B002D48NTG EBOK Page 17

  Cole shrugged. "If you change your mind ..."

  "I won't."

  Cole turned to Val. "Okay, let's go."

  They walked to the door of the study, where Mr. Jones was awaiting them. "Follow me, please," he said, turning and heading toward the front door.

  "He sounds like he believes the pair of you stepped out of the pages of the same book," said Val. "All this talk about a bond between you."

  "Maybe he does," answered Cole. "As you can see from your surroundings, he's caught up in the fantasy."

  They passed an open room with three of Copperfield's henchmen sitting around a table, playing cards. Jones kept walking, but Val instantly pivoted, pulling her burner and aiming it in a single motion.

  "Hit the floor!" she yelled, and Cole instantly dropped to the carpet as two of the cardplayers ducked and a third went for his screecher. He was too slow, and he fell to the floor, a bubbling black hole between his eyes.

  Cole jumped to his feet, pulled his pulse gun, and trained it on Mr. Jones, while Val kept hers aimed at the two remaining cardplayers.

  "What the hell was that all about?" Cole demanded.

  "Get the fence out here," she said, never moving.

  "David!" shouted Cole. "Come out. It's safe now."

  "How do I know?" yelled Copperfield through the heavy wooden door of his study.

  "Would Steerforth kill David Copperfield?" said Cole. "Just get out here!"

  "In a moment." There was a brief silence. "There are now four weapons trained on you. If you make any sudden movements, if you threaten me in any way, you won't live to reach the front door. You are only alive now because of our shared interest in the immortal Charles."

  The door opened and David Copperfield emerged, a weapon of alien design in each hand.

  "What has gone on here?" he demanded.

  "The man I killed," said Val. "How long has he worked for you?"

  Copperfield shrugged. "A week, maybe two. Why?"

  "His name is Barak Numika, and he's a crew member of the Pegasus. If you don't believe me, tear off his sleeve and check the tattoo on his left arm: it's a waterfall in perpetual motion. Then contact your local police station, have them run a search on the identifying marks of a wanted murderer called Barak Numika and check his last known whereabouts. They'll tell you he was serving aboard a pirate ship called the Pegasus." Val paused. "You've had a spy in your employ, Mr. Copperfield."

  "Why?" asked Copperfield. "How could the Hammerhead Shark know you'd come here to offer this accommodation?"

  "He couldn't know. He has no idea that I've joined forces with ... Steerforth."

  "And if he wasn't put here to watch out for us," added Cole quickly, "that means he was put here to look for weaknesses in your defenses. The Shark's coming here, all right, but not to offer you Meladotian crystals. He's coming to relieve you of everything you've got."

  Copperfield seemed lost in thought for almost a full minute. Finally he spoke.

  "Put your weapons away." He turned to his own men, and raised his voice for the benefit of his four unseen gunmen. "These two are our friends and allies. They are not to be harmed, now or in the future." He pointed to Numika. "Get that spy out of here and dispose of him." Then to Val. "You put yourself at risk to save my operation and probably my life. I'll need that scramble code, and if you can stop the Shark, I will offer you five percent of market for the crystals."

  Cole nodded. "It's a deal."

  "Perhaps I can sweeten it," continued Copperfield.

  "Oh?"

  "There is one thing I covet above all else," he said. "On Picacio IV, out in the Albion Cluster, there is a man named Euphrates Djinn, who is in the same business as I am. I have no idea if that is his real name. I suspect it is not, but it's the name he's gone by for the past fifteen years."

  "What about him?"

  "He possesses a signed first edition of A Tale of Two Cities." A look of rage spread across the alien's face. "He never reads it! He never displays it! And he refuses to sell it! He has no interest in it and no use for it. He keeps it just to drive me crazy!" He began hyperventilating little blue puffs of vapor. "Get it for me, and I will pay you not three percent, not five percent, not thirty percent, but one-half of market value for anything you bring me for two years after that book is in my hands."

  "We'll think about it," said Cole.

  "We'll do more than think about it," said Val. "We'll do it." Cole looked at her questioningly. "I know Euphrates Djinn. It'll be a pleasure to rob him. Hell, I just might cut the bastard open from stem to stern, too."

  "You heard the delicate, refined Miss Twist," said Cole. "You've got another deal."

  "I don't like it," said Sharon Blacksmith.

  "Neither do I," added Forrice.

  "The Captain may occasionally have to leave the ship in the course of action-maybe twice a decade," continued Sharon. "But not to go planetside and steal a goddamned book!"

  "I'm the one who made the deal," said Cole, facing them in his small office. "If something goes wrong, whoever's down there is in deep shit. I can't ask a crew member to take the risk."

  "Why not?" said Forrice. "You'll be surprised at how many will volunteer if it means keeping you safely aboard the ship."

  "They gave up their careers for me. I won't ask them for any more until it's necessary-and as long as I can go down there, it's not necessary."

  "You're getting a little long in the tooth for this kind of stuff," said Sharon. "I don't know what you think you're proving. Bull and Val are both much stronger than you. Slick can go places you can't go. You can't put on as much body armor as Domak was born with. You can't operate in the dark half as well as Jack-in-the-Box. You can't ..

  "Enough," said Cole. "I'm not going down there because I'm a great warrior or even a great thief. I'm going because I'm the one who agreed to the deal."

  "You weren't the only one on Riverwind," said Sharon. "Let Val go."

  "She is going."

  "It takes two of you to steal one book?" asked Forrice.

  "It may take one of us to fight off all of Djinn's defenses while the other steals the book."

  "At least tell me that you're the thief and not the warrior," said Sharon.

  "I'm the thief," said Cole. Suddenly he smiled. "I keep expecting her to pat me on the head and tell me that I'm a cute little feller."

  "Let's grant her better taste than that," said Forrice. "Well, I'm off to get something to eat."

  "That's it?" demanded Sharon. "You're all through trying to talk reason with him?"

  "Do you know anyone who ever talked reason to him and won?" asked Forrice. "Besides, from everything I've heard about Picacio IV, the odds are thousands-to-one that there aren't any Molarian females in season there. Why should I go down to the surface?"

  "I'm glad to see you have your priorities straight," said Cole as Forrice turned and spun gracefully to the door.

  "Besides," said the Molarian as he stepped out into the corridor, "after they kill you, we'll go on a punishment party, and if there are any Molarian females I'll find them then."

  "I admire your patience and self-restraint," said Cole just before the door snapped shut behind the First Officer.

  "Are you sure you want to take the Valkyrie?" asked Sharon.

  "I hope that's an earnest question and not a jealous one."

  "I don't have any ownership papers," she responded. "You're a free agent. I'm just concerned that she's neither the most subtle nor the most silent person I've ever met. Maybe Morales ..

  Cole shook his head. "Morales is just a kid, and he's never been to Picacio or met Euphrates Djinn. Val knows him, knows his layoutand let's be honest: if he's as big a fence as Copperfield says, he'll have layers of protection. No one's sneaking in and out without his knowing it. If you think there's someone on board better capable to cover my back in a situation like that, I'm willing to listen."

  She sighed and shook her head. "No, I guess not."

  "I know not. An
d don't worry about a budding romance. If she hugged me, she'd break my ribs. I hate to think of what could happen if she wrapped her legs around me."

  Sharon chuckled at the thought. "Okay, you can go. But come back in one piece."

  "It'll be in one piece or not at all."

  "How long should we give you before we figure you're in serious trouble and send down a rescue party?"

  "That's a command decision, so either Four Eyes or Christine will make it." He smiled at her. "I'm sure you'll lobby for five minutes."

  "We rescued you from the Navy. None of us can ever go back to the Republic. As long as we're outcasts with prices on our heads, it makes sense to keep the reason for it alive."

  "I know it's going to come as a shock to you," said Cole, "but I have every intention of coming out of this alive."

  They spoke a few more minutes, and then Sharon left to return to the Security Department. Cole promptly walked to the bridge, where Christine Mboya was in command.

  "What have you found out so far?" he asked.

  "About Djinn or about Picacio?" she replied.

  "Take your choice."

  "Picacio IV is an oxygen world, with about eighty-four percent Standard gravity. It was first opened up as a hospital world for convalescing heart patients, since the gravity puts much less strain on them and the oxygen content is a little higher than Standard. But after a few years they discovered that one of the three continents was inhabited by huge creatures, rather like Earth's dinosaurs, and a safari industry instantly sprang up. Then they found that the freshwater oceans could produce enough fish to feed a few nearby worlds that were suffering everything from droughts to spontaneous volcanic activity, and suddenly, with fishing, medical, and safari industries all thriving, it became a financial center for a fifty-world section of the Albion Cluster."

  "That's a little more than I needed to know," said Cole. "Light gravity, high oxygen content, right?"

  "Right."

  "How many spaceports?"

  "Four. One of them, right by the hospital, services the city that's grown up around it, and that's where Djinn is."

  "Okay, now tell me about Euphrates Djinn."

  "His birth name is Willard Foss, and over the years he's been Benito Gravia, Marcos Rienke, and simply McNeal with no first name. He's been Euphrates Djinn since he set up shop on Picacio IV fifteen years ago."

  "How big is his operation?"

  "He's one of the three biggest fences in the Cluster. He's got warehouses on Picacio IV, Alpha Prego II, and New Siam."

  "How many men has he got on Picacio?"

  She shook her head. "I'm good with a computer, but I'm not that good. He's probably a bigger fence than your friend David Copperfield, but I don't know if that means he has more security forces."

  "They're security forces when they're protecting a legal operation. In this instance, we call them thugs and gunmen."

  "Just remember that they shoot as straight as security forces," said Sharon's voice.

  "Should I write that down, or will you trust me to remember it?" asked Cole sardonically.

  "We care about you, sir," said Christine stubbornly.

  "I know," replied Cole with a weary sigh. "And I appreciate it. But if I get cared for much more, I just may choose to stay down on Picacio and go to work for Euphrates Djinn."

  "I'm sorry, sir."

  "Don't apologize. Just tell me if there's anything else I need to know."

  "I've been trying to pull up a blueprint of his house, but from what I can tell he's added a number of rooms and levels, and paid off enough bureaucrats so that he didn't have to register the changes. That'll make it harder to figure out where the book is."

  "Maybe I'll just let Val ask him," suggested Cole. "She can be pretty persuasive." He paused. "I guess that's everything. I don't imagine he bought his alarm system through the normal channels, or that we can find out what type it is?"

  "That was one of the first things I tried to find out, sir," said Christine.

  "All right," said Cole. "That's that." He raised his voice. "Pilot, what's our ETA?"

  "In normal space, three days and seven hours," answered Wxakgini. "If I can find an entrance to the Gulliver Wormhole, about six hours."

  "What's so hard about finding it?"

  "Wormholes aren't like highways," said Wxakgini. "They don't stay in one place."

  "Well, do your best," said Cole. He turned back to Christine. "How long until white shift is over?"

  "About eighty Standard minutes, sir."

  "Since there's a possibility we may reach Picacio halfway through red shift, I want Val at her sharpest. Inform her-or if she's sleeping, leave a message to be delivered when she wakes up-that she's relieved of all duties until after we return from Picacio."

  "Who do you want to replace her, sir?" asked Christine.

  "Who's seen more action-Domak or Sokolov?"

  "I'll check their records, sir."

  "Whoever it is will be in command during blue shift. If anything goes wrong, I want someone with battle experience in charge."

  "It's Lieutenant Domak, sir," said Christine, studying her computer.

  "Tell her she's in charge during blue shift until Val gets back to the ship. And tell Four Eyes to stay on call, in case things get hairy. I don't want him putting in sixteen-hour days, but I'll feel a lot safer if he's in command if anyone starts shooting. I'll speak to Domak before we leave and explain that if Four Eyes replaces her, it's on my explicit order. She might as well know who to resent."

  "Then why put her in charge at all?" asked Christine.

  "Because if we're attacked before Four Eyes can get here, I want someone who's been shot at before giving the orders."

  "Who do you think will be shooting, sir?"

  "I don't know. But Muscatel had four ships. Why shouldn't a successful fence like Djinn have a few-and if he does, why shouldn't one of them be in orbit, ready to shoot down any intruder who wants to horn in on his operation?"

  "Now I see, sir."

  "Fine. I'm going off to take a nap, just in case I need all my strength in six hours rather than seventy-two. If we find the wormhole, wake me at 1900 hours."

  He went to the airlift, and a moment later was in his cabin.

  "What?" he said aloud. "No half-dressed floozie waiting to see me off?"

  Sharon's image popped into existence just in front of him. "You need your rest. I have a feeling that this is going to be a more dangerous operation than you're making it sound."

  "Now why should you think that?"

  "Because you're a contrarian," she replied. "If it was cut and dried, you'd make it sound dangerous just so no one loafed on the job. But I've seen you in serious situations before, and the more dangerous they are, the more you belittle them." A sudden smile crossed her face. "I intuit it's so the floozie and the rest of the crew won't worry too much."

  "All right," he said, lying down on his cot. "I'm going to sleep. But when I get back, I expect tons of praise and sexual rewards."

  "Would you settle for a soya sandwich?"

  "Probably," he said just before he fell asleep.

  Picacio IV was one of the few habitable planets Cole had seen that possessed rings-sixteen of them to be exact, though to the naked eye they blended into just one huge ring. The control tower near the hospital took over the ship's controls, and as they entered the stratosphere prior to landing, Cole and Val began making their preparations to leave the Kermit.

  "I'd wear a wig," she remarked, "but there's not much I can do to hide my size."

  "You can't make yourself smaller," agreed Cole. "I suppose you could build up the heels of your boots, or put lifts inside them. They might not recognize you as a seven-footer."

  "I'd rather not fall flat on my face if I have to maneuver," replied Val.

  Cole tried to imagine her falling flat on anything, and couldn't conjure up a picture of it. "As you wish." He picked up a shining item and placed it in a pocket.

  "What
the hell was that?"

  "A ceramic gun," he explained. "It should get past any security devices."

  "How many shots does it fire, and with how much force?" she asked.

  "Three shots, and I've got two more clips, so I'll have nine shots total. As for force, I don't think I'd trust it to kill anything much larger than you-but I'm using explosive bullets, and that should make up for any lack of force."

  "Does it make a bang?"

  "These are bullets, not beams or pulses," he answered. "They make a bang."

  "I thought we were supposed to be doing this covertly," she noted.

  "If I have to use it, we've already been spotted. You're the muscle; I'm just carrying this for emergencies."

  "We have landed on Picacio IV," announced the shuttle.

  "Keep all life-support systems functioning," ordered Cole. "Open the hatch until the Third Officer and I depart. Then close and lock it, activate all security and defensive systems, and let no one come aboard until I, the Third Officer, or some other crew member of the Theodore Roosevelt whose voiceprint is in your memory banks utters the entry code."

  "All orders have been logged," announced the shuttle, opening the hatch. Val and Cole stepped through, and it slid shut behind them.

  It was nightside where they had landed, but the planet was almost as bright as at high noon.

  "My God, will you look at that!" said Cole, awestruck.

  Overheard, the rings, forty thousand miles wide, composed mostly of ice, were reflecting the light of the sun that shone on them from the opposite side of the world. They glowed and sparkled with a brilliant shimmering light, the intensity fluctuating as they continued their endless journey around Picacio IV.

  "I've seen it before," said Val, unimpressed. "Let's get moving."

  "Well, I haven't seen it," said Cole. "I want to look for a couple of minutes. I may never have the chance again." He stood and stared, and finally turned back to Val, who was fidgeting impatiently. "Okay, let's go."

  An unmanned aircar sensed their movement and approached them. "Please enter from the left side and I will take you to Customs," it announced.

  They did as it said, got off a few minutes later at the Customs kiosk, paused while their false IDs were approved, and then entered the main section of the spaceport.