Crossways (57 page)

“What's that got to do with it?”

“It means there's a good chance we can train you to fly a jumpship.”

“And what if we don't make the grade,” Esterhazy asked.

“Crossways still has regular ships. You won't be out of work.” She took a long pull of her cinnabeer, then put the glass down carefully on the table. “Heard there was a freelancer here called Lowenbrun. Jake Lowenbrun. Anyone know him?”

Esterhazy's head jerked up in surprise. The Magenas looked down at the table and said nothing. She knew she'd asked the wrong question.

“Gotta find a washroom.” Alia Kazan stood up.

Cara recognized a signal when she saw it.

“Where are they?”

“Out this way, I'll show you.”

Cara followed Alia through a door, down a corridor and into a washroom that had all the charm of a back alley.

“Lowenbrun,” Alia said. “You don't want him. He's unreliable. Came back from his last job broken. Must have had a bad deal, a hard look into the Folds, maybe. Been hiding his head ever since. I wouldn't have known, but Vel, my youngest, saw him buying a crate of booze, the hard stuff. I guess he's gone off on one. Might come out of it, might not. You know what it's like for Navigators.”

Cara did. Ben knew even better.

“Where can I find him?”

“Has a place on Lemont, out of town on Top Mine Highway, but you'll more than likely find him at Sally's. Cheapest joint in town and Sally's been soft on him for years. Always good for a pity fuck.”

“Sally or Jake?”

“Either. Both.”

“Thanks.”

Alia looked around as if checking they were alone. “You're not the only one looking.”

“For Lowenbrun?”

“Don't know what his last job was, don't want to know, but some hard-assed Monitor came sniffing around a couple of days ago.”

“Monitor? Did he have a name?”

“Didn't stick around for a tea party. Tall chap, iron gray hair. Cold eyes. He's gone, now. Leastways I haven't seen him around, but he handed out a contact. Offered a reward. We cut him dead, but there are a few of Solpek's favored flyers who haven't gotten any work out of this. They may think again about trying to collect.”

“Thanks, Alia.” Cara turned to go.

“Not going after Jake, are you? I told you that so you'd leave him alone. We need this job. Ain't gonna get it if you're in jail.”

“It won't come to that. Get everyone to the spaceport. Meet us in departures, on the concourse by the big statue.”

“Departures. Right.”

*You need to finish up business fast,*
Cara told Ben.
*A Monitor's been here asking questions, looking for a freelance Navigator called Lowenbrun. He's offered a reward. Don't trust Solpek.*

*No further than I can throw him.*

*Send Hilde out. I've got a lead.*

*Wait for me.*

*Might not be time. Doesn't sound like he'll be in much of a state to resist. We'll be at a joint called Sally's.*

She met Hilde in the bar and jerked her head toward the door. “Going to get some air. Want a walk?”

“Sure.”

As they left, Alia was gathering the flyers. There were two kids on the doorstep, one a boy of about eight and one a girl of maybe thirteen.

“You Alia's kids?” she asked them.

They nodded.

“Good, grab your stuff. Your folks have a job.”

“We've always got our stuff.” The little one patted a bag at his side.

“Good boy.”

Cara looked up at the sky. Dirty gray clouds, rumpled like an unmade bed, rolled in from the north; beyond them, the dark underbelly of thunderheads, but here on Sunshine Strip it was still too hot to breathe.

The first cool blast, icy in comparison, hit them before they'd got halfway to Sally's. It was a relief after the heat and humidity, but by the third blast they were shivering.

“Think I'm going to regret trying to blend in,” Hilde said. “Should have worn buddysuits. At least they're waterproof.”

They picked up the pace, and as the first medallion-sized raindrops fell they sprinted for Sally's, obvious by the voluptuous girl on the sign flickering on and off haphazardly above the door.

“We're not taking on, ladies,” an unexpectedly cultured voice said from the shadows. “And we don't keep boy whores on the premises. Try the Red Snake by the Bellybuster Diner.”

“We're not looking for action,” Cara said. “Looking for information. Jake Lowenbrun.”

“Who? Never heard of him.”

“Yeah, right, then why did I just hear footsteps running across the floor above?”

Hilde darted for the back door. Cara pushed Sally to one side and took the stairs two at a time. A man stumbled across the landing toward a narrow back stair, bottle in one hand, scrabbling at an empty leg holster with the other.

He didn't stand a chance against Hilde, who came up from below and took him with a shoulder to the gut. He went down like a sack of potatoes. The bottle flew out of his hand and smashed against the wall.

He groaned, whether from the pain in his gut or the loss of the bottle Cara couldn't tell. She bent over him, grimacing at the acrid stench of vomit and secondhand alcohol.

“Get away from him.”

A sharp voice behind her made Cara pull back. She stood and turned. A young woman, hardly more than a girl, scantily dressed in a few wisps of silk, held Jake's missing pistol in a two-handed grip. Her hands were shaking so much it would be touch and go whether she hit Cara, Jake, Hilde, the ceiling, or herself on a ricochet.

“Back off or I'll shoot.”

It was a projectile weapon, small caliber, potentially lethal. Cara's buddysuit would have protected her from anything except a lucky shot to face or hands, but this flight suit was no barrier at all to bullets.

Behind her, hidden from the girl's view, she heard Hilde's sidearm snick out of its holster. Hilde would shoot to kill if she had to.

Cara raised both hands so the girl could see she hadn't drawn a weapon. “No need for anyone to get hurt.”

“Yeah? Tell that to Jake. C'mon, honey, this way.” She encouraged Jake to his feet, but Hilde had whomped the breath out of him and though he tried to get to his knees he collapsed onto the floor again.

“Just need to ask your boyfriend a few questions,” Cara said.

“He's my cousin, but . . . family . . . ya know?”

“You pulled clean-up duty, then?”

“He's not himself. Leave him alone.”

“Maybe we can help.” Cara pitched her voice into reasonable mode. “We're not from the Monitors.”

“How do I know who you are?”

“Put the gun down, let's talk.”

“Uh-uh.” The girl shook her head.

*Duck sideways, I'll take her as soon as you're clear,*
Hilde said.

*She's only a kid.*

*A kid with a gun.*

“You don't want to do this,” Cara said to the girl.

“Oh yeah, I really do. You people have screwed him up enough already.”

“Not us, we just want to talk to him.” Cara tried to sound sincere, burying the thought that if Lowenbrun was responsible for firing thirty thousand settlers into a sun, or losing them in the Folds, it would be a short conversation and it would be unlikely to end well.

A shadow moved behind the girl.

*Get ready,
* Cara told Hilde.
*Going to drop to the right.*

*Gotcha.*

But the shadow wrapped itself around the girl. Sally turned her toward the wall. The gun cracked out and a chunk of wood flew out of the doorframe.

Ears still ringing, Cara darted forward and grabbed the gun from the girl's hands.

“Thanks,” she said to Sally.

“I didn't do it for you. I know what a safety clicking off sounds like. Dree might have taken you if she'd been lucky, but your goon would have taken her out in a heartbeat.”

“Yes, I would've,” Hilde said, thumbing the safety back into place and reholstering her sidearm. “Glad I didn't have to, though.”

Jake groaned again and Hilde hauled him into a sitting position by the scruff of his stained shirt.

“He in trouble?” Sally asked. “Monitors, and now you looking for him. Doesn't look good.”

“How much do you know about his last job?”

“Nothing, 'cept he came back drunk and got drunker.”

“You?” Cara asked the girl, who was now hugging her arms around herself and shivering.

“Said it was paying enough to set us both up, but wouldn't say what it was. Something about an insurance job.
That guy who came looking for him, though . . . Looked different in a Monitor uniform with a half-helm on, but I've got a thing for voices. Could swear it was the same guy who hired Jake in the first place, otherwise how would he have known to look here?”

“What are we going to do with him?” Hilde nudged Jake with her foot.

“Take him with us,” Cara said, shooting a thought to Ben to tell him they'd need an escort with strong arms and weak noses.

“No, you can't!” Dree started forward, but Sally held her back.

“Is he mixed up in anything bad?” Sally asked.

“Could be. Less you know the better.”

“He's not bad,” Dree said.

“Then he's got nothing to worry about,” Hilde said.

“And if he is?” Sally asked.

“What's he told you?”

She shrugged. “Nothing, like I said, but I've known Jake since he turned up here with Dree still young enough to need her nose wiping. I've never seen him this troubled, or this drunk. I'd have staked my life on him being a decent man. Maybe not law-abiding, but decent.”

Neither Cara nor Hilde spoke.

“I see.” Sally drew a deep breath.

Cara heard Gwala's voice downstairs. The big merc shouldered past Sally and hauled Lowenbrun to his feet.

“Where are you taking him? Can I come?” Dree asked.

“That would be mighty nice.” Gwala flashed her a broad grin that took in her clothing and what was showing through it.

Cara cleared her throat meaningfully and Hilde managed a light slap around the back of Gwala's head.

“You'll be safer here,” Cara said to the girl.

Sally cocked her head sideways, her voice resigned. “Whatever happens, don't leave us guessing.”

Cara nodded once. “We won't.”

“Let's get him to the spaceport and away from here,” Ben said, striding down the street through sheeting rain, which
had already penetrated the shoulders of his flight suit. “The pilots are there already.”

“How many did you get?” Cara asked.

“Just the four, counting the Kazan family as one. I'm going to need Gen to train them to handle a jump drive.”

“No.”

Lowenbrun, who'd shown little resistance up to then, tried to pull out of Gwala and Hilde's grasp. Gwala pulled his arms back and snapped a pair of ferraflex restraints around his wrists.

“Not going back!” Lowenbrun muttered. “Can't make me.”

He shook his head, spraying water from his hair.

Ben felt a pang of sympathy. He didn't want to go back into the Folds either. He clenched his jaw. Gen would handle the transit this time. All he had to do was to hang on for the few minutes it took to get through. Though a few minutes could seem like forever.

Lowenbrun found his feet along with his voice. Though he was a shambling mess he kept himself upright. “He made me. Bastard made me. Didn't want to. Bastard told me it was freight. Insurance job he said. But I know an ark ship when I see one. I know.”

Ben's stomach roiled.

“What did you do?”

“Bastard told me it was freight.”

“What did you do?”

“Insurance claim.”

They were going around in circles. Ben needed Lowenbrun sober. Better get him aboard
Solar Wind
as quickly as possible.