Bowman did not expect to hear screaming.
They burst into the yacht’s prep room to find a Human male in a shredded Plexis Security uniform cowering against the bulkhead and bleeding from dozens of long, deep scratches over his face and hands. A blaster lay a few feet away from him, but he made no attempt to grab it. Gemma sat next to the weapon.
The LEM looked up at Bowman, tilting her head to one side, tufted ears bent forward. Her tail lashed back and forth.
Bowman frowned and motioned to ’Whix. “Cuff him.”
The Tolian holstered his weapon and pulled out a pair of restraining cuffs. The Human was so terrified he pushed himself up the wall and gratefully held out his hands, his huge eyes never leaving the LEM.
“Where’s Ylsa?” Bowman demanded.
“Don’t know who you’re talking about,” he said. He straightened his back and lifted his chin, trying to put on an indignant attitude. It came across as pathetic, with the swelling scratches bleeding down his face.
Gemma sauntered toward him on hind legs and he lost all pretext, fear returning to his eyes. “Keep that thing away from me!” He tried to back up, but pushed into ’Whix instead.
“Ylsa?” Bowman asked again, fighting the small smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Or I put you in a room with that thing.”
“Kessler has her. She did something to the engines. Kessler and Foard are trying to figure out what happened. They’re in the engine room. Aft. Look, I was just paid for kidnapping. Okay, first deleting some of the autopsy reports. But anything else, that’s on Kessler. He didn’t want to kill her on Plexis. Planned to dump her out the air lock where she’d never be found. Said something about not wanting any DNA tests run on her.”
“Constable,” Bowman said, “lock him up.”
’Whix shoved Reyes toward the air lock, taking him back into their ship to secure him.
Without waiting for the Tolian to return, Bowman opened the door to the yacht’s single corridor. Gemma dashed out, running on all fours toward the aft of the ship. With her blaster held in both hands, Bowman followed.
The hatch to engineering was open at the end of the short corridor. Bowman had a clear view of another Human male, in a Plexis uniform, crouched behind a console. As soon as Foard saw that it wasn’t his partner coming to join them, he began shooting. Bowman pushed herself against the bulkhead, only narrowly escaping the bolts of energy that sizzled past.
The shots ended with a terrified scream.
Foard leaped up from behind the console, his hands going to a raging ball of fur that clung to his head, a tail wrapped around his throat. One hand grabbed the animal raking claws over his face. The other fired his blaster into the ceiling, shattering tiles and lighting tubes. Claws sank deeper.
Bowman hurried to the doorway and fired once.
A neat hole burned through Foard’s chest. He dropped backward, his frantic screams ending.
Kessler stood with his back to the reactor, Ylsa held in front of him, a small but deadly needler pressed to her temple.
Ylsa Peregrine stood perfectly still, but there was no sign of fear in her eyes. She was relaxed, a small smile curving her lips as she saw the animal with its ruffled fur.
“Keep that thing back!” Kessler shouted at Bowman.
“As if I control it,” Bowman said, aiming her weapon. “Surrender, Kessler. All you’ll be charged with now is kidnapping.”
“What about Chesterton?” he demanded.
Too easy. She frowned. “Is that a confession?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’d sooner see us all dead than go back now. If you leave now, Bowman, and forget all about this little incident, I’ll see that you are well compensated. You’d be set for the rest of your life. Otherwise, all of us will have to die.”
“Then you don’t gain anything,” Bowman said.
“You see,” Kessler said, waving the weapon slightly, but never taking it from his hostage’s head, “there are powerful people who did not want her found. People who control most of Imesh. Chesterton kept them satisfied, but if he located the Constantine heir, then they could lose their controlling power. Chesterton had grown tired of their manipulations. I was told to make certain he never found her. And if he happened to meet his own end, so much the better. If I allow Ylsa to return, then my life will be over. Better to end it here and now, on my own terms.”
“Okay, then,” Bowman agreed. “Go ahead, because I am not leaving without Ylsa.”
“He can’t do anything,” Ylsa said. “I locked him out of his own ship. Told you I was good at fixing things.”
Gemma lowered herself, tail bristling, and growled.
“I said, keep that thing away!” Kessler said.
“Gemma is not a thing!” Ylsa snapped.
She swung her elbow back, smacking it into Kessler’s face, crushing his nose. He cried out in pain, staggering back against the reactor casing, his needler firing blindly.
Bowman shot him through the forehead.
* * *
• • •
They left a beacon on Kessler’s yacht so Plexis Security could send a tug and bring it and the two bodies back. Security also took custody of Reyes, after Bowman had recorded his confession. Plexis, in the form of Inspector Wallace, would deal with him.
It wasn’t a clean solution. Bowman regretted losing the opportunity to interrogate Kessler and learn the identities of those who paid him. She’d have to go about it another way.
As she packed her belongings in her quarters on Plexis, the com chimed. Fingers near a now-concealed weapon, Bowman ordered the door open.
Ansel and Ylsa stood in the hall, with Gemma at Ylsa’s feet. She’d abandoned her grimy coveralls for a more fashionable dress and looked more than a little self-conscious.
“So the results are in?” Bowman asked, waving them in. “Do I call you Ylsa Peregrine or Constantine?”
“Constantine,” Ylsa said. “Ansel has made arrangements. I’m on my way back home, even though I don’t remember it. Although, I think I am beginning to remember some things about my parents, as though in a dream. Suppressed all these years.”
“I’ve already sent a report to the Trade Pact,” Bowman said. “A full investigation is underway. We will get to the bottom of this and find out who was behind Kessler.”
“I’ve been going over some corporate records my uncle had,” Ylsa said. “I have some of my own suspicions. They aren’t very good at hiding their activities. Besides, Gemma will help ferret them out.”
The LEM looked up and tilted her head, tufted ears turning outward.
“I really don’t think—” Bowman started to say. She watched those green eyes. Was it actually sentient and telepathic? She knew some strange species in her capacity as an enforcer and in her previous career as a Port Jelly.
In the end, did it matter? “Okay,” she said, not wanting to get into that argument. Let the sociologists and anthropologists worry about it.
“Even with that thing in your head that makes you like a ghost,” Ylsa said, “Gemma was still able to tell that you weren’t as mean as you pretend. She told me that when you threatened to arrest Ansel. She was right.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” Bowman said, scowling.
Gemma looked up at her and closed one eye, quickly opening it in an unmistakable wink.
. . . Truffles continues
6
IN HUMAN TERMS, I’d opened the door, my reach to contact any nearby Clan having the unfortunate consequence of inviting contact I didn’t want.
The Clan Council.
Speaker, we need you here. Sawnda’at’s mindvoice was as querulous as his real one, and impossible to ignore. On Camos.
I touched a fingertip to my forehead, then waved apologetically at ’Whix, the Tolian well-accustomed to what it meant when my attention went el
sewhere. I’m busy. There’s a problem with our truffles.
The Councilor’s astonishment was, I thought wryly, sincere. He knew better than to express it, knew to expend his own strength maintaining our link through the M’hir rather than ask it of mine, knew—so little, I felt a moment’s pity. Until he sent, You must! We cannot conduct a meeting of Council without your presence.
They could—they simply had a problem if votes were tied. As I usually heard about that, and quickly, this was about something else and I’d no problem guessing. What’s Acranam done now?
There has been Choice offered. Unsanctioned and against your direct command.
The Tolian’s emerald eyes were distracting. I closed my own. And the Candidate?
A confused pause. Any unChosen Candidate offered to a Chooser was, to put it in Clan terms, expendable. All Sawnda’at and the Council cared about was the flaunting of rules.
I put force behind it. What HAPPENED to the Candidate?
He survived, Speaker, with more appropriate—and wary—respect. The Watchers conveyed Choice was successful, and the pair have Joined. Which isn’t the point—
It was, in every way that mattered. Without such pairings, our kind would soon become extinct. A successful one? Where the Candidate hadn’t been pulled into the M’hir by a more potent Chooser and left to die there? Rare. We couldn’t afford any more losses. Couldn’t—and this was the point I consistently failed to get across to my kind—treat unChosen males as fodder, to be risked at whim.
It was why Bowman was now our ally. Why the Trade Pact had accepted the Clan and our problem. Why I’d forbidden any more offerings of Choice until a solution was found.
Does Acranam have any more Choosers? I asked, cold and calm.
We don’t know. They resist our requests for such data, Speaker.
Of course they did, having hidden their very existence all these years. Pretending to be dead. Part of me was willing to let them stay that way.
The better part knew we couldn’t afford their loss. Send congratulations and the usual gifts, I sent. They were lucky, at Sawnda’at’s stunned silence. There’s nothing gained by reminding them of it. Morgan’s influence, not that I’d tell the Clansman, my Human convinced the best negotiating tactic was to have others think they’d won.
Who knows, I thought. Perhaps a modicum of goodwill might result. Though, with Acranam, probably not.
As you command, Speaker, Sawnda’at replied, prudently holding back his own opinion.
I opened my eyes and smiled at ’Whix. Next time, Councilor? Sent with a surge of Power that burned his from the M’hir and likely would produce a significant headache. Unless it’s an emergency?
Use a com.
* * *
• • •
“He’s all yours,” Morgan told ’Whix when he arrived at our table. He aimed a thumb over his shoulder at the now-peaceful bar. “If you can pry him loose, that is.”
“A thankless task, but necessary.” The Tolian rose to his feet, dipping his beak to me, then my Human. “My gratitude to you both.” He left, stepping with elaborate care around the glistening puddles surrounding us.
“Ready to dance?”
I eyed Morgan and didn’t budge. He appeared remarkably unscathed, considering. “What about Officer E’Teiso?” I demanded.
“I could be wrong—” his eyes sparkled with mischief, “—but I don’t believe F’Feego dance.”
He was up to something. I recognized the signs with an inner thrill. Care to explain yourself?
The corner of his lips quirked. That obvious?
“Only to me,” I said aloud. You’ve a plan, don’t you? Something devious.
“Not at all.” Morgan bent to give me a firm kiss, straightening before my hair could entice him to linger. “If we needed devious, I’d call on another friend altogether.”
A Thief By Any Other Name
by Violette Malan
I KEPT MY eyes on the cup of sombay I was turning around with the fingers of my right hand. I kept my left in plain sight on the table. Scats like to see both hands. When I thought enough time had passed to make it look like I’d given his proposition a decent amount of thought, I looked up.
“I’m a grifter, not a thief,” I pointed out as politely as I could. I carry a small force blade, but I’m not fast enough to beat a Scat. I hear that lizards and other reptiles, get slow in the cold. Maybe Scats weren’t as reptilian as they look, or maybe it’s not cold enough onstation.
“You are Human. A Human has the best chance of getting near our target.” Petreck must have had surgery; he didn’t hiss like every other Scat I’d met. Good for blending on Plexis, but I doubted it scored points with his kind.
“I see.” I nodded, as if I thought this made sense. “No disrespect intended, but wouldn’t it be easier to boost this item while in transit? I know a good scheme to switch grav sleds—with a couple of friends to—”
“No. It must be done by one person only. By you.”
“Again, no disrespect meant, but why me, exactly? I’m sure you have plenty of skilled Human employees, so why come to me?”
“You are, as you say, a grifter. You persuade people that you are what you are not. This is your great skill. No other Human can persuade the owners of the establishment that they can wait upon tables. For you, it would be of the simplest.”
“You want me to pass myself off as a waiter? A Human waiter? Only the Claws & Jaws uses Human waiters.” Well, they use live waiters, but that does include Humans. “And I’m not sure how good an idea it is to run a scam on a Carasian.”
“Fear not. The Galaxy Room is vying for custom with the Claws & Jaws. They have begun to hire your kind.”
“I see.” I gave my best, gosh-I’m-sorry smile. Petreck and his crew weren’t the kind of beings you worked with if there was any way out of it. That’s why we were meeting in this nice, public café. “I’m afraid I’m just now in the middle of something very delicate, very time sensitive. I won’t be able to help you.” I’d have recommended someone else, but I didn’t dislike anyone that much.
“You have a father, Fem Graine. He is much in debt to the Spacer’s Haven on Pocular. We have purchased this debt. He has, as you may know, no realistic expectations of paying this debt. If you perform this favor for us, this debt will cease to be.”
“I see.” This was exactly the reason Mum had left Dad in the first place—gamblers and grifters don’t make the most stable couples. But it was the first time a streak of bad luck for him had ever bounced back on any of us. “I don’t suppose you have any proof of what you’re saying?”
“Yes.” The Scat at the next table brought out a portable reader with a vistape up and ready to view. I managed to take it from him without coming into contact with his scaly hands.. The person in the tape was definitely my father. He was laying out four hands of Stars and Comets, studying each hand in turn before gathering up the cards again. Another Scat, like the one who gave me the reader, only bigger and uglier, stood in one corner holding something I didn’t recognize, but was clearly a weapon. Dad looked unworried, but that’s Dad. Hom Optimism.
“I see.” I seemed to be saying that a lot lately. “Looks like I don’t have much choice.”
“We believe not. The reputation of your family will suffer greatly if you leave your parent to die.”
Mum wouldn’t be all that happy, either. She couldn’t live with him, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love him.
“So. What is it you want me to steal?”
“It is a package, this size by that size.” He moved his clawed hands apart, indicating something about the size of a box of blank vistapes. “Its contents are no concern of yours.”
“Is it alive? Can I turn the package upside down? Expose it to vacuum? Freeze it? Drop it? Submerge it in liquid—?”
The claw on the finger
he held up looked almost too long to be real. “We understand. It is foodstuffs. The Galaxy Room seeks to prepare a new and unique dish. My client wishes that the main ingredient become unavailable.”
Which certainly implied that the “client” was none other than Huido Maarmatoo’kk, proprietor of the Claws & Jaws. The idea wasn’t totally incredible, but from what I know of the Carasian, he was more likely to shoot a rival than rob him.
“And when do you need this package?”
“We will alert you when it arrives. Take this time to establish yourself as an employee.”
I didn’t need Petreck to tell me my job. I know better than to turn up the day before an item went missing and disappear the next day.
Great, I thought. I’m going to be a waiter.
* * *
• • •
Customers don’t usually think about it, but there are plenty of people like me who live on Plexis Supermarket full time. Well, maybe not exactly like me. There’s every kind of sapient you can think of—and some you can’t.
That includes my new “employer.” Scats are more commonly spacefaring pirates, but a few of the smarter ones do set up planet-based crime rings. Petreck has the only one onstation, and everyone not strictly on the up and up pays his agents a percentage to run their businesses in his territory. I’d never met the boss before, and I wasn’t happy to meet him now.
Theoretically, his little job was easier than what I normally do for a living. All I had to do was find a way into the storage room of the restaurant, locate a package, and find some way to walk out with it. Considering the chaos of a place still in its opening days, it shouldn’t be much of a problem. It’s way more complicated to con someone out of their hard-earned credits, though I have to admit that working in a place as big as Plexis Supermarket, with its continuously changing throngs of customers, makes it easier than most.
The Clan Chronicles--Tales from Plexis Page 20