"And in the meantime, Your Highness?"
"Well, in about five or six days, we start assembling teams and training," Roger said. "And until then, I intend to drink some wine and sit in a hot tub with my girlfriend. I suggest you do the same. Well, except the girlfriend part. You can abstain from that."
"Thanks so very much, Your Highness," Pahner said.
"No problem," the prince replied. He held out a flask and cup. "Wine?"
Temu Jin looked at the message, then at the messenger.
"Do you know what they're going to do with it?" he asked.
"I don't even know what 'it' is, human," the Shin runner replied curtly. The runner appeared to be almost a different species from the Gastan. He was as tall as any Mardukan Jin had ever dealt with, and had weirdly long fingers and shortened horns. Combined with the four arms and widely spaced eyes, it made him look like a mucous-covered insect. "All I know is that there are four more of us waiting. And we are to take packages from you. We wait until the packages are prepared."
"Come on, then," Jin said, with a gesture.
The meeting was taking place at the back of the spaceport, as usual. Now Jin descended the slight slope from the edge and headed to the nearest Krath hamlet, a tiny burg called Tul by the locals. The majority of the few off-planet visitors stayed on the port reservation. The few who didn't usually exited by the main gates, and thence down the road to the Krath imperial city, called, with surprising imagination, "Krath." Very few humans, or any other visitors, for that matter, came to Tul.
On one level, that made it a bad place to hide purloined materials. The sight of a human face there was a dead giveaway that something was going down. On the other hand, the bribes were lower, and the local farmers and craftsmen reminded him of home. As long as he kept up the payments, they were unlikely to go squealing to the taxmen, who were their only contact with the central government.
And it was convenient for the purpose—which was to build up a cache against the day he needed it.
Originally, the caches had started as insurance against the possibility that Governor Mountmarch might decide he could dispense with the services of one Temu Jin. Jin was well aware that he was deep into the "knows too much; not close enough to the inner circle to be trusted" category. Life on the frontier was cheap, and the only law was the governor. If Mountmarch wanted him dead, it was a matter of a nod. Against that almost inevitable day, he'd started smuggling the odd weapon or ammo pack out of the port. And when he'd realized how easy it was, he'd upped his depredations to using whole pack teams of Mardukans to smuggle material out.
As far as anyone would be able to tell, it was just a regular black-market operation. He sold Imperial materials to the Mardukans, and in return he had a nice Mardukan servant and trade goods, which he used to purchase materials from docking spacers. In reality, the majority of materials weren't being sold, but stored in bunkers. Each time he sent stuff down, he also sent along payments to the mayor—either human goods, or Krath coin. And each time he pulled stuff out, he paid more. He had backup caches in the hills, including a full set of armor, for which he had the codes, and a heavy plasma gun. If he had to fight to get the rest, he could. But he'd never had any trouble with Tul. He thought of it as his little war-bank.
And now it was time to make a withdrawal.
They came into the village the back way, through the turom fields, stepping carefully around the round balls of horselike dung. Like much of the continent's architecture, the mayor's house was a squat construction of heavy basalt rocks. It was built more like a fortress than most, and its back door was constructed of half-meter thick planks that didn't respond well to a standard knock. Which was why Jin drew his bead pistol and pounded on the door with its handgrip, swinging the gun like a hammer.
After a few moments, the door swung open to reveal a wizened old Mardukan female. Jin had never been sure if she was the cook, or a mother-in-law, or what. It probably didn't matter, but it nagged at his sense of curiosity. She was always the one to answer the door, no matter if he was early or late.
She looked at him, looked at the Mardukans with him, made a motion to wait, then closed the door. After a few moments more, it was opened by the local Krath leader.
"Temu Jin, I see you," he said. "You bring Shin to my door?"
"I need to get a few things."
"Of course," the mayor said with a gesture of resignation. "I fear that the authorities are becoming too interested in this affair."
"I'll do my best not to let you get caught up in it," and Jin said. "I treasure your security as much as you treasure my gold."
"Perhaps," the mayor muttered, then beckoned for Jin to follow him and led the way through the darkened town.
The route took them to an abandoned basement which had been hollowed out and reinforced on one side. The hollow, in turn, had been packed with boxes, and Temu Jin started checking packing lists.
"Cataclysmite," he muttered, shaking his head. "What in hell does he want two hundred kilos of cataclysmite for?"
Despreaux waved the cup of wine away as Julian filed out of the door.
"Not for me, either."
"Don't make me drink it all alone," Roger said. "Besides, it's good for healing bones. It's got calcium in it."
"That's milk, you goof," Despreaux said. She chuckled, but then she sobered. "Roger, we have to talk."
"Uh, oh. What have I done now?"
"I think..." She stopped and shook her head. "I think we should stop seeing each other."
"Look, you're my bodyguard," Roger said. "I have to see you."
"You know what I mean."
"If it's the fraternization thing, we'll handle it," he said with a frown. He was beginning to realize that she was serious. "I mean, we've been... well... friends for this long. If it was going to go wrong, it would have before now."
"It's not that," she said, shaking her head. "Let's just leave it, okay? Say 'thanks,' and shake hands and be friends."
"You're joking," he spat. "Tell me you're joking! What ever happened to 'eternal love' and all that?"
"Some things... change. I don't think we're right."
"Nimashet, right up until we got to Mudh Hemh, you thought we were as right as— Well, I can't think of a metaphor. Very right. So what's changed?"
"Nothing," she said, turning away and getting out of the water.
"Is it one of the Marines?"
"No!" she said. "Please don't play twenty questions, all right?"
"No, not all right. I want to know what's changed."
"You did, Your Highness," she said, sitting back down on the edge of the water and wringing out her hair. "Before, you were prince Roger, Heir Tertiary to the Throne of Man. Now, you're either a wanted outlaw, or the next Emperor. And you're not willing to settle for wanted outlaw, are you?"
"No," Roger said balefully. "Are you?"
"I don't know," she sighed. "There's been so much death, I'm afraid it's never going to end. Not even get better."
"Hey, yo, Sergeant Despreaux," he smiled. "You're the one who carried me out of the battle in Voitan. Remember?"
"Roger, I haven't fired a shot in combat since... Sindi. Yeah, I think that's it. That little 'holding action' of yours before the main battle."
"What?"
"Remember when we were coming out of the temple in Kirsti? Who was the only person with ammo?"
"You were," Roger replied. "But... I thought you'd just been very conservative with your fire."