Odd Girl Out

'This is fine,' I assured him, unfolding the chairs and setting them down where we were mostly facing Karim but also had a view of the door.

Under cover of the activity, I also slipped the kwi out of my pocket and onto my right hand. It was always possible Karim's reason for bringing us in here was to get rid of us quietly, out of view of potential witnesses. Just because I hadn't been able to sense a Modhran colony behind his eyes didn't mean there wasn't one there.

And even if he wasn't a walker, he might have reasons of his own to seriously dislike me. There were plenty of people like that left over from my Westali days.

'I remember when Oved gave these to her,' Karim commented, turning Lorelei's ring over in his fingers. 'He was taking classes from the jeweler over on Seventh, and they were the first things he made that actually looked decent.'

'Oved was her boyfriend?'

Karim shrugged. 'He wanted to be,' he said. 'Lorelei had that effect on people. There was just something about her that made you like her.'

He set the ring and necklace on the desk in front of him and looked up at us. 'He's the one who attacked you just now, by the way.'

'He shows promise,' I said.

Karim nodded agreement. 'He was the one who first approached me about getting some sort of paramilitary training. He knew Lorelei was in danger from somewhere, and wanted to be able to help her when she got back here with you.' A hint of a frown crossed his face. 'She is here somewhere, isn't she?'

I grimaced. I hated this part. 'I'm afraid she won't be coming back. I'm sorry.'

A corner of Karim's lip twitched. 'What happened?'

'Someone caught up with her a couple of hours after she left my apartment,' I said, carefully skipping over the fact that she'd left because I'd thrown her out. 'A couple of someones, actually.'

'She said there were people hunting for her,' Karim murmured, his eyes drifting away. 'Oved volunteered to go with her. So did I. But she said she had to do this alone.'

Abruptly, his eyes came back to focus squarely on my face. 'Why you, Mr. Compton?'

'Good question,' I acknowledged. 'I wish I had a good answer to go with it.'

'You weren't somebody she already knew?' he persisted. 'A friend, or the friend of a friend?'

'Not that she ever mentioned,' I said. 'All she said was that her sister Rebekah was in danger, and that she wanted me to get her out.'

'Is Rebekah still safe?' Bayta asked.

Karim's eyes shifted to her, his forehead creasing in a frown. 'As safe as we can make her,' he said. 'And you are …?'

'This is Bayta,' I told him, frowning in turn at his reaction. Were we going to get into the royal bugaboo of cultural problems here? 'Is it inappropriate for her to speak in our company?'

'No, no, not at all,' Karim assured me. But he was still staring at her, that odd look still on his face. 'It's just that there's something about her. Something …' He shook his head abruptly. 'Never mind. Tell me how you plan to get Rebekah off New Tigris.'

'Not so fast,' I cautioned. 'I'm not doing anything until I know more about the situation. Let's start with who exactly was hunting Lorelei, and are they the same bunch who are also hunting Rebekah.'

'We don't know who they are, exactly,' he said. 'The police may be involved—I know Lorelei didn't trust them, and didn't want us to, either. There have also been other people, too, mostly non-Humans, who've come to New Tigris for a week or two at a time.'

I thought about the other two torchyachts we'd seen on the field north of town. 'Tourists?'

'Some were,' he said. 'Upper-class ones, who threw a lot of money around traveling out into the wilderness areas. But there were also some who seemed to be here on business. That group stayed pretty much in the city.'

I looked at Bayta, saw my same conclusion reflected in the tightness around her lips. Rich non-Human tourists and businessmen were prime candidates for Modhran walkerhood. And, of course, we were assuming Lorelei died in the company of Human walkers.

Which seemed to point to the slightly absurd conclusion that this ten-year-old Human girl was the Abomination the Modhri was so worried about. 'Do the police have anything official to do with Rebekah?' I asked. 'Any warrants or protection formals out on her?'

'None that I know of.'

'How long have all these non-Human tourists been wandering around?'

'They started arriving about three months ago,' Karim said. 'At first, Lorelei didn't seem to be particularly worried about them. Then, about five weeks ago, she suddenly started getting nervous. She said she needed to go to Earth for help, and asked me to hide Rebekah while she was gone.'

'Where's Rebekah now?' Bayta asked.

Karim hesitated, his eyes shifting back and forth between us. 'Come on, Mr. Karim,' I coaxed. 'You either trust us right now, or else you don't trust us at all. There's no way to get you any more proof as to who we are or whose side we're on.'

Karim snorted. 'My father once warned me never to trust people who urge you to make a quick decision on an important matter.'

'Whether to veer left or right as you barrel toward a cliff could be considered an important decision, too,' I said. 'It's also not one you can afford to ponder too long.'

'Point taken,' Karim said. But his eyes were still troubled.

'Maybe I can make it easier for you,' Bayta offered. 'If we were your enemies, we'd thank you for your time and leave. Then we'd come back with reinforcements.'

'Reinforcements for what?' Karim asked, frowning.

'To get Rebekah,' Bayta said. 'She's here in this building.'

Karim was good, all right. His face and body language didn't even twitch.

But even through his dark skin, I saw some of the color go out of his face. 'Bayta's right,' I said, putting a casual confidence in my voice even as I wondered how in hell's name she'd figured that out. 'You want to take us to her? Or are you the sporting type who'd rather make us find her ourselves?'

'No need,' he said, his shoulders sagging microscopically in defeat. Standing up, he moved his chair out of the way and ducked down to the floor. I was halfway around the side of the desk when there was a soft creaking sound.

And as I finished rounding the desk, I saw him pulling open a half-meter-square trapdoor. 'She's down there,' he said, straightening up and gesturing down the shaft.

I leaned over for a closer look. The shaft was completely framed with wood that looked like it had been there awhile. There was a ladder fastened to one side, disappearing downward into the darkness. I pulled out my flashlight and shone it into the hole, revealing a dirt floor about four meters down. At the bottom a passageway led off from the desk side of the shaft, heading in a direction that would take it under the main part of the bar. 'Interesting accommodations,' I commented.

'Part of the storage cellar,' Karim told me. 'We walled it off from the main cellar when Rebekah went into hiding.'

'How obvious is the dividing wall?'

'Not at all,' he assured me. 'It also has ten beer barrels stacked against it.' He gestured to the shaft. 'Shall I go first?'

There was a subtle challenge to my pride hidden in the question: the big, bad, former Westali agent afraid that a simple little colonist might pull a fast one and seal him away down in the deep, dark hole.

But I was way past the point of letting pride make my decisions for me. 'Yes, thank you,' I said, gesturing him toward the ladder.

Without a word he knelt, got a grip on the edge of the hole, and started down the ladder. Motioning Bayta to stand watch, I followed him down.