Fortune's Light - Michael Jan Friedman [52]
In fact, he almost hated the idea of coming out again into the swirling madness of the marketplace. But he couldn’t forget that he’d come here for a reason. After a couple of seconds’ respite, he crawled out on the other side of the table.
Riker had fully expected to have to excuse himself to the proprietor. After all, he was hardly an invited guest.
But the merchant cast him no more than a sideways glance. He was too busy attending to a couple of marketgoers who’d found themselves sprawled across his knife collection.
Abruptly, Riker recognized the face. It was the weapons dealer they’d observed in his dealings with Kobar. Small world, wasn’t it?
Perhaps a bit too small right now, and a bit too crowded as well. He had to find Lyneea. And also the ones they’d been following, before they got away.
Riker had already risen to one knee and was starting to get up the rest of the way when he realized that the weapons dealer’s wasn’t the only familiar face around here. Nor would he have to look very far for Kobar.
Just a few inches, in fact—because Kobar, having pushed himself off the knife table, was staring Riker in the face.
There was an excruciatingly long moment in which their eyes met and locked. An eternity, it seemed, in which something less than peaceful flickered, then flared, and finally flamed in Kobar’s gaze.
“You,” he spat. “You’re the other human. Norayan’s other companion!”
Riker realized then that his hood had fallen away. Hurriedly he put it back on.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, turning away. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re right,” cried Kobar’s friend, who had also recovered quickly enough, it seemed, to place Riker’s face. “It’s the one … what was his name? Reeker? No—Riker.”
By that time, the human was slipping away—and trying to slip out of Kobar’s thoughts at the same time. If he moved fast enough, maybe he could lose himself in the crowd again. No, better—get out of the marketplace altogether.
How had Kobar and his companion remembered him? It had been five years, and he didn’t remember them. Apparently his friendship with Norayan had been scrutinized more closely than he’d realized—at least by some.
Riker brushed aside a double layer of leather and emerged in the next booth, where the crowd had already brought the table down. The rug dealer who ran the place was protecting his best pile of merchandise with outstretched arms. Seeing a narrow space between the backs of two other booths, the Enterprise officer started for it.
“Not so fast, human!”
He couldn’t help glancing at the source of the command—it was that insistent. Nor was he sorry afterward that he had turned around. For if he’d practiced more restraint, he might not have avoided the knife that came whizzing at him end over end. As it was, it embedded itself in a support pole not more than a hand’s breadth from his cheek.
Kobar and his companions—the three of them had been reunited, it seemed—were standing at the entrance to the booth, beside the overturned table. And each had an exotic-looking knife in his hand.
“What are you doing?” asked Kobar. “Following me?” He took a step forward, making tiny motions with the point of his blade, as if he were carving something. “Admit it, Riker.”
“Just calm down,” Will said, giving up on the idea of escape. By the time he squeezed himself through the opening he’d spotted, each of his adversaries could have taken a nice leisurely shot at him. And one of them was bound not to miss. “I think we have some sort of misunderstanding here.”
By that time, the isak threat seemed to have abated. Those who only moments before had been scrambling for shelter were now attracted to the drama in the rug merchant’s stall.
“Misunderstanding, you say?” Kobar shook his head. “I don’t think so. I believe I understand perfectly.”
Not perfectly, Riker thought, but well enough to put two and two together. To realize that the Federation might have sent someone to Imprima to investigate Teller’s disappearance. To recognize that Riker’s presence at the marketplace