Crown of Slaves

having on his nervous system. But he had the advantage, at the moment, of facing something quite a bit livelier than a dull, gray-painted ventilation duct.

A Manticoran princess, no less, and one in full and fine fury.

* * *

'Don't tell me you couldn't have stopped them! I'm not an idiot, whoever-you-are, and if you could drop all of those bastards around this table like you did-I was under it, you know, watching 'em fall like flies-and quit trying to tell me I'm concussed!-I just banged my head a little!-then you could have taken them all out! Before they killed my soldiers! Before they grabbed Berry!' The next words came in a wail: 'The best friend I've ever had!'

Victor decided that diplomacy was pointless. The young woman was practically hopping with rage.

'Sure, I could have. But why should I?' he asked bluntly. Then, nodding stiff-necked: 'Introductions are in order again, perhaps. Since you seem to have forgotten-'

'Oh.'

The princess' little gasp of shock drained all the anger from her face. 'Oh. You're Victor Cachat. I didn't recognize you. You seem… a lot different than you did at the Stein, uh, funeral.'

Clearly, though, the princess recovered from shock quickly. Anger seeped back into her expression.

'To be more precise,' she snapped, 'you seemed a lot nicer man. Than you do now. You cold lousy fish.'

Fortunately for Victor, Ginny arrived at that moment. She'd disappeared for a bit, to try to repair as much of the damage as she could to her costume. The outfit, needless to say, had never been designed for use on a battlefield.

'He's the same guy,' she announced, smiling. 'He just suffers from a bit of a split personality. There's Victor the Sweetie, who's as cute as a teddy bear. And then…'

The smile vanished and Ginny was now inspecting Victor as if he were, indeed, a cold lousy fish.

'Then there's this guy. Machiavelli's Nightmare. The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. Face like a stone and a heart that's harder still.'

She shrugged. Then, in one of her inimitable lightning changes of mood, smiled sweetly and gave his ribs a little tickle with a forefinger. 'What would he do without me?'

She transferred the sweet smile to the princess. 'You might want to keep your voice down a little, though. Chew the cold lousy fish out quietly to your heart's content. But if word gets out that the girl in Templeton's hands isn't really you…'

'Omigod!' Princess Ruth's hand flew to her mouth. 'I'm a moron. The captain'll wring my neck. If they find out… they'll kill Berry!'

Victor shook his head. 'Relax, will you? Your Highness, or whatever people like you get called. In polite society, which I'm not. I do have a plan, you know-and, so far, it seems to be working pretty damn well, for something slapped together at the last minute. Besides, your friend Berry's not a captive any longer.' He tapped his earbug. 'I just got the word. She escaped from Templeton and his gang and made it into the ventilation ducts. And there's only one of them left to chase after her, because… uh, well. Let's just say the others have been dealt with.'

'A plan?' Ruth glared at him, but she did lower her voice. 'What kind of idiot plan justifies allowing the murder of my security people? Or letting those murdering bastards get their hands on Berry? You-'

'A plan,' Victor broke into her half-hissed tirade with flat, hard-edged assurance, 'which will get your friend Berry back alive. And which will take out-once and for all-a crew of Masadan terrorists your intelligence people haven't been able to catch up with in over a decade. And,' he finished as her eyes widened in surprise, 'one which will hit Manpower and the entire genetic slave trade where it really counts.'

The eyes which had widened narrowed suddenly, with what was obviously mingled suspicion and hard, intense speculation overcoming anger. They didn't displace that emotion, but even though Victor had hoped for a reaction along those lines, he was a bit taken aback by how quickly and powerfully it occurred. He didn't even try to follow the thoughts flashing through her brain, but he could actually see the moment at which the sums suddenly came together for her.

Ginny wasn't the only female around capable of instantaneous mood switches, it seemed. Princess Ruth's face went from anger to keen interest in a split second.

'A plan?' she repeated in an entirely different tone. 'Hmph.' She thought again for a moment, then nodded sharply. 'So you're working with Erewhon, are you? Well, of course. You'd have to be to be standing around hip- deep in bodies without being arrested. So that means…' She grimaced. 'If you're talking about hurting Manpower, then you've got to be thinking about Congo. I can see a couple of angles, I think. But if you want my opinion-'

Which she proceeded to give, at some length, despite knowing virtually nothing about the situation. The worst of it, from Victor's point of view, was how uncannily close she often came and how genuinely expert her opinion often was. Anton Zilwicki's influence and training there, Victor was sure of it.

Great. A Manticoran enemy princess with aspirations to being a spy-and some real talent for it, too. Just what I need. Like a hole in the head.

On the other hand…

Victor pondered the other hand for a bit, as Ruth kept talking. He would have labeled it 'chatter' and 'prattle' and 'babble,' except it wasn't. In fact, the girl was giving him some ideas.

The clincher came when the security guards who'd rallied to the scene finally started letting in the press. The Manticoran princess, it seemed, could also be a fine actress when she wanted to be.

'Oh!' she cried, half-sobbing into the holorecorders. 'It was horrible! They took the princess away!' She clutched Victor's arm. 'Would have gotten me too, if this gentleman hadn't come along.'

Now it was pure chatter and prattle and babble. Which was exactly what the situation required. When the Erewhonese press, well-trained as always, finally let themselves be led away, Victor whispered into Ruth's ear.

'All right, fine. You want in?'

'Try and keep me out, you cold lousy fish.'

Chapter 26

Berry was getting a little desperate. She'd been certain she could elude her captors, once she got into the ventilation ducts. She knew very little about air circulation systems on large space stations, and nothing at all about the specifics of this one. But the man who'd adopted her had once been a yard dog for the Manticoran Navy. Since Berry found everything interesting, she'd managed on several occasions to get the normally taciturn Anton Zilwicki to talk about his experiences. And she could remember him telling her that, second only to the electrical network, there was nothing as convoluted in a large space habitat as the ventilation system.

Unfortunately, she was discovering, abstract knowledge was not the same as concrete familiarity. She realized now that she'd been too quick to assume that the ventilation system of The Wages of Sin would be like her well-remembered Chicago underworld. The difference was that she knew thatunderworld and its passageways, and didn't know this one.

So, she'd lost time, guessing at which route to take and-twice!-finding herself in a cul-de-sac and forced to retrace her steps. Retrace her crawls, rather. And frustrated, over and again, by the fact that the ventilation covers in the space station had not been designed to be easily opened from the inside of the ducts. So, time after time, she'd had to pass by inviting but impossible avenues of escape back into the main corridors of the station.

She could hear the scuffling sounds of her pursuer not far behind her. Piss-poor design philosophy, anybody