He glanced back cautiously at Deirdre, then leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially with the clerk. "They shouldn'ta said that. The woman ain't been right since some Fedrats took their liberty call out on her, without so much as leaving a C-bill behind, wakarimaska!She went and did for Truper, see, and I got Jewell after a bit of a gunfight."

They both looked over at Deirdre. Right on cue, she giggled a bit and sucked on her fingers.

The clerk shuddered.

Kai picked at one of his molars with his little finger. "Anyway, we thought they was renegades until we backtracked them and found their hovercar. I figgered we might'es well get some money for them. They are worth money, right?" With the last, Kai let his voice rise and tightened his left hand down into a fist.

The clerk nodded rapidly. "Once we've identified them, you will be paid."

Kai winced and made a "tch" sound by sucking at his cheek, then cracking the corner of his mouth open. 'Truper took one round through the face, and Jewell looks pretty gnawed on, wakarimaska!I got a bit angry, see, 'cause no one but no one, lays a hand on the woman 'cept me." He lightly punched the clerk's shoulder. "Same way with your missus, eh? Husbandly duties, right?"

"Er, right."

"Right." Kai smiled unevenly. "Look, don't know how much those wankers were worth, but this bounty-hunting stuff seems easy. We got Truper's truck and his gear. You got more assignments fer us?"

The man nodded and pushed an electrotablet toward Kai, then held out the light-pen. "Sign here and you'll get your money. One hundred C-bills is more than you should get, but you were so put out by these people."

Kai forced his eyes wide open. He knew that Dave Jewell, according to the warrant he'd destroyed, was worth ten times that amount, and he had a fair idea who was going to end up with the difference. He turned toward Deirdre and smiled. "Hear that, sweet? Seventy C-bills for those two. Your share is a whole twenty-five!"

She giggled again.

Kai winked at the clerk as he turned around. "Cute thing, but high finance is beyond her, wakarimaska!He gripped the light pen like a dagger and scored an X across the tablet.

The clerk smiled smugly and dug the requisite amount of ComStar scrip from a cash box in his desk drawer. He covertly slid that over to Kai, then handed him two more wanted posters complete with pictures of the individuals being hunted. Kai recognized one name as that of someone who had been with the planetary militia, but his expression remained blank.

"Since you have Truper's truck, you can keep his sector for searches. Good luck on these two." The clerk refrained from offering Kai his hand. "Two of my people have already removed the bodies from your truck, so you are free to go."

"Astral! I'll get these two wankers and we'll be back." Kai smiled and patted the man on his shoulder. "You'll be seeing lots of us in the future."

* * *

Back in the hovertruck, Kai started it up and headed out toward the gate. He drove slowly enough to scan the faces of prisoners working within the camp and outside on the road. Once through the twin gates and beyond where chain gangs were working, he increased his speed.

"How did they look to you, Doctor?"

She pulled the gauze from her head. "Malnourished. Some are obviously sick. I didn't see many with bandages, so either they sent the battle-wounded to a hospital ..."

"Or they've buried them somewhere." Kai frowned. "That's what I was thinking anyway." His gaze flicked to the rear-view mirrors, but the dust curtain let him see nothing of the camp. "I'm happy we've not been captured." .

"I second that." She shivered within Truper's outsized clothes. "What do we do next?"

Kai shrugged. "The way I see it, we, have two choices. The first is to run as far and as fast as we can."

"That has merit. What is the second?"

"They assigned Truper's old territory to us. Therefore we know of at least one place on this planet where the hunters won't find us."

She nodded, then looked at him sidelong. "Tough choice. I'll have to think on it. By the way, did you mean what you said back in the camp?"

Kai frowned, trying to remember exactly what he'd said. "You mean the part about you being cute?"

Deirdre shook her head. "No, the part about twenty-five of those C-bills being mine."

Kai smiled. "Go you one better, Doc. Nothing but a fifty-fifty split for the two of us. Let's see, I got seventy C-bills ..."

"Kai ..."

* * *

It amazed the ComStar clerk that Taman Malthus could study the stinking corpse of Dave Jewell without gagging. "That's him, Star Captain. There's your Dave Jewell."

The Elemental's head came up and the clerk regretted having drawn attention to himself. "You are in error, Acolyte." Malthus reached down and brought the body's right hand up into view. "This man has calluses on his right hand, suggesting it is the hand he used most. He was right-handed. Jewell was not."

The clerk swallowed hard. "That is not possible."

Malthus smiled easily and let the hand thump back onto the examining table. "It is. You yourself paid Dave Jewell money for bringing in his own corpse." The Elemental snorted, then shook his head. "This Jewell makes for most interesting prey, quiaff?"

The clerk nodded mutely.

Malthus closed the bag and wiped his hands on the clerk's shirt. "I will ignore the fact that you let your own greed blind you to what was going on here. Thatis ComStar business. I see no need to complicate things by notifying Demi-Precentor Khalsa."

"No, sir."

"Good. You said you gave the bounty hunter and his woman more targets?"

"Yes, Star Captain. They are working Truper's old territory."

"Excellent." Malthus steered,the clerk toward the door with a heavy hand on the back of the man's neck. "You will provide me with a map of your search sectors."

The Elemental glanced back at the two bodies stretched out on tables in the morgue. "That is what happens when you pit members of the criminal class against a warrior. Now we will show you freebirths how real Warriors deal with another Warrior. The bidding for this assignment will be fierce, but the hunt will be worth it."

19

Bethel

Capellan March, Federated Commonwealth

20 March 3052

Nicholas Chung fastened the straps of his safety harness across his chest. "I'll be decelerating to only a decimeter per second for docking. Please fasten yourself into the jump seat."

His passenger laughed lightly. "Come now, Chung, you need not sound like such an old woman. I've not lived this long to die from a bump when your DropShip docks with the JumpShip."

Chung hit a warning button on his command console's left side. It caused a series of five tones to sound throughout the ship, warning of an impending jump. "You may have been my commander on Spica, lo, those many eons ago, but I am in command of the Te Kuaiche."

"But I am the one who has hired your DropShip to carry me home."

Chung let a smile wash away his nervousness. "True enough, but then is it not my duty to ensure the safety of my patron?"

"You are quite correct in pointing this out."