“The full seven,” agreed the Dean. And he led me to Cyr Vesant, placed my hand on her shoulder, and the contract was made.
It wasn’t as bad as it might have been. All that “I’ve been robbed” business and its accompanying profanity was an act that my contract-holder liked to put on from time to time, to test the waters when dealing with strangers. She was a lot sharper than she’d appeared at first meeting, and a good deal more sophisticated. Arid because of a special clause in her arrangement with the Dean, I gave her fair warning when she was treading too close to a violation; she never needed a second hint. It was educational, in fact, to be this close to someone whose survival instinct was so finely honed.
Six of the seven years had passed when she brought me to Baret One to back her up on her last deal. She had a case of lorine, perfectly legal in the Empire, and wanted to sell it to some folk on One, humorless Republic types who needed it to relax. This done, we boarded the Republic Ship Kestrel to swing back to Baret Station, where her pharmaceutical company kept storage facilities.
I checked her stateroom, pulled out the jammers we always carried, and set one on the polished dresser by her bed. She sat on the side of the bed, her bare feet touching the soft ship’s carpet. Her silver hair was spread over her back.
“Keylinn,” she said.
“Cyr?” I inquired.
“That thing is on, isn’t it?” She cocked her head toward the jammer.
“Of course.”
“Good. Sit here.” She patted the spot beside her.
I sat. She said, “You have another year on your contract.”
“Yes,” I agreed, to this somewhat obvious remark.
“Keylinn, I’m retiring. I’ve played out the situation in this system anyway; and I’ve gotten enough banked over the years that the rewards are no longer worth the risks. I’m going home to Vakrist.”
My stomach went hollow. “When?”
“After we dock on Baret Station; after I get some of my affairs together; after I arrange booking at Baret Gate.”
“I see.”
“Vakrist is several sector-gates away. It would be difficult for you to return to your people if you went with me. I’d be within my right to take you, though, wouldn’t I?”
“You’d be within your rights.”
“Though perhaps not very wise,” she said, with a wry and not entirely friendly look. “I think I’ve become as familiar as anyone with the negative aspects of keeping a personal Graykey. Tell me, did you plan for that meeting in Tin City to fall apart?”
I said, “It worked to your advantage in the end.”
“It wasn’t what I told you to do. Aren’t you supposed to obey me?”
“It was a gray area,” I said.
“The world is full of gray areas for you people, isn’t it?”
I didn’t reply. It didn’t seem called for.
She said, “And those aren’t the only kinds of gray areas I have to watch out for, are they? How many times have I come near death at your hands in the last six years?”
“Four,” I said at once.
She laughed. “I’d only spotted three.” She stood up and began pulling her nightclothes, soft and expensive, from her case.
They teach us to wait, in the Academy, but I couldn’t. “Does this mean you aren’t taking me with you?”
She turned to look at me. As in our first meeting, she didn’t bother to keep the smug expression from her lips. “It means I’ll consider the situation,” she said. “And I’ll let you know what I decide.” She rooted around in her case, looking for something. “You know, it’s like teasing a leopard. Ah, here we are!” She pulled out her alabaster hairbrush and handed it to me. “Brush me out, Keylinn, before I go to sleep.”
I took it; I brushed her hair; I turned out the stateroom light. She said, “Good night, Keylinn.” I left, making sure her door was solidly locked.
They’d be proud of me at the Academy. Good night, I thought, in my own tongue; which means, literally, safe until morning.
Chapter 5
Tal stood before the looking glass in his quarters, a halfdozen sets of lenses spread on the polished dressertop before him. Three needed cleaning, and he hadn’t time for that. Two were brown, and the remaining one was gray. Adrian seemed to prefer gray; perhaps he should wear it more often. Although, where Tal was going today, nobody would get the joke.
He lifted a lens to one eye and paused. The yelloweyed Aphean in the glass stared back at him, troubled. Why did his natural iris color disturb humans so? Half his genetic heritage came from the Elaph People, gentle and golden-eyed, and humans loved them. Not that Tal had any great respect for, or interest in, a species of such neurotic pacificity as the Elaphites. Ask them to walk en masse into the core of a healthy sun, and they would be happy to oblige you. No; humans, while treacherous in the extreme, were much better company.
Adrian was, at any rate; though an enigma. For one thing, he kept Tal around, in spite of attaining no immediate advantage from his company. Of course, he kept Brandon Fischer around, too, and a more useless piece of encroaching senility would be difficult to find. He remembered his first meeting with the Chief Adviser, and the appalled look on the old man’s face when Adrian had announced that Tal was to be given asylum.
What he’d actually said was, “I brought him home, Brandon; can I keep him?” Feeling pleased with himself, Adrian was, eyes shining with his own cleverness in getting Tal past the local police and into the Brevity port.
And Tal remembered the first time he’d heard that voice, in the snow behind the Three-Pint Bar, in Kellogtown on Brevity. His quest had not gone well that day. His informant had lied, as his informants seemed to do
