Fortune's Light Part 15

"Riker," she said.

"What?"

"Do you see what I see?"

He took a closer look at the figures in front of the weapons dealer's booth. And all at once he realized what Lyneea was talking about.

"The emblem," he said.

"The emblem," she confirmed. "I can't tell for sure with his hood pulled up, but I'll be quite surprised if that isn't Kobar."

Riker studied the man Lyneea had pointed to, the third official of Madraga Rhurig. He was taller than his two companions, rangier. And there was something about his bearing-an arrogance? An att.i.tude of superiority?

This was the man who had murdered Teller Conlon. This was the maggot who'd killed his friend.

Suddenly, he wanted very much to return the favor.

Calm down, Riker. You're not some chest-beating savage. You're the first officer of the USS Enterprise. Let your feelings get in the way here and all you'll do is put Kobar on the alert.

"Riker? You're being awfully quiet."

"I'm catching up on my beauty sleep."

"Well, catch up while you're looking at a rug or something. We can't just stand here and gape."

"No," he said, "I suppose not."

The nearest booth was that of a pet merchant. The man peered at pa.s.sersby from behind a corG.o.drill-something like a small ape with luxuriant rainbow-colored plumage covering its neck, shoulders, and arms. The corG.o.drill, known for its pleasant disposition, was sitting on the table picking parasites out of its fur.

As they approached, the merchant straightened. "Can I help you?" he asked.

"Not really," said Lyneea. "We're just taking in the sights."

"Then look no further," he told them. "The greatest sights in the entire world are on display at Griziba's booth." His grin was so ingratiating it made Riker's teeth hurt. "Now ... was it the corG.o.drill that caught your eye? He's a wonder with children." The man pointed to a plump, cobalt-colored lizard. "Or perhaps a nice menigirri. It eats very little, and its scent has been known to help the digestion-"

"That's very nice," interrupted Lyneea. "But we're just looking. Really."

The merchant nodded. "I understand. You wish to see something less docile." He leaned toward them over the table. "Something you can train to dissuade unwanted visitors. I have just the thing."

"It's all right ..." Lyneea began, but the merchant had already disappeared under his table.

Riker was keeping one eye on Kobar, so he really didn't pay too much attention when the fellow came up again. Nor did he notice what he came up with.

"Here," said the merchant, pus.h.i.+ng a cage in their direction. "As you know, one so very young is not easy to come by. It will give you many long years of loyal service."

Suddenly something small and dark lashed out through the bars of the cage. Probably it would have gotten Riker's attention even if it hadn't been inches from his hand.

Just in time, he withdrew the endangered appendage. And as if in parody, the dark thing snapped back into its cage.

Riker inspected his hand. He found tiny rents in the back of his glove, but no damage to the flesh beneath.

"Many pardons," said the merchant. "But as you can see, he is quite effective. Imagine him guarding your domicile someday."

Then the animal pressed its small black muzzle against the bars in front, and Riker realized what it was the man was peddling.

"An isak," he said. He recalled his experience in the tavern, not without a certain amount of apprehension.

"Of course," said the merchant. "What else can strike so quickly? And with such strength?" He smiled. "A couple of months from now, he would not have fallen short of his mark."

Riker grunted, eyeing the beast even as it eyed him. "How rea.s.suring," he remarked.

"Indeed," said the petmonger. "Then you will take him?"

"Look," Lyneea cut in. "They're moving away from the booth."

Riker looked. Sure enough, Kobar and his compatriots had finished their business with the weapons merchant. Judging by the package beneath Kobar's arm and the smile on the merchant's face, they had come to terms on some item or other.

"Let's go," he told Lyneea.

"Just a moment," she said. "We mustn't follow too closely."

"That will be fifty credits," said the petmonger. "And a bargain at that, if I may say so."

"Perhaps some other time," Riker told him. "When I'm feeling m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic."

"Ah," said the merchant, "but he will not be here some other time. Isakki are rare at any age, and as I have indicated-"

"Now," advised Lyneea, and started walking.

"You do not understand," said the petmonger, still appealing to Riker. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! You cannot pa.s.s it up."

"No doubt we'll live to regret it," said the human, and using his long strides to advantage, he caught up with his partner.

"I have a good feeling about this," decided Lyneea. "A very good feeling."

"You think he'll lead us to the seal now?" asked Riker.

She nodded. "If we can believe our tailor friend, Kobar loves his knives better than he loves his own mother. He'll want to keep his new acquisition in the safest place he knows of-along with his other valuables. A certain seal, for instance."

"Somewhere in town? Or at his madraga's estate?"

"The more I think about it, the more I'd say it's in town-for Rhurig's protection. Why keep the evidence where it might incriminate the whole madraga? In Kobar's hands, it can hurt only him-a risk he'd probably a.s.sume for the sake of his kinsmen."

"But Kobar's their third official," said Riker. "It will make for a considerable scandal if he's caught with Fortune's Light. Why not put some retainer in jeopardy instead?"

"Probably because a retainer would not be trusted with such an important task," Lyneea told him, "even if he or she was capable of performing it. Obviously Rhurig has gone to great trouble to stop the merger. It is worth a certain amount of risk to make certain the seal stays hidden. And besides, Kobar may have insisted on handling this personally."

"Then why is he out buying knives for his collection," asked Riker, "instead of keeping watch over the seal?"

Lyneea turned to glance at him. "Because," she said, "he is who he is. Even a madraga official may be governed by something other than logic."

Remembering Norayan's tale, he could hardly disagree. "Good point," he muttered.

"Hold on," said his partner. "Something's wrong."

Up ahead, Kobar and his companions had stopped. The third official was holding up his package, and one of the others was pointing to it. Remarks were exchanged, which Riker and Lyneea had no hope of overhearing. Kobar frowned.

"He's not happy with his purchase," observed Riker.

"Apparently," said Lyneea. "Maybe they've decided it wasn't such a good deal after all."

"So we make ourselves scarce again."

"You're catching on," she told him.

Kobar and his friends started back the way they'd come. Their discontent was increasing step by step, if the expansiveness of their gestures was any indication.

"Just one thing," said Riker. "Let's not find another pet dealer, all right?"

"It's a deal," agreed his partner.

She'd already started toward a nearby winemonger's booth when they heard the first small cries of surprise. Then came the full-blown screams and the rush. And before Riker knew it, the crowd was carrying him back, separating him from Lyneea.

A moment later he got his first look at what prompted the riot: the isak cub that had been shown to him earlier. Apparently the d.a.m.ned thing had gotten out of its cage and was trying to make a meal out of somebody's ankles-anybody's ankles.

In their haste to avoid the snapping, snarling little beast, the marketgoers were leaping onto some tables and overturning others, while the merchants were doing their best to keep their booths intact and their wares from spilling to the ground. It was chaos such as the marketplace in Besidia had probably never seen-and might never see again.

Riker tried to work his way out of the press. He grabbed for one of the poles supporting a basket merchant's display, missed. Someone fell, starting a domino effect, and by the time it got to him it had the weight of a half-dozen bodies behind it. Like a swimmer overtaken by a slow but inexorable wave, he went down, inadvertently taking a couple of others with him.

Nor could he easily get up again. Not with his legs pinned under an equally helpless Impriman, who was in turn pinned by somebody else. And to make matters worse, other marketgoers were trying to climb over him, in order to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the skittering isak. There were curses, grunts, even a couple of misplaced blows.

Twisting and squirming, Riker managed to pull his legs free-but there was still no place to stand. So he did the next best thing. He worked his way over to the first booth he saw and slithered underneath its leather-draped table.

Once he'd pulled his feet in after him and the heavy coverings had fallen back into place, Riker allowed himself a shudder of disgust. Crowds. He was grateful for the relative quiet, the relative peace afforded him by his shelter.

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 friends.h.i.+p 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 s.p.a.ce 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 was hardly a coincidence. And to know that if the human was following him, he might also have caught on to his friend's murder.

Of course, to figure all that out, Kobar had to be guilty as h.e.l.l, not only of the murder but of the theft of Fortune's Light as well. Riker had satisfied himself of that fact-a limited accomplishment if he didn't live to tell of it.

And judging by the look in Kobar's eye, he had every intention of silencing his accuser before he could make any accusations.

Riker looked past his antagonist, scanned the faces in the crowd. Where in blazes was Lyneea?

"Why don't you tell me what the problem is," he suggested. "Then we can work it out."

There was no point in confirming the Impriman's suspicions. If he had any doubts, Riker was going to nurture them.

Kobar smiled. "Can we? I doubt it."

"Surely you're not thinking of killing an unarmed man?" Riker lifted his chin to indicate Kobar's companions. "All three of you?"

That drew a murmur from the clutch of onlookers. Kobar's smile faded, and he pointed his knife at the weapon stuck in the support pole.

"Take it out," he said. "Then you'll be armed, too. And I promise my friends will stay out of it."