19
“All right, Herman,” Stephanie said, several hours later.
Sphinx’s long day had segued into darkness, and the Kemper brothers had invited her and Cordelia—and Herman—to a “potluck dinner.” Mack and Zack had been brought fully onboard, at least as far as baka bakari was involved, and their dinner invitation had offered the best cover for her visit. She could have screened Herman rather than flying out to the Kemper claim, but she and Karl had agreed that this was a conversation best held in person.
They fully intended to eat that dinner, too, and interesting aromas wafted from the hot pots with which she and Cordelia had arrived, but no one seemed really interested in eating. Not yet, at any rate. Not even the treecats. Athos and Lionheart had discovered the mantel above the living room’s old-fashioned fireplace, and they perched there like guardian gargoyles, green eyes bright.
“Like I said when you screened me, right after Orgeson left,” she continued, “you can’t just tell them no.”
Herman opened his mouth, but her raised hand stopped him before he spoke.
“I know you want to, but all the reasons you can’t still hold true. At the same time, though, we’re taking Orgeson’s threats seriously, I promise.”
Herman looked unhappy, but he also nodded, and Stephanie looked at the Kempers as the botanist sat back in his chair.
“I don’t think you guys are completely up to date,” she said. “After Cordelia left, Orgeson got down to brass tacks with Herman. She told him that he’s got three days to make up his mind before she goes home, and that if he doesn’t take her ‘generous job offer by then,’ she’ll not only go to the authorities and reveal that she’s just discovered that Herman’s been selling untested drugs to minors, but her thugs will beat him up, too. Badly.”
“Really?” Mack looked at Herman sharply. “They actually said that, Herman?”
“What they said is that they’d beat me up so badly I wouldn’t be able to give my version of events for months. If ever.”
“Wow,” Mack said. “Steph and Cordy told us they’d threatened physical violence, but I didn’t expect them to have been that explicit. And I sure didn’t think they’d threaten to murder you!”
“I’m not sure they’d really go that far,” Herman said. “On the other hand, I’m not sure they wouldn’t, either!”
“I guess not.” Both Kempers shook their heads.
“One thing we’re pretty sure of, though, is that they don’t know we think baka bakari was involved in Stan’s death,” Stephanie continued. “If they did, then Orgeson certainly would have threatened Herman with that!”
“I thought about that,” Herman said. “But I know about it. I can’t forget about it, however hard I try!”
His expression was so unhappy that Cordelia reached out to pat his knee.
“That’s why we’re trying to do something about it,” she told him.
“Yeah.” Stephanie nodded vigorously. “And, before we get into that, there’s been another development in Twin Forks that may play into all of this. Not so much where Orgeson is concerned—not directly, at least—but where Frank and Rod are.”
“Really?” Cordelia raised an eyebrow at her. “And you didn’t think to share this with me earlier?”
“Only found out on the way here,” Stephanie told her with a grin. “Chief Chuchkova screened Chief Shelton. It looks like Xadrian really is the chief hierophant at the Enigmatic Riddle. It turns out that one of the regulars she hangs out with was recording a birthday party the night we were there.”
She paused, and Cordelia smacked her hands together.
“They actually caught Rod spiking your drink on video? Oh, that’s just too perfect!”
“Oh, no.” Stephanie’s grin was even wider—and much more predatory—than before. “They caught Frank spiking my drink. And they already tied him to the drink order. And it doesn’t matter whether or not baka bakari is legal. It’s still a euphoric, and he still provided it to a minor without her consent or knowledge. It’s only a misdemeanor, not a felony, since nobody got hurt, but if we can tie him to Orgeson, then we have somebody else we can squeeze to testify against her and corroborate anything Herman can tell us.”
“That sounds good to me,” Zack said.
“But it’s still not bulletproof,” Stephanie cautioned. “So far, Orgeson hasn’t done anything—so far as we know, anyway—that a clever lawyer couldn’t talk her way around. Frank, yes. But, like I say, even in his case, we can only get him on misdemeanor charges right now. We want something…more permanent than that. And if Orgeson is willing to have Nosey beaten up, and to actually threaten to kill Herman if he doesn’t do what she wants, then we want to hammer her as hard as we can. I mean, preferably, we’re talking some serious prison time here.”
“That would be great,” Mack said. “But you just finished saying we don’t have evidence of anything that heavy.”
“We don’t have evidence of anything that heavy yet,” Stephanie corrected, and her expression was much more serious as she looked back at Herman.
“Karl and I talked it over with Cordy, and then we ran our idea by Chief Shelton. Chief Chuchkova’s ready to ask for a bench warrant against Frank whenever we tell her to, based on the video Xadrian’s turned up. That still leaves Orgeson, but she made a mistake being present and personally threatening you instead of just letting her thugs handle the intimidation. That way she could have denied she’d ever told them to go that far to convince you to cooperate. And the fact that she’s made one mistake makes us think that we might be able to get her to make another one.”
“What kind of mistake?” Herman asked, his eyes narrow.
“Based on something Karl’s turned up, we think she might be prepared to go as far as to kidnap you and haul you back to Manticore. Hopefully, that’s because she figures that she could convince you to actually take the job once you were there, but it’s also possible she figures she could just get the full recipe out of you, one way or the other, and then get rid of you.”
“Get rid of me?!” Herman’s narrowed eyes flared wide.
“She wouldn’t have to be thinking in terms of killing,” Stephanie pointed out. “As far as she knows, she still has all of that stuff about selling drugs to minors to hold over your head to make you keep your mouth shut. Plus the fact that at the very least, you’d lose your job with Dr. Bonaventure! If that happened, you’d need a job from somebody, so why not take hers? And worst-case scenario, they could always say you’d come voluntarily, with nobody able to prove you hadn’t.”
“Wait a minute,” Cordelia said. “There’s no way they could just kidnap Herman and drag him off to Manticore and then claim he’d come voluntarily! They’d have to drug him or something to get them onto one of the shuttles against his will, and there’s too big a chance something would go wrong along the way.”
“Ah, but that’s not how she’s planning to get home,” Stephanie said. “When Karl heard about her three-day time limit, he put in an official SFS request for information on her reservation date, and there isn’t one. Turns out she arrived aboard a privately owned ship, the Priscilla, that’s still in parking orbit around Sphinx. Chief Shelton’s trying to run down its real owners, but the company it’s officially registered to is obviously a shell, a front for someone else. Which means our Dr. Orgeson’s past may be even sketchier than we thought. But it also means it would be a lot easier for her to smuggle Herman off-world, which probably makes the idea of kidnapping him even more attractive to someone like her.”
“Wonderful,” Herman muttered, and Cordelia patted his knee again.
“We’re going to get you out of this,” she told him.
“Absolutely.” Stephanie nodded vigorously. “One way or the other.”
“I’d really rather just come clean.” Herman looked around the living room unhappily. “I mean, I don’t want to. It’s going to be bad enough when I have to tell Dr. Bonaventure about this. She’s going to be really, really pissed with me, and she should be. I’ve abused my position here, and for all I know, I’ve exposed her and GBMRAC to potential liability in all those accidents. And even if she doesn’t fire me on the spot, if I go public, my career’s pretty much over. But if that stops Orgeson from getting away with this, stops anybody else from getting hurt or killed when they don’t even know they’re using drugs, then that’s what I’ll do.”
“I know it is.” Stephanie smiled at him, much more warmly than she once ever thought she might have. “But we’d really rather not wreck your life.”
“Actually, I did that all on my own.” Herman managed a crooked smile of his own. “On the other hand, it sounds like you think there’s a way to avoid it.”
“Sure there is.” Stephanie’s smile segued into a treecat’s grin. “We let them kidnap you.”
“What?” Herman blinked at her.
“Look, unlike providing a mind- or mood-altering substance to a minor, kidnapping is a Class A Felony. The minimum sentence is ten T-years; the maximum is thirty. Unless violence or threats of violence are used, in which case the judge can tack on up to another fifteen T-years. And in the eyes of the law, it doesn’t matter whether or not the kidnapping was successful, Herman. All they have to do is make the attempt, and we’ve got them.”
“But—” he began, then broke off.
“Just how do you see this whole thing working?” he asked slowly.
“Well, the bad news is that if we bust her for attempted kidnapping, everything about the baka bakari’s almost certain to come out. Especially if we bust Frank for spiking my drink. And, to be honest, we need that to happen, because it’s unlikely baka bakari’s going to be ruled illegal right away, if at all. So we need to be able to warn people that it’s out there and what its effects are. That’s pretty much a minimum, Herman.”
He nodded glumly.
“I know. And that means I’m going to have to fess up to Dr. Bonaventure before we go any further. I can’t blindside her with the way this is going to splash on GBMRAC.”
“No, you can’t,” Stephanie agreed. “And telling her will also at least mitigate some of the damage to you when this goes public, too. You’ll have told your boss everything, including that you tried to fix matters, only to discover that they’d gotten out of control when Frank made contact with Orgeson. After that, you only collaborated because of her threats of violence. Which brings it all right back to her as the prime mover.”
“That’s true.” Herman’s shoulders sagged, but there was an edge of relief in his tone. “I’ll come across as a complete naïve idiot, but at least not as a drug pusher to innocent young people. What next?”
“Next, you contact Dr. Orgeson. You let her know you’ve confessed to Dr. Bonaventure, and what the end result was. Then you let her know that—even if you’ve lost your job—you’re not interested in taking hers. That’s when we figure they’ll try to kidnap you. Maybe not that instant, but within no more than a day or so.”
“And then?”
“And then we let them go far enough that there’ll be no wiggling out of the charge of kidnapping. At which point Karl and I pounce.”
“Just the two of you?” Herman looked like someone trying hard to avoid sounding skeptical, and Stephanie chuckled.
“Actually, I think we could handle it. But, like I said, we’ve discussed it with Chief Shelton. He’s authorized Karl—well, me, since Karl didn’t want to fly back out here in case Orgeson’s keeping an eye on you—to arrange a sting operation. We can’t manufacture evidence against Orgeson, but we can sure as heck let her incriminate herself. And the Chief has agreed to make Ranger Lethbridge and Ranger Jedrusinski available as backup. They’ll be close enough to intervene if we need them to. But we’d just as soon be sure we keep them out of sight unless we do need them.”
“I see.”
Herman’s relief was evident, although it was equally evident that he remained far short of enthralled by the entire notion. Stephanie couldn’t blame him for that, but she only smiled sympathetically, leaned back, and waited.
He sat in silence for several minutes, then nodded and straightened in his chair.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
Stephanie was pleased when Herman asked if Cordelia would sit in when he had his interview with Glynis Bonaventure “Because you can confirm that I told you and Jessica that I regretted what I’d done before anyone threatened me.”
The interview with Glynis was just as painful as he’d feared, though, even just to watch. As expected, she felt angry, betrayed, and even guilty that her own obsession with discovery over development had led to Herman making some unwise decisions.
“I’d like to believe that concoction of yours—what are they calling it? Baka bakari—had something to do with you acting so unwisely. From what you said, it does seem to lead to overconfidence.”
“It may well have,” Herman admitted. “Ever since I stopped making it, I’ve found myself questioning how I could ever decide it was a great idea to make it for anyone else without checking if it had any long-term cumulative effects. I believed what I wanted to believe.”
“Which seems like a common side effect,” Glynis said thoughtfully. “Very well. I won’t fire you. That’s enough for now. Give me time to think about the next steps for GBMRAC.”
The meeting had ended with repeated apologies and promises of good behavior, before a thoughtful Dr. Bonaventure took her leave.
When her air car was a dot on the horizon, Cordelia turned to Herman. “Now for the next part. You need to screen Dr. Orgeson.”
“Right! There’s no good reason for me delaying and a lot of bad ones.” He coded in the call, which was answered promptly. “Dr. Orgeson, this is Herman Maye, but you know that. I’m sorry. I’m a bit nervous about this, given what you said at our last meeting.”
It had been agreed that Herman should give Lyric Orgeson any opportunity to incriminate herself, but the woman was far too smooth an operator.
“Yes, I remember our meeting. Do you want to suggest any changes? A raise in salary, perhaps?”
“No, nothing like that. In fact, I…I’m…I’m turning down your offer. Dr. Bonaventure was here earlier, and I found myself feeling terrible about not at least giving her notice, so I told her I’d had another job offer. She, well, she’s very persuasive, and even after I told her what an idiot I’d been, she told me she didn’t think the situation was nearly as bad as I was making it out to be. She wants me to keep working for her, although, of course, I won’t be mixing any more mushrooms except in controlled settings.”
There was a long pause, then Lyric Orgeson said in a low voice that was more terrifying than any shout, “I see. Well, that is a pity. I really feel that being stuck in a painted hut in a jungle is a waste of your talents, but it’s your life.”
Something in how she said those last words made Cordelia shiver. Herman, however, carried on as if he hadn’t heard the implied threat.
“Thank you for being so understanding. I hope you have a good trip back to your home.”
“Thank you.”
The call was terminated on that abrupt note. Cordelia rose.
“As much as I hate to do this, I’ve got to get out of here. We’re pretty sure they didn’t leave any cameras of their own to keep an eye on you, but we can’t be positive of that. So we need everything to look as normal as possible. But don’t worry! We’ll be watching through our cameras, and someone will always be close. And Mack and Zack were pretty adamant. They plan to take turns spending the night here.”
“I hate to think that anything could happen to one of them,” Herman said with a distressed expression.
“The fewer changes to our routine, the less likely Orgeson and her goons will get suspicious. Don’t worry.” Cordelia sounded confident. “We’ve got this under control.”
But when Cordelia screened Stephanie later, her first words were, “I hope we’ve got this under control, Steph. If we don’t, this could get seriously ugly.”
Not only had the Kemper boys insisted on continuing their night vigils with Herman, they’d also insisted on using their house as a base for the kidnap attempt watch.
“We have enough outbuildings that vehicles can be parked undercover,” Mack said, “and the tunnels will make sure a casual observer won’t realize extra people are hanging out here.”
Underground tunnels were common on Sphinx, where heavy snowfall during the almost sixteen T-month-long winters made them the logical solution to going between buildings. Everyone was grateful for Mack’s suggestion, since a glimpse of a camouflaged air car in the forest might raise suspicion. The next job was setting up shifts for keeping an eye on Mr. Ack’s during the wait for what Anders had dubbed Operation Save Herman From the Vermin.
They felt fairly certain Orgeson’s gang wouldn’t go for Herman today, or even in the next few days. Now that he’d turned them down, they no longer needed to maintain the pretence of a three-day time limit, and he was likely to be wary, for at least the next little bit. And they’d want some time between the job offer they knew Cordelia knew about and Herman’s disappearance, because they wouldn’t want anyone wondering if they’d made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Karl’s investigations had determined that Priscilla carried an atmosphere-capable shuttle of its own, which meant they wouldn’t even have to smuggle him through security at the port, assuming Priscilla’s crew was willing to make an unauthorized landing to pick them up. And they probably would be, given how little of Sphinx’s skies were covered by radar.
Even so, as Karl said, “We need to keep watch starting right now. We’d feel like complete zorks if they snatched him sooner.”
Anders didn’t have anything to keep him in Yawata Crossing, so he joined Cordelia and the Kemper boys monitoring the feed. They’d rehearsed until they could get someone over to Mr. Ack’s within minutes, and Chief Shelton had shifted patrol assignments to move Frank Lethbridge and Ainsley Jedrusinski closer to the Kemper homestead. Neither of them could just drop their regular duties, but they’d be available as a heavier, quick-response reinforcement, if they were needed, although everyone hoped the two senior rangers wouldn’t be.
Aside from Karl, who was more or less camped with the Kempers, all the rest of them continued with their usual routines. It was unlikely Orgeson would be worried enough about a bunch of “kids” to keep an eye on them, but no one was taking any chances.
Despite their carefully laid plans, Stephanie grew extremely edgy as the days crept past without Orgeson making a move. It was one thing to believe you’d calculated the odds properly. It was another to have someone else’s safety—maybe even his life—resting on the choices you made.
This is why I want to be a ranger, not go into the military. My life will be fluffy range bunnies. Our friend the hexapuma. The circle of life. All that nice gentle nature, red in tooth and claw stuff.
Stephanie’s uni-link buzzed. She looked at it and tapped the “ACCEPT” icon as soon as she saw it was Karl.
“Yes?” she said a bit sharply. Eight of Sphinx’s long days had slipped past without anything at all happening.
“Hey, Steph! Chief Chuchkova says Dr. Orgeson and her thug friends just checked out of their hotel in Yawata Crossing. So if they’re going to try anything, it’ll be today.”
“I’d better get over there!” she exclaimed.
“Don’t panic. Zack’s on his way to pick you up now. You’ll have plenty of time to get back here with him before they can fly all the way from Yawata Crossing to grab him.”
“Great! And Frank and Ainsley?”
“They’re going to be waiting on the ground right next door. Official story is that they’re inspecting that abandoned near-beaver dam where Cordy almost got eaten. They can be from there to Mr. Ack in under seven minutes if we need to call them in.”
“Sounds good!” Stephanie said with a sudden burst of elation and relief. Worrying about one of her plans was one thing; once she actually got the chance to put it into motion—
Stephanie waited, hunkered down in cover where she had a clear view of Mr. Ack’s public parking field. Zack Kemper was covering the lot from the other side. Mack Kemper was around back, where the composter was, since there was enough open area to set down a vehicle there. Cordelia, Jessica, and Anders were positioned around the perimeter. The four treecats were up in the forest canopy, lying low.
Nosey wasn’t on site, but he was watching all the spy camera feeds, so he could give them advance warning of any approaching vehicle. At the same time, he was recording the visual feeds, and thanks to Chief Shelton’s warrants, those recordings would be admissible in court, if it came to that.
Stephanie could sense Lionheart’s watchfulness, and was glad. Of the assembled treecats, he had the most experience dealing with dangerous humans, having helped her with the poacher Tennessee Bolgeo, and, more recently, with muggers on Manticore.
But what if there’s shooting? How many of the other ’cats have actually been where there was more than target shooting? Athos was there when the Kemper boys showed up to help Cordelia, when the near-weasels were attacking her, but by all reports, he was in seriously bad shape by then. He might not have made the connection between the weapons and the result. But maybe they haven’t figured it out that guns are dangerous to more than targets? Maybe they just think firearms are worth avoiding because of they make so much noise. We suspect that treecats can communicate with each other, but can they share something as abstract as “loud noise here is connected to splattered target there”?
All I can do is hope everything will go down just fine. I can hope that there won’t be any shooting, that I just worry too much. Concentrate on the moment, Steph. Don’t get distracted by “might be’s.”
She scanned the area in her line of sight, avoiding the urge to get distracted by her uni-link feed. She had to trust her allies, and Nosey had proven himself very reliable. As arranged, Herman was working outside today, taking care not to stray out of where one or more of the security cameras would record his actions.
At the moment, he was turning over the soil in a new garden bed. A barrow filled with mushroom compost stood to one side, waiting to be dug in, and a flat of herbs had been set in a shady spot to one side. If, to Stephanie, Herman’s actions looked studied, like an amateur actor doing busywork on stage at the opening of a scene, she wasn’t all that worried. Herman wasn’t the most poised person. Well, except when he was talking about fungi and their cultivation, of course. Then he was like a different person.
And thinking he looks awkward is probably just my imagination. I can’t believe only five minutes have gone by since I last checked. I could have sworn it had been at least half an hour.
Her stomach rumbled, and she eased a granola bar out of her pocket and slowly pulled back a section of the wrapping. She was still chewing her first mouthful when Nosey’s voice sounded in her earbud.
“Large, nondescript air van coming in from the north.”
Stephanie took another bite, then shoved the wrapping over the rest of her granola bar and slid it back into her pocket. In a moment, she heard, then saw the air van. It was a commercial model, like hundreds used every day on Sphinx for routine deliveries. However, they knew from Herman that he didn’t expect any deliveries that day.
The air van slowly circled overhead. Maybe it was just looking for where to set down, but Stephanie would have bet her right eye that it was making sure there were no other vehicles in the vicinity. Karl’s cruiser was stashed in the Kempers’ barn, so she wasn’t worried about that. Yet even though she knew she—and the rest of her team—were invisible from above, Stephanie felt like a hexapuma dropped in the middle of a snowfield.
She breathed deeply, slowly, remembering years of lessons in woodcraft and tracking. A moving target is much more visible than one that holds still, so as much as she yearned to peek out and see where the air van was, she contented herself with glancing at the map image on her uni-link. After circling several times, the bright dot that indicated the vehicle began to descend, eventually setting down with apparent innocence in the public parking field, not far from where Stephanie was hiding.
It was crucial to their plan that Herman actually be kidnapped so, as much as she longed to break cover, Stephanie froze in place. She hoped the ’cats wouldn’t race to Herman’s rescue, as Athos had that memorable night. That was definitely a risk, but the humans had decided to trust the ’cats ability to read their bondmates’ moods, and hope that they would understand the game was “Hide” not “Seek and Destroy.”
The air van’s doors popped open, and Dr. Orgeson and three henchmen emerged.
No Frank this time, Stephanie thought. That’s good. If they didn’t bring a local witness, they probably mean business.
According to plan, Herman had walked over to the parking lot, as he would if he happened to hear any new arrival. However, also according to plan, he stayed out of easy reach.
“Dr. Orgeson! I didn’t expect you.”
“I know.” Lyric Orgeson’s lips shaped a bright, utterly sharklike smile. “But we’ll be returning to Manticore this evening, so I thought I’d give you a last chance to come with us.”
Herman shook his head. “Sorry. Really, no. Maybe some other time, but I really couldn’t leave Dr. Bonaventure with no warning. Really, now that I’ve thought it over, I really couldn’t leave my work. There’s really just too much potential here.”
Too many “reallys,” Stephanie thought, but Herman’s doing well. It’s perfectly reasonable that he’d be nervous. Now to see what they’ll do in the face of a flat-out refusal.
“Can’t we even talk about it?” Dr. Orgeson asked, her tone reasonable. “I brought a snack basket at that charming Red Letter Café in Twin Forks. We can chat over tea and muffins.”
Herman hesitated. Stephanie thought he was going to refuse. Then he forced a smile.
“That’s very sociable of you,” Herman said, leaning the neat little spade he’d been using against a nearby tree. “I can pause long enough for a cup of tea, but only to be polite, because you and I are in the same field. Who knows? We might want to work together in the future. I’m simply not interested in a new job at this time.”
Very nicely stated and right where the bug will record it. Okay… How far will they go?
A short distance from the parking field, there was a long, narrow table with benches alongside. Herman trotted over to it, moving a few buckets and an assortment of tools to create an area large enough for the five of them to sit. Lyric Orgeson walked over to join him, picking up a short-handled broom and brushing dirt from the benches.
“That should do just fine. Willinski? Will you get the snack basket from the back of the van?”
When Stephanie saw the assortment of oversized muffins set out for everyone to select from, her traitor stomach reminded her that two bites of a granola bar wasn’t much for a growing girl with Meyerdahl mods. She wondered if she could sneak a nibble from her granola bar without being seen but, remembering that motion is what betrays someone in hiding, she restrained herself.
“Tea? Sugar? Milk?” Lyric acted the role of hostess, handing around disposable cups and plates.
Herman chose to neither sweeten nor to add milk to his tea, and selected a muffin at random. Dr. Orgeson both sweetened and added milk to her tea, then took a muffin of the same sort as the one Herman had chosen. The subsequent conversation was about what one would expect. Lyric being persuasive. Herman holding steadfastly to his resolve not to take the offered job. Before long, though, he began to stumble over his words. Lyric’s smile broadened, but it wasn’t until Herman slumped forward, his head nearly bopping into the table, that she said anything.
“Excellent! If Herman was at all suspicious, I don’t think he anticipated the knockout drops could be administered by contact from his cup. Quesk and Underwood pick him up—gently, mind—and get him into the van. I’m going to see if any of the doors are unlocked, and I can get onto one of the computers. People can be so sloppy about protecting data when they work alone. I won’t be more than a minute.”
She found the doors all locked, though, and with an “oh, well” shrug trotted toward the parking area. Willinski waited on the driver’s side, while Quesk and Underwood loaded Herman into the back of the van.
Once Herman was in the van, and there could be no doubt that he was being removed from the scene, Zack stepped forth, just as if he’d just been coming down the trail from the Kemper house. Stephanie joined him, a few steps behind, as if they’d been together.
“Where are you taking Herman?” Zack asked, his tone sharp and accusatory. He had his shotgun held with casual comfort. Even day-hikers on Sphinx were usually armed.
For a brief, crucial moment, Lyric goggled. At that moment, Willinski overreacted.
“What the hell?” he said, and a large firearm appeared in one beefy hand.
Dr. Orgeson was a quick thinker. Stephanie had to give her credit for that.
“We were having farewell snacks,” she said, “when all of a sudden, Herman keeled over. We were taking him in to Twin Forks to see a doctor.”
But she might as well have saved her breath. Willinski’s pulling his firearm had caused Quesk and Underwood to do the same. They hardly looked like a farewell party. Instead, they looked like exactly what they were—paid muscle.
Stephanie, behind Zack and partially screened by his body, drew her own pistol and eased off the safety, though she was careful to keep it out of sight. They’d hoped the fact that all of them were armed would keep the thugs from threatening actual violence until Karl got into position, but it didn’t look like working out that way, after all.
Mack, coming down the path from the other end of the complex with Cordelia, Jessica, and Anders, did his best to defuse the situation.
“No problem. Jessica here is a trained EMT,” he said, slightly exaggerating Jessica’s credentials. “Let her have a look at Herman, then she can teleconference directly with the hospital in Twin Forks.”
Dr. Orgeson might have cut her losses, but her henchmen, seeing their chance of getting off-planet doubtless vanishing when knockout drugs were found in Herman’s system, reacted.
“Drop your weapons!” Willinski shouted, his gun covering Cordelia. Quesk leveled her weapon at Stephanie, Underwood at Zack. “Get flat!”
Stephanie’s group was also armed, and she doubted Orgeson’s thugs had the faintest idea of the determination—or marksmanship—of the “kids” they were threatening. She was coldly confident she and her friends could take them, but none of the others were law officers. Even she was only a “probationary” ranger, and the chance that one of them would be hurt if shooting started was too great.
Besides, we have backup.
“All right,” she said. “We’re putting them down.”
She stooped and laid her pistol carefully on the ground. (As Frank Lethbridge had explained to her when he taught her handgun safety, “Only idiots in really bad holodramas actually drop a loaded weapon. Too much chance of an accidental discharge!”) An instant later, the others followed suit, and she straightened again.
She knew Karl was working his way around behind Orgeson’s group, and Frank and Ainsley had gone airborne—although they were still discreetly out of sight—the instant Herman keeled over. The situation was under control, whatever the thugs might think. All they had to do was stall for another minute or two, and—
But a snarl of raw fury rent the sudden stillness, and an apparition in gray and cream dropped from the tree branches, hit the roof of the van, and swifter than sight could follow, leapt to where Underwood held his gun on Cordelia.