Agent of Change (8 page)

While they waited for the meal, and even before the beverages were poured out, Miri was formally introduced to Edger, Handler, Selector, and Sheather, each by his abbreviated, visa name.

"And your own?" Handler asked her.

Miri chewed her lip, working it out. "Miri Robertson Mercenary Soldier, Retired, Personal Bodyguard, Retired, Have Weapon Will Travel." She heard a small sound to her right, as if the other human member of the party had stifled a sneeze. Edger and Handler blinked solemnly.

"It is a well-enough name," the T'carais judged, "for one yet young."

Miri bowed in thanks, which pleased Edger, who thought her very pretty-behaved, and began to speak to her of music, asking, in his eventual way, if she played an instrument, as did his young brother.

She shook her head and confessed that, though she could pick out a tune, one-fingered and limp-timed, on a 'chora, it could not in justice be called playing. "I can sing some," she told Edger as they sat to dinner, "but Tough Guy says you're a connoisseur. My voice ain't anything special."

Edger paused, considering this message. Much of it was clear, but he was puzzled. "I believe I am unacquainted with this person who holds me in such esteem. My memory does not provide a face to match the name 'Tough Guy.' It is not often that I am so lax, and it troubles me."

"It is sometimes the custom among Terrans," Val Con explained, handing Miri a glass of wine and shaking his head at her, "to provide a person with what is known as a 'nickname.' This is most often suggested by a characteristic displayed by the person which seems very strong, yet is not touched upon by the person's official name." He paused and poured himself a glass of the canary before sliding into the seat between Edger and Miri. "For reasons best known to herself, Miri names me 'Tough Guy.'"

"I understand," Edger said, accepting in his turn a beaker of milky beverage from Sheather. "It pleases me that Terrans continue to adjust their names. It is not a tendency I have heretofore observed in them. But it is good to know of it." He quaffed his drink with apparent relish.

"I would be pleased," he continued, "if you and Miri would play and sing when the meal is done."

Val Con inclined his head and, after a slight hesitation, Miri copied the gesture.

The talk shifted to the mission of the four Clutch members. Miri let the conversation slide over and around her, not really listening to the words, but letting the slow voices, the grandiose phrasing and rolling periods, soothe her.

She broke a piece of bread from the loaf and buttered it leisurely. Edger's okay, she thought lazily. And Handler's sweet. And Selector—she grinned. As an ex-sergeant, she had a special feeling for Selector.

She became aware that shy, little—in a relative way, of course—Sheather was staring at her out of eyes the size of her salad plate, and smiled at him. He ducked his head and was suddenly very busy with his meal.

Miri ate her bread, luxuriating in the feeling of—safety? She sipped wine and decided that she liked the turtles.

"You will be pleased to know," Edger was booming to her partner, "that when you again come to us you will be able to eat of food and partake of drink designed for those of your kind. It was a source of shame to me that our Clan could provide you with naught but soups of which you must be unsure and which did not provide all the nutrients your body demands; and only water to drink, as our beer was too potent.

"To mitigate this shame, I have procured along our route foodstuffs prepared by your kind for your kind. And I am assured that these things are preserved for more than two hundreds of these standard years."

He paused, then, as delicately as the big voice could manage, asked, "Do you think you will return to us, as you promised, within two hundreds of years?"

Next to her, Val Con hesitated, and the glance Miri slanted at his face surprised an expression she recognized as sadness.

"Certainly before two hundred years," he said with strained lightness. "Liadens are not so long-lived as you." He lifted his glass and took a healthy swig of wine. "But how may I come to you at all, when you are adventuring around the galaxy?"

"Ah," Edger said, "but the expedition is nearly complete! We will be back in the caverns of Middle River in less than seven Standard Years."

Val Con laughed. "I had no idea you were so close to the end," he said, and the talk passed on to other things.

PRESENTLY, IT WAS judged time for entertainment. Bowing to their hosts, Miri and Val Con moved to the 'chora. He ghosted his fingers down the keys, releasing a shower of sound, and glanced at her from under long lashes. "What song, oh, Traveler?"

She ignored that, frowning in concentration. "You know 'Jim Dooley Blues'?"

His brows twitched together. "I am not certain."

She came around his side and leaned over to pick out the schmaltzy melody line. He listened for a bar or two, then his right hand began to pick up the rhythm; his left hand shifted further down the keyboard, grabbed her lagging melody, shook it firmly, and set it upon its feet.

Miri straightened. "Show-off."

Grinning, he flipped stops, adjusted frequencies, and slowed the lines she had shown him until they were obviously an introduction.

Miri turned toward the audience and begun to sing.

She sang well, he conceded, adjusting the 'chora to fill the spaces her voice left within the song. She did not have remarkable range, it was true, but she knew the limits of her voice, and the song she had chosen, with its overstated lament of the problems encountered by Programmer Dooley, fit her abilities perfectly.

The song ended at an even dozen verses, which he also appreciated.

The Clutch members sat motionless at the oversized table; Edger's eyes were glowing.

Val Con adjusted the stops and began the introduction to that ever-popular ballad of the spaceways, "Ausman Overboard." Miri laughed and nearly missed her first line.

The party lasted until very early the next morning.

THE STAFF OF the hyatt in Econsey were even more impressed with the members of Edger's group than the staff at the City House, where they'd spent the previous night, had been. Of course, the Clutch had been staying at City House for several weeks—it was possible that the novelty had worn off.

A suite of rooms, arranged in a six-pointed star around a spacious common room, was provided. An omnichora, the stammering manager explained, was standard equipment in this apartment.

The suite was pronounced adequate, and the manager was requested to guide Handler and Sheather to the kitchens, where they could arrange the details of comestibles while Edger and Selector made a preliminary tour of Econsey's import shops.

Miri stared at Val Con and cleared her throat. "I'm gonna try the comm-net for Murph's registration," she said, jerking her head at the door to her bedroom.

He nodded wordlessly and drifted toward the 'chora.

MURPH'S NAME WAS readily regurgitated by the net; the comm connected her with his hyatt's front desk immediately.

"Mr. Murphy and his guest have rented one of our island hideaways for a few days," the smiling young man at the Archipelago told her. "They should be back on the mainland—let's see ... Yes. Tomorrow afternoon. Would you like to leave a message for him?"

"No, thanks," Miri said through gritted teeth. "My plans ain't fixed yet. I'll give him a call back when I know what I'm gonna be doing. I just thought, if he was free tonight..." She let it trail off, and the young man dimmed his smile by a kilowatt or two in professional sympathy.

She thanked him and broke the connection, seething.

Spinning slowly on her heel, she surveyed the bedroom. It was not, she thought, as luxurious as the apartment rented by Connor Phillips in Mixla City, though the private comm built into the desk was a nice touch. And the bed was
enormous.

The bathing room offered a choice of wet or dry clean, as well as a sunroom; the valet was in a room of its own, flanked by floor to ceiling mirrors. On whim, because any occupation was better than thinking up ways to ruin Murph's nature, she called for the valet's catalog.

A low whistle escaped between her teeth as the pictures began to form in the screen. Hot damn, but you're in the wrong business! she told herself. A person didn't get rich being a soldier—not unless she got real lucky. And personal bodyguards didn't get rich either, unless the boss died grateful—of natural causes. Miri puzzled briefly, trying to figure out what line of work one could get into and afford to dress in the clothes offered by the hyatt's valet.

Sighing, she hit CANCEL. There was one thing for sure—any gimmick that let a person dress like that was not a gimmick that a mercenary from a ghetto world was likely to fall into.

That thought touched another, and then her fingers were working the catch on her pouch, pulling at the false wall. The enamel work of the disk was nearly blinding in the spotlights of the valet chamber, but extra illumination did not make the marks more meaningful.

She stood for a long moment, frowning down at the thing. Then, with a sharp nod, she went in search of her partner.

THE MANAGER OF the second shop was appreciative. She turned the one knife they carried with them for such purpose—their "sample" Edger called it—this way and that, letting the light illuminate and obscure the crystal blade in artistic series.

"It's beautiful," she breathed, laying it with gentle care on the velvet pad she used for showing off fine pieces of jewelry. "I'm quite sure I could sell a few hundred every year. Why don't we start with an immediate shipment of fifty? In six months I'll have a better idea of how they're moving and be able to reorder." She looked up at the larger of the two aliens, who seemed to be the boss of the venture. "Will fifty percent up front and fifty percent on delivery be satisfactory?"

"Quite satisfactory, " Edger replied politely. "But it appears that I have not made myself perfectly clear. I am mortified to display such a lack of proficiency in your language. The case is this: 'Immediately,' as I understand you to mean the word, is not possible. It takes a space of time to encourage knives to grow in the desired form for the proper edge to be induced, for handles and sheaths to be formed and grown . . . ."

The manager frowned. "How long?"

Edger waved a hand. "For such a knife as that, do we notify those at home this day—twenty of these Standard Years."

"Twenty—" She swallowed and stared down at the lovely thing resting on the velvet. "What if you were to—ah,
encourage
—a smaller knife? Say one half as large as this? How long would that take?"

Edger considered. "Perhaps fifteen years. Some effort, you understand, cannot be hastened, though there is a saving in time due to the fact that the knife need not be encouraged to grow so large."

"There's nothing you can do to hurry the process a little? I mean—twenty Standards..." The bell rang in the front of the shop, announcing the arrival of another customer.
Two
customers, she saw around the curve of the silent turtle's shell, both well-dressed and cultured.

"Excuse me," she murmured to Edger and moved a bit down-counter. "Yes, sir? Is there something in particular you'd like to see?"

The older of the two smiled and flipped a hand. "Nothing particular. A birthday gift for my daughter. I'd like to look around, if you'd care to finish with those gentles."

She smiled and nodded. "Please take all the time you need. And if I can be of any assistance . . . ." The phrase drifted off as she walked back to Edger and Selector.

"You must understand that it's not possible for a—a
human
—to wait twenty Standards for the filling of an order. Are you certain," she asked Edger very earnestly, "that there is nothing you can do to speed the process up?"

Edger moved his massive head from side-to-side in the gesture that he understood to mean negation. "I regret not. Were we to attempt such a thing—as has been done in the past, when knives were encouraged at a lightning pace—perhaps three Standards from thought to blade..." He sighed a huge sigh. "Such knives are flawed. They do not withstand the rigors we of Middle River Clan demand of our blades.

"That one before you—it will not shatter, no matter the provocation. Excluding, I should say, massive trauma, such as one would expect in the wreck of a land vehicle or collision of asteroid and starship. A flawed blade will shatter and be only dust upon the second strike against ordinary stone. We cannot, as craftpersons proud of our work, encourage a blade ahead of its time, knowing that it will perform as poorly as that."

He motioned, and Selector stepped forward to return the sample to its sheath of soft vegetable hide.

"Well," the manager said, putting her bravest face on it. "I'm sorry. I would've loved to have had some of your knives in the shop." She dredged up a smile. "Thank you for your time."

Edger inclined his head. "Our time has been well given. My thanks for the gift of your own." He and Selector turned—carefully, in this place crammed with fragile things—and started for the door.

"Your pardon, Gentles," the elder of the two well-dressed men said. Edger paused. Behind him, Selector paused also, there being no place to go with his brother blocking the aisle.

The man made a slight bow, as would a resident prince upon greeting another traveling through his country. "My name is Justin Hostro. I could not help overhearing your conversation just now. Much that you have said interests me, and I believe I see a way in which we both may prosper. I would be very happy, were you to have time to walk with me to my place of business, so that we may discuss the matter more fully."

Edger was pleased. Forsooth, a human of beautifully polished manner and splendid turn of phrase. Further, one who wished to learn more fully of the knives of Middle River. He inclined his head.

"My brother and I are happy to learn your name and would be pleased to discuss our craft with you. Let us, as you say, walk to your place of business and speak."