Faring Soul - Science Fiction Romance (2 page)

Catherine closed the lid.

“You are satisfied?” Friday asked.

“I have no idea what I’m looking at,”
Catherine said frankly and truthfully. “But if it doesn’t do what
we asked for it to do, it will be a black mark on Shanta’s
reputation. I’ll be very happy to tell everyone I know how Shanta
let me down.” She smiled. “I know a lot of people.”

Friday smiled just as widely. “We would
not gamble with our reputation so close to our world’s finest
hour.”

“Unless he can get away with it in
private,” Bedivere murmured in her ear and Catherine fought not to
laugh.

She hitched the heavy bag off her
shoulder and placed it on the table. “Federation yen, at the price
we agreed upon.” She rested her hand on the bag briefly. There was
a lot of money in it. She and Bedivere could have lived on it for a
few years. Friday, with his ostentatious ways, would burn through
it in a year. But it was none of her business how he chose to spend
it.

She reached for the handle of the hard
case and Friday held up his hand. “There is just one additional
matter before we can conclude our business,” he said.

Catherine let go of the case
reluctantly. Her heart hammered. “There is nothing else,” she said.
“You have your money. I take the tech and we’re done.” They were
empty words, but the protest was necessary. She had to look like
this was an undesirable surprise, even though they had been
half-expecting something like this.

“Damn, he’s going to up the ante,”
Bedivere said.

“Mmm,” she said.

Friday’s smile increased. “Meeting your
technical specifications provided challenges we had not
anticipated. We are out of pocket on these expenses.”

Catherine shook her head. “That’s not
my problem.”

“Your price was to include the
development of the device. These are development costs.” His smile
faded and the men around Catherine shifted. The guards, though,
were perfectly still.

“You’re reneging on the deal we made,”
she pointed out.

“I’m renegotiating.”

“We had reached mutually acceptable
terms already.”

“Then consider the increase inflation.
You have no choice, Caitlyn Azad. No one else could build this for
you.”

“True,” Bedivere added. “Or we wouldn’t
be here talking to him. I’m ready. Just give the word.”

Catherine nodded. “How much?” she asked
Friday.

He quoted the price and she sighed.
“That’s nearly double.”

“String him along,” Bedivere said. “Let
him think you’re figuring out how to pay that much.”

Catherine studied Friday. What had
changed? Why all the ceremony? The public deal? The reach for even
more money didn’t fit with the pomp and circumstance.

Unless…

“What’s the date?” she asked aloud.
“The Federation date?” she qualified.

Friday frowned. “What?”

“It’s the second month of sixty-six,”
Bedivere answered swiftly. “The new Board criteria are published at
the start of each Federation year.” He had understood why she was
asking about the date.

“And he can’t meet the new criteria,”
Catherine said, watching Friday watch her with his muddy
orange-brown eyes. “He’s screwing us to get his cash.”

There were enough men standing around
her fluent in Standard that their combined reactions and movement
raised the tension in the room immediately. Catherine moved her
feet, getting ready for action.

“I’m looking at the new criteria now,”
Bedivere said. “The cash contribution alone would bankrupt most
fringe planets. This isn’t personal. Friday is probably squeezing
every single deal for extra cash. But now he’s named the new price,
he can’t afford to back down even with a fair negotiation. He’ll
lose face.”

Catherine nodded. “So, whenever you’re
ready,” she told Bedivere.

“Who are you speaking to?” Friday
demanded.

“My navigator,” Catherine said and
pointed toward the ceiling, letting him confirm in his own mind
that her ship was in orbit, just as a normal ship would be. It
wouldn’t occur to anyone in this room that a ship that was
jump-capable would also be able to navigate atmosphere and land.
That would play to their advantage.

“Now,” Bedivere said and Catherine
braced herself.

The explosion rocked the room. The
sound was overwhelming. Catherine clapped her hands to her ears
even though she had been expecting it. Lights flickered and the
ground shook.

Panic immediately gripped the room but
before the floor stopped rolling, Catherine pole-vaulted the table
and took out one of the armed guards with a kick under the chin,
one of the weak points in that type of armor. She completed the
vault, grabbed the hard case and pointed her hand at the second
guard, aiming for the underarm area. He’d raised his gun, a Wiebe
knock-off that had a tendency to stick at the wrong moment. The
movement lifted his arm and gave her a large target.

The sleepy dart gave a soft hissing
sound as it left the dart gun tucked into her sleeve, but she
didn’t hear it beneath the roaring panic gripping the room. The
dart buried itself in the guard’s armpit and he immediately
crumpled. The anesthetic was powerful.

“And now,” Bedivere said.

The second explosion locked in the
confusion and hysteria, which was exactly what the percussion bombs
had been intended to do. They were harmless artificial thunder, set
off right up against the side of the building, but when they were
not expected, on a world that had never experienced storms, they
generated just the sort of panic Catherine needed to escape.

Friday was just starting to lift
himself out of his chair, his eyes wide. Catherine landed on her
feet on the other side of the table, right in front of his chair.
She let momentum carry her forward and grabbed Friday’s shoulder,
shoving him back into the chair. Then she pushed down, using his
shoulder for leverage and vaulted again, this time right over the
arm of the chair. She slotted her feet through the opening between
the chair and the official standing next to it, his hand to his
ears. This time, when her boots contacted the floor she let herself
roll forward, the case tucked up against her chest to protect
it.

The roll brought her to a sprawling
halt, five meters beyond the milling, robed men. She picked up the
case, got to her feet, spotted the back door Bedivere had found on
the radar scan of the building an hour before landing the ship and
ran like hell.

The streets of Shanterry were nice and
straight, but they were narrow. Bedivere couldn’t land here without
destroying buildings. Destruction of property would build
resentment against them, when all they wanted to do was take their
fair share of the deal. Catherine had left the bag with the
agreed-upon payment in it sitting on the table.

So she gripped the handle of the case
and kept running. “Bedivere!”

“I’ve got your location. There’s a
park, three kilometers ahead of you and two blocks over. It’s big
enough to take the ship.”

“See you there.”

Behind her, Catherine heard shouts and
running boots. Soon, air cars and ground cars would join the chase.
But she was two hundred meters ahead of them and pursuit just made
her run faster.

She had to get two blocks over, so she
started jagging and jigging through side streets, always keeping
count of how far north she had gone. She could shift farther north
than the park, but that would mean having to come back south to
reach it and possibly running into her pursuit. So she headed east
more than she travelled north, dodging and ducking all the way.

When the air cars came overhead, using
spotlights, she turned into a doorway and leaned against the closed
door, catching her breath. It was a residential building, but no
one came to see who had entered. Perhaps the man of the building
had been at the meeting. In this patriarchal world, no one would
think to come and check for themselves if the man wasn’t there.

She pressed her ear against the door,
listening, then checked in with Bedivere. “I should hire myself out
to a Federation cruiser,” she said. “Good food, decent
entertainment and all you have to do is make sure the passengers
are having a good time. None of this running and dodging people
with weapons.”

“The Federation would take you in a
heartbeat.”

“Yeah, but not to give me a job on
their luxury liners,” she said dryly. “Where now?”

“If you can get through the building,
there is no one on the street south of you. They’re anticipating
your direction and everyone is moving north east.” He paused. “You
could always dump the tech.”

She pushed herself off the door and
headed along the dim corridor. It was late at night by Shantan
standards. Everyone would have been asleep, although she doubted
anyone was still asleep after all the commotion and noise
outside.

“I spent two years saving to buy this
stupid thing. I’m not dumping it now,” she told Bedivere. “Besides,
I’m not leaving you.”

“I’m the one flying the ship. Wouldn’t
I have to leave
you
?” He sounded amused. “I’m three minutes
away. You’re about five minutes away, if you keep to the same
pace.”

“Easier said than done,” Catherine said
dryly, moving through the corridor, looking for the back door. Or
the front door, maybe. She couldn’t linger long enough to figure
out Shanta domestic arrangements. But a window would work just as
well. “All that Soward champagne is starting to tell.”

“I’ll wait,” he assured her.

“You’ll scare the locals into next
month.” A jump-ship hovering over land was very loud, very bright
and tended to stir up weather that included small tornados and
localized hail and rain storms, all from irritating the atmosphere
to the point where it had to scratch and sneeze.

“I can live with people being afraid of
me.”

“Liar.” She found the window she needed
and used the butt of the knife she pulled out of her boot to tap
out the glass. It looked and behaved like straight glass, with no
embedded energy collectors or thermostats, so she climbed out the
window very carefully.

The street was as deserted as
advertised.

“Straight ahead, now,” Bedivere told
her. “There’s almost nothing in front of you.”

“
Almost
,” she repeated,
thrilled. She began to run again. Ahead, she could hear the air
throbbing and the sound of the ship’s engines. There was a bright
glow in the sky, pinpointing Bedivere’s location. He was up very
high, sparing the locals as much disruption as possible. He was
such a good pilot, he could bring the ship down to touch land at
the moment she reached the park.

It gave her a fresh spurt of energy.
Catherine surged down the long street, heading for the bent and
misshapen native trees she could see outlined by the glow from the
ship. As she drew closer, the ship came lower. Bedivere was
tracking her closely.

“Two to your left,” he said.

Adrenaline was giving her extra power
and she dropped the two Shantans easily, then picked up the case
and hurried on. She was so close.

She broke out in to the park. The curly
brown ground cover that Shanta used for lawn was thick underfoot,
absorbing the sound of her running steps, although the shriek and
throbbing of the ship so close overhead was muffling all sound.

Trees bent and a few of the taller,
older and more rigid ones cracked close to the ground and fell
over, their trunks shattered by the pressure of the ship lowering
down to ground level. As Catherine ran toward it, the ship spun
slowly, until the cargo ramp was facing her. The ramp was already
down, the inside of the cargo bay with its battered walls and bent
securing struts looking very homelike and comforting.

Something plucked at her sleeve and she
felt heat. Fire and sparks lit up the side of the ship, close to
the ramp door, then disappeared, whipped away by the wind and air
pressure billowing up from the ground. Someone had fired a laser
pistol and had just barely missed her.

Catherine ran harder and leapt for the
end of the ramp, which was a meter from the ground. She was moving
too fast and fell forward on her knees, the case skidding up the
no-slip surface of the ramp. “Go!” she screamed.

The ship immediately lifted upward, the
surge and power pushing her down onto the ramp and pinning her with
motion-induced gravity. The ground dropped away beneath her and she
looked out at the Shantans as they ran into their flattened park,
staring up at the ship.

Then Bedivere rolled the ship. The end
of the ramp lifted up, until the whole ramp was horizontal, letting
Catherine get to her feet, pick up the case and walk wearily up to
the end of the ramp. Once she was off the ramp, Bedivere closed it
up completely, the upper door coming down to meet the edge of the
ramp and seal the loading dock.

She clutched at the swinging strapping
as the ship tilted and accelerated. He was heading for space. They
had electronically disabled the orbital sentries on their way in.
They were clear.

Two minutes later, Catherine dropped
into the navigator chair that Bedivere usually used and let out a
long heavy breath. She put the hard case on the console and patted
it.

Bedivere, who was sitting in the
pilot’s chair, looked up from the instrumentation and grinned. The
laugh lines around his warm brown eyes crinkled. “So...it went
about exactly the way we expected. We’ll be in clear space in three
minutes, by the way.” His brown-gold hair glowed in the light
emitted from the overhead console. The warm color was nothing like
the muddy color of native Shantans.

Catherine leaned back so her head was
resting on the headrest and blew out another breath. “Nothing ever
comes easy,” she muttered.

“You wouldn’t like it if it did.”