The Agent Gambit Read Online Free Page B

recorded. Took 'em about two hours to get on my trail."
    She looked hard at nothing for a couple of minutes, then took another slug of her drink. "I came here 'cause there's a man who owes me money and a friend who's keeping some-things-for me. I better take everything. Not sure I'll get back in this Quarter again . . . ."
    The man beside her was quiet. She relaxed deliberately, her thoughts touching people she'd known as she sipped the 'toot for something to do and wondered where she might spend the night, now that she had one to spend.
    The bench creaked, and she looked up into decisive green eyes.
    "You come with me," he said in the tone of someone who has weighed odds and reached a decision.
    "I do what?"
    He was fishing in his pouch. "You come with me. You will need new papers, a new name, a new face. These will be provided." He raised a hand to cut off protest.
    "Liadens count coup, remember? The debt runs in two directions."
    He scattered a handful of Terran bits on the table to pay for the meal, then rose and moved off, not waiting to see if she followed.
    After a moment, she did.
    * * *
    THE CAB DEPOSITED them before a modestly lit whitestone building in the affluent side of town. The door to the lobby swung open on silent hinges, and Val Con moved across a wilderness of Percanian carpet, his reflection keeping pace in the mirrored walls.
    Miri paused just inside the door, mistrusting the light. Cursing herself for more of a fool, she set off across the carpet and arrived at her companion's shoulder as he removed his finger from the keyslot and said "Connor Phillips" into the receptionistmike.
    The desk hummed as a slot slid open and a large, ornate key emerged. Val Con crooked his left index finger in the loop and half-smiled at her.
    "Two floors up," he murmured, moving toward the bank of sliding doors.
    Miri trailed by half a pace, letting him summon the lift, enter it before her, and exit the same way when it stopped.
    This hall was somewhat dimmer than the lobby and he paused, listening, she thought, before moving on. His head swung to the left and to the right, some of the tension leaving his shoulders as he used the ridiculous key on the second door on the left.
    The door sighed open and lights came up in the room beyond as they stepped through. Miri stopped just over the threshold, hand dropping to her gun.
    The door sighed shut behind her.
    Halfway into the room, the man turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised, empty palms up. "I won't hurt you." He dropped his hands. "I'm too tired."
    She stayed where she was, surveying the room.
    Before her, a large double window showed the city night; a pillowed couch sat to one side, opposite two soft chairs and a table. To her right was an omnichora, its keyboard covered against dust. Beyond that, surrounding a closed door, were floor-to-ceiling shelves lined with tape boxes, and a comm unit-an oasis of practicality.
    To her left were more shelves, filled with tape boxes interrupted here and there with figurines and bric-a-brac. Beyond the unit bar and its two upholstered stools was another closed door, and past that, through an elliptical archway, she caught the shine of kitchen tile.
    "Pretty fancy for a cargo master."
    He shrugged. "It was a profitable ship."
    "Um." She gestured vaguely behind her. "That the only way out?"
    He tipped his head at the windows, moved to the right, pulled open the door, and waved her inside.
    A bedroom-with a sleeping platform adequate for the demands of a small orgy-connected to a bathroom that included wet and dry cleaning options and a valet for care of clothes. There were no windows.
    She stepped out and the man guided her across the central room to the second door and a suite that was a mirror twin to the right-hand bedroom.
    In the kitchen there was a small, high window, and another door.
    "Beyond is a service corridor, which empties into another, which ends in a staircase, which-"
    "Gets me to the cellar?" she guessed.
    He