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  He stared at her, looking a bit taken aback by her hostility. "All right."

  "In fact," she said, "you might still be in MY debt. I might not have been in so much trouble if it hadn't been for you."

  He squirmed. "Well, I don't know about—"

  "You can repay me," she said, "with information. Why were you after me? Who were those men? Why did you switch sides?"

  He stared at her for a long moment, clearly uncomfortable, then said, "I switched sides because you two kept helping each other. Even when it was hopeless. Neither of you would leave the other in the lurch. But the people I was with?" He shook his head. "Scum of the galaxy. A couple of them were talking about crippling the kid and staking her out in the sand to draw you in." Rage shone in his eyes for a moment. "That was when I knew I was on the wrong team."

  She stared at him, wondering if she could take him at face value. He'd made an incredibly difficult choice, and it had nearly cost him his life. Was it really so simple in his eyes? Was anyone that naïve, that two-dimensional? Either he was a fool, or he thought she was.

  Of course, you took a few risks yourself, just to help a kid you barely met a couple of days ago. Cassie shook her head, impatient with herself. That's different. That's Lark. He doesn’t know her. He was just being an idiot.

  "That's why you switched sides," she said. "Why were you after me in the first place?"

  "For the bounty," he said immediately. "They're offering sixty grand for you. Alive, that is. You're only worth two and a half dead."

  She scowled. "Who's offering the bounty?"

  He shrugged. "The usual cartels. I don't know who's behind it."

  There were legal bounties and illegal ones. Both kinds were handled by interstellar organizations that would act as middlemen, spreading the word and guaranteeing payment to hunters. Finding who was behind the bounty would be close to impossible. Which meant that getting the bounty removed would be even harder.

  "Those men you were with?"

  He shrugged. "Mercenary team out of Sirina Four. They came in with nineteen operatives and equipment. Quite a few of them are dead, and most of the good equipment is blown up. Some of them got arrested in the city, too. I don't think you need to worry about them any more."

  She scowled.

  "Anyway, they brought me in as a consultant. I've worked with them a couple of times before."

  Roger's voice emerged from the skimmer's dash speakers, sounding deeper-voiced than she was used to. "A group of nomads has gathered on the port side of the skimmer."

  She leaned forward and peered through the cockpit glass. A dozen or so people stood in a patient cluster several meters from the ship. "We'll talk more later," she said. "Let's go meet the locals." She rose from her seat, then paused. "Wait. One more question. Who the hell are you?"

  He stopped half way out of his seat. "Jerry O'Malley." The grin he gave her was boyish and full of charm. "Pleased to meet you."

  "Whatever." She left the little cockpit and moved into the corridor aft. Lark was there, looking like she was afraid Cassie would make her stay on the ship.

  "Come on," said Cassie, and the girl's face lit up. "Try not to get into trouble this time." That was hardly fair, and the kid's face showed that she agreed, but Lark didn't complain, just waited while Cassie opened the hatch.

  Half of the nomads had trays of tourist junk. Cassie bobbed her head to each person, a hand on her heart. Jerry and Lark imitated her. Cassie picked out the oldest person in the group, a woman with wrinkles so deep her face was in danger of imploding. "Hello, grandmother," she said.

  The other nomads, seeing that she was not just a clueless tourist, retreated slightly, courtesy competing with curiosity. The old woman nodded to Cassie, then to Lark and Jerry. "Welcome to Midnight Wells. I am Cini."

  Cassie introduced herself and her companions. That led to Cini introducing every member of the group around her, and a dozen or so more people who pressed in close as soon as they saw introductions taking place. Strangers would be a rarity this far from settler towns, especially off-world strangers. Cassie bobbed her head until her neck ached and told herself to get used to being stared at.

  When the courtesies were finally done, Jerry and Lark wandered off surrounded by a crowd of chattering nomads. Cassie and Cini retreated to the shade of a stone building and sat down on the ground to dicker.

  "I need a ship," Cassie said. She gestured behind her at the skimmer. "I have a fine skimmer here that I would be willing to offer in trade. My, ah, assistant is currently working on unlocking the onboard computer. It should be fully usable shortly."

  Cini didn't speak, just gave her a look that made Cassie redden.

  "Er, I could include some cash as well."

  "Hm." The old woman gazed out across the desert and long seconds crawled by. Cassie was wondering if she should say more when Cini finally spoke again. "A ship is difficult. Passage to Oroboros is a much simpler thing."

  Oroboros was a thriving space station in a nearby system, the kind of place where gangsters and black marketeers thrived. The station wasn't lawless exactly, but it paid no more than token attention to interstellar treaties or police jurisdictions. It was, in other words, the sort of place where Cassie felt entirely at home. "I might settle for passage to Oroboros," she allowed.

  Cini proved to be an implacable haggler, all the more so when Cassie admitted that it would be best if the nomads stashed the skimmer in the desert for a while and forgot all about the three visitors. Cini had a nephew with a ship, but he seldom left Bruma. He would need to prep the ship, and pester his cousin to get cleaned up and come along as a crewman. None of it would be easy, and none of it would be cheap.

  In the end the old woman demanded the flitter and a considerable sum in cash. Cassie, torn between outrage at the price and the realization that she could easily afford it, was wavering when Lark and Jerry went past, chatting with several young women. The nomad girls seemed quite taken with the big blond mercenary.

  "All right," said Cassie. "I'll agree to your price, but I have another condition." She explained her terms, and the wrinkles around the old woman's eyes deepened in a smile.

  Cassie was disconnecting Roger from the skimmer when Lark cried out, an inarticulate roar of fury and alarm. Cassie strolled down the ramp to the ground.

  "Cassie! They're hurting Jerry!"

  The blond man was on the ground, one arm pushing weakly against the sand, his face seamed in a frown of pained concentration. Two nomad girls stood over him with stun batons in their hands.

  "I'll admit they haven't helped him much," Cassie said, "but he's not hurt badly." She knelt beside the mercenary. "Thanks for all you've done, Jerry. I won't forget it. But there's a lot at stake, and you're only human, after all. It's not as if I'm about to trust you." She patted his cheek. "Just lie still until the stunning wears off. You'll be fine."

  Lark's eyes were big and shocked, and Cassie felt a small pang of remorse. "He'll be okay," she told the girl. "There's no need to look at me like that. Come on." She led the way to the far side of the skimmer, Lark casting dubious glances over one thin shoulder.

  A heavyset nomad man was waiting beside a battered hover jeep. "This is Grun," said Cassie. "He's going to take us to his brother's ship." They got into the jeep, Lark still sending worried glances at Jerry. The skimmer rose and flew into the desert as the hover jeep swept them into the town.

  Midnight Wells had more tents than buildings. Some of the tents were clearly temporary, but as they moved deeper into the town they saw tents that hadn't moved in many years. There were tents with fenced yards and gardens, tents beside carefully-tended fruit trees, tents with crude additions made from corrugated plastic.

  There was no beauty to nomad architecture. It was clear that buildings were an afterthought for them, or a necessary evil. There were no domes in the town, no columns, no arches, no dormer windows. Every structure was rectangular, every wall straight, every roof flat. The buildings were widely space
d and few in number, and deeper in the town they were even fewer.

  In the heart of the town even the tents gave way to a sprawling open plaza. Simple shops and stalls lined every side of the plaza. The center of the open space was filled with ships.

  It looked more like a junkyard than a spaceport. The biggest ship was a cargo hauler, an ugly gray and black thing with a fuselage big enough to rival many of the town's buildings. It wasn't much to look at, but at least it looked spaceworthy. Smaller ships littered the plaza around it, many of them propped up on blocks or cradles. Other ships had their engines neatly stacked beside them in pieces.

  Cassie saw a one-person jumper, battered but apparently ready to fly, and a glittering silver yacht in three separate pieces. There was a Dasher, a ship bigger than the yacht and jumper combined but able to hold only two people. A Dasher was mostly engine. It could take you half way across the galaxy in record time, if you were willing to endure brutal discomfort.

  Grun brought the jeep to a halt in front of a smaller cargo boat, a hybrid craft with a fuselage of dusty brown and sleek-looking engines that were cobalt blue. Cassie could see crude welds where the engines had been attached. The ship was an amalgam of two others, both of them likely scrapped by their previous owners. As if that wasn't alarming enough, the nose of the ship lay on the ground beside the rest of it, a couple of nomad men poking at the exposed wiring.

  Lark said, "Cassie?"

  "I'm sure it's not as bad as it looks." Cassie gave the kid an encouraging smile and got a worried frown in response. "Come on. Let's go see what the problem is."

  There was, apparently, a problem with the phony transponder in the nose cone. The transponder was from a third ship, and the transponder's simple AI kicked up a fuss whenever it was connected to the rest of the ship. After five more minutes of tinkering Arak, Cini's nephew, yanked the offending transponder out and set it to one side. "Acme can simulate a transponder," he said, jerking a thumb at the ship. "It'll be good enough for a run to Orob. They know me there."

  The two men set to work reattaching the nose of the ship, Cassie fidgeting in impatience and scanning the plaza for signs of Jerry. Cini might or might not have the girls stun him again if he started tracking her down. Cassie wasn’t sure which would be worse, a nasty scene with Jerry when he caught up with her or the thought of the poor man being stunned over and over. Repeated stunnings would certainly be more efficient, but Jerry deserved better.

  Finally Arak scooped up the transponder and trotted into the ship. His cousin stayed outside, watching the nose section as Arak powered up the ship. Cassie could see the cousin's lips move as he spoke to Arak. She was braced for a long, thorough pre-flight check, but the cousin turned after just a few moments. "It's good," he said, gesturing them toward the ramp. "We can go now."

  "Um, okay," Cassie said doubtfully. "That's good, I guess." Both men were coming along for the trip, so surely they had to be certain it was safe. She kept telling herself that as she led Lark up the ramp and into the little ship.

  They arrived alive on Oroboros. Arak and his cousin were already taking apart the nose of the ship as Cassie and Lark headed off through the clutter of ships in the docking bay. Lark was clearly curious about the station, but Cassie kept her close at hand as she browsed postings for ships and transports. There was no such thing as a native of Oroboros, and the station orbited a red giant with no planets. Everyone was from somewhere else, and she saw people of every creed and culture.

  "What are you looking for?" Lark asked.

  "Quick passage to another station like this one," Cassie told her. "We need to muddy our trail a bit." She stared, frustrated, at the wall screen in front of her. "This is all listings for big liners and cargo-passenger ships, though. You have to book two days in advance. I know there must be a hundred private ships that would take us, but finding them is the problem."

  "You should ask Roger," Lark said, nodding to Cassie's shoulder bag where the AI resided.

  "I can't ask Roger," Cassie said, trying to mask her impatience. "He's not connected to the…" She stared at the data port directly beneath the wall screen and tried not to turn red as she fished out a cable and plugged Roger in.

  The data panel had a standardized interface to data pads and personal implants. Cassie used her implants to connect to the data panel, and through it to Roger. He greeted her, the voice in her ear sounding just like the old Roger. She told him where they were (he'd already figured it out) and what they were looking for, her lips moving silently as she subvocalized.

  "I have some possibilities," he said immediately. "How much reliability are you looking for?"

  "Not too much," she admitted. "I want someone who won't space us and keep the fee, but I don't want someone hung up on paperwork and proper documentation, either. A little dodgy, but not homicidal. Oh, and it can't be anyone with connections to bounty hunters."

  "I never would have guessed that last part," Roger said.

  "Nobody likes a smart-alecky computer, Rog."

  "Noted. Here's a good candidate. Andromeda Amalgamated Interstellar Freight Services. Despite the grandiose name it's just one man. Judging by his credit rating he could really use a bit of quick cash. He pays a startling amount of alimony, so an undocumented flight might just suit him fine."

  The little cargo hauler was even more battered than Arak's ship had been, but at least all the parts were from the same ship. The captain was a sad-eyed little man who ran his gaze over Cassie in a speculative way that told her he hadn't yet learned his lesson from all those alimony payments. He whisked them across the sector and dropped them on the fringe of the Haystack star cluster. The two of them (three, if you counted Roger) caught a crowded shuttle to the heart of the cluster where they spent just enough time on an orbiting satellite to find their way to a space elevator station. A hundred-kilometer journey by elevator down a carbon-fiber tether brought them to the surface of Quinault Nine.

  Aggressive terraforming had made one large island on the planet into an Earthlike garden. The rest of the planet lagged behind, and a computerized voice in the elevator cautioned them about air quality alarms. Massive air production machinery all around the city of Archambault kept the air mostly breathable, and slowly spread an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere across the rest of the planet. Strong winds could still bring foul air sweeping in from beyond the hub of terraforming, though. Visitors were told to hurry indoors if alarms sounded or if they smelled burned plastic, especially in times of high winds.

  The air was still and fresh, though, as they left the elevator and made their way through customs. Fake ID had become cheap and commonplace as the expansion of human space outstripped the spread of bureaucracy, and Cassie had half a dozen identities for herself and Lark. Within a day or two a query would come back from whatever system they claimed as their home, but in the meantime they simply swiped their ID crystals under a scanner and walked out onto the streets of Archambault.

  "We'll stay away from taxis," Cassie said. "They'll keep records. Let's find a hotel in walking distance." They took a suite in a gleaming needle-like spire near the space elevator. Lark flopped herself down on the nearest bed and promptly fell asleep, still dressed.

  Cassie stood over her for a moment, smiling. Lark was standing up remarkably well to a steady barrage of danger and stress. Cassie suspected that a reckoning was coming, when things slowed down enough for the girl to finally react to the long days of peril and hardship and the trauma of her earlier life with an abusive father. In the meantime, though, Lark just kept facing one calamity after another with courage and quiet strength.

  "Sleep well, kid," Cassie murmured. "You deserve it." She moved into the second bedroom, where she gave detailed instructions to the room's AI. If Lark awoke alone, the room would tell her that Cassie was out and would be back soon. It would also allot her a moderate room service allowance, and do its best to talk her out of leaving.

  By the looks of her, though, Lark would be sleeping for hours yet. Cass
ie took a corner of the quilt on the bed and draped it over the sleeping girl. Then she carried Roger outside and took a bounce tube to the ground floor.

  A hotel in the next block had network services for registered guests. Cassie booked a room she never planned to occupy and locked herself into a booth. She connected Roger to a data port, then slipped an immersion helmet over her head.

  CHAPTER 13

  The world faded away, replaced by a gleaming landscape of chrome and neon. There were skins available that would change the landscape to anything from the lounge of a pre-space ocean liner to a Rialian casino. She closed the menu of skins and looked around.

  Roger stood beside her, rendered by the network as a short, dapper man in his middle years with slicked-back hair. A little menu hovered over his head, offering her the chance to portray him as a Samurai warrior, an animated duck, or a busty vid star. She closed the menu.

  "What first?" he said.

  "Bounties," she said. "I want to know who's after me. Can you clean me up?"

  Roger nodded, then said, "Done." There was no change that she could see, but her avatar would be stripped of all identifying data as she searched.

  "Great. Okay, let's browse the usual databases."

  The walls around her spun and blurred, giving an illusion of motion. When the world became still again she was standing in an open square with glowing buildings all around her. Other searchers moved around her, vague shapes mostly transparent and easy to ignore. She could try to attract the attention of any one of them if she wished, but she didn't care. There would be dozens, if not hundreds of marketing programs and live users trying to get her attention, she knew, pushing sales or vices or scams. Roger was invisibly screening and deflecting them. She thought back to the last time she'd gone online without him and shuddered at the memory.

  A public board with legal listings for bounties took the form of a long chrome counter staffed by pretty girls in metallic outfits. They smiled, listened to her request for information, and demanded proof that she was a licensed bounty hunter. Roger argued with the virtual ladies for a time and achieved nothing.