"Not necessarily," Jin said. "They've obviously made contact with at least the Tlossies." She gestured toward the paper Lorne was still holding. "Or at least Daulo has. And Qasamans learn very quickly."
"Yes, let's talk about the Tlossies for a minute," Paul said. "Merrick, did this courier say anything about how he'd obtained this note?"
"Not a word," Merrick said. "I had the impression he had no idea what the envelope was, that he'd simply been hired or ordered to deliver it. He did give me a card with contact information, but it wasn't for him personally."
"How do you know?" Lorne asked.
"The status curlies around the card's border didn't match those on his abdomen sash," Merrick explained. "Not nearly as elaborate, either, which means the card is from someone considerably higher in social rank."
"I spent an hour earlier trying to match the curlies to known Tlossie traders, but the search came up dry," Corwin added. "Whoever the card's from, he's apparently no one who's done serious business here."
"Have you tried contacting him?" Jody asked.
Merrick shook his head. "I assumed that whether or not we went that far would be up to Mom."
A brief silence settled over the room. Jin stared at the note lying beside Lorne's dessert fork, acutely aware of the precarious ledge she was now standing on.
The ledge all of them were standing on. Merrick's earlier warning that they were edging onto treason hadn't been hyperbole—the Cobra Worlds Council had imposed a strict interdiction on travel to Qasama, and they meant it. Even getting on a starship with intent to travel there could conceivably land Jin a multiyear prison term.
And the knowledge that she was planning such a trip could likewise land everyone in this room in that same prison on conspiracy charges.
But the legality of the matter wasn't really the question. The question was what was the right thing to do.
Qasama . . .
They were still waiting for her, she realized suddenly. "Well, it can't hurt to ask," she said, motioning to Merrick as she pulled out her comm. He hesitated, then slid a small business-sized card from his pocket and handed it to her. Jin glanced at the number and punched it in.
It was answered on the fifth ring. [The evening, it is good, Jasmine Moreau Broom,] a recorded Troft voice said, the alien cattertalk as crisp and precise in its way as the Qasaman handwriting on the brief note. [The voyage, if you intend to make it, will depart from Pindar three days from the delivery time of the package. All that is necessary, it will be provided.]
There was a click, and the connection was broken. "Well?" Paul asked as Jin closed the comm again.
"It was a recording," she said. "I'm to leave from Pindar in three days, at—Merrick, what time was the note delivered?"
"Just after two."
"Three days from now at two o'clock," Jin said. "He says he'll provide everything I need, which I assume will include proper Qasaman clothing and accessories."
"Sounds good," Lorne said briskly. Briskly, but with an undertone of tension beneath the words. "Three days should give me enough time to get myself on the off-duty roster. I'll collect my stuff—"
"Whoa, whoa," Jin interrupted. "The invitation was for me."
"So?" Lorne countered.
"So I'm going alone," Jin said firmly.
"You most certainly are not," Paul said, just as firmly. "But you are right about Lorne not going with you. We can—"
"You're not going, either," Jin said, forcing herself to look into her husband's eyes.
Haunted eyes. Worried eyes. Loving eyes. "Jin—" he began.
"No," Jin insisted. "You don't know the Qasamans, Paul. One Cobra sneaking onto their world is bad enough. Two of them will be interpreted as an invasion."
"So we make sure they don't see anything that jumps them to that conclusion," Paul countered. "I can stay in the background, or be your loyal servant, or whatever you need."
Jin braced herself. "What I need," she said as gently as she could, "is for you to be willing to stay behind. I have to do this alone. I really do."
"What is this, mass insanity?" Lorne demanded. "Jody's going to Caelian, you're going to Qasama—"
"Caelian?" Jin cut him off.
"Lorne!" Jody bit out, her stunned expression edging rapidly toward fury.
Lorne winced. "Sorry," he apologized.
"Never mind sorry," Jin said sternly, her stomach suddenly doing flip-turns inside her. "Jody?"
"I was going to tell you after dinner, Mom," Jody said, her expression managing to be repentant and stubborn at the same time. "We got the call this afternoon from Governor Uy's office. We're leaving on the Freedom's Fire in—" she grimaced "—in three days."
"From Capitalia?" Paul asked.
"Yes," Jody said. "But maybe I can get the time changed."
"Don't try," Jin said, feeling the heavy weight of irony settling across her shoulders. The same time Jin would be leaving Aventine . . . only they'd be leaving from spaceports a thousand kilometers apart. The universe wasn't even going to let her say a proper dock-side farewell to her daughter. "They'd only want to know why, and we can't afford anyone asking awkward questions."
"I'm sorry, Mom," Jody said. "I know you didn't want this."
"No, I didn't," Jin said quietly. "But I doubt your grandfather really wanted me going to Qasama, either. Sometimes we just have to face the unpleasant fact that our children do, in fact, grow up."
She looked at Corwin, wondering if he would point up the obvious difference in their situations: that Jin's father, at least, had sent her off to Qasama with a group of other Cobras.
But her uncle remained silent, and after a couple of seconds she turned back to Lorne. "Your cue, Lorne," she invited.
"My what?" he asked, frowning.
"A minute ago you were all set to come to Qasama with me," she reminded him. "Time to offer to accompany your sister to Caelian instead."
"Go for it, kiddo, because I'm sure not going," Merrick spoke up before Lorne could answer. "Capitalia patroller duty may not be as glamorous as hunting spine leopards, but my commandant takes our duty rosters very seriously."
"Well—okay, sure," Lorne said, fumbling a bit. "Jody—"
"Sorry, Lorne, but you're not going to Caelian, either," Paul spoke up. "You have a duty to the citizens of the expansion region."
Jin turned to her husband in disbelief. "Paul—"
"Luckily," Paul continued, looking over at his daughter, "I just happen to have an opening in my own calendar."
Jin felt her lower jaw drop open, her planned protest strangling into silence in her throat. "Paul, you are not going to Caelian," she insisted.
"Why not?" Paul countered calmly. "No, let me put it more strongly: I'm not going to sit home and water the azaleas while my wife and daughter travel to the two most dangerous places in the known galaxy. If I'm not going to Qasama with you, I'm going to Caelian with Jody."
Jin stared at him, momentarily at an uncharacteristic loss for words.
And yet, as the emotional fogbank cleared away, she realized he was right. Even at fifty-three, with arthritis and anemia starting to make themselves felt, Paul was still a Cobra. Moreover, he had the maturity and experience and cool headedness that Lorne still lacked. There could be no better protection for Jin's little girl.
She grimaced. No, not her little girl. Her young lady.
She looked at her two sons in turn. Lorne seemed midway between annoyed and frustrated, no doubt as a result of the ground being cut out from under him twice in two minutes. Merrick merely looked his usual stolid self, with no hint of embarrassment or shame at how quickly he'd refused to even consider going to Caelian with his sister.
Or maybe he'd simply realized before the rest of them that his father was heading in that direction and had made certain he wouldn't be standing in the elder Broom's way. "I guess it's settled, then," Jin said, forcing some false heartiness into her voice. "Paul and Jody will go to Caelian, I'll head to Qasama, and Lorne and Merrick will hold down
the fort here."
"And try to maintain the illusion that you're still on Aventine," Merrick put in.
Jin frowned. She hadn't thought about that part of it. "Yes, good point. Any ideas on how we do that?"
"One or two," Merrick said. "But we can work on that later." He raised his eyebrows at Corwin. "After dessert, perhaps?" he prompted.
"That is the direction we were headed, wasn't it?" Corwin agreed. "Perhaps, now, Lorne and Jody, you'll be kind enough to clear the table for us?"
"Sure," Jody said as they both obediently pushed their chairs back from the table and started collecting the dishes.
"So is that it for the evening's surprises?" Paul asked, looking at Corwin.
Corwin cocked an eyebrow. "Isn't that enough for one night?"
"Very much so," Paul said dryly. Reaching under the table, he took Jin's hand in his. "I just wanted to make sure. And to make sure that everyone had a say."
"Everyone who wanted a say has had one," Corwin assured him. "For now."
The group was midway through dessert, and the conversation had shifted to Jody's plans for the Caelian study, when Jin suddenly realized that Aunt Thena hadn't said a single word throughout the entire debate.
The next three days went by quickly. Far too quickly.
The Troft recording had said that everything Jin needed would be supplied aboard ship. But she couldn't and wouldn't simply assume the Trofts knew what a proper infiltrator needed to do her job.
On the other hand, she could hardly go to the hardware store and ask the clerk to assemble a standard-issue commando backpack for her, either. Fortunately, the standard Cobra survival pack was a good place to start, and she knew its contents by heart. She bought enough supplies to stock two such packs, making sure to shop in a half dozen different stores across the city so as to muddy the backtrail a bit. Once those were prepared, she added a few other odds and ends as they occurred to her, and then decided she was as ready as she was going to be.
She spent the rest of the time she had left with her family. Those hours went by even faster.
The sky was beginning to cloud up as she stepped off the intercity transport and headed on foot toward the long, sleek Troft freighter squatting on its pad across the Pindar landing field. She'd done everything she could; had given Paul and Jody their final hugs earlier that morning, and then had called from the transport for a last good-bye as her husband and daughter watched Jody's two colleagues load the last bits of gear aboard the Freedom's Fire. But the farewells had been sorely inadequate for the occasion, and Jin could feel her mood filling with its own dark clouds as she walked wearily toward the ship.
The danger she had long ago accepted. The loneliness she hadn't counted on.
"Carry your bags, ma'am?"
She spun around, feeling her eyes widen with shock. Merrick was back there, smiling solemnly as he strode toward her, a survival pack of his own settled across his shoulders. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.
"What do you think?" he countered, stopping beside her and getting a grip on the straps of one of his mother's packs. "I'm coming with you."
"You most certainly are not," she insisted, trying to snatch her pack away from him. It was a waste of effort—his servos were every bit as strong as hers were. "Now get of here and back to Capitalia before someone sees you."
Merrick shook his head. "Sorry," he said. "I'm on temporary detached duty, assigned to watch over one of the legendary heroes of the Cobra Worlds."
"What legendary hero?" Jin asked, thoroughly confused now.
"You, of course," Merrick said. "In case you hadn't noticed, you've gone into a tailspin of depression over Jody and Dad's plan to go to Caelian. Lorne and I have been very worried about you, especially when you announced you were going out to the wilderness north of Pindar to, quote, think things over."
"So what, I'm a strap-stretcher case now?" Jin demanded, not sure whether she was more outraged or embarrassed by the story her sons had concocted.
"Oh, I'm sure you'll pull out of it after a while," Merrick said. "The point is that I'm on indefinite leave, and we're off in the wilderness all alone where no one's likely to notice us."
"Brilliant," Jin growled. "But your poor, aged mother is perfectly capable of, quote, thinking things over on her own."
Merrick took a deep breath. "Mom, remember back at the Island three days ago, and the talk Uncle Corwin and Aunt Thena had with you after dinner?"
Jin grimaced. Like she would ever forget. Corwin had grilled her for nearly an hour about her motives for wanting to go to Qasama, trying to get her to admit that she was doing it solely to vindicate him. Which she wasn't. "I remember it very well," she said. "And how exactly do you know about it? I thought you were all off in the billiards room at the time."
"I know because Uncle Corwin, Aunt Thena, and I planned the talk long before you and the rest showed up, of course." A brief flicker of grim amusement touched his eyes. "When did you think Dad, Lorne, Jody, and I cooked up the rest of this scheme? The only safe time to do it was while you were busy defending your honor."
"Only you'd already made up your mind about this, hadn't you?" Jin asked, thinking back to that evening. "That's why you were so quick to take yourself off Jody's escort list."
"Uncle Corwin and I had already run the logic," Merrick said. "Dad was too old to go with you—he's got the same health limitations you do. Lorne's is too young, plus he really is needed in the expansion regions. That leaves me."
"Or it leaves me going by myself," Jin said. "Or don't you think I can handle it?"
Merrick sighed. "If you insist. No, we don't think you can handle it. Not if worst comes to worst."
"Because I might be going with the wrong motives?"
"Because you're fifty-two years old," Merrick said bluntly. "You're not exactly in prime fighting condition anymore, you know."
"Bring me a couple of spine leopards, kiddo, and I'll show you what condition I'm in," Jin retorted. "Besides, the idea is to avoid any fighting."
"Amen," Merrick said fervently. "But if it does come down to a fight, you know as well as I do that two Cobras will always have a better chance than one."
"Unless it was the presence of that second Cobra that precipitated the fight in the first place," Jin said. "As long as we're remembering conversations, do you remember that one?"
"Certainly," Merrick said. "But as I recall, the Qasamans are very family-oriented, and I as your son am the kind of close blood relation that even Dad can't match. The Qasamans will respect that."
He was right, Jin had to admit. Even if they discovered he was a Cobra, they would more likely interpret his role as that of his mother's protector than as an invader.
And as she gazed at the determination in her son's eyes, she realized suddenly that she really didn't want to do this alone. "There's no chance I can talk you out of it, is there?" she asked, just to be sure.
"None," he said in a voice that left no room for argument.
"Then let's do it," she said, turning toward the ship. She paused and let go of the bag he was still holding. "And yes, you may carry my bag."
Besides, this was just a friendly visit between old acquaintances, she reminded herself. There wouldn't be any fighting. Surely there wouldn't.
Chapter Four
The last time Jin had traveled to Qasama, the ship had been running on a fuel-conserving course and had taken two weeks. She was therefore somewhat surprised when, barely five days into the trip, the Troft captain announced that they would be arriving at Qasama within the next twelve hours. Even granting three decades' worth of advances in starship efficiency and the fact that this was a modern Troft freighter instead of the older models the aliens typically foisted off on the Worlds, the captain clearly wasn't all that concerned about his transportation costs. Either he had an important schedule to keep, or else the crisis on Qasama was as critical as the mysterious note had made it sound.
Not that Jin was able to find out which. T
he captain and crew were polite enough, as befit the long trading history the Tlos'khin'fahi demesne had with the Worlds. But the veneer of hospitality had a steel wall behind it, and five days' worth of gentle probing and wheedling had gained Jin exactly nothing in the way of new information. Merrick, who had inherited his father's calmer and more diplomatic wheedling approach, came up equally dry.
Jin had also hoped the captain might have further information on the logistics of the operation, particularly some advice on how to sneak into Daulo Sammon's town of Milika without attracting unwelcome attention. But the captain assured her he'd been given nothing but the original note, a small collection of old-smelling Qasaman clothing, and an easterly approach vector that would
hopefully slip his passengers into the forest west of Milika without tripping whatever radar coverage the Qasamans had set up to guard the Great Arc region where most of their people lived.
Which meant that as far as actual penetration of the Qasaman populace was concerned, Jin and Merrick were on their own.
They made a final check of their gear, including the Qasaman clothing , and loaded it aboard the freighter's shuttle. Designed as it was for cargo transport, the shuttle had no actual passenger seating. But the cockpit was designed for a crew of four, and the captain assured them that the engineering and supercargo stations could be left open for a trip this short.
They dropped over the nighttime side of the planet, the freighter pulling up and away as the Troft pilot sent the shuttle skittering toward the dark mass below. Five minutes into the flight they hit the first noticeable wisps of upper atmosphere, and the shuttle began to shiver, then tremble, then shake as the air around them grew steadily more dense.
Jin spent the trip staring at the mass rushing up toward them and consciously forcing herself not to dig her fingers into her seat's upholstery. Occasionally, she sent a furtive glance at Merrick, noting with a small nugget of wry resentment that her son showed no hint of the tension Jin herself was feeling. The buffeting hit a teeth-chattering peak, then began to subside again as the shuttle slowed to subsonic speeds. The ground below remained a mostly featureless inky black, but as they headed eastward toward the western arm of the Great Arc Jin began spotting little clusters of lights nestled among the forests that dominated the western part of the planet's inhabited regions. She watched the lights as they went slowly past, her muscles taut as she waited for a repeat of the attack that had killed her first team.