Shooting the Rift - eARC (25 page)

I nodded, feeling a tight knot growing in the pit of my stomach. Cutting and running, as the
Poison 4
had attempted to do, would be taken as a tacit admission of guilt from the outset, and a Freebooter crew didn’t have the economic and political clout of the Guild standing behind them. No doubt their interrogation had been a good deal more rigorous than ours, and I had no desire to find out how much so: but if the Leaguers ever got wind of the secrets I was carrying around with me, I wouldn’t get any choice in the matter.

“So why are they putting them in with us now?” I asked.

“Because they finally got tired of asking the same stupid questions, and they can’t be bothered to shoot us,” the green woman said, overhearing, and turning to glare at me. Clearly a couple of weeks of sustained interrogation, not to mention having her ship shot out from under her, had done little to improve her disposition. Then she looked at my face properly, and her expression softened a little. “Simon something, right?”

“Forrester,” I said, introducing my companions. “This is Clio Rennau, and—”

“John Remington, master of the
Stacked Deck
.” Remington stepped forward, nodded a greeting, and smiled a little tightly. “Forgive me if I don’t shake hands.”

“I never shake hands with Guilders. I need all my fingers.” She returned the nod coolly. “Carolyn Ertica, mistress of a gutted hulk.” She indicated the older of the two men accompanying her. “Baines was my engineer.” That made sense: he was the only one of the three with neuroware, his datasphere shrunken and closed off with privacy protocols. He nodded slightly, regarding us all with suspicion, and an almost-healed flash burn became visible on the side of his face as he turned in our direction. Ertica tilted her head towards the young man with the cats’ eyes. “And that’s Rollo. Does a bit of everything.”

“Don’t we all,” I said, faintly surprised to receive a friendly grin from him in return.

“What about the rest of your crew?” Clio asked, with a glance back down the empty corridor. “Where are they?”

“I suppose that depends on what their religions were,” Ertica said shortly.

“Some of ’em’ll be lucky to make cockroach next time round,” Rollo added cheerfully, before being silenced by a glare from his captain.

“That’s enough.” Corporal Fledge stepped in to exert a little of his fondly imagined authority. He gestured with the barrel of his gun. “Your quarters are this way.”

“Not too close to ours, I hope,” Deeks said, shouldering his way through the crowd, a couple of his shipmates tagging along behind him. “Don’t want ‘booters stinking up the place.” Which pretty much explains why I’d never really taken to him, despite his affable greeting the first time we’d met. I’d never quite been able to shake the feeling that it was my Guild patch he was being friendly to, rather than the person wearing it.

“Ooh, aren’t you adorable?” Ertica said, with a patently insincere smile. Before anyone could react she leaned in, and planted a flirtatious kiss on his cheek. “I could just eat you alive.”

“What?” Utterly taken aback, Deeks stood in stupefied astonishment for a moment, before his hand went up to his face. “Aaagh!” Blisters began erupting across the skin, just as they had done when she’d been accosted in the street back on Numarkut. But it seemed to me that the effect was far less pronounced than it had been on that occasion, when Ertica’s would-be attacker had been completely and instantly incapacitated. “What did you do?”

Fledge barely glanced at the spreading lesions, before gesturing to one of the guard detail. “Holby. Take him to the infirmary.”

“Corporal.” She saluted, in a fairly perfunctory manner if I was any judge, and led the loudly complaining Deeks away up the corridor, passing through the cordon of guards blocking the open hatch in case anyone was bored or stir crazy enough to try making a completely pointless run for it.

“This way, please.” Jas took Ertica by the elbow, and got her moving with polite but insistent pressure. Once more reminded of the incident in Dullingham I began to shout a warning, before turning it into a face-saving cough as I realized that Jas seemed completely unaffected by whatever toxin Ertica had in her skin. Another of her invisible tweaks, perhaps, or was Ertica able to control its potency by an act of will? Another question to try and find the answer to.

But at least I’d have time to do that. I raised a hand in farewell, as Ertica and her friends were escorted away.

“Be seeing you,” I said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

In which I reveal a secret in order to keep one.

And of course I did, although it took longer than I expected. I’d already resolved to wait a day or two before contriving a chance meeting with one of the Freebooters, which would be difficult enough to begin with; they kept themselves to themselves as assiduously as Freebooters always did, ostentatiously ignoring Guilders and shipping line crews alike. To be fair, the antipathy was mutual; word about what had happened to Deeks got around almost at once, growing in the telling to those who hadn’t seen it, and no one seemed at all keen to attract Ertica’s attention after that. Which had probably been the point in the first place.

The one exception to the Freebooters’ universal disdain, surprisingly, was me, perhaps because our meeting on Numarkut had convinced Ertica of my good nature—or possibly naivety, which in her view was pretty much the same thing. At any event, on the rare occasions we caught sight of one another, she would nod, almost imperceptibly, instead of pretending I was a human-shaped hole in the air, as she and her companions did with everyone else.

Something which hadn’t escaped Clio’s notice. “You’ll have to watch that,” she remarked, a little frostily, after one such exchange. “Soldier Girl will be getting jealous.”

I had no idea why she’d think so. I had to admit I found Ertica attractive in the abstract, although I could hardly be blamed for that: like most men, and quite a few girls, I was biologically programmed to respond in certain ways to the sight of a scantily clad woman, however corrosive her personality. I was hardly in a position to do anything about it, though, even if I’d wanted to: I’d seen what the consequences of getting too close would be, even if I didn’t annoy her. And it wasn’t as if there was anything romantic in my friendship with Jas either, come to that; although, if I was entirely honest with myself, she was precisely the kind of girl I’d have had those kinds of feelings for under more propitious circumstances.

And the circumstances were far from propitious. As I’d expected, her sense of duty far outweighed whatever value she might have put on our fledgling friendship, and she lost no time in reporting my family connections to her superiors. Something which became almost immediately apparent the following morning, with the arrival of a lieutenant commander in the League Navy, whose uniform was tellingly devoid of any insignia denoting his service branch.

“Simon Forrester, isn’t it?” he asked, as I entered the room in our quarters which had become so familiar through previous interviews. It had obviously been intended as a conference room, containing a table, lined with chairs on both sides, with a single, more generously padded, one at the head. My interlocutor had seated himself about halfway down one of the long edges, facing the door, and smiled affably as I came in.

“Don’t you know?” I asked, as I took the seat opposite, and placed a mug of coffee and a plate of cookies on the table in front of me. He had a similar plate in front of him, next to his own beverage, which came as no surprise; if this interview followed the pattern of the previous ones I’d sat through, his next move would have been to offer me one, to put me at my ease and persuade me to open up. Bringing my own was supposed to send the clear message that I realized that, and wasn’t going to be quite so crudely psychologically manipulated. I really was beginning to think like a Guilder. “That doesn’t say a lot for the League’s intelligence service.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” The polite smile congealed a little, although his voice remained relaxed. “I’m Paul Wymes. With a y, not double e.” He waited for a conventional polite response, like “Pleased to meet you,” or something like that.

“You’re expecting me to write it down, then?” I said. “Am I going to have to report your conduct to the Guild?” Although if I did, I wouldn’t have to write anything down, of course: my neuroware was recording the entire conversation.

“I sincerely hope not,” Wymes said, the pose of affability getting steadily more frayed around the edges. He smiled, a little disingenuously. “And speaking of the Guild, I gather that the intermediary appointed by the system Guildhall to deal with this unfortunate situation has had to return to Freedom.” Of course he had: the DIR, or whoever else this clown reported to, wouldn’t want a senior member of the Guild getting wind of this latest development. It would complicate things far too much. “Perhaps you’d like to have your captain sitting in on our discussion instead.”

“Not really.” I shrugged, to his evident surprise, and bit into one of the cookies—chocolate chip, which I’ve always thought goes particularly well with coffee. “I don’t want to have to pay him a cut if we reach an agreement.” I pushed the plate across the table. “Help yourself.”

“An agreement,” Wymes repeated, taking a cookie with the air of a chess player reaching for a sacrificial pawn. “And what kind of an agreement would you have in mind, Mr. Forrester?”

“A business one, of course,” I said. I’d had some time to think, since inadvertently revealing part of my family history to Jas, and I’d come up with what I hoped was a workable strategy to limit the damage. The key was to play up the fact that I was a Guilder, rather than a former Commonwealth citizen, and play that role to the hilt. “You think I might have some information you can use. I’m willing to talk it over, and find out if you’re right. And how much you’re prepared to pay for it if I do.”

“Pay for it?” Wymes looked at me a little quizzically, the half-eaten cookie pinched between his finger and thumb. “I must say I’m a little surprised at your attitude.”

“Are you?” I sipped at my coffee, trying to project an air of easy unconcern. “It seems simple enough to me. My mother’s a Commonwealth naval officer, which means I might know a few things about where she’s been and what she’s been up to. You’d have found that out eventually, even if I hadn’t mentioned it to Private Mokole, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to speed things up a bit.” I shook my head dismissively. “I kept expecting the topic to come up in one of my earlier chats with you people, but I suppose your networks on Avalon aren’t quite as efficient as I thought.”

“So you told her on purpose, to get our attention?” Wymes took a small, precise bite of his cookie, and brushed a nonexistent crumb from his upper lip, his voice reeking of skepticism. “Why would you do something like that? Betray everything you ever believed in?”

“Why do you think?” I shrugged again, and picked up another cookie. “If you’ve done any digging at all, you’ll know why I left the Commonwealth. I don’t owe it anything.”

“I see.” Wymes nodded slowly, dismally failing to counterfeit sympathy. “This is about revenge.” So he had been checking up.

“Bollocks it is,” I said. “It’s about money. I’ve spent my entire life around Commonwealth naval personnel, and probably picked up a lot of information you can use. But the older it gets, the less it’s worth. I want to cash it in while it’s still valuable enough to get a good price.”

“And that doesn’t bother you at all?” Wymes asked, a faint edge of distrust elbowing its way past his carefully modulated vowels. “Committing treason against the Commonwealth?”

“I’m not committing treason against anybody,” I said firmly. “I’m a Guilder now, a free agent, and I’m doing what any Guilder would do with confidential information. Selling it for as much as I can get.” I paused momentarily, wondering whether to twist the knife, and decided I might as well. If I didn’t want him taking me seriously, it wouldn’t hurt to come across as a bit of a tosser. “Pity you never did find that Commonwealth spy you keep insisting is somewhere around here. The price would go a lot higher with someone else to bid against.”

“When we find them, we’ll ask if they’re interested.” Wymes permitted himself a thin smile, about as warm as a midwinter frost. “Although they’ll have quite a lot of pressing business to consider by that point, so I suggest you prepare yourself for some disappointment in that regard.” He looked at me narrowly over the rim of his coffee cup. “And how much were you thinking of asking for this invaluable information?”

I sipped my own drink, refusing to be hurried. “Make me an offer.” Heaven help me, I was starting to enjoy this. “Then I’ll tell you it’s an insult, double it, and we’ll negotiate from there.”

“That’s all very well,” Wymes said, leaning forward across the table, and looking seriously engaged for the first time, “but you can hardly expect me to bid for information you may or may not have. Tell me what you know, and I’ll give you an honest estimation of what it’s worth.”

To my pleased surprise, my chuckle of amusement sounded completely spontaneous. “We both know that’ll be nothing at all,” I said. “As soon as I tell you anything, I’ve nothing left to sell.”

“Then we seem to have reached an impasse.” Wymes leant back in his chair, and took a self-satisfied sip of his coffee. “If you won’t tell me anything, I can’t assess how valuable your information might be.”

“Fair enough.” I leaned back too, trying to look equally unconcerned. “How about the location of the Commonwealth task force preparing to relieve Rockhall if it all goes pear-shaped?”

“That would be worth a lot,” Wymes said, “if we didn’t already know.” He studied my face for a flicker of expression, but the practice I’d already had insulating large areas of my life from Mother’s interference paid off yet again, and I didn’t react at all.

“How much?” I asked levelly. This was skating on very thin ice—I was sure they already knew what I was about to tell him, but if they didn’t, I’d be putting Mother and Tinkie directly in harm’s way. But if they did, that would convince Wymes beyond all possible doubt that I was precisely the kind of amoral chancer Guilders were popularly supposed to be, with no lingering loyalties to the Commonwealth. His attention, and that of the agency he worked for, would move on, leaving the secrets of my covert assignment from Aunt Jenny, and my mother’s presence in the Sodallagain system, comfortably preserved.

“Ten thousand,” Wymes said, in the kind of take it or leave it tone that made it plain to any Guilder that there was still plenty of room for negotiation.

“Ten thousand what?” I asked. “Ducats?” I’d assumed he meant the League’s own currency, but there were so many monetary systems even in this relatively tiny part of the Human Sphere that it paid to be cautious. Ten thousand ducats was a respectable sum, right enough, but worth only about two thirds that number of Commonwealth guineas, or half of it in Numarkut talents. And on some worlds, ten thousand of the local denomination would just about buy you a meal, and cup of coffee afterwards to wash it down.

“I was going to say guineas, as I thought you’d be more used to that.” Wymes smirked a little. “But ducats would be perfectly acceptable.”

“Thirty thousand of them would,” I agreed.

“Twenty.” Wymes’ temper was beginning to fray, and he was making less of an effort to hide it. “If the intelligence is good.”

“It’s good,” I said. “We just need to work out a way of doing this that makes sure I get paid.”

“Of course.” A sarcastic tone began to creep into Wymes’ voice. “I take it my word as a representative of the League of Democracies will be sufficient guarantee?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said cheerfully. “But I’m happy to give you my word as a member of the Commerce Guild that I believe the information I’m selling you to be sound.” Which raised the stakes nicely. However skeptical he might be about me, personally, Wymes could hardly fail to be aware of the binding nature of a Guilder’s oath. At the very least he’d have to believe I was in earnest about trying to cut a deal now.

“Then what do you suggest?” he asked, his demeanor becoming instantly more businesslike.

“A double blind,” I said. I fished a small notebook out of my pocket, tore out one of the pages, and skimmed it across the table, along with a pen. I deliberately aimed them wide, but, to my complete lack of surprise, Wymes caught them both easily, his tweaked reflexes as highly tuned as Jas’s. “You write down where you think the Commonwealth task force is being assembled, and I’ll write down where I know it is. If they match, you’re right, I’ve got nothing to sell, and we’re wasting each others’ time. If they don’t, you pay me the thirty grand.”

“Twenty,” Wymes said, without missing a beat.

“Twenty,” I agreed, with a shrug and a smile I felt sure was guaranteed to irritate him. “Can’t blame me for trying.”

“You’re a Guilder. I expect it,” Wymes said, and my heart skipped. Unless he’d said that to play me, which I certainly couldn’t discount, it sounded as though he was halfway convinced already. “I take it you want this agreement notarized?”

“No need,” I said blithely. “I’ve been recording this since I entered the room, and so have you.” I gestured towards the bulge in his jacket pocket. “I can see the datastream from the cameras to your handheld.”

Which I’d been very careful not to try and infiltrate, despite the obvious temptation to do so. Wymes was clearly a spook of some kind, although quite possibly not entitled to the uniform he was wearing, and I had no doubt that his handheld would be very comprehensively protected. Possibly by the kind of countermeasures which would scramble any intruding neuroware badly enough to puree my brain, and leave it leaking out of my nose. Quite apart from killing me, that would make an unconscionable mess of my favorite jacket, neither of which I considered an acceptable outcome. Even if it didn’t come to that, and all I did was trip an alarm, that would pretty much put an end to any attempt at bamboozling Wymes into concluding I was harmless, and shoving off to look for his nonexistent spy somewhere else.

“Very well.” He looked at me narrowly, probably wondering what else I’d been doing with my ‘ware since the start of our meeting. “Let’s get this over with.”

He scribbled briefly on the piece of paper, and skimmed the pen back to me. It came hard and fast, but I caught it anyway, and he stared at me for a moment; he’d clearly expected me to fumble it, but my athlete’s reflexes were quite good for non-tweaked ones, and, though I’d never be able to match a transgener with the right modifications, I was a fair bit faster than most. For some reason I found myself remembering the fight in the alley back on Numarkut, and Mallow’s remark that if we were under observation I’d just shown myself to be more dangerous than anyone expected; well, even if the dregs hadn’t been sent by Wymes’s people, he was probably getting the idea that there was more to me than met the eye by now. Time for a bit of distraction, so I pretended to fumble with the pen as I scribbled in turn, and held up the scrap of paper where he could see it.