The Vastalimi Gambit Read Online Free PDF Page B

outdoors unprotected or wanted to convey that impression. His clothes were nice enough to impress but not so expensive so as to raise eyebrows in wonder. He arrived in a rented flitter with an assistant, a young woman who appeared to be chosen for her physical beauty, which was considerable. When he saw me look her over, he hinted that she might be willing to, ah, stay behind and work out details of the contract with me personally, no matter how long it might take.”
    Jo nodded. No surprise there. Sex had sold stuff ever since stuff had been around.
    “When I was adamant that we weren’t ready to accept his offer, he asked me if there was anything he could do to change my mind.” There came a short pause. “You have viewed the conversation?”
    Jo nodded again. She had watched and listened to the recording as a matter of course. But how Chet felt about it? The vid couldn’t convey that.
    “He asked me to reconsider before making a final decision, that he would get back in touch later. I didn’t hear any direct threat in his words, nothing that could be taken as such, but . . .”
    “Go on.”
    “. . . there was about the man in that moment a sudden sense of . . . menace. Nothing upon which I could put my finger, and say, ‘There! That!’ but a feeling. Rather like standing just outside the cage of a greatcat. Were it not for the fields between you and the beast, it would think nothing of swatting you dead with one clawed paw just because it felt like it.”
    “Thank you,” Jo said. “I won’t take up any more of your time. We will keep you posted as to our investigation.”
    Chet nodded. “Thank you, Captain.”
    Outside, in the warm afternoon sunshine, the three entered the hopper and switched on the garble field as the engine cycled up.
    Gramps said, “Interesting. He telling the truth?”
    “Far as my aug could tell,” Jo said. “But there was something.”
    Gunny and Gramps exchanged looks. “Go ahead, Chocolatte, you know you want to.”
    “Age before beauty,” she said.
    Gramps grinned and shook his head. “Well, as I recall—and for a man of my advanced age, memory is such a porous and transient thing—and please correct me if I am wrong, but when you introduced us, you didn’t mention any ranks, did you?”
    Gunny nodded. “Amazing. You caught that.”
    Jo headed off the exchange: “Nope, and yet Chet knew to call you ‘Gunny’ and me ‘Captain,’ and none of us are wearing anything that denotes rank.”
    “Gramps here is sometimes pretty rank when he takes off his boots, but, yeah.”
    “So he does his research,” Jo said. “Nothing wrong with that though it does make you wonder. Was he just showing off by letting us know he’d checked us out? Or did he screw up and let that slip by accident? And does it matter either way?”
    “Another of the many questions we will undoubtedly address,” Gramps said. “Wheels within wheels . . .”
    As the hopper spiraled up through a thousand meters toward cruising altitude, the Doppler on the tactical control panel pinged.
    “Incoming attack,” the computer’s vox said.
    “My, would you look at that,” Gramps said. “Somebody is shooting at us.”
    The computer could do it and would in another half second, but Jo preferred manual. She hit the e-chaff spew and tapped the power control to full. The thrust shoved them back into the cushions as the hopper, one of theirs and unobtrusively rigged for combat, shot almost straight up, zipping through three gees in a couple of seconds.
    “Take it easy! I had a big lunch!” Gramps said.
    The missile, ground-to-air, had been fired from a couple of klicks out and was most of the way there, but the e-chaff spew caused it to slow and think about things. Jo’s finger hovered over the gat-control, in case the rocket was smarter than an IR or pulse-guide weapon.
    Apparently, it was. Instead of following the chaff, the rocket changed course and headed for the hopper. Interesting.
    Jo lit