to purchase it from Cit. Our reasons are not important. But we will guarantee a higher price than anyone else.'
'If we had known this girl had so many friends,' the Sandman said with a faint grin, 'we would have held onto it. The people from the Reformary were here only an hour ago. Cit's running a little late.'
Priestess looked my way. We knew the warden would be doing his damndest to get Whit back, and it probably didn't matter much whether he got to her before we did. The Mask was going to get his money either way, for we needed his help to get off-planet.
'Where is she?' Priestess asked.
The Sandman glanced at his wristcom. 'They should be pulling into Chapezi in an hour or two. We sent her on the overland route by groundcar with a shipment for the frontier. It's to be sold in the market at Chapezi. Highest bidder will get it. We've already alerted our people in Chapezi to the Reformary's interest. Shall we mention Cit as well?'
'Please do so. We'll be there as soon as we can get there. How far is Chapezi?'
'What is our mode of transportation, Lady?'
'Aircar.'
'It should not take longer than four hours by aircar. Unfortunately, the Reformary people are also going by aircar.'
'Have they already left?'
'I do believe so.'
'We'd better get moving,' Priestess said to me.
###
We paused at the weapons tent. It was quite a place. The proprietor was an old bearded brigand, puffing on a narcotic weed, and his three hoodlum sons tossed us the weapons we needed. The shop was a delight, piled high with exotic weaponry from a score of worlds.
The SG's looked new. I knocked one down right away and spread the parts out on a display table.
'Looks good,' Dragon said.
'It's new,' I confirmed.
'Our weapons are guaranteed,' the brigand said, 'everything works.'
'Where can we test these?' Dragon asked.
'It's a free sky,' the pirate said. 'See if it can hit an aircar.'
I've always liked the SG. It's a tough weapon. We test-fired laser and v and x and flame, up into the sky, and made a hell of a racket, and nobody even blinked. The damned things worked perfectly.
'How much?' Dragon asked.
'Five thousand.'
'Five hundred.'
'You are joking! It is funny! These are brand new, and highly illegal! Boys—get us tea! Now!' His sons scrambled to obey.
'We don't have time for tea,' Priestess whispered to me.
'What's the rush?' I asked. 'Even if The Mask gets to her first, he's just going to sell her back to us, right?'
'I'd rather get to her first,' Priestess said, 'Just to be sure.'
'We'll give it a thousand each,' I told the bandit, 'and we buy three.'
'All right, four thousand, because you know your weapons. And we'll throw in five fully charged x-packs, each.'
'Four thousand for the three?' I asked.
'No, no—oh, it is funny too! No, four thousand each. My bottom price! Here, here—fresh berry tea. Have some lily crush, too—pure crush, it will put Cit into orbit.'
His sons were back already, supervising a young female slave who carried a heavy tray stacked high with elaborate silvery, steaming tea kettles, and a delicately carved wooden box full of narcotic cigarettes. Katag was certainly a man's world.
I balanced the SG in one hand. Lord, it felt good to be armed again—really armed. I had been in a black mood because of Biergart, but the SG was whispering to me, chasing Biergart right from my mind. What a sweet, lovely weapon! Hoist an SG, and the odds are even once again. Watch out, world, Thinker is back! Gleaming cenite and armorite, laser sights glowing calm and pale, fully charged and looking for a new owner. Here was a real slave— molded to my hands. And what is an SG really worth? A million credits? Two million? No price would be too much for this lovely girl, a warm companion for a dangerous world, she'd walk with you all day and sleep with you all night. Well, I got a chill every time I touched one of those babies, E or SG, every single time. We were married for life, that much was certain. She was a cruel mistress, but I loved her all the same.
'Please.' The slave girl held out a cup of hot berry tea for me.
'Pay him what he wants,' I said to Priestess. 'The old man deserves it. He's a saint!' Dragon and Priestess looked at me funny. I'll admit I get carried away on occasion.
###
'Doesn't look good.' I put the aircar in a flat glide to the deck. The dirt road below snaked along the bottom of a steep ravine between two ragged hills. A perfect ambush site. Thick black smoke rose out of the pass, dirtying the sky. As we approached, there were flames up ahead. Two khaki military aircars rose from the gully in swirling clouds of smoke and shot away from the site. There—burning groundcars, bodies littering the ravine. We eased along the road slowly, and I cut the jets and we settled down in a cloud of dust. Katag soldiers stood around, SG's on their hips. I cracked the door and the heat rushed in, dry and dead.
We walked into the tragedy. Six civilian groundcars, big transports, burned fiercely, all shot up. The rocks of the gully were strewn with loot. I looked up to the slopes. It was a harsh land, great slabs of yellow granite baking in the sun. The dead lay where they had fallen—slaver security guards in uniform, stripped of weapons and jackets and boots, frozen in death, just as inanimate as the rocks around them. And slaves, male and female, some of them burnt to death, black crisps hanging out of the groundcars, riddled with holes.
'Scut,' I said.
'Tourists?' A Katag officer approached us frowning, dressed in camfax, his SG pointed in our general direction.
'It's all right, Lieutenant. These three are with us.' Another man, dressed in dark brown, strode through the dust. I recognized the uniform. 'Lady Arbell, we are from Tombara Reformary. Bad news, we're afraid. It was the HLA that hit the convoy. Did a real job on it.' He was a pale, intense, slender youth—we had never seen him before.
'Did anyone escape?' Priestess asked.
'Yes—they got six out of twelve groundcars. But according to the overseers, number Four Oh Four is not among the survivors. The other six cars have already arrived in Chapezi, and it's not there.'
'Have we found its body?'
'We're still looking. If it's here, we'll find it.'
'What is the HLA?' I asked.
'Homelands Liberation Army. It's the Originals. They're getting better and better weaponry. These cars were taken out with xmax. We can't imagine where the Originals are getting weapons like that.'
'They probably went shopping in Ostra-Bal,' I muttered.
A military aircar glided overhead. The officer was talking into a comset as a couple of troopers unwrapped a plastic photomap. One of the burning cars exploded again, sending streaks of glowing phospho shrapnel into the bright blue sky.
'Damn!'
'Lady Arbell!' It was the Sandman, his black goggles winking sunlight. He wore a sandy camfax cloak, and a camfax turban covered his long hair. 'It's good to see Cit again.'
'We wish the circumstances were different,' Nine replied.
'Indeed,' the Sandman said. 'This is a dark day for the Body Shop. The HLA is getting way out of line. We've lost half our shipment. Damn!'
'The unit from the Reformary told us that Ranwan Lima did not arrive in Chapezi. Is it true?'
'Ah yes, Cit's slave. We've already checked the bodies. We have identified everyone. It is not here.'
