The Merchant's War Read Online Free Page B

apartment he didn’t use more than ten nights a year! So I got up early the next morning and by six A.M. I was standing in line at the airport check-in counter. Ahead of me was a teenage Veenie with one of those “patriotic” tee shirts that say Hucks Go Home on the front and No *DV*RT*S*NG on the back—as though “advertising” were a dirty word! I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at him, so I turned away. Behind me was a short, slim black woman who looked vaguely familiar. “Hello, Mr. Tarb,” she said, amiably enough, and it turned out she was familiar enough—a local fire inspector or something back at the port. She’d toured the Embassy a few times, checking for violations.
    She turned out to be my seatmate on the flight, as well. I had automatically assumed she was a Veenie spy—all the natives who got into the Embassy for any reason at all, we knew, were likely to file reports on what they’d seen. But she was surprisingly open and friendly. Not your typical Veenie crackpot at all. She didn’t talk politics. What she talked about was a lot more interesting to me: Mitzi. She’d seen the two of us together in the Embassy and guessed we were lovers—true enough then!—and she said all the right things about Mitzi. Beautiful. Intelligent. Energetic.
    What I had intended to do on the return flight was sleep, but the conversation was so congenial that I spent the whole time chatting. By the time we touched down I was babbling about all my hopes and dreams. How I had to return to Earth myself. How I wished Mitzi would rotate with me, but how determined she was to stay on. How I dreamed of a longtime relationship—maybe even marriage. A home in Greater New York, maybe out toward the Forest Preserve Acre at Milford … maybe a kid or two … It was funny. The more I said, the sadder and more thoughtful it seemed to make her.
    But I was sad enough myself, because I couldn’t believe that any of that was going to happen.

III
    But things began to brighten astonishingly when I got back to the Embassy. First I encountered Hay Lopez, coming out of the men’s room—coming out of Mitzi’s hideaway, I was pretty sure. But he didn’t say anything, just growled as we passed. The expression on his face, glum and irritated, was exactly what I might have hoped to see.
    And when I flushed my way through the private door into the War Room, the look on Mitzi’s face was just as good. She was grimly punching data into her files, flustered and annoyed. Whatever had gone on those two nights I had been away, it was no idyll. “I got Hamid in,” I reported proudly, and leaned over to kiss her. No problem! No enthusiasm, either, but she did kiss me back, tepidly.
    “I was sure you would, Tenny,” she sighed, and the frown lines began to dwindle; they hadn’t been aimed at me. “When can he report for duty?”
    “Well, I didn’t actually talk to him, of course. But he’s got a ten-day parole. I’d say two weeks at the outside.”
    She looked really pleased. She made a note to herself, then pushed back her chair and gazed into space. “Two weeks,” she said thoughtfully. “Wish we’d had him here for the Day of Planetary Mourning—he could have heard all kinds of things in that crowd. Still, there’s other stuff coming up—they’re going to have one of their elections next month, so there’ll be all sorts of political meetings—”
    I put my finger on her mouth. “What’s coming up,” I said, “and that tomorrow night, is my farewell party. Would you be my date for the party?”
    She gave me an actual smile. “On your big night? Of course I will.”
    “And maybe take the day off tomorrow so we can do something together?”
    Faint shadow of the frown lines coming back. “Well, I’m really awfully busy right now, Tenn—”
    I took a chance. “But not with Hay Lopez, right?”
    Frown lines deep and blazing. “No chance!” she hissed dangerously. “Nobody can treat me the way he wants