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CHAPTER TWO


I’d never been to Marjolaine, but the place had a fair reputation for cultural refinement, an above-average one for restaurants, and an excellent one for tavernos and local whiskeys.

For a people who prided themselves on their weekly challenges as to who could remain conscious the longest during a drinking contest, their customs officials were unexpectedly alert and efficient. I transmitted our names and the Ruth’s ID as we approached and got a cheerful greeting and a landing slot assignment that was within a fifteen-minute drive of our chosen StarrComm center. Arriving along with the landing slot’s coordinates and approach vector was a colorful brochure with business and tourism highlights, top-rated places to eat and drink, and helpful tips on how to converse with the planet’s human, Drilie, and Saffi residents.

I had no intention of staying long enough to take advantage of any of those recommendations or advice, of course. But I appreciated the thought.

No one suddenly popped into space-normal behind us as we headed inward toward the surface. But that didn’t completely eliminate the possibility that we’d been followed. Luckily, as I’d pointed out to Selene, there were six StarrComm facilities to choose from, which we’d chosen among using a random toss of a die. Unless our hypothetical tail was very careful, following us to the right one without being spotted would be well-nigh impossible. If Nask or someone else was trying to chase us down, it seemed only sporting to make him work for it.

We’d ended up picking one of the busier centers, and as a result had to wait nearly an hour before we got a booth. But finally we were inside, secure from prying eyes and ears. I fed in the required number of bills—Graym-Barker preferred we use cash for our communications rather than something more convenient but also more traceable—and punched in the proper number.

I’d never figured out if Icarus had their own private StarrComm transmitter or if they were just playing some multi-transfer game that bounced the signals around beyond anyone’s ability to track. That system was hardly new—the Spiral’s biggest criminal bosses had been using something similar for decades. But given Icarus’s ultra-top-secret status, and with some of the best computer people presumably on payroll, I was guessing Graym-Barker’s system was likely the most protected one ever.

Unless the Patth had something better. Now that I thought about it, they probably did.

Usually our calls went through a receptionist who confirmed we were who the signal ID said we were and then routed us directly to the admiral. Today, though, things played out a bit differently. We were greeted by the usual neutral-faced young receptionist; but the face that replaced hers wasn’t Graym-Barker’s. It was, in fact—

“Finally,” Tera C said. Her expression and tone were a nicely balanced mix of relief and tension. “We’ve been trying to get in touch with you for over two weeks.”

“In case you’d forgotten, we were out in the middle of nowhere in the lovely CR-207-T system,” I reminded her. “Not many StarrComm centers out—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Tera cut me off. “Never mind that. Do you know a man named Easton Dent?”

I frowned. “I don’t think so. Should I?”

“That’s the question,” Tera countered. “See if he looks familiar.”

Her image vanished and was replaced by a picture of a man in his thirties with tousled hair, a three-day beard stubble, and an irritated expression. “Don’t know the name or the face,” I said. “Why do we care about him?”

Dent’s face disappeared and Tera came back, her eyes boring into mine. “Because for the past four months he’s been doing identity and location searches for the names Gregory Roarke and Icarus.

I sat up a little straighter, noting as I did so the little catch in Selene’s voice that usually meant surprise or uneasiness. “Combined or separate?”

“Some of both,” Tera said. “None of the searches has gotten him very far, though. Icarus has too many mythological and cultural connections, and I was frankly surprised at how common the name Roarke is.”

“And you’re just noticing all this activity now?

“Of course not,” Tera said patiently. “We noticed it when he first started poking around. We’ve just left him alone until now because he wasn’t making any headway and no one else seemed to have picked up on him.”

I felt my stomach tighten. “Only now someone has,” I said as the pieces started falling together. “Let me guess: the Patth?”

“Probably,” she said, her eyes narrowing slightly. “You don’t sound surprised.”

“We had a brief game of capture the flag on our last scoop,” I told her. “Someone sneaked up on us and snatched one of our bioprobes. Speaking of which, you need to get us a replacement—”

“They stole a bioprobe?

“It’s all right,” Selene spoke up. “We retrieved the other one, and there was nothing of interest in it.”

“I see,” Tera said, her brief moment of heightened concern fading away. Though how she thought anyone other than Selene would be able to glean portal clues from a bioprobe I couldn’t guess. “And you think it was the Patth?”

I shrugged. “The Patth, or some random poacher.”

“Or perhaps Easton Dent?” Selene suggested quietly.

“That’s kind of a jump,” I said, frowning. “Or does he have a habit of walking off with things that aren’t his?”

“Actually, he does,” Tera said, peering at something offscreen. “Though nothing on that scale. Up to now he’s mostly been a fairly petty thief, though there are indications he’s moving up into smuggling.”

“Which he would need a ship for,” Selene pointed out.

“Yeah, but crockett ships come with some pretty specialized gear,” I countered. “You wouldn’t fork over the money for all of that if you didn’t need it.”

“Unless you were trying to deflect attention away from you,” Selene said.

That was a good point, actually. “What about it, Tera? Is Dent running enough high-end stuff to have extra money to burn on fancying up his ship?”

“Possibly,” Tera said. “But so far the packages he’s transporting are pretty small. He could get by with a midsize ship.”

“How big exactly are these packages?”

“Gems or other compact items from a thief or sometimes from a fence.”

“Small enough for him to carry in a travel bag?” I asked. “Because in that case, he wouldn’t need to bother with his own ship. He could just go with commercial transport.”

“Sounds risky,” Selene persisted. Clearly, she wasn’t ready to give up on her theory about our mysterious Mr. Dent being the bioprobe poacher. “What happens if customs or the liner’s own security catches him?”

“Actually, so far nobody’s security has been able to even spot him in the act, let alone tag him with any stolen goods,” Tera said. “He’s been involved in a few questionable incidents in the past, but lately nothing.”

“How questionable?”

“Differences of opinion with buyers or fences,” Tera said. “A handful of them have ended with dead bodies.”

“And no one’s been able to tag him with those, either, I suppose?”

“The postmortem witness pools have been understandably small,” Tera said grimly. “And in the last couple he’s had unshakable alibis ready.”

“I hope whoever’s he’s got on retainer is reliable,” I said. “You screw up a goods transport and you get to make two entirely different groups of bad people mad at you at the same time.”

“It’s still marginally better than breaking into someone’s safe and getting shot at,” Tera pointed out. “You should probably make a note to ask about his alibis when you meet him.”

“You’re bringing him in?”

“No, you’re meeting him for a drink,” Tera said. “The Red Poppy taverno near the—”

“Excuse me?” I interrupted, staring at her. “We’re meeting him?”

You’re meeting him, anyway,” Tera said. “He’s not looking for Selene, so she can sit this one out aboard the Ruth if she wants. The Red Poppy near the—”

“That’s not the part I was asking about,” I again interrupted. “Why am I meeting him at all? I don’t even know the guy.”

“And this will be your big chance to rectify that omission,” Tera said. “The Red Poppy—”

“Tera—”

I stopped, waiting for her to keep going. She also stopped, waiting for me to continue with my complaint, and for a moment we just looked at each other in silence. “You want to hear this, or not?” she asked at last.

I clenched my teeth uselessly. “Sure.”

“He’s looking for you, Gregory,” Tera said quietly. “And he’s looking for us. More to the point, the Patth have finally noticed him and his searches.”

“Are they actively hunting him?”

“If they aren’t yet, they soon will be,” Tera said. “We need to find out what he knows and what he wants. Unfortunately, you’re the best person to do that.”

I looked at Selene. She was watching me, her pupils showing only calmness as she waited for me to make my decision. Probably hoping that meeting Dent would prove he was the one who’d poached us. “We only signed up to hunt for portals, you know,” I reminded Tera.

“I know,” Tera said. “Welcome to the world of improvisation.”

“Like I don’t already live there,” I growled. “Fine. The Red Poppy near the . . . ?”

“Near the Glazunov Spaceport Annex on New Kyiv,” she said. “Your meeting is at eight o’clock, local time, in five days. Oh, and we were messaging him as you, so you’ll probably want to know exactly what was said. Plug in and I’ll copy you the conversation.”

I motioned to Selene, who produced a data stick from her pocket. “Can we get a copy of that picture you showed us, too?”

“Of course,” Tera said as Selene plugged the stick into the console’s data slot. I watched as the indicator flickered briefly with the incoming data and then switched to a steady glow. “I assume you didn’t send my picture to him,” I added as Selene removed the stick and put it away.

“He didn’t ask, and we didn’t offer,” Tera said. “Apparently, he wants you to do the approaching.”

Which was exactly backward from how I would have set it up. That alone was enough to raise a couple of unpleasant red flags. “I suppose backup is out of the question?”

“We’re trying to get someone there before the meeting,” Tera said. “But our people are spread pretty thin. Better assume you’ll be on your own.”

“Kind of thought that’s where we were heading,” I grumbled. “Anything in particular you want me to ask him?”

“We want to know what, if anything, he knows about Icarus,” Tera said. “Aside from that, just play it by ear and find out as much as you can.”

“Got it,” I said. “I don’t suppose we get hazard pay for this?”

“I’ll look into that.”

“Thanks,” I said, scowling. As my father used to say, Telling someone you’ll look into it is just a polite way of saying not a chance.

Maybe Tera hadn’t heard that one. Or maybe she’d just never known anyone like my father.

“I’ll let you go now,” she continued. “Good luck, and let us know if you learn anything.” With a final nod, she keyed off.

For a moment Selene and I sat together in silence. “It shouldn’t be that bad,” Selene said.

“Do I smell that worried?” I asked.

“A little,” she admitted. “anBut really, it’s not like he’s a hired gun or contract killer. He’s just a thief and smuggler. They’re mostly nonviolent, aren’t they?”

“Except when they’re involved in shooting incidents where people end up dead,” I reminded her. “But you’re missing a key point. Back when Geri and Freki were poking their stick into our lives they reinstated our bounty hunter licenses. Remember?”

The reaction of her pupils showed that she had indeed forgotten that. “You think Dent might assume you’re after him?”

I would if I were him,” I said. “If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to convince him otherwise before he rabbits. Or gets involved in another of Tera’s incidents, this one with us at the wrong end of the shooting gallery.”

“Hopefully, it won’t come to that.”

“Hopefully,” I agreed. “Because if it does, Tera and the admiral are definitely going to pop for some hazard pay.”

* * *

Tavernos across the Spiral, at least those that catered predominately to humans, were all basically the same. Some were roomier than others, some were better lit, and some had a larger diversity of alcohol blends, but ultimately they all boiled down to places where people could get buzzed or numbed or drunk in comfort and relative safety.

Relative being the key word. The Red Poppy’s clientele seemed to be composed of equal parts shady types and desperate types. There was a good scattering of aliens mixed in, and a lot of them seemed shady, too.

If Easton Dent didn’t worry about my bounty hunting credentials, there were an ample number of customers in here who probably would.

“He’s late,” Selene murmured.

I took a sip of my drink and gave the taverno another casual sweep. The picture Tera had sent wasn’t great, but it was good enough to confirm he wasn’t here yet.

And at a quarter to nine, he was definitely late.

“He may just be the cautious type,” I said. “Making sure I don’t have a partner lurking outside or something. As my father used to say, If paranoia is your full-time job, it’s probably also your hobby. In Dent’s case—”

I broke off as Selene tensed, her pupils suddenly apprehensive, her nostrils and eyelashes working full speed. “Gregory, I think—yes. Some Iykams have just come in.”

“Where?” I murmured, feeling my back suddenly tingling.

“Behind me and to my right.”

And since they hadn’t crossed my sight lines, they hadn’t come in the main door. Casually, I half turned toward the other exit, the door that led past the bar into the kitchen area and then out onto the service alley to the rear.

They were there, all right: three human-sized, lumpy-faced aliens, their hooded robes hiding their shortened torsos and extra-long arms. The robes were too loose to show any sign of concealed weapons, but I’d never yet met an Iykam who wasn’t armed with one of their short-range but thoroughly nasty corona guns.

And if Iykams were here, there were bound to be one or more of their Patth masters lurking in the shadows, as well.

“I’d say that’s our exit cue,” I said, dropping payment for our drinks on the table and getting casually to my feet. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“You think Dent’s working with the Patth?” Selene asked as we headed for the door.

“Or else they’ve been watching him, or else they’re watching us, or else they just dropped in for a drink,” I said. “I really don’t care which. The point is that I’m not having a semisecret meeting with Patth and Iykams looking over my shoulder.”

I pushed open the door, half expecting to find a semicircle of armed Iykams facing us down with Sub-Director Nask in full gloat mode behind them. But there was nothing but a heavy flow of pedestrians and vehicles. Heavier than it had been an hour ago, I noted, and I wondered if some special event was going on tonight. That was usually something I checked on before landing, but this time I hadn’t bothered.

“Where are we going?” Selene asked as I turned us in the direction of the spaceport annex and started weaving us through the boisterous crowd.

“Back to the Ruth,” I said. “Whatever Dent wanted, he apparently decided he didn’t want it that badly.”

“Or else he decided it was too crowded in there,” a gruff voice came from behind me. “Just keep walking, Roarke.”

“Oh, hello, Dent,” I said, taking it in stride. Over the years I’d had my fair share of being snuck up on, to the point where I’d mostly gotten used to it. Mostly. “It is Easton Dent, right?” I craned my neck to look at the grim face crowding up behind us. There was barely even a passing resemblance to the picture Tera had sent. “Got to say you don’t look much like your picture.”

“You didn’t think I’d give you my real face, did you?” he countered. “That wouldn’t have been a smart thing to send a bounty hunter.”

“Right—the red carnation in the lapel is so much more classic.” I dropped my eyes to his chest as if checking for a flower, trying to see if I could spot his weapon.

There it was, tucked into a belt holster on his right hip, mostly hidden beneath his gray jacket: a Golden 4mm, perfect for perforating a target at close range. More to the point, given our current geometry, a quick draw right now would leave the muzzle pointing squarely at the small of my back.

But at least it wouldn’t be pointing at Selene. A small but vital point, at least for me.

“No carnation, either,” I said, turning back to face front. “I’m disappointed. Incidentally, if it matters, I’m not a bounty hunter anymore. Selene and I are licensed Trailblazers.”

“Oh, it matters,” Dent assured me. “It matters enough for me to have checked out your hunter profile before I came here. Funny thing—it says your credentials are still active. Some bureaucratic glitch, right?”

“Actually, I was re-credentialed without my knowledge or permission,” I said. “If it matters.”

“Not really,” Dent said. “Nice picture of you, by the way.”

“Thanks.” So that was why he hadn’t bothered to ask for one when he set up this meeting. “So what can I do for you?”

“For now, just keep walking,” he said. “I gotta say, your playmates back there are really slow on the uptake.”

I threw Selene a look. Had Tera sent some backup after all? “What playmates would those be?”

“Don’t play cute, Roarke,” Dent growled. “I saw them sneak in through the back door. Probably thought they’d missed me coming in and wanted to see if I was already—”

“Wait a second,” I said. “Are you talking about the Iykams?

“Who?”

“The lumpy-faced clowns in the medieval monk robes,” I said. “Because that bunch isn’t even close to being my friends.”

“Meaning?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” I growled. “And their weapon of choice does not make for a pleasant way to die.”

“Didn’t think there was such a thing,” Dent muttered. “I guess we’d better speed things up. You know this guy?”

There was movement at the corner of my eye, and Dent’s hand reached over my shoulder and waved a picture a few centimeters in front of my face. I plucked it from his fingers and held it out to a more reasonable distance.

The image was that of a middle-aged man with a lined face, a fringe of white hair, and a sprinkle of equally white beard stubble. He looked professional, intelligent, and strangely peaceful.

He also looked extremely dead.

“Never seen him before,” I said, frowning as I shifted my focus to the picture’s edging. It was a real analog-type photo, taken on classic photo stock, not just a print of a dij image. “What happened to him?”

There was no answer. I half turned around again.

To find that Dent had disappeared into the crowd.

“Selene?” I asked.

“That way,” she said, pointing to the right as she sniffed the air. “He’s moving fast, too.”

“For all the good that’ll do him.” I turned in that direction and looked for an opening in the pedestrian stream.

And came up short as Selene suddenly clutched my arm. “Iykams!” she hissed. “There are three Iykams in that direction.”

The three we’d left behind in the Red Poppy? Or was it a fresh bunch?

Not that it mattered. Dent’s sudden disappearing act strongly suggested he thought they were after Selene and me and didn’t want to be hanging around when they caught up with us.

Unfortunately, the fact that the Iykams in the taverno hadn’t immediately opened fire on us also strongly suggested we weren’t, in fact, their targets. By process of elimination, Dent was the one who was actually in their sights.

And if they got to him first we were unlikely to ever get the answers Tera wanted. “Understood,” I said, taking Selene’s arm and ducking between a pair of Ihmisits as we moved across the prevailing travel direction. In a crowd this size, and with no walls or fences nearby that could capture and hold Dent’s scent, even Kadolian olfactory magic wouldn’t let us keep his trail for long.

We had to get to him before that happened. We especially had to get to him before the Iykams did.

Time to boost our odds a little.

Artificial limbs like my left arm could be customized in an astonishing number of ways. Some people went with additional strength or dexterity; others went with implanted phones or info pads; some, particularly those in the darker professions, added a concealed knife or two-shot plasmic.

By the time my elbow had healed enough for me to be fitted with my new prosthetic I’d already decided that the direction of my life was going to shift away from the latter to something a whole lot safer. I’d therefore skipped the fancy stuff, and contented myself with just the two hidden compartments I’d created in the wrist and elbow area.

Plus one other minor indulgence. A lot of bounty hunter casualties came from walking unwarily around corners, and the loss of my arm had given me a strong aversion to being shot at. Ergo . . . 

I gave the left thumbnail the gentle double stroke that turned it into a mirror, then lifted the arm toward the sky, fingers curled into a loose fist with the thumb resting along the forefinger.

The mirror was designed to be held closer to the eye, either stuck around a corner to give me a view of the blind side or else right beside my face so I could look over my shoulder. But I’d practiced with it enough over the years to have learned how to get at least a limited view over the heads and hats of a crowd of people like this while at arm’s length.

Sure enough— “Got him,” I said, pulling the thumbnail a little closer to my eye for confirmation. “He’s passing the pawn shop at the corner.” I grinned at Selene as I lowered my arm and turned the thumbnail opaque again. “Looks very chic in that checkered blue jacket, too.”

“Checkered blue?” Selene’s pupils gave a brief frown, then cleared as she got it. “Oh. Reversible coat?”

“All the best-dressed criminals have one.” I looked at my right hand, suddenly realizing I was still holding the picture Dent had given me. Folding it lengthwise, I slid it into my wallet. There were cultures and religions in the Spiral that forbade the use of digital imagery, I knew, but Dent didn’t seem the type to be involved with such things. I made a mental note to ask him about it once we’d tracked him down as I stuffed the wallet back in my pocket. “Come on.”

* * *

We kept at it for the next half hour, weaving in and out of the crowd, turning corners and once going through the front door of a taverno and then straight out the back when Selene caught Dent’s scent on the door handle. But in the end it came to nothing. After hovering right on the edge for the final five minutes, the scent finally faded beyond even Selene’s tracking ability.

“I’m sorry, Gregory,” she apologized as we turned back toward the spaceport annex.

“It’s okay,” I said, keeping an eye out for a cab or quick-rent runaround. Whatever festival or holiday had filled the area with enthusiastic citizenry, it had apparently sucked all the rental vehicles off the streets, too. “I see now why Dent specified this place and this night. All the cover you could want for ditching an unwanted date.”

Selene was silent another few steps. I watched as a cab pulled to the curb ahead, watched it pull away with a customer before I could even start to find a way through the crowd toward it. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier,” Selene continued. “Just as Dent came up behind us, as he first spoke, I caught Jordan McKell’s scent.”

I frowned. “It was on Dent?

“No, was in the air.” She made as if to say something else, then changed her mind. “He was somewhere behind us.”

“Interesting,” I said as I pulled out my phone. McKell was one of the Icarus Group’s top troubleshooters. Apparently, Tera had been able to get some backup to New Kyiv.

It would have been nice if McKell had called or messaged to let me know he was in town. But of course, here at a potentially critical juncture, he wouldn’t have done so. Even encrypted phones could give up location and tracking information, particularly if the person asking was also handing out large numbers of certified bank checks.

And if the asking party was a Patth, he could probably even skip the whole bribe scenario. During the twenty years they’d been working their domination of Spiral commerce and transport, they’d wormed little back doors into a surprising range of electronic equipment. Knowing I was here, they could probably do anything they wanted with my phone short of making it sit up and bark.

“You getting anything from him now?” I asked, putting the phone away. I’d had a couple of useful tweaks installed on our phones, but the devices were still a long way from being completely track- or tamper-proof. Someday I needed to see if the Icarus Group had any such truly invisible models, and if so try to talk the admiral out of a couple of them.

“Sorry,” she said. “I lost him when we headed off after Dent.”

“Yeah.” So no Dent, no McKell, and no way back to the Ruth except on foot. This was about as wasted an evening as I could remember.

Still, as my father used to say, If you never had a dull day, you’d never recognize the bright ones.

I just hoped whoever was in charge of passing out days would find us a bright one soon.

* * *

The crowds and hilarity choking the main part of the city had thankfully thinned out in the area immediately surrounding the annex. It was one of the more modern spaceports on New Kyiv, with half-cylinder landing cradles instead of just the flat pads that used to be the norm. The cradle design meant that the Ruth’s entryway hatch was mostly directly across from the service pathways instead of looming above them, which meant all Selene and I had to do was negotiate a flat walkway instead of making a weary climb up the ramp’s alternative zigzag configuration. I punched in the access code, we went inside, and I locked the hatch behind us.

“You want to eat or shower first?” I asked Selene as I headed forward toward the compact living area that included the dayroom, bathroom, and our two small cabins.

“Food sounds best,” Selene said. “First, I need to tell you something. When Dent put his arm between us . . . ” She braced herself. “I smelled portal metal.”

I stared at her. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “The scent was faint, but it was definitely there.”

“Interesting,” I murmured. Was that why Dent was searching for Icarus and me? Had he stumbled on a portal and somehow figured out my connection to it?

But if so, why had he left so abruptly and without warning? It couldn’t have been the Iykams that Selene smelled nearby—they hadn’t been close enough for me to spot them in the crowd, which made it unlikely Dent had, either.

Did it have something to do with the picture he’d showed us? Was that supposed to confirm we were the people he wanted to deal with? If so, had my lack of recognition scared him away?

Or had he just done a quick fade because he needed time to figure out his next move? “How long since he was near it?” I asked.

“Not too recently,” Selene said. “Or maybe it wasn’t too long ago but was just a single touch. As I said, it was faint.”

“I suppose I’d better go look for him,” I said with a sigh as I turned and started back toward the entryway. Heading out into the crowds when I was already dead on my feet wasn’t exactly the way I’d planned to spend what was left of the night.

“Are you sure?” Selene asked. “You look tired.”

And undoubtedly smelled tired, too. Everything about me was pretty much an open book to her. “I’m at least an hour past tired,” I said over my shoulder. “But there are Iykams out there, and I doubt the Patth are far behind. If they catch up with him before we do—let’s just say Tera won’t be happy about it.”

“Neither will Mr. Dent, probably,” she said, and I heard her footsteps on the deck plates as she moved up behind me. “All right. Let’s give it another try.”

And right on cue came the triple tone that announced someone was at our door.

I stopped, frowning. Had Dent circled around and followed us back to the Ruth? “Dent?” I asked Selene.

“I didn’t smell him on our way in,” she said. “Or McKell, either.”

The triple tone came again. “I guess we’d better answer,” I decided, starting up again. Maybe it was some late-working dockworker come to tell us the shiny new bioprobe we’d asked Tera for had arrived.

I wasn’t really expecting that to be the case. Which was just as well, because the three uniformed humans I saw when I turned on the hatch display were definitely not delivery folk.

They were badgemen.

Badgemen, moreover, wearing city rather than port authority insignia. That immediately marked them as having a wider scope of jurisdiction, as well as raising the question of why they were here in the port in the first place.

The more crucial question being whether they were genuinely working for the city, or whether they’d been co-opted by someone else. Like, for example, a Patth sub-director with a vendetta against a certain ship and its crew. “Stay here,” I said, guiding Selene to a spot beside the hatch where she’d be out of our visitors’ view when I opened it. “If you smell Patth, Iykam, or anyone else we don’t want to see, snap your fingers and I’ll try to close up before they can get in.”

She nodded, her pupils showing her usual level of tension whenever I trotted out one of my impromptu plans. Confirming that my Fafnir 4 plasmic was ready in its holster, I keyed the hatch.

The display had showed three badgemen. Now, with a more complete view of the world, I saw that they were actually a group of five, their expressions as stiff and tired as I would expect from people on festival patrol duty. Definitely not folks delivering a bioprobe. “Good evening, officers,” I greeted them, doing a quick visual sweep of the area behind them and listening for Selene’s warning. But no Iykams or Patth were visible, and Selene’s fingers remained unsnapped. “What can I do for you?”

“Gregory Roarke, captain of the Trailblazer ship Ruth?” a woman wearing sergeant’s stripes asked.

“I am,” I said. Still nothing from Selene.

“Is this your wallet?” she asked, producing an all-too-familiar bifold.

I winced, touching the pocket where I’d put it earlier. It was missing, all right. “Looks like it,” I confirmed, holding out my hand. “May I see it?”

“It has your ID in it,” the sergeant said.

“May I see it?” I repeated, taking a step toward her onto the walkway, my hand still extended.

She hesitated, then handed it over.

It didn’t take more than a glance to confirm that it was, indeed, my wayward wallet, clearly lifted earlier while we were passing through the crowds out there. Just the same, I took my time leafing through the contents, checking the ID, cash, credit vouchers, and other odds and ends. Everything seemed to still be there.

I felt my stomach tighten. No; not everything. The picture Dent had given me—the old, distinguished, dead man—was gone.

“Yes, it’s mine,” I said, starting to pocket it. “Where did you—?” I broke off as one of the other badgemen reached over and plucked it out of my hand.

“Where did we find it?” the sergeant finished my question for me. Her voice was grim, but somehow also oddly satisfied. “Where you presumably lost it. Beside the body.”

“The body?” I echoed carefully.

“Yes,” she said. She drew herself up. “Gregory Roarke, I hereby place you under arrest for the murder of Easton Dent.”


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