sharp-edge boy.” He stroked his chins. “You thought about maybe
resigning your commission? I could use a sharp-edge boy. You know I pay
good. Right?”
“I’ll know that when I’ve counted the bundle,” Flandry said. He inhaled
the tobacco into lighting and rolled smoke around his palate.
The gross bulk wallowed forward in its chair. The bald countenance
hardened. “What about the agent who got to Djana?” Ammon demanded. “And
what about her?”
“Ah, yes,” Flandry answered. “You owe her a tidy bit, you realize.”
“What? After she–”
“After she, having been trapped because of your misguided sense of
economy, obtained for you the information that you’ve been infiltrated,
yes, dear heart, you are in her debt.” Flandry smiled like a tiger.
“Naturally, I didn’t mention the incident in my official report. I can
always put my corps on the trail of those Merseian agents without
compromising myself, as for example by sending an anonymous tip.
However, I felt you might prefer to deal with them yourself. Among other
inducements, they’ve probably also corrupted members of your esteemed
competitor associations. You might well obtain facts useful in your
business relationships. I’m confident your interrogators are
persuasive.”
“They are,” Ammon said. “Who is the spy?”
Djana started to speak. Flandry forestalled her with a reminding
gesture. “The information is the property of this young lady. She’s
willing to negotiate terms for its transfer. I am her agent.”
Sweat studded Ammon’s visage. “Pay her–when she tried to sell me out?”
“My client Djana will be leaving Irumclaw by the first available ship.
Incidentally, I’m booking passage on the same one. She needs funds for
her ticket, plus a reasonable stake at her destination, whatever it may
be.”
Ammon spat a vileness. The Gorzunian sensed rage and bunched his shaggy
body for attack.
Flandry streamed smoke out his nose. “As her agent,” he went mildly on,
“I’ve taken the normal precautions to assure that any actions to her
detriment will prove unprofitable. You may as well relax and enjoy this,
Leon. It’ll be expensive at best, and the rate goes up if you use too
much of our valuable time. I repeat, you can take an adequate return out
of the hide of that master spy, when you’ve purchased the name.”
Ammon waved his goon back. Hatred thickening his voice, he settled down
to dicker.
No liners plied this far out. The Cha-Rina was a tramp freighter with a
few extra accommodations modifiable for various races. She offered
little in the way of luxuries. Flandry and Djana brought along what
pleasant items they were able to find in Old Town’s stores. No other
humans were aboard, and apart from the skipper, who spent her free hours
in the composition of a caterwauling sonata, the Cynthian crew spoke
scant Anglic. So they had privacy.
Their first few days of travel were pure hedonism. To sleep out the
nightwatch, lie abed till the clock said noon, loaf about and eat,
drink, read, watch a projected show, play handball, listen to music,
make love in comfort–before everything else, to have no dangers and no
duties–seemed ample splendor. But the ship approached Ysabeau, itself
richly endowed with cities and a transfer point for everywhere else in
the bustling impersonal vastness of the Empire; and they had said
nothing yet about the future.
“Captain’s dinner,” Flandry decreed. While he stood over the cook, and
ended preparing most of the delicacies himself, Djana ornamented their
cabin with what cloths and furs she could find. Thereafter she spent a
long while ornamenting herself. For dress she chose the thinnest,
fluffiest blue gown she owned. Flandry returned, slipped into
red-and-gold mufti, and popped the cork on the first champagne bottle.
They dined, and drank, and chatted, and laughed through a couple of
hours. He pretended not to see that she was forcing her mirth. The
moment when he must notice came soon enough.
He poured brandy, lounged back, sniffed and sipped. “Aahh! Almost as
tasty as you, my love.”
She regarded him across the tiny, white-clothed table. Behind her a
viewscreen gave on crystal dark and a magnificence of stars. The ship
shivered and hummed ever so faintly, the air was fragrant with odors