Songs of Love & Death

Thirty minutes wasn’t even enough time to alert the Dalvarr Trade Collective or Widestar corporate legal division, and Filar knew that. Just as he knew there was no way the Pandea had the ability to pay a three-hundred-thousand credit “tariff.” This wasn’t lawful possession. This was thinly disguised piracy. Extortion.

Serri was out of options. All she had left was her anger—and nothing to lose by unleashing it. She fisted her hands at her sides. “You motherless son of a Garpion whore! It’ll be a cold day in hell before I’ll allow you or your people access to my ship!”

Too late she realized the translator’s vocabulary was limited to trade, technical, and legal terms. His Esteemedness looked genuinely puzzled. “We do not see what climactic conditions have to do with the fact that we have in our possession an order of procurement authorized by the Council of Jabo Station United.” He wheezed loudly. “And by the way, we have three maternal parents, none of whom reside in the Garpion Sector.” His four tiny eyes blinked rapidly. “Thirty minutes, Captain Beck.”

Serri strode from the office, hands still fisted. She had thirty minutes to collect her business partner, Quin, and try to figure out why Gop Filar so desperately wanted the forty-seven containers from Widestar that Rez Jonas assigned to them three shipdays ago. She should never have trusted Rez, but one of Quin’s favorite lectures was that personal grudges had no place at the trading table—especially grudges with ex-lovers and ex-employers. Rez and Widestar fit both categories. Quin’s Skoggi senses had picked up nothing duplicitous during the transaction, though admittedly Rez made only a brief appearance, his assistant handling the details.

Unless Quin lied about what he sensed.

No, she couldn’t believe that. Quintrek James of Daq’kyree’s detractors had many unkind names for the former High Council administrator, but liar wasn’t one of them. If anything, Quin could be brutally honest, and his empathic ability tended to keep others honest as well. The fact that Quin could read her emotions never bothered her—and had proved handy in more than one sticky trade negotiation. Business was growing, enough that after six years as the Pandea’s pilot, she’d been able to buy a thirty-percent share of Quin’s transport business two months ago. The Star of Pandea was now her ship too.

So were the Pandea’s troubles.

She spotted Quin’s felinoid form in a booth at the Wretched Beast, one of Jabo Station’s more popular multispecies bars. He was large even for a Skoggi, his head and shoulders clearly visible above the glossy blue tabletop. Black fur covered his pointed ears, wide side ruff, and back, all the way to his plumy tail, but he had a triangle of white over his eyes and muzzle that extended down his chest. In almost direct contrast to his fur and his bulk was the wraithlike silver-skinned Kor in bright yellow robes sitting across from him.

Damn. She didn’t need an audience to their troubles. Worse, the Kor were chronic meddlers and Thuk-Zik was no exception. If she even hinted something was wrong, the yellow-robed male would latch on to her like a high-security docking clamp.

But Thuk-Zik was rising even as she approached. “I must be on my way. Good trading, Nom Quintrek. Nomma Captain Beck.” He moved away, the hem of his robe fluttering as his clawed feet tapped against the metal decking.

“Good trading, Nom,” Serri called after him, keeping relief at his departure out of her voice. Thank you, saints and blessed Vakare. She slid into the booth.

Quin was nudging his bowl of meat tea with one wide furry paw, causing the gelatinous liquid to shimmer. “You should have been here five minutes ago,” he said, with that lilt his voice held when he spoke Trade-Standard. “We had quite a chin wag about who’s brassed off at whom at Widestar Trading.”

She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one—especially another Kor—was within earshot, then lowered her voice. “Widestar is going to be brassed off at us. Filar has a grab order with our names on it—unless you have a spare three hundred thousand to make him go away. He knows damned well we don’t. He’ll be at our airlock in twenty minutes.”

The white muzzle raised out of the bowl. Golden eyes narrowed. “Tailless bastard!”

“Pay your tab. We need to get there before he does.”

THE VOICES IN Nicandro Talligar’s head were talking to him again. It came with the job.

“Status?” asked a familiar gravelly male voice.

Nic tucked himself into the recesses of a maintenance alcove in the corridor outside the Wretched Beast and flexed his left wrist, activating the tympanic implant’s transmitter. “Filar took the bait.”

“Any reason to believe he suspects?”