Ties of Power (Trade Pact Universe) (42 page)

Through it and he was in the final corridor; it was below ground level and damp, despite what were, for Retians, heroic efforts to scrub the air of excess moisture. Morgan risked removing his hand from the lens completely for a moment, training the full beam from his light on what lay ahead. Nothing but bare walls and locked doors.

Another check of the map. It was the third door on the left he wanted. Morgan switched off his light, using his fingertips against the wall to feel his way along.

Past one closed door. Smooth plaster, broken only by the outline of an inset cupboard. The stalker had shown him one cubbyhole stuffed with dormant Retians on this level, further along. That didn’t mean there were none packed behind the doors. Regardless, they weren’t a concern without an adult to awaken them.

Morgan’s fingers encountered the second door. As they passed over the rim marking the frame and reached the panel itself, it was as though he’d touched a live circuit. Morgan reeled back, startled.

As quickly, he returned to the door, tucking his light into his belt so he could place both hands on the panel. His eyes closed as a further aid to concentration.

The stalker hadn’t tried this door; knowing its batteries were low, Morgan had sent it to the most promising of the three. Now he regretted the lapse, forced to rely on a more intimate and dangerous method. He reached out with the utmost delicacy, sending a questing tendril of thought, no more than a wisp, past the panel to seek what had called to him.

Power. Strangely familiar. Morgan took a deep, steadying breath, then opened his inner sense to the M’hir as Sira had taught him, just the thinnest crack.

Three glowing masses in the darkness, dimly lit, like embers banked on a dying fire. Brighter lines he somehow recognized as restraints.

Morgan pulled his mind back from that awareness, his fingertips leaving the door panel and seeking the controls to open it instead.

Then he stopped himself, standing there in the dark, his head turning to look where he knew the other door stood locked and waiting. Beyond that door might be what had been stolen from Sira, what she’d asked him to recover for her. Beyond that door might even be the thief. His hand twitched as though around a throat.

Why should it matter to him or to his purpose if the Baltir also contained three unconscious and power-bound Clanswomen?

It shouldn’t, his rage answered for him, impatient so near its target. They were strangers—not even his species—likely her enemies and his! There was no guarantee the Retians wouldn’t restore their lighting and security systems at any minute. He’d be a fool to be distracted.

Morgan shuddered once, then turned on his light so he could find the tools he’d need to open the door.

So he was a fool.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

Chapter 41

I SUPPOSED Bowman and her constables had meant well. I supposed, on sober reflection, I may have been too extreme in my urgent desire to be left alone, so I could join Huido and find out where Morgan was. But that was the kind of thinking that follows, not precedes, an impulse.

Such as the one which had almost certainly ruined the restaurant behind us. “Will you hurry, Sira!” Huido rumbled, clattering along beside me like some wagon loaded with loose pots.

“I hope no one was hurt,” I said wanly, looking over my shoulder at the flames now roaring skyward with remarkable enthusiasm, given the pouring rain, the chronically soaked building walls, and the efforts of several firefighters already on the scene. I truly hadn’t expected merely ‘porting a bottle of brandy into the business end of the stove—the kitchen door having been conveniently ajar for me to see it—would result in quite so much chaos. It had had the desired effect of allowing me to give Bowman and ’Whix the slip, the two of them hurrying toward the “accident” as rapidly as the rest of us exited the scene. Huido had been waiting outside and snagged my arm with a claw as I ran out with the other panic-stricken customers.

“I just hope we make it off this road to somewhere less conspicuous,” my companion grumbled. He didn’t ask me to transport us—a lack I knew had more to do with his dislike of the M’hir than with any caution about attracting attention. Since our earlier adventures together, in which I had somewhat freely hauled him back and forth through that other space, Huido had grown of the opinion that the M’hir was responsible for a decline in his poolside performance for some weeks afterward, something I hardly wanted to debate with him and which Morgan found vastly entertaining.

I had to admit, running with a Carasian through the foot and wheeled traffic of a busy city had its entertaining side as well. There were few Retians, or other beings for that matter, willing to stand their ground before an onrushing armor-plated behemoth, claws snapping erratically in the air as though this helped Huido’s thick legs scuttle faster, and eyestalks whirling in an absolute frenzy. Retians were not quick, graceful creatures by any stretch of the imagination, being well-suited to their muddy world and placid lifestyle, yet these individuals were moving out of our path in a combination of death-defying leaps, desperate rolls, and last-minute dives to either side. The pouring rain and huge mud-filled puddles underfoot everywhere just added to the effect.

It was, I was ashamed to confess, hilarious.

Mind you, the wheeled traffic was a bit more of a concern. Not so much to me, because the drivers of the small and mid-sized groundcars allowed in this portion of the city were just as anxious as the pedestrians to avoid the Carasian—possibly because he outmassed most—but the pedestrians themselves were at risk from the wild movements of the vehicles. If Huido had wanted to broadcast our route to the Enforcers, he couldn’t have done a better job with weeks of advance planning.

“In here.” My giant partner didn’t wait to see if I was complying, a reasonable assumption as he hadn’t released the claw locked firmly around my arm since the restaurant. There would be, I was sure, an interesting bruise as a souvenir.

Huido’s “here” was an alleyway, or rather an overflow channel between buildings, at the moment filling nicely with the water running from rooftops as well as from the street behind us. His sponge-toed feet found anchorage easily. Perhaps recalling the fragility of my species, he kindly opened his claw to release me, but I found I needed both hands gripping his arm to keep upright as he continued to thunder forward at a gallop, spraying me from my head down with oily, muddy water.

No one, I thought, positively no one would recognize me through all this. There was the minor complication that anyone with partial vision would spot Huido. Escapes, I’d noticed, frequently had some such flaw.

We weren’t being followed, I realized a heartbeat or so later, gasping for breath. The channel had taken a quick turn left, then right again, meeting smaller channels only wide enough for a being my size, its flow deepening with each junction. We were constrained to it, at least for now.

“Slow down, Huido,” I shouted to make myself heard over the pounding rain, spitting out as much water as sound. “Stop!” I planted my feet in the ankle-deep stream as best I could and resisted his tug.

He stopped. Three eyestalks rolled over to look at me, the valves of his head almost closed to keep out the rain. I remembered Morgan saying Huido didn’t care much for fresh water.

“Where is he?” I shouted, putting my mouth closer to his arm so he could hear me. “Where’s Morgan?”

There was a settling clunk as he turned his massive body to face me, all eyestalks converging to watch my face, a glittering line in the shadows. “I was hoping,” Huido muttered in a deep, distressed bass, “you knew.”

For an endless time, I stared at him, my own hope washing away to leave me shivering and exhausted. Then I licked rain from my lips, not surprised to taste salt in it. “Well, then,” I said, wearily, “we’d better keep looking.”

I drew a small device from my pocket and activated it. I didn’t need the purring sound over our heads, Huido’s mutter of surprise, or the relieved greetings of the half-dozen soaking wet Drapsk leaning precariously out its open doors to know when the aircar I’d arranged to shadow us through the city had arrived.

I’d just hoped I’d have another destination for it than the Makmora, and better news than none at all.

 

As it turned out, we did have another destination. Huido told me about Morgan’s search for Baltir—a name I remembered all too well—and I’d immediately had the Drapsk use the aircar’s com to contact the Makmora. While they didn’t find the Retian in question in any records, they found enough to divert us to another ship altogether, a decision which just happened to bring us out of the rain without alerting any potentially interested parties.

“I’m fine now, thanks, Maka. I’ll call if we need anything else.” The Drapsk inclined his plumes, once to me and once, adding an odd flutter, to Huido. The Carasian responded with a subdued click of his handling claw. I didn’t ask.

Just as Huido had politely refrained from asking any of the thousand questions he must have at the moment, uttering only a brief, noncommittal: “Nice ship,” when we boarded the Nokraud under the cover of rain.

I hadn’t realized the Drapsk would continue in my absence with the tasks I’d assigned them on Plexis, namely searching for information on anything remotely connected to the Clan, telepaths, or, hopefully with more discretion, Morgan. I should have known, since they were prone to a certain level of inertia in all things. But in this case it had been far more than a waste of time. In addition to what I’d asked them to do, they’d been in contact with every source they could find, including, it seemed, the pirate vessel.

The Enforcers were definitely watching the Makmora. No question they were watching the Fox. But, the Drapsk reported cheerfully, the pirates had lodged a harassment complaint against Bowman and her crew upon their arrival, being quite convinced the Enforcers had followed them to Ret 7. The complaint was taken at face value, since no charges were up against the ship or her crew at the moment. Port Authority obligingly docked the Nokraud at the far end of the shipcity, well out of the Enforcer ship’s sensor range.

This, of itself, was no reason to knock on the ship’s port of such opportunists and expect anything more than a huge bill, if not worse. But something in the Drapsk’s information requests had apparently jogged Captain Rek’s memory. She’d heard, it seemed, rumors of clandestine research being done on Ret 7. Research of a type the Trade Pact would not approve. Would the Drapsk pay to learn more?

For the Mystic One? There was no price too high—as long as bargaining was allowed.

Fortunately the Drapsk in the aircar were so enamored of Huido they hardly fussed when I ordered them to take me directly to the Nokraud, so I could negotiate for this information in person. They merely insisted on making a precautionary call to the Makmora first.

The results, I thought, looking around the lounge, were impressive even for the Drapsk. Before our aircar had reached the shipcity and made its less-than-direct approach to the Nokraud’s dock, crew from the Makmora were already boarding the pirate. Whether by bribe (probable), threat (possible), or extortion (highly likely), they’d managed to place their own people throughout the Nokraud’s key stations without protest from the Scats.

It took a great deal of the disappointment from my day to see Grackik and Rek being oh-so-polite to the dozens of little Drapsk swarming on their decks.

So now, I pulled the cover closer around my thoroughly chilled but dry legs, regarding my surroundings with a sense of déja vu. It was in this lounge the Scats had been faced down by the Drapsk. It would not be wise, I was convinced despite all the Drapsk precautions and confidence, to gamble that humiliation would have been forgotten no matter how much profit was involved.

But as a temporary haven from the rain, Enforcers, and Ret 7 in general, it would definitely do.

“More beer, Huido?” I asked. The Drapsk had torn the back from one of the couches, making a padded bench affair Huido seemed to find quite comfortable. His massive claws rested on the floor, while the smaller ones moved restlessly about, making a soft, rain-on-leaves sound. I shared his impatience.

I’d asked the Drapsk and pirates to leave us alone for a while. The Carasian had been a silent hulk during my discussion with Rek, festooned with adoring Drapsk who apparently considered physical contact with him irresistible. In turn, having the smaller beings climbing over his claws, limbs, body, and head didn’t seem to bother Huido. He’d stirred only when the second Scat entered unannounced, then settled down.

The Scats had been remarkably, unsettlingly cooperative: handing record disks to Maka, describing to me what they knew—by rumor only, of course—of Retian experiments with alien biology, particularly Human biology. Since using intelligent beings for research was forbidden under the Trade Pact, the Retians relied on volunteers, willing to sacrifice themselves for the future good.

Grackik had chittered at this, the chilling laugh of her kind that produced a scalding foam from her saliva, a foam she collected carefully with her long, thin tongue.

They denied knowing any Retian named Baltir. There wasn’t much more, not that they’d admit anyway, although I didn’t doubt some of those “volunteers” arrived in trip boxes in the Nokraud’s dark hold. While their willingness to be gracious hosts lasted, I decided to impose on it, judging that with almost a hundred armed Drapsk throughout the ship, we should be able to keep them out of trouble for the present.

After our discussion, which concluded with a round of Drapsk bargaining that would have shamed a Denebian into honesty, the Makmora agreed to pay in cargo and future business for the information obtained, anything further learned, and the use of the ship as a temporary haven. The Scats appeared content, even sending a large number of their crew on shore leave—not an easy prospect on Ret 7 for any offworlder—in order to free up cabins. Their ship, it appeared, was temporarily ours.