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Skyler glanced at Caine, then back at Lathe. "Can you spare both of us?" he
asked quietly.
"Mordecai and I can protect Caine," Lathe assured him. "I want you to go to
Hawking right away.
Tell him what's happening; if he can't be ready in an hour, get his best
estimate and I'll do some stalling. Then go to the garage and make sure the
cars they assign us aren't bugged or marked. Oh, and Hawking said he was going
to put together a portable bug stomper, too if it's ready you should take it
along."
Skyler stood up and began fastening a civilian shirt over his flexarmor. "We
traveling alone or with a native guide?"
Lathe grimaced. "The latter Bakshi's giving us one of his blackcollars."
"Great. I'll warn Hawking." With a cheerful wave at the silent Mordecai,
Skyler left the room.
"You don't like Bakshi and the others, do you?" Caine asked quietly. He was
seated alone at the table now, Novak having vanished into the corner to begin
collecting equipment.
"Bakshi I don't mind," Lathe said, pulling out one of the chairs and sitting
down. It felt good; that workout had worn him out. "It's the other four that
bother me."
"Why? Because they aren't as phlegmatic toward the Ryqril as you are?"
Lathe declined to take offense. "A good fighting spirit is fine. But so far
they haven't shown anything but spirit. Tell me, what's your opinion of Lianna
Rhodes?"
Caine blinked. "Why, I... in what way?"
"How do you think she would do under pressure, for instance? More importantly,
what are the chances she's a Security spy?"
Caine frowned. "I don't think she's a spy," he said slowly. "That's only gut
instinct, of course. She said she was leaving Radix soon, though, and I can't
see a spy doing something like that."
Lathe nodded; Caine's information and instincts meshed with his own. "You
think she could face down a group of collies?"
Surprisingly, Caine smiled. "She sure doesn't wilt in front of us."
The smile faded into curiosity.
"Why all the questions?"
"I want her to help us get into Cerbe Prison." Lathe told him.
Caine's expression hardly changed. "I won't waste my breath telling you you're
crazy," the younger man said calmly. "Do I get to know anything about this one
in advance?"
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Lathe hesitated, but only for a second. He'd been cutting Caine out of a lot
lately, and the other was clearly beginning to resent it. Telling Caine this
part of the plan would be safe enough... and it might help divert his mind
from Dodds for a while. "Sure," he said, glancing at the quietly humming bug
stomper standing sentinel in the middle of the room. "Let's go sit by the
stomper and I'll tell you all about it."
CHAPTER 21
The storm clouds had been rolling in from the north for half an hour,
replacing the already overcast night sky. Occasional flickers of lightning lit
up the landscape, emphasizing the implicit promise of a heavy rain. At the
car's wheel, Dael Valentine risked a quick glance behind him. "I told you this
would happen," he said. "Driving in convoy at night's just plain stupid."
"Just relax," Skyler advised him from the back seat. "They have maps, and we
know they got out of
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Calarand all right. Maybe they decided to take a different route."
" 'Maybe'?" Valentine snorted. "In other words, they did. And naturally you
didn't bother to tell me."
"You were having so much fun complaining about their incompetence it seemed a
shame to enlighten you," Novak, next to Valentine, said tartly.
Valentine didn't reply. Novak was overstating the case a bit, in Skyler's
opinion, but not by much.
The Argentian had done a lot of bitching during the trip, almost as if he
considered a chip on his shoulder to be standard equipment. Skyler had run
into that kind before, back on Plinry, and considered the type to be a royal
pain in the butt. They were dangerous to be around, too, usually getting
themselves killed doing something stupid.
In the front seat a tiny penlight flicked on briefly as Novak checked his map.
"Shouldn't we be seeing Millaire by now?" the black man asked.
"It's in a wide valley past these hills," Valentine said, pointing to the
shadowy ridge that the car was approaching. "You'll see it in five minutes."
Novak grunted and fell silent. Skyler took a moment to look back along the
road, and to study the territory on either side. Only occasional lights could
be seen, most of them far back from the road.
Not surprising, considering it was way past midnight and all good Argentians
were asleep in their beds. Still, the darkness and lack of other traffic made
the blackcollar uncomfortable. He'd learned long ago to dislike being
conspicuous.
The car topped the ridge and suddenly Millaire was in front of them, spreading
across the valley like a two-dimensional star cluster. "Quite a town," Novak
commented. "How's it compare to
Calarand?"
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The Blackcollar
"Larger in area; smaller in population," Valentine said. Half of Millaire's
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