Part 19 (1/2)
Daav looked into the ceiling, ht When he looked back, the boss was reaching into a desk drawer for a candy
”What, rim”The or is that if they don't turn up safe the Juntavas will be wiped out, starting at the top This is a promise”
Daav leaned forward, raised his hand to his chin and rubbed it thoughtfully
”This is,” he said after a moment, ”a very, very serious proble, certainly no one has ever heard of a clutch turtle or clan breaking a proh if the Clutch knew ain, apparently sing his candy whole
”Right And so what I have going on, starting about the time you walk out the front door here, is a block-by-block search of every Juntavas holding on Delgado, looking for two of the damnedest trouble-makers you've ever heard of”
Daav, very interested, waved his hand, asking for more information
”Yeah, OK One is a First-In Scout Coht? Get in the face of somebody who can talk clutch to the clutch and just happens to have saved one froon You know, a nobody, a pushover Then the other one is a Merc-turned-bodyguard, lived through Klaot on-and off!-Cloud”
Daav let out a lohistle ”Do you kno ed, tapped his desk ”That's probably in e can already about this” He broke, searched his desktop, pulled up a flie-flat, and flipped it, casually and quite accurately, to the man in the chair
Daav listened with half-an-ear as the boss went on-the while eyes measured the photos of his son and his son's co off Kla But-this is where we couess-between the local Juntavas and the city police in Econsey, back there on Lufkit, just to cover their getaway after they robbed the boyfriend of the local boss' daughter Then, they et off-planet while the place was under total lock-doith everybody frohtclub bouncer looking for them, and make a leisurely departure from Prime Station in a Clutch spaceshi+p”
Daav continued to look interested, slowly shaking his head as he listened, still taking in the no-nonsense, rather ordinary appearance of both of the ht be just the person to balance a scout coets , ”but soets the news he can't do anything to them So he sets theht and can't go nowhere Word comes down to make sure these two are really in one piece and to hold 'eoes back”
Daav didn't have to fake the laugh
”What could he have been thinking?” he asked ”To leave a-as it, First-In Scout Coo away?”
The boss was nodding now and gestured with the piece of candy in his left hand”You got it Exactly hoas They were gone, the shi+p was gone and ain't nobody heard nothing about any of 'eado and”
Daav raised a palently ”You mustn't be overly concerned You'll want to do standard checks on passenger lists and such; but the people you are hunting are not likely to hide out on Delgado Even if they've been here, do you think a hardenedto set themselves up as shopkeepers or bean-farmers?”
Before the boss could answer Daav stood, de a suppleness from his body he did not feel
”I'll need the name of the new chairman, copies of whatever transmissions youshi+p-dupes of your is for you” He waved toward the back wall of the office and the bar beyond
”First, the taller of your security guards stole several of your bartender's tips, and was helping herself to the packaged snacks That can't be good for your business”
The boss snorted ”Just color theood at what you do-but that don't reeably ”Also, you'll want to get an explosives expert in here There's a s-it looks like it o It erous, or it may be unstable In any case, as I am sure you understand, I hesitate to take it with me”
The boss rubbed his forehead and nodded
”We'll dupe your info for you-and in the meantime I'll call in a specialist”
”Thank you,” said Daav and went back to the bar to put his tools away, all the while ao and so far aas still potent enough to make a Juntava jump
CABIN PRESSURE WAS at one-tenth nornified that Clonak's as paying off
Alas, Shadia did not htly webbed to the co hours of work by hand and eye that an online coht do in a blink
Clonak had left her to the recognition search while he worked on what he called ”housekeeping”
Housekeeping entailed using a small bubble-bottle to find the worst of the leaks and then seal them with the quick-patch sit
As for her work, so far she had only three possibles and one probable Dust in the outer fringes of the Nev'Lorn cluster made some of the IDs difficult and she'd not yet found a near opaque patch or two that ht also help her
”Shadia?”
The sound reached her, distorted and distant
Clonak stood behind her, al her toward a portable monitorhooked to a test-kit With his other hand he see a control
Indeed, the air pressure was building ever so slightly
Noting her spot, she locked the star-field scope; by the ti both hands on the control He yelled at her again through the sack-like Cloak; she could barely hear him
”Please tell !”
What she saw, besides Clonak wrestling with a wire-filledher ould normally be her Screen Five, inspection view
”The rear portside airfoils are gone,” she yelled, schooling her voice to the give the infore into the hull; I can see a nozzle-likely it's one of the wing nitrogen thrusters, still attached to a hose-ed, did soe shi+fted a bit toward the body of the shi+p
Shadia blinked, disoriented The shi+p didn't have a-oh
”The ventral foil has been blown forward and twisted-shredded The”
The ie went blank as Clonak's hands slipped on the tube; the Cloak vibrated with the buzz of his curse
Shadia continued describing what she had seen
”There's no sign of any working airfoil coe I can't tell you about the in-systeines-the vieas blocked by the ventral fin”
Clonak sat down hard