Bayta had rolled away from the middle of the bed in my absence, hunching up onto her side facing away from me. She didn’t move or speak as I climbed in under the blankets, but from her restless movements I could tell she was still awake. I laid my hand reassuringly on her shoulder for a moment, then slid back to my edge of the bed to give her as much privacy as I could.
One of the two bottles went under my pillow where it would be close at hand. The other went on the floor just under the edge of the bed where I could get to it if I had to roll out in a hurry. Settling myself comfortably on my side where I would be facing the door, I got a loose grip on the bottle under my pillow and closed my eyes.
Tomorrow promised to be a busy day. If whoever was behind all this wanted to start that day a little early, I was willing to oblige him.
FOURTEEN:
The morning work crews dribbled into the ready room as I sat on the far side of a nearby lounge pretending to read the latest Quadrail-delivered Intragala News. Promptly at six-two-thirds, they came out again in a group, forty-five of them, all properly vac-suited, and made their way out the airlock in groups of four. I waited another third of an hour to make sure there weren’t any stragglers, then tucked my reader into my side pocket and casually wandered over and slipped through the door.
Ten minutes later, attired in a vac suit only slightly too large for me, my faceplate darkened enough to hide my features, I followed them onto the ice.
I headed up the hills along the line of red pylons, listening to the Halkan chatter coming through the helmet speaker. All the discussion seemed to be about the two new toboggan tunnels, but as I flipped through the various frequencies I discovered three more clusters of conversation. Apparently, there were a lot of Halkas out on the surface today.
But wherever they were, they were keeping out of sight. Aside from a group of lodge guests heading toward the ski slopes, I saw no one until I came within view of the new tunnels. There, in the staging area between the openings, were a pair of workers, one handling a spurting drain hose, the other squatting by an open pump and fiddling with the equipment inside.
I started down the slope, making my stride and gait as much like a Halka’s as I could. From the number of voices and names I could pick out of the chatter, I estimated there were fifteen to twenty other workers at the site. That should be enough of a crowd for me to lose myself in. I could burn a peephole through the ice with the plasma torch on my tool belt, have a quick look, and be out again before anyone even started wondering. A quick wink-and-wag, easy as pie.
Maybe a little too easy.
I studied the two workers in the staging area as I continued down the slope, quiet alarm bells starting to chime in the back of my head. There was no reason to tie up a worker on water-dump duty—a couple of anchor staffs, and the hose could take care of itself. As for the lad at the pump, he seemed to be doing more staring and poking than actual repair work. He did, however, have an open toolbox sitting conveniently beside him, which could conceal any number of unpleasant surprises. And to top it off, they were facing opposite directions, giving themselves a panoramic view of all possible approaches.
They weren’t workers at all. They were sentries. Apparently, my attempts at sneakiness had been a waste of time.
My first impulse was to turn around and head straight back to the lodge. But doing a sudden about-face would clue them in that I was on to the charade.
Still, there was no point making it easy for them.
I reached the staging area; but instead of heading into the north tunnel, I turned to the south. If someone was expecting me to instantly damn myself by making a beeline for the Bellidos’ work area, he’d now have to wonder if I was genuinely involved or just an inquisitive but stupid tourist.
The south tunnel looked much the way it had the previous day except that now the lights were on. I worked my way down the walkway, mentally running through the Halkora phrases I would use to explain myself if and when someone demanded to know what I was doing.
And with my mind and attention preoccupied, I made it perhaps thirty meters into the tunnel before it dawned on me that something was wrong.
I stopped. Twenty or more Halkas, I’d estimated earlier from the comm chatter, all of them packed into two fairly compact work sites. And yet, I hadn’t seen a single person since leaving the staging area.
Yet the comm continued to crackle with orders and comments and casual conversation. Had the whole troop gathered over in the north tunnel? I took a few more steps, trying to sift through the rapid-fire Halkora blaring from my helmet speaker, and rounded a sharp turn in the tunnel.
I’d been wrong about the tunnel being empty. There were two vac-suited figures waiting silently for me around the curve, legs spread in low-gravity marksman’s stances, their guns held in double-handed grips.
Pointed at me.
I froze in midstep, keeping my hands open and visible. They’d darkened their faceplates even more than I had, and despite the bright light I couldn’t see even an outline of the faces inside. But guns had been my business, and these were definitely Belldic design.
I’d hoped to get in and out before the Bellidos made their move. Apparently, I was too late.
One of the Bellidos shifted to a one-handed grip on his gun, lifting the other hand vertically to his faceplate in the Belldic version of a finger to the lips. I nodded understanding, and he shifted the hand to point behind me. I half turned, saw nothing, and turned back. He pointed again, stepping toward me in emphasis, and this time I got it: We were going back outside. Turning, I headed up the slope.
We reached the surface, and my escort pointed past the two workers toward the other tunnel. I nodded and started across the staging area, noting peripherally that my escort was making no move to follow. The workers ignored me as I circled around them, and as I reached the north tunnel I looked back and saw the other Bellido turn and disappear back down his tunnel.
For a moment I wondered what would happen if I changed direction and instead headed back toward the lodge. But only for a moment. Taking a deep breath, I started down the tunnel.
Two more Bellidos were waiting just around the first curve, their transparent faceplates and quadruple shoulder holsters leaving no doubt of their identity this time. The one in the lead stepped up to me, flicking off my suit comm with one hand and pressing the small black disk of a short-range remora transceiver to the bottom of my faceplate with the other. “Can you hear me?” a voice called faintly from that direction.
“Yes,” I replied, feeling my lip twitch as I recognized the stripe pattern across his chipmunk face. It was my fake drunk from the Quadrail, the one whose buddies had stuffed me into the spice crate. “One of us seems to be the bad penny that keeps coming back.”
“Whose side are you on?” he asked.
“Mine, mostly,” I said. “Other than that, I’m not even sure what the sides are.”
“Not good enough,” he said, his voice firm. “You stand with us and the galaxy, or you stand with the Modhri.” His shoulder dipped; and suddenly the muzzle of one of his guns was pressed against my faceplate. “Choose now.”
My first impulse was to do a slipstep and take the gun away from him, or at least try to get it pointed in a different direction. But he had three more guns, he had a partner standing nearby with another four, and their low-gravity combat training was probably a lot more up-to-date than mine was. “You know whose side I’m on,” I said as soothingly as I could. “I’m working with the Spiders. They’re trying to stop the war before it gets started.”
He snorted, a high-pitched barking sound. “It is far too late for that.”