Lathe, in the lead, walked to the center of the clearing and stopped by a half-rotted tree trunk. The others stopped, too, and it seemed to Caine that the rifle barrels rose just a fraction.
"Well? Where are the guns?" one of the Argentians demanded, and Caine blinked with surprise—it was a woman's voice!
"There aren't any, I'm afraid," Lathe said apologetically. "The gunsmuggler hints we dropped in town were really just to get your attention."
The guns definitely rose this time. "Cute," the woman said, her voice icy. "Well, you have it. You'd better have a damn good explanation or you may wish you didn't."
"It's quite reasonable, actually," Lathe told her. "We've just arrived on a special military mission and needed to link up with the underground. Letting ourselves be captured in a suitably out-of-the-way place where you could rescue us seemed the easiest way to do it."
"Uh-huh. Easy, but stupid. Suppose we hadn't gotten you out?"
"Oh, we could have escaped by ourselves," Lathe shrugged. "Can you get us in touch with whoever's in charge of your organization?"
"Not so fast," another Argentian—a man—growled. "Li, they've got to be spies. Let's burn 'em and get the hell out of here."
"Sit on it, Rom," the woman said. To Lathe: "He's got a good case, you know, even though this sounds stupider than some of the things they've tried to suck us in on. Let's start with your name and go on from there, shall we?"
Lathe shrugged. "All right. I'm Comsquare Damon Lathe; Blackcollar Forces. We're on a special mission from Plinry with the authority of General Kratochvil of Earth. For now that's all I can say."
There was a murmur of surprise from the other three Argentians, but neither the woman nor her weapon so much as twitched. "Offworld blackcollar, eh? Well, it's original—I'll give it that. Can you prove it?"
"I can try," Lathe said. His hand curved—
And three shuriken thudded into the dead tree trunk.
Instantly, the Argentians spun around... or, rather, they tried to. But before Caine even realized they'd moved, Lathe and his companions had their rescuers' weapons. And their rescuers.
"Excuse the rough handling," Lathe said mildly. He held the woman's rifle in one hand; with the other he maintained a negligent-looking grip on her wrist which was somehow holding her motionless. "But we don't carry ID cards."
"Doesn't prove a thing," one of the Argentians bit out, struggling unsuccessfully against Kwon and the wrist lock that had him on his knees. "Their rads threw those things to startle us—they jumped us when our backs were turned."
"Maybe yours was turned." Surprisingly, the woman didn't sound angry. "Mine wasn't. And those 'things' are shuriken—genuine blackcollar weapons." She nodded back toward the woods. "I'm convinced. You want to ask your rads in to join the party?"
"Certainly," Lathe said, releasing her arm and handing back her rifle. "What are rads?"
"Your friends," she said, accepting the weapon. Touching what was probably the safety, she slung it over her shoulder. "The guys who provided your handy little diversion."
"Oh." Lathe gave the all-clear, and with a crunch of dead leaves Caine and the five hidden blackcollars stepped into the clearing. Caine wished he could see the expressions under those mesh-masks; combat-garbed blackcollars were an impressive sight—
"You sure brought a mob with you," she said, eyeing them. "Is this it?"
"We also have a spotter at the edge of the woods," Skyler said.
"All right. The cars won't carry everyone; some of you'll have to walk." She nodded to her three companions who, unlike her, still held their rifles uncertainly at the ready. "You can take these four directly through the woods to the house. We'll take the others and their baggage in the cars."
"But, Li, we still don't know who they are," one of the Argentians objected, gesturing toward Vale with his weapon.
"They're blackcollars—which means they're on our side," she explained patiently. "So get moving. And I suggest you sling your rifle before he takes it away from you again."
The man snorted, but started off into the woods, the other six men close behind. The woman nodded to Skyler. "Let's go."
The "house" they were driven to was actually more like a woodland estate. Nestled into the far edge of the woods were a three-floor stone house, a large garage, and three or four shedlike buildings at various distances from the main building. A concealed trap door in one of the latter led to a tunnel heading in the direction of the main house. Following it, they emerged into a well-furnished subbasement. Two threadbare couches and several chairs lined the walls, and there was even a microwave cooker and a stack of sterile-pack food. Less domestic looking was the humming bug stomper sitting next to the phone. Two other tunnels and a door headed off from various walls.
"Make yourselves at home, gentlemen," the woman said. She had pulled off the mesh-mask and Caine got his first look at her face.
It was a great disappointment. From her voice Caine had rather expected her to be beautiful; the lovely, stormy-eyed patriot of youthful fantasies. Instead, she was about as plain-featured as she could possibly be. Her light-brown hair, cut short in a style which was easy to care for, did nothing to soften the squareness of her face, and her violet eyes seemed more tired than stormy. He felt vaguely cheated—and was instantly ashamed of his reaction. "I suppose we should introduce ourselves somewhere along in here," Skyler said. "I'm Rafe Skyler; this is Mordecai; Allen Caine; Kelly O'Hara...."
She nodded to each as Skyler went down the list. "My name's Lianna Rhodes," she said when he had finished. "I'm more or less in charge of the Radix cell in this region."
"Does this Radix have a central leadership?" Hawking asked.
"Yes—the main HQ is in Calarand, Argent's capital. We've got a supposedly secure phone link to them, but I don't like to use it. If you'll write up something about this mission of yours, I'll encode it for you and we can send it by runner."
"Fine." Skyler nodded.
The two drivers, who'd been hiding the cars, came in as Skyler and Hawking were composing a suitable note, and Lianna pulled one aside for a brief conversation. He nodded and headed across the room, disappearing through the door there. Caine caught Lianna's eye and nodded questioningly toward it. "Leads to a storeroom," she explained. "That was Jason Ho; he'll be running your note to Calarand and needs to change clothes first. We'll get all of you some normal clothes, too," she added, eyeing his black flexarmor.
"Perhaps we could take a look outside and upstairs first," Novak suggested. "Nothing against your security, but we like to check things out ourselves."
"Look outside all you want," Lianna said. "But the main house is off-limits. It's owned by the local Commerce Subaltern and is loaded with anti-intruder systems."
The air was suddenly electric. "Explain, please," Skyler said softly.
"Oh, don't worry, nobody's up there—Navare and his people only come here during vacations. We don't come near the place then, naturally, but at other times it's safe enough as long as you avoid the main house."
"Debatable," O'Hara rumbled. "Don't they ever wonder what happened to their subbasement?"