The Gilded Cage (6 page)

Almássy and Navarre leaned close, two old merchants at the bazaar, getting down to brass tacks. She wondered if the man owned one of those old–fashioned accountant hats, all bill and no lid.

He had that feel to him.

“Oh, no,” Navarre smiled, catlike. “I was much more interested in obtaining front row seats when you executed her. That would satisfy me. And my backers.”

“Backers?”

Hadiiye saw the man’s concentration crack for a second of utter confusion as the implications of the word settled on him like a winter mantle.

Navarre wasn’t a lone wolf who wouldn’t be missed if something happened to him. Others might inquire. Unknown others. Potentially dangerous others.

She considered it a masterful job of misdirection, until she saw the light in Navarre’s eyes. If a supernova was white hot summer heat, this was the exact equivalent in winter.

The accountant saw it as well. He retreated, emotionally as well as physically, leaning back as far as his chair would comfortably allow.

Moments passed.

Navarre considered the man as bobcat might consider a field mouse.

“I think,” Almássy responded finally, “that you would be better served to discuss such a matter with Captain Tamaz directly, Captain Navarre.”

“I suspected as much.”

“Perhaps you will be able to come to the club, Sevenoaks, this evening? Captain Tamaz will be handling some business there in about six hours. I am certain he will be quite interested in making your acquaintance.”

Navarre rose slowly from his chair, his hand extended. Almássy did the same.

“I look forward to it, Mr. Almássy,” Navarre said. “Until then.”

And then the man was gone.

The emotional power of the room dropped precipitously, even as the space seemed to grow warmer.

They were alone again.

Hadiiye smiled tightly at her partner.

“Navarre, that was a most amazing bluff.”

He fixed her with a cold stare.

“Bluff?”

Part Five

The little, unnamed, stolen ship was a useful base while they stayed at
Meehu Platform
. For the time they would be here.

Javier scanned the single room once, taking note of several little things he had left, precisely located, that would have been moved by someone rifling the place for clues to his identity. It was second nature when he had to deal with people. Any people. Even ones he liked. In addition, he had left Suvi’s sensors on, so she would have flashed a red light at him if anyone had come in.

The space was still secure. He entered, the hard woman one step behind him.

Javier took off Navarre like an old, comfortable cloak and hung him by the airlock hatch, along with the belt holding the sword and pistol. The ship felt warm, almost enough to leech the cold from his bones and soul.

He turned to find her standing in the middle of the room as the hatch closed.

They studied each other, across a gulf far greater than it had been when they left.

“It’s safe to be you,” he said.

It wasn’t an apology, but it was headed in that direction.

“Are you you?” she replied.

Javier considered any number of responses, some of them tart, some angry, a few goofy.

It was a fair question. It deserved a fair answer.

“Close enough. For now,” he replied.

These two women had taken him to his dark places. It wasn’t her fault. Sykora had started him down that road when they met almost a year ago. Wilhelmina when she first came into his life, and then again when she came back.

“So what do we do now?” she asked, looking unsure for the first time since they had left
Storm Gauntlet
, days ago.

“Now we sleep,” he replied, popping buttons and taking off the doublet. “It will be a long night, with a bunch of punks who like to think they’re tougher than everyone else by staying up all night drinking shots of engine coolant.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he said, starting to unlace the boots. “After a nap, more food to absorb the booze.”

“What about Djamila?” she asked evasively.

“We don’t know where they’re keeping her,” he replied. “Or how to get her out.”

He paused, looked up, fixed her with a hard gaze.

“Yet. We do know she’s still alive.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” Javier replied. “He would have offered to sell me footage if they had killed her already.”

She took a step sideways and sort of collapsed into the captain’s seat.

“So we’ll waltz in there?” she asked. “Just like that?”

“Unless you know a way to hack into their security systems and steal all the information we need,” he replied, tugging a boot off.

“And Tamaz will fall for it?”

Javier smiled at her. It was a brutal smile. His mind was in a brutal place.

“If he doesn’t,” he said, “then we’re dead.”

“And you plan to sleep at a time like this?”

His smile became more rueful.

“I’m surprised you aren’t better accustomed to sleeping whenever you got the chance, as slow as that old barge of yours was.”

“That was different,” she replied, pulling off her own boots and making fists with her toes. “That was boredom. I was never risking my life.”

“Wilhelmina,” he said sharply. “You were risking your life every time you jumped into hyperspace. Every time you got out of bed. Maybe you should consider how risky this universe is and start paying attention.”

“I am paying attention,” she shot back, edges of panic creeping into her voice. “But three months ago I was a missionary. Now I’m an assassin. And I have nobody but you to get our mission done. I’m scared.”

Javier considered the woman sitting there.

For the last several hours, she had been merely a piece of furniture to maneuver around. An art object that happened to move. He had gotten so lost in himself again that he forgot people around him.

They had feelings. Wishes. Dreams. Fears.

That many years in deep space, alone but for a clutch of chickens, had helped smooth over some of the rough spots, but there were still holes. Landmines he occasionally stepped on. Less so now, but still there.

Fighting a war with Sykora had both sharpened those issues, and made them recede a bit. He had stopped being introspective when he had a foe worth the name.

Now he had Wilhelmina, who might be a…what? A friend? A comrade? A lover?

All of those. None of them. Something. Nothing.

He stood up and held out a hand. She rose as well and took it mutely.

Javier considered his options.

“You trusted me with your life,” he said, feeling the warmth of her skin. “Even when you didn’t know it.”

He was close enough to her to smell the underlying flowers of her perfume that suffused the room.

She looked down at him, confused, and nodded.

“I’m going to do the same,” he said. “There is a secret that is worth my life, if Sykora and Captain Sokolov ever find out.”

He watched her eyes grow a little bigger, but she remained silent.

Javier smiled. It was warm this time. Maybe for the first time in weeks. Months. Years. Lifetimes.

“Before I was a slave,” he said. “I was an explorer, doing survey work for the
Concord
Navy on the far fringes of civilized and terraformed space.”

He studied her face. She had withdrawn some, not so much distant as closed. She nodded again, as a placeholder while he spoke.

“I had a lovely, little probe–cutter for a ship,” he continued. “It had been retired out of
Concord
service, demobilized, and was destined for the breaker yard. I got it cheap, fixed it up, and reprogrammed the AI aboard to be much more human and interesting than she had been when she was in the fleet.”

Javier felt a pang of anguish and rage stab him in the guts as he thought of his lost starship, of
Mielikki
. Of how much he owed Zakhar Sokolov and Djamila Sykora. He did not, could not, let the emotion show.

“When I was taken by Sokolov’s crew,” he continued. “I told them I had destroyed all the personality and programming circuits. I lied.”

She blinked in surprise. Obviously she had heard part of that story at some point. Probably from Sykora.

Vast oceans of emotions and questions played across her face as she stayed perfectly silent.

“Instead,” Javier said, “I smuggled her out in a bucket of chicken feed, and then poured her into the only thing I had that was remotely like her old home.”

“Her?”

He pointed at the autonomous sensor remote, resting on a shelf where he had placed it when he finished all the upgrades he could manage without building her a bigger body.

“Wilhelmina Teague, I would like to introduce you to my former first mate, my comrade in surveying, my friend. Suvi, please say hello to Wilhelmina.”

On the shelf, lights clicked on and the sixteen centimeter, gray, grapefruit–looking globe rose into the air with the faintest of hums.

Because he was holding her hand, Javier felt the sudden surge of adrenaline as Wilhelmina’s muscles clenched.

Her era held nothing like the AIs of the present day. There had been smart systems, extremely autonomous and capable, but they did not compose music. Or write poetry.

They did not dream.

“Doctor Teague,” Suvi said warmly. “It is my pleasure to finally get to meet you. I have been looking forward to this for so very long.”

Part Six

She was back to being Hadiiye.

Javier had explained how to wear the identity like a costume, intricate and realistic, but never once exposing your inner self while playing the role.

She wondered if she had ever seen Javier not playing some role. She considered asking Suvi sometime, when he wasn’t around.

Sevenoaks turned out to be a noisy nightclub, located well away from the other two establishments she had visited with Navarre. It wasn’t a pretty place, filled with well–dressed folks showing off in a complicated mating ritual.

No, it was much rougher, filled with crew off of various ships docked at the station, perhaps at a two or three to one ratio, male to female, plus a variety of what were obviously locals and professional entertainers, here eight or ten to one female.

The first person to grope her bottom in this place was going to end up eating teeth.

Just for good measure, Hadiiye pasted a hostile snarl on her face and followed Navarre as he slowly made his way through the press. It was not a full rugby scrum, but there was unavoidable–but–polite jostling. Her height and obvious attitude problem helped clear her path.

Away from the dance floor, the crowd thinned out. Sevenoaks wasn’t particularly cavernous, but it made good use of space, with a bar along each side wall, and a series of four rising levels, like steps for giants, climbing towards the back of the club.

She could see booths up there, filled with older patrons, while the kids were down here. Apparently, there was a kitchen around here as well. She saw several people eating dinner, or at least snacks more complicated than instant bar food.

Not that she could hold another bite at this point. But she was good for drinking, especially with men who had never gotten drunk with a missionary before. In some places, there was nothing to do but drink with the locals. You got to be good at holding it.

Almássy, the accountant, rose from a booth above them and back a few tiers as they approached the rear of the club. There wasn’t a toll gate here, but several bouncer–looking goons in black muscle shirts made it obvious where the invite–only section began.

Seeing dancers and patrons move against that was like watching waves lap at the beach, with clean, dry sand beyond them.

Navarre walked right up to the bouncers. She stayed a step and a half back and a half step to his left, where she could see over his shoulder, prepared for trouble.

The music wasn’t that loud, but she watched Navarre gesture silently to one of the bouncers as Almássy approached, instead of speaking. The man got a nod from the accountant, nodded back, and they were on dry land.

It was quieter here, as well. Wilhelmina would have appreciated the architectural design that went into the ceiling and load–bearing pillars to shelter them from most of the noise. Hadiiye concentrated on people, mostly seated, mostly ignoring her.

The crowd here was different, as she had thought, but not really older. More mature. Perhaps more professional. Much more dangerous. These were captains, and senior officers from various ships, mingling with bankers and fences, if the suits were any clue. Hard men and women, doing deals.

There were no working girls back here.

Almássy shook hands with Navarre and ignored her for the most part. She followed the two men up a set of shallow stairs to the top–most tier, against the back wall of the club.

From the elevation, she guessed there was an entire set of suites or conference rooms below them, but she didn’t know this place well enough to guess if they were cribs for a brothel or conference rooms for more complicated, private deals.

Hadiiye didn’t care nearly as much as Wilhelmina might have.

They were led to a horseshoe–shaped booth on the fourth tier with the best view. She recognized Captain Tamaz from her previous
encounters
, as well as Adam Erckens, the man’s first mate.

Wilhelmina hadn’t really had a chance to study Captain Tamaz before, and certainly hadn’t paid attention to the sorts of detail Hadiiye required now.

He was tall, even sitting down. She would have guessed he had a centimeter on her if they were both in stocking feet. His black hair was long and tied back in a tail. It had streaks of silver that would have made him distinguished, but for the cruel mouth and harsh eyes.

Captain Tamaz was clean–shaven, but she could already see a shadow on his jaw. This was a man who might need to shave twice daily.

Hairy men didn’t do it for either her or Wilhelmina.

Erckens sat next to his captain in the black leather booth. If Tamaz captained a rugby team, and he had that look, Erckens was the muscle in the middle of the scrum. There was nothing soft about the man, from the auburn flattop to the scarred hands resting on the tabletop.