The League of Spies Read Free Page B

“Livintius, let me in.”
    The aged Falleen opened it and stood as Mapper reached the air-speeder. This is very irregular...”
    “Gunnery seat!” Tinian said. Her face was suddenly alight with a victorious smile.
    “Oh, blast you.” Livintius got back into the airspeeder and slid over to take the middle seat.
    Tinian hopped in beside him, looking smug.
    Mapper levered the unconscious woman in through the open door. Joram dragged her in beside him; Mapper crowded in and sealed the door. “Ready to go,” Joram said.
    With a snarl, Cherek returned his attention to the controls. In a moment they were airborne.
    “Joram, I’m going to report your insubordination and insolence to our superior as soon as we get back to the safe house. And you’ll be shipped out of here with a black mark on your record. Or you can promise not to countermand my explicit orders, or the explicit plans worked up by this committee, ever again. What’s it going to be?”
    “So my experience and initiative, which have saved you hours and limited danger to this unit, don’t mean anything to you.”
    “No, they don’t You’re nor our intellectual equal. Your experience is obviously irrelevant and your initiative is nothing but rebellion. Now, you can obey or go home in disgrace. What’s it going to be?”
    Joram set his jaw. He wanted Cherek to send him home. It might keep him from getting killed.
    But then Cherek, Tinian, and Livintius would foul up their mission, and they would be caught or killed. Maybe Mapper, too. Cherek hadn’t said anything about sending Mapper back. And if he ordered Mapper to stay, the loyal and determined clone trooper might just feel obligated to obey.
    “Well?” Cherek repeated.
    Finally Joram was able to work his jaw again. “All right,” he said. “I promise.”
    “Not good enough. I want your word of honor. Repeat my instructions back to me so we’re all on the same item on the agenda.”
    Cherek’s neck looked very vulnerable. Joram could reach up, give the man’s head a twist, and snap it. He had been taught how.
    Every word was like a stone he had to cough up from his guts. “All right. I give my word of honor that I will not countermand your direct orders or the agreed-upon plans of this... committee.”
    “Good enough,” Cherek said. “For now.”
    “I don’t know where he is,” the woman protested.
    She was in one of the chairs in Cherek’s rented quarters, and just binding her there had been quite a feat. The billowy furniture had no loops, holes, distinct legs or other components that would permit ropes to be firmly attached, so instead of ropes they’d had to use broad silver binder-tape.
    Layer upon layer of the stuff adhered her limbs to the furniture. More layers crossed her forehead, holding her head back against the puffy headrest.
    Zazana Renkel was a good-looking woman, Joram decided, not holo-drama beautiful, but every-man-working-with-her-would-gravitate-to-her attractive, with dark brown eyes and a manner of expressing herself that suggested intelligence. She was doing what she could to hide the fact that she was very afraid.
    Of course she was afraid. Joram would be afraid, too, if he were being interrogated by five masked lunatics.
    The masks were cheap rubber things Livintius had bought. They all bore the same face, a broad set of male features marked with horizontal bands of war paint in red, yellow, and black. Livintius had said that they commemorated a hero from Tarhassan melodramas. So in addition to everything else, the spies were interrogating the woman with the face of one of the local cultural icons.
    “Don’t pretend you didn’t know Edbit was with Republic Intelligence,” Cherek said.
    Renkel’s eyes opened wide. “What?”
    Joram sighed silently. In his peripheral vision, he saw Mapper begin to bang his head on the wall.
    “We don’t much care for liars, you know.” Cherek drew a deep breath and expelled it as if banishing the demons of petty