Free The Machiavelli Interface by Steve Perry Page B

should be good enough. Yar, B.I. if you can't get Standard. And two thousand expulsive carthar-tensmus bombs. Yar, I know it'll stink. No, I wouldn't want the cleaning bill, either. No. No Parkers. Spetsdöds, puke-gas, and diarrhea bombs, that's all. And don't tell me what retail is, I know you ain't paying for any of it. I'll go six hundredths on a stad. Fifteen? Forget it. I'll get in touch with Spartang. I might go eight, just for old times' sake. No. Twelve is too much. Ten? Okay. You got it."
    * * *
    The leaders of the resistance on Ago's Moon were about to get a ship full of help against the Confed. They'd also get a communication about the time the non-lethal weapons arrived: Compliments of Emile Antoon Khadaji—I'm with you .
    * * *
    Over the next three days, Khadaji made a dozen similar calls. He also started rumors, to be fueled by paid sub-rosa advertising: The Confed was going to break up any religion with over five million adherents.
    The Confed was going to double the galactic income tax.
    The Confed was brain wiping all major felons and using them for illegal genetic research.
    Before he was done, Khadaji hoped to have half the galaxy believing that the Confed was going to rape everybody's mother and sister and then devour the resulting babies....
    * * *
    "Yes, this is Father Dank Nootna calling. Thank you, my family endures, Praise the Eternal. I have word of a Confederation plot, Holy Mistress. The Inspectors of Doctrine are planning to poison the Holy Mistresses, while pretending to observe during the upcoming Eternal Light Festival. Yes, Mistress, it is just as you have always suspected. No, I spoke to no one else of this. I am well aware that many of the Divine do not have your powers of observation, Holy Mistress. Certainly. I will speak of it to no one. Praise the Eternal that one so vigilant as you exists to protect those less on their guards than you, dear Holy Mother...."
    * * *
    Some of what he did and said grated on Khadaji, but those angers and rages he awoke had a deserving target. The Confed had ruled with fist and gun. It was about to be repaid in kind.
    The dinosaur's time was past; it needed to know.
    * * *
    Once again the six matadors sat around a table, planning treason.
    Insanity, Rajeem called it, but it was not quite that. Risky, yes, dangerous, but very logical, given the goal.
    "Think about it, Rajeem," Dirisha said. "How else could we contact them all? We don't know where all the matadors are. Eventually, I figure most of them will try and contact each other, using the drops we learned about in school. But even then, they'll be careful—if somebody is captured by the Confed, those drops will be known pretty soon. So the only way is to go directly to them."
    "You could all get killed trying it."
    Dirisha held Rajeem's hand and smiled at him. "Hon, the Confed wants us, remember? We are all guilty of de facto treason, just by being who we are. We could get killed by walking into the local pub. Besides, we're good at what we do. When you get to be a member of the best bodyguard corps ever, you learn how to attack as well as defend. The place will be guarded, sure, but not nearly as well as the prison Khadaji was in."
    "As I recall, you didn't free him."
    "We would have, he'd have stuck around. We were prepared."
    "I still think it's too great a risk."
    Dirisha nodded. He loved her, he was afraid for her, she could understand that. She felt that way about him, and about Geneva. Maybe even a little that way about Khadaji. But Rajeem was an intellectual before he'd become an activist; he didn't know what she knew. Dirisha had tested herself against death at least a hundred times. If she had allowed fear to paralyze her, she would have died during those early years of playing the Musashi Flex. She hadn't been afraid then; she wasn't afraid now. It was a risk, but not one resting on pure chance. She had certain skills which put the odds in her favor.
    Sleel slapped Rajeem lightly on the back.