Somebody was willing to pay high for a Terran, or for Tom specifically. Or maybe they wanted both of us, but they were too banged-up to take us both.
The apartment’s lineage had had the medical platform standing by, which actually showed goodwill. She really couldn’t afford to unload on them.
“But it would feel so good to go completely ripshit,” she said to herself through gritted teeth, in English.
“Take this to my consulate and you will receive reasonable recompense,” she went on, when the throbbing in her temples had subsided, typing quickly on her personal computer and loading it onto the data stick.
She hadn’t known Tom Beckworth long enough to care about him really deeply.
Not as much as I do about Satemcan, if we’re being completely honest, she thought.
But he was a Terran where those were damned few, and a fellow American where they were even thinner on the ground, and more important, looking after him while he was still green here was her job.
“Please note that if there is any repetition, my associates at the consulate will invoke an arbitration council and propose a heavy fine for implicit violation of the mutual-protection provisions of my lease.”
Zhay looked as if he were going to protest—it was an arguable point, since that clause really only applied to random street crime and burglary. Instead he simply gestured acknowledgment again and accepted the little plastic rectangle.
She didn’t bother to threaten him with the consulate’s influence with the local government. Robert Holmegard was a good man, but she’d learned right down in her gut what the Alliance consul still had trouble accepting over there in the palace district: government just didn’t matter nearly as much here as it did back on Earth, where variations on social democracy were pretty well universal outside the EastBloc.
And I am better informed about this side of Martian life than a diplomat. Much, much better.
“I will be out for a considerable period,” Sally concluded. “I need to find a Coercive of my own. Please leave on the porch light; I’ll be back after midnight.”
It didn’t rhyme in the monosyllabic tonalities of Demotic, but the puzzled frown was worth it. They really didn’t get folk rock here.
A Martian staggered out of the Blue-Tinted Time Considered as a Regressing Series, cheap inert fabric mask dangling and a smile—a slack grin, by local standards—on his face. He hummed a tune, then called out:
“Eu … Eu … euphoriaaa! Is there anyone within heeeearringggg intent on parareproductive coitus?”
Sally stiff-armed him as he stumbled toward her. The lightly built Martian gave an ooof and bounced back into the wall, still giggling.
“Three inhabited planets in this fucked-up zoo of a solar system, and you can’t get away from irritating drunks on any of them.”
He sank against the wall and slid down it, tittering, then started to hum the same tune as he sat splay-legged. Several adolescents eyed him, waiting to see if it was safe to lift his possessions, but blinking and backing a little when she glared at them.
It was that sort of neighborhood. She pushed through the doors. Teyudza-Zhalt was usually to be found here when she wasn’t working a contract. It was a canal-side dive where the crews of the long-distance canal boats and the landships that sailed the desert plains and caravan traders down from the highlands hung out … and where the little sign with the glyphs reading Professional Practitioner of Coercive Violence on her table wasn’t at all out of place.
Silence fell as Sally entered the inner door, and heads moved to consider her.
“Vas-Terranan,” someone murmured—which was insulting, but at least subtly so.
There was a slight clatter as weapons were laid back on tables or holstered. The light had an unpleasant greenish cast; someone was underfeeding the glow-globes. The murals on the walls looked dusty and faded, outlining a big circular room on the ground floor of a tower more than half-abandoned. The adamantine stone of the floor was worn deep enough to show ruts in places, and it was set with circular tables cut in slabs from the perfectly circular trunks of tkem timber. They were nicked and battered, which took some doing with a wood that contained natural silica monofilaments.
The air was dry and cool, of course, but it somehow smelled of ancient ghosts and lost hopes and all the labyrinthine history of Zho’da, the Real World.
Teyud sat with a tiny incense-burning brazier empty and swept clean beside her, but leaving a faint musky fragrance in the air when you got close. She was playing atanj, left hand against right, and occasionally taking a sip from a globe of essence as she considered the moves of her pieces or threw the dice.
Beside the folding game-set her table held a bowl of sweet dipping sauce and a platter of black-streaked crimson flowers. She crunched one, swallowed, sipped, and inclined her head in Sally’s direction.
“I express amiable greetings, Sally Yamashita,” she said, in a voice that had an undertone like soft trumpets. “This match will be completed shortly.”
The Coercive was on the tallish side of average height, around seven feet, but the color of her huge eyes was distinctly odd, a lambent amber-gold. Her robe was of a reddish khaki, excellent blending colors nearly anywhere on the planet, but the hood was thrown back to show hair caught back in a fine metallic net. Hair and metal both had a sheen like polished bronze. She was slender, but not with the impression of birdlike frailty common among Martians. Unless the bird was a golden eagle, the type Mongols had used to hunt wolves with back in the old days.
Thoughtful Grace, the emperors of the Crimson Dynasty had called the tembst-modified warrior caste that had enforced their will and kept their peace. They were rare now that the Tollamunes controlled nothing except the old capital of Dvor-il-Adazar and its environs, but it wasn’t only Martian manners that ensured a ring of empty tables around Teyud.
Sally didn’t intrude on the game; they took their atanj seriously here. The Coercive threw the dice one more time, moved a Transport piece to the square of the left-side Despot, nodded very slightly, and began to pack the set away. When the pieces were in their holders she folded it shut and tucked it into a pocket in the sleeve of her robe.
“I profess amiable greetings in return, Teyudza-Zhalt,” Sally said.
She took one of the flowers and dipped it in the sauce. Amiable greetings included an invitation to share. The texture was slightly chewy and the flavor sort of like frangipani-scented sweet-and-sour pork; her stomach growled.
Murder and sudden death, but you still get hungry if you don’t eat … and I literally threw away dinner.
“Contractual discussion?” she went on to the Martian.
“You have recently been engaged in lethal or near-lethal conflict,” Teyud said thoughtfully. “You were struck by an anesthetic dart there—” She tapped the back of her neck. “You are not accompanied by the … unconventional canid. I request details; then we may discuss contract terms in accordance with degrees of uncertainty, calculable risk, and difficulty.”
They did, and in a marked concession to Terran custom, the mercenary shook hands to seal the deal; hers was firm and dry and extremely strong. It wasn’t the first time she’d worked for Sally or other members of the Alliance mission here.
“This will be an interesting task,” she said.
“I need to get my colleague back,” Sally said grimly.
“That is the point of interest,” Teyud said, finishing her globe of essence. “That he was removed indicates that immediate lethality was not the object of the attackers. They were—metaphorical mode—operating as if intent on armed robbery, even though they stole nothing else. They wished to steal a vas-Terranan. Surely even the most eccentric of collectors would not do that simply to have one on hand? I am pleasantly at a loss for an explanation.”