The League of Spies Read Free

he could see a horizon-to-horizon vista of lights and buildings. The Tarhassans were obviously fond of colorful illuminations: One neighborhood would have pole- suspended streetlights in green, another in orange-yellow; the business district had many buildings that rose to altitudes of sixty or eighty stories, their curved architectural elements and beveled coiners subtly lit in blue.
    In the dark, however, he couldn’t see all the civic activities he’d glimpsed on his initial trip to Cherek’s quarters-the construction of hardened gunnery bunkers, the drilling of infantry, the setup of watch-stations on tall buildings, all part of the planets preparations for war.
    In fact, he could enjoy only a portion of the night view, stuck as he was in the rear seat of the closed-top airspeeder. Cherek insisted on controlling the vehicle, and Livintius had shrieked
    “Gunnery seat!” as soon as they approached the vehicle. Consequently, Livintius had some sort of right to sit in the front passenger seat, so Joram and Mapper were stuck in the back with Tinian.
    Crammed in the back was more like it. The airspeeder was a compact model with powerful engines, but it had a passenger compartment ideally suited for two adults in front and shopping bags in back.
    Joram said, “Where does this Renkel woman go?”
    “Eh?” Cherek said.
    “There’s really not much room for a hostage back here. How big is the cargo compartment?”
    “No cargo compartment,” Cherek said. “We rented this one for speed.”
    “And style,” Livintius added. “Intelligence agents should have style.”
    “Besides,” Cherek said, “she’s not a hostage. She’s a prisoner of war.”
    “So where does the prisoner go?”
    Cherek and Livintius looked atone another. “Across your laps?’1 Cherek said.
    “I don’t think so,” Joram said.
    “I’m the mission leader, and I say...”
    “We’ll vote on it, as usual. But there’re three of us in the back, and we’re the ones who’ll have her across our laps, so I predict we’ll all vote against.” Joram got an immediate nod from Mapper, and, after a moment of consideration, a matching nod from Tinian. “See?”
    Cherek sighed, vexed. “All right. We’ll put Tinian up here between me and Livintius. Then you can have the hostage...”
    “Prisoner of war,” Livintius corrected.
    “...prisoner of war between you. That way everyone’s equally uncomfortable. Ah, here we are.”
    Cherek pushed the controls forward and sent the airspeeder into a power dive. Joram grabbed at the restraining straps. They held him in place but somehow let his stomach drift alarmingly within his body. The ground got bigger fast, its landspeeders starting as distant toys but growing in seconds to fast-moving traffic.
    Joram looked over at Mapper; the trooper was holding on to his own straps with one hand and the seat back in front of him with the other, and Tinian was desperately holding on to him.
    Then the world tilted again, and the landspeeders they were diving toward became landspeeders rushing straight at them. Joram felt the airspeeder shudder as its hull scraped the ground. They were skidding, turning the world beyond the windscreen into a whirl of lights that wobbled and shook.
    Finally they were still.
    “Good job,” Livintius said. “Not far from a parking slot.” The aging academic seemed calm, although his skin had become reddish. It now began to fade back to its normal hue.
    They were on a landspeeder lane, parked at an incorrect angle a meter from the raised walkway on one side. On the other side was a residential building. Although a midget by Coruscant standards, it rose high enough to loom over surrounding residences, twenty stories at least, and had a marquee sign on the front that read “Liezder Towers.” A moment later the words faded and were replaced by “Coruscant Living at Tarhassan Rates.”
    “I’m going to throw up,” Tinian said.
    “Wait until we get back to my quarters,” Cherek