The Ramal Extraction Read Online Free PDF Page A

distance, and it was a idiot who didn’t try to learn which was which. Pride in one’s skill was fine, as long as it did not blind one to reality.
    The greeting ceremonies over—humans had many variations of this one, most of them a waste of time as far as Kay was concerned—they headed for the transports.
    The world was hotter than she liked; double-coat fur was great for keeping cold out but also equally good at keeping the heat in, and while she could lower her blood pressure and trigger an autonomic cooling response in emergencies, that was not the case here. Uncomfortable was not an emergency. And she might as well get used to it since they might be on this planet for weeks.
    As they neared the rented transports, Kay felt her nape fur bristle. She glanced around, didn’t see any obvious new threats—no fanatics waving long knives, no incoming vehicles heading for them, no signs of small aircraft focused in their direction. But there was something, and she had long ago learned to trust that atavistic danger signal.
    Jo drifted toward her. Before she could speak, Kay said, “I feel it. Do you detect a source?”
    “No. But there are twelve armed men over there by that roller, eight of whom are carrying projectile weapons.
    “Yes.”
    A human with a gun might be your friend, but he was still a human with a gun. If you didn’t know and trust him, you kept tabs on him. And even then, trusting most humanswith or without guns was problematical. You only had to fail once badly, and you would be dead.
    Vastalimi could, of course, lie, but no known race in the galaxy could begin to compete with humans in that arena. Humans would often lie unthinkingly, almost reflexively, about things large or small. And they even qualified the term with degrees: White lies. Fibs. Whoppers. Prevarications, lies of omission. It was fascinating how many ways they could dress up or dress down the notion of deliberate untruths.
    The nearest guard was twenty-two meters from Kay, the farthest twenty-eight, with the Rajah, his potential son-in-law? and the other two between them.
    The radiopathic button clicked in Kay’s ear as Sims subvocalized into the comtac unit: “Colonel, Kay confirms my impression.”
    The com was set for short range and encoded, so if anybody chanced to hear it, they wouldn’t know what was being said.
    “Copy,” the colonel said. “You heard the fems, people, whatever shooters you have hidden, loosen ’em up, and not all at once. Watch the Rajah’s people. Anybody points killware in our direction, hose them. And since the Rajah is our client, best if we keep him alive until we get paid, too.”
    There came a cricket chorus of acknowledgment clicks.
    “Can’t see the Rajah or his mucky-mucks going into slaughter-spree,” Jo said to Kay. “Rich people seldom run amok; they hire somebody to do that for them. Likely it will be one of the guards or their driver.”
    “Agreed.” Their transports were manned by CFI’s own people, and while it was not impossible that one of them could be compromised, it was less likely than the alternatives. They didn’t know the Rajah’s guards nor his driver.
    Sims Captain triggered an aug. Kay felt the human’s temperature rise slightly, accompanied by a flush of her fair skin. Jo was in combat mode and would be able to move 39 percent faster with an 80 percent usable increase in hernormal strength; additionally, her vision, hearing, and senses of touch would also be enhanced. She would be almost as fast and strong as Kay though her vision and hearing would still be somewhat less. And the human would burn much more energy much quicker.
    “Let’s hear the arms report,” Cutter said. “Helm?”
    “Port ceepee turret locked on the bus, Colonel. Say it, I’ll light it up.”
    Cutter said, “So we don’t sweat the bus. I’ve got my flat-pack deuce.”
    “Same here,” Jo said. “Plus the biozapper.”
    The flat-pack pistol was gas-operated, small and flat enough to be