Cobra Bargain

Chapter 27

"I looked up what records we had this afternoon," Daulo's silhouette said from beside Jin, "and it looks like my father's guess was a little pessimistic. It should be only two to three days before Mangus asks Azras to organize a work party."

Jin nodded silently as they passed through the darkened courtyard toward the steady splash of the fountain. It was odd, she thought, how easily a place could start to feel familiar and comfortable. Too comfortable, maybe? she wondered with a twinge of uneasiness. Layn had warned them against losing the undercurrent of mild paranoia that every warrior in enemy territory ought to maintain, and she could remember thinking it incredible that anyone in such a position could possibly relax that much. Now, it seemed, she was doing just that.

Which made it all the more urgent she move on to Azras and Mangus as soon as possible.

"You're very quiet," Daulo said.

She pursed her lips. "Just thinking how peaceful it is here," she told. him.

"Milika in general; your house in particular. I almost wish I could stay."

He snorted gently. "Don't worry too much about it. If you lived here for a few months you'd quickly find out it's not the Eden you seem to think." He paused.

"So... what are your people likely to do if it turns out you were right? That

Mangus is a base for striking back at you?"

Jin shrugged. "It probably depends partly on what you do in that case."

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Come on, Daulo Sammon, don't play innocent. If Mangus isn't a threat to Milika, you and your father have no reason to help me further. In fact, you have every reason to betray me."

His eyes grew hard. The Sammon family is a family of honor, Jasmine Moreau," he bit out. "We've sworn protection to you, and we'll stand by that bargain. No matter what."

She sighed. "I know. But we were... warned not to get overconfident."

"I understand," Daulo said quietly. "I'm afraid you'll just have to take my word for it."

"I know. But I don't have to like it."

In the darkness, his hand tentatively sought hers. It brought back memories of

Mander Sun... blinking back tears, she accepted the touch. "We didn't ask to be your enemies, Jin Moreau," Daulo said quietly. "We have enough to fight against right here on Qasama. And we've been fighting against them for long time.

Haven't we earned the right to some rest?"

She sighed. Thoughts of Caelian flashed through her mind... and thoughts of her father and uncle. "Yes. So has everyone else I know."

For a few minutes they continued to wander around the courtyard in silence, listening to the nighttime sounds of Milika beyond the house. "Is there a meaning to the name Jin?" Daulo asked suddenly. "Jasmine, I know, is an Old

Earth flower, but the only use of Jin I've ever heard is for the mythological spirit."

She felt a touch of heat in her cheeks. "It was a nickname my father gave me when I was young. He said-at least to me-that it was just a shortened version of

Jasmine." She licked her lips. "Maybe that's really all he meant it to be... but when I was about eight I found an old Dominion of Man magcard in the city library that listed several thousand common names and their meanings. Jin was given as an Old Japanese name that meant 'superexcellent.' "

"Indeed?" Daulo murmured. "A great compliment for your father to give you such a name."

"Maybe too great," Jin admitted. "The listing noted that it was rarely given, precisely because its meaning placed so great a demand on a child."

"And you've been trying to live up to it ever since?"

It was a thought that had often occurred to her. "I don't know. It's possible, I suppose. I remember that for weeks afterward I felt like everyone was looking expectantly at me, waiting for me to do something superexcellent."

"And so here you are on Qasama. Still trying."

She swallowed through a throat that suddenly ached. "I guess so. Or at least trying to make my father proud of me."

It was a long moment before Daulo spoke again. "I understand, perhaps more than you realize. Our families are not so different, Jin Moreau."

A flicker of movement from one of the windows overhead caught Jin's eye, saving her from the need to find a good response to that. "Someone's in your father's office," she said, pointing.

Daulo stiffened, then relaxed. "One of our people-a messenger. Probably bringing

Mayor Capparis's reply to my father's message this morning."

"Let's go find out," Jin said, changing direction back toward the door. Beside her, Daulo seemed to draw back. "If that would be all right with you," she added quickly.

The extra tension vanished as male pride was apparently assuaged. "Certainly.

Come with me."

Alone with Jin, Daulo had lost track of time a bit, and it was with mixed embarrassment and guilt that he led her down the empty corridors toward his father's office. Most of the household had retired to their chambers by now, and the corridors echoed oddly to their footsteps as they walked. I should have returned her to her rooms half an hour ago, he thought, hoping the heat rising to his cheeks wasn't visible. Father will probably be angry with me. For a moment he searched for an excuse to give Jin for changing his mind and getting her upstairs instead, but nothing occurred to him that didn't sound limp or contrived.

The guard at Kruin Sammon's door made the sign of respect as they approached.

"Master Sammon," he said. "How may I serve you?"

"The messenger who came to my father-is he still within?" Daulo asked.

"No, he left a moment ago. Do you wish to speak to him?"

Daulo shook his head. "No, I seek to speak to my father."

The guard nodded again and turned to the intercom box. "Master Sammon: Daulo

Sammon and Jasmine Alventin are here to see you." An inaudible reply and the other nodded. "You may enter," he said as the door's lock clicked open.

Kruin Sammon was seated at his desk, a stylus in his hand and an oddly intense look on his face. "What is it, my son?" he asked as Daulo closed the door.

"We saw from the courtyard that a messenger had arrived, my father," Daulo said, making the sign of respect. "I thought it might be news from Azras."

Kruin's face seemed to harden a bit more. "Yes, it was. Mayor Capparis has arranged housing for two people, and promises to facilitate your entrance into the work party whenever Mangus announces its formation."

"Good," Daulo said, feeling his eyebrows come together in a frown. His father's expression... "Is anything wrong, my father?"

Kruin licked his lips and seemed to take a deep breath. "Come here, Daulo," he sighed.

A hollow feeling settled into Daulo's stomach. Squeezing Jin's hand briefly, he left her side and stepped to his father's desk. "Read this," the elder Sammon said, handing him a piece of paper. His eyes slid away from Daulo's gaze. "I'd intended that it be delivered to you tomorrow morning, an hour before dawn. But now..."

Gingerly, Daulo accepted the paper, heart thudding in his ears. To have discomfited his father so...

DAULO.

IN MY MESSAGE TO MAYOR CAPPARIS THIS AFTERNOON I ALSO INFORMED HIM THAT THE

YITHTRA FAMILY HAS DISCOVERED AN ARTIFACT FROM OFFWORLD. HE HAS INFORMED ME IN

TURN THAT MY MESSAGE HAS BEEN FORWARDED TO THE SHAHNI, WHO WILL BE SENDING A

FORCE TO QUESTION THE YITHTRA FAMILY AS TO THEIR REASONS FOR NOT INFORMING THEM

ABOUT THIS ARTIFACT THEMSELVES.

YOU AND JASMINE MOREAU WILL NEED TO LEAVE AS SOON AS IS PRACTICAL-TOO MANY

PEOPLE OUTSIDE OUR HOUSEHOLD HAVE SEEN HER FOR HER TO REMAIN HIDDEN HERE. A CAR

HAS BEEN PREPARED FOR YOU, CONTAINING ALL THE SUPPLIES YOU SHOULD NEED FOR A

WEEK IN AZRAS. MAYOR CAPPARIS HAS OFFERED YOU THE USE OF HIS GUEST HOME WHILE

YOU WAIT FOR MANGUS TO BEGIN ITS HIRING.

BE CAREFUL, MY SON, AND DO NOT TRUST JASMINE MOREAU MORE THAN YOU MUST.

KRUIN SAMMON

Daulo looked from the paper to his father. "Why?" he asked, dimly aware that his heart was thudding in his ears.

"Because it was necessary," Kruin said simply. But the look in his eyes belied the confidence of the words.

"You had no right, my father." Daulo could hear a tremor in his voice; could feel his face growing hot with shame. The Sammon family is a family of honor-he'd said those words to Jin not half an hour ago. We've sworn protection to you... "We had a bargain with Jasmine Moreau. One which she has not broken."

"And which I've not broken, either, Daulo Sammon. You've known you'll need to go to Azras eventually. Now it'll simply be sooner than we'd expected."

"You swore not to betray her-"

"And I have not!" Kruin snapped. "I could have told Mayor Capparis everything about her; but I didn't. I could have kept from you both the knowledge that the

Shahni were sending investigators; but I didn't."

"Fancy words do not hide truth," Daulo bit out. "And the truth is that you swore to her the protection of our house. Now you drive her from both our house and our protection."

"Take care, Daulo Sammon," his father warned. "Your words are dangerously lacking in respect."

"My words echo my thoughts," Daulo shot back. "I'm ashamed for my family, my father."

For a long moment the two men stared at each other in silence; and it was almost a shock for Daulo to hear Jin's voice come from close beside him. "May I see the paper?" she asked calmly.

Wordlessly, he handed it to her. And now the world ends, the thought came distantly to him. The vengeance of a demon warrior betrayed. The memory of the headless corpse of the razorarm she'd killed brought bile into his throat...

It seemed a long time before she lowered the note and looked Kruin in the face.

"Tell me," she said quietly, "would the Yithtra family have kept the pod secret for long?"

"I doubt it," the elder Sammon said. His voice was even... but Daulo could see a trace of his own fears in his father's eyes. "As soon as they've gained all the secrets they can from the pod, they'll alert the Shahni themselves."

"Within the week, you think?"

"Probably sooner," Kruin said.

She looked at Daulo. "You agree?"

He worked moisture back into his mouth. "Yes. Doing that would still gain them favor in the eyes of the Shahni and yet let them have first look at anything of value."

She turned back to Kruin. "I understand," she said. "In other words, as you said, it was inevitable that I would eventually be chased out of Milika anyway."

Daulo suddenly realized he was holding his breath. "You... I don't understand.

You're not angry?"

She turned back to him... and he shrank within himself from the smoldering fire in her eyes. "I said it was inevitable," she ground out, "and that I understood.

I didn't say I wasn't angry. Your father had no right to do such a thing without consulting me first. We could have left this afternoon and been safely hidden away in Azras by now. As it is, if we wait until dawn we stand a fair chance of being trapped in Milika. By then they'll not only be swarming around Milika, but they'll also have aircraft flying around looking for the wrecked shuttle. And they'll have roadblocks set up." She looked at Daulo. "Which means we leave tonight. Now." She seemed to study him. "Or at least I have to leave. You can stay if you want to."

Daulo gritted his teeth. Under normal conditions, a supreme insult to suggest he would go back on his word. Under these conditions, it was no more than he deserved. "I said I would go with you, Jasmine Moreau, and I will." He looked at his father. "Have the supplies you mentioned been assembled yet?"

"They're already in the car." Kruin pursed his lips. "Daulo-"

"I'll try and send word when the work party is formed," Daulo interrupted him, not especially in the mood to be polite. "I hope you'll at least be able to stall any investigations into Jasmine Moreau's identity until then."

The elder Sammon sighed. "I will," he promised.

Daulo nodded, feeling a bitterness in his soul. His father's promise... a word that had always seemed to him as immutable as the laws of nature. To see that word deliberately broken was to lose a part of himself.

And all of it because of the woman at his side. A woman who was not only not a

Sammon, but was in fact an enemy of his world. It made him want to cry... or to hate.

Clenching his teeth, he took a deep breath. We've sworn protection to you, they'd said to her, and we'll stand by that bargain. No matter what. "Come,

Jin," he said aloud. "Let's get out of here."