Read The Price of the Stars: Book One of Mageworlds Online
Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald
The Price of the Stars: Book One of Mageworlds (14 page)
BOOK: The Price of the Stars: Book One of Mageworlds
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“I know,” said Ari. “If he comes back, sit on him if you have to, but don’t let him leave till I get here. See you later, ’Tec—I want to get back and finish my lunch before mold starts to grow on it.”
“Got you covered, Ari. Later.”
As he’d expected, his plate of steamed gubbstucker was cold by the time he got back. The mess hall was empty except for Llannat Hyfid, still nursing a cup of cha’a. The Adept had been a good friend when he needed one, over the past few months, and she’d plainly been waiting for him today.
“What happened in Outpatient?” she asked as he sat down.
“Nothing.”
“You sure aren’t acting like it.”
“I’m puzzled,” said Ari. “That’s all.”
He turned his hand over and spilled the dice onto the table. They came to rest against the napkin dispenser, showing a three and a two. Moodily, he scooped them up and threw them again. “So tell me—does ‘The same as before’ mean anything to you?”
“By itself? No.” Her dark eyes followed the dice as he picked them up and tossed them again. “Why?”
He shook his head. “No reason.”
“What’s the trouble? Maybe I can help.”
The kindness undid him. His eyes blurred and his throat tightened. “Nothing is ever the same as before. Nothing.”
“Ari,” said Llannat’s soft voice from across the table, “there’s no such thing as luck or chance.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about philosophy right now, thank you.”
“I’m not talking about philosophy, I’m talking about those dice. They’ve been turning up fives ever since you started throwing them.”
Ari blinked and threw the dice again—watching them, this time. “Three and two. Four and one. Three and two.” He scooped up the little cubes and clenched his fist around them. “It’s the Quincunx. It has to be.”
“Just what we needed,” said Llannat. “I still have nightmares about the last time.”
“So do I, believe me. I thought we were dead for sure.”
“If it hadn’t been for you, we would be.”
“I could say the same thing about you,” he said. “We were both lucky, I guess.”
“Now
you’re
talking philosophy,” she told him. “Believe me, there’s no such thing as luck. Everything has a purpose.”
you’re
talking philosophy,” she told him. “Believe me, there’s no such thing as luck. Everything has a purpose.”
“All right, then. You tell me what the message meant.”
“Let me hold the dice.”
Ari hadn’t expected her to take up the challenge; he kept forgetting that Llannat Hyfid was an Adept as well as a medic. He handed the dice over anyway. She put the little ivory cubes between her palms and closed her eyes. After a minute or so, she spoke.
“The same place, the same people, the same time, the same trouble.”
“Clear as ditch water,” he said.
“They wanted it to make sense to you, and nobody else,” she told him, opening her eyes. “What were the first things that came into your head?”
“Munngralla’s curio shop,” he said without hesitation. “The Quincunx. Midnight. And my …” The silence stretched out too long.
“Your what?”
“I was about to say ‘my sister,’ but they couldn’t mean that. There’s no way they could have known. So it’s probably intended to mean a killing.”
“There you have it,” she said. “A warning—or a summons.”
“A summons, I think,” said Ari. He tapped the pips on the dice with one blunt fingertip. “Five dots … Five Points Imports. The rest of it doesn’t matter, since they couldn’t count on me finding an Adept to read the patterns.”
“Then take the warning as a gift,” she said. “Now that you know there’s danger, are you still going in?”
“I don’t see that I have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” she said. “But I promised I wasn’t going to talk philosophy. Do you want a backup?”
“No thanks,” he said. He scooped the pair of dice off the tabletop and put them into his shirt pocket. “Helping me out before almost got you and Jessan killed. If trouble’s looking for me again, this time I’m the only one it’s going to get.”
T
HREE DAYS after his arrival at High Station, Commander Gil shoved his chair back against the office wall and looked at the blank screen of his desk comp in disgust. Only a polite regard for the tender sensibilities of the clerk/comptech the station had assigned to him as a runner, secretary, and clerk kept him from tearing his hair out in handfuls.
HREE DAYS after his arrival at High Station, Commander Gil shoved his chair back against the office wall and looked at the blank screen of his desk comp in disgust. Only a polite regard for the tender sensibilities of the clerk/comptech the station had assigned to him as a runner, secretary, and clerk kept him from tearing his hair out in handfuls.
But I’m seriously tempted,
he thought.
Everything I check comes up zeroes—and the General isn’t likely to take ‘Sir, I haven’t the faintest idea’ as an acceptable report.
he thought.
Everything I check comes up zeroes—and the General isn’t likely to take ‘Sir, I haven’t the faintest idea’ as an acceptable report.
Gil sighed. “All right. Let’s take it again from the top.”
“Bringing up the timetable now, sir,” said the clerkcomptech, and Gil watched the familiar data moving in a slow scroll up the screen of the desk comp.
Item:
two strangers enter clinic. Time approximately 2200.Item:
Flatlands power grid goes down in the Ilx-3 sector. Time 2209.27.Item: Certainly a dozen, possibly as many as a hundred, unknowns attack the clinic from at least two directions at once. Time approximately 2215.
“Stop,” said Gil.
The scrolling halted, and Gil exhaled wearily. “Before we go any farther, let’s take another look at that pair of mysterious strangers.”
“Datadisk two,” said the clerk, feeding the slice of plastic into the comp. “Classified files from Space Force Intelligence; unsworn statements of Clerk/Comptech Second Class Peyte, Portmaster Sharveelt, and Dock Complex Loading Boss Bevan Cemliah; supporting data from Far Station Pleyver and Embrig Security on Mandeyn.”
“And a whole lot of good it does us,” finished Gil, as the first file came up: text on one side of the screen, and on the other a blurred image lifted from one of the port complex’s security cameras. The grainy flatpic showed a young man caught in the act of looking back over one shoulder at something behind him, giving a good angle on the eye patch, the long queued-back hair, and the immaculate ruffled shirt that—if CC2 Peyte’s observations could be trusted—was shortly to be soaked with blood.
“Tarnekep Portree,” said Gil. “Captain,
Pride of Mandeyn.
By all accounts at least as vicious as he looks. Rumored to work as a hired killer more or less for the fun of it. But no hard facts or even solid gossip; only thing the Central Criminal Data Net could turn up was a ‘Wanted for Questioning’ from Mandeyn, about eight Standard months back. Somebody shot a gambler’s face off, and Embrig Security’s mildly curious about it. And that, my friend, is it for Captain Portree: possibly one of the galaxy’s major hard cases, possibly not. Next file.”
Pride of Mandeyn.
By all accounts at least as vicious as he looks. Rumored to work as a hired killer more or less for the fun of it. But no hard facts or even solid gossip; only thing the Central Criminal Data Net could turn up was a ‘Wanted for Questioning’ from Mandeyn, about eight Standard months back. Somebody shot a gambler’s face off, and Embrig Security’s mildly curious about it. And that, my friend, is it for Captain Portree: possibly one of the galaxy’s major hard cases, possibly not. Next file.”
Another flatpic from port security filled the screen. This time the picture showed a slight, grey-haired man whose face reminded Gil of his old mathematics instructor. “Gunner/copilot on
Pride of Mandeyn
. Called ‘Professor,’ which isn’t surprising. No record on him anywhere at all, which is.”
Pride of Mandeyn
. Called ‘Professor,’ which isn’t surprising. No record on him anywhere at all, which is.”
“Maybe the ‘Professor’ identity is a new one, sir,” suggested the clerk.
“I’ll buy that,” said Gil. “Not that it gets us any further at the moment … next file.”
The statement of Portmaster Sharveelt began its progress up the comp screen: arrival time and crew list for the
Libra
-class freighter
Pride of Mandeyn
, Tarnekep Portree commanding; information—backed up by the Port Accounting Office—that the
Pride
had paid, in cash, High Station’s docking fee for a three-day stay … “didn’t bitch about it either, the way most of those independents do”; further information that six hours and forty-nine minutes later the
Pride
had left High Station without filing a movement report or asking for a refund … “and I’ve seen independents forget to file before, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen one leave early without screaming for his money back.”
Libra
-class freighter
Pride of Mandeyn
, Tarnekep Portree commanding; information—backed up by the Port Accounting Office—that the
Pride
had paid, in cash, High Station’s docking fee for a three-day stay … “didn’t bitch about it either, the way most of those independents do”; further information that six hours and forty-nine minutes later the
Pride
had left High Station without filing a movement report or asking for a refund … “and I’ve seen independents forget to file before, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen one leave early without screaming for his money back.”
Gil leaned forward. “Put the next bit on audio—there’s some stuff I want to hear again.”
“Switching to audio playback, sir,” said the clerk, and Gil heard his own voice coming out of the desk comp’s on-board speaker:
“Do you recall anything else unusual about that evening, Portmaster Sharveelt?”
“No, not really, Commander. Things were pretty tame down at our end. Didn’t even have any of the dirtside commercial shuttles coming up. We usually get four a night from Flatlands, but that night we didn’t get anything at all between the twenty-one-thirty and the zero-eighthundred.”
“Does that sort of thing happen often?”
“Not at all. Maybe the bosses dirtside are crooked, but the shuttle operators are real spacers. I’ve been here since High Station was nothing but an orbital platform, and they’ve had maybe one or two flights canceled in an average month—a few more during the spring storms. But three shuttles in one night—no, never.”
Gil signaled to stop the audio. “This job is turning my brains to sludge. I should have caught that part the first time. Make a new entry in the timetable file: ‘Twenty-one-thirty to zero-eight-hundred, commercial shuttles removed from service.’” He leaned back, smiling for the first time in several hours. “I think we’re finally starting to get a handle on this thing. Is there any cha’a around the office?”
“No, sir, but Requisition Processing, down the hall, has a galley urn set up. If you like, I could—”
“Fetch some? Please do. I can handle the comp while you’re gone, no trouble.”
The clerk headed out the door. Gil dragged his chair back up to the keyboard and punched up the next file: the unsworn statement of Dock Complex Loading Boss Cemliah, who’d been overseeing a post-off-load inspection at dock #237 when the
Pride
lifted from #238. Gil toggled on the audio playback and let the loading boss’s hoarse tones fill the little office.
Pride
lifted from #238. Gil toggled on the audio playback and let the loading boss’s hoarse tones fill the little office.
“I saw three men come onto the dock, walking fast, just before she lifted … . They‘all looked kind of rocky, if you ask me. The one with the eye patch had blood all over him and was limping pretty bad, and the old guy had his arm in a sling … . Yeah, one of ’em was a tall man in a Space Force uniform—nah, I couldn’t tell you his rank … . How the hell am I supposed to know if he was going along willingly? He wasn’t screaming and kicking, if that’s what you want to know. I got a job to do, Commander—I can’t check out everything funny-looking that goes down between here and the storage bays.”
Cemliah had been an unpleasant sort, Gil reflected, but at least the loading boss’s statement had cleared up the mystery of Lieutenant Commander Jessan’s disappearance. Wherever the Khesatan medic was at the moment, he’d left High Station on board
Pride of Mandeyn.
Pride of Mandeyn.
The
Pride
herself could be any place in the galaxy by now. She’d gone into hyperspace just beyond Far Station, the manned beacon platform that marked the outer edge of the Web and Pleyver’s closest jump point. Far’s time-tick, correlated with departure information from the High Station docks, gave the
Libra-
class freighter’s time for the Web run as six hours and twenty-one minutes.
Pride
herself could be any place in the galaxy by now. She’d gone into hyperspace just beyond Far Station, the manned beacon platform that marked the outer edge of the Web and Pleyver’s closest jump point. Far’s time-tick, correlated with departure information from the High Station docks, gave the
Libra-
class freighter’s time for the Web run as six hours and twenty-one minutes.
Commander Gil wondered briefly what the General would have to say when he read that bit. Depending on which of Metadi’s stories you chose to believe, Tarnekep Portree had managed to trim the former privateer’s unofficial record by anywhere from nine minutes to half an hour.
That was hot piloting, any way you looked at it, hot and more than a little desperate. Gil remembered the General, in the office on Galcen: “Somebody dirtside whistled up a squad of Security fighters to chase us all the way to hyper.”
“Somebody dirtside,” said Gil aloud, as the door slid open and closed again behind the clerk and a hotpot of cha’a.
“Sir?”
“We’ve been taking this from the wrong end all along. Pack a spare set of skivvies—we’re going down to Flatlands.”
Ari left the hospital aircar in a lot on the outskirts of Namport and went on foot to the seedy district where G. Munngralla had kept his shop. With RSF Corisydron back in Nammerin orbit for the weekend, and the Strip full of liberty parties bent on fun and mayhem, he had no desire to emphasize his connection with the Space Force presence on-planet.
To the same end, before leaving base, he’d traded his uniform for a free-spacer’s outfit of shirt, trousers, and boots. And if anybody who saw him was going to remember a Selvaur-sized human packing a heavy blaster, and never mind what clothes he was wearing—well, they’d have to spot him first. Llannat Hyfid might have been able to pick him out as he moved from shadow to shadow, but nobody else in Namport tonight was likely to have her combination of an Adept’s talent and an upbringing on the sparsely settled world of Maraghai.
Ari had been fostered on Maraghai himself, and when Ferrdacorr son of Rrillikkik swore to raise a friend’s son like his own, the Selvaur did exactly that. By the time Ari left for the Academy, he’d made his Long Hunt in the high-country ridges with the rest of his agemates, and could move through underbrush with no more noise than a passing thought. When he reached the vacant lot where Five Points Imports had stood, he knew that he hadn’t been followed.
In the months since explosion and fire had gutted Munngralla’s shop, plume-grass and creeper vines had moved in and taken over the rubble-filled lot. Ari leaned against the brick wall of the building next door, letting its shadow hide him while he watched the grass stalks nodding in the warm, humid breeze. One patch of grass dipped its feathery blossoms against the wind; he marked the position and kept on waiting.
When a quarter-hour’s vigil brought nobody else to the lot, Ari decided that the rendezvous might not be a trap after all. Just the same, he pulled his father’s blaster from its holster before he spoke.
“Over here.”
“Doc?”
“Over here,” he said again, and watched the grass bend and rise as the other made his way across the lot by way of the weed-covered perimeter.
The little man emerged from the overgrowth at Ari’s elbow. “You the big medic?”
“Look at me,” said Ari. “Take a good guess. Is there a message?”
“You got a pair of dice?”
“Yes.”
“Give them to me.”
Ari dropped the dice into the other man’s palm. “Here you are. What’s the word?”
The little spacer pocketed the dice. “Two parts. First thing—from now on out, you’re a member of the Brotherhood. Munngralla stood sponsor for you, because you helped him when he needed it.”
“Thanks,” said Ari.
I think,
he added to himself. He wasn’t sure what his superiors in the Medical Service would say if they found out one of their junior officers was a member of the galaxy’s biggest criminal guild—but he didn’t for a moment suppose he’d like to read their comments in his fitness report.
he added to himself. He wasn’t sure what his superiors in the Medical Service would say if they found out one of their junior officers was a member of the galaxy’s biggest criminal guild—but he didn’t for a moment suppose he’d like to read their comments in his fitness report.
His father the General, on the other hand, was certain to find the whole idea hilarious.
“You mentioned two things,” said Ari. “What’s the second?”
“A warning,” said the little man. “Our friends in the profession say that someone’s put out a contract on you.”
First poison, then a Magelord, and now a hired assassin
, thought Ari.
What did I do to deserve all this?
“Do you know who they’re getting for the job?”
, thought Ari.
What did I do to deserve all this?
“Do you know who they’re getting for the job?”
The little man shrugged. “Someone named Portree—a Mandeynan with an eye patch. We didn’t hear anything more. If you need to, though, you can call on the Brotherhood for help.”
“How?”
“You know how to find the five-spot already,” said the spacer. “Tell them you’ve traveled a long way for the sake of a proper word. That should get you whatever you need.”
“Thanks,” said Ari again.
“Live well,” said the other, and vanished back into the shadows.
Ari was in the CO’s office first thing the next morning, so early that the commanding officer’s pet sand snake still dozed on its bed of heat-bricks in front of the office safe. At Ari’s footstep on the threshold, it uncoiled a foot or so of its mottled length and raised its head to give him an unblinking amber stare.
“Just me,” said Ari, smiling as the heavy wedge-shaped head subsided onto the bricks. He and the sand snake were old acquaintances by now. In another moment the CO emerged from the inner office, a steaming mug in one hand and the first of the day’s message printouts in the other.
“Ah, Rosselin-Metadi. What brings you in here so early?”
“Something I found out last night, sir. I think you ought to know about it.”
The CO added the printouts to the snowdrift of flimsies. already covering his desk. “Something you found out,” he said. “And what’s that?”
BOOK: The Price of the Stars: Book One of Mageworlds
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