On Basilisk Station

it.'

'Understood.' Summervale drummed on the edge of the console for a moment, then shrugged, physically this time. 'Anything else?'

'Not right now. I'll get back to you if something else breaks.'

'Understood,' Summervale repeated, and killed the circuit.

He sat before the silent screen for several minutes, thinking, then rose to pace the small com room. There were things about this entire operation that never had added up to his satisfaction, and his employer's apparent lack of concern over the loss of his entire lab complex was one more puzzle. Oh, the facilities weren't that expensive—mekoha production wasn't particularly difficult or complicated—but putting them in without detection had been a major operation. If they lost them, they also lost their production base, at least until a new one could be assembled, and installing a new lab would expose them to detection all over again.

Or would it?

He paused in his pacing, and an eyebrow curved in speculation. Suppose they already had a backup facility in place? That was certainly possible, particularly in light of some of his other unanswered questions. Like why the Organization had gone to such lengths to sell drugs, especially something like mekoha, to a bunch of primitive abos in the first place. He couldn't quite convince himself that Medusa hid some unknown, priceless treasure the Stilties were trading for the stuff, and any Medusan commodity he could think of could have been purchased for far less investment (and risk) with legitimate trade goods. Of course, he wasn't privy to the distribution end of the pipeline. He and his people distributed some of their production to the local chieftains and shamans in return for a network of Stilty scouts and sentinels, but the vast bulk of it was shipped out for disposal elsewhere.

And if they were going to sell drugs, why choose mekoha? There were half a dozen other Stilty drugs and intoxicants the Organization might have chosen. Not ones that would produce the same price, perhaps, but ones that could have been manufactured even more cheaply. And ones which were far less likely to bring the NPA down on their heads, as well. Mekoha's violent side effects were certain to infuriate Matsuko, and not just because she felt a genuine mission to protect the Stilties from off- world exploitation. Only a lunatic would be unconcerned over the massive distribution of something that could turn the most peaceful native into a raging maniac.

But, as he'd told the man on the screen, that was the Organization's concern, not his. Besides, his lip curled unpleasantly, anything that upset the Resident Commissioner, the NPA, and the Royal Manticoran Navy was eminently worthwhile in its own right.

He resumed his pacing, and his eyes were dark and ugly with memories. There had been a time when Captain the Honorable Denver Summervale, Royal Manticoran Marine Corps, would have been on the other side of this problem. But today he was in his element, on the side he should have been on from the beginning, for the Marines had decided they'd made a mistake the day they accepted his oath of allegiance. One they had corrected in the formal drama of a full-dress court martial.

A dangerous snarl bared his teeth, and his pace quickened as he recalled the moment. The spectators' humming silence, with the point of his dress sword turned towards him on the table before the glittering senior officers while the president of the court read the formal verdict. The roll of drums as he was marched out in mess dress uniform to face his regiment, an officer of the Queen in gorgeous black and green, standing with emotionless face while the most junior enlisted man in his own battalion ripped the buttons and decorations from his tunic to the slow, bitter tapping of the drum. The expression on his colonel's face as his epaulets and insignia were taken from him to be ground under a booted heel. The flat, metallic crack as the blade of his archaic dress sword snapped in the colonel's gloved hands.

Oh, yes, he remembered. And, despite his hatred, he knew they'd been right. They were the sheep, but Denver Summervale was a wolf, and he'd made his way even then in the way a wolf knew best—with his teeth.

He dropped back into the chair before the com terminal, grinning dangerously at the blank screen. His father had been there, too, he recalled. His pious, noble father, clinging to the fringes of the Summervale glory despite his poverty. What had the high and mighty family ever given them, that they should ape its manners and honor its name? Their branch had none of the wealth, none of the power, that clung to the direct line of the Dukes of Cromarty!

Summervale's hands clenched in his lap, and he closed his eyes. His own flesh and blood sat in the prime minister's chair. Even then, the precious Duke of Cromarty had been Lord of the Exchequer, second in seniority in Her Majesty's Government, and had he raised a hand to help his distant cousin? Not he! Not that noble, proper, sanctimonious bastard.

But that, too, was all right. He made his hands relax, savoring the thought of the gossip and sidelong glances his disgrace must have brought upon the noble Duke and treasuring the look on his father's face as his sword snapped. All his life, his father had preached to him of duty and responsibility, of the glorious role his family had played in the history of the Kingdom. But duty and responsibility hadn't paid his debts. Family history hadn't won him the respect and fear it won the 'true' line.

No, those things he had earned himself, earned on the 'field of honor' while he laughed at their pretensions.

He opened his eyes once more, staring at his reflection in the com screen, remembering the dawn quiet and the weight of a pistol. Remembering the seconds and the master of the list's stern expression as he stared across thirty meters of smooth grass at a pale-faced opponent. It had been ... Bullard? No. That first time had been Scott, and he shivered as his palm felt again the shock of recoil and Scott's white shirt blossomed crimson and he fell.

He shook himself. It had been a business transaction, nothing more, he told himself, and knew he lied. Oh, it had been business, and the money his secret sponsor had slipped him had cleared his debts ... for a time. Until the next time. But the sensual thrill of knowing, even as Scott crumpled, that his bullet had blown his target's aristocratic heart apart — that had been his true reward. And the reason it had been so easy to accept the next assignment, and the next.

Yet in the end, the very people he hated with all his soul had won. 'Professional duelist,' they'd called him, when all the time they'd meant 'paid killer.' And they'd been right. He admitted that here in the quiet, empty room. But he'd killed too many of them, even when his sponsors would have been willing to settle for a wound. The blood taste had been too sweet, the aura of fear too heady, and finally the Corps had had enough.

He'd killed a 'brother officer'—as if the uniform a dead man wore should matter! He wasn't the first serving officer to do so, but there were too many bodies in his past, too many families that owed too many debts. They couldn't try him for murder, for duels were legal. He'd faced his opponent's fire, and they couldn't prove he'd accepted money for it. But they'd all known the truth, and they could bring up his entire record: his gambling, his women, the adulterous affairs he'd used to lure targets onto the field, the arrogance he'd let color his relations with senior officers as the terror of his reputation grew. And that had been enough to find him 'unfit to wear the Queen's uniform' and led to that bright, hot morning and the slow, degrading tap of the drums.

And it had led here, as well. Here where the money was good, but even here the money was only part of it. Only the means to an end that let him sneer at their self-proclaimed nobility of purpose and avenge himself upon them again and again, even if they never knew it.

His nostrils flared, and he pushed himself up out of the chair.

All right. He'd been warned that the operation was in jeopardy, and its security was his responsibility. So be it. There were too many records, too much evidence, in this facility, and as his employer had said, the lab was only hardware.

There were ways to evacuate, and there were ways to evacuate, he thought with a slow, hungry smile. If he had to leave the equipment behind, then he could at least abandon it in a way that would give him personal satisfaction.

He opened the com room door and walked briskly down the hall. He had arrangements to make.