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CHAPTER TWO


“No,” the admiral said flatly. “This has to be some kind of trick.”

“Maybe, but why?” I countered. “To what end? Draw me out into the open? I’m already here. Get me to lead them to one of your other portals? Pointless, since I haven’t the foggiest idea where any of them are. Get me to lead them to McKell or Tera? Equally pointless, for the same reason.”

“No,” he said again. “I simply don’t believe it. How could he possibly have stumbled across another portal?”

“How did you stumble across the original Icarus?” I countered.

“That’s classified,” he said tartly.

Tartly and reflexively. It was a variant of the same question I’d asked at least half a dozen times in the past year, and it had gotten me the same dead-end answer each time. Even with the upgraded status Selene and I had talked the admiral into giving us there were apparently some things we still weren’t allowed to know.

“Anyway, it’s not quite as good a deal as it looks,” I went on. “From the launch module pictures Floyd showed me I’m pretty sure it’s another Gemini dyad like the pair we got from Popanilla and Fidelio, not a full-range portal like Icarus or Alpha. That makes it valuable, but not ridiculously so.”

“The Patth would still pay a great deal for it.”

“The Patth have their own Gemini,” I reminded him.

Which I probably shouldn’t have, I realized as his expression went a little stonier. The fact that the Patth had sneaked a portal right out from under our noses was clearly still a sore spot with him.

“The point is that right now Cherno is offering it to us,” I continued hurriedly. “If we turn him down, as you say, the Patth would be happy to open their wallets.”

“There’s one other point I think we should consider,” Selene spoke up quietly. “I presume you’ve been reluctant to take apart any of your portals, concerned that you might not be able to put it back together again.”

“In fact, I’d guess it’s less concerned than terrified,” I said, seeing where she was going with this. “But if you had a second set of dyads to play with . . . ?”

The admiral’s expression didn’t crack. But I could see he’d been so focused on Cherno’s possible treachery that he hadn’t yet considered the larger implications of the man’s offer. As my father used to say, People who can’t see the forest for the trees probably also can’t see the value of the lumber. “So you think we should take Mr. Cherno up on his offer?” he asked.

“Only if you want us to,” I said with a shrug. “If you’re not interested, there’s a nice group of planets northwest of the Bonvere Cluster we haven’t yet checked out—”

“Yes, I’m sure there is,” the admiral cut me off tartly. “I assume Cherno’s portal is dormant?”

“It looked that way in Floyd’s pictures,” I said. “I assume you’ll want us to activate it?”

“Why would I want you to do that?”

I frowned. “I don’t know,” I said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. “Maybe to make sure it works?”

He shook his head. “We can sort that out once we’ve secured it. I don’t want random people out there knowing how to activate portals, and there’s really no way you can keep Cherno or anyone else from spying on you while you turn it on.”

“Understood,” I said. Actually, that was a good point. “All right, then. Selene and I are the hired help, and we don’t know anything. That work for you?”

“Yes, it does,” the admiral said. “It also has the virtue of being essentially true.” His eyes narrowed. “Just make sure you keep me informed every step of the way. If there’s something else going on, I want to know about it. Preferably before you fall over some hidden tripwire.”

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” I said.

“Yes,” he murmured. Probably thinking about how well we’d eluded tripwires and other general trouble on previous occasions. “Something about this still feels wrong.”

“I’m not crazy about it myself,” I admitted. “As my father used to say, Looking a gift horse in the mouth puts you in a perfect position to get bit. But I think the offer’s worth following up on. If for no other reason than to find out which part of the bait has the hook in it.”

The admiral rumbled something under his breath. “I assume you’ll be flying the Ruth to this meeting with Cherno?”

“Actually, Floyd’s taking us on one of Cherno’s personal yachts.”

The admiral grunted. “Which we can’t track and can’t get backup aboard.”

“We’ll be fine,” I said again. “After all, Floyd owes me. So does Mr. Gaheen.”

“And Cherno?”

“I’m sure he’ll warm to us in time.”

“As so many of your acquaintances have,” the admiral said with more than a hint of sarcasm. “Well. Good luck.” He reached for the control, paused. “And try to come back alive,” he added. Without waiting for a response he finished his reach for the control and the screen blanked.

“We love you, too,” I said, pulling out more bills and feeding them into the slot. “The old softy.”

“Who are we calling now?” Selene asked.

“No one,” I told her, punching in the number for my mail drop. “Just wanted to check for messages.”

To my mild surprise, there was indeed a new text message in my mail drop. To my even greater surprise, it was from Trent.

That hijacking job I mentioned on Nua Corcaigh is starting to come together. Not too late for you to join in on the planning. Fifty thousand up front, one-quarter share of four major bounties afterward. Reply as soon as you can if you’re interested or have other questions.

“Interesting,” I commented, gesturing to the message. “What do you think?”

I watched her eyes, saw puzzlement drift into her pupils as she read through Trent’s note. “He’s certainly persistent,” she said slowly. “He also seems . . . Does he seem a little wordy to you?”

“Indeed he does,” I agreed. “The typical bounty hunter would have whittled that down to Hijacking job still on. Join in? Fifty thousand, share of four bounties. Reply ASAP. That’s a third of the words.”

“And a third of the cost,” Selene said, her pupils going thoughtful. “Either he’s been very successful lately, or else he’s spending someone else’s money.”

“My guess is the latter,” I agreed. “So who has money who also might have put him in contact with a portal?”

“The Patth and Cherno are the obvious possibilities,” Selene said. “But it could certainly be someone else.”

“Yes,” I murmured, her last sentence bouncing me in a new direction. “Tell me, did you happen to smell any portal metal on Floyd?”

“No,” Selene said, her pupils frowning at the question. “Should I have?”

“Well, Cherno says he has one, and Floyd works for him,” I said. “He also has pictures of the launch module.”

“I assumed they were taken by someone else and just sent to him,” Selene said. “If Cherno is keeping the portal’s location a secret, he might not want Floyd to know exactly where it is.”

“Lest he be snatched and the secret wormed out of him?”

“Or lest he take that information to a higher bidder.”

“Maybe,” I said doubtfully. “But Floyd’s always struck me as being the loyal type.”

“When he’s working for someone who deserves it.”

“There’s that,” I conceded. “So try this one. Let’s say it’s Trent, or Trent’s boss, who actually has the portal. In that scenario Cherno may be trying to hire us, not with the patently ridiculous story of wanting us to cart someone across the Spiral, but in hopes that we’ll find the portal and figure out how to steal it for him.”

“I suppose that’s possible,” Selene said slowly. “But it also works just as well the other way. Trent has already said he wants to hire us for a hijacking. Could the plan be to steal Cherno’s portal?”

I shook my head. “Trent already has portal scent on him.”

“Maybe he’s got the other half of Cherno’s Gemini.”

I stared at the message still hovering on the StarrComm display. That one hadn’t even occurred to me. “Oh, now wouldn’t that be a treat and a half?” I murmured. “Cherno and Trent fighting over the same Gemini. Bonus amusement points if neither of them knows they have the two ends of the same portal. So why pick on us?”

“Floyd will have told Gaheen about Fidelio, who will have told Cherno,” Selene said.

“And Trent?”

“Maybe he has a spy in Gaheen’s organization.” She hesitated. “Or, as you suggested earlier, maybe he’s working with the Patth.”

I huffed out a sigh. “Would it really unbalance the universe for us to someday fall in with people who didn’t wish the worst for us?”

“Well, there is the Icarus Group.”

“Yeah. Like I said.” I stuck a data stick into the jack, copied Trent’s message, then blanked the screen. “Fine. Let’s get out of here, then call Floyd, then get back to the Ruth and grab whatever we’ll need for this little jaunt. I’m guessing we won’t be back for a while.”

* * *

The last time Selene and I had been given an upper-class ride it had been aboard the Odinn, Sub-Director Nask’s private Patth transport. It had been impressively luxurious, but given we’d been his prisoners at the time we didn’t get to see very much of the ship. Floyd’s yacht was smaller and not nearly as impressive, but at least here we had more or less the run of the place.

Except for the cockpit, of course. And the nav station, engine room, security stations, armory, Floyd’s private stateroom, and a couple of additional compartments that came with no specific designations but plenty of veiled warnings. But at least we could walk through the corridors and stretch our legs.

The food was good, too.

It was a nine-day flight, and for the last six hours of it Selene and I were confined to our stateroom with the viewports opaqued. We landed and emerged from the yacht to find ourselves on a single-pad landing field in the middle of a forest of blue-green conifers. We got to look around for only the couple of minutes it took to cover a hundred meters at a brisk walk before Floyd hustled us into a waiting four-person aircar. He got us settled in the back seat and climbed in beside the pilot, and as the repulsors lifted us off the ground he reached over to the control panel and opaqued all the windows except the windscreen. Given that the only thing Selene and I could see in that direction from our angle was sky, I was cleverly able to deduce that our destination world had a blue sky and occasional clouds. Apparently, Cherno didn’t want us getting even a hint of where we were or how we’d gotten here.

Given the unique value of his prize, I couldn’t really blame him.

The aircar ride lasted about an hour. We landed again, this time in a private hangar, Floyd waiting until the retractable roof had closed above us before escorting us to a van with the by-now-familiar opaqued windows. We started this final leg of the trip with the noises and stop-go pattern of city traffic, which faded into a quiet and steady drive after about fifteen minutes. Wherever we’d landed, we’d apparently been somewhere near the outskirts of town.

Of course, there was caution and there was paranoia, and in my private opinion this level of security had already overshot that line. There were dozens of habitable worlds out there, and so many different locales, climates, cultures, towns, and peoples on each of them that I’m pretty sure I could have stared out the window the whole way and still not had a clue as to where we were.

But it could have been worse. Floyd could have made us wear bags over our heads.

We came at last to the end of our journey in a windowless garage that had room for at least ten vans like ours, half again as many regular cars, or probably eight multi-passenger aircars. The place was empty except for our van—again, our host eliminating any clues as to where we were—and we were led through a door and up a short staircase to a large and nicely furnished ground-floor foyer. There we were met by three other bodyguard types, who gave Floyd respectful nods and Selene and me the quick once-over that men in their position learned in order to check for hidden weapons.

In this case, a waste of time. At Floyd’s insistence we’d left all our weapons aboard the Ruth before we boarded his yacht.

We passed the guards and Floyd herded us up to the next floor, this time via an elaborate open curved staircase that led to a balcony overlooking the floor we’d just left.

The wall behind the balcony had three doors. Floyd steered us to the middle one and knocked. There was a muted reply from inside, and he opened the door and gestured us through.

Inside, seated in one of the chairs of a conversation circle set beside a floor-to-ceiling window with a panoramic view of forests and distant snow-capped mountains, was Cherno.

I’d never seen any pictures, and Floyd hadn’t given us any descriptions. But even so there was no doubt in my mind as to who he was. Even seated comfortably in an overstuffed chair with a drink in his hand and a relaxed body language the look in his eyes was that of a calculating, ruthless, soulless predator.

Our former boss, Luko Varsi, had had much that same look. Mr. Gaheen, Varsi’s successor and Cherno’s boss, had a lot of the same cunning, though my single meeting with him had left me with the impression that he had at least a partial soul left.

As my father used to say, There’s a fine line between ambition and maniacal insatiability, and it’s frighteningly easy to cross that line without noticing.

Briefly, I wondered which side of the line Cherno was on.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Roarke; Ms. Selene,” he greeted us as we walked into the room. His voice was measured and urbane, as calculating and soulless as his eyes. “I’m Mr. Cherno. I trust you had a pleasant journey?”

“Quite pleasant,” I assured him. “Though air and car trips do get a bit tedious when all there is to look at are your fellow passengers.”

I’d wondered if the mild criticism would get any kind of pushback from him. But he merely gave me an easy smile. “I imagine so,” he agreed. “Though certainly Ms. Selene is easy enough on the eyes. I’m sure you understand the need for absolute secrecy in this matter.”

“Of course, sir,” I said, ducking my head in an abbreviated bow. Varsi would have been annoyed by my comment, possibly dangerously so, and would have made no effort to hide it. Cherno’s less irritated response put him at least a step above my former boss in the walking-on-eggs department.

Still, now that I’d performed my test, it was time to back off. Just because Cherno was less volatile than Varsi didn’t mean it would be safe for me to cross him. “Especially since those precautions will also have stymied any attempt to keep track of me personally.”

Are there people trying to keep track of you?” Cherno asked, his smile slipping just a bit. “Aside from the obvious, of course?”

For a split second I considered asking him who he thought these mysterious stalkers were. But Floyd would have told him about McKell and Nask, and playing innocent at this point would probably be a bad idea, as well as being pointless. As my father used to say, Playing coy usually only works if you’re a large goldfish. “Aside from the obvious, not that I know of,” I said. “But one never knows when a new player is going to pop out of the woodwork.”

“Indeed one doesn’t,” Cherno agreed. He eyed me a moment, then gestured to two of the conversation circle chairs across from him. “Please.”

“Thank you.” I walked to one of the chairs, reflexively noting the various ventilation grilles and doing a quick evaluation of the room’s air flow. Neither of the seats he’d indicated would be ideal, but one was clearly situated better than the other. I picked the less useful one and let Selene settle into the other. Floyd, I noted, stayed back by the door where he could oversee the scene.

“So tell me, Mr. Roarke,” Cherno said as we settled into our seats. “How exactly did you get into all of this?”

“As Mr. Floyd may have told you, I used to be a bounty hunter,” I said. “When I lost my arm, Selene and I joined the Association of Planetary Trailblazers and have been crocketts ever since. As to the portals . . . ” I shrugged. “Actually, we fell into it mostly by accident.”

Mostly?

“Well, it was accident on our part, anyway,” I said. “But I’m sure your time is valuable, Mr. Cherno. Mr. Floyd’s thumbnail description of your proposal was quite intriguing. I’d like to hear more.”

“Certainly,” Cherno said. “You take my passenger where she needs to go, and the portal is yours.”

I waited a couple of heartbeats. Apparently, that was all he was prepared to say. “Understood,” I said. “Nice and succinct. Also pretty much what Mr. Floyd already told us on Xathru. I was hoping for a few more details.”

“Such as?”

“Such as who this passenger is,” I said, ticking off fingers. “Where she is now, where she needs to go, where the portal is, when we get possession of it.” I lowered my fingers. “And why us.”

He took a sip from his glass. “You’re an oddly curious sort, Mr. Roarke,” he said. “I’d think that one being so handsomely paid for his time and effort would be content to work within certain restrictions.”

“Ah, but you see, I’m not actually getting paid,” I pointed out. “It’s the people I’m working with who’ll get the portal. All Selene and I get out of this is, as you say, the chance to put in some time and a lot of effort. More importantly, I’d kind of like to know what the chances are that this project will involve us getting shot at.”

Cherno raised his eyebrows slightly. “Really? That’s your big concern?” His eyes flicked to Floyd. “Floyd didn’t mention that you were the squeamish type. How in the Spiral did you survive as a bounty hunter?”

“I almost didn’t,” I said, wincing a little as the ghost of that memory briefly overshadowed the room. “Which is the point. I don’t mind a little gunplay on occasion, but I like to know the odds of it going in. Especially since our recent history of taking on passengers hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing.”

“I see.” Cherno took another sip of his drink. “Very well. To your questions. I can’t as yet give you the name of your passenger, but she shouldn’t be a burden to you. I can definitely assure you no one’s likely to draw down on her. You’ll be picking her up on Balmoral; the drop-off point is as yet undetermined, and your colleagues will be able to take possession of the portal as soon as your part of the bargain is completed. As to why you, I believe Floyd already explained that you’re the only people who would be interested in such a trade.”

“So he did,” I said, the mental image of Nask and his presumably galactic-sized budget hovering in front of my eyes.

“As to where it is . . . ” He took one last sip and stood up. “Let’s go take a look.”


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