Songs of Love & Death

by George R. R. Martin; Gardner Dozois

But Thuk-Zik was rising even as she approached. “I must be on my way. Good trading, Nom Quintrek. Nomma Captain Beck.” He moved away, the hem of his robe fluttering as his clawed feet tapped against the metal decking.

  “Good trading, Nom,” Serri called after him, keeping relief at his departure out of her voice. Thank you, saints and blessed Vakare. She slid into the booth.

  Quin was nudging his bowl of meat tea with one wide furry paw, causing the gelatinous liquid to shimmer. “You should have been here five minutes ago,” he said, with that lilt his voice held when he spoke Trade-Standard. “We had quite a chin wag about who’s brassed off at whom at Widestar Trading.”

  She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one—especially another Kor—was within earshot, then lowered her voice. “Widestar is going to be brassed off at us. Filar has a grab order with our names on it—unless you have a spare three hundred thousand to make him go away. He knows damned well we don’t. He’ll be at our airlock in twenty minutes.”

  The white muzzle raised out of the bowl. Golden eyes narrowed. “Tailless bastard!”

  “Pay your tab. We need to get there before he does.”

  THE VOICES IN Nicandro Talligar’s head were talking to him again. It came with the job.

  “Status?” asked a familiar gravelly male voice.

  Nic tucked himself into the recesses of a maintenance alcove in the corridor outside the Wretched Beast and flexed his left wrist, activating the tympanic implant’s transmitter. “Filar took the bait.”

  “Any reason to believe he suspects?”

  I’m not Brackton, he almost told Leonoso, but held back. His case agent didn’t need to be reminded of the mission failure at Able-Trade. But Nic wasn’t Depvar Brackton. He’d never blown his cover, not in five years, not even when threatened with death. After what happened at Widestar, the job was everything to him. The agency knew that and—he suspected—used that.

  “Everything’s clean.”

  “Keep it that way. Next contact in thirty-eight.” The transmission cut off with the usual sharp click.

  He was about to move out of the alcove when a woman in a dark green flightsuit jogged by, her long dark braid swinging across her back. The ship’s patch on her left sleeve was emblazoned with a silver star. A very large black-and-white Skoggi in a matching dark green CI—command-interface—vest bounded on all fours by her side. The patch on his vest showed an identical silver star.

  Nic’s chest suddenly went tight. He recognized and expected to see the Skoggi. Quintrek James—a familiar name in political circles—was owner of record of the Star of Pandea, a jump-rated short-hauler working the ass end of the Dalvarr System along with the usual assortment of pirates, mercenaries, and con artists. Which was the reason Nic Talligar was here—tracking cargo that the Dalvarr Intelligence Agency had, three days ago, deliberately placed on board Quintrek James’s ship.

  But what in hell was Serenity Beck doing here? The answer was in her green uniform with its silver star emblem on the sleeve. She was ship’s crew, very likely ship’s pilot.

  Death threats he could handle. But Serri Beck was trouble—a seriously unexpected complication. And one that made his chest go tight and his breath hitch.

  If Nic thought Serri disliked him six years ago, there was no doubt in his mind that she was really going to hate him now! Damned shame he couldn’t return the favor. But six seconds of watching her sprint past him just destroyed six years of his hard-won sanity. And might well destroy his career.

  He almost flexed his wrist to contact Leonoso. But he couldn’t—not for thirty-eight hours. Mission rules. Cursing himself silently, he waited for a boxy anti-grav cargo auto-pallet to whirr by before slipping out of the shadows to follow her. Some rules were about to be broken.

  ....

  SERRI QUICKLY TAPPED in the codes to open the freighter bay’s airlock. Quin bounded through ahead of her, tail flicking as if to propel him forward. The Skoggi raced across the metal decking for the hulking deltoid-shaped ship that nearly filled the bay. Rampway lights, triggered by the thought-receptors in Quin’s vest, winked on as he approached.

  “Try scrambling the airlock codes to give us time,” he called out. “I’ll bring main systems online.”

  “They’ll fire the ion cannons at us before we even hit the lanes,” she called back as the airlock door wheezed closed. Not many stations packed a full complement of ion cannons. But Jabo had a reputation for using them to prevent captains skipping out on dockage fees.

  Quin hesitated in the ship’s hatchway. “I’m not looking to escape but to obfuscate. If they can’t get in our cargo holds, they can’t rob us of our cargo.”

  There was that. Serri programmed in a second override to the corridor airlock pad, then bolted for the rampway. If the manifests were accurate, Filar’s interest in their cargo made no sense: forty-seven containers of Tillithian fermentation essence. A small winery operating out of a hydroponics outpost was the documented recipient. Partial payment was in account on Jabo. It wasn’t the usual setup, but they needed to stop for fuel and water anyway. Even full payment wouldn’t cover Filar’s bogus importation tariff.

  “Anything?” she asked Quinn as she jogged onto the bridge.

  The Skoggi was hunkered down in the command sling, lights on his CI vest blinking in syncopation with lights on the ship’s consoles as the vest translated his thoughts into actions on a ship made for humanoid hands, not Skoggi paws. “I’ve jammed the access doors to bays two and three. One and four, however, are being enthusiastically uncooperative.”

  “And Filar won’t find it unusual that we can’t get into our own cargo holds?” Her partner’s perfect plan suddenly held huge flaws.

  “Not when we tell him the winery has the only unlock codes. To prevent us from selling the essence elsewhere, of course. Considering that we took prepayment.”

  Yeah, with an invoice for unpaid tariffs served on her as soon as she left the bank. Serri hated coincidence. She just wished coincidence didn’t like her so much.

  She leaned her arms on the back of the command sling. “Let me take a look.” Quin knew his ship, but Serri had learned a few tricks from a—onetime—friend who’d worked security at Widestar and had a talent for things less than legal. But if it kept the Pandea’s cargo in her holds, it was worth the heartache of resurrecting Nic Talligar’s memory. She still didn’t know what hurt more: the fact that Rez Jonas—her almost-husband—was having an affair with his sultry-but-stupid administrative assistant at Widestar, or that her closest friend since her university days provided excuses for her almost-husband and Sultry-but-Stupid.

  She’d been in love with Rez for over two years. But she’d been friends with Nic for seven. All Rez gave her was heartache and shame. At least from Nic, she’d learned something useful.

  Like whom she could trust. And whom she couldn’t.

  With a frustrated sigh, she brought up ship’s schematics. Losing cargo would not only hamper their ability to get future hauling contracts, but it would damage the reputation that Quin had worked so hard to rebuild the past ten years. If Serri could have, she’d make Quin dump the containers on Jabo’s decking and bolt. But Jabo Station packed ion cannons. And she had no reason to believe leaving their cargo behind would ensure their safety.

  She had Cargo One jammed when the ramp alarms beeped. “Shit! The motherless son of a Garpion whore is early.”

  “Not Filar or his guards,” Quin told her as she tapped on the ship’s exterior vidcams. “Human male. No intention of violence.”

  She glanced at Quin. He was using his Skoggi senses to take a reading. Their visitor might not intend violence, but… “I double-locked the corridor hatchway. How in hell—?”

  She swung back to the monitors. It was as if her illegal tinkering resurrected a ghost. The scars on her heart suddenly felt fresh and raw. Her onetime close friend hadn’t changed much in six years, though his short dark hair looked a bit shaggier and he was definitely in need of a shave. B
ut instead of a light green Widestar security uniform, he was in a black spacer jacket and dark pants. She’d bet, however, that his infamous charm hadn’t changed one bit. His lock-picking skills certainly hadn’t lapsed.

  “You know him?”

  She could tell by Quin’s concerned tone that he’d felt her surge of emotions. “He was friends with Rez Jonas when we all worked for Widestar.”

  “Perhaps Rez sent him. Or he needs a job. Let him in.”

  She hesitated, her mind seizing on something so bizarre she couldn’t discount it. She couldn’t believe—well, yeah, she could—that six years after she walked out on Rez, he’d still hold a grudge.

  But if Rez Jonas wanted to get revenge, using his new position as Widestar’s director of Sector Three exports was a terrific way to do it. Sector Three—the Outrim region of the Dalvarr System—was the Pandea’s main territory. “Quin, has it occurred to you that Rez might have set us up?”

  “All the more reason I wish to speak with this friend of yours.”

  She shoved herself out of the command sling. If Quin was hurt because of some juvenile plan of Rez’s to get back at her, she swore she’d hunt the man down and pummel him out of existence.

  “We have only ten minutes. See if you can’t jam Cargo Four.” She grabbed her Z9 laser rifle from the bridge’s weapons locker, then headed quickly down the corridor to find out just what Nic Talligar was doing on her rampway—and back in her life.

  “IF YOU’RE HERE for a job, we’re not hiring.”

  Nic studied Captain Serri Beck, standing in the Pandea’s airlock, and knew without a doubt that he was courting trouble. It wasn’t just her tone. It was the lethal Z9 in her hands. Best to get right to the point.

  “Filar’s Bruisers are on the way here,” he told her as she stared at him, her dark eyes hard and cold. He remembered lights dancing in those same eyes, her demeanor playful, impish. That playfulness was gone, but her ability to spark his emotions wasn’t. He forced his focus from her to the shadowy airlock. “We don’t have much time. You can shoot me when this is finished.”

  “Ammo’s pricey these days. Spacing you would be cheaper.” But she motioned him through the airlock with a hard jerk of the rifle’s tip.

  He hesitated, a thousand things he wanted to say dying on his tongue. Things he should have said six years ago. Things he still couldn’t find a way to say now. He stepped past her into the freighter’s interior—the usual gray serviceable bulkheads with yellow-striped conduit crisscrossing overhead. His bootsteps clanked in time to hers on the decking gridwork. Something trilled and beeped farther down the corridor.

  “I can help, but you need to trust me.” He knew that was asking a lot.

  “That’s up to Quin, not me.”

  He nodded, and moved on with the feeling that if it had been up to her, she would have shot him on the rampway.

  It didn’t surprise him that Serenity Beck had hooked up with Quintrek James of Daq’kyree. Nic knew Quintrek’s history, and the rumors surrounding the former royal adviser’s resignation a decade ago. He couldn’t bring the details of the scandal to mind, only that Quintrek had walked away from a powerful and prestigious position on the Skoggi High Council.

  Serri, like Quintrek, had a strong sense of justice. But, unlike Quintrek, she hadn’t waited to review all the evidence. If she had, her life might well have been different. Nic’s life… He pushed the thought away. He couldn’t change the past. The only thing he could do was to help her and Quintrek now—and try not to blow the mission in the process.

  “Quin, this is Nicandro Talligar,” Serri said as they stepped over the hatch tread and onto the bridge.

  Nic inclined his head in respect to the Skoggi perched in the command sling. “An honor, Esteemed of Pride Daq’kyree.”

  A wide paw resplendent with furry white tufts waved dismissively. “Piffle. Little honor in being caught in Filar’s claws. Tell me what Rez Jonas should have, but didn’t.” Quin turned toward Serri. “Cargo Four won’t lock.”

  “On it.” She swung away, pushing the rifle to one side as she dropped into a chair in front of a console.

  “Wait. You have to let Filar take the cargo,” Nic said, as Serri angled back toward him. “I know that’s not what you want to hear. Think of it as a temporary inconvenience on the way to solving a larger problem.”

  Dark narrowed eyes peered up at him. “The larger problem is Filar’s threatening to impound this ship, Talligar.”

  “He won’t go that far. Trust me.”

  “He will, and I don’t trust you. Neither does Quin.”

  “Dumping cargo doesn’t engender client loyalty,” Quin intoned.

  “There won’t be clients shipping anywhere in Sector Three if we don’t find out what Filar’s up to,” Nic countered. “You’re not the first to get hit with this scheme. But we tagged your cargo and can track it to whoever Filar sends it to—which is who we suspect is behind this.”

  Quin’s whiskers twitched, but he was nodding. “I take it ‘we’ is more than you and Rez Jonas.”

  Nic had briefly considered using that as cover, and probably could have convinced the empathic Skoggi that it was the truth. That was, after all, part of his job. But Nic’s lies to Serri—and the way Rez Jonas used her—always haunted him. She deserved honesty this time.

  “Jonas has no idea I’m here. I’m a special agent with the DIA’s organized crime squad.” Cover blown. He could almost hear his boss roaring in anger from her plush offices at HQ, more than halfway across the Dalvarr System, adding his name next to Brackton’s on her list of incompetents.

  He heard Serri’s snort of disbelief instead. “That’s a great pickup line, but we don’t have time for—”

  “Trouble,” Quin said harshly, pointing to one of the screens on an opposite console where a line of hulking red-suited Breffans shoved through the freighter bay’s hatchlock, ram-cannons in hands. “Filar’s Bruisers have arrived.”

  SERRI LISTENED AS Quin—being typically Quin—peppered the orange-freckled Bruiser chief with questions. But whether Quin was playing the part that Nic had asked him to, or whether he discounted Nic’s story and was actually trying to save their asses—and their cargo—Serri couldn’t tell.

  Serri, being typically Serri, vacillated between righteous anger and an unexpected—and ridiculous—feeling of relief at Nic’s presence by her side. She didn’t know what to make of Nic’s story. But the fact that she didn’t trust him didn’t blind her to other facts: He was intelligent, resourceful, and had a definite talent for unorthodox solutions. They needed one of those—desperately—right now.

  Quin’s arguments were changing nothing. The Breffans didn’t care about the legitimacy of the order they served. Not surprising, considering that the broad-bodied, leathery-skinned, freckled Breffans weren’t used in security for their empathy, but for their multilimbed dexterity. The purple-freckled female guard holding a rifle on Serri and Nic also held a pistol and a transcomm in two of her other three hands—if Serri as much as made a twitch for the rifle slung across her back, the guard could shoot her dead with two different weapons. The guard’s fourth hand scratched lazily at her left thigh.

  The Breffan chief finally stalked away, clomping noisily up the Pandea’s rampway in counterpoint to the Pandea’s cargo flowing out of her holds.

  With a shake of his head, Quin padded back over to where she and Nic stood, then sat on his haunches. Serri knew that he wouldn’t discuss anything in front of the guard. She glanced down at him. He mirrored her frown with a slight narrowing of his eyes. One ear twitched, flattening.

  Quin was not happy.

  Neither was Serri. For all the things she didn’t know, there was one thing she did: Nic Talligar knew more than he was saying about Filar and Rez Jonas.

  Minutes later, noise from the Pandea’s airlock drew her attention. The orange-freckled Breffan chief clomped back down the rampway, cannon in one hand, datapad in another, his remaining two arms stiffly at hi
s side.

  With an annoyed grunt, he went down on one knee so that his face and Quin’s were almost level. “Paw print here.” He held out the datapad.

  “I shall read it first.” Quin’s voice held a haughty tone that Serri knew went back to his council days. “If you’d like to sit—”

  “I’ll wait,” the chief said. “It’s only the basic one-page transfer of ownership.”

  Transfer of ownership? Not transfer. Impound. Shock roiled through her. They’d already given up the cargo as Nic told them to. And now… this. Serri felt sick. She’d trusted Nic again. And been betrayed. Again.

  Quin’s whiskers quivered as his paw hovered over the screen. “This is beastly. We shall be filing a criminal complaint against this station.”

  The chief shrugged. “Boss says since we got the cargo, he can be generous. For a mere hundred fifty thousand, he’ll drop impound charges and you can keep the ship.”

  Quin’s paw jerked. “Bugger!”

  Nic stepped forward. “Deal.”

  “Deal?” Serri’s voice rasped as she swung toward him. What kind of game was this now? Or maybe not a game at all, but the truth coming out. Nic wasn’t trying to help them, he wasn’t a DIA agent trying to stop Filar. He was working for Filar, extorting as much as he could out of Quin.

  “But we need time,” Nic was saying, “to transfer the funds.”

  The Breffan tapped his datapad. “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Two hours.”

  “Thirty minutes.”

  “Hour and a half.”

  “Hour.”

  “Deal.”

  More taps on the datapad. “Paw print here confirming payment at the dockmaster’s office in one hour,” the chief said to Quin.

  Quin glanced at Nic, then, with the slightest of nods, slapped his paw down.

  “Don’t even think about trying to leave without paying,” the chief said, shoving the datapad back into his utility belt. “Cannons’ll pick you off before you’re even halfway to the outer beacon.”

  “Understood,” Quinn said.

  The chief nodded and, with purple-freckles in tow and the rest of his team filing out behind them, headed for the corridor.