Mike wondered if she was bluffing. The more he studied her, the less sure he was.
Hormat closed his eyes, seemed to count to twenty, and tried, “Please…accept my assurance, on my word of honor, that if I could explain our purpose in your time, you would wish to help us. Any healthy mind would.”
Durl nodded vigorously. “Truth he speaks! But explain we dare not.”
Annie shook her head. “Not good enough. See here: you’ve been in operation less than two weeks, and already two different groups know about you—and you know nothing about the second group, wouldn’t know them if you walked past one of them. You don’t even know how lucky you are that we got to you before they did. You’re walking on the edge of utter disaster and you’re trying to be coy. I say you’re not bright enough or not adequately prepared to do what you’re doing. You need help from a local of demonstrated goodwill.”
Hormat clenched his hands, squeezed until the knuckles whitened, and bowed his head in thought.
“I have all the answers you need,” Annie lied, “and my minimum price for them is all the answers I want. Starting with why I should lift a finger to help you. Ante up or get out of my time. I believe you have about seven minutes left.”
Hormat glanced involuntarily at his fingertip, and then his massive shoulders slumped.
“Tell them, Hormat,” Durl blurted.
Hormat sat up straight, very straight. “I cannot tell you what you want to know. I do not have the authority.”
Annie nodded. “All right. But there is someone on this planet in this time who can. Tell your principal to post a message on the Big Board in the Octagon, from Hormat to Mother, proposing a time and place for us to meet and settle this matter. I’ll reply the same way if necessary. Until he or she comes and speaks to me, face-to-face, don’t try to bring any more shifts through. You don’t know how to protect them. More important, you don’t have my permission to try. I’ll wait to be contacted until Closing tomorrow night. After that, all bets are off. Good day, gentlemen. Mike will see you back Topside if you wish. Thank you for your time.”
Hormat stared at her for a long moment. Then he sighed and got wearily to his feet. “Thank you for yours. We will find our own way.” He climbed down from the float with elaborate care, looking oddly like an outsized infant making his way down his first staircase.
Durl made an involuntary little squeak sound, barely audible, and heaved himself erect as well. “Hormat—”
“Durl.”
Durl glanced at his own fingertip and got down from the float without another word. The two Trolls trudged away as if they were on their way to their own execution. Mike felt like saying something, but didn’t know what. Annie merely watched them go in silence.
Halfway to the stairwell door, Hormat turned and called back to her, spacing his words so the echo wouldn’t obscure them. “In your place, I would bargain just as hard.”
She nodded.
“I wish you were stupider,” he added, and continued on his way.
Only after he and Durl had gone, and only just loud enough for Mike to hear, did Annie say, “I’ve often had that same wish, sonny.” She got down from her own perch, and said, a little louder, “Oddly, right at the moment I wish I were smarter.”
“I don’t,” Mike said. “That was great.”
She smiled. “It wasn’t bad, was it? Come on down from there, and let’s head for China. We’ll go by Callahan’s Place and get some really good coffee.” She frowned and slapped her hip. “Oh, shit. It’s after Firefall. We’ll have to drink my coffee.”
Mike broke up. After a minute, she did, too, and they were still chuckling when they reached the stairs.
He stopped on the second stair—climbing and chuckling both. “Annie?”
“What is it, Mike?” She picked up on the uneasiness in his voice and stopped climbing, too.
He hesitated before replying. He was tired, both physically and emotionally—it had been a very long day, and all he wanted in the world was to go back to Annie’s and read in bed for an hour or so, to let the events of the day sort themselves out in his subconscious, then go to sleep. But the question would not stop nagging at him. “Why were they in a hurry?”
Vertical wrinkles appeared between her eyebrows. “Hormat and Durl? Why, it’s closing t…” She trailed off.
“It’s closing time for Guests. They’re supposed to be Staff. They can’t leave for at least another hour.”
Now the vertical wrinkles had horizontal ones above them. “What the hell are they all going to do for an hour, the six of them, without a crowd to hide in? They have to go to ground somewhere until it’s time to clock out—but where?” She sat down on the step, scrunched her eyes shut, cocked her head at that odd angle people use when they’re retrieving memories from deep storage, and concentrated.
Mike waited confidently. Nobody knew Dreamworld like Annie. Nobody. To fill the time, he checked his appearance. He was going to have to play a grown-up midget maintenance man again, all the way back home. And without the help of Annie’s makeup job, which he’d wiped off—good thing the light Topside was poor now—
“Oh my,” she said softly. She opened her eyes and stared at nothing. “Oh my,” she said again, louder. Then she sprang to her feet. “Cushlamachree,” she cried, and started up the stairs at high speed.
Mike stared after her, caught by surprise.
“Come on, boy,” she snapped over her shoulder. “We’ve got to hurry!”
He shook off his stasis and scrambled up the stairs after her, his calf muscles complaining bitterly. This hero business sucked big rocks.
C H A P T E R 12
LIARS’ POKER
Conway was pleased. After a disastrous start, the day was improving. Things were working out, if anything, even better than he had planned. So much so that he decided he could afford the luxury of improvising a little. The bogus Trolls were exactly where he’d guessed they must be: in the Employees’ Lounge, mingling with the forty or fifty other genuine workers fortunate or industrious enough to have completed their shutdown responsibilities early. Or rather, the Trolls were not mingling: again, just as he’d guessed they would be, they were pretending to play cards for matches—the most plausible way to keep to themselves for half an hour or so, until the exodus to the parking lot began.
The interesting part was, there were only four of them tonight.
Conway had been planning simply to keep them under covert but close observation here, and then have his men take them on their way out—as many of them as he could get without raising a disturbance. If they’d been the usual half dozen, the same as the previous days, he would have done just that: kept an eye on them and kept his distance until they left, then followed them out and fingered them for his men.
But you could ask to sit in, at a table with only four card players…
The impulse was irresistible to him. He went to their table, pulled out one of the empty chairs, and waited with a politely raised eyebrow. They broke off their muttered conversation and stared up at him. Nobody said a word.
“Okay if I sit in?” Conway asked, pitching his voice and body language to indicate that a positive answer was expected. When there was still no reply, he picked out the tallest Troll, one with an expression of permanent indignation who happened to be closest to him, and locked eyes with him. “Or is that a problem?” he asked.
One of the others started to say something, but the indignant one silenced him with a sharp gesture. “Not at all,” he said. “Join us.”
Conway sat beside him at once, on his right, and studied the cards on the table. “Five-card draw, huh? Is anything wild?”
Again there was silence. He looked up to see poker faces. “No,” the indignant one said, sounding somehow as if he were guessing the answer on a multiple-choice quiz.
Conway nodded. “Fine. Whose deal?”
“Mine.” The Troll gathered in the cards and began shuffling.
“Are we, uh, play
ing for anything besides matches?” He let his voice and expression suggest that if they were secretly playing for real money—gambling on company property in violation of policy, and settling up in the parking lot later—he was willing to play along and wanted to be included.
The dealer’s face turned to stone. Conway looked at the others, saw nothing but blank stares. He put on his Come on, do I look like a stool pigeon? face and waited.
The dealer glanced around at his mates and cleared his throat. “We play for Dreamworld,” he said.
Conway had recourse to his own poker face. He could tell everyone was studying it. The dwarf had spoken firmly…but his body language as much as his incomprehensible answer told Conway plain as day that he was bluffing—bravely and hopelessly. Somehow he had failed absolutely to understand Conway’s question, and so had everyone here, and none of them wanted to admit it.
Something very funny was going on.
What kind of people were unfamiliar with the concept of playing cards for stakes?
This had been a bad idea. If he spooked them now, they might bolt early, before his men were in position out in the parking lot.
All this went through his mind in the time it took him to draw breath; he had begun nodding the instant the Troll had finished speaking. “Fine,” he said, as though the Troll’s answer made sense. “Let’s do it.” He took out a pack of matches and began pulling out individual matches to bet with.
The dealer looked even more indignant than ever, and began passing out the cards. In Conway’s professional estimation, he had been playing poker for a maximum of a week, and had learned how from a video. Conway carefully kept this awareness from showing on his face.
“My name’s Scotty,” he said while the hand was being dealt.
The dealer said his name was Al. The one next on his left was Bob. The third was Carl. The fourth one visibly hesitated, rejected his first choice—which Conway was certain would have started with D—and picked Robert.
By now Conway’s expression had petrified. He simply acknowledged each name as it was given. Nor did he appear to notice that none of the other players sorted their cards after picking them up. But by now he was thinking so hard and fast that he might as well have been in combat.
His own hand, he noted, was one of the worst he’d ever been dealt. No pairs, all suits represented. When the time came, he took three cards. He ended up with a hand that was, if anything, even worse: a bogus straight, jack, queen, king, ace, two.
He followed his hunch and bet heavily.
Nobody raised; everybody called. “Carl” had the winning hand: two pairs, kings high. Conway put down his own cards with a triumphant smile, said, “I win,” and started to rake in the pot.
Nobody objected.
Even Conway was having trouble keeping a poker face by now. Eskimos knew how to play poker. Cannibals in the Micronesian Islands knew how to play poker. What planet were these guys—
The thought detonated in his brain, and quite involuntarily his fingers clenched tightly around the double handful of matches he had just collected.
“Why don’t you quit while you’re ahead?” said a rumbling voice at his elbow.
Matches went flying.
In his defense, it had been a long time since anyone had successfully sneaked up on Conway. And it had never been done by a dwarf before: having the sudden voice come from that close to the ground was unnatural and helped to spook him. Even so, he managed to refrain from going for his weapon. His head snapped around so fast he heard the tendons crack.
The missing two Trolls had finally arrived. “Ed” and “Frank,” no doubt. One with thundercloud eyebrows, a hairy nose, and a pendulous lower lip; the other one a bit shorter and afflicted with a terrifying squint. Hairy Nose seemed to be the one who had spoken. “We’re Hormat and Durl, and we usually play with these men,” he went on. “Sorry we’re late.”
“Certainly,” Conway said smoothly. “I hope you don’t mind me keeping your chair warm.” He began to rise.
“Oh, don’t get up.” Hairy Nose laid a heavy hand casually on Conway’s right shoulder—Conway permitted this, since he did not shoot right-handed—and sank into the empty chair on that side of him. “At least you can watch the game.”
The squinty one pulled up a nearby chair and sat on the other side of him. Conway spun his head that way and met one of the most skeptical gazes he had ever seen. “Hello,” the dwarf said, and squinted even harder. His voice was a little higher than the other one’s, and less hoarse.
“Durl is just learning the game,” the one behind him said. “Perhaps you can coach him.”
Conway started to turn back to the speaker, but got sidetracked on the way. All four original Trolls were staring, card game forgotten. Not just at him, but at their two late-arriving buddies as well.
He realized suddenly that Hairy Nose still had a hand resting on his shoulder, and completed the motion of turning his head to face him. He found the dwarf’s index finger scant centimeters from his face, approaching fast. “Something on your upper lip,” the dwarf said.
Conway knew at once what the dwarf intended, held his breath, and prepared to start pretending he was inhaling whatever was on that finger. But instead of hovering below his nostrils, the damned finger thrust itself insolently up the left one! Startled, he still managed to keep from inhaling and yanked his head away at once—but it didn’t matter: instant spreading numbness in his face explained to him that the drug was not an aerosol but a grease of some kind that worked on contact with mucous membranes. He had to admire the dwarf, even as he tried to curse him and failed to make his mouth obey.
Already he was reaching for his hip pocket—but as he did so the weakness came on so fast he knew he’d never get the gun out before he lost the strength to grasp it. Better not to try. He took his right hand back out of his pocket empty, managed to get a weak grip on the wrist of the squinty dwarf beside him with his other hand, and then lost consciousness. His last coherent thought was that the squinty dwarf had a strikingly slender, almost childish wrist for a Troll.
C H A P T E R 13
HUNTING TIGER
Mike couldn’t keep from grinning, even though it threatened to crack the heavy brows of his Troll makeup. Annie sure knew how to do some cool stuff. He freed his wrist from Conway’s limp fingers, slid his chair sideways, and leaned in to keep Conway from falling over.
Annie wiped her finger off on Conway’s upper lip, wiped it off again carefully with his shirt. Her movements were unhurried, methodical. From a breast pocket she retrieved the little vial she’d dipped her finger into a moment ago, replaced the cap, and put it away. Then she pulled up a chair and sat on Conway’s other side, positioning herself to help Mike brace him upright.
“I’m Annie,” she said to the tableful of gaping Trolls, “and this is my friend Mike. This guy,” she went on, pretending to give Conway’s slack cheek an affectionate squeeze, “is bad news—or rather, was. He doesn’t know what you are, but he and some powerful friends want to find out very badly.”
“‘What we are…’?” the Troll who had dealt the cards repeated, frowning. Karf, Hormat had said his name was, the team leader.
“When you’re from, Karf,” Annie said quietly.
Everyone at the table became as still as Conway.
“Don’t worry. The real Hormat and Durl will be along in a second; they can tell you all about it.”
They came a few seconds later, arriving just as Mike and Annie had perfected the combination of chair placement and elbows necessary to keep Conway upright inconspicuously.
“Pull up a chair, fellows,” Annie said to them.
Karf said, “We should go now.” It was clear to Mike from his voice that he was on the verge of panic. “Right now. Family illness we can claim—”
“Pardon me, but that’s exactly what you shouldn’t do,” she told him. “Tell him, Hormat.”
The team leader’s eyes widened.
“Truth she spea
ks,” Hormat agreed quickly. “Hunters for us outside wait.”
Everyone at the table flinched in sudden panic.
“Relax,” Annie said. “Keep your cover. Without this fellow here to spot for them, they have no way of knowing which Dwarves are you…unless you call attention to yourselves by leaving before the crowd. Just stick to your original plan, play cards for another twenty minutes or so and leave with the rest, and you should get clear. We’ll take care of this one after you’re gone.”
Karf and Hormat exchanged several thousand words by eye contact, and Mike had the feeling the team leader was considering some sort of drastic action. Apparently Hormat had eloquent eyes; Mike saw Karf reluctantly change his mind.
The card game resumed.
Mike glanced surreptitiously at Conway, wedged between himself and Annie, and saw that he was doing an absolutely splendid job of seeming to be conscious. His sunglasses and baseball cap helped a lot, he was so fit that his spine and neck seemed to prefer being upright, and he slept with his mouth closed. It even seemed to curl in a faint feral smile. His own personality conspired against him.
Mike put his attention back on the game. At first he made a point of pretending to kibitz, to keep any outsiders from trying to strike up a conversation with him. Then as boredom set in, he began to watch in earnest—and realized the Trolls were rotten poker players. He caught Annie’s eye after he saw Durl fold a flush. She kept her face straight and pointedly looked away after a moment.
The lounge gradually began to fill with chattering employees from two directions: early-arriving employees, who mostly passed right on through on their way to the locker rooms, and departing employees, who remained here to wait out the final minutes of their shift. Soon the room was crowded with milling people of all sizes and shapes, some still in costume and some in mufti, most displaying the weary exuberance of those about to leave work. The card game formed an unnoticed island in the midst of the commotion.
Mike found it fascinating to study Karf’s face. Once, years ago, at a time when Mike had been just dying to pee, but was blocks and blocks from anywhere he could possibly do so, he had caught a glimpse of his own face in a store window. Karf looked like that now. He must have had a million questions for Annie, or at least for Hormat, and he was obviously burning to ask them. But he was not going to ask a single one of them here and now, while there was the slightest chance that some passing stranger might overhear something compromising. Not even in a murmur, for Hormat might well whisper back something that would cause him to raise his own voice involuntarily. Mike was impressed with Karf’s discipline.
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