CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Cherno’s end of the Gemini was still deserted when Ixil and I arrived. I double-checked the warehouse, just to make sure there weren’t any guards hidden off to the side, then did the same for the underground tunnel. Once again, Cherno’s desire for secrecy outweighed his need for security.
Ixil and I didn’t talk as we made our final preparations. There was no need. We’d worked out the plan while we were digging our giant gopher holes in the Trandosh field, and we both knew our roles in this little drama. Ixil got Pax into a custom-made harness, gave him his final instructions via their neural link, and then the outrider and I headed out. Pax rode atop my go bag as I negotiated the trapdoor and headed down the tunnel. At the elevator I pulled open the ventilation grille, ushered Pax inside, then put the grille back in place.
Then, taking a deep breath, I punched the elevator call button.
I assumed there would be an armed escort waiting for me when the door opened, but the car was empty. I went inside, punched the up button—the car had only the two buttons—and headed up.
The welcoming committee I’d expected was waiting at the top, looking alert, intimidating, and surprised by my sudden appearance from a supposedly empty elevator. More proof, if I’d needed it, that Cherno was playing his cards close to his chest.
Still, confused or not, they were good at their jobs. They frisked me, taking my plasmic, phone, info pad, and multitool, then rummaged briefly through my go bag and confiscated that, too. Once I was deemed harmless enough to meet their boss, they led me to Cherno’s office.
There’d been no way to calculate what time of day it would be when I arrived, but for the plan to work it needed to be late afternoon or early evening at the earliest. For once things turned out even better than I’d hoped, the view out the office window showing the starry blackness of full night. Even better, the forest and distant mountains showed a small directional glint, the sign of at least one planetary moon. My guards sat me down in the chair I’d used the last time I was here, told me to wait, and filed out.
I was being watched, of course. That was a given. Fortunately, there was nothing in here I needed to see. Flexing my still-sore muscles a couple of times, I settled in to wait.
Three minutes later, the door again opened, and Cherno strode into the office.
“So you found the other end,” he said briskly as he circled around behind the desk and sat down. His hair was a little disheveled, and his eyes a bit on the bleary side, and he was dressed in a sort of evening robe of red silk with gold highlights. The black sky outside hadn’t told me what part of night it was, but judging from Cherno’s appearance it looked like I’d arrived after his bedtime.
Perfect.
“Yes, we did,” I confirmed. “Sorry it took so long, but we did make it within your deadline.”
“Yes, you did,” he said, nodding. “And for that, I imagine there’ll be some bonus money in it.”
“I thought our payment was to get the portal.”
“That’s your group’s payment,” he said. “As you said before, you and Selene don’t get anything. I’m planning to rectify that omission.” His eyes flicked over my shoulder, as if he was suddenly noticing that I was alone. “Piper didn’t come with you?”
I was on the edge of correcting him when I remembered that he didn’t know we knew who Nikki really was. “She’s still a bit under the weather,” I told him. “But she should be ready to travel tomorrow, or the next day at the latest.”
“She came down sick?”
“She came down drugged,” I said bluntly, watching his expression closely. “Someone tried to take her out.”
I’d already been ninety-nine percent sure that Cherno hadn’t had a hand in Trent’s actions. The sudden rigid look on his face filled in that last one percent. “Is she all right?” he asked.
“She’s fine,” I said, shifting again in my seat. “He wasn’t trying to kill her, just put her out of action for a while.”
“Looks like he tried to do the same to you,” Cherno said, eyeing me.
“It’s nothing,” I assured him. So he’d spotted the slight hesitancy in my movements. The man could definitely be observant when he wanted to be. Something I needed to keep in mind. “He tried, he failed, and it’s over. So when do I get to hear about the main event?”
His eyebrows rose slightly. “What main event is that?”
“Piper’s main event,” I said. “Don’t we at least get to know why she’s here?”
“She’s an assassin,” he countered coolly. “Why do you think she’s here?”
“I was hoping for something a bit more specific.”
“You want specific?” Cherno asked. The veneer of civilization was still there, but it was showing some strain. “I’ll be specific. It’s none of your business.”
“Yes,” I murmured. “See, the thing is that it’s at least a little our business. We’ve been seen with Piper, the Ruth has been seen carting Piper around the Spiral, and there are way too many badgemen who’ll remember all of that when Piper’s job goes down. If her target is a major political or social leader, we need to be ready to disappear for a while.”
For a long moment I had the sense that he was thinking about ordering his thugs to take me out into the forest and make me disappear permanently. Then, his lip twitched in a sort of wry smile. “I suppose that’s reasonable. Fine. The target’s a local politician—a Senator Gilles—who’s trying to put the planet’s entire drug industry under direct government control. As you may know, Mr. Gaheen is trying to shift our organization’s illegal drug operations into more acceptable channels.”
“I’d heard that, yes,” I said. In fact, I’d seen some direct evidence of that tentative shift a few months back. Whether Gaheen was genuinely trying to go legit or whether this was just a new approach to money-laundering remained an open question. “I assume moving the industry to the government would mean taking all control away from the various entrepreneurs and private companies here?”
“Officially, yes,” Cherno said. “Less officially, Gilles has made it clear that he’s willing to discuss granting government licenses to favored companies and individuals.”
“The level of favoredness scaling to the amount of money changing hands?”
“You understand how this works,” Cherno said with an edge of contempt. “And of course, it’s not just how much money flows in, but how often. You see why Mr. Gaheen has decided this scheme needs to be cut off at its root.”
“Yes, absolutely,” I agreed. “I assume Senator Spoilsport has other political plans and views that have rubbed his colleagues and constituents the wrong way? Plus a few strictly personal enemies?”
“You’re asking if there are other people out there who want him dead?”
“Exactly,” I said. “As my father used to say, The best place to hide a tree is in a forest, and the best place to hide after a job is among a bunch of people who are mad that someone else got there first.”
“Interesting way to put it,” Cherno said. “In this case, your father is right. Combine that with the very local nature of the man and his crusade, and I think a week or two on a beach somewhere should be all you need until the storm blows over.”
“Yes, it does sound that way,” I agreed. I gave a big yawn. “Sorry. It’s been a busy few days.”
“So it would seem,” Cherno said. “I’m told you brought an overnight bag.”
“Yes, sir, I did,” I said. “I don’t mean to impose on your hospitality. If it’s not convenient for me to stay here, if one of your people could take me to the nearest town I can get a hotel.”
His lip twitched, just enough to show his first thought was that I was trying to get someplace where I could figure out where in the Spiral I was. “Why not simply go back?” he asked.
“I’d rather not chance it,” I said. “With the portal freshly opened, I was warned to give it about twelve hours between the first two or three transits. There’s no sign of trouble with it,” I hastened to add. “I’d just rather err on the side of caution.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” he said. There was still some suspicion lurking in his eyes, but my argument sounded reasonable, and at any rate there wasn’t any way he could really argue the point. “Under the circumstances, I think it best for you to stay here for the rest of the night.”
He tapped a key on his desk. The door behind me swung open, and one of the men who’d met me at the elevator stepped into the office. “Yes, sir?” he rumbled.
“Has Floyd returned yet?” Cherno asked.
“No, sir,” the guard said. “But he sent a message saying he’d be back early tomorrow morning. I mean this morning,” he corrected himself.
“Good,” Cherno said, shifting his attention back to me. “Mr. Roarke, this is Yimm. He’ll be taking care of you tonight.”
“Hello, Yimm,” I said politely. The thug didn’t bother to respond, but just eyed me like he might look at a bug that was reputed to be venomous.
“Yimm will show you to the guest suite and get you anything else you need,” Cherno continued. “You said twelve hours?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Cherno glanced at his desk clock. “Tomorrow at noon Yimm will bring you back here. Your watch on local time yet?”
I peered at my watch. It had indeed recalibrated, showing the time to be one-thirty in the morning of a twenty-eight-hour day. “Yes, sir,” I said. “So noon is at fourteen o’clock?”
“Yes,” he said. “That’ll make it about thirteen hours since you got here. That work for you?”
“It should be fine, yes,” I confirmed.
“Good,” Cherno said. “Yimm will bring you here at noon. I’ll turn you over to Floyd, and the two of you will go bring Piper to me. Got it?”
“Got it, sir, yes.”
Cherno’s eyes shifted to Yimm. “Escort Mr. Roarke to the guest suite, give him his overnight bag, and get him anything else he wants.”
“Yes, sir,” Yimm said, gesturing me toward the door. “Mr. Roarke?”
“Thank you, Mr. Cherno,” I said, getting carefully out of the chair, making sure it looked harder and more painful than it actually was. As my father used to say, People usually underestimate those who are sick or in pain. More importantly, they also tend to inflict less additional pain of their own. “Any chance I can also have my info pad? I could do a little reading before settling down.”
“You’ll get it back later,” Cherno said. “If you get bored, go out on your balcony and look at the stars. It’s very relaxing.”
“Understood, sir,” I said. “Thank you again. And may I say, I’ll be glad to see this job through to its conclusion.”
“As will I, Mr. Roarke,” Cherno said. “Get some rest. Yimm will be outside your room if you need anything.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said, nodding. I’d also remember the darker message lurking beneath that offer: Don’t try to leave.
But that was okay. Everything I needed to do tonight I could do right from Cherno’s guest suite. “I’ll be ready to go at noon. Sleep well, Mr. Cherno.”
* * *
The guest suite was the same one Selene and I had spent a few hours in during our last visit nearly six weeks ago. Then, we’d stayed mostly in the conversation room, but this time I made a point of giving myself the complete tour. The suite was bigger than most of the apartments I’d lived in, and more luxurious than any of them. The beds were emperor size, and looked extremely comfortable.
But testing them would have to wait. Right now, I had work to do.
The last time we were here I’d assumed the place would be loaded with hidden cameras and microphones, but hadn’t dared go on a search for them. This time, knowing that I held the key to Cherno’s assassination scheme and that he therefore couldn’t simply have me shot, I wasn’t nearly so worried about the consequences of that kind of chutzpah. Tossing my jacket onto one of the beds, I started my search.
To my surprise, the surveillance equipment I’d expected to find wasn’t there.
On one level, it was a relief that my next task would now be infinitely easier. On another level, it raised a host of discomfiting questions. Were the people Cherno usually hosted in this suite the sort who would take a dim and possibly lethal view of being spied on in the more intimate moments of their lives? Had someone higher up the food chain than Cherno—maybe even the big boss Gaheen himself—found the cameras and ordered them removed under pain of death? Had some enterprising badgeman found a way to hack into the system, and tearing them out was purely an act of self-preservation on Cherno’s part?
As my father used to say, There’s always a bigger shark and a faster gun. Cherno might be the distrustful type, but he could hardly have achieved his exalted status in Gaheen’s organization without learning when and where to be discreet.
Or, there was another possibility, one that on reflection made even more sense in the current scenario. But that thought and its implications could be put aside until later.
Each of the suite’s rooms had its own set of ventilation grilles. I chose the ground-floor vent nearest the tunnel elevator and got to work.
Yimm and his fellow thugs would have scanned the contents of my go bag for anything unusual or contraband, but I’d have bet good money they would miss the set of tiny plastic screwdrivers Ixil had sewn into the bag’s edge piping. In this case I would have won that bet. I worked the proper driver out of its hiding place and unscrewed the grille. They’d left me my flashlight; turning it to its lowest setting, I set it inside the air duct to give Pax something to aim for. Setting the bag aside, I went to the kitchen nook and picked out a nut bar, then opened the balcony doors and stepped outside.
Cherno had been right. The view was indeed magnificent. The starscape was as glorious as any I’d seen in my travels, the reflected glow from the two tiny moons too dim to interfere with the starlight except in the areas directly around them. The forests and mountains, as I’d already noted, had taken on an ethereal appearance in the light. It was the sort of spectacle artists would attempt to capture in paint, and poets would try to describe in words.
Me, I was just pleased that my balcony had a view of the northern sky.
Pax was waiting when I returned, his little nose twitching with what I privately called his what-did-you-bring-me look. I unwrapped the nut bar, and while he enthusiastically tackled it I unstrapped McKell’s gadget from his harness and went back out onto the balcony.
The first part was easy. I turned on the air sensor, a simpler version of the samplers in the Ruth’s bioprobes that would pull in pollen, spores, and other biomolecules, as well as calculating the atmospheric percentages of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and a couple of other gasses. While the sampler was doing that, the internal compass checked the strength of the local magnetic field—planets without such fields generally were slathered in too much cosmic radiation to be habitable—and fixed the direction of magnetic north. With that direction now defined, I took several wide-angle pictures of the sky. There were a lot of stars up there, but the Icarus Group’s computers were quite good, and comparing the pictures with known star charts should narrow my location down to a few dozen light-years.
Now came the tricky part. Balancing the gadget on the balcony railing with the camera pointed toward magnetic north, I set the time-lapse for fifteen minutes. The star trails it recorded would create arcs centered on the celestial north pole, allowing the Icarus analysts to calculate the declination between magnetic and true norths.
The fifteen minutes seemed to take the equivalent number of hours, but at last it was over. I shut down everything, closed all the covers and lens caps, and returned to the suite.
Pax had finished half his nut bar and was looking ready to find a good spot for a nap. But he brightened up as I stuffed the gadget in his harness and ushered him back into the duct. I waited until he’d scampered off the way he’d come, then retrieved my flashlight and screwed the grille back into place. My last task was to return the screwdriver to its hidden compartment, and make a quick dinner for myself from the suite’s food stock.
I also made sure to munch down the rest of the nut bar, lest some sharp-eyed thug notice half a bar in the morning and wonder why I hadn’t finished it.
I ate quickly, my ears primed for noise or quiet commotion outside my door. The plan was for Ixil to wait inside the portal until Pax returned, but if Cherno sent anyone down there to check things out he would retreat back to Meima and come back for the outrider later when the coast was hopefully clear.
If it wasn’t clear, there would be trouble. But Ixil had assured me he had that under control. He hadn’t offered any details, but I gathered that anyone who blundered into him or Pax would be quietly incapacitated and taken on a one-way trip to Meima, there to be dropped into a deep and very unofficial hole until this was all over.
That would of course lead to consternation and searches at this end of the Gemini, followed by a rude awakening for Cherno’s resident house guest. At that point all I could do would be to act bewildered and proclaim my innocence, and hope Cherno bought it. It wouldn’t hurt to make sure he remembered he still needed me to bring Nikki to him.
As my father used to say, Sometimes it’s useful to pretend you know more than you do. Usually, it’s the other way around.
The bed was as comfortable as it looked. I set my watch’s alarm for eleven o’clock and turned off the light.
I was gazing out the window at the starscape when I fell asleep.