“That may be a record,” said Scorpio, smiling at her. “Three lies in a four-word sentence.”
She did not return his smile, but she took no offense, and indeed didn’t react at all.
“So what does a godstone do?” continued Scorpio.
She stared at him and did not answer.
“You said it was worth more than diamonds. Forgive my ignorance, but what is worth more than diamonds?”
Silence.
“How long have you been looking for it?”
No answer.
“A year? Three years?” A pause. “Ten thousand years?”
No reaction, and no answer.
“Sooner or later, we really have to have a little talk,” said Scorpio. “A two-sided talk. I’m sure you think my partner and I are expendable, just as I know you think Quintaro is. Leaving aside whether Merlin and I can take care of ourselves, if there is a godstone, whatever the hell that means, is Venus expendable?”
“Venus is my home,” she said in cold, flat, emotionless tones.
“So you can answer when you want to.”
She stared at him and offered no reply.
“What makes you want to?” he asked. “For example, how about an identical blue woman named Sapphire who is leading an expedition that’s looking for something called—you’ll never believe this—a godstone? You think that might be an interesting topic of conversation?”
“Try not to be as big a fool as Quintaro.”
“You sure know how to hurt a guy,” said Scorpio.
“Yes, I do,” replied Sapphire. “You would do well to remember that.”
“It’s never far from my mind,” he assured her. “One last question.”
“Good.”
“For this conversation,” he qualified. He stared at her. “Did you pick us, or did Quintaro?” He held up a hand. “Before you say it was him, I know who approached us and made the offer. But was it his idea or yours?”
“He has no ideas,” said Sapphire.
“All right,” said Scorpio. “Then let me ask you: why us?”
“He told you why. You are said to be the most lethal man on the planet, and even I do not know who or what will be guarding the godstone.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “Okay,” he said at last. “We’ll talk again later.”
She neither confirmed nor contradicted him but merely stared at him. Or through him, he decided.
He climbed out of the vehicle, walked around for a few moments to get a little life back into his legs, then joined Merlin, who was staring at some large golden fish in a stream.
“You’re hungry after everything—or everyone—that you ate last night?” he asked with a smile.
No, I just like their colors, and the patterns they make when the light hits them through the water.
Our blue-skinned passenger thinks we’re going to run into some trouble when we finally reach the godstone.
I know. I see the conversation in your mind.
What do you think? asked Scorpio. We’re just pawns in whatever game she’s playing. We could steal the vehicle right now, strand them here, and go back to McAnany’s tavern. Quintaro probably won’t last a day, but somehow I think it would only prove a minor inconvenience to her.
I think we don’t want to be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.
“Okay,” said Scorpio aloud. “It was just a suggestion. Let’s get back to the vehicle.”
He called to Quintaro, and a few moments later the vehicle was making its way along the muddy trail.
They came to the first fork they’d encountered in almost two days, and Sapphire directed Scorpio to keep to the left. He did so, and soon the road began winding downhill. By nightfall, they were running alongside a major river, perhaps two miles across. The rain returned with a vengeance, and they spent the night inside the vehicle, doing their best to ignore the thunder and the discomfort.
At dawn, they began again, but within a mile the trail had totally washed away, and Sapphire directed Scorpio to take the amphibious vehicle into the river, which paralleled the trail for quite a few miles, and simply keep to the water until the trail was passable again.
“I hate all this water!” complained Quintaro.
“Be glad you have it,” replied Scorpio, plunging the vehicle into the river as it morphed into a boat.
“Be glad of this?”
“Comes from the clouds,” said Scorpio. “No clouds, no rain—but also no clouds and this is a desert world too hot for anything to live on it.”
“They live on Mercury, don’t they?” said Quintaro irritably.
“Not on the sunward side, they don’t,” replied Scorpio. “They stick to the terminator zone and the dark side.”
“You’ve been there, I presume?” said Quintaro dubiously.
“A couple of times,” Scorpio confirmed. “Not my favorite place.”
“Scorpion!” said Sapphire suddenly. “Hard left!”
Scorpio instantly did as she ordered and saw a huge creature, about the size of a humpback whale, far more reptilian than fish or mammal, suddenly surface where they had been, pluck three low-flying avians out of the sky in its gaping jaws, then vanish beneath the water again.
“I’ve seen stuff like that in the ocean!” remarked Quintaro. “But inland, in a river?”
“This isn’t like Earth,” explained Scorpio. “It’s all freshwater, and every creature that lives in the one can swim in the other.”
“God, I hate this world!” snapped Quintaro.
“Then what are you doing here?”
Quintaro made a face. “Looking for action. I’d been hearing about baxitla—that’s the Venusian card game—for years, so I thought I might as well give it a try.” A smug smile. “Did okay, too. You cost me less than one night’s winnings. And I met her”—he jerked a thumb in Sapphire’s direction—“and once we get our hands on the godstone, I plan to open my own casino in Marsport.”
Just what Marsport needs, thought Scorpio. An eighty-fourth casino—or is it the eighty-fifth?
It’s all academic, answered Merlin. However this ends up, you don’t think he’s going make any money, do you?
Scorpio gave the creature five minutes to get sufficiently downstream, then guided the VZ4 back to the center of the river.
They proceeded for another seven miles, then he decided that the trail was safe enough to handle the vehicle, so he ordered the wheels to emerge, withdrew the rudder into the interior, and was soon traversing the jungle road once more.
“How’s this thing fixed for fuel?” asked Quintaro. “I haven’t noticed you refreshing the pile or whatever the hell it runs on since we started.”
“It’s got a series of atomic batteries,” answered Scorpio. “We started with a dozen, and we’ve drained two of them and are on our third.” He paused, then added with a smile, “It’s your vehicle. I figure you’d have asked the salesman.”
“Took it right out of the showroom,” answered Quintaro smoothly. Then: “Will we have enough to get back?”
“Depends on where we’re going,” said Scorpio. “Ask your ladyfriend.”
Which ended the conversation.
The rain increased as night fell, the trees weren’t clustered enough or carrying enough foliage to provide sufficient shelter, and they slept in the vehicle once more. Merlin was gone when Scorpio awoke, but that wasn’t unusual. The Venusian was out hunting for a meal, and he’d be back when he’d killed and eaten it.
“Does it ever cool off?” muttered Quintaro as he climbed out of the vehicle and went off toward a cluster of trees.
“Sure,” said Scorpio. “As soon as the rain stops.”