Read Online Plan B by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee - Free Book Online

matter-of-factly installing laser cannons on lifeboats. "Is that what you think we're going to do?" she asked. "Go to war with the Yxtrang?"

    Seth shrugged, bending over to gather up his toolkit. "Can't think of anybody else'll fire on escape pods," he said calmly. "Terrans won't. Liadens won't—pay all that weirgild?" He grinned, a surprise of white teeth in his narrow face. "Never met a Liaden crazy enough to bankrupt himself on a sure thing."

    Priscilla smiled back and slung her tool bag over her shoulder. "So it's the Yxtrang, by process of elimination?"

    "Seems reasonable," Seth said, ambling at her side down the service hall to Bay Four. "Either that, or Shan wants an ace up his sleeve." He shrugged. "Never known Shan to make a bad play, where the ship was concerned. I'll follow him on this one."

    Priscilla stopped and looked directly into his eyes—mud brown and smallish—Healer sense tuned to read every nuance of his emotive pattern.

    "Seth, it's not Yxtrang. But it could still be very dangerous. People who well might fire on an escape pod, and Balance be damned. We don't know that they will, but we aren't at all convinced that they won't." She paused and packed the next words heavily, timing them to his inner resonance. "Be certain, Seth. There's still time for you to ship down—no blame."

    He stared back into her eyes, more than half-tranced.

    "Shan found me in a backworld dive," he said, so softly she strained to hear. "I was scraping out a living running in-system ore boats and garbage scows. Drinking too much, doing too much smoke. Lost my family in an Yxtrang raid-wife, kids, parents. Went off my head, I guess. Came to, eventually—no money, no job, and no friends. Shan needed pilots—'Always need a good pilot,' he said—gods, I can still see him coming into that dive—skinny, shoulders not filled yet, cutting deals like a pro—sixteen, maybe seventeen Standards—with that white hair and a kid's face and those eyes. Never seen eyes like that. . ." He blinked; shook his head and Priscilla let him break the trance.

    He sighed. "Shan got me out of there—out of all of there. Gave me a chance. 'My man,' is what he told the port guard. 'That's my man, sir; and he's wanted at his post.'" He nodded sharply and turned away, heading doggedly down the hall.

    "If it's Yxtrang or if it's something worse," he said as Priscilla fell in beside him, "I reckon I can man my post."

     

    Shan looked up as she entered his office, smiled wanly and returned to the screen. Priscilla crossed to the bar and poured two glasses of wine—red, for him; white, for her—and carried them back to the desk. She slid into the chair opposite and waited, holding the glass and running through a low-level exercise to restore tranquility.

    "Thank you, Priscilla." He picked up his own glass, waved it in ironic salute and took a healthy drink.

    "You're welcome," she murmured, reading the worry and the exhaustion and the sparking nervous energy overlaying his emotive grid. "The First Mate reports all lifeships armed. Field tests remain to be done, but everything reads fine on the circuits." She sipped wine. "Seth Johnson chooses to remain with his Captain."

    Shan sighed. "Seth Johnson is a sentimental fool," he said, and nodded at the screen. "We have a match."

    "So soon?"

    "Amazing, isn't it? With so many gene-maps in the galaxy?" He grinned tiredly. "I played a hunch—that notation on Sergeant Robertson's birth certificate— mutated within acceptable limits— you recall?"

    She nodded. "You thought that might mean 'partly Liaden.'"

    "And my thought has proved correct—I tell you, Priscilla, I'm not a master of trade for nothing! Though you would consider that a scout might more fully communicate—but I digress. How unusual." He took another swallow of wine and waved at the screen. "Miri Robertson's gene-map matches that of Line Tiazan." He eyed her expectantly.

    She sipped her wine, knowing that her temple training