when its bounds, unclear though they were, defined a rough globe 400
light-years across. That volume contained an estimated four million
suns, most with attendants. Maybe half had been visited once or more, by
ships which might have picked up incidental native recruits. And the
hundred thousand or so worlds which enjoyed a degree of repeated contact
with men–often sporadic–and owed a degree of allegiance to the
Imperium–often purely nominal–were too many for a brain to keep track
of.
Djana’s eyes flickered. The apartment was furnished for a human, in
abominable taste. He must be the one who had called her. Now he was
gone. Though an inner door stood closed, she never doubted she was alone
with Rax. Silence pressed on her, no more relieved by dull traffic
sounds from outside than the gloom in the windows was by a few street
lights. She grew conscious of her own perfume. Too damn sweet, she
thought.
“Do be seated.” Rax edged closer yet, with an awkwardness that suggested
weight on its original planet was significantly lower than Irumclaw’s
0.96 g. Did it keep a field generator at home … if it had any concept
akin to “home”?
She drew a long breath, tossed her head so the tresses flew back over
her shoulders, and donned a cocky grin. “I’ve a living to make,” she
said.
“Yes, yes.” Rax’s lower left tentacle groped ropily in a pouch and
stretched forth holding a bill. “Here. Twice your regular hourly
recompense, I am told. You need but listen, and what you hear should
point the way to earning very much more.”
“We-e-ell … ” She slipped the money into her purse, found a chair,
drew forth a cigarette and inhaled it into lighting. Her visceral
sensations she identified as part fear–this must be a scheme against
Ammon, who played rough–and part excitement–a chance to make some real
credit? Maybe enough to quit this wretched hustle for good?
Rax placed itself before her. She had no way of reading expressions on
that face.
“I will tell you what information is possessed by those whom I
represent,” the vocalizer said. The spoken language, constructed with
pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar in a one-one relationship to
Anglic, rose and fell eerily behind the little transponder. “A junior
lieutenant, Dominic Flandry, was observed speaking several times in
private with Leon Ammon.”
Now why should that interest them especially? she wondered, then lost
her thought in her concentration on the words.
“Investigation revealed Ammon’s people had come upon something in the
course of excavating in this vicinity. Its nature is known just to him
and a few trusted confidants. We suspect that others who saw were paid
to undergo memory erasure anent the matter, except for one presumably
stubborn person whose corpse was found in Mother Chickenfoot’s Lane.
Subsequently you too have been closeted with Ammon and, later, with
Flandry.”
“Well,” Djana said, “he–”
“Pure coincidence is implausible,” Rax declared, “especially when he
could ill afford you on a junior lieutenant’s pay. It is also known that
Ammon has quietly purchased certain spacecraft supplies and engaged a
disreputable interplanetary ferrier to take them to the outermost member
of this system and leave them there at a specific place, in a cave
marked by a small radio beacon that will self-activate when a vessel
passes near.”
Suddenly Djana realized why Skipper Orsini had sought her out and been
lavish shortly after his return. Rax’s outfit had bribed him.
“I can’t imagine what you’re getting at,” she said. A draft of smoke
swirled and bit in her lungs.
“You can,” Rax retorted. “Dominic Flandry is a scout-boat pilot. He will
soon depart on his next scheduled mission. Ammon must have engaged him
to do something extra in the course of it. Since the cargo delivered to
Planet Eight included impellers and similar gear, the job evidently
involves study of a world somewhere in the wilderness. Ammon’s discovery
was therefore, in all probability, an old record of its existence and
possible high value. You are to be his observer. Knowing Flandry’s
predilections, one is not surprised that he should insist on a companion
like you. It follows that you two have been getting acquainted, to make