Mainline (18 page)

Valves turned, gases vented. The container groaned as gravity tugged the endplate from its seating ring. It slipped partway open, and lodged there, stuck.

FlashMan twirled to face the intruder. All leads except one vanished from his head, as ship's systems fell into standby or failed entirely.

Nomad's hands came up and a sheet of blue fire lashed out at

FlashMan. The lightning-man was slammed back against one of the wire-covered walls of the rigger jack. Before he could shake his head and recover, the cyber-static hit him again.

FlashMan lay on the floor, his lightning-form flickering with random discharges of energy. This isn't good, he thought. He far preferred to run and hide, dissuade and misdirect, than to outright fight an enemy in the Net.

Which is not to say he couldn't if he had to.

He threw his virtual self down the vid channel, leaving a self-destruct behind that, for the briefest moment, looked like a lightning-man tied in to the rigger system.

Captain Brace entered the room in time to share the firestorm with Nomad. The physical rigger system burst into flame and burned out in the
Delos'
control panel, and the Security netrun-ners fled for their lives back up the subspace link, reaching the satellite overhead as the channel went dead.

The behemoth that was the Peryton-class freighter, suddenly devoid of control, overbalanced. With the slow-motion list of megatons of mass, the gargantuan structure tilted shoreward, rolling over on the axis of its cargo module. For a moment it seemed the swell of the ocean would balance it. Then it slipped too far off-center, and began to fall.

The Vernoi tasted strange ocean waters mingling with their native seas. Strange, yet not unpleasant, and very welcome after weeks of confinement aboard. They swam back toward the lake-bottom grottos and gave long whistling calls.

The borgbeasts came. Together, in action concerted by their handlers, the whale-like creatures massed at the far end of the container, then, on signal, rushed forward as one. Blunt heads made for ramming collided with the unseated seal. The blockage jarred free, and tumbled out onto the cultivated silt of an aqua-farm.

Neither borgbeast nor handler lingered. Each gripping a fin, the Vernoi were towed beside their companions into deeper water off the Avelar Shelf. They were soon so far away that they could not feel the tug of the flood wave created by the capsizing
Delos Varte.

As soon as
he drifted near consciousness, Yavobo forced himself awake. He pulled himself out of the autodoc, ignoring the red-flashing alarms that activated by interrupting its cycle, and headed directly for the door.

Medics from the clinic came running, and he pushed them easily aside. "You're not healed!" one protested, bigger and bolder than the rest.

Yavobo's wounds were raw, and he was in pain. His eardrums were restored enough so he could hear, though, and one hand was well enough to grip a knife.

"Where is my knife?"

The medics dithered until he threw one of them through a window. It took an effort, although they didn't know that, and the thin-skins hastily abandoned their protests. They gave him his knife and credmeter and what was left of his clothing and let him 
go.

He took an air cab piloted by a mecho, so there was no revulsion at his appearance or refusal to take the fare. Just as well. People were giving him a wide berth on the street, and it was certainly more pleasant to fly.

It was near twilight when the cab landed near the exhibitor plaza, the area roped off and abandoned pending further investigation. While the conveyance waited for his return, Yavobo limped painfully to one of the fern trees, and reached with gangling arm into the foliage above. He pulled out a spyeye, one of three he had set up around the ill-fated speakers' platform.

I may fail in my oath to protect, he thought critically, but I know how to hunt. Let's see what image I've captured.

He reset the image record and played it at fast forward, the globe that recorded becoming a playback sphere for a small holographic image.

There she was, that woman. He cropped and expanded the image, then froze the frame like that. Now he could show others her face and get an ID on her. Yavobo returned to the air cab, and gave it directions to Lairdome 7.

Daribi's Islander heritage
was not entirely pretense. He and Karuu swam mostly submerged, trusting in near-surface thermals to obscure them from Customs' overhead scans. Soon real Islanders found them, men out working the yellow kelp beds. Daribi greeted them as cousins, and he and Karuu were spirited away into the root-mats of the floating, woven island.

Within the hour, a sea and island search had begun. As negative progress reports came back to Obray, the Commander knew with a sinking feeling that it was too late. Somehow Karuu had evaded him.

"Put out a planetwide alert. Karuu's description, a want and warrant. Don't let him get offworld."

Islanders are clannish, and despise the land-dwellers. They were glad to help a relative who was also in flight from unjust pursuit. Karuu and Daribi were smuggled away on a hydroskiff, traveling kelp-crowded byways unfamiliar to the surface searchers.

"Where to, Boss?" Daribi asked.

"I need to get away from here," Karuu grumbled, meaning Selmun III, "but first there is a stop I am needing to make. You have a gun, my wild friend?"

Daribi nodded, equipped by his Islander cousins.

"Good. Let us go to say good-bye to Lish."

By time the
Islander skiff neared Amasl, there were checkpoints at starports and transit stations, and the Holdout's furred image was broadcast hourly. Karuu sagged as he realized that simply walking ashore would leave him a marked man.

"Don't worry about it, Boss," Daribi reassured him. "We'll slip ashore in the twilight through Islander country on the docks. We'll pick up a car there, and you can stay in the back, out of sight. Comax Shipping isn't far from there."

True to his word, Islanders cleared the marina and secured them a car. Daribi drove them through darkening side streets. It was an air car this time, with Karuu tucked down like a small child in the rear seat. He saw the frown on the Chief's face, the first of the day to stay there for long.

"What is wrong, my friend?" he asked.

Daribi was not one to dissemble if asked. "I'm a little worried about getting offplanet, Boss. Your private ships were impounded this afternoon, and all the ports are watched. Things are snugged up tight."

Karuu had visions of another running battle through a starport, a fruitless attempt to reach a ship. He tore his thoughts from the picture before it could depress him.

"One thing at a time," he sighed. "First, Lish."

Yavobo's air cab settled around the corner from Lairdome 7. The Aztrakhani paid the fare, and turned his feet toward Comax Shipping. He saw the troops on guard duty before they saw him, and the tall desert warrior stepped into the shadows of an alley mouth to observe them. He watched for a while, light-adapting eyes taking in a myriad of detail.

They weren't exactly military, he noted. Hired muscle, then— from their appearance probably Skiffjammers, a derevin of military veterans, well equipped and cyberenhanced.

He shook his head in disgust. The thin-skins didn't have the patience to hone their own reflexes, so relied on purchased enhancements to do the job. A coward's way out.

Could I walk right in, past them? he wondered. Maybe this guard force is here to keep me out....

He shifted aching shoulders and kept the weight off one badly damaged foot. If I were more fit, I could infiltrate through the seaway. But I fear even my keshun-cub could kill me tonight. This would not be a fair fight....

He glanced at the holopix in his hand, then leaned against the alley wall and stayed there, for once uncertain about his next course of action.

Karuu saved him the need for a decision. He and Daribi had studied the approaches to the warehouse from several angles, and were on the verge of giving up their quest. Lish's sudden acquisition of hired help left her too well protected to attack. Now, outlined by the street glows, a tall alien of unique form and coloration lounged at the mouth of the alley.

Their air car came up gently behind him, the quiet hum of gravplates alerting him to its approach. Yavobo stared coldly at the vehicle hulking beside him.

Karuu lowered his window as the car cut power and settled to the ground. "I believe I am knowing you, sir," he said politely. "You are the bodyguard and bounty hunter, are you not?”

Yavobo regarded the warehouse again, ignoring the Dorleoni.

They had never met, but the Aztrakhani was such a distinctive person everything from his buying habits to his personal appearance left an impression on those in the Holdout's line of work.

The smuggler cleared his throat. He didn't like conferences in alleys. With Lish reluctantly scratched from the agenda, there was only one concern left in Karuu's mind: escape. Yavobo showing up like this was a stroke of good fortune.

"I need an escort offplanet," he told the alien. "I will make it worth your while."

Yavobo angled his body so the wounds he bore could be more fully seen. "I know who you are, Holdout, and I do not care. I do not guard people anymore, since I do not seem to be very good at it."

Karuu's brows drew together at the sight of the warrior's injuries. "Then do not guard me," he countered. "Get me to a ship and get me out of here."

Oh, this is coming out all wrong, the Holdout caught himself. Put it all on the line, you silly sand-pup. This isn't the way to bargain!

"Leave me," the alien said flatly, and studied the 'Jammers once more.

Karuu fished for something that might appeal to the Aztrakhani. Daribi couldn't get him to a ship, and he had to get off R'debh. There wasn't a safe place to hide on all of Selmun III when the Bugs were really after you. He knew that; he'd watched others scraped out from under rocks kicking and screaming, and he didn't plan to be one of them.

"Maybe I can do something for you, Yavobo. Surely there's something you want?" Not the best bargaining position, either, but a sincere one. Hopefully the desperation he felt didn't come through in his tone.

The alien considered, then lifted a small spyeye globe with a holopix on display. "Can you help me find this person?" he asked, his unblinking yellow eyes fixed on Karuu's brown ones.

The smuggler leaned out of the window to see the pix more closely. Yavobo pushed the globe near, and Karuu jerked his hand back as if it were poison.

"You know her." The hunter's voice was chilling. He dropped the globe and grabbed Karuu's shoulder with his good hand, pulling him forward to the edge of the window. "Tell me who she is, where I can find her."

Karuu wanted to babble out anything that would get this creature's iron hooks out of his arm—yet if he did, he'd have no bargaining chip, no way to use Yavobo. All the other rough-and-ready types who could smuggle sentient contraband offworld on short notice were people he had screwed one way or the other in the past. Any one of them would be glad to hand him back to Imperial Security. Only someone like this, unattached and viciously efficient, could help him now.

Karuu flailed a paw and finally squeezed out some words. "I know her name. It's Reva."

"Reva." The alien tasted the word. "How else is she called?"

"That's all I've heard. I don't know where to find her—"

Yellow eyes narrowed.

"—but I know who does."

Yavobo released his grip. "Tell me more," he rasped as he scooped up the spyeye.

"My boss knows. He knows how to contact her. He can put you in touch with her."

"Who is your boss?"

No name, no name! Karuu gave a little prayer. "I am sworn not to say," he lied. Adahn would skin him alive if he blabbed the crime boss' name to derevin chiefs and streetcorner thugs like the Aztrakhani. Let Adahn deal with this fellow; Karuu's objective was to get offworld.

"You are certain he knows this Reva? How I can find her?"

"I swear it."

"If this is untruth, I will kill you."

Karuu took the alien at his word. "He will help you. I can promise that. If you get me out of here and take me to him, he will owe you."

Yavobo nodded once, sharply. "I came here tonight for another purpose," he said, "looking for the smuggler, to question her. I will trust to your information now. Holdout. I don't feel like fighting all of them"—he gestured toward the Skiffjammers— "merely to ask a question."

Karuu opened the door and let the Aztrakhani into the air car. "Where to?" Daribi asked as he powered up.

"The frontage road north of Nabara Field," Yavobo said, referring to one of the small private ship pads on the outskirts of Amasl. Daribi considered the best way to evade checkpoints on the way, then guided the air car into traffic.

"You have a ship here?" asked Karuu.

"Yes."

Soon they were at the frontage road. "Get out and wait here," Yavobo ordered his companions as he climbed into the driver's seat.