Tommy paled. “How’d you—what makes you think I—”

“She told me,” Rafe said. “I’m her father confessor or something like that… you really shouldn’t, Tommy. Young girls are not reliable about keeping secrets. You know that.”

“I know you’re a pain in the—” Tommy looked at Stella. “And who’s this, some female agent?”

“A friend,” Rafe said. “To return to my first question: how fast, how much?”

“Two hours each. Five thousand each. Hard goods.”

“Fine. We need three. Me, her, and a fourteen-year-old kid, male, shorter than her, dark hair, dark eyes—”

“I need the data.”

“Tommy… these are alternate IDs. You make the data up. And you don’t screw around. We’ll be back in two hours, with the goods. Squeal, and the deal’s off.”

“But I—I said two hours each.”

“And I said we’d be back in two hours. Get busy.”

“But if I—”

“If you don’t,” Rafe said, rounding on him, “then the stationmaster’s daughter will have a very unpleasant discussion with her mother, and her mother will have an even more unpleasant discussion with you. You did know the father’s one of Bruno’s men?”

Tommy’s skin paled even more and acquired a green undercast.

“So you will have them ready, and we will pick them up, and you will have some trade goods and all will be calm and bright… won’t it?”

“Y-yes, Rafe. Ma’am.”

“Come on, Sal. Time to make tracks and drive a train on them.”

From Tommy’s, they traveled a fast, direct route to the docks, and Rafe stayed back as Stella walked up to the ISC dock warden, who waved to her. “Glad you’re here, Sera, because the captain is ready to break loose. Your duffel’s here; they said something about a burst message?”

“No recording where I was. Can I use your set?”

“Of course, Sera. I hear one of the crew lived?”

“A boy. Apprentice. I’ve got to take him somewhere. Nobody’s going to Slotter Key, I know that… I’ve hired a guard.”

“Yeah. I see him. Looks kinda old.”

“Age and treachery over youth and beauty, Pete,” Stella said. She put on the headpiece, tapping the connection to be sure it was seated against her implant’s external pickup, and closed her eyes. Composing a burst message required total concentration. She had thought through what she needed to send, and was almost finished when her concentration broke at the sound of weapons fire.

Pete hunched behind the service counter, weapons in hand. An alarm whooped. Stella couldn’t see what was going on without unhooking the burst message headset; she reviewed what she’d recorded already, decided it was enough, coded it “interrupted/trouble,” and detached herself. The recording booth would already have transmitted the message to the courier’s shielded com center. At the ship’s access, two armored ISC security personnel were firing at something in the middle distance—near the dockside entrance, she guessed. Prudence suggested that down on the deck would be a good idea; the recording booth wasn’t armored. Stella slid down and eeled her way to Pete’s side.

He turned and tapped his implant; Stella nodded.

“That guard of yours… told us he spotted… some trouble.” Pete’s transmission was punctuated with little bursts of white sound when he fired. “He was right… dunno if… it was you or us… they were after.”

“I’m armed,” Stella said into her skullphone.

“Figured,” Pete said. “Just stay down.”

Always listen to the professionals, Stella had been told often enough. She pulled out her weapon anyway, and waited. Return fire ceased; the alarms silenced. Stella stayed down, not needing Pete’s reminder.

“Police are arriving,” he said, relaying information from the ISC guards at the ship access. This time he spoke into the air, and Stella answered the same way.

“Good. Safe to get up?”

“Probably, but I’d stay down another tick or so if I were you. Just in case. Oh—here comes your guard…”

Rafe came around the end of the counter. “You have interesting friends,” he said. “Persistent, too, if not very bright.”

“Good job you spotted them,” Pete said.

“Thank you,” Rafe said, with demureness alien to his nature. “I was lucky—they didn’t see me, and they were talking openly.”

“Ah. I’ll be glad to get off this place, and I wish you were coming with us,” Pete said to Stella.

“I’ll be all right,” Stella said, with confidence she didn’t feel.

“Hope so,” Pete said, with another glance at Rafe, this one slightly edged.

“I’ll take care of her,” Rafe said. His smile appeared entirely genuine, even to Stella.

“We’ll get your burst to HQ soonest,” Pete said to Stella.

“Anyone hurt?” came a hail from the other side of dock space.

“Not here,” Pete called back. “Just being careful.”

On the way back to 4th Blue, Rafe took every opportunity to check for followers. They dodged through restaurants, clothing stores, even a weapons shop—Rafe seemed to know everyone. Finally they took a drop tube to 2nd, and worked their way back up through Blue Sector, stopping at 3rd to pick up the new ID from Tommy.

“Don’t be surprised,” Rafe said before they entered. “Tommy’s been a bad boy and I have to do a little cleanup.”

Cleanup,where Rafe was concerned, had many variant meanings, including sudden death. Stella shrugged. If Tommy had set pursuers on them, she didn’t care what Rafe did to him. Inside, Tommy was talking to two—no, three—people who seemed to share the dominant decorating style of the place. He didn’t notice them until Rafe picked up the bald man and deposited him on an odd-shaped couch. The skinny one whirled, but Stella had her weapon out.

“Don’t,” she suggested mildly. He backed away, almost falling over a low table. That left the woman with the low-cut silver snugsuit, who walked over and sat on the bald man.

“Tommy,” Rafe said. Tommy shook his head, eyes wide, even before Rafe said, “Have you been a bad boy, Tommy?”

“Not me!” Tommy said. “I didn’t—it was—”

“I think you have, Tommy,” Rafe said. “I think you’ve been a very bad boy…”

Stella realized, with a lurch of disgust, that Tommy’s former customers were watching this avidly, and that Rafe was playing to them as well as to Tommy.

“I asked you to do one simple thing,” Rafe said. “One simple thing, and you couldn’t even get that right… went whining off to somebody for sympathy, didn’t you, Tommy?”

“I—I told you it’d take longer… I couldn’t…”

“Excuses, Tommy. Excuses are worth… nothing. You know there will be consequences…”

“No…”

“Oh, yes,” Rafe said. He glanced at the erstwhile customers, who were sitting in a row now, flushed and excited, and then watched Tommy as he ticked off points on his fingers. “First, disobedience… then disloyalty, in running off to someone else… and then… I don’t suppose you have completed the assignment?”

“I… I did… it’s ready, but…”

“Well, that’s something,” Rafe said, as if sorry to hear it. “But the fact remains, Tommy, that you’ve been a bad boy and bad boys must be punished. Sally, check in Tommy’s office and see if he’s telling the truth about the assignment, or if he lied…”

Stella, in the persona she’d been assigned, wove her way quickly through the furniture and into Tommy’s office. A folder on his desk with RAFE on the cover… she looked inside. Three sets of alternate ID that looked reasonably good to her less practiced eye. A stack of credits, which probably came from betraying them, with a call number, lay beside the folder. She scooped it all up, stuffed it in another folder, and went back to the front, where Rafe’s rather disgusting banter had Tommy trembling and the watchers bright-eyed.

“The assignment was complete,” Stella said. “But he had a stack of money and a call number with it.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Rafe said. “Naughty Tommy… and what shall we do with a naughty boy, mmm?” He glanced again at his audience. “Should I tell them who else you’ve been playing with, perhaps?”