‘Introduction to whom?’ Havaer pressed. He was getting twitchy himself now, seeing the man’s nerves just keep mounting. It’s not me he’s worried about, so . . .?
That was the point when the office door burst open and four thugs came in. Havaer whipped a gun out, a magnetic pistol that wasn’t quite an accelerator because it was hard to fit a metre of barrel in a concealed holster. Three of the intruders were human – a woman and two men in rough ship-style clothes with reinforced jackets. All armed, all tough-looking, and there was something about the woman that suggested Not entirely human. The fourth, leading the way, was a squat Hiver frame, four-legged and headless, their chest sporting three serpentine manipulator cables and what he could only describe as a rotary cannon.
Thrennikos was very still and not at all surprised. ‘Officer, these are my new clients, representing the Broken Harvest Society. They share your interest in my earlier visitors. And in anyone asking questions about them.’
‘And the currency your new clients are paying you in is . . .?’
‘Not skinning me and wearing me like a cloak, yes,’ the lawyer said. ‘Like I said, if I’d known the kind of trouble Kerry was bringing to my door . . . but I didn’t. I had no idea.’ Words spoken very clearly for the benefit of the newcomers. Especially the woman who was coming forward now, studying Havaer.
‘Government man,’ she said. ‘My name is Heremon, herald of The Unspeakable Aklu, the Razor and the Hook. I am sent to tender you the most cordial invitation to confer with my liege and master concerning a commercial shipping matter, specifically the freighter Oumaru, which has been stolen from us.’
‘What a cordial invitation.’ Havaer sat on the edge of Thrennikos’s desk and had his internal dispenser calm his heart. His gun was directed right at her chest, but Heremon didn’t seem to care. Her own weapon just dangled loose in her hand. Of course, the Hiver’s piece was basically light artillery that would turn the whole office into an exercise in Brownian motion if it spun up, so maybe she felt she didn’t need to ram a pistol up his nose to make the point.
Heremon smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile but there was at least a spark of humour there. ‘We do hope you’ll accept,’ she told him, making a fair attempt at a high-class Berlenhof accent. Havaer wondered whether to double down on the government card. To say Hugh writ ran thin on Tarekuma was something of an understatement, though. Besides, all that string of titles was a Hegemony thing, which put them even further from caring a damn about his precious authority.
‘Well I’d be churlish to say no, then, wouldn’t I?’ He scratched at his jaw, activating his locator beacon and sending a message through his slate to Thrennikos’s linked desk system. When he left the room, it would send Albas his personal recording of this conversation. Or that would be the ideal result, if nobody out-finagled him.
Heremon actually swept a bow, like something out of a cod-historical mediotype. Havaer caught a glimpse of the segmented louse-roach-looking thing melded to her spine. Oh, right. He’d heard of the Tothiat, but that was as far as it went.
‘This is it, right?’ Thrennikos burst in, trying very hard to keep his voice steady. ‘We’re clear now? Your boss is okay with me?’
The Tothiat woman gave him a level look. ‘I’m sure we’ll be in touch, Prosecutor. Now, Menheer, if you’d be so kind?’ She offered him her arm. The Hiver took three metal steps back as he took it, keeping him in sight of their gun. The fact that it would chew Heremon to pieces too, if the weapon fired, didn’t seem to upset the woman at all.
*
They took him to a service port at the edge of the vertical city, and for a moment Havaer thought they were just going to throw him down the chasm. His career might not have survived that. But there was an a-grav platform waiting there, a hovering disc three metres across with a profoundly inadequate railing. He stepped aboard brightly enough, sending a signal to his metabolic balance to up his coordination and response times in case this became acrobatic.
‘Mind telling me what this is about?’ he asked Heremon, as they ascended up the chasm – and downwards through the social strata of Coaster City. ‘The Prosecutor and I were just discussing some taxation matters, so . . .’ He gave her a sidelong look, staked his life on his character judgement, and went on, ‘If you need some help filling in forms.’
He received the slightest twitch of a smile, which was reassuring. He didn’t know how human Tothiat were, but a sense of humour seemed a good start. Then she said, ‘Don’t do jokes at our meeting, Hugh-man. My master is not in the mood to be amused.’