"Boss, are you all right?" There was a sharp hiss against his neck, and the sudden sharp-edged alertness of a stimshot. "Are you all right?" "You," Yarthkin whispered, shaking the Krio's hand off his shoulder with a shrug. Ingrid's face hovered before him, unchanged, no, a little thinner, more tanned. But the same, not forty years different, the same. He could feel things moving in his head, like a mountain river he had seen on a spring hunting trip once. Cracks running across black ice, and the rock beneath his feet toning with the dark water's hidden power. "You." His voice went guttural, and his right hand went inside the dress jacket.
"Jonah, no!" Ingrid's hand shot out and slapped her companion's to the table. Yarthkin felt his mind stagger and broach back toward reality as the dangerprickle ran over his skin; that was probably not an engineer's light-pencil in the younger man's hand. He struggled for self-command, dropped his gunhand back to the table.
"Well." What was there to say? "Long time, no see. Glad you could make it. The last time, you seemed to have a pressing appointment elsewhere. I showed up on time-and there the 'boat was, boosting like bell a couple of million klicks Solward. Me in a singleship with half a dozen kzin Slashers sniffing around. "
Ingrid's face went chalk-white. "Let me explain-"
"Don't bother. Closed account." He paused, lit a cigarette, astonished at the steadiness of his own hands.
"Claude know you're here?"
"No, and it's best he doesn't."
"Sure. Let me guess. Now you're back, and Mr. Quick-Draw here with you, on some sort of UN skullbuggery, and need my help." He looked thoughtful. "Come to that, how did you get here?"
"Jonah Matthieson," the Sol-Belter said. "How we got here isn't important. But we do need your help. Damned little we've gotten in this system that hasn't been bought and paid for, and half the time we've been sold out to the pussies even so."
"Pussies? Oh, the ratcats." He laughed, a little wildly. "So you haven't found legions of eager, idealistic volunteers ready to throw themselves into the jaws of the kzin to help you on your sacred mission, whatever it is. How can that be?"
"We can pay."
"Pay. Well, well, the UN has money." Yarthkin's finger touched behind one ear, and the mirror behind the bar went screenmode. It showed an overgrown park, flicking between micropickups scattered wholesale through the vegetation. There had been lawns here once; now there was waist-high grass, Earth trees grown to scores of meters in the light gravity, native Wunderlander growths soaring on spidery trunks. The sound of panting breath, and a naked human came stumbling through the undergrowth. His legs and flanks were lashed and scratched by thorns and burrs. He reeled with exhaustion, feet pounding with careless heaviness; the eyes were flat and blank in the stubbled fitce, mouth dribbling. Behind him there was a flash Of orange-red, alien among the cool greens of Earth, the tawny olives of Wunderland. A flash, two hundred kilos of sentient carnivore charging on all fours in a hunching rush that parted the long grass in an arrow of rippling wind. Not so much like a cat as a giant weasel, blurring, looming up behind the fleeing human in a wall of flesh, a wall that fell tipped with bright teeth and black claws.
The screaming began at once, sank to a bubbling sound and the wet tearing noises of feeding. Shouts of protest rose from the dance floor and the other tables, and the sound of someone vomiting into an expensive meal. Yarthkin touched the spot behind his ear and the screen switched back to mirror. The protests lasted longer, and the staff of Harold's went among the patrons to soothe with free drinks and apologies, murmurs. Technical mistake, government override, here, let me fix that for you, gentlefolk…
"And that," Yarthkin said, "is a good reason why you're not going to be finding hordes beating down your door to volunteer. For glory or for money. We've been living with that for forty years, you fool. While you in the Sol system sat fat and happy and safe. "
Jonah leaned forward. "I'm here now, aren't I? Neither fat, nor very happy, and not at all safe right now. I was in two fleet actions, Mr. Yarthkin. Out of four. Earth's been fighting the kzin since I was old enough to vote. We haven't lost so far. Been close a couple of times, but we haven't lost. We could have stayed home. Note we didn't. Ingrid and I are considerably less safe than you."
Ingrid and I, Yarthkin thought, looking at the faces, side by side. The young faces. Sol-Belter. Hotshot pilot. Secret agent. All-round romantic hero, come to save us worthless pussy-whipped peons. Tonight seemed to be a night for powerful emotions, something he had been trying to unlearn. Now he felt hatred strong and thick, worse than anything he had ever felt for the kzin. Worse even than he had felt for himself, for a long time.
"So what do you need?"
"A way into the Datamonger's Guild for a start."
Yarthkin looked thoughtful. "That's easy enough." He realized that Ingrid had been holding her breath. Bad. She wants this bad. How bad?
"And any other access to the-to networks."
"Networks. Sure. Networks. Any old networks, right? Want into Claude's system? Want to see his private files? What else would you like?"
"Harry”
"I can do that, you know. Networks."
She didn't say anything.
"Help. You want help," he said slowly. "Well, that leaves only one question." He poured himself a drink in Jonah's water-glass, tossed it back. "What will you pay?"
"Anything we have. Anything you want."
"Anything?"
"Of course. When do you want me?"
"Ingrid-"
"Not your conversation, Belter. Get lost."
The club was dim, with the distinctive stale chill smell of tobacco and absent people that came in the hours just before dawn. Yarthkin sat at the table and sipped methodically at the Verguuz; it was a shame to waste it on just getting drunk, but owning a bar did have some advantages. He took another swallow, letting the smooth sweet minty taste flow over his tongue, then breathing out as the cold fire ran back up his throat. A pull at the cigarette, one of the clove-scented ones well-to-do BOW smoked, my aren't we wallowing in sensual indulgence tonight. "Play," he said to the man at the musicomp. The Krio started and ran his fingers over the surface of the instrument, and the brassy complexities of Meddelhoffer lilted out into the deserted silence of the room. "Not that," Yarthkin said, and knocked back the rest of the Verguuz. "You know what I want."
"No, you don't," Sam said. "That's a manti-tnanti mara," he continued, dropping back into his native tongue: a great stupidity. "What you want is to get drunk and manya-manya, smash something up. Go ahead, it's your bar."
"I said, play it." The musician shrugged, and began the ancient melody. The husky voice followed:
"… no matter what we say or do-”
A contralto joined it: "so happy together."
They both looked up with a start. Ingrid dropped into a chair across from Yarthkin, reached for the bottle and poured herself a glass.
"Isn't there enough for two?" she asked, raising a brow in response to his scowl. The musician rose, and Yarthkin waved him back.
"You don't have to leave, Sam."
"Do I have to stay? No? Then it's late, boss, and I'm going for bed. See you tomorrow."
"Where's the Sol-Belter?" Yarthkin asked. His voice was thickened but not slurred, and his hand was steady as he poured.
"In the belly of the whale… Still working in your office." And trying not to think about what we're doing. Or willl be doing in a minute, if You're sober enough. "That's a pretty impressive system you have there." "Yeah. And I'm taking a hell of a chance letting you two use it."
"So are we."
"So are we all. Honorable men, all, all honorable men. And women. Honorable."