Under Cover of Darkness Read Online Free Page B

ending up in the Southwestern high country with her laptop, dogs, horse, and uncontrollable imagination.
    Doranna writes eclectically and across genres, with backlist in fantasy, tie-in, SF/F anthologies, a mystery, and romance. You can find a complete bibliography at www.doranna.net , along with scoops about new projects, lots of silly photos, and contact info. And just for kicks, Connery Beagle has a LiveJournal (connerybeagle) presenting his unique view of life—drop by and say hello!

THE GATHERERS’ GUILD
    Larry Niven
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    F ROM A FEW hundred feet up in the moonless Northern California night, the restaurant was invisible. A redwood forest ran up a mountain, with no work of humanity in sight. I followed the pale light of my GPS indicator down, trusting it knew what it was doing.
    I’m a Gatherer, but my branch is Sales Tax. I’d never yet seen Gregor’s, a favorite hangout of the IRS elite.
    A shadowy mass sank past me, too fast, no lights. I veered, not bothering to curse. Too many idiots already fly cars. I dread the day taxpayers find out they can fly. Flight belts are much safer for the people below—but several hundred million flying taxpayers would still be too dangerous, and Jeez, what if they got cars?
    I was below the treetops now, surrounded by trunks. Below me, the car mushed out on silent fans, then settled on a lawn. I glimpsed light in a narrow line: windows showing below the restaurant’s roof. I edged toward it, easing around a redwood’s thick trunk.
    Blocked by the redwood, I saw light flaring around the trunk’s curve on both sides.
    Somehow, I instantly accepted that Gregor’s had exploded. I eased forward against the tree as the sound blasted me. It slapped me against the bark. I hung for a moment, dazed.
    Gregor’s burned. I saw the car catch fire, too. I eased to the ground and crawled into some bushes to watch.
    Maybe fifteen people ran, staggered, and crawled out of Gregor’s. Guards came running from the forest to help them. I couldn’t guess how many were left inside. I didn’t see Marion. I feared she was still inside, and I feared to go and look.
    Â 
    â€œMel,” Woody said, “Why didn’t you try to help?”
    I started to answer, but Christine came into the room. Woody’s wife is a taxpayer. We held off while she poured coffee from the secret fields on Mount Hood. “Breakfast in fifteen minutes. I called room service,” she said.
    After Christine left, Woody added meager splashes of century-old Hawaiian rum.
    â€œI didn’t want to push my luck,” I told him. “Friday the thirteenth, and Gregor’s was burning. I was afraid to help. They were all IRS people. They’d have taken me for the bomber.”
    It was still dawn, not office hours yet. I’d come to Woody’s penthouse apartment in Portland for refuge.
    Woody said, “We’ll give it to the media as a mob hit. Now tell me what you were doing there in the first place.”
    â€œI had a date.”
    â€œAt an IRS site?”
    â€œMarion Nye is IRS, or was.” I swallowed. I hadn’t really faced it: Marion could be dead. I hadn’t seen her emerge from Gregor’s. “She’s mid level in Creative Math. We met last May at the gathering in Jamaica, and went on to her villa in Spain. It wasn’t espionage, Woody. Just sex.”
    â€œYou should have told us.”
    â€œYou’d have had me spying on her.”
    â€œOh, I might like to ask her about that Beverly Hills thing—”
    â€œHell, I’m still deciding how serious we . . . are. Spy on each other or get married? I wanted to see what her friends were like. Woody, what’s it like, married to a taxpayer?”
    He shrugged. “I have to keep a few secrets. She never wonders how I can afford this place, and she doesn’t know about the Hawaii house. She just thinks I make wonderful coffee.”
    I