The Process Server
Page 27
***
Harrison insisted G’Deevar owed him a major favor. “Don’t worry: to get this particular favor off of his resume, he’d quite happily come to us.”
And he did. We hung around the marketplace for a few hours until his shuttle arrived from Barrowman Station, both impressed that after so many years, Harrison still had enough pull to get an ambassador to meet us, anonymously.
G’Deevar ordered a plate of sluglings.
“You’ll forgive me. I haven’t eaten in nearly an hour,” he said, quickly reminding me of why Kel made such lousy dinner guests. An Avicusian might embarrass himself a little by drinking too much and peeing on the rug. But a Kel would put everyone off the main course.
He sucked them back exuberantly, but seemed unsatisfied when he was done. “Hmmm. Not as good as in the outer systems. But it will fill the hole.”
He looked me up and down. “Now, Earther, if the two of you would like to fill me in on what exactly could be so important that you would cash in a favor of no small magnitude from Harrison Peel to get me here, I would be most grateful.”
I filled him in on the engine. “So we were hoping you could tell us whether anyone was trying to sell it to K’Laar System.”
He nodded twice, but said he hadn’t heard anything about it.
“Are you sure this is a real engine design? Sounds a bit farfetched.”
“Oh, it’s real. Cost the guy who designed it his life, and it cost the guy who stole it off him his life. Might cost us our lives if we don’t find the damn thing soon.”
He sipped his coffee. “I’ve taken to drinking this stuff since trying it on Barrowman a few days ago. The stuff here isn’t a patch on theirs but it’s still strangely… exhilarating, though revoltingly bitter. Unfortunately, Process Server Smith, I cannot help you. You shall have to tell Harrison that, regretfully, I still owe him a favor.”
Jayde was eyeing him strangely. G’Deevar asked about it. “Is there something I can help you with, dear?”
“How is it you’re a trade ambassador? I mean, you have to be the worst liar I’ve ever met. You wouldn’t last five seconds at a poker table.”
I expected an outburst, but instead G’Deevar just chuckled. “My dear, as much as I would love to explain, we must simply part on this note: the title of “ambassador” carries with it certain obligations to K’Laar System, but it can be a heavy, heavy burden.”
I said, “That’s all well and good, ambassador. But you might also want to keep in mind that the people after the drive have already killed two and I’m not sure they’d be as impressed by the title as you might hope.”
He said, “I’m pretty careful.”
“You came here alone. That wasn’t very careful. Half the people in here would kill you for your shoes.”
G’Deevar thought about that. “Extenuating circumstances. I owed … owe, I suppose, Harrison a great deal. He pulled my g’recht out of the fire, it’s true.”
“Still,” Jayde said, “we could have been assassins.”
He chuckled. “No, you couldn’t. Smith, you’re Harrison’s stepson. And pilot, you’re Jayde Chen, an RDH. I owe your stepfather my life, Smith, but I still check people out before I meet with them.”
We were back to square one on finding the fence, which meant we were back to square one on finding the holo drive. G’Deevar must have noticed, because as he got up to leave he shook our hands.
“My shuttle is parked in the public area due to the …anonymous nature of my visit. As such, it’s costing me a small fortune. I shall bid you adieu, then.”
And with that, the Ambassador of K’Laar System left us even more puzzled than we’d been before he arrived.