by Kacey Ezell
“So kind of you, Governor,” Tamir murmured, inclining her head. “When did you last see the Peacemaker?”
“I’m sure you have the exact date from your work with Diaden, bounty hunter.”
“Of course, Governor. What I really want to know is, how was she? Did she seem glad Reow would be taking over for her? Concerned? What did you do? You saw her more recently than I did, so I suppose I’m mostly curious.”
“She looked forward to the transition, though I know she would have preferred it otherwise, without our losing Sissisk. I hadn’t expected to see her, and I will regret until my last day that I didn’t have a gift for her.”
“Oh?” Tamir leaned forward, a perfect example of Human surprise.
“A trade deal across seventeen civilizations was teetering, and my ship detoured to Capitol so I could fetch several involved parties. I wasn’t going to step off the ship, but circumstances and…” Kelket trailed off, cilia fading to stillness, then sat back up abruptly. “Apologies, Tamir Alcuin. I woke with such a start this dawn, given the unexpected message. I will need to rest soon. Where were we?”
“Governor Kelket,” Flame said, dropping her field on a whim and taking a moment to enjoy how immediately every one of the Cemarap’s cilia snapped to attention. Shock and alarm made for quite the rejuvenation, no matter what wasting illness someone had. “I did not want to interrupt your conversation with Tamir, but as I caused your upset this morning, it seemed prudent to take that worry from you. How did you find Peacemaker Hrusha on your last visit with her?”
“I know you Depik value your privacy, but given your presence in my home last night and this morning, what is your name and clan?”
“No,” Flame replied, quite politely. “In honor of your friendship with Hrusha and Sissisk, please know their interests are of great import to me.”
The retired Governor showed no hint of her illness now, observing Flame so closely the Hunter almost wished she’d thought to disguise herself. But no matter how close to Depik Governor and Peacemaker she’d been, the Cemarap would have no reason to recognize the youngest Hunter of Night Wind. Tamir didn’t look at her, but Flame could feel the Human’s tension ratchet up every notch.
“She did not have much time, organizing both her move to Capitol proper and needing to ensure all was in order for her replacement. I admit I tried to dodge her, because I had no gift, but as I’m sure you know, Depik will always have their way, and she wanted to celebrate her latest win on our mercenary contract wager. We met for absorption—a drink for her, of course—at that corner place on the Capitol station, and all was normal, if rushed. I wish I had more to share, given your efforts to reach me.”
“Is there anyone else you recommend we talk to, to best prepare the next Depik Peacemaker?” Flame asked, tail curling around her haunches. “Given the turnover on both long-term contracts, it’s best we be thorough.”
“Hrusha spent a great deal of time visiting a Tortantula company on Ziv Station. I would have thought she had invested in them, if Depik ever did such things. Talk with Chok, her partner is…Fisi. I believe they were friendly enough with Hrusha to keep from excreting in shock if a Depik appeared in front of him.”
“Thank you for your time, Governor,” Tamir said, standing. Flame did not have to turn her head to feel her partner’s tension. “We wish you the best of health ahead.”
Kelket’s cilia splayed in several directions, then repeated an earlier gesture. As the door began to unlock, she wheeled ahead of them toward the opening doorway.
“Unfortunately, I am in a decline that ends in only one way, Tamir Alcuin, but I hope that your travels lead to great success for the next to hold the Depik contract. The Peacemaker’s office has been glad to have you.”
“As much as they notice a single bounty hunter,” Tamir replied, so humble Flame nearly spit for the falseness of it. “Thank you again, Governor.”
Flame disappeared before stepping outside the room. No need to leave an image, in case any other Hunter had the inclination and opportunity to access Kelket’s records. She didn’t regret showing herself, but she recognized it hadn’t been the smartest thing she’d done so far. No need to compound it into an actual error.
* * *
They had talked in transit, and so had something of a plan.
Susa entered the office, and a young woman with almond-shaped eyes smiled up at her from behind a desk to the right of the entrance. A square of sunlight fell in through a window high in the left wall, beneath which sat a row of chairs. A single door stood opposite.
“Hello,” the woman said. “May I help you?”
“My name is Dr. Susan Aloh,” Susa said. “I have an offer of contract for The Golden Horde.”
The woman behind the desk blinked, but showed no other form of surprise. Death admired her composure.
“I see,” she said. “Please have a seat, Dr. Aloh. I will inform my supervisor you are here. May I offer you something to drink? Some water?”
“Thank you, yes,” Susa said with a nod, and then took Death and sat below the window. The woman behind the desk smoothed her long, dark hair back from her face and tucked it behind one ear, and Death saw a metallic glint in the light as she stood to get the water.
“Interesting,” she murmured, just barely loud enough for Susa to hear. “She has pinplants.”
Susa shifted in her seat, her body language suggesting she’d seen it too. The neural implants that allowed a being to link directly in to the local information network, or even the full GalNet, were commonplace among Hunters. They allowed one to extend quintessential control to one’s machinery, as she’d done with her Basreeni fighter. Not every Hunter had them, but many did, and it wasn’t unusual to see them scattered throughout the other species one met in the galaxy.
But for a species so newly discovered and primitive as humanity? Well…that was rather unusual.
The door opened, and a man emerged from the hallway beyond. He looked completely unremarkable. Medium height, medium build, coloring a sort of midrange dusky blond or light brown. Death felt a twinge of appreciation. This man obviously knew how not to be noticed.
“Mr. Conason will see you now,” the receptionist said, holding out a glass of water with a smile. Susa took the glass, picked up Death’s carrier, and came to her feet.
“Dr. Aloh?” the man asked with a pleasant smile. “My name is James Conason. Would you please come with me?”
“Of course,” Susa said.
“Katie here can keep your pet, if you like,” Conason said, still in that pleasant tone.
“She is my companion, and it is necessary I keep her with me,” Susa said.
“Ahhh…Okay. Is she, like, for emotional support or something?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, bring her back, I guess. I don’t think any of my guys are allergic to cats.”
“I doubt she will be a problem in that respect,” Susa said, and Death could hear the glint of humor underneath her words. Conason glanced at her sharply, but didn’t say anything else as they walked down a short hallway and turned left into a small office. It, too, was lit only by a window high in the wall. Conason reached for a switch near the entrance, but Susa stopped him.
“If you don’t mind, sir,” she said. “Could you leave the lights off? I find I’m sensitive to light these days.”
A wave of love surged through Death at her thoughtfulness. The sunlight on this planet was punishing, and in her guise as a domesticated animal, Death could hardly wear the goggles she would normally use when forced to be diurnal. The dark, fine mesh of the carrier helped some, but Death still found herself looking out through squinted lids, and her eyes ached with the brightness that stabbed into her brain.
“Of course, Doctor,” the man said. “I apologize. What did you say your name was, again?”
“Doctor Susan Aloh, former professor of Xenobiology at the University of Texas,” she said with a smile as she took the seat he indicated
with a gesture. She paused for a moment while he seated himself behind a large, imposing desk, then added, “But you knew that already.”
“I did,” he said. “But I confess, I’m a bit confused.”
“Oh?” she asked. “And why is that?”
“Because every record I can find says that Dr. Aloh died nearly ten years ago.”
“Died? Or disappeared?”
“Excuse me?” Conason blinked. Death smirked, interpreting his reaction as surprise. Clever Susa.
“Do the records say I died? Or that I disappeared?”
“I believe both terms are used.”
“Ah. Well. I did not die, as you will see when you analyze the fingerprints I’ve left on this glass,” she said. She raised the glass to her lips and took a long sip, and then leaned forward to place the glass on the glossy top of his desk. Conason looked at it and then back at her. “I’m also willing to submit hair or blood for analysis if you would like, though I am working under a compressed timeline and would prefer you take me at my word for reasons which will become rapidly apparent. I am, of course, happy to compensate you for the consideration.”
Susa removed a five-credit chit from the inside of her jacket and laid it down on the desk next to the glass with a click. Conason’s eyes flicked down to the chit, and then back up to her face. He didn’t move, otherwise.
“You didn’t die, but you did disappear?” he asked slowly, suspicion in his tone. Susa let out a sigh.
“Yes. Do your records mention I was a member of Dr. Adelaide Black’s expedition?”
“They do.”
“Yes. Well, I was. Until I became addicted to an alien substance known as Malluma Songo. Have you heard of it, Mr. Conason?”
He nodded, his lips tight.
“Most do not survive, I am told. I did, though only through a series of strange happenstances. Are you familiar with the origin of the drug? The Songo?”
“No,” he said. He began to tap his fingers in a short tattoo against the top of the desk. Susa, however, refused to be hurried.
“It comes from a planet known as Khatash, out in the Centaur region of the Jesc arm. Khatash is notable for only two exports, Mr. Conason. Malluma Songo, and death. Khatash, you see, is the home world of the felinoid race known as the Depik.”
“Dr. Aloh, I am not a child to be frightened by nursery tales of killer kitties,” Conason said with a snort. “The Depik don’t exist except in tales told to frighten rookie mercs.”
Susa only smiled, and released the catch on Death’s carrier. Death padded out on four feet, and then somersaulted to the desk, feeling a surge of dark humor at Susa’s dramatic timing. She landed on her back two feet and stood, so as to better look Conason in the eyes. The Human mercenary sat back in his seat, eyes carefully blank as the “emotional support animal” turned out to be something very different.
“I, Death From Above of the Night Wind Clan, greet you, Human James Conason of the Golden Horde Mercenary Company,” Death said in the Human tongue, reaching out her right paw in a mimicry of Human greeting customs. “Welcome to our negotiation.”
* * *
Conason looked at Death for a long moment, his nondescript eyes flicking from her face to her outstretched paw. He glanced at Susa once more, and then leaned forward to place his hand under Death’s fingerpads.
“A pleasure to meet you, Death From Above,” he said. Death admired his bland nonchalance. She imagined he was working pretty hard for it. “Is that what this is? A negotiation?”
“Aren’t all interactions between thinking beings?” Death asked. She tapped his hand once and then let her own hand drop as she settled into a sitting position on the desk. “Even if one is a mythical ‘killer kitty.’”
“Perhaps especially then,” Conason said. “I meant no offense. Your kind are not well known, and what we do hear is…legend. Rumor.”
“I took no offense,” Death said. “That is as it should be. As we designed it to be. One has a reputation to maintain, after all. It is easier if the reputation somewhat maintains itself.”
“Circular, but logical, in a way,” he conceded with a slight nod.
“It is, however, your reputation that brings us here today,” Death said smoothly. “The Golden Horde is known throughout the Galaxy as an up-and-coming expert in the art of defense. Is your reputation deserved?”
“And then some,” Conason said, without a trace of boastfulness in his tone. “But if you’re looking to contract with us, this is not the usual way of going about it. We bid our contracts fairly and openly in the merc pits, per Guild customs.”
“Yes, well, there are extenuating circumstances that make it impossible for us to operate through a standard Mercenary Guild pit,” Death said. “Which is why we’ve come to you here, now.”
“The Golden Horde is not looking to cross guild law. If you’ve gotten yourself on the bad side of the Merc Guild, I don’t think we can help you.”
“The Mercenary Guild has no quarrel with me,” Death said. “I simply require a private contract. My quarrel is with my own people. You have characterized us as ‘killer kitties,’ and that is not entirely untrue. We are Hunters. We accept any prey, save our own people. Our lives alone are sacrosanct.”
“So why are your people trying to kill you, then?” he asked, his eyes narrowing with interest.
“Because they think I, or a member of my family, killed another Hunter. They have placed my entire family under interdict, and all of our lives are forfeit if we are found.”
“Did they do it?”
“Did who do what?”
“Did the member of your family kill another Hunter?”
Death drew in a deep, sharp breath. Betrayal pierced her chest anew. Mhrand hadn’t asked that question, and yet this stranger on the other side of the galaxy did.
“No,” she said, and it was nearly a whisper. “But I cannot prove that. Not yet. I need time, and safety to…”
“To do what?” Conason asked, as Death trailed off. Death turned and looked at Susa, suddenly unsure if she should confide all the details of her condition to this unremarkable, unassuming figure of a Human. Susa gave her a long look, and then a very slight nod. Death sighed and turned back to look Conason in the eyes.
“To give birth, Mr. Conason. I am carrying a litter of kits, and it is imperative that as many of them as possible survive.”
Something that may have been confusion creased Conason’s brow. Susa must have seen it, for she leaned forward to stroke Death comfortingly as she spoke.
“Mr. Conason, the Hunters, or Depik as you know them, are not like humanity. As a species, they are blessed with many natural gifts, but they are not prolific. The species has a staggeringly high rate of infertility among adult females, and those who do conceive often do not survive the birth process. Infant mortality, too, is disproportionately high among the Depik. In a very real way, the entirety of their society has been built around protecting the bearing mother, and giving her kittens the best chance at life possible. But now, with our home destroyed and our clan scattered, Death and I have nowhere to turn and no one to protect her as she goes through this most fundamental of battles. So, we turn to you in the hope that we might be able to hire your company to stand in for her brothers and sister…who may, in fact, already be dead.”
Death swallowed hard and forced herself not to react to this naked, barbed truth. Thinking about the danger to her siblings wouldn’t be productive at the moment, so she wouldn’t do it. Right now, only her unborn kittens mattered. She resisted a sudden urge to crouch protectively around her middle and held herself motionless.
“‘Our home?’” Conason asked.
Susa’s hand on Death’s back went still. Conason leaned his elbows on the desk and at Susa.
“Care to explain?” he added.
“It is not so hard to understand,” Susa said lightly, but Death could feel her fingers tremble against her fur. “I have lived on Khatash with the Night Wind clan for over a
decade. They have become my family. Their home has become my home.”
Conason stared at her for another long moment. So long that Death figured he realized Susa wasn’t telling him the whole story.
“The Golden Horde doesn’t come cheap,” Conason said eventually. He reached out to tap the five-credit chit that still sat on the desk between them. “As impressive as that is here on Earth, we charge galactic market rates.”
“I think you will find we are good for it,” Susa said. She reached into her jacket and withdrew something small enough to hold in her closed fist. When she opened her hand, the light from the window caught the object and refracted a glowing red beam against the far wall.
Conason stared at it, silently. He was, Death realized, really quite good. First an alien species he had thought to be a myth, and now an eyeball-sized red diamond worth more than the price of a luxury star liner, and his reactions had been confined to blinks and changes of breath. The man must be a talented gambler.
“This one is a signing bonus,” Susa said into the silence of the room. “I can offer you another one of equivalent size for every month we spend in your care, payable upon completion of the contract. We require personal protection and defense for Death From Above, her kittens, and myself. We are willing to put ourselves into your care and follow whatever measures you deem necessary. We do require a secure GalNet feed, so that we may stay abreast of the developing situation. We are happy to pay expenses, above and beyond what you see in front of you now.”
“What support will you need? In addition to the feed?” Conason’s voice carried a rasp for the first time.
“Room and board. Some medical supplies for the birth. My training is sufficient to deliver Death’s litter. Indeed, my background is rather more suited than any doctor you’ll find on Earth, I wager.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Conason said. He still hadn’t torn his eyes from the red fire in the heart of the gem on his desk. “So, we just have to keep you alive, is that it?”