Mainline (38 page)

Zay bitched about half-assed homemade ion exciters and undeterminable flow rates. Devin could feel the ragged edge to their power, and accepted the calculated risk. Yet constant extreme power fluctuations throughout the system were taking their toll. First the faulty frequency head in the sonic shower had blown. Then onboard sensors, the controllers for the cargo bay doors, scattered link modules. Now long-range sensors.

I should be glad it's nothing more serious, Devin thought. No telling what might go next. Whatever's a weak link, whatever's stressed by power surges . ..

He didn't want to think about critical systems like environmental control or engine functions. Not now, less than an hour from their goal.

Lish traveled to Rinoco Park in an air car, lost in the general exodus of Skiffjammers heading that way for the meet, on magtube, shuttle, and air vehicles. Numbers helped conceal her movement. Reva sat beside her, a watchful guard on hopper-fed energy, while armed 'Jammer escorts flanked their vehicle on either side.

The cryocases and the ruse they contained were in the boot of the car.

Convincing? Maybe so. Convincing enough to pass by Edesz?

Lish was uncertain, though she dared share those doubts with no one.

The com link buzzed at her belt. She reached for it distractedly, not realizing until it was in her hand that this call signal was on her personal and private frequency. The people who knew that code were all with her in the car, except for— "Devin!" she shouted into the link. The vehicle gave a slight bump as Vask reacted to her outcry. The others looked on with sudden anticipation.

"Where are you?" her words came out in a rush. "Do you have it?"

His end of the conversation was heard by Lish on her privacy implant. Her excitement was tangible and the spoken exchange brief. After a few words, she replaced the com link at her belt and leaned forward to talk over Kastlin's shoulder.

"Head for Avelar Field," she announced. She grinned ecstatically at the others and said what they could already guess. "He's got the goods." "Deadheading, were you?" the Customs inspector drawled, looking around the empty expanse of Cargo One.

"That's right," Devin said, keeping his tone neutral. This inspector had been poking here and there, making random scan with a hand-held sounder, a sensor tuned to recognize wall and sub-floor cavities that might be used as smuggling hidey-holes. His partner was in D2, suited up and walking the drive unit's slagged ruins, in case the freighter's Captain had planned on hiding something in vacuum that they might overlook.

"I'll take a look at your flight log now, if you don't mind."

Devin led him back to the flight deck. The officer made himself at home in the Captain's chair while looking over the flight records. He paused while his partner spoke over com link. "Seems like you've got a slag heap where a maneuver engine's supposed to be."

"That's about right." Shiran shrugged.

"We're confirming damage to Traffic Control. You won't be cited for your reckless approach. You better head straight to the yards with this ship, though. She's barely atmosphere-worthy with that hull damage to catch the wind."

Devin nodded agreeably as if taking the inspector's sage advice to heart.

The man applied his thumbprint to the landing permit on the Captain's datapad. "I guess you're clear," he said. "Be careful heading dirtside."

"I will," Devin agreed. Eklun saw the inspector to the airlock and cleared the boarding umbilical before returning to the flight deck.

"Grinds," snorted the Skiffjammer.

"Yeah." Devin sat once more, began keying sequences on the control panel. He looked up when Eklun stifled what sounded like a giggle.

"Does it always work that slick?" the 'Jammer asked. "He was sitting right on top of the nanotech the whole time, and didn't catch on even with that sounder."

Devin allowed himself a half-smile. Another trick of the Shiran Traders, well learned and well used. "It doesn't work at all unless you modified the chair mount ahead of time," he said. "I did that myself during our refit, replacing staylocks with screw-bolt so the floor pillar comes out."

"And beneath it is just enough room for a box of select cargo." "In a space lined with venloy, which slews sensor readings. When the cubbyhole is full, the sounder reads it like regular flooring When it's empty, sensors read the mass of the chair's support pillar as extending that far into the floor. Not unusual in some ship designs."

Eklun smiled. "Congratulations, Captain. You pulled it off." "Almost," Devin said, resuming course calculations. "Wait until we're dirtside, and then we'll celebrate."

The smuggler and
her escort met the
Fortune
as she touched down on the pad. Lish was first up the crew elevator, first to run into a sweaty, rumpled Devin as he walked wearily out of the flight deck.

She didn't mean to hug him, but somehow it happened. Her embrace was hard and quick. His lingered, stopping only when she pulled away. While Skiffjammers retrieved the cargo, Devin brought Lish up-to-date on the extent of their damage, and the condition of himself and the crew. "I had planned to come with you," he said, "but now ..." "After five days on Syntozac and hoppers? I don't need someone falling asleep in the middle of this meet. You stay here, Devin, see to your ship."

He looked around ruefully. "See to it. Yeah. I can't take you offworld in this like we planned, Lish. The
Fortune's
not warpcapable again until she's been in the yards."

The Holdout put a hand on his arm. "I'm paying for it. The damage was in the line of duty, wouldn't you say? And this time no cutting corners. You're getting new guns along with every
thing
else."

Devin wasn't about to argue. He patted the bulkhead with a loving hand. "She's a tough one, worked hard to get us through. I'd like that."

"It's settled, then." Lish started to pull away.

"Not exactly. How are you getting offworld? I want to come with you."

"I'll rent a ship. Come if you want."

"The repairs here—"

"Or stay if you want. Don't worry, I'll be back." She smiled warmly. "Walking out on my business is one thing, but i'm not leaving you without a word. You're part of my team, aren't you?"

"I thought so."

"Good. Then I'll be back. Now let me go collect my money."

Her tone was gentle, and he let her go, letting her hand slip through his fingers with a trailing touch. He held off on the kiss he wanted to give her—
not yet; don't push her
—waiting for a sign from her that invited closeness.

There was none, just her last wistful look as the crew elevato dropped her out of sight through the hull of the ship.

"Commander, Station Four.
We've got her in sight at the
silt
river, now. She and her escort have joined up with a sea-spider. They're heading your way."

"Acknowledged," Obray told the checkpoint, registering the dismissing report of the vehicle. Tourists could rent spiders or bring their own vehicles into the park. It shouldn't affect the plan of action significantly.

Right now Obray was more concerned about clearing innocent civilians out of the meeting place, the viewing plaza by the geysers.

Carefully, discreetly, Park Security IDs were flashed and clusters of tourists who had wanted to take a lengthy break here suddenly decided the fioatweed ponds were more interesting. Commandos trickled out of reserve positions and swam into attraction area in pairs and clusters, a good simulation of natural crowd movement.

Obray watched the tour trail leading from the thermal spas, his patience was soon rewarded. Skiffjammers came through first, their attempts at incognito failing in the uniformity and precision of their appearance. All had buzzed hair or wore a snug-fitting cowl; all wore full-face masks that permitted them, like the Commander's forces, the use of com links to talk in privacy. Th bearing was alert and trouble-ready, and they moved in coordinated pairs, taking up posts around the viewing plaza, intimidating the supposed-civilians they encountered until they had cleared the plaza area.

Lish entered behind the lead group of 'Jammers, recognizable in the garb described in Station One's first sighting of the smuggler. She wore a green bodysuit with white flash-lines down arms and legs; her short blond hair flowed loose above a full-face mask. She swam a little awkwardly, not at ease in the ocean; then as Obray watched she dropped back to snag a handhold on the airlock of the spider that stalked beside her. A 'Jammer drove the vehicle, picking its way over the ground trail on the angular jointed legs that gave the vehicle its name.

To one side swam Vask, recognizable by his bodysuit, gray with orange spatter-streaks—the same fluorescent color as the armbands Security agents would don, when violence broke out. It was an undercover agent's way of identifying himself as friendly.

On the other side of Lish swam another woman, tall, darkhaired, her bodysuit a neutral aqua that functioned like camouflage against the blue-green depths of the water. Obray looked at her again. She was obviously no Skiffjammer, though she kicked strongly through the water with a grace and assuredness that they shared. Could that be Kastlin's pet assassin?

"Leaguers moving, sir." A sentry's report tore Obray's attention from the Holdout's group, and directed it to the lava grottos north of the fire spouts. The water-breathers emerged from the caves at the same moment that several sea-adapted "tourists" moved forward to claim one side of the viewing plaza. Skiffjammers ceded that much room until derevin and terrorists faced off across the width of the plaza, confining themselves to the edges and various heights above the seabed. Their jockeying for position
was
brief, then movement ceased while Lish and Edesz entered neutral ground before the fire spouts.

Edesz bothered Reva from the moment she first saw him. At first she racked it up to the hoppers she had taken, that the way he kicked and glided could itself seem arrogant. That he radiated disdain of the land-dwellers he saw before him. Yet when he came to a stop some five meters away from Lish, his look of scournful assessment was not lost on any of them.

He meant it to be intimidating, perhaps, but to Reva he suddenly seemed like nothing more than a primary-school bully. Like some of the sea-adapted she had gone to school with as a child, treating her with the dislike they reserved for land-dwellers, simply because she, too, was an air-breather.

Edesz and two of his companions wore full-face masks, the voders bulkier than usual and wired to an ear-cupped headset whose arcane communications purpose she couldn't guess. The Gambru League leader could have spoken in clear language through the voder, but did not. He signed, a language cryptic to Lish, with whom he expected to deal.

The insult was not lost on the Holdout, whose Sa'adani heritage had taught her all she ever needed to know about condescension.

Reva spoke inside her facemask, transmitting to Lish and all 'Jammers monitoring Com 1. "Do you have what you promised me?" she translated Edesz' meaning.

Lish's answer came back through Reva's earlink. "That's why I'm here. Do you have my money?"

The assassin body-signed the reply. Behind the mask Edesz' features were hard to read, but the sneer faded a little to something like an amused smile.

"Sea-dweller?" he inquired with a quick gesture, a curving motion of the hand followed by the fist-clench signifying seadomes, the quirked little finger that meant interrogative.

The unexpected exchange brought back old memories, and the sudden urge to chat in sign as she had once done with family and friends. Reva stopped herself before she revealed too much. "Interpreter," she responded shortly, and left Edesz to draw his own conclusions.

"Interpret this, then. I want to see what you've brought, and test it by using it on my sea-friends. If it works, I'll pay you the money."

Reva drew a breath before putting that into words, and watched
j
Lish for her reaction. Her face went blank with the aloof, reserved look Reva had seen over Shaydo and castle-stones. The Shiran Trader was ready to bargain.

"We had a deal," she told him. "You pay; I deliver. If that doesn't suit, I'll go right now, and take the goods with me."

There. Bluff to call bluff.

Edesz raised a hand, the "please wait" gesture clear without translation. "No need to leave. But I need reassurances. How do I know this delivery will work as promised?"

"You don't," the smuggler replied through Reva, "except that I tell you it will. You know my reputation?"

The Leaguer signed yes. "I need more than promises, though," he added.

Reva expected Lish to grow angry. But the smuggler took it all in stride, as if renegotiation at the point of closing a bargain was a common part of doing business.

Lish made a gesture of goodwill and keyed the voder on her mask to speak for herself. "I'll let you examine the cargo documentation. You can see what you're buying. If you have someone with the right expertise, you'll know whether it'll work or not."

Edesz flicked on his own voder. "What's in the cargo?" he asked.

"Nanotech."