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showed Sassinak that her clothes did not quite fit in. Except for the
overdressed trio at one table, clearly there to prey on customers, the women
wore merchant-spacers'
coveralls, good quality but not stylish. Most of the men wore the same,
although two men had on business clothes, one with the crumpled gown of an
attorney at court piled on the seat beside him.
Sassinak supposed the little gray coil atop it was his ceremonial wig.
She was aware of sideways glances, but conversation did not stop. These people
were too experienced for that. She led Aygar to one of the booths and dialled
their order. Planetwipers had never been her favorite but, of course, she
didn't have to drink the thing. Aygar leaned massive elbows on the table.
"Can you tell me what is going on, or are you trying to drive me crazy?"
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"I'm not, and I don't know. I presume that at some point our party will
arrive. At least I know what he looks like."
She was trying not to be too obvious about looking around No one here of
Coromell's age, or close to it. Surely they wouldn't have a third meetingplace
to find. Aygar took a long swallow of his drink.
"That's potent," she said quietly. "Best be careful." He glowered at her. "I'm
not a child. I don't even know why you ..."
He stopped as someone stopped by their table. Tall, silver-haired, erect. If
Sassinak had not known
Coro-mell, she might have believed this was he.
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209
"Commander," he said quietly. "May I sit down?" "Do join us," Sassinak said.
She gestured to Aygar.
The young Iretan you may have heard so much about." The older man nodded, but
did not offer to shake
Jumds. He wore an impeccable blue coverall, what she
Mould have expected of a merchanter captain off-duty.
'One hand bore a ring that might have been an Acad-
" $tny ring, but the face was turned under where she could not see it. And his
movements, his assurance, , came from years of command, some kind of command.
t^Jf he was not Admiral Coromell and he wasn't then
1 who or what was he?
"There's been a slight misunderstanding," he said.
"' *"It is necessary to stay out of reach of compromised
" Surveillance devices until ..."
-
Sassinak never saw the flicker of light, only the surprised look on his face
and the neat, crisped holes, Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter,
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
five "«them, in his face.
Instinct had her under the table and scrambling before the first blood oozed
out. She heard a bellow and
Crash as Aygar tossed the table aside and came after
"her. Something sizzled and Aygar yelped. Then the
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.whole place erupted in noise and motion.
" Like all fights, it was over in less time than she could
^ have described it. The experienced hit the floor and ^Guttled for shelter.
The inexperienced screamed, flailed, ted threw things that crashed and
tinkled. Fumes from
:Jtte shattered bottles stung her nose and eyes. Glass
^jftnrds pricked her palms and knees. ffi Sassinak bumped into other
scuttlers, caught sight of Aygar and yanked him down just as a pink streak
ripped
«Jae air where he'd been and burst the windows out.
" ifibe jerked hard on his wrist, trusting him to follow, as
" worked her way through the undergrowth of the Table standards, chair
J"
legs, bodies. Through the door, and into a white-tiled kitchen. She was to
realize that the place sold food as well. lore noise behind her, following.
She slipped on the *~ wet floor, staggered, and yanked Aygar again.
on, dammit!" it. . ." He threw a last glance over his shoulder, Generated by
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210
McCaffrey and Moon
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211
and whatever he saw propelled him in a great leap that ended with Aygar and
Sassinak tangled out the back door, and flames bursting out behind them.
"Snarks in a bucketl"
Sassinak struggled out from under the younger man and shook her head. Screams,
more sounds of mayhem. She looked down the alley they'd landed in. She hated
planets . . . living on them, at least. No one to keep things really
shipshape. On the other hand, this filthy and disreputable bit of real estate
offered hiding places no clean ship would. Aygar, she noted, had a bleeding
gash down his face and several rips in his coverall, but no serious injury.
He was already up on one knee, looking surprisingly relaxed and comfortable
for someone who had narrowly escaped death. He had probably saved her life
with that last lunge for the back door.
"Hanks," she said, trying to figure out what to do with him. She'd thought of
him more as deterrence than serious help if things turned nasty. And at the
moment, they were about as nasty as she had seen in awhile.
"We should go," he pointed out. "I was told only Insystem had that sort of
weaponary."
"We're going."
Another quick glance, and she chose the shorter end of the alley. Nothing
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happened on die first quick
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dash to cover behind a stinking trash bin with rusty streaks down its sides.
Sassinak eyed the other back doors opening on the alley. Surely someone should
have peeked? Unless the neighborhood were really that tough, in which case ...
"There's someone behind the next one of these," Aygar said softly in her ear.
She eyed him with respect. "How d'you know?"
He shrugged. "I lived by hunting, remember? On Ireta, the things you didn't
notice would hunt you. I
heard something wrong."
"Great."
No weapons. No armor. And all her tricks were back in childhood, the tricks
that worked on screen, and not
JJr in real life. Real life worked a lot better with real
Bf weapons.
"I can take them," Aygar went on.
_" - She looked at him: all the eagerness appropriate to a young male in the
prime of his pride and no military training whatever. And he wasn't hers, the
way young £3inran would have been. He was a civilian, under her
- oath of protection. She started to shake her head, but he hadn't waited.
, ^ Even knowing about the great strength his genes and his upbringing had
developed, she was still
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surprised. Aygar picked up the entire trash bin with all its clink-teg,
rattling, dripping, smelly contents, and hurled it
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