Read Online Duty Bound by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller - Free Book Online

was under total lock-down, with
everybody from the chief of planetary police down to the nightclub
bouncer looking for them, and make a leisurely departure from Prime
Station in a Clutch spaceship."
    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 missing. A master
mercenary who had survived Klamath might be just the person to
balance a Scout Commander, he thought.
    "Story gets muddled about
here," the boss was continuing, "but somehow the local capo managed
to grab them. Then he gets the news he can't do anything to them. So he sets them
off in a spaceship that's been in some kind of a fight and can't go
nowhere. Word comes down to make sure these two are really in one
piece and to hold 'em, pending the Chairman Pro Tem's personal
visit. He goes back..."
    Daav didn't have to fake the laugh.
    "What could he have been thinking?" he
asked. "To leave a--what was it, First-In Scout Commander?--in a
spaceship and expect it not to go away?"
    The boss was nodding now and gestured with
the piece of candy in his left hand.
    "You got it. Exactly how it was. They were
gone, the ship was gone and ain't nobody heard nothing about any of
'em since. So now I got to check Delgado and..."
    Daav raised a palm.
    "Please," he said gently. "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
hardened merc and a First-In Scout are going to set themselves up
as shopkeepers or bean-farmers?"
    Before the boss could answer Daav stood,
demanding a suppleness from his body he did not feel.
    "I'll need the name of the new Chairman,
copies of whatever transmissions you may have, details of the
former location of the missing ship--dupes of your images, as
well--and I'll be on my way. Also, I have some things 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 them gone.
Hey, you're good at what you do--but that don't mean they shouldn't
have seen you!"
    Daav nodded agreeably. "Also, you'll want to
get an explosives expert in here. There's a small package I
disconnected and took out of the nerligig--it looks like it might
have been connected about six or seven dozen years ago. It may no
longer be dangerous, 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 amazed that a phrase
learned so long ago and so far away was still potent enough to make
a Juntava jump.
    * * *
    CABIN PRESSURE WAS at one-tenth normal,
which should have been counted as good; it signified that Clonak's
work was paying off.
    Alas, Shadia did not much feel like
cheering. She sat lightly webbed to the command chair, patiently
doing hours of work by hand and eye that an online computer might
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 might also help her...
    "Shadia?"
    The sound reached her, distorted and
distant.
    Clonak stood behind her, almost an arm's
length away, beckoning her toward a portable monitor hooked to a
test-kit. With his other hand he seemed to be fighting