Tal felt his fists clenching under the table. “Is this crewmember on board now?”
“This very second? I wouldn’t know, he might have a station pass. But he made the trip here, and I assume he’ll make the trip back.”
Tal put his hand on the tabletop and drummed his fingers With a deliberately slow rhythm. Cyr Vesant said, “Our interaction has been so pleasant, I feel it my duty to tell you that in all the time I spent on Baret One—and I’ve spent quite some time, all told—I never heard of this Belleraphon before or since. And I had occasion to meet many distributors.”
The drumming continued. Tal said, “Describe this crewmember.”
“Height shorter than mine—about to my chin, for as you see, I’m quite tall. Very light hair, grayish white, cut very short. Brown eyes. Skin gold-brown—about the shade of that picture frame over there. His name is Peeskill.” She smiled. “I know because I checked the door to his quarters. The names of passengers and crew are neatly labeled on each; how like the Republic.”
“Anything else?”
She shook her head. “That’s all I know. Sufficient?”
Tal opened the pack and counted out about a third of the notes. “Second-order information,” he said. “If you could bring me face-to-face with Belleraphon, you’d get it all.”
“As I expected,” said Cyr Vesant. She stood up and stretched unself-consciously. “What a lovely retirement bonus. This system is so unusual—two habitable planets, half Empire and half Republic—it cried out to be exploited. I almost hate to go home.” She fastened her emerald cape. “But I would be pressing my luck. It’s only a matter of time before Baret Two drowns under the Republican tide, and then where’s the point of smuggling? Keylinn can leave as she is; any possessions she has belong to me in any case.”
Tal rose, too, and Keylinn followed suit, lifting a small pack. Had she been expecting this? Cyr Vesant said, “Ordinarily I would not ask, but as I’m leaving this sector forever, I believe I’ll indulge. What will you do with this Belleraphon when you find him?”
Tal smiled, an Aphean smile that held no reassurance for humans. He said, “You wonder if you’ve targeted someone for murder. Does it matter to you, cyr?”
“Not enough to give the money back. Well, my friend, good-bye; and a word of advice—don’t keep your broadcast jammer in your vest pocket, it makes a bulge. Or else get a smaller model.” She yawned delicately, raising the back of her hand to her mouth. “I’m not clairvoyant, it’s just that you’d be a fool not to have it running on a Republic ship. Between yours and mine, this whole lounge must have come out as one great white noise.”
She pushed in her chair and shook herself as though to wake up, like a child who’d fallen asleep during the conversation of grownups. She smiled with deliberate sheepishness and Tal thought, Mercati or not, Adrian could learn a thing or two about charm from this one. She said, “You know, I think I’ll take a nap in my cabin. I don’t have to disembark till tomorrow. Good-bye, Keylinn.”
“Good-bye, Cyr Vesant. Pleasant journey.”
She shook hands again with Tal, and left.
He looked at Keylinn. “Do you have a station pass?”
“No.”
“Then we’ll take you round by way of Quarantine. You can’t leave the docking area, but my ship’s not far.”
Later, in the shortie, he checked their course and looked over to where Keylinn sat, silent, in the copilot seat. He said, “Have you ever piloted a short-range?”
“Yes.”
‘Then with manuals you can probably program these, and City capsules. Good. We can get you taken onto the Diamond with skills like that. I’ll say your pass was running out, and you couldn’t wait for our recruiters to interview you on the station. I warn you now, there’ll be language difficulties, and no tapes or pills or implants to get you over the hump. But you’ll find when you’re used to them that they’re not insurmountable. The Cities use what’s actually a variation of Empire Standard, hard though it is to believe when you first hear them. It’s a number of centuries out of date and splintered off.” He looked openly at her profile. A large, very slightly askew nose, a scattering of very faint freckles—unusual—and eyes somewhere between green, gray, and blue; sea-colored. eyes, he thought, or at least the color of the sea where he’d grown up, anyway. We can cancel that memory. He said, “Tell me what I can expect, Graykey.”
“Pardon?”
“What do I get with my contract?”
“I’ll obey orders, answer questions truthfully, and serve your best interests ahead of my own life for the next two-hundred and ninety-three days.”
“Cyr Vesant said a year.”
“She was making an approximation. Two hundred and ninety-three days remain on my contract.”
“I see.” The Diamond was ten minutes away. There was still time to call a halt—there was a Keith pistol in his other vest pocket—but the situation was too interesting to let go. “I suppose it’s educational to meet a footnote in galactic history. I’m rather a footnote myself. Are you familiar with Apheans?”
“Somewhat.”
“I am one. It’s no secret where we’re going. Is that a problem?”
“Definitely not.”
Why “definitely?”
“How much do you know about Apheans?”
“Like you, I’ve also spent time with the Imperial Encyclopedia. That’s the extent of my knowledge of Apheans—and Belleraphon.”
Tal’s fingers went toward the pistol. He drew them back again. “I suppose I should be glad so few
