Free Undercity by Catherine Asaro

shifted her gun. “Still is.”
    I doubted she would shoot me. I’d first met her here when I was fifteen. I found her lying in her own blood after three of her “clients” left her for dead instead of paying their bill. I’d tended her until she recovered. Saved her life. Scorch might be a psychopath, but she paid her debts. That meant I had a pass here; for the three fools who tried to murder her, it had meant a long, ugly death.
    I said only, “Your door let me in.”
    “For now.” She held the gun in what looked like a relaxed grip. I wasn’t fooled. She could shoot faster than sin.
    Time to bargain. “Got information,” I said.
    She snorted. “You don’t live here anymore. How you got anything for me?”
    “Majda. Got access to their mesh.” If they caught me offering to sell their private data, they would draw and quarter me. But they didn’t have to deal with Scorch. Besides, Vaj said no measure was too extreme. I doubted this was what she had meant, but never mind.
    Scorch narrowed her gaze at me. We both knew she wouldn’t come by an offer like this again. That she paused for so long could be a bargaining tactic, but it made me uneasy.
    “What information?” she said.
    “Depends. What do you need?”
    “Flight schedules.” Her eyes took on a voracious glitter. “For their private ships.”
    Damn. A smuggler could do a lot of damage with the closely guarded schedule of flights in and out of the private Majda starport.
    “Might be possible,” I said, maybe lying, maybe not. “Depends what you got.”
    Her smile turned feral. “I know a lot about good-looking men. What you looking for, Bhaaj, that you can’t get legally?”
    I crossed my arms. “Dark hair. Dark eyes. Like a nobleman. Good build. Taller than average. Maybe sold jeweled clothes for a fake ID and offworld passage.”
    Her hand visibly tightened on the carbine. “That one’s gone.”
    “Gone where?”
    “Offworld. Don’t know.”
    Maybe she wanted more than the schedules. “Got a lot to sell.”
    “Not interested.”
    Ho! That made no sense. Scorch would never walk away from the opportunity to steal Majda flight schedules. Now suddenly she didn’t want them? Like hell. She was hiding something.
    “I hear rumors,” I said coldly. “About deals with Traders.”
    She lifted the carbine and aimed it at me. “Lies.”
    Sweat ran down my neck. I didn’t answer.
    Scorch jerked—and fired the carbine.
    The burst blinded me. I protected my face with my arm while thunder echoed in the cavern and stones crashed to the ground. Grit and debris rained over me, rough against my skin. When it settled, I cautiously lowered my arm and opened my eyes. The slagged remains of a stalactite lay broken on the ground only a few steps away. If Scorch had fired any closer, I’d be dead.
    “Get out,” she said.
    I beat a fast retreat out of her territory.
    * * *
    I didn’t turn off the jammer until I was above ground. Within moments my gauntlet comm squawked. I tapped the receive panel.
    Takkar’s voice snapped out. “Bhaajan, where the hell are you?”
    “Greetings to you, too,” I said.
    “Get back to the palace.”
    Charming. “You aren’t my CO, Takkar.”
    “Get your ass back here or I’ll throw it in jail.”
    My night was growing progressively worse. “For what?”
    “Murder,” she said.

VI
    The Pin
    The Majda police station had no books, tapestries, brocaded divans, or anything else that remotely resembled the aristocratic gentility of the palace. Sleek and sharp, it was all polarized glass and white Luminex, and it looked as efficient as hell. Takkar met me in an interrogation room.
    The chief and I faced each other across a table, both of us standing up. Takkar looked ready to blow holes in the sky, preferably with me as the ammo that got pulverized by the strike. People filled the overly bright room. Major Ebersole stood by the wall on my right, his handsome face schooled to neutrality. He would blend well into a