Patron of the Arts

Nova said to her parents, “He’s Brian Thorne.”

“I heard him explain, dear,” Li Wing said softly.

“No, you don’t understand. He’s Brian Thorne.” Her face clouded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I sighed and her father spoke. “He didn’t want you hurt.” He looked at me. “What are you going to do now? Do you want us to protect you here? We could get a message off to Earthcom right away.”

“No,” I said. “To tell the truth, I don’t know what I want. I just wanted to tell you . . . Nova and you.”

“You didn’t tell me before,” Nova said, “because you wanted me to love the real you, not all that money, right?”

“Please, dear,” Li Wing said.

“Well, isn’t it?”

“I’ve told you now,” I said. “I think I’d like to sleep.” And I think I did, right then, right there.

10

I awoke in the dark with a warm, soft body slithering up my torso. A fruit-fresh mouth coming to me in the night, bearing gifts of love. I held her rounded bare hips in my hands and said, “No.”

“It will make you feel better, darling.”

“My mind wouldn’t be on it,” I said, and grinned. “And that would be a waste.”

She took the rebuff without rancor and snuggled next to me, and we held each other. “What are you going to do now?” she asked at length.

“I’m going back to town to see if there is anything in yet.” I stopped her protests with fingers on her lips. “I may have gotten them all, so don’t worry.”

“But suppose you haven’t!”

“No one lives forever, not even with the longevity treatments, love. I’ll be careful. But I must have information to work on.”

She hugged me tighter and I felt the rich bounty of her breasts against my side and the protective thigh across my loins. I breathed her black mist of hair and for moment I just wanted to stay there, safe, until the bad guys went away.

But they weren’t going away. They wouldn’t be paid for missing. If they were locals recruited for the job they’d want the money. If they were professionals they had their reputations to maintain. Even assassins have egos and images to maintain, I thought ruefully. No, they’d try again. If I had gotten the local crew there would be another, or the local control would recruit another team. Because of Nova there might be more than a few ready to prepare me for a burial in several parts.

I had to return to town, though. Null-Edit tapes are delivered only to the addressee. I needed information, and even a bland Don’t worry, boss from Huo would tell me something, in a negative fashion. Sunstrum had fixed my sandcat’s headlight and recharged my laser. Nova took it badly that she couldn’t go, and was angry when neither her father nor I would allow any of the miners to go along to watch for backshooters. It wasn’t that I didn’t want one, I just couldn’t ask any of them to risk his life for a man he probably didn’t like anyway, just to obey his boss, whom he did like.

I came back into Bradbury from the north, slipping in as the tail-end cat in an ore train down from Arlington Burl’s Enyo and Eris mines. Dusty and dented, we pulled into a dump yard and I slipped away without anyone paying much attention.

The legless dispatcher handed me a Null-Edit tape and a tightbeam message and shoved a reader toward me without a word. I went into my “office” and hunkered down on the toilet to see what Huo had to say.

If I hadn’t been alerted I wouldn’t have been suspicious. There Huo was, sitting at his desk at the General Anomaly office, looking cool and confident, but slightly troubled.

“Sir, I received your tightbeam and hurried to shoot one back for confidential taping.” He looked as earnest and as reliable as ever. “But, sir, we have to have more information. Who is trying to kill you? Are these trained personnel or local recruits? Did you recognize any of them?”