Alicia followed him, fighting to contain her exultation. Wyvern and military supplies? It was too good to be true! She managed to keep her thoughts from showing as they crossed a more heavily traveled portion of the warehouse, but her brain was busy. She paused to let a warehouse tractor putter past, towing a line of empty pallets, so wrapped in her tumbling thoughts she didn't even look up when the small, almost painfully nondescript driver glanced her way. She told herself not to get her hopes up, that it was probably mere coincidence, but it certainly sounded like-
They reached their destination, and Jacoby pointed out the stacked pallets of the shipment. He was speaking to her, describing their contents in greater detail, but Alicia didn't hear him. She heard nothing at all, and it couldn't have mattered less. Whatever those details were, there was no way in the galaxy she would allow anyone else to carry this cargo.
Maintaining her politely interested smile was the hardest thing she had ever done, for hunger seethed behind her eyes, mirrored and fanned by Tisiphone's reaction, as her gaze devoured the racks beside the pallets. They bore the same shipper's codes, but their red tags, marked with the dragon-like customs stamp of Wyvern, indicated an incoming shipment. Rack after rack, an incredible number of them, and she could see why they were in the security area … for each of them was heavy with the priceless, snow-white pelts of the deadly carnivore known as Mathison's Direcat.
Book Three: Fury
Chapter Twenty-three
The man on Alicia's com screen was as civilized looking as Edward Jacoby, but Alicia knew he was the one she'd come to find. Direcats were bigger than Old Earth kodiaks, with fangs a saber-tooth would have envied, and they were not omnivorous. A carnivore that size required a huge range, even on virgin Mathison's World, and the government had regulated direcat hunting with an iron and. Those warehouse racks contained at least a full year's pelts-and could have come from only one source.
And so she smiled at the face on her screen, smiled politely, with only professional interest, even as everything within her screamed to touch him and rip away the knowledge she must have.
"Good evening, Captain Mainwaring. My name is Lewis Fuchien. I'm glad I caught you groundside."
"So am I. Mister Jacoby said you might screen."
"Indeed. I understand my consignment falls within your vessel's capacity?" Fuchien asked, and she nodded. "Excellent. While your fee initially seemed a bit high, Edward has shared Monsieur Labin's report with me, and-"
"I hope you didn't take it at face value," Alicia interrupted wryly. "Monsieur Labin was rather more impressed than circumstances merited."
"Modesty is admirable, Captain Mainwaring, and I realize Gustav Labin is a bit excitable, but Edward assures me you'd take good care of my cargo."
"That much, at least, is true, sir. When someone entrusts me with a shipment, I do my best to insure it reaches its destination.
"No shipper could ask for more. However-" Fuchien smiled pleasantly "-I would like to meet the rest of your ship's company. It's a policy of mine to consider the reliability of a crew as a whole, not just its captain."
"I see." Alicia's face showed nothing, but her mind raced with tick-like speed, conferring with Tisiphone and Megarea on a level deeper than vocalization and far, far faster than conscious thought. She couldn't very well bring her nonexistent crew down to have lunch with the man! But-
"Did Mister Jacoby mention my Cathcart charter?" Fuchien nodded, and she smiled. "I certainly understand your caution, and frankly, I'd feel happier myself if my purser could sit in on our discussions, but my engineer and exec are buried in a drive recalibration. I really can't interrupt them-in fact, I ought to be up there helping out right now-given our time pressure for Cathcart, but if you have a Free hour or so, may I offer you Star Runner's hospitality for supper? The food may not be five-star, but I think you'll find it palatable, and it'll give you the chance not only to meet my people but look the ship over in person, as well. If you like what you see, you, my purser, and I can settle the details over brandy. Would that be convenient?"
"Why, thank you! That's far more than I'd hoped for, and I'd be very happy to accept, if I may include my own accountant."
"Of course. I'll be taking my cargo shuttle back up at seventeen-thirty hours. Would you care to accompany me, or arrange your own transport?"
"If you won't mind seeing us home again, we'll ride up with you."
"No problem, Mister Fuchien. I'll expect you then."
Fuchien and his accountant-a short, stout woman with laugh wrinkles around computer-sharp eyes-arrived at the shuttle ramp precisely on time, and Alicia was waiting at its foot, tall and professional in her midnight blue uniform. Their brief handshakes lasted barely long enough
to skim the surface of their thoughts, but that was sufficient to confirm her suspicions.
"Captain, may I present Sondra McSwain, my accountant?"
"Pleased to meet you, Ms. McSwain."
"Likewise, Captain. After what Mister Fuchien's told me about your reputation, I expected you to be three meters tall!"
"Reputations always grow in the telling, I think." Alicia grinned back. McSwain's mind held neither the scummy taint she'd picked up from Labin nor the cultured avarice she read in Fuchien. It ticked like a precision instrument, skilled and professional but laced with a sense of humor, and Alicia's grin turned wry. How odd to find an incorruptible person on a planet like Dewent!
She shook herself and gestured at the ramp.
"Mister Fuchien. Ms. McSwain. We have clearance and my crew is preparing to roll out the carpet."
The flight up was routine, but the accountant's obvious delight made it seem otherwise. Ms. McSwain, Alicia decided, seldom saw the insides of the ships and shuttles that thronged Dewent's port facilities. Even this short jaunt was an exotic treat for her, yet she had the ability to recognize her own excitement for what it was and laugh at it. Alicia found herself explaining instruments and procedures with unfeigned cheer, and even Fuchien allowed himself to smile at her drum roll questions.
They were halfway to rendezvous when Tisiphone nudged Alicia.
"You are forgetting our purpose, Little One, and an illusion of this complexity requires preparation. May I suggest we begin?"
"I guess so," Alicia sighed, "but I think I'm going to enjoy this less than I expected. Why the hell does she have to be so nice?"
"Have no fear," the Fury said with unusual gentleness. "Megarea and I also like her. We will allow no harm to befall her, yet we must begin soon."
"Gotcha."
Alicia turned her head and smiled at McSwain as the accountant's questions temporarily ran down.
"There's a member of my crew I want you to meet, Ms. McSwain. A colleague of yours, you might say. Forgive us, but we were expecting a stringy, dried-up cold fish of a credit-cruncher." McSwain met her eyes, and they chuckled together. "I think Ruth is going to be pleasantly surprised."
"I once had a 'stringy, dried-up cold fish,'"Fuchien confessed, "but he fell afoul of an audit. Sondra is a vast improvement, I assure you."
"And I believe you." Alicia keyed a com screen alight with Ruth Tanner's face. "Ruth? Forget Plan A and go to Plan B. Mister Fuchien's accountant is human after all."
"Really? What a nice change," Megarea replied in Ruth's voice. Her image's eyes swept the cockpit until they found McSwain, and Ruth's face smiled. "Goodness! Who would've thought someone on this chauvinist backwater would have enough sense to hire a woman!" Her eyes cut to Fuchien's face, and her smile became a grin. "Oops! Did I just put my foot in my mouth?"
"Not with me," Fuchien assured her. "My colleagues' shortsightedness in that respect is my gain, Ms. Tanner. You are Ms. Tanner, I presume?"