Lost Era 05_ Deny thy Father - Jeff Mariotte [25]
“Help you?” the man asked sleepily. He barely glanced at Kyle.
“I need to take a trip,” Kyle told him.
“We’re a freight mover, not a travel agency.”
“I’m not looking for scenery,” Kyle said flatly. “Or companionship. Just distance.”
The man straightened now, taking his elbow off the counter. “That a fact?”
“That’s right. In fact, the fewer fellow passengers the better. Surely you’ve got a berth on something, going somewhere.”
“Well,” the man said with a yellow-toothed smile, “if you’re going to be picky…”
“I can be demanding,” Kyle said. “I demand discretion and privacy. But those are my only nonnegotiable needs. Beyond that, you’ll find I’m very flexible.”
The man hummed a couple of times, looking Kyle up and down as if expecting him to metamorphose into something else right before his eyes. All he would see, Kyle knew, was a fit, square-jawed man whose once-dark hair, now mostly well on its way toward gray, was undoubtedly somewhat mussed from the night’s activity, dressed in a civilian jumpsuit, who hadn’t had nearly enough sleep in the past couple of nights. Finally, apparently satisfied with his examination, the man clasped his hands together. “I happen to know a ship’s captain,” he said, “for whom discretion is practically a religion. This same captain is about to embark on a long voyage, and might, I suppose, have some space on her ship for an unexpected passenger. But this particular captain, I’m afraid, has a bit of a gambling problem. She is well recompensed for her labors, but somehow can always seem to use a few more credits than she has.”
Kyle had expected nothing less. “I can pay,” he declared. In fact, this was what he had hoped for. The Federation had largely evolved beyond such things as greed and bribery. The fact that this ship’s captain was amenable to both implied that she was outside the Federation mainstream, maybe not from a member world at all.
The man’s smile broadened at Kyle’s willingness. “Then we should talk further,” he said. “By all means.”
Chapter 7
For a moment, Will thought he was the first one to reach the rendezvous point at the corners of Sacramento and Jones. This city, like Paris and Vienna and New York, had been laid out with an efficiency and a consideration of the landscape that had made their plans virtually unchanging over the centuries. While the buildings themselves sometimes came down and new ones went up, the basic grids of the streets had been the same since the days when horse-drawn carriages were the only vehicular traffic. These days, the traffic on the streets was virtually all pedestrian, with only the rarest vehicles passing by.
From this intersection, Will could look down the hill in four directions and see for what seemed like kilometers in each one, could see the rising and falling of the city’s many hills, the homes and businesses crowding the streets, tall skyscrapers claiming extra height by virtue of being built on the crests. A gentle breeze from the west seemed to carry the scent of the sea to him, though he thought that was probably an illusion. More likely there was a seafood restaurant down the block preparing some lunchtime fare.
After standing there for a few minutes, turning to admire the view and also search for his squadron-mates, he realized that Estresor Fil watched him from a shadowed doorway alcove, a serious expression on her small green face. Since she didn’t seem interested in coming to meet him, he went to her.
“Been waiting long?” he asked when he reached her position.
“Twenty-eight minutes, eleven seconds,” she replied. She hadn’t had to consult a timepiece of any kind to know that.
He gestured at the doorway. “Are you, ahh, hiding from someone?”
“This is supposed to be a survival exercise,” she explained. “We’ve been instructed to remain unobtrusive. Standing out there gawking hardly seems unobtrusive to me.”
Will