The Agent Gambit Read Online Free Page A

think?"
    "I knew you were gonna bring that up! You can forget that stuff right now, spacer. You're the Liaden in this skit. Terrans don't count coup."
    She almost missed his start; she snapped her eyes to his face, only to find him expressionless, watching the patrons of the bar.
    "What?" she demanded.
    "It's nothing." He shifted his shoulders against the wall. "A better reason, then. Whoever wishes to kill you most likely has us linked by now, and so hunts us both. Is my new enemy one individual with the means to buy service? Or a group, most of whom we have dispatched already? Can I safely go off-planet, or will I find assassins around my Clan fire when I return home?" He paused. "Your danger is my danger. Your information may save my life. I wish to stay alive. It is dishonorable for a soldier not to know the enemy!" He turned his head to look at her, one eyebrow askance. "Is that reason sufficient?"
    "Sufficient." She drank off the rest of the 'toot and set the mug on the table. Eyes on the cracked blue plastic, she resettled against the wall.
    "Half a Standard ago I left the Merc," she began, voice perfectly even. "Felt like I wanted to settle down, I guess, learn about one world . . . relax . . . . Got a job as a bodyguard on this place called Naome. Lot of rich paranoid types go there to retire. All of 'em got bodyguards. Status symbol.
    "Anyhow, I was hired the third day on the Lists by a man who called himself Baldwin. Sire Baldwin. Paid me three months in advance. To demonstrate good faith." She shook her head.
    "He needed help, okay. I worked for him five-six local months. Used to wonder once in awhile what he used to do that made him need so much protection now . . . ."
    She let her voice drift off as the waiter came and refilled the cups, hers with more 'toot, Val Con's with tea.
    "And?" he prompted as soon as the waiter was away.
    She shrugged. "Turned out Sire Baldwin had been somebody else before. Somebody who'd worked for the Juntavas. You savvy the Juntavas, tough guy?"
    "Interplanetary crime net," he murmured, eyes on the room. "Drugs, gambling, prostitution, contraband." He flicked his eyes to her face. "Bad trouble."
    "You're the one wanted to know."
    "Yes. What happened next?"
    "He got tired of the work, I guess. Resigned without paying his severance money. Took some cash and some confidential info-guess a man's gotta eat . . . ."
    "It was the people from his old unit I'd been protecting him from. They'd tracked him down and were asking for 'restitution.'" She took a swallow of 'toot that she didn't want, then shook her head.
    "Baldwin told 'em to come ahead, that he was tired of hiding out and wanted to make everything square. He invited 'em to come to the house on Naome."
    She paused, staring into the depths of the mug.
    The pause lengthened. Stifling an impulse to touch her shoulder, Val Con tried a soft "And?" When a second "And?" brought no response, he snapped his voice like fingers in her face.
    "Miri!"
    She started and looked at him, face wry. "It was a doublecross. A bamboozle. Baldwin called the house staff together, from the cook to the upstairs maid. Told us we were being invaded. That we'd have to fight.
    "The whole staff fought-and most of 'em had never carried a gun before! We refused Baldwin's buddies entrance, and when they insisted, we insisted right back. Bad, seeing untrained people fight that way . . . When it was sure we couldn't hold it, I went off loyally looking for my boss so I could perform my last duty-I was his bodyguard, wasn't I?" She shrugged and drank some 'toot.
    Val Con looked at her.
    "Don't you see? Gone. Bolted. Flew the coop. Left us to fight and die. I think five of us got away. Means fourteen didn't. Gardener didn't. Maids didn't. Cook-I don't know. He looked pretty bad, last time I saw him." She moved her shoulders again in a gesture that was not quite a shrug.
    "Don't know who else they might've tracked down, but I was his bodyguard, all legal and certified and