“Ed Gar.” The woman nodded, but didn’t write it down. Frowning, Magnus looked more closely at her.
The brooch she was wearing ostensibly served no purpose other than decoration; but he was willing to bet it was a recording device. She said, “I am Allouene. You carry no identification.”
“I left it aboard ship,” Magnus told her. “I did not wish to chance losing it.”
She smiled as though she did not believe him, then let the smile soften into a lazy, sensuous sultriness as she looked him over more closely. When she lifted her gaze back to his eyes, the sultriness had become an invitation, though not a burning one.
It came to Magnus, with a surge of outrage, that the woman knew exactly what she was doing, knew each intonation and lilt and shade of expression and what its effect would be on him, and was turning them on and off as though they were the keys of an organ—but it wasn’t an organ she was playing, it was him.
The anger was good—it annealed the seal around his heart, strengthened his guard against her. “I am not aware of having met you previously, mademoiselle—to my regret.”
The laziness focused with amusement. “You haven’t. I’m only an interested bystander—or I was last night. I saw you fight Orange at the Shot and Bottle, and I was impressed with your style.”
Style? Magnus had been deliberately trying for clumsiness, to make the fight last! “I was scarcely at my best.”
“So I noticed. I joined the crowd that followed you from bar to bar. The drinks only affected your temper, not your reflexes. Your style improved with the quality of your antagonists.”
“My antagonists improved?”
“Oh, yes.” Allouene smiled, moistening her lips and shifting in her chair. “Word spread along the street, you see, and all the toughs with reputations came out to try you. They had to wait in line, I’m afraid, and they finally grew impatient and all piled in at once at the end.”
“I don’t really remember much of it,” Magnus confessed.
“Of course not; the last bartender handed you a loaded drink to get you out of his place. I watched it all closely, though.”
Magnus tried to hide his disgust. “You must be quite the aficionado of martial arts.”
“Not at all,” she said. “I’m a representative for a secret agency—quite legitimate, I assure you—and your display, and the emotions that seemed to accompany it, made me think you might be just what my employers are looking for.”
Magnus stared, amazed.
“If you are interested in joining us,” Allouene said, “we’ll take care of any damages you owe, and whisk you out of this jail and off to one of our training centers.” Her tone dropped to load the offer with double meaning: “Are you interested?”
His hormones thrilled, but so did the wariness of alarm. Magnus held himself immobile and asked, “What is the name of your agency?”
“The Society for the Conversion of Extraterrestrial Nascent Totalitarianisms,” she answered.
Magnus stared at her, frozen with shock. She had named his father’s organization! Had they followed him here from Gramarye? Had the time-travel organization that worked with SCENT alerted them to his presence here?
But no, she had asked his name, had said he was unidentified. Suddenly, Magnus was very glad he had given a false name, had left his identification aboard his ship. She was interested in him for himself alone—or at least, for his ability as a fighter.
If she was telling the truth.
“You seem shocked,” Allouene said. “I assure you, we’re not a bunch of bloodthirsty sadists. We’re rather idealistic—our mission is to help backward planets develop the institutions that will enable them to eventually evolve some form of democratic government, and make it last. We have a strict code of ethics, and we work hard at maintaining it.” Magnus nodded. “I have … heard of you.”
“We are a legitimate department of the Decentralized Democratic Tribunal,” Allouene went on, “and if the government of the Terran Sphere isn’t enough of a recommendation, I don’t know what is.”
Magnus had plenty of recommendations of his own to bring. He had known SCENT from birth, at least by what his father and Fess had told him of it, and had secretly treasured the notion of someday joining them himself, and going forth to free the oppressed. But as he’d grown older, he’d begun to be concerned about living in his father’s shadow.
Now, however, he was being recruited in his own right—perhaps. “Is SCENT so hard-pressed for agents that you must recruit every brawler you find?”
“Certainly not,” Allouene said, with a contemptuous smile. “You’re a rather exceptional brawler, you know, and not just because of your size. You show a great deal of skill—and there’s an intensity about you that speaks of the disillusioned idealist.”
Magnus sat rigid, amazed. Had the woman some psionic gift of her own, that let her see into his heart? Or was she just unusually perceptive? “I have become bitter of late,” he admitted.
Allouene nodded with satisfaction. “You have seen too much of human selfishness and self-seeking. But we try to use those urges, to channel them into some sort of system that makes people protect the rights of everyone, in order to protect their own interests.”
Magnus frowned. “An interesting goal. Have you ever succeeded?” “Never perfectly,” Allouene admitted, “but we have managed to harness self-interest into workable systems again and again. We console ourselves with the thought that no system can be perfect, and we have made progress.”
“Fascinating,” Magnus murmured, holding himself very carefully. All his own near-despair, his disgust with his relatives, his disillusionment in discovering how few people really seemed to care for anyone else’s good—it all came together and stabbed, white-hot, toward an organization that was at least trying to put ideals into action. But some lingering caution made him say, “I should think you would find a great number of recruits.”
Allouene’s expression showed some bitterness of her own. “It would be wonderful—but very few people seem to be interested in working toward anyone’s welfare but their own. Of those who are, many of them aren’t strong enough, either emotionally or physically, to last through our training. The rewards, after all, are only in knowing that you have left a world better off than you found it—and we aren’t even always successful in that.”
“You must have been recruiting for a long time, to have seen enough cases to generalize,” Magnus said. “Every time I put together a new mission team,” Allouene assured him. “When we are appointed Mission Leaders, you see, we are given the responsibility of finding our own agents, of recruiting them and training them.”
Magnus stared. “You mean that if I join SCENT, I will be working with you?”
“After your training,” Allouene said, “yes.” And that, of course, decided the matter.
CHAPTER 6
Ian froze. Then, before he could catch up his staff and bolt, the man smiled and laughed. It was a warm, friendly laugh, and Ian relaxed a little. Surely the man could not be an enemy if he behaved in so friendly a fashion. Besides, he wore no livery; he could not be a keeper, or any other servant of Lord Murthren—at least, no more than anyone was. He was a broad-shouldered man, and his arms and legs were thick with muscles. Ian could see this easily, for he wore a tight-fitting jerkin and leggings. His body looked very hard underneath the gray, belted tunic, and his leggings were so smooth they might have been a lord’s hose. His black hair was cut short, no longer than his collar. His face was craggy, with a long, straight nose and lantern jaw. His eyes were large, but above them, his brows seemed knit in a perpetual frown. It was a harsh face, and grim—but when he smiled, as he did now, it turned into friendliness. Somehow, Ian felt he could not fear such a man, or had no cause to—this, in spite of the sword that hung belted at his hip, and the dagger across from it. These, and his short hair, told Ian the man’s profession, as surely as though it had been written on his forehead. He was a freelance, a soldier who wandered about the country and sold his services to whatever lord needed him that month. He was not a serf, but a gentleman, free to travel where he wished, as long as he did not offend the great lords. His boots came up to his calves and had high, thick heels—a horseman, then. But where was his horse?