"I will, I assure you."
"Luck to your trading, then, Inspector. I will have you notified thirty minutes before shuttle departure."
"Thank you, Sir," Ben Belkassem replied, and made his way to the tiny, human-configured cabin hidden in Aharjhka's bowels, moving quickly but carefully against the ship's internal gravity field.
His shoulders straightened gratefully as he crossed the divider into his quarters' one-G field. It was a vast relief to feel his weight drop back where it ought to be, and an even vaster one to dump his helmet and scratch his nose at last. He sighed in relief, then knelt to drag a small trunk from under his bunk and began checking its varied and lethal contents with practiced ease while his mind replayed his conversation with the captain.
He certainly understood the Quarn's concern, but the captain didn't realize how lucky Ben Belkassem had been. Aharjhka's presence at Dewent and scheduled layover at Wyvern had been like filling an inside straight, and the inspector intended to ride the advantage for all it was worth. Very few people knew how closely the Hegemony Judicars and Imperial Ministry of Justice cooperated, and even fewer knew about the private arrangement under which enforcement agents of each imperium traveled freely (and clandestinely) on the other's ships. Which meant no one would be expecting any human-even an O Branch inspector-to debark from Aharjhka. Aharjhka wasn't listed as a multi-species transport, and only a convinced misanthrope or an intelligent and infinitely resourceful agent would book passage on a vessel whose environment would make him a virtual prisoner in his cabin for the entire voyage.
Of course, Ferhat Ben Belkassem was an intelligent and infinitely resourceful agent-he knew he was, for it said so in his Justice Ministry dossier-but even so, he'd almost blown his own cover when he recognized Alicia DeVries on Dewent. It had cost Justice's Intelligence and Operations Branches seven months and three lives to establish that one of Edward Jacoby's (many) partners had links to the pirates' Wyvern-based fence, and they still hadn't figured out which of them it was. Yet DeVries had homed in on Fuchien as if she had a map, and she'd built herself a far better cover than O Branch could have provided.
Ben Belkassem had personally double-checked the documentation on Star Runner, her captain, and her crew, and he'd never seen such an exquisitely detailed (and utterly fictitious) legend. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised, given the way DeVries had escaped hospital security on Soissons, penetrated Jefferson Field, and stolen one of the Imperial Fleet's prized alpha-synths. If she could make that look easy, why not this?
Because she was a drop commando, not a trained operative-that was why. How had she come by such perfectly forged papers? Where had she recruited her crew? For that matter, how did she cram them all aboard what had to be the stolen alpha-synth? It couldn't be anything else, whatever it looked like, but how in the name of all that was holy did she slide blithely through customs at a world like MaGuire? Ben Belkassem had never personally crossed swords with Jungian customs, but he knew their reputation. He couldn't conceive of any way they could have inspected "Star Runner" without at least noticing that the "freighter" was armed to the proverbial teeth!
It seemed, he thought dryly, checking the charge indicator on a disrupter, that the good captain had lost none of her penchant for doing the impossible. And, as he'd once told Colonel McIlheny, he hadn't amassed his record by looking serendipity in the mouth. Whatever she was up to and however she was bringing it off, she'd not only managed to find the link he'd sought but done so in a way which actually got her inside the pipeline. Under those circumstances, he was perfectly content to throw his own weeks of work out the airlock and follow along in her wake.
And, he told himself as he buckled his gun belt and slid the disrupter into its holster, even a drop commando could use a bit of backup, whatever her unlikely abilities … and whether she knew she had it or not.
Alicia retina-printed the last document and watched Oscar Quintana's secretary carry the paperwork from the palatial office. The merchant pushed his chair back and rose, turning to the well-stocked bar opposite his desk.
"A rapid and satisfactory transaction, Captain Mainwaring. Now that it's out of the way, name your poison."
"I'm not too particular, as long as it pours," Alicia replied, glancing casually about the office. I don't see any obvious pickups, she thought at Tisiphone. How about you?
There are none. Quintana does not care to be spied upon in his own lair-that much I have obtained from him already.
Think we've got enough time?
I know not, but sufficient or no, this may be the only time we have.
Then let's go for it, Alicia said.
She rose from her own chair and walked across to Quintana. He glanced up from the clear, green liqueur he was pouring into tiny glasses, then capped the bottle and smiled.
"I trust you'll enjoy this, Captain. It's a local product, from one of my own distilleries, and-"
His voice chopped off as Alicia touched his hand. He froze, mouth open, eyes blank, and Alicia blinked in momentary disorientation of her own as the flood of data poured into her brain. Their earlier handshake had been sufficient to confirm their quarry but too brief for detailed examination of Quintana's knowledge. They'd dared not probe this way then, lest one of his bodyguards notice his glaze-eyed stillness and react precipitously.
It was still a risk, but Alicia was too caught up in the knowledge flow to worry about someone's opening the door and finding them like this. If it happened, it happened, and in the meantime … .
Images and memories flared as Tisiphone plucked them from Quintana. Meetings with someone named Alexsov. Credit balances that soared magically as loot from pillaged worlds flowed through his hands. Contact times and purchase orders. Customers and distributors on other Rogue Worlds and even on imperial planets. All of them flashed through her, each of them stored indelibly for later attention, and again and again she saw the mysterious Alexsov. Alexsov and a man called d'Amcourt, who listed and coordinated the pirates' purchases, and a woman called Shu, who frightened the powerful merchant noble, however he might deny it to himself. Yet both of those others deferred to Alexsov without question. There was no doubt in Quintana's mind-or in Alicia's-that Alexsov was one of the pirates' senior officers, and she wanted to scream in frustration at how little Quintana knew of him.
But at least she now knew what he looked like, and …
Her green eyes brightened as the last, elusive details clicked. Alexsov due to return here soon … and Quintana's own constant need for dependable carriers.
Her hungry smile echoed the Fury's hunting snarl, and she felt Tisiphone reach even deeper, no longer taking thoughts but implanting them. A few more brief seconds sufficed, and then Quintana's eyes snapped back into focus and his voice continued, smooth and unhurried, unaware of any break.
"-I highly recommend it."
He handed her one of the glasses, and she sipped, then smiled in unfeigned enjoyment. It was sweet yet sharp, almost astringent, and it flowed down her throat like rich, liquid fire.
"I see why you think highly of it," she said. He nodded and waved at the chairs around a coffee table of rich native woods. She sank into one of them, and he sat opposite her, peering pensively down into his glass.
"Lewis said you have a charter on Cathcart, Captain Mainwaring?"
"Yes, I do," Alicia confirmed, and he frowned.
"That's a pity. I might have a profitable commission for you here, if you could see your way to accepting it."