He sighed. "For what good it does," he said. "Everyone else has already fled."
"Fled from what?" Tera asked from behind me. The barkeep sighed again. "TheBalthee," he said in a tone that managed to be both angry and resigned at thesame time. "We received a report late this afternoon that they were on theirwayfor another spraymarker raid."
"A what?" Tera asked.
"It is an example of Balthee guilt-by-association law," Chort spoke up as Iled them to a table near the door and away from the other patrons. I took thechair that put my back to the wall, where I could watch the entrance and also keepthe rest of the customers at least within peripheral vision. Nicabar chose thechair to my left, which would put the pirates in his direct line of sight, whileTera took the seat to my right, where she couldn't see much of anything except thedoor and me. If the two of them had been deliberately planning to corral me, they couldn't have done a better job of it. "Consorting with known criminalsis itself a crime under Balthee law," Chort continued, easing himself delicatelyinto the remaining chair.
"You are very knowledgeable," the barkeep complimented him. "Knowing MorshPon's reputation—which is wholly unjustified, I assure you—they periodically comeand spray a molecularly bonded dye over all ships on our landing pads. Any such marked ship that enters a Balthee-run spaceport is immediately impounded andsearched and its crew held for questioning."
"I can see why your clientele wouldn't want that," I agreed, nodding towardthe pirate gang at their tables. "They not get the message?"
"Their captain tells me they do not fear the Balthee," he said, lowering hisvoice as he glanced their direction. "However, another crew member confidedthat they plan to have all their hull plates replaced soon anyway."
He gestured to the other two occupied tables. "As to the females, they areemployees of one of the guesthouses, Shick Place. And, when the word came, thegentlebeings in back were already too inebriated to try to leave."
He straightened up and cocked his head at me. "And what is your story?"
I frowned up at him. "What do you mean?"
"You are here," he said, waving a hand at us. "Yet there is word of animpendingraid."
"Which we obviously didn't know about, did we?" I said.
"Were no other ships leaving as you arrived?" the barkeep countered. "Somemust still have been on their way out. Did no one transmit a warning to you?"
"Yes, there were other ships leaving," I said, putting some impatience into myvoice even as a quiet warning bell went off in my ear. I'd never been on MorshPon before; but the criminal hangouts I had had occasion to visit had not beenknown for overly inquisitive waiters. This kind of interrogation was way outof character, even given that the barkeep was probably bored out of his skull.
"And no, none of them bothered to give us a warning. Why do you think this is anyof your business?"
"Don't mind him," a soprano voice came from my side.
I turned. One of the two women at the far table had gotten to her feet and wascoming toward us. She was medium height and slender, and her step was just abit unsteady. I wondered briefly if she could be Uncle Arthur's informationcourier, but the skintight outfit she was wearing couldn't have concealed a spare pokerchip. At least, I thought incongruously, that also meant we didn't have toworryabout her being an assassin. "I'm sorry?" I said.
"I said don't mind him," she repeated, flipping her hand toward the Ulkomaalin the more or less universal gesture of contemptuous dismissal, the dim roomlightglinting momentarily off the large gaudy rings she was wearing. Now that shewas facing us, I could see she was wearing the display scarf of a bar girl knottedaround her neck, the particular tartan pattern advertising what services sheoffered and the charge for them. I wondered distantly whether Tera would knowabout such things; I rather hoped she didn't. "Nurptric the Nosy, they callhim," the woman continued. "Mind if I sit down?"
"Business slow?" Tera asked, her voice frosty. Apparently, she knew all aboutthe scarf.
The woman gave her a smile that was a good eighty percent smirk. "Yours too?" she asked sweetly, snagging a chair from the next table and hauling it over.
With a hip she deftly shoved Tera over, to Tera's obvious consternation, and planted her chair squarely between the two of us. "I'm just being sociable, youbeing strangers here and all," she added, dropping into the seat and swivelingto put her face to me and her back to Tera. "Any law against that?"
"Not too many laws against anything here," Tera countered pointedly.
"Obviously."
"And like you say, business is slow," the woman added, wiggling her hips andshoulders to carve a bit more room for herself. "I'm sure not going to get anydecent conversation out of anyone else in here. My name's Jennifer. How aboutbuying me a drink?"
"How about you going somewhere else?" Tera said, starting to sound angry.
"This is a private conversation."
"Noisy, isn't she?" Jennifer commented, an amused smile playing around herlips.
"Unfriendly, too. You come here often?"
Tera half rose to her feet, sank reluctantly back into her seat as Chort put agentle hand on her arm. "I'm afraid we're pretty much broke, Jennifer," I saiddiplomatically. "We've got barely enough money for the fuel we need. Nothingleft over for incidentals."
She eyed me speculatively. "Gee, that's too bad," she said, looking over atthe Ulkomaal still hovering expectantly behind Chort. "Give me a small vodkaline, Nurp."
His eyebrow crest turned a brief magenta, but he nevertheless nodded. "Ofcourse. And for the rest of you?"
"Have you kompri, by any chance?" Chort asked.
"No, nothing like that," Nurptric said. "We have no Craean drinks."
"We might have some back at Shick Place," Jennifer volunteered. "We cater toall sorts of vices there," she added, giving Chort a sly smile. "It's not far awayif you want to go see."
Chort looked at me uncertainly. "If we have the time—?"
"No," Nicabar said flatly, his tone leaving no room for argument. "As soon asthe ship's fueled, we're out of here."
"He's right," I seconded. I didn't especially like the thought of spending anymore time out in the gloom than I had to, and I certainly wasn't going to letany of the group go wandering off on their own. "We'll take three caff colasand a distilled water," I added to the barkeep.
His eyebrow crest went a little mottled, either a sign of resignation orpossibly contempt for such miserliness. "Yes, patronae," he said and turnedback to his bar, muttering under his breath as he went.
"Three colas and a water, huh?" Jennifer said, shaking her head. "You reallyare the big spenders."
"As he said, we're short on cash," Tera said firmly. "So you might as wellstopwasting your time."
Jennifer shrugged. "Fine. You know, though, there's an easy way to make somefast money."
She leaned in toward the middle of the table, beckoning us inconspiratorially.
"There's a ship out there somewhere—no one knows where," she said, droppingher voice to a murmur. "You find it, and it's worth a hundred thousand commarks to you. Cash money."
A matched set of Kalixiri ferrets with cold feet began running up and down myback. "Really," I said, trying to keep my voice neutral. "How come it's worththat much? And who to?"
"I don't know why they want it," she said, half turning and snagging a foldedpiece of paper from the next table over that had apparently been left behindduring the earlier mass exodus. "But it's all right here," she said, handingit to me.
I unfolded it. To my complete lack of surprise, it was the same flyer JamesFulbright had waved in my face back on Dorscind's World.
With two unpleasant differences. First, as Jennifer had said, the reward hadbeen jumped from the original five thousand to a hundred thousand. And second, instead of my old Mercantile Authority photo, there was a much more up-to-datesketch. An extremely good sketch.