Vision of the future

'Well...' She hesitated. 'Sure.'

They turned a corner, and Karrde felt his mouth twitch. A long block away, fronting onto an open square, was the entrance to the ThrusterBurn tapcafe. Parked in front of it were perhaps twenty stripped-down speeder bikes. 'On the other hand,' he said quietly, 'getting off Pembric may not be quite as easy as we hoped.'

'Looks like a swoop gang's having a meeting in there,' Shada commented. 'There are the sentries—to the left, under the overhang.'

'I see them,' Karrde said. There were four of them: large, tough-looking young men in reddish-brown jackets sitting astride their swoops. They were pretending to talk together, but it was clear that their full attention was aimed in the newcomers' direction.

'It's not too late to scrub this,' Shada murmured. 'We can go back to the ship, get out of here, and take our chances with whatever Bombaasa decides to throw at us.' Karrde shook his head minutely. 'We've been objects of official curiosity ever since we landed. If we try to leave now, Bombaasa's people will intercept us.'

'In that case, our best bet is to walk right up to the place like we own it,' Shada said briskly.

'Keep your hand near your blaster—that'll keep their attention on you. Not close enough that they try to draw first, though. If it comes to a fight, let me throw the first punch; and if it looks like I'm losing badly and you get an opening, make a run for it.'

'Understood,' Karrde said, finding himself amused despite the seriousness of the situation. Shada had mostly kept to herself aboard the Wild Karrde, not joining into the normal shipboard camaraderie or showing any real interest in getting to know the crew. But yet here she was, slipping back into the role of bodyguard, preparing to defend Karrde's life even at the cost of her own. What struck him the most was the sense that, down deep, she genuinely meant it. The four sentries let them get to within a few meters of the rows of parked swoops before saying anything. 'Tapcafe's closed,' one of them called.

'That's all right,' Karrde said, not breaking stride as he glanced incuriously over at them. 'We're not thirsty.'

The swoopers had looked like they were lounging casually on their vehicles. They weren't. Before Karrde and Shada had taken two more steps they'd zoomed across the square and skidded to a halt between the newcomers and the parked swoops. 'I said the place is closed,' the one who'd spoken repeated darkly, the long maneuvering vanes of his swoop pointed with unsubtle threat directly at Karrde's chest. 'Go away.'

Karrde shook his head. 'Sorry. We have business with Crev Bombaasa that can't wait.' One of the others snorted. 'Listen to him,' he said derisively. 'He thinks he can just walk in on Bombaasa anytime he wants. Pretty funny, huh, Langre?'

'Hilarious,' the spokesman agreed, his face not showing any evidence of humor. 'Last chance, murk. Leave in one piece or in a bunch of 'em.'

'Lord Bombaasa is going to be very displeased if you don't let us in,' Karrde warned.

'Yeah?' Langre sneered, nudging his swoop forward. 'Like I'm really scared.'

'You should be,' Karrde said, taking a step backward as the maneuvering vanes poked perilously close to his chest. Shada, he noted peripherally, hadn't moved backward with him but was still standing where he'd left her, shrinking wide-eyed back from the swoop snorting and vibrating its way alongside her as if terrified by its presence. 'Lord Bombaasa doesn't like to be kept waiting.'

'Then I guess we ought to hurry up and put you in a box for him,' Langre said, sneering a little harder. He nudged the swoop forward another meter, forcing Karrde to take another rapid step backward. Not quite rapid enough; the tips of the maneuvering vanes jabbed sharply against his chest before he could get out of the way.

One of the other swoopers chortled. Grinning maliciously, Langre gave the swoop another burst of the throttle, clearly intent on knocking Karrde down this time. The movement brought him directly alongside Shada—

And in that instant, she struck.

It was doubtful Langre even saw it coming. One moment Shada was standing there, transfixed like a frightened animal in a hunter's sights; the next moment she had swung her left leg back, rotated her upper body toward the swoop, and slammed her right fist into the side of his neck. There may have been a distinctive 'pop' accompanying the flat crack of the blow; Karrde wasn't sure. What he was sure of, as Langre did a sideways cartwheel off his swoop onto the ground, was that this one was definitely out of the fight.

The other three had excellent reflexes. Before Langre even hit the sand they had twisted their handlebars around and roared off in different directions across the square, forestalling any attempt Shada might have made to similarly take them down. Cutting close to the surrounding buildings, they curved around and stopped short, turning their swoops around to point toward Shada.

'Get out of the way!' Shada snapped to Karrde, moving to the center of the square and dropping into a low combat stance. Turning her head back and forth, she looked at each of the swoopers in turn as if daring them to take her on.

For a few seconds they seemed to ignore her challenge as they discussed the situation in a hand-signal code Karrde