keyed on the link. “Retreat Field, Retreat Field. This is tail-number two six zero one Delta, request landing instructions, over.”
“This is Retreat Field,” came the prompt reply. “You are cleared for landing on strip one-seven. Wind south five, visibility three in rain. How copy, over.”
“This is two six zero one, roger, over.”
“Retreat Field, roger out.”
The link clicked off. “Well,” said Ochemet, after a pause. “They don’t have much to say, do they?”
“In more ways than one,” Gremyl said. “I’m not getting anything on the landing guidance frequencies.”
“I don’t think there are any up here,” Ochemet said. “Sorry about that, but Retreat Field is one of the oldest on Galcen. Goes back to before they started building aircars with nullgrav-assist—they can handle anything that flies in atmosphere, not just the new stuff.”
“Haven’t they ever heard of upgrading their systems?”
“You don’t know how the Guild thinks,” Ochemet said. “They keep to themselves, and they don’t trust outsiders very much. Old history at work, I guess; they’ve been respected for a long time here on Galcen, but the Guildhouses on the outplanets and some of the Middle Worlds were having local troubles right up to the start of the Magewar.”
Gremyl sighed. “So they don’t believe in making it easy on visitors. Oh, well—if this were a field action somewhere in the boonies, we wouldn’t even have visual beacons to go by. I can handle it.”
A few minutes later the green and white flashing beacon of Retreat Field appeared. Gremyl put them down near the squat concrete control building, landing in the short space needed by a nullgrav-assisted aircar. The unused strip stretched far out beyond them, one of several on different compass bearings. Ochemet supposed that the multiple strips were a relic from truly ancient days, when even the direction of the wind made a difference to the aircraft.
Something else odd about those strips, he realized after a few seconds. Nobody using them is going to pass over the Retreat, whether they’re landing or taking off.
Out of curiosity, he called up the Treslin area on the aircar’s charts, and saw without real surprise that the entire area of the Retreat was marked as restricted airspace. He nodded to himself and wondered how long the restriction had been in place. Somebody in the Galcenian government, or maybe somebody even higher, must have owed the Adepts’ Guild a really big one, in order to do a favor like that.
Ochemet and Gremyl stepped out of the aircar into a cold, drizzling rain. They hurried over to the control building. The main door slid aside to let them into Retreat Field Operations—a large room filled with an impressive array of sensor and communications equipment, staffed by one Adept sitting at a desk next to a galley-sized pot of cha’a.
The Adept was a youngish man in a plain black coverall, with eyes that looked older than the rest of his face. A long staff of polished wood leaned against the wall beside his desk. If the rank insignia on Ochemet’s uniform startled or impressed him, he didn’t show it, but his greeting was cordial enough.
“Welcome to Retreat Field, General—”
“Ochemet. I’m the CO at Prime Base, and this is Captain Gremyl, my chief of security.”
The Adept inclined his head politely. “General Ochemet, Captain Gremyl. Is there some way I can be of service?”
“Not you, precisely,” said Ochemet. “Is there a shuttle between here and the Retreat?”
The Adept looked amused. “Most of the time, we walk.”
“How far away is it?” Gremyl asked.
“About three hours in good weather.”
“Right now it’s raining,” Ochemet pointed out. “And we need to speak with Master Ransome on an urgent matter.”
The Adept was serious again. “In person?”
Ochemet nodded. “Yes.”
“Then wait here with me until my relief shows up, and we can ride back together. It’ll be about an hour.”
“Any other choices?”
The Adept shook his head. “Not really.”
“We’ll wait,” said Ochemet. “It’s been six hours already, another hour won’t hurt.”
“With pleasure—Captain Rosselin-Metadi.”
Beka froze.
Damn you, Ignac’. Do you want to die?
LeSoit hadn’t moved or looked away. He sat watching her intently, and she forced herself to relax.
You don’t have to kill him yet. Find out what he’s doing here first.
She didn’t look at Jessan. She didn’t need to; she could feel the tension in him from where she sat. One word, one signal from her, and Ignaceu LeSoit would be in no shape to betray her secret to anyone but the dead.
“Good guessing, Ignac’,” she said finally. “When did you figure it out?”
“Just a few minutes ago. While you were talking.” He paused. “I thought they’d killed you when the ’Hammer crashed outside Port Artat.”
Beka raised an eyebrow. “They?”
“The ones who wanted you dead.” Another pause. “I’m working for them these days.”
“Are you indeed?” Jessan’s voice was level and uninflected, a sure sign that the Khesatan was in a dangerous mood. “How interesting. Captain—”
“No,” she said flatly, without looking around. “If I want him dead I’ll kill him myself. But first I want to know what’s making him so eager to sell out his friends.”
LeSoit smiled faintly. “I thought I told you, Captain Rosselin-Metadi. I don’t work for friends anymore.”
“If you’re expecting money—”
“Better to kill him,” Jessan cut in before LeSoit could answer. “In the long run, it’s cheaper than paying blackmail.”
But LeSoit was already shaking his head. “I don’t need your money, Captain Rosselin-Metadi.”
“You know my first name,” she said. “Doc isn’t going to shoot you just for using it.”
“Beka, then. I thought you were dead, you understand.”
“So you told us.” Jessan again, with a knife-edged calm in his voice. “That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”
“Following a trail,” LeSoit said. “I didn’t want to know who sabotaged the ’Hammer—that’s what I thought had happened, when I heard the news about the crash—because all I’d find was people like me, doing the job somebody else hired them to do. I wanted to know who was paying.”
“Why?” she asked.
“I was going to kill him. Or her, if it came to that. I’m not particular.”
“I can see you aren’t,” said Jessan. LeSoit’s admission seemed to have mollified the Khesatan somewhat. “I can even sympathize with your position. The question is, why haven’t you done it yet?”
LeSoit shrugged. “There’s a lot more rungs in the ladder than I expected, and I need to be certain I’ve reached the top. I won’t get more than one shot, and I don’t intend to waste it.”
Brilliant plan, thought Beka. Absolutely brilliant. Are all men suicidal idiots, or just all the ones in my life?
“We’re not going to waste it,” she said aloud. “Or you either. You’re playing in my game now, and the stakes are higher than you know.”
Starpilot's Grave: Book Two of Mageworlds Page 12
