Burning Bright

Roscha blinked—whatever else she had on her conscience, she hadn’t expected this—and said, cautiously, “We’ve seen each other a couple of times, and I played in a couple of her sessions. I only met her three days ago.”

“You played a session with her last night,” Damian went on.

Roscha nodded.

“The C-and-I rep was part of that Game, too, am I right?”

“Yes,” Roscha said again, and waited.

“I gather they knew each other, Lioe and Desjourdy?”

“Yes.” Roscha drew the word out to two syllables, frowning now. “Look, Na Damian—”

“Are they just old friends, fellow Gamers, what?” Damian interrupted her. “Or has Lioe worked for her?”

“Jesus.” For the first time, Roscha looked worried. “I don’t think so, Na Damian. I was there when she—when Quinn invited Na Desjourdy to play this session. Quinn said she was short a player, and all they talked about was the Game. Desjourdy’s on the Game nets a lot, she’s a rated arbiter.”

“And she works for Customs-and-Intelligence,” Damian said, but more gently. He paused, studied her from under his lashes. “I’m a little worried, Roscha. This Lioe’s been hanging around with Ransome, too, and Ransome’s no friend of mine.” He saw from the quick, involuntary grimace that Roscha had noticed that attraction, too, and was less than comfortable with it. “Lioe and Desjourdy, Lioe and Ransome—it just doesn’t add up well.”

“I guess not,” Roscha said, slowly.

Damian hid his sudden pleasure. It’s working, she’s starting to think just the way I want her to, to think that maybe Lioe is a C-and-I agent. “So what I’m asking is, did you notice anything after the session? Any conversations, anything that might mean she was passing information to Desjourdy?”

Roscha shook her head. “No. They just talked about the session afterwards, and then—then Lioe came back to the boat with me. I dropped her off this morning when I got your message.” She stopped suddenly. “Boss, I ran into Tamia Nikolind on the docks coming in. She said she saw Lioe going off with Ransome this morning, taking a helicab out of Underface.”

“Damn.” Damian scowled, realizing he’d spoken aloud. That was the last unfortunate coincidence—in fact, it was too perfect to be a coincidence. One way or another, the two of them, Lioe and Ransome, had too many pieces of the puzzle to be allowed to go to either Chauvelin or Desjourdy. In fact, that’s probably the only thing I’ve got going for me right now: they’ll have to decide which one to alert first. He touched the shadowscreen to distract himself, making meaningless patterns on its surface. I’ll have to get them out of circulation, one way or another, and it’s too late for niceties. Lioe’s not important enough; security can find me plenty of “friends” who can dump her in a canal, and no one will think twice about it, but Ransome… Ransome’s another matter. But I can deal with that later. “Were you planning to see Lioe again?” he asked.

“Yes. We were going to the puppet shows, over on Roche’Ambroise. I was planning to meet her there.”

Damian took a deep breath, put on his most sincere face. “I need you to do something for me,” he said. “I need—I want you to break your date. I know I’ve no right to ask you to do it, but I need to keep an eye on her. And I don’t want to get you into any trouble.” That was true enough, even if the trouble was bigger than Roscha would think. “But I want some people of mine to watch her, and the puppet show is a good place for them to find her. Can you—will you do this?”

“Ransome and Desjourdy,” Roscha said. She smiled, without humor. “Hells, I told her I might not be able to make it. All right, Na Damian. I told her we’d meet by the fountain, there in Betani Square. She’s been wearing one of Gelsomina’s lace masks. I thought you should know.”

“Thanks, Roscha,” Damian said. Thank you more than I ever intend to tell you. Instinct kept him from offering to pay her fines after all. “I want you to stay here, at the docks—there’s enough work, God knows—but I want you visible the rest of the day. I don’t want you out of call until”—he paused, calculating—“until after midnight.”

Roscha frowned, hesitating over her next question. “You’re not—she won’t be hurt?”

Damian managed a tolerant smile. “This isn’t the Game, Roscha. No, I just don’t want you to be vulnerable if she—or Desjourdy, really—gets pissy about my keeping an eye on her. Because my security is going to be pretty obtrusive this time. You don’t need any extra hassle.”