Triplet (2 page)

Hart's lip twitched, just noticeably. “I couldn't say, Ms. mal ce Taeger. If that'll be all …?”

Danae snorted. “As if my orders meant a damn to you. Sure, go on—get out of here.”

He started to go, but then hesitated. “Ms. mal ce Taeger … will your friend be accompanying you to Triplet?”

“Who, Pirro?” She smiled lopsidedly. “Ah, yes—I suppose Daddy Dear's pretty annoyed by him, isn't he? His sweet, innocent daughter living with an ambitionless, borderline bum. Well, you tell him, yes, I'll certainly be taking him to Threshold with me. Maybe even into Shamsheer and Karyx if you've bribed the officials there adequately.”

“As you wish,” Hart said evenly. “I presume you'll want to give Pirro the good news personally. I believe he's still in the apartment building at the corner with the woman he escorted home from your party last night.”

At her side, Danae's right hand curled into an impotent fist. “Get out,” she whispered.

Hart nodded and slipped quietly outside, locking the door electronically behind him. Closing her eyes, Danae sagged against the wall beside her as the steel of her resolve turned to water and drained away. Pirro's tomcatting behavior was no real surprise—she was honest enough to admit that to herself—but the bluntness of the revelation had still hurt. As Hart had no doubt meant it to. The bastard.

She stood there for a long minute, pressing the fresh bruises on her psyche. Then, taking a deep breath, she straightened up. The University of Autaris was no longer a haven for her … but then, she'd had no intention of staying here forever, anyway. Hart was here; Pirro was on his way out—and to hell with both of them.

Because whatever his own reasons, Daddy Dear had finally outsmarted himself. For as long as she could remember he'd been pulling on her strings, refusing to let her live her own life or to accept the feet that she was an adult now and—she had to admit it—embittering her in the process. But now, by opening this particular door for her, he'd just possibly given her the way out of the cocoon that was smothering her.

Triplet.

Buying her way to Threshold was one thing; but Shamsheer and Karyx were another story entirely. Money didn't reach through the Tunnels—not money, not connections, not Hart and his private spy network. Once inside the Hidden Worlds she could do anything she pleased … and there wasn't a damn thing Daddy Dear could do about it.

And there was a good chance he'd live to regret letting her in there.

I
T WAS RARE THAT
the area around Reingold Crater was treated to more than a brief glimpse of the sun, but today was one of those rare occasions. Sunny and warm, the usual winds moderated to gentle breezes, it was the sort of morning that reminded Ravagin of the more carefree days of his childhood, tempting him to hike out into the surrounding hills and put off finishing his report. No one seriously cared about the damn things unless something went wrong, anyway, and God knew he'd earned himself an extra day off.

But duty called with its damned Siren song … and anyway, it would be Corah Lea who took it in the neck if the stupid busywork was too late. In the end he compromised, skipping the usual shuttle service and instead walking the two kilometers from his house to his Crosspoint Building office.

The Courier wing of the sprawling structure was, as usual, a haven from the controlled pandemonium that always seemed to fill the rest of the building. With supervisors and planners continually rushing to meetings, new groups preparing for their sorties into the Hidden Worlds scrambling madly with last-minute details, and bone-weary returning groups slogging toward debrief rooms at half the speed of everyone else, Ravagin had often felt that getting through the Crosspoint Building was the most dangerous part of any trip. Today was no exception, and he breathed a sigh of relief when the Courier wing door sealed with its solid
thunk
behind him.

Only to discover he'd relaxed too soon. Keying onto his terminal, he was confronted with a red-lettered message plastered across his screen:

RAVAGIN: PLEASE REPORT TO ME AS SOON AS YOU COME IN.

CORAH

“Great,” he muttered. “Just great.” Lea didn't call Couriers to her office just for the hell of it. If she wanted to see him in person, it was almost guaranteed to be bad news. Grimacing, he got to his feet and headed out again into the pandemonium.

Supervisor Corah Lea was waiting for him, the neutral expression he knew so well plastered across her face. “Ravagin,” she nodded in greeting, waving him to a chair in front of her desk. “I expected you here rather earlier.”

“I took the long way in,” he said mildly. “You can dock my pay if you want to.”

That got him a harrumph and an almost reluctant smile. “You never were one to try with intimidation gambits, were you? All right; let's get down to business. This application you've filed for a leave of absence, for starters. Are you really serious about leaving?”

Ravagin nodded. “It's not a ploy for more money or vacation time, if that's what you mean. If I'd wanted something like that I would have asked for it directly. You know that.”

“I know.” Her face and voice softened a bit. “Mind telling me why?”

He sighed. “You've seen the test results. I'm
tired,
Corah. Just tired. I've been shuttling people through the Tunnels for sixteen years now—that's two to three years longer than any other Courier you've got, and a year longer than the supposed maximum.”

“You're good at what you do,” Lea said. “Damned good. We wouldn't have finagled the rules so hard to keep you on this long if you weren't.”

“I appreciate the compliment,” he nodded. “If I wasn't so good at it I'd have left long ago with or without your help.”

She snorted wryly. “Not much for false modesty, are you?”

“False modesty is for politicians,” he shrugged.

There was a moment of silence. “Well,” Lea said at last. “Is there anything I can offer that might change your mind? You
did
mention extra money and vacation time.”

He smiled. “Not unless you've got some kind of magic salve for the terminally burned-out psyche.”

“Sorry—all the technological miracles are down the Tunnel a ways in Shamsheer. I don't suppose …?”

“If they had something like that, I would have used it long ago,” he said dryly. “Probably. Was there anything else?”

“As a matter of fact, there was.” The neutral expression was back in place, with a twinge of discomfort hovering at its edges. “I've had a … let's call it an unusual request come down from an unnamed source—unnamed because no one will tell
me
where the hell it came from, either. It asks specifically that our most experienced Courier be assigned to take a female graduate student from the University of Autaris into the Hidden Worlds for her field assignment.”

Ravagin frowned. “A single student?
One
?”

“That's what it says.”

“What the hell do they think we're running here, a personal guided tour service?”

Lea shrugged. “I don't know any more than I've just given you … except that there are distinct hints that pressure is going to be brought to bear on your neck if you don't agree to take her in.”

“Whoa—freeze that frame, huh? What does this have to do with
me
? I'm leaving, remember?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Lea took a deep breath. “It isn't like we can pretend someone else is more experienced than you are—it's an on-record fact we can't hide. The higher-ups have already made it clear they want you to stay on for this one last trip. If you don't … it's entirely possible your leave of absence might not be approved.”

“Well, I'm sure that's a triumph for
some
branch of human stupidity,” Ravagin snorted. “I presume you offered my last med/psych test results for their reading enjoyment?”

“
And
I told them you were suffering the entire Courier burnout syndrome,” she sighed. “None of it did a scrap of good. Most experienced is what they want, most experienced is what they're determined to get.”

“All right, then. If that's how they want to play I'll quit outright. Then I'm out of their grasp entirely.”

“Yeah. Well …” Lea looked acutely uncomfortable. “I would presume, though, that you're not ready to retire at the ripe old age of thirty-eight.”

Ravagin felt his eyes narrow. “Are you suggesting,” he said slowly, “that they might blackmark my records if I refuse to roll over for them?”

Lea spread her hands. “I don't know
what
they've got in mind upstairs—God's truth. All I know is that I haven't seen everyone this nervous since the Proloc of Vandahl ignored all the warnings and horror stories and demanded we take his children into Shamsheer to ride the flying carpets.”

Ravagin felt a shiver run up his spine. “Just who the hell
is
this grad student, anyway—the Presidio's daughter?”

“All I've got is a name: Danae Panya. Currently on Autaris; no other data given. Mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing.” He didn't add that the politics and business affairs of the Twenty Worlds were somewhat outside his usual field of interest.

“Not to me, either.” Lea twisted her mouth sourly. “Look, Ravagin, I know you probably hate giving in to pressure about as much as I do … but, really, would it be so bad? Really? It would be only a single person—”

“An inexperienced kid.”

“They're
all
inexperienced—that's what we need Couriers for, remember? So it's a single person, not one of those group zoos you all hate, and on a university field research assignment besides. Which means a short trip, and she'll be out of your hair puttering around on her own most of the time, anyway.
And
she won't be here for several more weeks, which'll give you a good stretch of rest/rec time to get ready for her.”

“Oh, it's just a Courier's fondest dream,” Ravagin said sardonically, a sudden thought souring his mouth. “Tell me, Corah: what are they threatening you with if you don't talk me into this?”

Her eyes slipped away from his gaze. “That's irrelevant. It's also none of your business.”

“Uh-huh.” In other words, if he cut out she'd wind up bearing the full weight of this official elephant by herself.
Damn them all,
he thought bitterly. It took a particularly low class of vermin to hit a man through his friends … and a particularly stupid class of man to give in to such tactics.

A class of which he was, unfortunately, a member. And there were times he hated himself for it.

“All right,” he sighed. “I'll do it—not for your boss, and sure as hell not for this Panya kid and her political connections. I'll do it as a personal favor to you, Corah … and you're to damn well make sure they know it. Understand? They owe you a Big One.”

Lea nodded, trying not entirely successfully to keep the moisture out of her eyes. “I understand, Ravagin. I'll make them pay it back, too, in some way that'll benefit the entire Corps. Count on it.”

“Yeah.” He got to his feet. “If that's all, then, I still have a report to fill out.”

“The hell with the report,” she said. “It's a beautiful day out there—go out and enjoy it while it lasts.”

He pursed his lips. “All right. Yes, I think I will.”

She attempted a smile. “It's the least I can do. And Ravagin … thanks. They owe you a Big One, too.”

“Sure.” A Big One, he knew, that he would probably never get around to collecting. But it was the thought that counted. “Talk to you later. Bye-and-luck.”

T
RIPLET, ON FIRST IMPRESSION
, was a distinct disappointment.

The minor-class starport they came down at was bad enough, in Danae's opinion; haphazardly designed and stuck twenty-five kilometers away from the nearest real city like an architectural leper. But the nearby buildings of Triplet Control that were visible through the starport lounge's window were even worse. She'd seen military camps before, but even by those dubious standards this one didn't measure up. The main Triplet Defense building was a massive chunk of masonry that looked like it had been thrown together under combat conditions. A half kilometer further north, the Crosspoint Building was a little better; but any improvement in design was more than made up for by the fenced-in perimeter surrounding it …

Involuntarily, Danae shivered. The three-hundred-meter-wide defensive ring around Threshold's Tunnel was called the Dead Zone, and was allegedly the most airtight perimeter anywhere in the Twenty Worlds. She didn't know any of the details … and gazing at the oddly indistinct view beyond the Dead Zone's outer fence, she decided she didn't want to.

“Ms. Danae Panya?”

She started, shifting her eyes from the window to the two men approaching from behind her. “Yes?” she acknowledged cautiously.

“Welcome to Triplet,” the older of the men smiled. “I'm Liaison Director Hamen DorLexis. I must say, you caught us a little by surprise, coming in early like this.”

She relaxed a bit. “I had a chance at an earlier flight than I'd originally planned,” she explained, striving to sound offhanded about it. In truth, it had cost her a run through Hell's own bureaucracy to get her flight switched at the last minute. “I thought I could use the extra time to look around Threshold a little.”

“You're on the wrong side of the planet to do any sightseeing,” DorLexis said. “Everything around here is strictly geared to support and defense of the Tunnel.”

“I see.” The second man was still standing quietly in the background, and Danae caught his eye. “And you are …?”

“Oh, excuse me,” DorLexis jumped in before the other could answer. “Ms. Panya, this is Courier Ravagin, the man who'll be taking you into the Hidden Worlds.”