“Uh-huh,” I said with my mouth full. “I found them and killed them all before they could do any more mischief.”

  A tiny frown wrinkled her fine features. “Yes. About that… how did the Tau end up at your family farm? That part seemed confusing to me when I read the reports.”

  I shrugged. “Sometimes a man needs a few secrets. You don’t mind that as long as the job gets done, right?”

  She frowned a little more deeply. “Let me think. You lured them there to put them at ease, perhaps. A risk, but you’re nothing if not a man who is willing to risk it all. Then, after gaining their confidence, you boarded their aircars and took them both out. You and your repulsive minion, Carlos, that is...”

  “Oh… yeah,” I said, thinking of Carlos for the first time since I’d come back to life. “Uh… what happened to Carlos Ortiz?”

  “Your sidekick has just been revived. He’s on his way down to detention, I imagine.”

  “Oh hey, Galina, could you do me a solid and spring him out of there like you did me?”

  She shook her head. “I gave you orders to take care of these enemies. I didn’t tell you to bring another man into your confidence. He probably knows too much at this point. He’s going to have to pay a price.”

  “Aw, come on. Are you serious? I couldn’t take down two aircars by myself. I needed Carlos to finish the job. You’ve got to help him out.”

  She moved then, lifting her fine rump off her desk and approaching me. By this time I’d finished my snack and my drink. I wanted more of both, but I stayed sitting. I didn’t know what was next.

  She came close and held out her hand. For a second, I thought she wanted me to kiss it again, or maybe to take her hand and grab her—but then I saw the gleaming object laid across her palm.

  “James? Do you know what this is?”

  “Uh… a coin?”

  “That’s right. It is a coin. It’s money, James. Real money. In the Core Systems, this is highly valuable and accepted for trade everywhere. Out here in the frontier provinces however, it’s very illegal. Do you know where this coin came from, James?”

  Her voice was a purr, but I knew I was in danger based on her tone. I reflexively began bullshitting.

  “Wow! If that’s not the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen! A Galactic coin? I’ve never even heard of such a thing. Can I hold it?”

  She slapped me then—hard—with the hand that wasn’t holding the coin.

  “Stop lying. The dead Tau had these when we sifted through the wreckage. Carlos did as well. Where did you clowns get these?”

  “Uh… did I have any coins on my body?”

  “No, you did not.”

  “That’s right. So, you’re going to have to get your answers from someone who knows more than I do about these coins.”

  She growled and closed her hand over the coin again, making a fist. “Now you know why Ortiz is going to detention. I couldn’t have saved you if you’d had one of these on you—but you didn’t. Perhaps you’re not as stupid as you seem.”

  “Carlos might say the first crazy thing that comes to his mind when they lean on him,” I cautioned her. “We don’t want that.”

  She looked at me sternly. “Are you threatening me?”

  “That’s a warning, not a threat. We just need to be careful, that’s all.”

  “Wonderful… But it doesn’t matter in any case. I couldn’t pull rank to get him out of there even if I wanted to. He’s not in the service any longer, remember? He quit. That makes it much harder. He’ll have to get a lawyer—if he can find anyone crazy enough to take such a case.”

  “Oh yeah… he quit. Damn.”

  “I see the light is gleaming in your skull, however dimly. But now I have to decide what is to be done with you.”

  “You could put me down for a nap on that fine bed of yours over there.”

  She snorted at me. “Since you’re not being helpful, I have a new mission for you.”

  “You do…? I hope it involves killing.”

  She shook her head. “Probably not. You must find out where these coins came from. When you find the source, you will make sure it has nothing to do with Earth. You must have evidence. Good enough evidence to convince a Nairb.”

  “A Nairb?”

  “They’re coming to Earth soon. Some vicious bastard must have alerted them about the existence of these coins.”

  “Ouch. Well, okay... I can try to find out more. But it’s getting late. How about you and I enjoy the evening together in the meantime?”

  She hit me again. This time with the fist that was closed over that coin. She hissed and rubbed her hand afterward. “Just get out of here.”

  I got up and walked out before she lost it completely.

  -10-

  After telling Gary that the imperator had requested a roll of paper towels in a hurry, I enjoyed watching him spring into action. His look of disgust was probably matched by Galina’s own expression when she asked him what he thought he was doing in her office with this item—but I was already long gone by that time.

  Riding the elevator down from the lofty heights where Galina’s office was located, I thought about continuing my descent into the bowels of Central. Being a man of immediate action, I seriously considered just busting my way in and freeing Carlos myself.

  Fortunately, my fool brain was just smart enough to convince me this wasn’t a good idea. Even if the effort was somehow successful, it would only transform Carlos and myself into wanted fugitives. I’d be kicked out of the service and on the run.

  I kinda liked Carlos... in a way... and I considered him a friend. But he wasn’t worth that kind of risk. Nope, I was going to have to fix this the hard way.

  Cursing to myself as I walked out onto the sidewalks, I considered my options. I could ask certain people for help, but most of them were unlikely to give it.

  There was one person, however, who might be interested in a case like this: Claver.

  There were many subtle flavors to the man called Claver. They were all clone variants, and we thought of them as a massive clan, or extended family. One version was a woman, while most were simpletons bred for battle.

  But then there was the man I called Claver-X. I’d developed a special friendship with this mutant clone. He was far less self-centered than the rest, and he’d helped me on several occasions.

  The trouble with Claver-X was that he was impossible to reach by definition. If anyone—especially the other Clavers—ever found him, they’d kill him.

  That left me with an interesting conundrum. A puzzle to be solved.

  I walked the streets for an hour, stopped by a bar for a beer, then walked some more. After about ten miles and ten bars, I finally got an idea.

  Returning to Central, I received irritated glances from the hogs as I went down to the Gray Zone underground. There was a grand central station down here, a place where permanent gateway links had been set up that went to many worlds. Every planet inhabited by humanity could now be reached on foot. All you had to do was have the proper authorization and the guts to walk into a disintegrator.

  After a quick call to Galina, I was approved to do a walk-through. She knew what I was trying to figure out, and it only made sense that I would need to go off-world to finish the mission. Accordingly, she gave her permission. Seeing as she was now an imperator again, and her daddy was a bigwig in the government, well, people tended to get out her way whenever possible.

  Grumbling about regulations, the hog team let me approach the gateway posts at their little check-point.

  “Where do you want to go, Centurion?” one of them finally asked.

  “To Death World.”

  He blinked at me. “L-347?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “But… no one goes out there, sir.”

  “Look, are you going to obstruct me any further today? Because if that’s your plan, I can just call—”

  “No, sir. Sorry, sir. I’m… I’m just surprised. Right this way.”

  He led me to a set of posts way in the back. I swear there was a spider web hanging off the left one—I swear it.

  Steeling myself for instant death, I walked toward my chosen gateway and stepped through.

  A moment later, I found myself looking at a spooky alien forest.

  I could tell right off that no one had been out here in a long time. As far as humans went, it was pretty much a deserted planet. I saw just a few units of Blood Worlders that wandered in the clearing around the base where the gateway posts had been planted. Surrounding that spot, a vast forest rolled over most of the world. Huge giga-flora—trees that were several kilometers high—dominated the landscape.

  The guards here were startled to see a visitor. They had an easy gig, to be honest. Not too many people came out to L-374, better known as Death World, these days. The Wur had once owned the place, and Hegemony had seen fit to settle the Shadowlanders here a year or two back.

  The Shadowlanders were a nomadic species, a people who’d finally found a permanent home under the massive trees. They made revival machines, and now they made them almost exclusively for Earth.

  Death World was, in fact, one of the most remote and unimportant outpost planets under Earth’s domain. The Shadowlander immigrants who lived here were war-like, but there wasn’t much left for them to fight over these days—or so I thought.

  Exiting the outpost walls, I was immediately challenged by two female guards. They didn’t look too much like formal guardians, mind you, being dressed in sheer gauzy clothing with veils over their faces, but they were more capable than they looked.

  I let the two women fuss over my identity, but soon they contacted the big boss-ladies, as I knew they would.

  Faster than I expected, Helsa showed up. She pulled into the muddy drive outside the outpost walls with a squelch of filth and a shocked look on her face. “James? James McGill?”

  “The one and only.”

  She shook her head in disbelief.

  Helsa and I had had a bit of an affair a year or two back. We’d taken to being bed-partners for about a month after the Edge World campaign—but that seemed like a long time ago now.

  “If you’ve come for me, James, you should go back home. I’ve long since moved on to better men.”

  “I very much doubt that. I’ve seen your men, remember?” I laughed, but she didn’t join in. She just looked kind of sour. “Anyways… I’m not here only for you. I’m here to ask a favor.”

  “What? Seriously? We owe you nothing!”

  “Come on, girl. That’s not true. Without me, you wouldn’t own this lovely, quiet planet. Worse, you’d be up to your hinnies in aliens and under Skay rule.”

  We argued for a bit, and she soon demanded I get into her vehicle. I did so, and she roared away, firing mud into the faces of the gate guardians.

  I held on as I could tell she was an emotional driver. The more anger she felt, the faster she went, and I’d kind of made her mad just now.

  “This planet is a forgotten hole,” she complained. “No one comes here. We aren’t allowed to step back to Earth, either, unless we’re negotiating ludicrously cheap prices for our revival machines.”

  “You can’t just come and go to Earth as you please? Really?” I asked, trying to sound concerned.

  “That’s what I said. Is your brain working today? Is it switched on?”

  She seemed honestly angry. I could understand why, if her people were trapped here. That had never been the way the deal was supposed to go.

  “Uh… where are we going, anyway?”

  “The moment you arrived, our guardians alerted my mother. As visitors are rare here, I was dispatched to play chauffeur—can you imagine the shame of it?”

  Actually, I could. Helsa had a very high opinion of herself. On her home planet, she’d been a killer, a spy, and half a dozen other extreme things. Now she was down to playing taxi-driver for hog negotiators.

  “Huh…” I said. “Sounds kind of boring.”

  She slammed on the braking bar, and I went flying into the dashboard. I wasn’t wearing any kind of safety-harness—mostly because the ground-skimmer didn’t have one.

  “Why did you come here?” Helsa demanded. “Simply to torment me? To tease me with tales of what might have been? To gloat with cackling glee at us for being marooned and disconnected from everything—”

  “Whoa! Hold on, girl. Seriously, I came out here to get some help. If you can help me, I might be able to help you.”

  She stared. She was breathing hard, and her bosom was rising and falling like a smith’s bellows. I tried hard to keep my eyes locked with hers.

  “You can get us out of here?” she asked, daring to hope.

  “Well… uh… maybe. I can’t promise anything. But I have new connections now.”

  “We know all about that snake, Drusus. He’s not under your spell.”

  “Drusus? No, no, I’m talking about political people. Public Servants—people at the very top of the food chain back on Earth.”

  Helsa turned back to her controls and drove steadily with an effort. “I will take you to my mother, Kattra. If you infect her with madness again, I will have to put you both down. I swear it.”

  “Not necessary. I’m telling you the plain truth. You help me, and I’ll find a way to help you.”

  Helsa asked no more questions. She drove me instead to some kind of giant, hollowed out log. It took me a second as we drove into the short end of the massive trunk to realize the Shadowlanders had hollowed out a tree they’d cut down, a tree that had once lived to protect the Wur.

  Climbing out of the skimmer, I craned my neck this way and that. I whistled loudly.

  “Damnation! You ladies have been as busy as beavers. I guess hollowing out trees is an easy way to build yourself an office building.”

  “This is my mother’s inner sanctum.”

  “You don’t say?”

  I walked around the carven chambers, running my hands over the wood. I caught a few splinters, but it was smooth for the most part.

  “A lot of this wood is charred,” I noted. “That means you burned the trees. How did the pod-walkers like that?”

  She bared her teeth at me. “They didn’t. In our first month here, three thousand of our citizens died. Most of them were ripped apart or chewed to pulp by these monstrosities.”

  “No one warned you not to mess with the trees, huh?”

  Helsa looked prideful. “Earthers warned us, but my people aren’t so easily frightened.”

  “Ha! Three thousand dead later, are you still putting up a brave front?”

  That’s when she drew a blade on me. Her kind liked to carry force-blades, and they were wicked-quick with these weapons.

  When she’d suddenly decided to kill me on previous such occasions, I’d worn Rigellian armor. That alone had allowed me to survive—but I didn’t have anything thicker than a cloth uniform on today.

  Diving aside, I dodged three sizzling strokes. One strayed too high and burned a black line on the wood ceiling. This slowed down her sword arm, and I rushed in to grab her wrist.

  That’s when her other hand came up, holding a shorter blade. Left with no choice, I had to throw her on her back and spring away.

  “Come on, Helsa. Your mother’s going to be pissed when she finds both of us dead on the wood chips.”

  Helsa bounced back to her feet. Her sides heaved. “You make me so angry. You disregarded my wishes. You shunned my affections, and—

  “Seriously? This is all anger about getting dumped? I thought you Shadowlander girls were tougher than that.”

  “We are. No male could ever hold my attention for long, but I’m the one who decides when a relationship is over.”

  I grinned at her. We were both circling, and my big gorilla arms were out at full extension. I probably was going to lose this fight, as I’d come through from Central unarmed, but it wasn’t for certain. I could tell Helsa was angry—but she was worried, too. I’d often surprised her in the past.

  “What is this foolishness?”

  A third person had joined us. Daring to glance toward the entrance, I saw Kattra stride into the chamber. She was the queen-bee of all Shadowlanders and Helsa’s momma to boot.

  “Hello, your ladyship,” I said. “Helsa and I were just discussing things.”

  Helsa stepped back. She let her blades droop. One of them touched some wood chips and a tendril of smoke wafted up from the spot. It smelled kind of good, actually.

  “I’ve brought him as you commanded, mother.”

  “I did not order you to attack him. I trust you are unharmed, Centurion?”

  “I’m just fine. We were only having a bit of fun.”

  I grinned, but the women were frowning. After a moment, Kattra forced a smile.

  “I trust you are here in a diplomatic capacity?”

  “Uh… a what?”

  Her face faltered, but she forced that smile back again. “I mean, I’ve made countless requests to Hegemony. Earth’s government has promised a representative would come here from Central to listen to our grievances. That person is you, I trust. Correct?”

  “Oh… oh sure! I’m here to listen to everything you ladies might want to complain about.”

  This statement changed everything. Both of them started yapping at me—and it went on for longer than I could believe. Finally, I found myself sitting on a carven wooden seat and nodding off.

  They were pissed about their trade deals, the lack of emigration rights, the cost of imported goods and the general quality of Death World itself.

  I couldn’t really blame them. Earth had pretty much screwed them over—but at last, I found I’d had enough.

  “Ladies… ladies!” I boomed, standing tall.

  They grabbed for their sheathed blades instantly. I put my big hands up, imploring them for peace and quiet, but they half-drew their weapons in response.

  Sitting back down, I laughed. “Look, I can’t promise you anything immediate. I can offer you a deal, however. I will go back to Central and relay your concerns to the powers that be in that oversized building. I know Drusus. I know Turov. I can get to their ears.”