Free Loose Cannon by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller Page A

making my coffee-toot and ambled
over, leaned a hip against the chair-back and spoke over her head.
"We can give you a hand with your baggage," I said; "or you can
leave it stored. We'll be here a day or two. Repairs."
    Nelbern gave one of those snorts we'd
decided between us passed for her laughing and shook her head, real
gentle, eyes still and always on that screen.
    "So eager to lose me, Captain?"
    "Not to say," I answered, calm, like Mam'd
taught us to talk to dirtsiders. "It's just that you paid cash
money for Jumps in a hurry. I figured you had an appointment."
    "An appointment," she repeated and snorted.
"An appointment." She licked her lips like the phrase tasted sweet
and glanced up at me out of wide blue eyes.
    "As it happens, Captain, I do have
an--appointment. Yes." She smiled, which I had never liked in her,
and nodded. "I wonder if I might impose upon the good natures of
yourself and your sister just a bit further."
    I gritted my teeth and brought the cup up to
keep it from showing; feeling Lil tense up behind me. I was
mortally sick of dirtside manners and a stranger on our ship,
whether she carried an ambassador's ransom in Terran bits or no. It
was on the tip of my tongue to say so, though not as blunt as that,
when she turned full around to face me.
    "I noticed a bit of a boggle on the way in,
I thought," she said, in that conversational way officials use when
it's bound to cost you plenty. I stared down at her and
shrugged.
    "Told you we'd be here a day or so."
    "Indeed. Repairs, I think you said." She
stared, sizing me up, maybe, though I was sure she'd done that long
ago. "Repairs to the central mag coil don't come cheap, Captain;
and it's hardly anything you'd like to trust to the junkyard and a
gerryrig." She smiled. "If you had a choice."
    I felt Lil behind me like a wound spring,
and in my heart I cursed all dirtsiders--especially this one. I
gritted my teeth and then bared them, not caring a whit for
manners.
    "So now I've got a choice, have I?"
    "Certainly you have a choice." She brought
her hand up, and I focused on the thing that gleamed there; did a
double-stare and nearly dumped my drink in her lap.
    She was holding a Liaden cantra piece.
    I stared, not at the coin--enough money for
several choices and maybe a luxury, too--but at her face--and read
no more there than I ever had, save it was the first time I thought
her eyes looked mad.
    "What in starlight do
you want ?" That
was Lil, coming up like she was stalking tiger, bent at the waist,
her eyes on the shine of the money.
    Cly Nelbern looked up at me and she smiled
before turning to face my sister and hold the coin up high.
    "An escort," she said softly. "Just an
escort, Ms. Betany, as I walk around the town. In case the natives
are restless."
    "An escort," I scoffed, around the cold
dread in my belly. "On Sintia a woman needs no escort--unless
you'll be breaking into the Temple?"
    The mad eyes gleamed my way, though she
forbore to smile again. "Not the Temple, Captain. Of course not."
She did smile then, her eyes going back to Lil. "That would be
foolish."
    "Then us not being fools--" I began,
short-tempered with something near terror.
    But Lil shot a glance that
silenced me long enough for her to gabble: "A cantra , Fiona! New parts, backups, a new 'doc, coffee... " Her eyes were
back on Cly Nelbern and I knew right then I'd lost her.
    "Lillian!" I snapped, as much like Mam as I
could.
    Too late. "I'll do it," she told the
dirtsider. And held out her hand for the money.
    I sat down slow on the arm of the co-pilot's
chair and brought the tepid coffee-toot up to sip. There was
nothing else to do, the word having been given. Nothing except:
    "I'll be coming along as
well, then. If that coin's so wide a treasure, I reckon it'll pay
berth-cost while we escort this lady 'round town."
    Nelbern laughed, a half-wild sound no more
pleasant than her smile. "Think I won't pay, Captain?" She sent a
brilliant glance into my face, and flicked the coin to