“That’s the second time you’ve used the word operation,” Lakinda said. “Not counting its use in the original summons. What exactly is going on?”
“Well …” Lakjiip hesitated. “At the moment that’s classified,” she said. “But as one of the ship commanders, you of course have both a right and a need to know. All right. It all started when a group of aliens—the Agbui—arrived on Celwis …”
Lakinda listened in silence and growing amazement as Lakjiip laid out the story of aliens and jewelry and all-but-untouched nyix mines. “That’s … just a little bit unbelievable,” she said when the senior aide had finished. “Are you sure you’re reading all this correctly?”
“I’ve seen the mines myself,” Lakjiip assured her. “The entire world is pristine, untouched, and unoccupied. Probably even unknown.” She dug into a pocket. “I also brought back souvenirs.”
“You’re sure that’s nyix?” Lakinda asked, studying the piece of wire.
“Absolutely,” Lakjiip said. “Every sample we’ve obtained has been carefully analyzed.” Her lip twitched. “Including one we borrowed from a citizen.”
Lakinda nodded. The possibilities here were tremendous.
But they were also ominous.
She studied Lakjiip’s face. There was an enthusiasm half hidden beneath that calm expression, determined and hard-edged. “This will certainly be of huge benefit to the family,” Lakinda said. “But it seems to me that a resource like this ought to belong to the Syndicure and the fleet.”
“Absolutely,” Lakjiip said, as if that was obvious. “The Xodlak family merely wishes the honor and triumph of its discovery.”
“Honor, and perhaps a petition for reinstatement into the Ruling Families?”
Lakjiip gave a nonchalant sort of shrug. “That would only seem fair.”
“Yes,” Lakinda murmured. Like the shrug, the words had also been casual.
But it seemed to Lakinda that the enthusiasm in the senior aide’s eyes went just a little bit stronger and harder. She wanted a return to the Xodlak days of glory, all right. Wanted it very badly.
But then, didn’t every member of the family? And really, if everything Lakjiip said was true, didn’t they deserve it?
“In the meantime, we need to get you to your ship,” Lakjiip continued. “Come. I’ll walk you to the shuttle.”
The two ships Qilori had been told to expect were already waiting at the rendezvous when he arrived.
Qilori studied them as he approached the pulsing lights that marked the starboard access hatch on the smaller of the two. Neither ship was a design he recognized, though the smaller ship was configured like a yacht while the larger looked more like a freighter or possibly a low-rent passenger transport. The smaller one, he decided, was probably Jixtus’s.
He inhaled deeply, his cheek winglets fluttering with anxiety. Jixtus’s summons had come much sooner after their initial meeting than he’d expected, right in the middle of a job he couldn’t back out of. He’d had to sweat pinefruit to get here on the alien’s schedule, and he’d almost not made it.
But there the two ships were, already linked together by boarding tunnels, their thrusters showing no residual heat. By Qilori’s estimate that meant they’d been waiting for at least six hours, possibly longer. Possibly a lot longer.
At their first meeting, Jixtus had threatened to leave Qilori stranded in the vast emptiness between stars if he didn’t cooperate. Jixtus’s chosen rendezvous was in very much that same grade of nowhere.
The summons had instructed him to not announce himself by comm, but to dock directly with the smaller ship when he arrived. Maneuvering carefully—the last thing he needed was to put a dent in Jixtus’s hull—he floated up to the marked hatch and attached his landing tube and a trio of maglock tethering cables. He shut down his systems to standby and headed to the hatch, sternly telling his cheek winglets to behave themselves.
He’d expected Jixtus to be waiting impatiently on the other side of the hatch. Instead there was an unfamiliar alien standing there, his wrinkled facial skin a mix of dark red and dirty white, his lipless mouth almost invisible within those folds, his bright black eyes gazing unblinkingly at Qilori. “I am Qilori of Uandualon,” Qilori identified himself in Taarja as he closed the hatch behind him.
“Good day, Pathfinder,” the alien replied in Minnisiat. “I am Haplif of the Agbui. We’ve been waiting for you. Come.”
He turned and strode down the corridor. Again trying to calm his winglets, Qilori followed.
The room Haplif led them to was something of a shock. It wasn’t an office or command center, but more of a meditation room, with soft carpet underfoot and floating threads and light globes overhead. Seated in what appeared to be a self-contouring chair at the far side of the room was Jixtus.
At least Qilori assumed it was Jixtus. With his face concealed by a black veil, his hands encased in gloves, and a loose robe and hood covering everything else, he might have been any other biped alien. Or for that matter, a statue, a mannequin, or even one of the mechanical robotics of Lesser Space legends.
“Welcome, Qilori of Uandualon,” the figure said, lifting a hand and gesturing to a pair of chairs facing him. “Be seated, both of you.”
It was Jixtus’s voice, and the hand movement proved at least that the hooded figure wasn’t a statue or mannequin. It could still be a robotic, though. “Thank you,” Qilori said, walking to one of the chairs and easing himself gingerly down into it. Self-contouring, all right. “I want to apologize for being late,” he continued as Haplif sat down in the other chair. “I was on a job, and I thought that abandoning it would bring attention you probably wouldn’t want.”
“As well as damaging your professional reputation?” Jixtus suggested.
“My reputation is important,” Qilori said. “Not just to me, but to you as well. Any future jobs you want me to do—”
“Any future jobs will depend on how well you complete this one,” Jixtus interrupted calmly. “So will any future. You understand?”
Qilori’s cheek winglets twitched. “I would very much like to have a future,” he managed.
“Good,” Jixtus said. “Then we shall have no problems with motivation.” He paused as if considering. “And you were not late. Haplif and I were merely early.”
Qilori felt some of the tension trickling away. The damn hooded alien could have said that in the first place.
“Your part is twofold,” Jixtus continued. “First, you will travel with Haplif and his group, pretending to be his navigator.”
“Pretending?” Qilori asked, frowning.
“Also remaining out of sight of his passenger,” Jixtus went on, ignoring the interruption. “When the time is right, Haplif will offer your services to his mark, and you will navigate their ship to a planet whose coordinates he will give you. You will pretend you’ve been there before, and provide answers to any questions they may have about it.”
“Answers that will be supplied by me,” Haplif said. “Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of time to go over the whole story.”
“What if they ask a question you haven’t covered?” Qilori asked.
“In that case, you’ll just tell them you don’t know,” Haplif said. “You’re only a navigator, after all. There’s no reason they should expect you to know everything.”
“All right,” Qilori said. So far, this seemed simple enough. “Do I then bring them back, or take them somewhere else?”
“Of course you’ll bring them back,” Haplif said, the skin of his face wrinkling even more. “I’m weaving a path to their destruction. Why would I settle for one dead when I can have all of them?”