“Oh yeah? Well… go with your gut. That’s what I always do.”
“Obviously. All right, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, since you tried to warn me concerning the situation. I’m going to assume you were found out somehow, that something leaked and Drusus found out what you were investigating. Then, when he hauled you upstairs to report, you clued me in.”
“That’s exactly how it went, Tribune.”
She pursed her fine lips tightly. I knew she didn’t believe me—but she also appreciated the fact I’d given her a heads-up. That would have to do for now. Sometimes, a friendship depended on plausible deniability.
Galina entered the elevator, and she let me step aboard with her.
“Are you actually tired?” she asked me.
I thought about that question for a full second. If I said yes, I might get a little shut-eye. The truth was I hadn’t had a full night’s sleep. That wasn’t due to actually working, or anything like that, but the opportunity to lounge could never be taken lightly by a legionnaire.
Following this line of thinking, I almost faked a yawn and a stretch—but I stopped myself.
What if there were other fringe benefits under consideration? Galina and I had been intimate on worse days, after all…
“Nope. I feel fine. You want to get some breakfast?”
Her eyes slid to the deck, then back up to my face. That was a tell, right there. She was interested.
“All right.”
We made our way to the officer’s mess nearby. The staff there eyed me strangely, and I knew right off what the trouble was: I’d just eaten breakfast here about an hour ago.
That wasn’t any kind of a problem for man like myself. I was often hungry long before lunch, no matter what I ate for breakfast.
We had omelets and coffee and more Danishes. Galina was happy she’d gotten in on the credit for all our discoveries, so she was in a fine mood. That was a nice change of pace.
“The only thing that worries me is how we’re going to go out there and take care of this place—Green World, I mean.”
“You don’t think we can simply fly Dominus out there and take care of business?”
She snorted. “No. It’s not that Dominus isn’t up to the task, it’s the fact that it will be too easily recognized. That very ship was posted at Edge World during the last campaign. The Skay would recognize it, among others.”
“Huh… by the way, did the Skay ever complain after we took the whole Shadowlander tribe off Edge World right under their noses?”
“Not that we know of. They probably didn’t even notice. They care even less than the Mogwa about what we do out here on the frontier. By the way, we’ve begun moving all the tribesmen from Earth to L-374.”
I shook my head. “Death World? That’s still the plan? That seems kind of evil.”
Galina shrugged. “The nomads can handle it, if anyone can.”
I sipped my second coffee and wondered if Galina had shipped those people all the way out to Death World just to remove Helsa from my vicinity. That might sound petty and extreme—but I knew this woman pretty well.
“Okay, so… what about Armel?” I asked.
“I haven’t revived that snake yet, if that’s what you mean.”
“Why not?”
She made an off-hand gesture of disinterest. “Why bother? What does he matter at this point, now that we’ve located Green World? We’ll go out there, find their hidden base, and blow it up.”
I leaned toward her. “What if he can help us get there? Without being noticed by the Skay, I mean? He was the enforcer of the province, after all.”
Galina stopped sipping her tea and stared at me. Slowly, she put her tea cup down. “James… that is an intriguing idea… come on.”
She stood up, and I rammed a last Danish into my mouth in a wad. Slapping my hands together to remove the flaky glaze, I followed her out.
-24-
We went down—a long ways. It took damn near fifteen minutes of elevators and several ear-pops to go from the top of Central to the bottom—or almost the bottom. At least we didn’t end up in that creepy vault full of disembodied old brains.
Walking along with Galina for that long was something of a mistake for a man like me. I couldn’t help but notice her shapely form and her light step. She didn’t seem to notice my attentions, as she was distracted with what were no doubt nefarious thoughts of her own.
When we finally got to one of those sterile Blue Deck chambers, a room where people were revived who were never meant to see the light of day again, she stopped and filled out some forms.
The bio people were weird down here. I got the feeling they hadn’t had a lot of business lately—and that that was a good thing.
A centurion-level bio-woman came out of her office and examined Galina’s filled out e-paper. After about twenty seconds, she frowned and made a slash through it. Everything Galina had written melted away.
“Request denied.”
“What?” Galina squawked. “Do you know who I am?”
“I’m sorry, Tribune Turov,” she said, pretending to give a shit. “We can’t do this kind of revive here.”
“Maurice Armel is a traitor to Earth. He therefore belongs here.”
The smug bio shook her head. “Not with your authorization. You don’t have the clearance. You’re not even government.”
Galina was pissed. That was a bad thing. This little bio was playing with fire, and I doubted she knew it. Galina leaned forward into the other woman’s face.
The bio-woman flinched back in surprise.
“You don’t know who you’re frigging with. I’ll burn this place down.”
The centurion regained her composure quickly. “What you are
