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There is only one safe place to be, near a wounded kria, and that is on its back. Kria do not like to roll over, so their reflex is to twist and snap. Hope you can strike a fatal blow before it can claw you from its back, and you will live to tell about your adventure.

Kria fur is a good protection against the beast's own claws. Reva felt the bruising blow of its rake, but was not gutted as it scratched at her wickedly. Her vibroknife was in her hand, snatched in a moment of unthinking reflex. She smelled the cat's rank breath and the scent of hot blood where she grappled with the beast, squarely atop the shoulder wound in its back. One hand gripped its ruff, her legs gripped its ribs. The knife hand sought a good place to strike.

When an energy field stiffens a monofilament wire and vibrates it thousands of times a second, the resulting weapon cuts through steeloy like a laser through gel-soup. Yet it was only a 20-cm blade, only two hand-widths long. It took two tries before her slashes at the kria's neck found a vital spot. The beast crumbled beneath her, and Reva rolled gasping off the third kria kill of her life.

The Vudesh count only the ones taken in personal combat, without a missile weapon, and so did she.

* * *

Vask awoke in the resort autodoc, aching but whole again. After he recognized the two women keeping him company, he realized who must have saved him from the snowcat.

It was not how he had planned to make their acquaintance, but it would do.

Reva looked at him strangely, and asked quietly about his health. Lish apologized for the wound. There was no trace of his injury left, only healed bone and regenerated tissues, but she remained disturbed by the accident that had almost cost him his life.

She was the one who drew him out in conversation, let him work in the ploy he had planned to use. "You look familiar," he said, offhand. "Don't we have a mutual friend? Spots?"

It was an in to the Holdout community. Lish seemed to recall seeing Vask around and with a little psionic nudging—very subtle, that—she had the impression he was the friend of an acquaintance, with whom she may have done business once or twice. Thus their "secret" was out, and they could all relax a little more in each other's company.

Reva appeared uncomfortable, and regarded him pensively. Vask wished again that he could pick up something of her thoughts. Even close up there was no hint what she was thinking. If he could have gotten inside her head, he would have been surprised.

She had never saved a life before. The feeling was a lot different than taking one.

"We have most
of it," Daribi reported back. "What Lish is shipping, how it's moving, who's buying, when it arrives. We don't have the drop point yet."

Karuu was pleased. "That is maybe not necessary, if you have the rest. Tell me more."

"This run is big, alright. So big that it's shipping on a regular cargo freighter."

"What is she moving?"

"A strange thing, Sa'adani-built. Borgbeasts."

Irritation wrinkled the soft fur over Karuu's eyes. He hated to admit there was something worth smuggling that he didn't know

about. Yet one more reason to get rid of this unwanted competitor. "What have you found out about borgbeasts?" he asked unhappily.

"The Sa'adani take a neural net unit, like a mech brain," Daribi answered, "and interconnect it to an organic brain. Don't know how it works on humans, or if they're even trying it. They do it with animals, and end up with borgbeasts."

"What is the advantage?" Karuu asked, fascinated.

The Islander scratched his polished brow. "Mostly it makes an animal's behavior controllable and programmable, like putting a guidepack in charge of an organic body. As a side effect it seems to jump up the animal's intelligence. Works best with near-human intelligence, though."

Karuu had a faraway look as he considered the potential in this new technology.

"Would you like the specfile?" Daribi offered.

"Yes, that would be most enlightening. What kind of borgified beast is Lish bringing to lovely R'debh?"

"Cetaceans, Boss. A number of whale-like creatures from some Sa'adani world, supposedly compatible with this ecology. They come with a few handlers to help them adapt and relay orders to their borg units."

"What kind of orders would that be, do you know yet?"

Daribi smirked. "Some kind of political thing is going on. These beasties are intended for people with ties to the AAP."

"The Aqua-Agric Party? Using modified sea intelligences? Well, well. This is becoming more interesting, indeed." Karuu beamed at the Islander. "How does our resourceful friend plan to bring these very large creatures here?"

"The Aqualogy Trade Fair begins next week on Avelar Island and Shelf," the chief reported. "A lot of cargoliners are shipping goods for the event. Her ship is posing as one of the exhibitors. Once it's in unregulated atmosphere, it can take off and head for the ocean drop site."

Karuu was smiling as Daribi finished. "You know the make of freighter she is using?"

"Yes."

"Arrange to buy us a vessel of the same type, my wild native friend, and hide it somewhere safe. At the fringe of the asteroids, perhaps, where its profile will not be noted on sensors. Our freighter will dock at the same time as hers. If you can do that for me, I will handle Customs. Then we will be several borgbeasts the richer for it."

"As you say, Boss."

"Good work, Daribi. There is a bonus in this for you when we are done. Consider if you would like to take over Lish's operation, will you?"

The Islander smiled avariciously. "I'll consider it," he agreed.

"Good day, then."

Daribi signed off, and Karuu leaned back in his chair, content. This was shaping up quite nicely. Borgbeasts! What a thing. Perhaps he would not sell them all to the AAP; maybe he would keep one or two aside for other buyers. It was important, after all, to maintain a balance of power. As long as he could dictate the balance.

Karuu punched up the specfile on his desk console and began to learn more about borgbeasts.

After their kria
encounter at Keshnavar, Vask had invited his saviors to go ice-sailing as his guests. Having had their fill
of
hunting, the women accepted the offer, and a casual friendship had sprung up among the three. When Lish returned to Selmun III the others came along. Lairdome 7 became their informal meeting place.

"I need a cyberdecker." Lish addressed the air in her Comax Shipping office.

"What happened to the one you had?" Reva asked.

The smuggler frowned. "He's dead. Don't know if it was ICE in the Net, or a personal attack."

"I could look into that for you," Vask offered.

Lish looked at him appraisingly. Since their first dinner together the Fixer had been offering his services, casually angling for work. "I have someone on it, but if you'd like to check it out, I could use the help. Maybe you'll find out something different than my boy Zendo."

Vask lacked the cyberware that some agents used to track a database of criminal elements, but his mnemonic tricks and highly trained memory served a close doub|e. "Would that be the Zendo

who used to freelance as a datarunner, two, three years ago?" he asked. "Wore a gold data spike on his temple?"

Lish nodded when he described her streetboy. "He's lost th data spike—got it hardwired, now. That's Zendo, though. Why?"

Vask spread his hands. "If he's investigating for you, I know I can do better."

"Oh?"

"I
know more places to look and ask better questions. What
's
it worth to you?" He followed up the bid with a charming smile.

Lish tilted her head. "You find out for sure who offed my runner, how and why, before Zendo does, and I'll pay you the straight service fee. Usual rates."

"I do it inside two days, and you'll pay me double," he countered.

Lish gave a small laugh. "Done."

"What do you need a netrunner for?" Reva asked.

Lish shook her head. "Details are confidential, if you're not J the runner. I don't mind telling you, though, it's to finalize some arrangements for my next drop."

"Big, is it?" Reva recognized the gleam of anticipation that Lish had been walking around with for several days now.

"Big enough." The Holdout smiled cryptically. She thanked
i
Vask for his offer and asked pointedly when he would get on it. Taking the unsubtle hint, the Fixer noted down the dead netrunner's vitals, and said good-bye.

When he was gone, Reva offered to refer Lish to a good decker.

The smuggler looked sidelong at the tall woman, today a platinum blonde with flickering holographies on her nails. "You." She waved an admonishing finger. "You know the same people Karuu knows." 

Reva tensed at the chiding tone. "What do you mean? Everyone knows the same people Karuu knows, if you've worked here long enough."

"I need someone with absolutely no contact and no personal interest in Karuu, that's what I mean. An offworlder, I suppose. The last one was."

So this wasn't personal. Reva fought down her angry reaction. It sounded like the younger woman was thinking about guarding her back, and that was long overdue. The assassin ventured a guess. "You're cutting the Dorleoni out of your distribution deal, aren't you?"

"I'm doing something of no concern to the Dorleoni. Yet." Lish flashed her an innocent smile, the one reserved for warehouse inspectors and people she was about to bankrupt at Shaydo cards. "I took your advice about a couple of things, though, and I made some changes in my operations."

"Is that right?"

"Yeah, like covering my tracks, and leaving myself more than one way out. Let's say I don't want to get treed by the snowcat I'm hunting."

Reva's lips quirked. Score one lesson learned. "I know off-world deckers, too. Could be here from Lyndir on the next liner, say, tomorrow."

"That's more like it. No relationship to the Dorleoni?"

"None at all."

"I need to hire the best."

"Then you want the FlashMan. Here's the call code." She jotted down a scrambled comnet access number, and the decker's ID. "He's worked with me before. His referrals are good, too."

"Terrific. Maybe Vask can pin down who killed my last net-runner by then."

"Maybe." Reva was noncommittal. "Are you comfortable trusting him with this job? You don't know that much about him."

"I deal with a lot of people I don't know much about." The Holdout looked sharply at Reva, who took her point.

"Still—it's risky."

"Everything's risky. You have to take the chance now and then. I go by my feelings about a person. I'm not usually wrong."

Reva thought of the house pass in her carrybag, and steered the subject on to a different track. "I've asked around about Vask. He's known, but he's low-profile. No one seems to know much about him."

Lish smiled. "You sure that's the only reason you checked him out?"

Her humor evaded the assassin. "What?"

"Maybe you're interested, too."

The tall woman stiffened. "Interested?"

"Come on, Reva, you know how he looks at you. Puppy-dog eyes. He'd follow you around all day, if he could."

"He better not try it. Besides, it's you he talks with all the time." "That's because you aren't exactly conversational. You barely say 'yes' and 'no' to him. It's hard to talk with someone like that."

Reva tapped her nails on the chair arm, the pressure turning the holovids on and off again. "Don't be ridiculous."

"You act like you regret not letting the cat eat him. Is that it?"

Reva's fingers paused in mid-air. "Is that how it seems to you?"

Lish gestured. "You saved the man's life. He asks about you, tries to talk with you, and you pretty much ignore him. That
's
all."

"I don't dislike him," the assassin said. "I feel a little... awkward around him."

"Because you saved his life? And now you don't know how to act with him?"

The shrewd guess hit home. Reva was quiet.

"That's an easy one. Drop your business front and loosen up."

"I don't plan to loosen up around Vask."

"Your choice."

"And if he tries puppy-dogging me, he won't live to try it twice."

"I'm sure he won't."

"Hmph." Reva left in a huff, trying to flee the unease she carried inside.

The sunset
sky was aglow with red-washed clouds and streaks of purple, fading to a greenish-yellow at the far edge of the ocean
j
horizon. Lish waved good-bye to the last of her legitimate customers, two kelpie hunters returning to Avelar with a load of cryocases, and paused to enjoy the view out the back loading bay. The humid breeze bore the coolness of early evening, and she savored it on her sweat-damp face while smartmechs packed up shop for the night.