Shooting the Rift - eARC (26 page)

“Tintagel,” I said.

“Snap.” Wymes permitted himself a wintery smile as he held up his own, across which
Tintagel
was emblazoned in a curiously untidy scrawl.

“Lucky guess,” I said, trying to look disappointed, in spite of a sudden surge of elation.

“You were right,” Wymes said, getting to his feet. “We are wasting each other’s time.” He walked round the table and looked down at me on his way to the door; another cheap psychological trick. “Unless you’ve got anything else you want to sell.”

“That was the big thing,” I admitted. I tried to sound a little desperate. “I know some other stuff . . .”

“I’m afraid we aren’t in the market for out of date gossip.” His voice was flat with finality, and I realized I’d actually pulled it off. He thought I was trying to hustle him, and had had enough. “I don’t think we can do business.”

“Guess not,” I agreed. “Ah well. Easy come, easy go.” I waited until the door had clicked closed behind him, then sighed with relief, hardly able to believe that I’d got away with it. My desperate gamble had worked, and my secrets were safe.

Even better, I’d got his plateful of cookies.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

In which I listen to an appeal for help,

and learn something to my advantage.

When I went for my habitual run that afternoon, Jas seemed a little embarrassed at the sight of me, if it’s possible to look embarrassed while holding a gun and keeping a watchful eye out for potential trouble. Nevertheless, I smiled a friendly greeting, and slowed, jogging on my accustomed spot in front of the pressure hatch she was guarding as though nothing had changed between us.

“Hi.” I poked at her visor with my sneakware, but, as usual, there was no comms traffic I could exploit; which I found even more frustrating than ever, since I’d come so close to tapping a node through it the day before.

“Hi.” She smiled back, but seemed to be having trouble meeting my eyes; a suspicion I swiftly confirmed by accessing her targeting display. Her gaze was hovering around my face like a bee round a flower, focusing on it for a second or so before skittering away again. “How are you?”

“A bit disappointed, actually,” I said, and her posture stiffened, becoming noticeably more defensive.

“I really didn’t have a choice,” she said, and the other trooper on guard with her drifted a little closer, clearly getting ready to intervene if I felt like making trouble. “I’ve a duty to report—”

“I know that,” I said, trying to sound as reasonable and relaxed as possible. “And I really don’t have a problem with you doing it. To be honest, I’d have thought a lot less of you if you hadn’t.”

“You would?” She seemed genuinely surprised, and I smiled in response, as disingenuously as I knew how.

“Navy brat, remember? I know the kind of oath you must have taken when you enlisted, and I know how important it is to live up to something like that. I knew if you were the kind of person I thought—hoped—you were, you wouldn’t be able to go against it, even for a friend. If that’s what we actually are.”

“I’ve been wondering that too,” she admitted. Her eyes flickered over me, the scattering of other internees within her field of vision, and the trooper beside her, lingering for a moment on his gun. “It’s kind of complicated.”

“Exactly,” I said.

“Then what are you so disappointed about?”

“Honestly?” I asked, as if hoping to be coaxed. I was pretty sure Wymes had bought my hastily improvised story, but just in case he checked back down the line, I needed to cover myself with Jas. Too bad if that meant she decided I was a duplicitous creep, best kept at arm’s length from now on: I still had hopes of getting to a node through her eyeware, and, if I was honest with myself, I’d miss our conversations too. “I was hoping to sell some information to your intelligence people, but it turned out they already knew it.”

“You were hoping—” then the coin dropped. Her voice hardened a little. “So that’s why you told me about your mom. So I’d set them up for the pitch.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I said, trying to sound contrite. “And we were talking about our families anyway, so—”

“Typical bloody Guilder.” She sounded pissed off and amused at the same time, neither emotion quite managing to gain the upper hand. “Always an angle.”

“So,” I said after a moment. “Are we good?”

“I don’t know.” At least she was looking at my face again. “You’re not the only one who’s feeling a bit disappointed right now, to be honest.”

“Fair enough.” I knew pursuing the point would just be pushing my luck; the best thing I could do now would be to tactfully withdraw, and let her process this in her own time. I waved, probably trying a little too hard to sound cheerful and carefree. “Be seeing you.”

“Yeah. Well, you know where to find me.” She nodded, a little stiffly, and I resumed my run. Or, at least, that was the idea. I turned, jogging backwards as I waved goodbye, and cannoned into someone behind me. We both went sprawling.

“Ow. Smeg.” The voice beneath me was unfamiliar, which came as a vague surprise; after so much time in enforced proximity, I could more or less recognize all my fellow internees by sound alone, even the ones I’d barely exchanged a sentence with (or none at all, in the case of the shipping line crews) since our arrival.

“Sorry. My fault entirely,” I said automatically, scrambling up, and extending a helping hand downwards.

“You reckon?” Rollo, the cat-eyed Freebooter, glared at me for a moment, then sprang to his feet, with a litheness which made me suspect he’d acquired a few more feline characteristics than just the slit pupils. He staggered theatrically, one eye on the watching troopers, keeping all the weight on his left leg. “Ow. Ow. I’ve done my knee in.” He stared at me again, waiting for me to take the hint. “A little help getting back to our quarters?”

“Oh. Right,” I said, finally getting it. His leg looked fine to me, but I offered him a shoulder to lean on nevertheless. I’d been meaning to contrive a meeting with the Freebooters in any case, so if they’d had the same idea, I might as well go along with it. “I never even noticed you were there.”

“No, people generally don’t.” Rollo looked smug for a moment. “Not until it’s too late, anyway.” He put his weight on my shoulder, and pointed to one of the accommodation units, which, until yesterday, had been closed up. It didn’t look all that different now, but the main door was hanging open. “We’re in that one.”

“Having trouble, Si?” Rolf and Lena loomed up out of nowhere, and down at us. Rollo met their gaze unflinchingly.

“No. We just tripped over one another,” I said. “I’m helping him back to his quarters.”

“Need any help?” Lena asked, and I shook my head.

“He’s not that heavy.”

“Okay.” Rolf nodded.
We know where you are.

I’ll be fine,
I sent back, but I have to admit I felt a strong sense of relief as I did so. After everything I’d heard about Freebooters, it was nice to know I had backup if I needed it.

“You’re limping on the wrong leg,” I said, once I was certain my shipmates were out of earshot.

“Picky, picky.” Rollo shifted his weight from right to left. “Whenever you’re ready.”

We must have made an incongruous sight as we staggered across the garden towards the Freebooters’ quarters, which, either by coincidence or a hitherto unsuspected sense of humor on the part of Corporal Fledge, was situated next to the section occupied by Deeks and his friends from the
Ebon Flow
. A number of heads turned to watch us, with varying degrees of contempt or puzzlement, one of the latter being Clio’s.

What are you doing with him?
she sent.

He
’s
hurt his leg,
I replied.
Just helping out.

Of course you are.
Though the message was as blandly neutral as everything else in my ‘sphere, her expression loaded it with exasperated amusement.
You want to be careful, or you’ll be turning Freebooter before long.

Never going to happen,
I assured her. It seemed a marginal existence at the best of times, and I couldn’t imagine anyone leaving the relative security of the Guild to get involved in it.

Relieved to hear it.
Nevertheless, her head turned slowly, tracking us until I’d crossed the threshold of the Freebooters’ quarters.

Rollo stopped limping as soon as we passed inside, although he kept his arm around me until we reached one of the sofas scattered through a communal area the same size as the one the crew of the
Stacked Deck
occupied. Ertica and Baines were already there, almost lost in a space meant for so many more people, and they both looked up as we entered.

Rollo dropped onto the couch with a contented sigh, and patted the upholstery next to him. “Plenty of room for a small one, if you want to keep on snuggling.”

“I’m fine,” I said, remaining on my feet.

Ertica looked daggers at her deckhand. “Give it a rest, Rollo, he’s only interested in girls. Why else would he keep hanging around the bitch who dragged us in here?”

“I’m not prejudiced.” Rollo shrugged, and grinned at me. “You know where I am if you ever change your mind.”

But my attention was already entirely on Ertica, which, given that she apparently wore even less in the privacy of her own quarters than she did outside, was hardly surprising.

“She didn’t react when she touched you,” I said, remembering how Jas had intervened to lead her away after the altercation with Deeks. “Is she immune to your tweak, or can you control it?”

“Straight to the point,” Baines said, the first time I’d actually heard him speak. His voice was deep and gravelly, with a trace of an accent I couldn’t place—a legacy of whichever backwater world he’d left decades ago, in early adolescence. “Not something you often see in a Guilder.”

“A bit of both,” Ertica said, ignoring the pair of them. “League grunts have a broad spectrum antitoxin tweak, but I can vary the potency myself if I want to.” She shrugged, which set up some briefly distracting oscillations. “I wouldn’t have much of a love life otherwise, would I?”

“Well, there have been a couple of guys—” Rollo began, before falling silent again in response to a glare from his captain.

“If you can’t say something relevant, don’t say anything at all.” She turned back to me, her voice becoming almost strangulated with the effort of trying to sound hospitable. “Can we offer you some tea? Or something?”

“Tea,” I said. “Why not?” Whatever they wanted, or, more likely, Ertica wanted, it was clearly going to take some time before she came to the point. No reason not to be comfortable while I waited to find out what it was.

“Tea. Right.” Baines sighed, and began to boil a kettle.

Simon.
A message appeared in my ‘sphere, from Clio if the tag was to be relied on.
What’
s
happening? You’ve been in there five minutes already.

Nothing,
I sent back.
Just having tea.

Tea with Freebooters?
This time I had to imagine her incredulous expression for myself, which I did without too much difficulty.
Just don’t let her stir it with her finger.

I’ll be careful,
I promised.

“So.” I seated myself at a vacant table, and tried to sound focused and businesslike, which was a lot harder than it sounds under the circumstances. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

Ertica smiled tightly. “You really are new to the Guild. Otherwise your first question would have been ‘What’s in it for me?’”

“You’ve already offered some tea,” I said. “We can move on from there once I know exactly what you want, and how badly you want it.”

Her smile became a little more genuine. “That’s more like it,” she said. “Spoken like a real Guilder.” She glanced up as Baines put a couple of mugs of tea on the table between us; they were overly full, and slopped slightly, leaving rings on the fake wood grain of the plastic surface. “Thanks, Hiro.”

“Cookie?” I asked, pulling the ones I’d scored from Wymes out of the pocket I’d stashed them in. They hadn’t crumbled much, and weren’t particularly fluffy. “No chocolate ones I’m afraid. Too liable to melt.”

“Aren’t you full of surprises.” Ertica looked at them suspiciously, and let them lie unmolested on the tabletop; a reaction which, now I came to consider their condition more carefully, I could hardly blame her for.

“Ooh, a jammy one.” Rollo bounced up, grabbed it, and subsided onto the sofa again, in one fluid movement.

“Isn’t everyone?” I asked, responding to Ertica’s question, and ignoring her excitable subordinate; which seemed to be the strategy of choice among his shipmates.

“In my experience.” Ertica nodded, and sipped at her tea. Somewhat reassured, I ventured to take a mouthful of my own, and found it no less drinkable than I’d expected.

“Then what’s your surprise?” I asked. “Why am I here?”

“We need a favor,” Ertica said, putting her mug on the table, next to her metaphorical cards. “What’s left of our ship’s been impounded; which is only a technical inconvenience, as it’ll never fly again anyway. So when they let the rest of you go, we’ll be stuck here. Indefinitely.”

“Years, probably,” Rollo put in. “Even if they don’t press—” He went quiet at a glare from Ertica.

“What charges?” I asked. “You must have convinced them you’re not the spies they’re looking for, or they’d have sent you straight to Freedom for a detailed debrief instead of putting you in here with us. So why did you try to make a run for it?”

“Who says we tried to run?” Ertica asked.

“You did, when you arrived here. ‘Mistress of a gutted hulk,’ remember? They wouldn’t have had any reason to open fire if you’d just let them board like the rest of us.” I didn’t see any point in admitting I’d watched the whole thing through the
Stacked Deck
’s sensor suite; if they thought I was more astute than I was, they’d be less likely to try something underhand for fear I’d spot it. Although these were Freebooters I was dealing with: pirates, liars and thieves, if Clio was to be believed, so underhand probably came with the job description.

“We weren’t spying,” Ertica said, after a moment’s hesitation, “but we did have an extra item among the cargo. Two hundredweight of refined sugar.”

“Which isn’t exactly legal?” I asked. Some worlds regarded the stuff as a health hazard, particularly where a substantial part of the population had transgenic tweaks to speed up their metabolisms; overuse by a handful of them could even lead to addiction and psychosis.

“That’s a bit of a grey area,” Baines put in. “Some places it is, some places it isn’t.”

“One of the places it isn’t being Freedom, I take it,” I said. Unlike the Commonwealth, which had a one-size-fits-all approach to the legal code, the League let its member systems run their own affairs pretty much as they liked, so long as they subscribed to a few core principles, and paid their fair shares of the budget for things like the armed forces and the official riftcom network.

“Most of the League worlds, if you’re going to get technical,” Rollo said. “Which drives the price up nicely.”

“Why take the risk?” I asked. “Farland were paying over the odds for this job anyway.” And much good it had done them, as things turned out, with their precious cargo impounded as soon as it arrived. No doubt a platoon of lawyers would be on a nice little earner for the next few years sorting out the ensuing squabble about who was liable for the financial fallout.