Without warning, the Geldorian lunged at her with a movement so fast that it was unthinkable. It was, therefore, a totally bewildered Tann Nakitt who missed Angel’s arm and other parts entirely and went tumbling onto the floor. Even so, he was up in a flash, eyes blazing. But he suddenly froze. She was standing about a meter in front of him, holding his pipe.
“Filthy thing,” she commented. “Do all your people smoke these?”
He lunged again, this time making every allowance for her possible response. Only she wasn’t where she had to be; she was a step or two over. Again he fell on his face and rebounded, only this time he was breathing hard and felt a sore jaw. That—thing—had caused him to bite himself!
“This is impossible,” he said, putting a small hand to his jaw and trying to massage it. “No one moves that fast. How long did you spend on Geldor to know us so well?”
“You are the first Geldorian I have ever seen or met,” she told him. She tossed the pipe in the air in his general direction. Alarmed, he lunged for it, catching it just before it could hit the deck and perhaps break.
“What do you want from me?” he asked her sullenly.
“I cannot permit you to stand aside if needed. You might well join in, and certainly I am no match for several people acting at once. The choice to kill in self-defense would be automatic. Is that a narcotic in there?”
Tann Nakitt had been around and seen and interacted with many strange creatures, but this seemingly ordinary Terran female was the strangest person of any kind he could recall ever meeting. “What’s the difference what I told you?” he asked her seriously. “You would have no way of knowing if I was truthful or lied.”
“You must believe me when I say that I would know. Shall we both sit and relax? Or does that jaw need medical attention?”
“I’ll be all right,” he grumbled, getting back up onto the ottoman. She took a padded chair near him. “You are a telepath then? Is that how you do it?”
She laughed. “If I could read minds I wouldn’t have to ask questions, would I? Let us just talk some more. You would not understand how I did that, or would know truth from lie, if I were willing to tell you, and I assure you I am not. Let’s just talk. I am not in government or law enforcement, and whatever we say here is between us two alone. Even your venom could not get me to betray a private confidence.”
He thought a moment, trying to decide which way to jump on the matter, then looked around, saw nobody lounging around or eavesdropping, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “All right. Yes, this is a narcotic, but only to my kind. It is a blend of chemically treated plants that not only produce a general feeling of contentment and well-being, but also heighten concentration and the potency of my venoms. By varying the formula, I can make the venom work as I wish on other races as I could on my native world. After all, we’ve had a long time to experiment and test. This, as you probably guessed, would put any of your kind in a trance inside of thirty seconds. Of course, it would simply render other races unconscious or perhaps kill them, unless I alter the blend and give it time to displace the old formula in my body. The threats here are basically Terran in nature; the Rithians are in on it, but this bunch are fixers—they don’t have the nerve to do their own fighting.”
“Fixers?”
“Arrangers of things, mostly illegal, but they’re not above stooping to legitimate stuff, too, if it pays. You want a work of art? They’ll try and buy it, and, if that fails, they’ll find somebody to steal it. Want to buy a destroyer? They’ll get one for a price. Middlemen. They make a ton of money doing that kind of thing.”
“I see. And this is one side of the negotiation, in this area? The other side of the transaction is in the water breather sections?”
“You do understand it. Yes. Sometime tomorrow we were supposed to glide to a stop, going under minimum power requirements and thus ejecting back into normal space. This would cause a distress beam, but in the region where we’d come out there’s nothing much unless you expect us to be there. The Ha’jiz family meets the rescuers, gets what it wants, tells the newcomers where to find whatever they are paying for in the modules ahead, and that’s it. Then the Rithians give whatever they get from the so-called rescue ship to King Wallinchky, and they all get into lifeboats with preprogrammed navigation modules, leaving us here, and that’s that. The odds are they’ll blow us up as they leave.”
“ ‘King’ Wallinchky? What’s he the ruler of?”
“It is a nickname. The kind you get when you’re about as high up in the rackets as you can get. It’s a sign of real respect, and, in a sense, an acknowledgment of how much power he has over even life and death.”
She did not understand it, that people would commit this kind of murder and worse for mere possessions. She doubted that she would ever understand it. Still, she understood the mechanics and the implications.
“And he’s not afraid that this phony rescue ship won’t simply blow all of us up once it gets what it wants?”
“Not even this gang would double-cross on that scale. Nobody would ever deal with them again. It may sound odd, but the most important thing when you reach the upper levels of criminal activity is honor. Betray that, and you are worse than dead and unable to ever use the illegal underground. That makes you vulnerable, and ultimately visible, to the Realm. No, Madam Kobe, that’s not smart, and these people are smart. Besides, there’s a limited market for the Jewels of the Pleiades. You can’t ever wear them or display them. They are for an incredibly wealthy private collector who wants them all to himself. The Kharkovs are here only to clean and possibly reset some, which indicates a bit of damage. After all, the jewels were last seen in the midst of an explosion that essentially vaporized an entire city. You don’t cut these kind of gems.”
She had never heard of these legendary jewels, but he obviously thought everybody had. “And Wallinchky is the collector? What does he have to pay in return?”
“I’m not sure. A weapon of some sort. A top secret one. One the Realm probably doesn’t even know is gone.”
“The Rithians are that good, huh? So how did these Jewels of the Pleiades get into the hands of the buyers of this weapon? Do you know?”
The Geldorian gave a soft chuckle. “Well, their leader blew up the city about a century and a half ago. That’s how long they’ve been missing.”
She was almost sorry he’d said that, even though she suspected it herself. They were being monitored by the ship’s master computer, of course, and their conversation dampened to others, who would hear only unintelligible murmurs unless they came right up close. But Jeremiah Kincaid would have heard it. If not now, he’d certainly review it later. And he’d know that his ancient enemy was indeed at the center of all this.
“And you think that they’ll just give you a ride out?”
He shrugged. “They say so. The Rithians were also involved in getting me what I wanted, so they have no reason not to vouch for me along the line, or if need be, take me in theirs. What I carry is information that my people need but which is of no value to others. My people know I have it. I doubt if the Rithians want to get them angry.”
“Who are the bodyguards aboard? Do you know?” she asked him.
“Some. Maybe all. I don’t know. The Mallegestors are certainly hired muscle. Pretty intimidating muscle, too, I’d say. All they need to do is sit on you. And you have to get through two hundred centimeters of hide before they notice enough to say ‘Ouch.’ Beyond them, I’d guess the two females.”