The man on Alicia's com screen was as civilized looking as Edward Jacoby, but Alicia knew he was the one she'd come to find. Direcats were bigger than Old Earth kodiaks, with fangs a saber-tooth would have envied, and they were not omnivorous. A carnivore that size required a huge range, even on virgin Mathison's World, and the government had regulated direcat hunting with an iron hand. Those warehouse racks contained at least a full year's pelts—and could have come from only one source.
And so she smiled at the face on her screen, smiled politely, with only professional interest, even as everything within her screamed to touch him and rip away the knowledge she must have.
"Good evening, Captain Mainwaring. My name is Lewis Fuchien. I'm glad I caught you groundside."
"So am I. Mister Jacoby said you might screen."
"Indeed. I understand my consignment falls within your vessel's capacity?" Fuchien asked, and she nodded. "Excellent. While your fee initially seemed a bit high, Edward has shared Monsieur Labin's report with me, and—"
"I hope you didn't take it at face value," Alicia interrupted wryly. "Monsieur Labin was rather more impressed than circumstances merited."
"Modesty is admirable, Captain Mainwaring, and I realize Gustav Labin is a bit excitable, but Edward assures me you'd take good care of my cargo."
"That much, at least, is true, Sir. When someone entrusts me with a shipment, I do my best to insure it reaches its destination."
"No shipper could ask for more. However—" Fuchien smiled pleasantly "—I would like to meet the rest of your ship's company. It's a policy of mine to consider the reliability of a crew as a whole, not just its captain."
"I see." Alicia's face showed nothing, but her mind raced with ticklike speed, conferring with Tisiphone and Megaira on a level deeper than vocalization and far, far faster than conscious thought. She couldn't very well bring her nonexistent crew down to have lunch with the man! But—
"Did Mister Jacoby mention my Cathcart charter?" Fuchien nodded, and she smiled. "I certainly understand your caution, and frankly, I'd feel happier myself if my purser could sit in on our discussions, but my engineer and exec are buried in a drive recalibration. I really can't interrupt them—in fact, I ought to be up there helping out right now—given our time pressure for Cathcart, but if you have a free hour or so, may I offer you Star Runner's hospitality for supper? The food may not be five-star, but I think you'll find it palatable, and it'll give you the chance not only to meet my people but to look the ship over in person, as well. If you like what you see, you, my purser, and I can settle the details over brandy. Would that be convenient?"
"Why, thank you! That's far more than I'd hoped for, and I'd be very happy to accept, if I may include my own accountant."
"Of course. I'll be taking my cargo shuttle back up at seventeen-thirty hours. Would you care to accompany me, or arrange your own transport?"
"If you won't mind seeing us home again, we'll ride up with you."
"No problem, Mister Fuchien. I'll expect you then."
* * *
Fuchien and his accountant—a short, stout woman with laugh wrinkles around computer-sharp eyes—arrived at the shuttle ramp precisely on time, and Alicia was waiting at its foot, tall and professional in her midnight blue uniform. Their brief handshakes lasted barely long enough to skim the surface of their thoughts, but that was sufficent to confirm her suspicions.
"Captain, may I present Sondra McSwain, my accountant?"
"Pleased to meet you, Ms. McSwain."
"Likewise, Captain. After what Mister Fuchien's told me about your reputation, I expected you to be three meters tall!"
"Reputations always grow in the telling, I think." Alicia grinned back. McSwain's mind held neither the scummy taint she'd picked up from Labin nor the cultured avarice she read in Fuchien. It ticked like a precision instrument, skilled and professional but laced with a sense of humor, and Alicia's grin turned wry. How odd to find an incorruptible person on a planet like Dewent!
She shook herself and gestured at the ramp.
"Mister Fuchien. Ms. McSwain. We have clearance and my crew is preparing to roll out the carpet."
The flight up was routine, but the accountant's obvious delight made it seem otherwise. Ms. McSwain, Alicia decided, seldom saw the insides of the ships and shuttles that thronged Dewent's port facilities. Even this short jaunt was an exotic treat for her, yet she had the ability to recognize her own excitement for what it was and laugh at it. Alicia found herself explaining instruments and procedures with unfeigned cheer, and even Fuchien allowed himself to smile at her drum roll questions.
They were halfway to rendezvous when Tisiphone nudged Alicia.
<You are forgetting our purpose, Little One, and an illusion of this complexity requires preparation. May I suggest we begin?>
<I guess so.> Alicia sighed. <But I think I'm going to enjoy this less than I expected. Why the hell does she have to be so nice?>
<Have no fear,> the Fury said with unusual gentleness. <Megaira and I also like her. We will allow no harm to befall her, yet we must begin soon.>
<Gotcha.>
Alicia turned her head and smiled at McSwain as the accountant's questions temporarily ran down.
"There's a member of my crew I want you to meet, Ms. McSwain. A colleague of yours, you might say. Forgive us, but we were expecting a stringy, dried-up cold fish of a credit-cruncher." McSwain met her eyes, and they chuckled together. "I think Ruth is going to be pleasantly surprised."
"I once had a 'stringy, dried-up cold fish,' " Fuchien confessed, "but he fell afoul of an audit. Sondra is a vast improvement, I assure you."
"And I believe you." Alicia keyed a com screen alight with Ruth Tanner's face. "Ruth? Forget Plan A and go to Plan B. Mister Fuchien's accountant is human after all."
"Really? What a nice change," Megaira replied in Ruth's voice. Her image's eyes swept the cockpit until they found McSwain, and Ruth's face smiled. "Goodness! Who would've thought someone on this chauvinist backwater would have enough sense to hire a woman!" Her eyes cut to Fuchien's face, and her smile became a grin. "Oops! Did I just put my foot in my mouth?"
"Not with me," Fuchien assured her. "My colleagues' shortsightedness in that respect is my gain, Ms. Tanner. You are Ms. Tanner, I presume?"
"In the flesh," Megaira replied. "I hope you'll enjoy your visit. We don't entertain often, so we're putting our best foot forward, and . . ."
The conversation rolled on, and neither Fuchien nor McSwain noticed when their eyes began to turn just a bit disoriented.
* * *
This, Alicia thought, was the strangest thing they'd tried yet. In her present, straitened condition, Tisiphone would have found herself hard put to weave an illusion half this complex. But she wasn't forced to weave it alone, for Megaira had opened a direct tap to the Fury, throwing her own tremendous capacity behind the spell like a gigantic amplifier that restored Tisiphone, however briefly, to the peak of her long lost power.
And with that aid, the Fury surpassed herself. She wove her web with consummate skill, ensnaring both her guests and extending a tendril of herself to Alicia, as well. It was an eerie sensation, even for one who had become accustomed to the bizarre, for Alicia inhabited three worlds at once. She saw once through her own senses, again through Megaira's internal sensors, and last of all, she shared her guests' illusion. She sat with them at supper, chatting with Megaira's other selves while the AI provided their conversation and Tisiphone gave them flesh, even as she sat alone with them at the table. It was almost terrifying, for it wasn't what the Fury had done to Lieutenant Giolitti. There would be no hazed memories or implanted suggestions. This was real. Backed by the AI's enormous power, Tisiphone took them all one step out of phase with the universe and made her reality theirs.
Nor was that all she did. There was no rush, and she plumbed Lewis Fuchien's memories to their depths, filing away every scrap of a fact which might be of use. By supper's end, they knew everything he did, and the merchant was convinced Captain Mainwaring's crew was perfect for his needs.
The meal ended, and the entire crew—except Tanner—"excused" itself to return to duty. Fuchien lifted his brandy and sipped appreciatively.
"Well, Captain Mainwaring, you and your people have not only met my standards but far exceeded my hopes. I believe we can do business."
"I'm delighted to hear it." Alicia sat back with her own brandy and smiled, then gestured at the empty chair which held her purser's ghost. "In that case, why don't you and I sit back while Ruth and Sondra do battle?"
"An excellent idea, Captain." Fuchien beamed. "Simply excellent."
* * *
Dewent dwindled in the galley view screen as Megaira's velocity mounted, and Alicia watched it while she tried to define her own emotions. A complex broth of anticipation, hunger, and fear—fear that she might yet blow her chance—simmered within her, and over it all lay a haze of excitement as she looked ahead to Wyvern, mingled with relief at leaving Dewent astern.
She still didn't like Fuchien, but neither did she dislike him as much as she had expected. He was as ambitious and credit-hungry as Jacoby, but without the other's outright evil. He knew of his associate's drug deals yet took no part in them, and while he suspected his Wyvern contact of fencing goods for the pirates terrorizing the sector, he himself had had no direct dealings with them. He disapproved of them, in a depressingly mild sort of way, yet it was unrealistic to expect more from him. He was a Dewentan, and servicing "outlaws" was what Dewent did. By his own lights, Lewis Fuchien was an admirable and honest businessman, and Alicia could almost understand that.
That was one reason she was glad to leave, for she didn't want to understand it. On a more pragmatic level, their departure meant her and her "crew's" deception only had to stand up for one last planet. Only one, and then she didn't care who knew. Fleet was welcome to pursue her. Indeed, she would welcome their pursuit if her flight could lead them to the pirates.
She leaned her elbows on the edge of the console, propping her chin in her hands and brooding down on the rapidly diminishing image, and let her mind reach out ahead. Wyvern. The planet Wyvern and a man named Oscar Quintana, Lieutenant Commander Defiant.
Wyvern had a peculiar aristocracy, with no use for titles like "baron" or "count." Their ancestors had been naval officers—little more than freebooter refuse from the centuries-past League Wars, perhaps, but naval officers—and the ship name appended to Quintana's title indicated that he sprang from one of the founding noble houses. Peculiar as it might sound to off-world ears, he'd be a powerful man, probably a proud and dangerous one, and it behooved her to approach him with caution.
<Hey,> Megaira interrupted her thoughts, <don't get too bothered, Alley! If he knows what's good for him, he'll approach us with caution.>
<True,> Tisiphone seconded. <Indeed, Little One, unless we are much mistaken, this Quintana must be a direct contact for the ones we seek. If so, I shall turn him inside out with the greatest pleasure.>
"You two are in a bloodthirsty mood," Alicia observed. "Or are you just worried that I'm getting ready to funk out?"
<Us?> Megaira was innocence itself. <Perish the thought.>
"Sure." Alicia stood and yawned, stretching the tension from her shoulders and grateful to be distracted from her moodiness. "As a matter of fact, I'm not that worried over Quintana. If he's what we think he is, I hereby give you both carte blanche for anything we have to do to him."
<My thanks, Little One—not that I intended to wait upon your permission to deal harshly with such scum.>
"Oh, yeah? Harsh is okay with me, but remember—even if he's a direct link, we still need to get to the next step. I'm afraid that may limit what we can do to him. I mean, we couldn't even squash that slime Jacoby."
<Ah, funny you should mention that, Alley.> Megaira's elaborately casual voice set off a clangor of warning bells, and Alicia's eyebrows rose.
"I know that tone," she said. "What've you been up to?"
<It wasn't just me,> the AI said quickly. <I mean, I thought it was a great idea, but I couldn't have done it by myself.>
"You fill me with dread—and you're stalling."
<It was your idea, Tis. Why don't you explain?>
<But I could not have accomplished it without your expertise, and you have a better grasp of the details, so perhaps you should explain.>
The Fury's tone was serious, yet Alicia felt her amusement. She put her hands on her hips and glared at the empty air.
"One of you had better trot it out, ladies!"
<Well, it's like this, Alley. You remember when we made that credit transfer and Tis and I raided Jacoby's data base?>
"Of course I do," Alicia said, then paused. "Did you horrid creatures put something into it? You didn't hit him with a virus, did you?"
<Of course not,> Megaira said virtuously. <What a horrible idea! I'd never do something like that—not even to a fossil like that Jurgens Twelve of his. Not that it might not have been kinder. That relic should've been scrapped years ago, Alley. It's so stupid—>
"Quit stalling! What did you do?!"
<We didn't put a thing into it. Instead, we took something out.>
"Besides the information on his distribution network?"
<Well, yes. I guess to be perfectly honest, we did put something in, but it's only a delayed extraction program.>
"What kind of extraction program?"
<A starcom credit transfer.>
"A credit transfer? You mean you robbed him?"
<If you want to put it that way. But we talked it over, and, personally, I think Tis was right. You can't really rob a thief, can you?>
"Of course you can rob a thief!" Alicia closed her eyes and flopped back into her chair. "I thought you were supposed to have my value system!"
<And so she does, but I am making some progress with her. Rather more than with you, in fact.>
"I just bet you are," Alicia muttered, running her fingers through her hair. "All right, how much did you hit him for?"
<All of it,> Megaira said in a small voice.
"All of what?"
<All of everything. We found all his hidden accounts as well as the open ones, and we, well, we sort of cleaned him out.>
"You—" Alicia gurgled to a stop, and pregnant silence hovered in her stunned mind. But then her closed eyes popped open as panic cut through her shock. "Good God Almighty, Megaira! What do you think he's going to do when he figures out we robbed him?! We can't afford that kind of—"
<Peace, Little One. He will not realize we were to blame.>
"How do you know?! Damn it, who else is he going to suspect?!"
<That I cannot tell you, but it will not be us, for the theft has not yet occurred. Nor will it . . . until he orders his first off-planet credit transfer to one of his drug-distributing cronies. Megaira was very clever, and I rather expect—> the Fury's dry delight was unmistakable <—that he will suspect whichever of his fellow thieves he has attempted to pay.>
"You mean—?"
<Exactly, Alley. See, what'll happen is the first time he orders a payment to one of the accounts I listed in my program, it'll automatically dump every credit he has into the transfer and then reroute it. His payee won't see a centicredit, but the program'll bootstrap itself—and the transfer—through his starcom, then transmit itself back out. And it'll erase itself from each system it moves through till it reaches its destination, too.>
"Oh, Lord!" Alicia moaned, covering her eyes with her hands. "I never should have inflicted you two on an unsuspecting galaxy! Just where—if I dare ask—will this wandering program finally end its criminal days?"
<It'll probably take it a while to make connections, but it's headed for Thaarvlhd. I set it up to open a numbered account when it gets there.>
"Thaarvlhd?" Alicia repeated blankly. Then, "Thaarvlhd?! My God, that's the Quarn Hegemony's central banking hub for this sector! Damn it, the Quarn take money seriously, Megaira! Violating Thaarvlhd's banking laws isn't a harmless little prank like murder!"
<I didn't violate a thing. They're used to orders like this one, and I included all the documentation they need.>
"Documentation?"
<Sure. They don't care about names, but I included everything they want on human accounts: your retinal prints, your genetic pri—>
"My prints?!" Alicia yelped. "You opened an account in my name?!"
<Of course not. I just explained they don't use names, Alley. That's why they're so popular.>
"Sweet Suffering Jesus!" Alicia never knew exactly how long she sat there, staring at nothing, but then a thought occurred to her. "Uh, Megaira."
<Yes?>
"I'm not condoning what you've done—not condemning it either, you understand, or at least not yet—but I was wondering . . . Just how much did you two rip him off for?"
<Hard to say, since we don't know exactly when the program'll trip.>
"A rough estimate will do," Alicia said in a fascinated tone.
<Well, using his last two years' cash flow as a basis, I'd say somewhere between two hundred fifty and three hundred million credits.>
"Two hun—"
Alicia closed her mouth with a snap. Then she began to giggle—giggles that gave way to howls of laughter. She couldn't help herself. She leaned forward, hugging her ribs and laughing till her chest hurt and her eyes teared. Laughing as she had not laughed in months, with pure, devilish delight as she pictured ultracivilized Edward Jacoby's reaction. And she'd thought they couldn't hurt him! Dear God, he wouldn't have a pot to piss in, and he'd never even know who'd done it!
She pummeled the deck with her feet, wailing with laughter, until she could get control of herself again, then straightened slowly, gasping for breath and mopping her eyes.
<I take it you are less displeased than you anticipated?> Tisiphone asked mildly, and Alicia giggled again.
"Stop that!" she said unsteadily. "Don't you dare set me off again! Oh. Oh, my! He is going to be upset, isn't he?"
<It seemed an appropriate—and just—way to deal with him.>
"Damn straight it did!" Alicia shook herself, then straightened sternly. "Don't you two think you can get away with something like this again—not without checking with me first, anyway! But just this once, I think I'll forgive you."
<Yeah, for about three hundred million reasons, I'd guess,> Megaira sniffed, and Alicia dissolved into laughter once more.