“I bet the captain’s having kittens,” Han said.
Not Piers Wendell. He got calmer the stronger the action. There was nothing around the Wendell that posed a danger to the ship. That meant the fighting was elsewhere. “Can we see what the Eleven is doing?”
“It’s hiding, waiting for someone to destroy the Wallacian ship,” Chaudry said.
“You need to learn which ships are on our side.”
“It’s the Wendell,” Chaudry said. “He is a spy.”
Radko looked at her team of three. Even van Heel was nodding. “The Wendell and its crew are part of the New Alliance fleet. They have no love for Gate Union, or for Wallacia. No one calls them spies. Understand.”
She didn’t miss the look that passed between them. She didn’t comment either.
On-screen, the Eleven switched places with the Wendell again.
Radko watched the rest of the battle. The alarm on her comms sounded as the first of the Gate Union ships disappeared, making them all jump.
“I need to get ready,” she said. “The rest of you, do what you can to disguise yourselves, but not obviously. Makeup or clothes, nothing more. I want you to look different.” If they got into trouble, they could quickly change clothes and remove their makeup. It might be enough to get past any blocks set up to stop them.
She made for the fresher.
Ean had been on board the Eleven. They couldn’t have done a ship flip like that without him. He’d probably made for his own fresher afterward. He wouldn’t have liked the battle.
The sooner this job was over, the happier Radko would be.
Except they still had the problem of Sattur Dow. Until that was sorted, she couldn’t go home.
She dressed carefully in the classic-cut business clothes fashionable across the galaxy right now and added a black wig with a heavy, coiled braid. She’d thought about dyeing her own hair black, but Chen had long hair, and it would be difficult to explain a sudden haircut. Not only that, if they needed to escape, she could get rid of the wig, and no one would recognize her.
She hoped.
As she applied careful makeup to broaden her chin and flatten her cheeks, she thought about what she knew of Tiana Chen. Most of it came from Galenos’s intelligence gathering, but she had seen her around the palace occasionally. And at her mother’s house. Yesterday now.
She’d once heard Chen put a highly placed palace official in his place. At the time, Radko had wondered how she dared, for the man outranked her. It was only after she started working on the Lancastrian Princess that she discovered Chen was blackmailing half the people in the palace. Not badly enough for them to do away with her but enough for her to enjoy some role reversal when she could get it.
And now she had an in with Sattur Dow. Had Chen blackmailed Dow, and if so, with what? Or maybe Dow had simply offered her patronage in return for her knowledge.
* * *
THE shuttle down to Redmond was a classy, six-passenger vehicle. The sort a wealthy woman would hire. What was Tiana Chen doing right now? How long had Vega been able to delay her?
It was a silent trip. Radko used the time to check her comms, which was what Chen would do. Had done, in fact, on that earlier trip with Radko and her mother. She’d talked then as well, but that was to equals. She wouldn’t talk to her bodyguards.
Chaudry—almost unrecognizable with a cleverly applied makeup that looked as if he’d recently come out of regen—pulled at the knuckles of his right hand. It was his only sign of nervousness, but she suspected if she could hear lines, there’d be a note of distress in there somewhere. It was a pity it was out of character to try to calm him.
Once on the ground, she hired an aircar. A luxury model. Again, what Chen would hire.
“I could get used to this,” van Heel said again. “None of my jobs to date have been like this. Usually, we’re mechanics or service people.”
“Not much fun being the servant,” Han said. “I never realized how boring being a servant would be.”
“It has to be better than a military policeman.”
“Clearly, you’ve never been a military policeman.”
Radko routed the aircar halfway across the city from where they planned to go. Call her paranoid, but she didn’t want to go straight to her destination.
“I’ve been meaning to say, Chaudry, your disguise is brilliant.” If anyone came looking for them, they would look for someone with regenerated skin.
It calmed him, which it was meant to, but it was honest, too.
“As children, we played doctors and symptoms.”
It wasn’t a game Radko had ever heard of. “And you were the doctor?”
“I preferred to be the symptoms.”
“Strange games where you came from,” Han said.
“It was fun. You had to do the symptoms right.”
Radko thought it might have been. A combination of art and medicine. She’d like to hear more, but right now they had other things to worry about. “Pick the smaller blasters. Use a back holster. Make sure it can’t be seen under your jacket.” It would take vital seconds to get at them, but OneLane would ask two armed bodyguards to remove their weapons.
She felt naked without a weapon at her own side. Chaudry looked as if he’d never worn one in his life. He probably hadn’t, outside of drills.
Radko breathed out, long and slow. This was an easy job. Remember that. A quick in, look at the plans, see if they were worth buying, then out.
And then what? Would Sattur Dow be gone by then? Unlikely.
Vega would send her on another job—possibly already had it planned, in fact.
* * *
THEIR roundabout trip gave van Heel time to set up some of the surveillance equipment. She passed each of them a tiny disc. “The shop is a communications black hole. I can’t trace you while you’re in there, but I’ll know the second you come out.”
Radko looked at the screen. One had to assume OneLane was selling pricey stolen goods to warrant such security. “Do a flyover, then circle around to land.”
“Nearest park is two buildings away,” van Heel said. “Whoever heard of a shop that doesn’t have roof landing?”
Ean had said there were whole blocks where he’d grown up that didn’t have parking for aircars. Although, the area they were flying over wasn’t that sort of place.
“What do you think?” Radko asked.
“It looks normal. Like a high-end shopping center. Right number of people, right amount of traffic.” Van Heel dropped neatly into a carspace.
“Let’s go,” Radko said to Han and Chaudry.
Radko had been in shops like Callista OneLane’s before. As a youngster, trailing after her mother for another jeweled egg, or for a high-end gift for a member of the Great Families her parents needed to impress. Or later, on her own, when she found something to interest her. It had been a shock the first time she’d entered one wearing a spacer’s uniform, to find the proprietor thought she’d come to sell stolen military property.
Radko smiled ruefully. She’d been young then.
The shop was quiet.
Radko recognized Callista OneLane immediately. She was ushering a client out the back, into the private offices. A man around her own age, in casual clothes, with the pale skin of a spacer who seldom came on world. The quick glance he gave them as they came in made her think he was selling rather than buying.
There were two shop assistants and one other customer—a well-dressed businessman examining a long, pointed obsidian stick that looked as if it might sit well on Commodore Vega’s wall. He looked familiar.
An assistant handed something small and black to the businessman. He clicked it onto the middle of the stick, holding himself stiff while he did so. Radko bet he was wearing a corset under his clothes, something that pulled in his waist and forced him to stand str
aight. She smiled at the small vanity that gave the otherwise colorless businessman a measure of personality.
The other assistant came over to Radko. “May I help you?”
“Callista OneLane is expecting me. Tiana Chen.”
“Of course.” They’d been primed, for he recognized the name. “Madam OneLane is with a customer at the moment. She won’t be long.” He indicated a luxurious sitting area off to one side of the store. “While you wait, can I offer you some refreshments?”
“No.” Radko made it sharp and dismissive, like Tiana Chen would. “I’ll browse.” She felt safer on her feet. More in control.
He hovered, offering information about various items, until she said, “If I require information, I’ll call you.”
He bowed. “Of course,” and blessedly left her alone with Han and Chaudry.
Han kept an easy pace behind her, whistling softly to himself. It wasn’t recognizably a line tune; it was a popular song. Had she ever heard a linesman sing popular songs? Ean, for sure, wouldn’t know any. The lines were his life.
Chaudry wasn’t as comfortable. He stared around the shop although his gaze kept returning to the other customer.
“Don’t stare obviously, Chaudry,” Radko said, quietly, so that only the three of them could hear. “Do it unobtrusively, with sideways glances when you’re looking at something else.”
“He’s staring at us,” Chaudry said. “And there’s something—”
Radko glanced over at the man. He was watching them, frowning as if they weren’t supposed to be there. She glared at him discouragingly through narrowed eyes.
He winked at her, hefted the obsidian spear in his hands, and looked down over it, as if looking down a barrel. He seemed to be pointing it directly at her.
Radko remembered the movement, recognized the man. Last time he’d lifted his arm like that, he’d had a blaster in his hand and had been about to kill her.
Stellan Vilhjalmsson. Assassin, and close friend and confidante of Admiral Markan, head of the Gate Union fleet.
“I’ve got it,” Chaudry said triumphantly, making Radko jump. “He’s wearing a surgical brace. That man has injured his spine.”
Vilhjalmsson turned back to his weapon. Though his attention seemed to be off them, Radko knew he watched them as carefully as she was now watching him.
“Be wary of him. He’s an assassin. He could kill us from where he stands if he wanted to.”
Why hadn’t he?
“He’s injured,” Chaudry said.
She didn’t think that would stop him.
* * *
AN older woman burst into the shop. Radko wasn’t the only one who swung around. Vilhjalmsson did as well. Chaudry was right. He did move carefully.
“Where’s Callista?” She reminded Radko of Governor Jade in build and in imperiousness. Her voice was familiar. Distinctive, and parodied on many comedy shows across Lancia and Haladea III. The wife of the head of government of the Redmond worlds.
An assistant hurried forward. “Madam OneLane will be with you in a moment, Partner Nataliya. Meantime, can I offer you refreshments?” He tried to lead her over to the elegant couches, but she paced the shop as if a demon were after her.
“I am in a hurry.”
“She won’t be long, ma’am,” the sales assistant said smoothly, while the other assistant slipped quietly out the back.
Moments later, OneLane came out with the seller she’d exited with earlier. They shook hands. The seller looked satisfied. No doubt he’d gotten a better deal than he’d expected, given OneLane hadn’t had time to bargain.
The shop assistant moved up discreetly to stand beside Radko. “We apologize for keeping you waiting, Madam Chen, but Partner Nataliya is a regular at the store, and it is an emergency for her.”
Partner Nataliya looked like a person who had emergencies all the time.
“Can I get you some refreshments?” and he once again tried to usher Radko across to the couches.
Another time she might have sat because she could tell it would be a long wait. But not now, not when it put her in a corner with a master assassin roaming around.
“I am enjoying browsing,” Radko said. “I have everything I need.” She moved closer to OneLane and Partner Nataliya, partly to get rid of the shop assistant—for he wouldn’t persist close to other customers—and partly to put a barrier between herself and Vilhjalmsson. She made sure Chaudry and Han followed. It was her job to keep them alive. The move brought her close enough to hear the conversation between storekeeper and customer.
“I am in dire straits, Callista,” Partner Nataliya said. “I’m catching a ship tonight to Aeolus, and I need to take a gift to the Factor of the Lesser Gods to celebrate his upcoming wedding.”
Why would the wife of the ruler of Redmond buy a betrothal gift for a man whose world was supposed to be enemies with hers? Why would she be going to said enemy’s planet?
Vilhjalmsson hadn’t moved.
OneLane picked up a striking latticework in a greenish-brown metal. “What about this? It’s made from pelagatite.”
Nataliya made a face. “Pelagatite’s not rare anymore. Not on the Worlds of the Lesser Gods. They’ve a big mine coming up to production on Hellas, and another one on Pan.”
Hadn’t Emperor Yu offered Michelle’s hand in marriage and a pelagatite mine in exchange for the Factor’s support?
They eventually settled on a small etching by the preline artist Tamas Abbat. Radko conservatively priced it at five hundred thousand credits.
Partner Nataliya left happy.
One of the shop assistants had a quiet word with OneLane. She nodded and came over to Radko.
“Madam Chen. I am so glad you came promptly. Offers like this don’t come on the market every day. I already have other interested parties.”
Did she half glance back at Vilhjalmsson when she said that, or was it a trick of the light when her eyes moved? Vilhjalmsson definitely smiled.
“May I see the merchandise?” Radko asked. And the back door, if they had one. Or would Vilhjalmsson expect that?
OneLane raised her hand to her staff in a discreet signal. “This way,” and started toward the back. Radko, Han, and Chaudry followed. Radko kept her hand close to the knife in her boot.
Vilhjalmsson raised the spear. It was, indeed, a weapon. They were close enough that Radko could see the buttons on the top, and the miniscreen that lifted. Unfortunately, too far away for her to use her knife for anything except throwing.
“I wouldn’t mind sitting in on this,” Vilhjalmsson said.
“Touch my people, and you’re dead,” Radko told him.
“Believe me”—and he sounded fervent—“I have no intention of harming any of your people right now. Not until I know where I stand.”
“I am glad we understand each other.”
Behind them, something heavy thudded to the floor. He was good. She hadn’t seen him move. A second thud.
She knew what it was without looking. OneLane’s assistants.
OneLane glanced back but didn’t move toward them.
Chaudry started toward the fallen salespersons. “Chaudry,” Radko said, “leave them. They’re either dead already, or they’ll be fine.”
“It’s a general anesthetic,” Vilhjalmsson said. “They’ll come out of it in around four hours.” He moved the spear OneLane’s way when she surreptitiously tried to take out her comms. “Drop it on the floor.”
“That weapon is a ceremonial Traaken spear,” OneLane said. “Deadly when it’s loaded, but in my shop it isn’t. You might be able to stab us with it, but you can’t do much else.”
“Now there’s where you’re wrong,” Vilhjalmsson said. “I was in here yesterday.” OneLane nodded at that. “Today, I came prepared. It is fully armed now, even the tip, as you can see by what happened
to your staff.” He tapped the small black piece he’d clipped on earlier. “Anesthetic and poison darts,” then tapped the length of the spear farther down. “Voltage here. Drop your comms.”
OneLane complied.
Chaudry moved to do the same.
“Not you, Chaudry. You keep your hands clear and away from your body. All of you. I know how fast you people can get a weapon out.”
She shouldn’t have mentioned Chaudry’s name. It was too late now. Radko kept her arms away from her body and ensured that Han and Chaudry did likewise.
Vilhjalmsson indicated the office door. He waited for them to walk into the office, and Radko thought there might be a hint of sweat on his brow. Maybe he was weaker than he looked. Could she use that?
Chaudry moved alongside Radko. “It’s a rigid lumbar brace,” he said quietly. “He’s recently out of regen. He’s had spinal fusion. He can’t move fast.”
He’d kept his voice low, but the assassin heard him. “It makes me slow, Chaudry, but I don’t need speed for accuracy.”
The Alien Affairs Department had calculated Vilhjalmsson would be out of action for six months after Ean’s inadvertent use of line eight. “You’re walking well for someone who should still be in hospital,” Radko said.
“I am. A new surgery technique. It came from the military hospital at Goed Lutchen. Pioneering work done by Dr. Arnoud and his team. I’m sure you appreciate the irony.”
Appreciate wasn’t the word Radko would have used.
Chaudry lifted his head, almost scenting the air. “Dr. Arnoud’s team specializes in nerve and bone regeneration.”
It wasn’t knowledge Radko would expect a young recruit in Stores to pick up. Or maybe she should have, given Chaudry’s childhood game of doctors and symptoms.
They entered OneLane’s office.
The far wall was covered with screens. Each screen—except the central one—showed a view from the security cameras. The shop; outside the front door; the alley at the back. There was a door in the wall on the left, cleverly hidden in the paneling. Radko had to look twice to be sure it was a door.
The office was dominated by a huge wooden desk—made of the same black timber that Radko’s mother used for displaying her jeweled eggs—so polished they could see their reflections. The desk was bare.
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