I decided on Dylan first, just because I needed her final evaluation on my pregnant potential weak link.
I had to wait for the weekend to get down there, though, because I needed the time with the information Sugal supplied to work things out. Also after a day chasing borks or at least patrolling for them and then cleaning and checking the boat, Dylan was not very lively company in the evenings. In one way we were incompatible: anybody who liked getting up at dawn to go to work was a bit strange and incomprehensible in my book.
I arranged to meet her at a small club in town to make sure that Sanda wouldn’t be around. We’d met like this a couple of times before, just to be social—and we had gotten very social the last time—but this meeting would be slightly different. She was a very attractive woman, though, and even more so when she dressed for a night on the town rather than a day on the sea.
We ordered dinner and mostly exchanged small talk, then ate and went out to a small cabaret and did a little drinking and dancing. At the end of the evening, we went over to her apartment as-we had before, but this time I had something additional in mind.
And at the right moment as I judged it, while we lay there, relaxed, I finally got to the point. In fact, she provided the opening. “You seemed distracted, far away tonight,” she noted. “Something wrong with you? Or is it me?”
“No, nothing’s wrong,” I assured her, “but, yes, you’re right. Dylan, it’s time I came out in the open, I think, and I hope I know you well enough to trust you.”
She sat up and looked at me, half puzzled, half expectant.
“Dylan, we’ve gotten to know each other quite well. I think we somehow complement each other. And we’ve talked freely about ourselves, I think. Still, what do you know about me?”
“You’re Qwin Zhang, you’re a computer programmer for Tooker, and you came from Outside,” she replied. “And you’ve been an awful lot of places across the galaxy. You were loadmaster on a spaceship. And, according to some friends I know, your name is female on the civilized worlds. So? You trying to say you were once a woman? So what?”
“I came here as a woman, yes,” I told her, taking the big gamble, “but I wasn’t born in that body. It was Qwin Zhang’s body—but I’m not Qwin Zhang. Not the original one, anyway.”
“I thought only Cerberans could do that.”
“It’s a different process. A mechanical one, basically. But I wasn’t a criminal and I wasn’t a loadmaster.”
She was staring at me, fascinated but not apprehensive. “So? Who are you, then, and what did you do?”
“I killed people the Confederacy wanted killed,” I told her. “I tracked them down, found them out, and killed them.”
There was a sharp intake of breath, but no other reaction. Finally she asked, “And they sent you here to kill someone?”
I nodded. “Yes. But it’s someone who needs it, and since I’m stuck here the same as everybody else, that’s important. They might try and kill me if I didn’t, but that’s beside the point. I’m confident enough they wouldn’t succeed, and what they want is what I want, too.”
“Who?” she asked.
“Wagant Laroo,” I told her.
She whistled. “They don’t think small, do they? And neither do you. Well, at least that explains why you were so interested in Laroo’s Island.”
I nodded. “I’m going to do it, Dylan. Nothing is more certain than that—although there are still a lot of steps in the way, and so a lot of time will pass before I can do it. Still it will happen. Nobody is invulnerable, not even me.”
“Any particular reason why?”
“Problems. It seems Laroo and the other Lords of the Diamond made a deal with some aliens to help conquer the Confederacy. I don’t have real affection one way or the other for the Confederacy, but I have a lot for the human race.”
“These—aliens. What are they like?”
“We don’t know,” I told her. “All we do know is they’re so nonhuman that there’s no way they can do their own dirty work. That’s why the Four Lords were hired. I’m sure they figure they’ll get revenge and be on the winning side, but we don’t know about these aliens. After they crack the Confederacy they might just decide they don’t need ms any more, either. They’re trying to find out all they can about these creatures, whoever and whatever they are, but the only common link is the Warden Diamond. And one way of at least throwing a curve is to eliminate the Four Lords as currently constituted. A power struggle would disrupt things, buy time—and the new Lords might not be so thrilled about cooperating with and trusting these allies. I drew Laroo, But after seeing how he runs things here, I’d like a shot at him anyway. There are better, freer ways to run things than this, ones that don’t cost people so much of their self-respect.
You only have to think of the motherhood to know what I mean.”
“I’m not too sure I follow that last bit, but the rest I understand,” she said. “I don’t think anybody, not even the Four Lords, can commit people like me to help these aliens. All I keep thinking about is a race of sly, clever borks.”
“Perhaps,” I told her. “Or they might be a lot more appealing—it makes no difference. We don’t know anything except that they’re very nonhuman. Until I get a lot more assurances, that’s all I need to know. We here in the Warden Diamond are sitting ducks when they don’t need us any more. A civilization capable of crossing space and subtle enough to hire the Four Lords isn’t one I could trust with my future.”
She was silent for a moment, finally lighting one of those big cigars that took a fair share of her pay. Finally, in a haze of smoke, she asked softly, “Qwin? Why are you telling me this?”
“The first step is influence. I need influential friends in high places who can give me information. Dylan, who owns your boat?”
“Hroyasail, of course. Why?”
“Who’s president of Hroyasail?”
“Nobody. I told you that.”
I nodded. “Suppose I was president of Hroyasail? Set the salaries, got better parts, newer equipment—the best.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Suppose we ran Hroyasail, you and I. Not just a captain whose job can be cut by some bureaucrat, but really running the place. Boss. Sound interesting?”
“Go on.”
“I need you to make that possible. You and one other. I’m talking about something criminal, but nobody gets killed or, I hope, even hurt. What I have in mind will take some guts, but I know you have that. Are you willing?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I’m going to get the president of Tooker fired. I’m going to totally discredit him. As a result, certain high-placed officials will move up and be grateful to me. They’ll give me Hroyasail and a big bank account and information when I need it. See?”
“You can do that?”
I smiled. “Easily. If they haven’t changed the fire alarm system in the borough in the past three years.”
“What?”
I spent the night with Dylan, and over breakfast we discussed the other problem. “Unless you can think of somebody quickly who I would trust, and you could trust, for an operation like this, we’ll need Sanda as well,” I told her. “She’s got brains and spunk, and she can do the job, I think. But can we rely on her not to talk? I can’t get into Akeba House to see what she’s like away from the rest of us. You were there once. What do you think?”