Cobra Bargain

Chapter 42

The confrontation was fortunately postponed a few minutes by the necessity of covering their trail. Switching the motion detectors back on was the work of five seconds; trying to seal the hole Jin had made in the rubberine took considerably longer and with far less success. She was able to use her lasers to fuse the edges back together, but the procedure left shiny streaks that stood out all too well against the duller background material. Roughing up the shiny parts with her fingernails helped some, but not enough, and eventually she gave up the effort. As Akim pointed out, anyone coming in through the tunnel would probably be more concerned with his footing than with watching the walls, anyway.

The ship was still quiet as they started down the long central corridor. Jin had hoped to hide them in an empty storeroom where they could be assured of privacy, but it was quickly apparent that that plan would have to be altered. Most of the rooms they found along their way were locked down, and the few that were open still had a fair assortment of scancoded boxes guardwebbed to walls and floor.

Akim pointed out at one stop that even with the boxes there was enough room for the three of them; Jin countered with the reminder that the Trofts would probably be coming in to continue their unloading in the morning.

So they kept going. Finally, in the forward part of the main cargo/engineering section, just aft of the ship's long neck, they found an unlocked pumping room with enough floor space for at least two of them to lie down comfortably at the same time. "This ought to do, at least for now," Jin decided, glancing around the vacant corridors one last time before shutting the door behind them. "Let me give you a hand with Daulo."

"I've got him," Akim said, lowering the youth to a limp sitting position against one wall. "Is there a light we can turn on?"

The glow filtering in from the corridor was enough for Jin's light-amps to work with. Locating the switch, she turned on the room's wall-mounted lights. "We shouldn't leave them on long," she warned Akim.

"I understand," Akim nodded, giving the room a quick once-over.

"Do you see anything we can use as a pillow?" Jin asked, lowering herself carefully to the deck beside Daulo.

Akim shook his head. "His shoes will do well enough, though." Stooping down, he removed Daulo's shoes and leaned awkwardly over the unconscious youth.

"I can do that," Jin offered, reaching over.

"I'm all right," Akim said tartly, avoiding her hands. The motion threw him off balance, and he had to drop one hand to the deck to catch himself.

"Miron Akim-"

"I said I was all right," he snapped.

"Fine," Jin snapped back, suddenly fed up with it all.

Akim glared up at her as he slipped the shoes beneath Daulo's head. "You'd be advised to show more respect, offworlder," he growled, moving back and sitting down across the room from her.

"I save my respect for those who've earned it," Jin shot back.

For a long moment he and Jin eyed each other in brittle silence. Then Jin took a deep breath and sighed. "Look... I'm sorry, Miron Akim. I realize my personality grates against your sensibilities, but right now I'm just too tired to try and fit into the normal Qasaman mold."

Slowly the anger faded from Akim's face. "Our worlds would have been enemies even without the razorarms, wouldn't they?" he said quietly. "Our cultures are just too different for us to ever understand each other."

Jin closed her eyes briefly. "I'd like to think neither of our societies is that rigid. Just because we're not the best of friends doesn't mean we have to be enemies, you know."

"But we are enemies," Akim said grimly. "Our rulers have shown it in their words; your rulers have shown it in their actions." He hesitated. "Which makes it very hard for me to understand why you saved my life."

Jin eyed him. "Because you're not the Shahni and their thirty-year-old words, and I'm not the Aventinian Council and their thirty-year-old actions. You and I are right here-right now-facing a threat to Qasama that both of us want to stop.

We are not enemies. Why shouldn't I save your life?"

Akim snorted. "That's a false argument. We're extensions of our rulers-no more, no less. If our rulers are at war, we are, too."

Jin chewed at her lip. "All right, then. If I'm such a threat to Qasama, why didn't you call Obolo Nardin's men while I was off rescuing Daulo Sammon?"

The question seemed to take Akim by surprise. "Because they would have killed me along with you, of course."

"So? Aren't you supposed to be willing to die for the good of your world? I am."

"But then-" Akim stopped.

"But then what?" Jin prompted him. "But then the threat Mangus represents would remain hidden?"

Akim's lip twisted. "You're subtler than I'd thought," he said. "You fight me with my own words."

"I'm not trying to fight you," Jin shook her head wearily. "Not verbally or any other way. I'm simply trying to point out that you're doing exactly what you're supposed to: you've evaluated the potential threats to Qasama, you've figured out which of those threats is the most immediate, and you're throwing every weapon you possess at it." She smiled wryly. "At the moment, I'm one of those weapons."

He smiled, too, almost unwillingly. "And I one of yours?" he countered.

She shrugged. "I could hardly stop Obolo Nardin on my own, even if I wanted to.

Besides, he's one of your people. Dealing with him should be your business."

"True." Akim glanced around at the metal walls surrounding them. "Though dealing with him from here may prove difficult."

"Don't worry, we'll get out all right," Jin assured him. "Remember, Obolo Nardin seems to be very big on mind-expander drugs, which means he'll be thinking about this very logically. If we aren't in his half of Mangus-and he'll be able to confirm that pretty quickly-then he'll have to assume we got out somehow. It's a solid fifty kilometers back to Azras and we're on foot, so he knows we can't possibly be there before midday tomorrow-today, I mean. Then we either have to contact the Shahni by phone-"

"Which he would know about instantly."

"Right. And since he knows we know about his rigged phone system, he knows we'll have to try something else instead." And now came the crucial question. Jin braced herself, trying to keep her voice casual. "So. Are there any radio systems in use on Qasama? Big ones, I mean, not like the little short-range things the Sammon family uses inside their mine."

She held her breath; but if he noticed anything odd in her voice or face he didn't show it. "The SkyJo combat helicopters have radios," he said thoughtfully. "But the nearest ones we could get to are in Sollas."

Her heart skipped a beat. "There aren't any at Milika?" she asked carefully.

"I'd assumed your people would come in by helicopter when you heard about the supply pod."

"We did, but those SkyJos have since been sent into the forest to guard your spacecraft's wreckage."

Jin began to breathe again. "I see. And of course, Obolo Nardin will know all that," she said, getting back on the logic of her argument. "So he'll know that we'll have to go all the way to Sollas to find any kind of assault force to hit him with. How far is that by car?"

"Several hours. And more time after that to assemble a force and get it back here, especially since we can't use the phone system. Yes, I see now where you're heading. You think Obolo Nardin will feel secure enough not to panic and begin destroying evidence of his treason?"

"Not for at least the next half day, no. Face it; he's got too much to lose if he cuts and runs when he doesn't have to. Not to mention the fact that if he pulls up stakes here he also loses his best chance of finding us before we can talk. I doubt he'd do that without a specific and imminent threat swooping down toward him." She shrugged. "Now, if another day goes by without him catching up with us, then he probably will start worrying. But by then his search parties ought to either be back home or spread out too thin to bother us. And Daulo

Sammon will hopefully be back on his feet, too."

Akim looked down at Daulo. "I hate the thought of hiding here while Obolo Nardin has full freedom to operate," he admitted candidly. "The damage he could do to

Qasama... but I also see nothing better for us to do."

"Well, if something occurs to you, please don't hesitate to speak up," Jin told him. "I might have more of this tactical military training than you do, but you know the planet far better than I ever will."

He grimaced. "Most of it, perhaps. But apparently not enough. Tell me, how did your people discover Obolo Nardin's treason?"

Jin snorted gently. "They didn't. They knew there was something wrong with

Mangus, but they got their conclusions almost completely backwards."

She described the satellite blackouts and the missile-test theory the Qasama

Monitor Center had come up with. "Interesting," Akim said when she'd finished.

"I hope you aren't suggesting the Trofts have given Obolo Nardin advanced weapons, too."

"No, I don't think they'd do anything like that," Jin shook her head. "Trofts never give anything away for free, and certainly not to a human society that's still considered a threat. They'll be keeping a very tight control over what

Obolo Nardin gets, and any technology that could conceivably be used against them won't be on the list."

"Hence the security around this ship," Akim nodded. There was an odd note of disappointment in his voice. "Yes, I suppose they would be careful about such things. I take it that it wasn't Obolo Nardin who was knocking out your satellites, then?"

"No, it was the Trofts playing games with them. Trivial to do, too, from close range. They probably sneaked up behind the one they needed to knock out and left a remote chase satellite slaved in orbit to it. That way they could remotely arrange blackouts to cover both landing and liftoff and still leave no hard evidence of tampering when our ships came by to pick up the recordings."

Akim snorted gently. "Yes, your ships. Odd. We've watched them come by for many years, Jasmine Moreau. In the early days we prepared for attack each time we spotted one, wondering if this would be the one that would bring warriors down to the surface. Then we discovered the satellites, and began correlating your ships' movements against them, and realized what you were actually doing. But still we watched... and two weeks ago, when the long-expected invasion actually came, we missed it entirely." He eyed her. "I trust you appreciate the irony of it."

Jin shivered. "I gave up on irony when my companions were killed."

His expression was almost sympathetic. "We didn't shoot your spacecraft down,

Jasmine Moreau," he said quietly.

"I know."

"The Trofts?"

She nodded. "You appreciate irony, Miron Akim? Try this one: given that they never came out to investigate, I don't think they even knew who and what they'd hit."

He frowned. "They attacked without knowing what they were attacking?"

"It was probably some kind of automated hunter/seeker missile patrolling the airspace, programmed to hit anything flying too close to Mangus. We must have just happened to arrive at the same time one of their ships was landing or lifting; they surely wouldn't have missiles flying around the area all the time."

"Uncontrolled weapons." Akim spat. "And they consider themselves civilized, no doubt."

Jin nodded. "There are things Trofts won't do... but some of the things they will do are pretty disgusting. We'll have to try and scramble the controls for launching the missiles before we leave the ship or any helicopters you send will be shot out of the sky before they get past Purma."

"Shall we go do that now?"

Jin glanced down at Daulo's slack face. "No. There'll probably be Trofts on duty on the bridge, and we don't want to risk starting anything right now. Tomorrow night, when Daulo Sammon's recovered and you and I have caught up on our sleep, we'll give it a try."

Akim stifled a yawn. "All right. Should one of us stand watch?"

Jin shook her head. "Just lie down against the door, if you don't mind. As long as we're alerted the second anyone tries to get in, I'll be able to deal with them."

"What about you?" Akim asked, sliding across the floor to parallel the door.

"There's not really enough room for all of us to lie down."

"Don't worry about me," Jin yawned. "I used to sleep sitting up all the time when I was a girl. I should be able to recover the technique."

"Well... all right." Reaching to his feet, Akim pulled off his shoes and slid them beneath his head as he stretched out on his back against the door. "But if you have trouble sleeping, let me know and we can trade off partway through the night."

"I'll do that," Jin promised. "Thank you, Miron Akim. Goodnight."

For a moment his dark eyes bored into hers. "Goodnight, Jasmine Moreau."

Reaching up, Jin flicked off the light. The room fell silent, and for a long while she just sat there in the darkness, feeling utterly drained in body, mind, and spirit. Two weeks, Akim had said, since Jin's "invasion" had begun. Two weeks, now, she'd been marooned on this world.

And with an almost shocking suddenness, the end of it was upon her.

With an effort of will, Jin activated her optical enhancers and looked over at

Akim. His eyes were closed, his body limp, his breathing slow and steady.

Sleeping the sleep of the righteous. And why not? she thought, almost resentfully. After all, she'd done her best to convince him that there was nothing for them to do but sleep for the next half day or more. This was the eye of the storm, the lull before embarking on what he surely knew would be a long and perilous journey to Azras to sound the alarm.

Except that, with any luck at all, it wouldn't be.

Two weeks. Eight days for the Southern Cross, six days for the Dewdrop. Fourteen

Aventinian days were... Briefly, she tried to make the conversion to Qasama days, but her brain wasn't up to it and she gave up the effort. It was close, though; the two planets' rotation periods didn't differ by more than an hour or so.

Which meant that the rescue team could be here almost any time.

We'll listen for your call at local sunrise, noon, sunset, and midnight, Captain

Koja's supply pod message had said. If you can't signal, we'll come down and find you.

How long would they wait before landing and beginning a full-scale search? Not more than a day, surely. Especially once they confirmed that the shuttle's crash site was being guarded by military helicopters. Twelve hours in orbit, no more, and they'd be coming down.

And when they did...

Jin shivered. We aren't enemies, she'd told Akim. And she'd meant it. Whether he liked it or not, they really were allies in this battle to tear Obolo Nardin's sticky fingers off Qasama. The landing team, though, was unlikely to see things that way.

Which meant she had to get in touch with them before they landed. Probably within the next day. Almost certainly before it was safe for Akim and Daulo to leave.

Her stomach knotted at the thought. What would they think, she wondered uneasily, when she abandoned them here tomorrow evening and made her solitary escape from Mangus? Would they understand that all this really hadn't been a cold-blooded scheme to trap them here out of her way? Would they believe her when she repeated that this was still the safest place for them to wait for their own reinforcements to arrive?

And would either understand if she had to kill someone in order to get access to one of those helicopter radios out at the shuttle crash site?

Probably not. But ultimately, it didn't much matter. Whether they understood or not, it was something she had to do. As much for Qasama's safety as for her own.

With a sigh, she turned off her optical enhancers and tried to sink into the darkness surrounding her. Eventually, she succeeded.