CHAPTER TWENTY
“Later,” the woman said briskly. She twisted my wrist slightly, the move turning me toward a four-meter-wide section of ceiling that had come down and was resting at an angle against the floor. “Over there—that section. Open it up.”
“Open it up how?” I asked, my mind flipping between the sudden appearance of this new group, the woman’s strange order, and my apparently imminent death.
“He didn’t tell you?” she asked.
“You mean Huginn? Of course not—no, hang on,” I interrupted myself. Huginn’s last incomprehensible words…
I looked at the angled section of ceiling with fresh eyes. Side edge; back hinge.
This time I saw it. A part of the ceiling right at the edge that had cracked off from the main part was drooping to the side, conveniently closing the triangle-shaped gap between ceiling and floor. “There,” I said, pointing with my free hand. “That’s our way in.”
“Show me,” the woman ordered, releasing my arm.
I stepped over to the collapsed ceiling, studying the suspicious flap. Back hinge…
There it was. The hinge was at the upper rear, right where the flap rested against the wall. The hinge itself looked as old as the rest of the house, but I could tell from the area around the screws that it had recently been moved to that position. Huginn and his Iykams had evidently been busy little bees before the Ammei caught them. I looked at the side of the flap opposite the hinge, searching for a hidden catch.
I found it, fumbled at it a moment until I figured out how it worked, then pressed at the proper spot. With a soft click it came free. I got my fingertips under the edge and pulled, and the whole flap swung neatly open. “There,” I said, peering into the gap behind the ceiling section.
From the outside, it hadn’t looked like there was anywhere near enough room for even a single person to hide in, let alone six of us. But in this case, appearances were deceptive. Looking into the space from this angle, assuming we were all willing to get cozy, there should be more than enough room.
I gestured. “Ladies first?”
“Prisoners first,” she corrected. “Go.”
I nodded and eased gingerly through the opening, walking sideways all the way to the solid wall at the far end. The woman was right behind me, with the angry Patth, the well-dressed Patth, and the two Iykams following. A few seconds of jockeying for position as we arranged ourselves more or less comfortably in the limited space, and then the last Iykam in line pulled the hidden door closed behind him.
Not a moment too soon. The catch had barely reengaged when I heard the familiar squeak of the door opening and felt the vibration of hurried footsteps through the floor. There was a staccato exchange of Ammei voices, then more hurried footsteps as they rushed off to search other parts of the building.
Beside me, the woman took my hand and squeezed a warning. I squeezed back reassuringly. Whatever Huginn was up to, I didn’t want the Ammei catching us in here, either.
The search was brief. Barely a minute after the footsteps charged in they charged out again, the Ammei not bothering to close the door behind them. Their hurry was eminently understandable, given that the smoke from Huginn’s bomb would have washed over a lot of real estate before it dissipated. That offered an intimidatingly large number of ruins I could have disappeared into, and they needed to search all of them.
The other possibility being that I’d popped into one of the two or three portals that had been similarly concealed and vanished from Nexus Six completely. That was probably the conclusion Huginn had been trying to guide them to. It would certainly be the logical deduction after all the likely buildings had been cleared. At that point…
I frowned in the darkness. Actually, at that point I had no idea what was supposed to happen. I just hoped that Huginn’s plan didn’t include one of the Iykams shooting me.
I gave the stillness another two minutes. Then, I leaned closer to the woman and put my lips to her ear. “I hope you were joking,” I whispered, “about discussing my death with your friend later.”
“I’m not joking about strangling you here and now if you don’t shut up,” she whispered back. “They could still be nearby.”
“Sure,” I whispered. “Just bear in mind that you still need me. Alive.”
She huffed out a quiet grunt and fell silent. I took the cue and did likewise. It was, I decided reluctantly, going to be a long afternoon.
* * *
I would have given it an hour before venturing back out into the open air. The woman gave it three. Finally, with a gesture and a whispered word, she indicated the all-clear.
Even then we didn’t just stroll casually out. The two Iykams slipped through the secret door, closing it behind them while they presumably checked the house and the perimeter. “No noise once we’re out,” the woman murmured a warning.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I assured her.
“And once we’re settled in,” she added, “you can give me your reasons why I shouldn’t let Conciliator Uvif kill you.”
I winced as the memories abruptly came roaring back. I’d thought the angry Patth looked familiar, but I hadn’t been able to place him. Not surprising, really, given that I hadn’t known Uvif very long and his face hadn’t stuck with me.
But the incident in question certainly had. Landon Station; the Ruth putting down in hopes of using the crop researchers’ private StarrComm center to find out why our passenger Nikki was seemingly being targeted by every bounty hunter in the Spiral; the discovery that the Patth were searching for a portal on the other side of the planet and were effectively in control of the station; Uvif trying to detain us; us outmaneuvering him and escaping.
I hadn’t thought much about the incident since then, though to be fair we’d had plenty of more urgent things to focus on. Apparently, Uvif had taken it much more to heart.
Of course, for me it had been little more than a minor speed bump in a highly bumpy few weeks. For Uvif, it had been a humiliation, possibly a loss of prestige or rank, and a generally traumatic event. I would guess that he remembered every millisecond of it.
Small wonder that he wanted me dead.
As my father used to say, Sooner or later your past will catch up with you. Sometimes it will catch up with you at high speed and try to run you over.
The door to our hideaway opened. One of the Iykams looked in and muttered a couple of Patth words, and Uvif and the other Patth started easing their way out. The woman tapped my hand and followed. Fleetingly, I wondered if I would be better off if I just stayed where I was, realized it would just make it easier for Uvif to shoot me, and moved out behind her.
The Iykam led us to the back part of the house and a relatively spacious inner room that I guessed had once either been a walk-in closet or an exercise area. There were no windows, the walls seemed to be reinforced, and there was just the one door.
And from the look of the lower walls where the baseboards had been, I guessed the room had also once been the proud owner of a silver-silk mesh.
“Over there,” the woman ordered, pointing to the wall farthest from the door. “Make yourself comfortable. We’ve got some time before act two of this little drama. Tell me why you think we need to keep you alive.”
When Huginn first set off his smoke bomb I hadn’t had a clue what any of this was about. But three hours standing silently in an oversized crypt had given me a lot of time to think, and I’d finally figured it out.
Or at least, I hoped so. One way or the other, we were about to find out.
“Because Expediter Huginn’s plan needs a bad guy,” I told her. “Can we have some introductions, by the way? I really don’t want to keep thinking of you as Bright Eyes.”
Uvif stirred and muttered something under his breath. But the woman merely twitched a small smile. “Huginn’s reports don’t do you justice,” she said. “I’m Circe. You can call me…well, call me Circe. This is Conciliator Fearth, representing Sub-Director Nask. Conciliator Uvif you already know.”
“Yes, we had an unfortunate meeting a year or so ago,” I murmured. So both Fearth and Uvif were the same rank in the Patth hierarchy.
So why was Fearth dressed so much better than Uvif?
Actually, come to think of it, a bit of tweaking of my theory would explain the wardrobe discrepancy quite well.
“But as I was saying, Huginn needs a bad guy,” I continued. “Someone he can point to and loudly declare to be off doing all manner of evil things. Someone who the Ammei should be afraid of. Afraid enough of, in fact, that they should turn to Huginn and his people for help.”
I gestured in the direction of the portal ring. “I’m the one who set off the smoke bomb so that I could slip into one of the portals out there and escape, presumably to gather an army to come back and take over the city. Fortunately for the Ammei, the Patth have just arrived”—I gestured to Fearth—“and are here to save the day.”
“Very good,” Circe said. Her voice was vaguely mocking, but I could also hear a hint of approval. “And why exactly does this plan require us to keep you alive?”
“Because disposing of bodies is tricky work,” I said. So I had gotten it right, or at least was close enough. “Especially since the Ammei monitor the whole area from the Tower by day and from the portal ring by night. Even more especially since corona guns create an ungodly stink that no one is going to mistake for anything but carnage.”
“So you came back and we caught and killed you,” Circe said calmly. “How does that hurt the plan?”
“Why did I come back without my army?” I countered. “More crucially, who exactly shot me?”
“We did,” Uvif bit out. “We saw you try to enter the portal and stopped you?”
I shook my head. “Sorry, but it’s too late for that story. If you’d just happened to come out of your own portal as I was trying to escape you should have emerged triumphant from the smoke three hours ago. The way the timing works now, you popped in long after the search was over, probably while Huginn was presenting his dire warnings of what I was up to.”
“It’s an interesting theory,” Circe said. “But it’s all speculation.”
“Not at all,” I said. “Furthermore, I would argue that the fact that Conciliator Fearth is dressed in full formal regalia while Conciliator Uvif is in more modest clothing shows that Huginn wanted me kept alive. You, Circe, were to escort him into the Ammei presence while Uvif and his Iykams were to sit on me and keep me from getting lonely.”
“I don’t care what Expediter Huginn wants,” Uvif said stiffly. “He is an Expediter. I am a conciliator. My orders supersede his.”
“Calm yourself, Conciliator,” Fearth put in. “The human makes a compelling case—”
“You have not had dealings with this human, Conciliator Fearth,” Uvif cut him off. “Furthermore, you do not outrank me.” He shifted his glare to Circe. “Nor do you, Expediter Circe. If I declare this human’s life to be forfeit, it is forfeit. And I do so declare.” He gestured to the Iykams. “Kill him.”
“You may be right about your traveling companions not outranking you,” I spoke up quickly. “But I can tell you who does.”
“You?” Uvif scoffed. “Your precious Alien Portal Agency? Your human Commonwealth?”
“No,” I said. “Sub-Director Nask. And he also wants me kept alive.”
The room went silent. Uvif, predictably, recovered first. “Does he really?” he demanded. “You, a mere human—?”
“I, a mere human who’s been of great service to him and the Patth over the years,” I cut him off. “The very damn portal you took to get here was only yours because Huginn and I made a deal. I think Sub-Director Nask would be very upset if I died for no reason.” I looked Uvif squarely in the eye. “Injured pride doesn’t count.”
The mahogany red of Uvif’s face went a couple of shades darker. But this time, it was Circe who got there first. “You make a good case,” she said calmly. “Especially the part about appealing to Sub-Director Nask. Fine. For now, at least, you stay alive.”
She looked pointedly at Uvif. “Alive and unharmed,” she added. “Expediter Huginn has a long history of improvisation on his jobs, and he might yet find a use for our friend here.”
Uvif spat something in Patth. “On the contrary,” Circe said coolly. “I think he asked for me because I know how he thinks and therefore can anticipate his plans.”
“Not just a pretty face, then,” I murmured, just to see what kind of reaction I would get.
In one way, it was disappointing. She turned and looked at me with a speculative, almost amused expression, without even a hint of annoyance or discomfiture. But in another way, it was exactly the response I expected from a seasoned Patth Expediter. Circe knew who she was, she recognized her strengths and abilities, and she didn’t need to prove herself to anyone. Particularly not to a prisoner.
As my father used to say, Ego, greed, and stubbornness are ninety percent of the levers you’ll ever need. Beware of the ten percent those levers don’t work on.
Fearth asked a question. “A few more hours,” Circe replied in English. “We’ll wait until it’s nearly dark and the Tower watchers have been pulled off duty. When we leave we’ll go out the back and work our way around the outer edges of the dead zone, get through the portal ring, and go to the Tower.”
Fearth spoke again. “Not a problem,” Circe said. “I can spin a story about how we got out of our portal without being seen.”
Uvif put in something. “No, we’re not pitching them your hunting story,” she said with a hint of strained patience. “Roarke stays alive and unharmed. Understood?” she added, this time including the two Iykams in her gaze.
There were three affirmations, Uvif’s clearly reluctant, the Iykams’ just as clearly perfunctory. “Good,” Circe said. “Everyone relax. Repack your gear if you want—when we leave this building we’re on stage. Roarke, might as well make yourself comfortable. You’re going to be here a while.”
Fearth moved to one of the side walls and sat down. Pulling out a pair of flat body packs from under his duster, he started to lay out their contents on the floor beside him. The two Iykams also pulled out packs. Uvif gave me another couple of seconds of hard, bitter glare, then stomped over to a corner by himself and started fiddling with his own gear. I picked a section of floor that looked slightly less lumpy than the rest and eased myself down, resting my back against the wall.
“You all right?” Circe asked.
“As all right as current circumstances allow,” I said. “Thanks for keeping me in the conversational loop, by the way. You could have just kept going in Patth.”
“It’s a politeness thing,” Circe said with a small shrug. “Nothing to do with you personally.”
“Understood,” I said. “I still appreciate it. I’m sure Huginn would, too.”
“You’re welcome.” Her eyes flicked over to Uvif. “I don’t know how much you got from what Uvif said, but just for the record he was wrong. Huginn didn’t request me for this job. It was Sub-Director Nask himself.”
I frowned up at her. “Really? Why?”
She shrugged again. “No idea. You can ask him when you see him.” She paused. “Assuming you survive.”
I felt a knot settle into my stomach. “Any reason in particular why I shouldn’t?”
“There are the Ammei,” she said. “Who knows what they want and how they intend to get it?”
“And there’s Conciliator Uvif?”
Her lips compressed briefly. “Unfortunately, he’s right,” she said reluctantly. “I can warn and even threaten, but I can’t give a conciliator orders. If he chooses to defy me—and doesn’t mind making an enemy of Sub-Director Nask—there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“I would hope Sub-Director Nask has some consequences he could bring to bear.”
“I’m sure he does,” Circe agreed. “But that wouldn’t help you, would it? The point remains that if Uvif’s willing to risk it, there’s nothing official I can do.”
I felt my ears prick up. So now there was nothing official she could do? Did that mean there might be something unofficial in her bag of tricks?
I didn’t know, and I certainly wasn’t going to ask. As my father used to say, Nothing draws the wrong kind of attention than using the word unofficial in a conversation.
“I appreciate the honesty,” I said. “So what you’re saying is that I’m in charge of my own defense?”
“That’s usually how life works,” Circe said. “Bearing in mind the consequences, of course.”
“Of course,” I said. “And I assume the Iykams you’re leaving with him will obey him instantly?”
“Maybe not instantly,” she said. “They heard my warnings, too. But they probably will eventually.”
“Got it,” I said. “I appreciate the heads-up.”
She gave me a sort of wry smile. “You appreciate a lot, don’t you?”
“I’m just that kind of guy.”
“Yes. Pockets?”
I pulled out my info pad, notebook, flashlight, and multitool and set them on the floor. Her eyes flicked over everything, lingered a moment on my empty plasmic holster, then gestured for me to put it all away again. She gave me a small nod, then turned and walked over to Fearth. She crouched down in front of him and began sorting through the gear he’d laid out, conversing with him in low voices.
I focused on Uvif. He was still sitting with his back to me, and while my knowledge of Patth body language was even less detailed than my knowledge of their facial expressions I didn’t doubt for a minute that he was ready to risk whatever it took to blot out the stain of Landon Station. Or if not the entire stain, at least me.
With a sigh I slipped off my jacket and folded it into a pillow, then stretched out on my back. As Circe had said, I might as well get comfortable.
And as I gazed at the broken and warped ceiling, I tried to think.
Selene would know what had happened the instant Circe and Fearth arrived, of course. Circe had gripped my wrist and held my hand, not to mention standing shoulder to shoulder with me for three hours, all of which meant that my scent was all over her. She would know Circe had taken me and was holding me incommunicado somewhere.
But then what? Would she call Circe on it? Would that gain her anything?
Alternatively, she could play along. But would that gain her anything?
Muddying the water even more was the fact that Huginn knew Selene was there and that she would smell me on Circe. He must be counting on some reaction from her.
But which one?
On the other hand, Huginn presumably didn’t know that Ixil was here. Could Selene somehow get word to him?
Better yet, could I get word to him?
Because wherever he’d gone to ground, he’d surely spotted Huginn’s smoke screen. He’d be watching closely to see what happened next.
Unless he’d gone down to the river to link up with McKell and whatever force Kinneman had sent.
I hissed out a quiet breath. With two Patth now on the ground, plus an extra Expediter and a couple more Iykams, a show of EarthGuard muscle was the last thing I wanted.
But right now there was nothing I could do about it. Maybe after Circe and Fearth left, I’d find a way to slip Uvif’s leash and find Ixil.
I looked over at Circe, still in deep conversation with Fearth. She’d said they were going to wait until nightfall.
I had that long to come up with a plan.
* * *
I’d traveled to a lot of worlds in my time as a bounty hunter, and along the way I’d learned how to quickly get a feel for the local circadian rhythms. So when Circe and Fearth finally headed out, I didn’t need the single quick look I got through the house’s back door to know the sun had just set in the western sky.
Which meant that the Tower beacon was about to light up.
I didn’t know whether or not that aspect of the Nexus Six routine had come up in whatever private communications Circe had had with Huginn. If it hadn’t, she was in for a surprise.
But that was her problem. Mine was staying alive, and with the whole city about to be bathed in gentle light Uvif’s plans for me would have to go back on hold for the next two hours. Our current hiding place was too close to the portals and portal guards for him to risk killing me in here, and if there was any cloud cover at all out there the beacon’s light would reflect off it and make the whole area too bright for him to risk moving me.
Which meant I had those same two hours to fine-tune my plan. I shifted a little, easing my back against the lumpy floor—
“You,” Uvif said. “Human.”
I opened my eyes. Uvif was standing across the room beside the doorway, the two Iykams flanking him with their corona weapons drawn. “On your feet,” the Patth ordered.
I sighed. Unless, of course, he decided he didn’t care about the risk. Apparently, my plan wasn’t going to get those two hours of fine-tuning after all.
But that was fine. I usually ended up running things on the fly anyway.
“About time,” I said, wincing as I levered myself up off the floor. Several hours of lying on a hard surface hadn’t done my back any favors. “The clock’s ticking, and there’s something I need to show you.”
Uvif seemed to twitch. “What do you say?” he demanded.
“I said there’s something I need to show you,” I said, taking a step toward him.
“Stop,” he snapped. “Do not come nearer.”
“Fine,” I said, taking another short step before stopping. I was still too far away to deal with a pair of armed Iykams, but my casualness about obeying Uvif’s order would hopefully impress him with my lack of fear of him, which should in turn suggest that what I had to offer would convince him I was worth keeping alive.
On the other hand, my brief interactions with him at Landon Station hadn’t left an impression of great imagination. I needed to make sure that the dots I wanted him to connect were big enough. “I’ll say it again. There’s something you or Conciliator Fearth need to see, something the Director General needs to know about. I realize you and I have had our differences in the past, and—”
“You speak of public humiliation as differences?”
“—and I understand your anger about that,” I continued, passing over the fact that if I hadn’t outmaneuvered him the way I had, Nikki would most likely have gone ahead and slaughtered everyone on the base. “But as I say, the Director General needs to know about this, and I frankly don’t trust Conciliator Fearth.”
He frowned at me. “Why not?”
“Because he strikes me as the ambitious type who’ll step over anyone to climb the ladder,” I said. “Am I wrong?”
“What about Expediter Circe?” he asked, ignoring my question.
“I trust her even less,” I said. “Expediters won’t just climb the ladder over you. They’ll stab you in the back on the way up.”
“Yet you claim you trust me?”
I held out my hands, palms upward. “Like I said, I need someone to get this information to the Director General. The fact that you don’t like me is actually in your favor, since you’ll take an extra close look at the information I’m presenting. If you’re convinced it’s as important as I say, you’ll be able to convince the Director General.”
“And how will you benefit?” Uvif asked. “Do not expect me to believe you help the Patthaaunutth from the abundance of your heart.”
“Not at all,” I assured him. “I’m doing it for money, pure and simple. Sub-Director Nask will tell you that’s my guiding principle.”
For a few heartbeats he stared at me. The Iykams’ corona weapons, I noted, hadn’t wavered a single millimeter from their focus. “Tell me what this information consists of,” Uvif said at last.
I shook my head. “It would be better for me to show you.”
“Tell me or die here.”
I sighed, letting my shoulders slump a little with resignation. I’d known this was coming, and was ready for it.
Or at least as ready as I could be. This next step was both the most crucial and the most speculative part of my story, and I’d have preferred to wait until we were at least outside before I had to take it. But Uvif wasn’t going to budge without me giving him something. “I can tell you this much,” I said, mentally crossing my fingers. “It has to do with silver-silk.”
As reactions went, Uvif’s wasn’t all that impressive. He gave a little twitch from the waist up, a motion I’d occasionally seen on other Patth, and his lower facial muscles tightened for maybe half a second. Barely a flicker, and immediately gone.
But it was all that I needed, and was frankly more than I’d expected. My gut feeling was that he wasn’t placed highly enough to know why silver-silk was so important, either to the Ammei or the Patth, but that he’d heard enough about the stuff to know that it was somehow significant.
Which was a shame. I didn’t know how silver-silk fit into this puzzle, either, and I’d hoped I could worm some of those secrets out of him.
But as my father used to say, You can sometimes get someone to spill the beans, but if all he’s got is gravel it’s not going to be worth the effort.
Predictably, Uvif tried to bluff. “What does silver-silk have to do with the Patthaaunutth?” he asked.
“If you don’t know, it’s not my job to tell you,” I said. “Do you want to see what the Ammei are up to, or not?”
He hesitated another couple of seconds, then gave a single nod. “If you are lying, my servants will kill you.”
“Understood,” I said. Not that he’d had any other plan for me, but I could appreciate a good threat as well as anyone. “We’ll go out the back way, then head toward the river.”
“The silver-silk is in the river?”
“It’s near the river,” I corrected, starting walking again. “It’s easier to show you than to explain.”
Though of course I wouldn’t be explaining or showing. Heading straight east from this part of the city would put us a few kilometers south of the pier where our vac suits were presumably still hidden. The minute we hit the riverbank I would kick up a diversion and go straight into the water, traveling as much below the surface as I could. Once I reached the pier, I would suit up, swim back to Alpha and thence to Icarus, and do whatever groveling it took to beg, borrow, or steal enough EarthGuard Marines to storm the tower and get Selene out of there. Once we were out of the line of fire, Kinneman would be welcome to take on Fearth and Uvif however he wanted to.
The trick, as always, was to make sure neither of the Iykams shot me before the scheme even got started. That meant being docile and cooperative right up to the point where I wasn’t.
Uvif and the Iykams stepped aside as I walked over to the door, reforming behind me as I walked through. “Back door’s this way, right?” I asked over my shoulder, pointing in the direction Fearth and Circe had disappeared earlier.
“Yes,” Uvif said. “Do not think you can escape even in the dark of night.”
“With all the money the Director General is going to give me still on the table?” I countered. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” I reached the door, got a grip on the edge, and pulled.
The hinges gave a small rumble, much less tooth-jarring than the noise the front door had made when we first we’d entered the house all those hours ago. More importantly, it was quiet enough that the Ammei guarding the portals nearby wouldn’t hear and come running. Outside, the city was bathed in the faint glow coming from the beacon’s light reflecting off the overhead clouds. Letting out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, I stepped into the doorway.
And stopped dead in my tracks.
The Ammei guards didn’t need to come running. Their representatives were already here.
Facing me at ground level, spread out around the door like a crowd facing a stage show, were at least twenty of the ferret-like tenshes. Standing silent and motionless.
Gazing straight at me.