Blackcollar: The Blackcollar

"Excuse the rough handling," Lathe said mildly. He held the woman's rifle in one hand; with the other he maintained a negligent-looking grip on her wrist which was somehow holding her motionless. "But we don't carry ID cards."

"Doesn't prove a thing," one of the Argentians bit out, struggling unsuccessfully against Kwon and the wrist lock that had him on his knees. "Their rads threw those things to startle us—they jumped us when our backs were turned."

"Maybe yours was turned." Surprisingly, the woman didn't sound angry. "Mine wasn't. And those 'things' are shuriken—genuine blackcollar weapons." She nodded back toward the woods. "I'm convinced. You want to ask your rads in to join the party?"

"Certainly," Lathe said, releasing her arm and handing back her rifle. "What are rads?"

"Your friends," she said, accepting the weapon. Touching what was probably the safety, she slung it over her shoulder. "The guys who provided your handy little diversion."

"Oh." Lathe gave the all-clear, and with a crunch of dead leaves Caine and the five hidden blackcollars stepped into the clearing. Caine wished he could see the expressions under those mesh-masks; combat-garbed blackcollars were an impressive sight—

"You sure brought a mob with you," she said, eyeing them. "Is this it?"

"We also have a spotter at the edge of the woods," Skyler said.

"All right. The cars won't carry everyone; some of you'll have to walk." She nodded to her three companions who, unlike her, still held their rifles uncertainly at the ready. "You can take these four directly through the woods to the house. We'll take the others and their baggage in the cars."

"But, Li, we still don't know who they are," one of the Argentians objected, gesturing toward Vale with his weapon.

"They're blackcollars—which means they're on our side," she explained patiently. "So get moving. And I suggest you sling your rifle before he takes it away from you again."

The man snorted, but started off into the woods, the other six men close behind. The woman nodded to Skyler. "Let's go."

The "house" they were driven to was actually more like a woodland estate. Nestled into the far edge of the woods were a three-floor stone house, a large garage, and three or four shedlike buildings at various distances from the main building. A concealed trap door in one of the latter led to a tu

"Make yourselves at home, gentlemen," the woman said. She had pulled off the mesh-mask and Caine got his first look at her face.

It was a great disappointment. From her voice Caine had rather expected her to be beautiful; the lovely, stormy-eyed patriot of youthful fantasies. Instead, she was about as plain-featured as she could possibly be. Her light-brown hair, cut short in a style which was easy to care for, did nothing to soften the squareness of her face, and her violet eyes seemed more tired than stormy. He felt vaguely cheated—and was instantly ashamed of his reaction. "I suppose we should introduce ourselves somewhere along in here," Skyler said. "I'm Rafe Skyler; this is Mordecai; Allen Caine; Kelly O'Hara...."

She nodded to each as Skyler went down the list. "My name's Lia

"Does this Radix have a central leadership?" Hawking asked.

"Yes—the main HQ is in Calarand, Argent's capital. We've got a supposedly secure phone link to them, but I don't like to use it. If you'll write up something about this mission of yours, I'll encode it for you and we can send it by ru

"Fine." Skyler nodded.

The two drivers, who'd been hiding the cars, came in as Skyler and Hawking were composing a suitable note, and Lia

"Perhaps we could take a look outside and upstairs first," Novak suggested. "Nothing against your security, but we like to check things out ourselves."

"Look outside all you want," Lia

The air was suddenly electric. "Explain, please," Skyler said softly.

"Oh, don't worry, nobody's up there—Navare and his people only come here during vacations. We don't come near the place then, naturally, but at other times it's safe enough as long as you avoid the main house."

"Debatable," O'Hara rumbled. "Don't they ever wonder what happened to their subbasement?"

"They don't know it's here—the co

"Practically no one," Skyler admitted. "Your idea?"

For the first time Lia

The awkward silence was broken by the sound of footsteps, and from one of the tu

One of the men shook his head. "No, but we'd better get them out of here soon," he said as he and the others pulled off their mesh-masks. "A Security flier just came in from the direction of Calarand—they're not going to be happy to find their prisoners gone."

"Pretty fast reaction," Lia

Lathe had moved to Skyler's side and was reading the note over his shoulder. "There's one other thing," the comsquare spoke up. "One of our people didn't jump with us, but rode the ship farther in. If he made it out he'll be alone and probably gone to ground. Can you get a search party out to try and find him?"

"Put it in your note," Lia

The safe house was a couple of hours' drive away, and they reached it without incident. They stayed there most of the day, catching up on food and sleep and being fitted with Argentian clothing. Hawking discovered that the cell's spare bug stamper was broken and spent most of the afternoon fixing it. For the rest of them, though, it was mostly waiting.

Finally, around sunset, word came from Calarand via secure line that the Radix chief would meet with them. Half an hour later they were rolling down a dusty road in a loose convoy of five vehicles. Sitting in the back seat of the middle car, wedged between Mordecai and Kwon, Caine tried to doze through the long trip. He wasn't very successful. Calarand, a small voice kept whispering, was a complete unknown, full of Security forces and untested allies.

And very likely lots of Ryqril, too.