CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Who’s there?” Cherno snapped, swinging Nikki’s gun toward the opening. “Show yourself. Now!”
“Don’t shoot,” Selene’s voice came distantly. “I’m not armed. Please don’t shoot.”
Cherno shot me a look. “Show yourself,” he called back. “If you’re lying, I’ll kill your partner.”
There was another moment of stiff silence, and then Selene slipped into view from the module. “I’m not armed,” she repeated, holding up her empty hands.
“Keep it that way,” Cherno growled, twitching his head toward me. “Over by Roarke.”
“Yes, sir,” Selene said. She hurried across the floor toward me, her gait and stance the epitome of cringing fear and eagerness to please.
Only her pupils told a different story. Her appearance here was clearly part of a plan between her, McKell, and Ixil. All I had to do was play off her cues or otherwise figure it out . . .
“Floyd!” Selene gasped as she spotted him lying on the ground. “Are you all right?” Picking up speed, she hurried past me toward the injured man.
“Stop!” Cherno snapped.
Selene jerked to a halt midway between Floyd and me and turned to face Cherno. “What happened?” she asked, pointing at Floyd. “Did you do this?”
“Roarke, tell your alien to shut up or she can find out personally what happened,” Cherno snarled. “Schlichting . . . okay, fine, I accidentally scorched your friend. I still paid you half a million commarks for a job, which still means you can’t kill me.”
“I know that,” Nikki said steadily.
“I’m so sorry we couldn’t help you, Nikki,” Selene said. “We just didn’t realize in time what you needed from us.”
“What are you talking about?” Cherno demanded, his eyes flicking between Selene and me.
I felt my heartbeat pick up. By moving past me toward Floyd the way she had, Selene had now put Cherno’s back to the portal entrance and in perfect position for an ambush. McKell was on his way, or maybe was already in there waiting for the right moment to make his move. “She’s talking about why Nikki let us see her face aboard the Ruth,” I spoke up. “That’s the key, Nikki, isn’t it?”
Nikki didn’t answer. “See, she was hoping we’d send her picture out to Bounty Hunter Central,” I continued. Our job now was to keep Cherno’s attention on us and away from the portal. “A scoop like that—the face of Nicole Schlichting herself!—would have gotten the image sent out to every major planet in the Spiral. With her anonymity gone, she’d have no choice but to return your money and back out of your contract.”
“And then she could kill you,” Selene added quietly.
“Problem is, we aren’t in the hunter business anymore, so we didn’t do that,” I said. “Even so, she came damn close to getting her wish. Our boy Trent wanted her out of the way so he could interrogate me—God only knows why—and so he distributed a sketch of her to the local hunters in the Badlands on Niskea.”
I looked at Nikki. “It took me awhile to figure out why you reacted so oddly when I showed you the sketch. It was good enough to be a problem, but not good enough for you to legitimately pull the ripcord on Cherno’s job. In fact, you even said something about it not being very good.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Selene’s eyelashes suddenly fluttering. She’d picked up the incoming cavalry’s scent. I took a small step toward her, pulling Cherno’s attention a few degrees farther from the portal. “Like I said, I still don’t know why Trent wanted to talk to me,” I went on, raising my voice to cover the unavoidable thump when McKell hit the receiver module’s inner hull. “My guess is that he was working for one of Sub-Director Nask’s rivals and hoping to get something he could spin as dirt on Nask.”
“But there wasn’t anything, because there isn’t anything,” Selene said. She lifted her hands, pointing both index fingers at Cherno. “As you yourself certainly know.”
And right on cue, our rescuer hopped out of the portal entrance.
Only it wasn’t McKell, or Ixil.
It was Pix.
The little outrider hit the ground silently, dropping into a crouch, his head turned toward us as he took in the details of our face-off.
And then his bright eyes fell on Selene. Selene, and her twin fingers pointed straight at Cherno.
Pix leaped out of his crouch, charging silently toward his now confirmed target. I kept my eyes on Cherno, my brain spinning with a flash of anticipation as to what was about to happen. Pix leaped up behind Cherno—
And dug his long claws into the shoulder of the other’s gun arm.
Cherno bellowed with surprise, pain, and fury, the gun he’d taken from Nikki going flying with the shock of the attack. He spun partway around toward me, his left hand trying to reach over his shoulder to get to the little animal now anchored agonizingly into skin and muscle. He got a partial grip on Pix’s neck, probably hoping to either tear the creature loose or break its neck. Nikki stiffened, watching the battle but making no move to interfere.
And I knew what I had to do.
“Cherno!” I shouted, snatching my plasmic from its holster and lobbing it toward him. “Catch!”
Cherno was smart enough in his evil way, and if he’d been thinking straight he might have seen the trap. But he was in agony, his plan to take over Gaheen’s organization had crumbled, and desperation had shoved out all attempts at rational thought. Abandoning his attempt to pull Pix off his arm, he reached up and plucked the arcing plasmic out of the air. He swiveled the weapon around, clearly intending to point it over his right arm and burn Pix off. He raised it up, trying to fine-tune the aim so that he would hit Pix and not his own arm.
And in that position, the plasmic was pointed at Nikki.
It was fast, it was precise, and it was efficient. One second she was standing still, Cherno’s weapon pointed at her. The next second she’d pulled the push knife from her arm, reversed it as she took the two quick steps necessary to put her in range, and buried the blade in Cherno’s chest.
For a moment he just stood there, the stunned amazement on his face quickly fading into the oblivion of death. “She can kill anyone in self-defense,” I said quietly. “I assumed you knew that.”
He didn’t answer. He probably never even heard me.
A moment later his knees buckled and he fell to the ground.
Pix hopped off midway through his fall and went back into his crouch, probably awaiting further instructions. Nikki gazed down at the body another moment, then looked up at me. “You could have just shot him yourself, you know,” she said.
“I didn’t want to hurt Pix,” I told her, nodding toward the outrider. “I also didn’t want some future spectral profile analysis matching it to my plasmic. Besides, I figured you’d want to deal with him yourself.”
“As long as he’s dead,” Nikki said. “What now—no,” she interrupted herself, her eyes going suddenly odd. “You didn’t.” Wincing with the pain from her bleeding arm, she reached into her wrap and pulled out the envelope I’d given her. She tore it open, looked at the card inside, then looked back at me. “Robertine Cherno?”
I shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I said. “Even without all the pieces, it was clear he was shady as hell. I figured he’d come to a bad end before this was over, and that he would probably have deserved it.”
“And the million commarks was your insurance policy against him ordering me to kill you?”
“I was pretty sure that was somewhere on his list of things to do,” I said. “To make his plot against Gaheen work, he’d have to eliminate anyone who had any of the pieces. Though he still hoped I could help spread his cover story before he fitted me for a shallow grave out there.”
“Was that just a figure of speech?” Nikki asked. “Or is that what we’re planning for him?”
“It’s what I’m planning for him, anyway,” I said. “You and Floyd need to head back to Meima for medical treatment. Selene, when are McKell and Ixil joining us?”
“They aren’t,” she said, a tense look coming into her pupils. “There’s been some unexpected Iykam activity in the Trandosh area, and they needed to stay there to evaluate it and coordinate a response.”
“Understood,” I said. More understandable than any of the rest of them realized, actually. “Hopefully, it’s nothing serious.”
“I’m sure we’ll find out.” She lowered her voice. “I also came here to tell you that I found it.”
An eerie feeling trickled through me. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. And that was going to make the rest of this whole thing a hell of a lot easier. Or, perhaps more accurately, a hell of a lot less impossible. “Can you help Nikki and Floyd through by yourself? I need to stay here and deal with Cherno before his men get back.”
“Of course,” Selene said. She could tell I wasn’t being entirely honest with her, or was at least glossing over some of the details. But she also knew this wasn’t the time and place to ask about it.
“That okay with you, Floyd? I added, walking over to him.
“Far as I’m concerned, you can put him in the mansion and set fire to it,” Floyd gritted out. “Like Schlichting said, as long as he’s dead.”
“Okay, then.” I reached down and took his arm. “I can at least help you into the portal. Selene, help Nikki.”
“I’m fine,” Nikki said, stepping across the room and retrieving her Jaundance. “I’m fine.”
She headed to the portal, Selene close at hand in case she needed help, Pix scampering along behind them. I got Floyd’s good arm over my shoulder and helped him through the opening, then walked him across the receiver module and into the launch module.
Along the way, I quietly relieved him of the data stick the medic had given him back in the Colonnade Center.
I waited until they were gone, then returned to the warehouse and retrieved my plasmic. I opened the trapdoor and listened for activity in the tunnel. There wasn’t any. Closing the trapdoor again, I pulled out the data stick and held it to my lips. “Clear,” I said. “Any time.”
For a moment nothing happened. Then, across the warehouse, a point at the bottom of the wall burst into a shower of brilliant sparks, like Floyd’s sparkler only a thousand times brighter. The blaze ran rapidly a couple of meters up the wall, went horizontal for another two meters, then turned again and ran to the bottom. The newly cut rectangle fell inward—
And Huginn and Muninn, still in their bloodstained medic uniforms, charged into the warehouse, heavy-duty Ryukind plasmics in hand.
“I said it was clear,” I pointed out as they trotted to a halt, still looking around. “You don’t need those things.”
“We heard you,” Huginn said. “We didn’t necessarily believe you.”
“Ah.” I gestured up at the portal. “Well, here it is. I assume Sub-Director Nask has something waiting to haul it out of here?”
“He does,” Huginn said. He looked up at the portal, then back at me, his expression that of someone waiting for a magician to do his presto. “Just like that?”
“Just like that,” I said. “I assume Selene’s mention of Iykam activity on Meima is the sub-director preparing to dig out the other half?”
“It is,” Huginn said. “I trust Icarus won’t try to interfere.”
“I’ll make sure they don’t,” I promised. “Provided you’ll in turn allow them to withdraw unharmed.”
“Peace begets peace,” Huginn said. “An old Patth saying. If you don’t shoot, neither will we.”
“Seems reasonable,” I said. “Speaking of shooting, how is Gaheen?”
“He was alive and stable when we turned him over to the local medics,” Huginn said. “He should pull through.”
“Good,” I said. “I know he’s a crime boss, but he’s showing signs of mellowing in his old age. Besides which, I have a somewhat fragile connection with him that may prove useful in the future. I appreciate you keeping him alive.”
“It was hardly a major priority,” Huginn said with a shrug. “We needed to get you the tracker so we could find this place, and we knew that the scene of the attack was the first place you’d go. Saving his life was just a bonus.”
“But there was also some professional pride involved,” Muninn added. “We get a lot of training for our positions, you know.”
“So I’ve seen,” I said. “It also explains why the door warden was primed to honor my ID. You’d already pulled the Expediter wild card on him to get inside, hadn’t you?”
“We had,” Huginn said. “Speaking of which . . . ?” He held out his hand.
“Ah. Of course.” Reaching into my jacket, I pulled out Trent’s wallet. “The Expediter ID is behind the hunter license.”
“Thank you.” Huginn opened it, confirmed I was telling the truth, and tucked the wallet into his pocket. “By the way, Sub-Director Nask told me to remind you that his offer of an Expediter position was still open.”
“Tell the sub-director I appreciate it,” I said. “But right now, my time and talents are already spoken for. All right.” I looked back at the portal. “I’ll go through first and get McKell and whatever team he’s assembled out of the way. Give me ten minutes, then you can follow for whatever coordination you need to do at that end. Oh, and you’re in charge of body disposal. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Huginn said.
“And tell Sub-Director Nask I again wish him a speedy recovery.” I turned and walked toward the portal entrance.
“Roarke?”
I turned back, the unpleasant thought flickering through my mind that Huginn had orders to shoot me and simply wanted me facing him when it happened. But his plasmic was back in its holster. “You were wondering earlier who Trent was working for,” he said a bit hesitantly. “It turns out it wasn’t another sub-director. It was the Director General himself.”
I felt my mouth drop open. “The Director General? Seriously?”
He nodded. “After Sub-Director Nask’s meeting with you on Fidelio, and then the portal hijacking, some questions were raised about possibly mixed loyalties. Trent’s equipment was purged of any lingering Patth scent, then he was ordered to observe you and Selene and ask some questions.” His lip twitched. “Though he never got to the second part.”
“Not my doing,” I assured him. “As for Sub-Director Nask, I’ve never seen him show anything but complete loyalty to the Patth. His small agreements with me have been focused exclusively in that direction.”
“So he has said.” A ghost of a smile touched Huginn’s lips. “So also I’ve personally observed.” He pointed to the portal towering over us. “You expressed interest in Sub-Director Nask’s health. Your activities here will go a long way toward ensuring that that health continues.”
“Thank you for letting me know,” I said, nodding to him. “Remember: ten minutes.”
I climbed into the receiver module and started across toward the other opening. Still, just because Nask was conniving purely on behalf of his people didn’t mean his successes couldn’t spread a few gains elsewhere. I’d already seen it happen a couple of times. Hopefully, I could find similar common ground with him in the future.
In the meantime, I needed to have a chat with McKell. And find out if my time and talents were indeed still spoken for.
* * *
McKell was waiting outside the Meima portal when I rolled my way through the receiver sphere opening. “That was fast,” he commented as he gave me a hand out of the pit. It was night here, but I could see by the silhouetting of the nearby hills that there were at least two clusters of lights going nearby. “Selene told me you were going to bury Cherno’s body.”
“It’s been dealt with,” I said. “Selene told me you had an Iykam problem.”
“Not yet, but it looks like we will soon,” McKell said, looking around. “There are at least two groups gathering who are showing lights, and probably one or two others that aren’t. I don’t know where they’re coming from—there’s only one Patth ship on Meima, and it wouldn’t normally carry this many of them.”
“We have any resources on tap?”
“Right now, it’s just you, me, Ixil, and Selene,” McKell said grimly. “The admiral’s got a line on an EarthGuard force in the region, and I’m told there’s a ship somewhere on Meima that happens to be transporting a platoon of Royal Kalixiri commandos. But none of them can get here faster than a few hours or days. Until then, we’re on our own.”
“I assume there’s a plan?” I asked.
McKell huffed out a breath. “Such as it is. Ixil’s busy gathering all the explosives he can find so we can close off this end and bury the portal a little deeper. We decided that if the Patth are going to get it, we might as well make them work for it.”
“Good plan,” I said. “I have a better one. How much do you trust me?”
In the faint reflected glow of the distant lights, I saw his face stiffen. “Depends on the specific day,” he said. “What did you have in mind?”
I braced myself. “We pull back,” I said. “We skip the explosives, pull back, and let them have their portal back.”
“We can’t just—” McKell broke off. “What do you mean, their portal?”
“This is the other end of the portal Nask made off with on Fidelio,” I told him. “No question about that—his scent was all over the Kanaloa end. Cherno somehow hijacked the Patth freighter that was carrying it. He killed a lot of Patth and Iykams in the process, I should add, and nearly killed Nask himself.”
“All right,” McKell said slowly. “I’m sorry about that. But if the Patth lost it, it should be considered fair game.”
“You’re not thinking it through,” I said. “Try flipping it around: say that someone stole Firefall and it wound up in Patth hands. Wouldn’t you assume the Patth had orchestrated the whole thing and go full-blown burned-ground on them? Especially if a whole bunch of Icarus Group people were killed along the way? And if Tera, say, ended up in critical condition?”
McKell hissed between his teeth. “Do they think we were involved?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But if I were them, I would. The only way to convince them otherwise is to hand it back without fuss or argument.”
McKell looked toward one of the lights. “Even that might not be enough.”
“No, but it’s pretty much all the proof we can offer,” I said. “If we’re willing to readily give up the profits from the hijacking, why would we have bothered going to all that trouble in the first place? I’m just thinking that if the Patth decide to play hardball, they can probably do a very thorough job of it.”
“No probably about it,” McKell conceded. “Seven years ago, when this whole thing started, the Kalixiri had to limp through a six-month Patth embargo before the Director General was convinced they didn’t know where the Icarus had been stashed.”
“So that’s a qualified yes?”
“More a damned if I like it yes,” McKell said sourly, pulling out his phone. “But it’s still a yes.” He punched in a number and held the phone to his ear. “Ixil? The plan’s scratched. Yes, really, and I’ll explain later. Have you heard from Selene?”
He listened briefly and focused on me. “He says she got Floyd and your assassin friend to the hospital and they’re being patched up now. Floyd will have to be in an intensive care pod for a couple of days, but Piper should be out by morning.”
I opened my mouth to remind him that the woman we’d brought back wasn’t Piper. But I caught myself in time. There might be Patth or Iykam eavesdroppers out there, and McKell had obviously decided to maintain the cover story Nikki had established for herself.
And the possible presence of those same listeners meant I also needed to be careful about what I said next.
“Yes, I know,” McKell continued into the phone. “But he’ll just have to live with it. Don’t worry—once Tera’s convinced, he’ll go along. Okay. I’ve got Roarke here. We’ll meet you at the Stormy Banks.”
“Make it the Ruth,” I suggested. “I need to do some work on the ship before we can leave, and Selene and I can give you more details while I’m swapping out engine components.”
McKell’s eyes narrowed. But his voice, when he spoke, was just as casual as mine. “Fine, if that’s easiest for you,” he said. “Anyway, we need to get our stories straight before we talk to the admiral. Ixil? Meet us at the Ruth. And yes, Roarke’s buying.”
He hung up and put the phone away. “Okay, this is your party now, Roarke,” he said, gesturing toward a runaround parked near the portal entrance. “After you.”
I headed toward the vehicle, McKell scooping up a couple of bags of equipment along the way. His acceptance of my deal had loosened the hard knot in my stomach considerably, but it wasn’t completely gone. I was still looking down the barrel of the admiral’s fury for handing the portal back to Nask, and the fact that it was both ethical and inevitable wasn’t likely to temper that anger significantly.
But if Selene had indeed found what she said she had . . .
I shook the doubts and fears away. We’d know soon enough. If she had, we were going to come out of this mess better than I’d ever hoped or expected.
And we would likely have opened a can of worms the likes of which the Spiral had never seen.