by Sharon Lee
Ragil pitched the end of his stim-stick into the recycler, leaned forward and tapped a command into his console. The grow-frame vanished as the camera went real-time, keeping its eye on Pilot Cantra and her friend.
"What're you going to do?" he asked.
Jela sighed. "Don't know."
* * *
THE RED-HAIRED PILOT'S name was Danby and he wasn't disagreeable to letting her buy him an ale. She got the 'tender's attention and settled that, then they leaned on the bar, arm against arm, and did the preliminaries.
His ship was nice and legit—belonged to the Parcil Trade Clan, from which there was nothing more legit—and him fairly new-come to first chair. They were on-port for three local days, of which this was the evening of the second day. Trouble was, they ran watch-shifts on-board, instead of shutting down and letting all crew loose at once, and he was due to take his turn at watching inside the next couple hours.
"There's a 'jack down the road, here," he said with a bit of hope in his voice, tipping his head toward the door.
Cantra considered it—he was that cute, funny, too, in a by-the-law sorta way—then shook her head.
"Got lodgings rented up-port," she said, apologetic, since there wasn't no use hurting his feelings. "Just in from a long run. Figured on a long, slow night to make it seem worthwhile."
He looked wise and nodded. "Sometimes quick won't do it," he agreed, not noticeably cast down by her refusal. "Too bad we didn't meet up earlier."
Across the room, the dancers came back on stage, and the music started up again, almost overwhelmed by the hollering and whistles from the pilots on the floor. Danby put his hand on her arm and she looked over to him, slow and careful, wondering if she'd misjudged—
"Let's dance," he said.
She blinked, and—hesitated, not having been much in the way of dancing lately.
"It'll work out some of the kinks, anyway," he urged.
She remembered, back when she'd been younger than Danby looked to be, dancing whole leaves away. Back when, dancing had in fact worked out some of the kinks. She tried to remember when she'd stopped—and why—then figured it didn't matter.
"Sure," she said, with a smile for his wanting to help. "It's been a long time, though—fair warning."
Floor space being at premium, closer in toward the platform, they hung back along the edge of the crowd and claimed themselves a rectangle of floor by the simple process of facing off and starting in.
Dancing came back pretty easy, once her muscles got over the shock. Danby jigged and high-stepped and she copied him, letting her body get reacquainted with the notion.
"Doin' pretty good for somebody who doesn't remember how!" he yelled in her ear—yelling being the only way he could make himself heard in the general exuberance. "Try this!"
Hands on hips, he executed an intricate and rapid triple crossover, legs scissoring and boots hardly seeming to touch the floor. He finished with a jump and a spin, and threw her a grin that was pure dare-you.
She grinned back and put her hands on her hips, swaying with the music for a few bars, letting the movement pattern seep through the pilot brain and down into the shoulders, arms, hips—
Her legs moved, boots beating out the count, then she was up and spinning, the room circling 'round her—the high-stepping dancers; pilots, stamping; pilots jigging in place; pilots leaning against the bar; the 'tender pouring a glass; two not-pilots in armored 'skins walking in from the street—
She saw what looked like some resistance from the doorman who'd ushered her through, but that was guessing, since she kept moving, had to, with the momentum and—
She touched floor, twisting back toward the door before her feet were properly set. Her height gave her an advantage—she could see the door, just, over the heads of the combined pilots. The armored pair were inside, now, hesitating—no. Scanning the room.
Bounty hunters, she thought, or charity agents. Amounted to the same thing: Trouble.
She reached out and grabbed Danby's arm, hard. He blinked at her, pretty blue eyes going wary and sharp. Likely he was a bit pinched, though he kept it to himself if he was.
"Trouble in the door," she growled into his ear, and felt him tense under her hand.
"What kind of trouble?" he asked, and she let him go, moving her shoulders in frustration.
"Can't tell," she muttered. "Might be bounty. Might be—" She stopped then because the two had decided to make it easy on themselves.
The first pulled her gun, aimed at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. It was an explosive charge and made a bit of noise. Enough to put all the rest of the noise in the room into remission. On the platform, the two dancers sank to their knees, arms around each other, faces hidden against shoulders.
Into the sudden silence, the second woman shouted, "We're looking for two people. We know who they are, and we know they're here. Everybody just stay peaceful while we do a walk-through and collect them, then you can go back to having fun."
Bounty hunters, then. Cantra stifled a sigh. It didn't advance commerce or do anything else useful, but she hated bounty hunters. Always had.
There was muttering, but nobody went for a weapon—wasn't any sense to it, being what the second 'hunter had said was true. Unimpeded, they'd sort through the crowd, round up their prey and be gone. All very efficient and no trouble for anybody, except the ones they'd been paid to collect.
The first 'hunter started on the bar side of the room, the second on the dance platform side. The dancers visibly cringed when she walked past, but she never gave them a glance.
The first had finished with the bar sitters and was wading into the crowd of sullen pilots, her eyes moving rapidly, her face intent—a woman who had a pattern in mind and whose only thought was a match. She worked her way along, dismissing everybody she passed—then her eyes lit on Danby and got wider.
Cantra tensed, remembering her weapon, riding quiet and accessible, and reminding herself forcibly there was no profit to be had from putting herself between a 'hunter and her bounty. She didn't know Danby, she didn't owe him. But—
The 'hunter lunged, Cantra felt her fingers twitch toward her gun and killed the move—just as the 'hunter's hand came around her wrist, snapping the bracelet tight.
Too late, she jerked back, swinging with her free fist—stupid, she snarled at herself—impeded by the press of people. The hunter grabbed the fist as it skinned past her cheek, snapped a bracelet on it, too, twisted the two lead wires into a single, and clipped the tail end into her belt. Then she reached out and pulled Cantra's gun from its quiet pocket.
She snarled, caught movement out of the corner of her eye, which was Danby coming in, and made herself go limp.
"What the hell's this?" he yelled at the 'hunter. "She's as legit as I am!"
Not quite, though it did warm her to hear him say it. She moved her head; caught his eyes on hers.
"Easy, Pilot. Don't want to be late to your watch."
"Listen to her," the 'hunter advised. "No difference to me if I get somebody on aid-and-abet, too."
He stepped back, bright lad, and threw Cantra a look. She made her face into something representing calm, and nodded to him.
The crowd around had started to come back, and that could get dangerous on its own, if she wasn't careful. Wouldn't do to have him call in a friend or two and start a riot on her account.
"It was fun—the dancing," she said, letting him see that she was calm about it, and then the 'hunter jerked on the wire and she was moving, trying to keep her arms from being dislocated.
The second 'hunter came up, empty-handed. They exchanged a glance and wordlessly turned toward the door, Cantra in tow like a wreck bound for salvage.
"Next time you pull a gun in here somebody'll shoot you!" promised the woman who'd scanned Jela in. The man was off to the side, a small callphone to his ear, talking earnestly.
Outside, the 'hunters kept walking—and by necessity, Cantra, too—down the street proper, then
into a smaller one—a service alley, maybe. Something was definitely out of true, Cantra thought. Leaving aside the question of whether or not she deserved to be arrested, any bounty hunter worth her license would not be dawdling in alleyways when she had a prize on the leash and payment due.
On the other hand, an alleyway was going to suit her purposes admirably. The fact that they hadn't searched her was interesting, but not particularly useful, with her hands bound like they were.
What was both interesting and useful was the fact that they'd used smartwire to bind and seal her. Made sense for them, o'course. Besides being industry standard, smartwire was—call it impossible—to break, which was close enough to true, given the usual conditions under which bounty arrests were made. The other thing about smartwire was that it was—call it virtually impossible—to escape. It only rated a "virtually" because a frequency existed which interfered with its process, briefly, allowing the alert captive to slip free. The window of freedom was small, smartwire being able to repair and reroute itself, but it was there.
"Where's the other one?" The first 'hunter asked the second, who shrugged, plainly aggravated.
"Not there."
"Must've been there. He didn't leave."
"That's why we sent Kaig to take care of the back room, wasn't it?"
Cantra almost sighed. Three of them, assuming Kaig survived his adventure to the back room, which she didn't consider likely, if the "other one" was Pilot Jela, as it must be. Still, it wasn't any use waiting to find out.
She brought her hands up, resting the bracelets against her breast, fingers folded together. She jerked her chin, hitting the hidden toggle, felt a ripple in the fabric of her 'skins . . .
The bracelets fell away. Cantra dodged back, slapping the seal on her thigh.
The first hunter yelled, bringing her noisy gun around. Cantra shot her in the eye, landing hard on her shoulder on the alley floor, rolling for the scant cover of a trash bin, as the second 'hunter fired, fired, fired—and stopped.
Cantra peered out from beneath the bin, hideaway at ready—two more darts left, which ought to be enough if—
"Pilot Cantra?" The voice was familiar and not unexpected.
"Pilot Jela?" she replied.
"Yes," he said, rueful, she thought. "The field is ours, Pilot."
* * *
AS IT HAPPENED, she'd been wrong about Hunter Kaig's chances of survival. He was alive, twisted up in his own wire and sound asleep on the floor.
"I'll send him on up to the next level," the man named Ragil said, rolling a dope stick one-handed while he talked to Pilot Jela. "Won't be much help in present conditions, though." He brought the stick up, drawing on it hard to get it started, and glanced over to Cantra, where she had taken up a lean against the wall, the better to watch the room.
"Want one?" he asked.
"I'm fine," she said, forcefully agreeable.
"Owe you," he insisted. "My people are supposed to keep the riff-raff out."
"No favor in a stim-stick for someone running on adrenal high," she answered, still agreeable. "I'm fine."
She got the right answer this time. Ragil gave her a look and turned back to Jela, who was working with the computer, idents from the three hunters on the table next to him.
They were a study, Ragil and Jela, and Cantra took her time about studying them. Ragil's hair was brown, which matched his eyes. And while he was another one built like a war-runner, his shoulders weren't quite as broad as Jela's and he was about a head taller. Not natural brothers, she'd decided. Not Batchers neither. Not, she thought, kin at all, though there was something—undefinable and undeniable—that put one of them in forcible mind of the other.
Part of the similarity, she considered, was bearing—both were proud, tall-standing men.
Another part was age—or lack of specific age, other than the ever-slippery "adult"—but that could just mean they'd done a lot of ship-time. Truth was, she didn't look her own years, quite, having started in on ships at a tender age.
The rest—might be they'd been shipmates once—they seemed to have that kind of understanding between them. Neither one calling senior, both comfortable in their talents.
Shipmates, she decided, watching Ragil drag on his stick, eyes narrowed as he read Jela's screen through the drifting smoke.
"That doesn't look good," he said. Jela grunted, and sat back.
"What's not looking good, if you don't mind sharing?" she asked from her lean, and the pilot spun his chair around to face her. He might've been worried, or he might not, for all the info she could read off his face.
"It happens that our friends weren't necessarily registered," he said, and she shrugged, which got her a bite from the bruised shoulder.
"Freelancers, is all," she said.
"Not on Faldaiza." That was Ragil. "Freelancers gotta register for a non-resident license and get listed in the public files, along with the text of their writs."
She considered that, then used her chin to point at the cards on the table. "What're they?"
Jela grinned. "My money says forged."
She frowned. "Forged 'hunter tickets—for what? I'm not wanting to pry into your private affairs, Pilot, but I don't have any shame in telling you there ain't no bounty out on me—" for at least two Common Years now, she added silently—"so even if they'd been registered, it'd be an illegality to come in and arrest a righteous citizen of the Spiral Arm during a certified pursuit of happiness. Which is what they done." She took a breath, looked from Jela's face to Ragil's, seeing identical expressions of placid waiting.
"So when I'm saying freelancers," she said, just in case the brains behind those non-committal eyes hadn't processed the thought. "I'm saying freelancers. I understand Faldaiza's feelings regarding the slave trade, but that don't mean those taken here need to be sold here."
"Well," said Ragil, and took a heavy drag on his stick. Jela tipped his head.
"That would fit," he allowed, "expect they knew who they were looking for—you."
"And you." She sighed. "So—what?"
"So—the piece of news you don't have," Ragil said, "is there's another pilot in the mix. He was set to meet Jela this evening, except he never showed. Me, I saw him—talked to him— no further out than local yesterday."
Cantra looked at him, then back to Jela.
"He fell or got taken," she said, watching his face, "and before he filed his last lift, he said something that made you sound interesting to whoever was listening."
His mouth tightened, not a smile, she thought. "Who then came looking for me at the restaurant, since that was the arranged meet, but you'd already claimed the open invitation."
"Putting me up high on the interesting list, too. And the Batcher warned us to walk careful 'cause she'd seen the come-lately and thought he smelled bad." She sighed. "Well, at least that hangs together as a tale. Got any idea who?"
"No."
"Not helpful."
"I agree."
She shifted against the wall. "What's the odds the Batcher knew the come-lately?"
"That's an idea," Ragil said to Jela, who looked up at him.
"Right. I'll swing by on my way back."
"Back from where?" Cantra asked, thinking that she was glad of the dance with Danby, because it looked like that was going to have to do it. Whoever was trying to get Pilot Jela's attention had her linked to him, which meant her place was on her ship—just as soon as she could get there.
"From your ship, I'd imagine," Jela said, seriously. "I got you into this—whatever it is. Least I can do is give you backup to a defensible point."
"Think I can't take care of myself?" She snapped at him, and he held his big hands up in front of his face, fingers spread.
"I think you can take care of yourself just fine, Pilot Cantra," he said, and it was respect she heard in his voice. "But I'll ask you to do the math. First time, they sent one—we think. This time they sent three. Next time they send six, or nine. Do I scan?"
<
br /> "If they send," she countered. "Might be three was all they had. Might be they lost interest and found something else to do what's fun."
"And might not," he answered, which he hadn't needed to do, her brain already having said the same.
She sighed and shoved away from the wall, feeling her recovered gun in its quiet pocket and the needler with its depleted charge hidden back behind seal.
"All right then," she said, not in any way pleased by the ruination of her plans. "I got my kit to get, if you're wanting a tour of the town. But before that, I'll come along with you to The Alcoves and see what the news is there."
"Why not?" he said, and levered out of his chair. He had the cheek to smile at her, too.
Ten
On the Ground
Faldaiza Port
THE ALCOVES WAS closed, the door opaque, the menu over it dark.
"They never close," Jela said, and Cantra felt a shiver start at the back of her neck.
"Maybe repairs?" she asked, but not like she believed it herself, nor did the other pilot bother to answer.
What he did do was step up to the door, put his big blunt fingers against it and push. Nothing happened. Cantra could see the strain in his shoulders as he exerted more force. She looked up the street and down—empty. So far, so lucky.
The door gave a small groan and began moving back on its track. Jela continued to exert pressure until he had opened a small gap. The foyer was dark, which fact slowed Jela not at all: He squeezed through the gap and became one with the darkness beyond.
Cantra sighed, tried to think generator failure, but her heart wasn't in it.
She followed Jela, and sometime between passing over the threshold and coming to rest inside the dark foyer, her gun slid out of its quiet pocket and into her hand. The dark was too thick for her to decipher much more than a blacker blot on the blackness to her left, which might have been Pilot Jela, breathing so quiet she couldn't hear it, which irritated her for some reason. Frowning, she touched another seal pocket and slipped one of the several lightsticks out, snapping it inside her fist. Feeble bluish light leaked between her fingers, enough for her to see the empty console and Jela approaching on sneak-feet, his far arm held down against his side.