Betrayer of Worlds Read Free Page A

quartet. That he chose
this
voice was no accident. Women trusted it and men as reflexively lusted after it. Either way, it gave him an edge. “I apologize for the low ceiling. Feel free to sit.”
    The Wunderlander remained standing, haughty despite his stoop. His uniform, gauche with buttons and piping, epaulets and insignia, could have graced a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. His chin jutted out, and the spike of his aristocratic beard left a waxy streak on the clear material of the tube. “I demand that you release me.”
    “Major Buchanan, you are in no position to demand anything.” Nessus let that sink in. “I will, however, release you. After we finish, of course.”
    “Swine,” Buchanan growled. “I’ll tell you nothing.”
    Yes, you will, Nessus thought. This was hardly his first abduction. “You must realize that I intercepted you between transfer booths, and yet you did not comment.” It meant human authorities here had learned to do the same. The insurgents would avoid the system, and that might explain why Nessus had not spotted his true quarry yet.
    Or else the one Nessus sought had moved on to another world entirely, the trail grown colder still. . . .
    Nessus denied his raging pessimism. “You presume that my intervention must have triggered some alarm. You are sure that system diagnostics must be running even now, that Internal Security”—for which Buchanan was a midlevel cog—“will locate this booth and come bursting through my door. None of that will happen.”
    Buchanan scowled but said nothing.
    “In fact,” Nessus continued with a self-assurance he did not feel, “the last notice the transfer-booth system took of you was when you teleported home this evening. When someone does look for you—tomorrow, perhaps?—they will believe you walked out your front door.”
    Sweat had begun to bead on Buchanan’s forehead. He glanced around, seeming to notice for the first time that his cell was no ordinary transfer booth. “Why am I here?” he asked.
    Concession enough: Buchanan
would
cooperate.
    Many times, on many worlds, Nessus had pried the information he needed from those loath to offer it. This foray into Human Space was no different. His need was as great as ever—and the methods he used as distasteful as ever. But as always, they worked. They had led him across Human Space, from Home to Fafnir to Earth and now to Wunderland.
    And with each day away from Hearth and herd, the pressure on Nessus grew.
    Something would motivate Buchanan’s cooperation. Coercion? Bribery? Trickery? One of them, although Nessus did not know which. Yet. He did know that he could not continue for much longer in this manic state. Mind-healing catatonia would crash down on him, sooner rather than later.
    He needed answers
now.
    Bribery worked. Before whisking Buchanan, by now sweating profusely,back to his home, Nessus had the identities of mob leaders across Wunderland. He had suggestions how to contact them.
    If Nathan Graynor had indeed come to Wunderland, someone in the criminal underground should know.

3

    Nathan shuffled from the cave mouth, nodding to the sentries. The wounded never stopped coming and he was exhausted. Before he could sleep, though, he needed a pill. Pills.
    He passed the quickie thicket (a couple noisily occupied within) to plunge deeper into the jungle. He retained just enough dignity not to want to be seen at his worst: feeding rumors to Silverman, the camp’s black-market supplier, in trade for a few more pills.
    Nathan followed his customary route, wondering if tonight was the night the perimeter patrols shot him anyway. Both suns had set and the jungle was dark. Walking slowly until his eyes adapted, he made his way downhill to the rendezvous: a massive granite boulder in a clearing unequally bisected by a weed-choked stream. “It’s Big Nate,” he whispered. The patients’ nickname for him had stuck. “I got off shift a bit late.”
    That wasn’t Silverman beside the