chair yet another attendant had waiting for him. This one was different, a standard corporate executive type, not quite as tall as Osterlad and sleeker, smoother.
I stayed standing. “Slake no doubt told you I own a battlewagon.”
“Of course. Starlon class, full complement of pulse and projectile weapons, state-of-the-art reinforced hull, able to run in any environment from deep space to water. Nice piece of work those jerks on Machen should have never let you have. What did you do, by the way, to get them to sell it to you?” When I said nothing, he chuckled and continued. “Want to sell it?”
“No. I want to buy something for it.”
“We do weapons augmentation, of course, but for a battlewagon of that class you’re talking a lot of specialized skills, serious money.”
“No new weapons. What I need won’t cost you much and I can install myself: a new central protection chip complex.”
Osterlad leaned back and laughed, the first time I thought he might have not been controlling himself completely. “They sold you a eunuch!” He knew his stuff. “That’s hysterical.”
“Not quite,” I said, getting a little angry at the swipe. “Some weapons work, but not all. I need a new protection complex to replace the broken bits in the controlling codes.” I leaned forward. “I know those complexes are tightly controlled government property, so if you can’t get one and I should go elsewhere, say so.”
The laughter stopped as quickly as it had started. “I shouldn’t have insulted you with that eunuch remark,” he said, “but you definitely shouldn’t insult me. Understood?”
“Yes,” I said, “and I apologize.” I had no desire to raise the price any more than I already had.
“Let me rephrase. What would you charge me for a new complex?”
“That account you showed me will do for the down payment, which you can make while you’re here on Lakin.” He paused for a minute, no doubt getting input from one of the assistants monitoring the meeting. “I’ll need that much again in two weeks, after you confirm the goods at the pickup, which will be at one of my remote centers. Jalon here,” henodded to the man behindhim, “will meet you there and make the trade. I don’t keep anything at all questionable in this facility, and I never handle the products myself. Acceptable?”
The account I had allowed him to see had a little over three million in it. Over the years I had accumulated another fifteen like it, but no two were under the same name or in the same location.
Paying this much would hurt me, but I could afford it. “Yes.”
He nodded, and Jalon quickly scribbled on a sheet of paper and handed the note to me.
“The coordinates are for a planet I own. There’s only one settlement on it, one of my retreat homes, so finding the location should not be hard. You’ll transfer the down payment at one of our smaller business offices upstairs.” He stood. “When the unit is fully operational, will it—and you—be available for hire? Though I deal strictly in materiel, I have many acquaintances who could use your services.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t plan to work.”
“Fair enough. Are we done?”
I pretended to study the very standard-format coordinates for a moment, buying time. I looked up and carefully said, “One thing.”
“What?” Impatience rang in the word.
“I try to keep a low profile, and I don’t jump directly anywhere. I also have to retrieve the wagon, which will take some time. So I need a window of a week, sometime between two and three weeks from now. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it’s a necessary part of my lifestyle. You understand.”
The smile came back. “Of course. Two to three weeks. Jalon won’t mind waiting. Will you, Jalon?” The man shook his head slightly but glared at me, clearly annoyed at having to waste his time on me. “Thank you for your business.” Osterlad turned his back on me and faced Jalon.
The attendant who had led me in took my elbow and guided me out.
As the attendant was walking me past the beverage dispenser I paused and asked, “Do you mind if I have a quick drink?”
“Of course not,” he/she said, pointing at the door between us and the elevator. “I’ll be outside as soon as you’re ready.”
“Thank you.”
I grabbed a fresh cup—the one I had used was of course gone—and selected a different melano beverage. As the liquid filled the cup I said to the dispenser, “Thanks for the drinks and for the conversation.”
“Both were my pleasure,” it replied.
“I expect I’ll get to talk to you again,” I said, “because after this deal goes well I’m likely to be back for more.”
After a long pause the dispenser replied, “I’d like that, but I won’t count on it.”
“Oh, I’m sure Mr. Osterlad has what I need.”
“I’m sure he does,” the dispenser said, “and I’m sure he’ll have it waiting for you. I’m not sure, though, that we’ll get to talk another time.”
I love appliances. I had feared the appeal of a battlewagon like Lobo would be too much for Osterlad to resist, but I had hoped I was wrong. The dispenser had just settled the issue, and this deal had gotten more complicated—unfortunate, but not a surprise. I had a lot of work to do over the next few weeks.
“Thanks again,” I said to the dispenser. I headed out.
I awoke with a start, pinned down, disoriented and feeling trapped until I realized the things gripping me were the stealthie’s massage units working the kinks out of my muscles. I felt better than when I’d gotten into the box; the stealthie was proving to be worth everything I’d paid for it. The overhead timer showed a few seconds past ten hours, and the depth meter said we had ascended to one foot below the surface. The survey camera was already peeking out of the ground, its wide-angle image clear on the display beside my head. I thumbed the swivel controls and took a slow look around. The night was clear and bright with starlight, the clearing deserted.
Time to move.
I gave the stealthie the okay to complete the ascent. A few minutes later, the top snicked open, and I climbed out. From the stealthie’s cargo compartments I took a wrist comm and sensor unit, a sniper’s trank rifle, a couple of gas rats, and a pulse pistol. I stuffed the rats in a pack with some food and water, set the open code on the stealthie, and sent it back underground. If all went well and we had time, we’d come back for it later that night. If we couldn’t, it would either wait for the day we could return or provide an awfully bad surprise for anyone else who tried to mess with it.
As the stealthie descended I moved a few meters into the woods on the path to the house, stopped, ate a protein bar, drank a little water, and used the sensor unit to scan both the area and all available transmissions. Nothing with an IR signature larger than my lower leg showed anywhere in the few-hundred-meter range of the unit. I didn’t catch any guard chatter, so with luck they had believed our earlier show. Lobo was transmitting clearly and strongly, my own voice coming at me with a distress message. From the recordings Lobo had chosen to play, I knew that he was safely beyond the range of Osterlads ships and that the people in the mansion, presumably led by Jalon, had transmitted via the jump station a request for a long-range salvage ship.
After stretching a bit and relieving myself, I set out for the house. The forest was young enough and the night bright enough that I was able to sustain a normal walking pace.
We’d set my wrist unit to use Lobo’s signal and the standard feed from the weather sat to track my position, so when it indicated I was within ten meters of the outer edge of what should be the normal range of a good installations ground-sensor scans, I stopped. A slight breeze kept the night cool, but the air was moist and thick enough that a small layer of sweat coated my arms. Normally the nanomachines in my system stay out of everything that leaves my body, from sweat to refuse, but I focused my instructions that they do otherwise this time, then rubbed dirt on my sweat-covered lower arms.
Slowly at first, and then increasingly faster the nano machines deconstructed the dirt and made more of themselves, small, barely visible clouds forming above my now nearly clean arms. I made each cloud split and sent the resulting four smaller clouds to gather more material from the forest floor.
A short while later, four vaguely man-shaped clouds were hovering just above the ground near me, two on my left and two on my right. I had them increase their speed until they were emitting enough heat that my wrist sensor read them as alive, and then we all moved ahead. If Jalon and the team staffing Osterlads mansion were
