Decision at Thunder Rift

Grayson tensed, readying himself. If he jumped up and ran, the soldiers would cut him down before he made it around the curve of the road, unless he could take them by surprise. He wondered how fast his bare and tender feet could move over broken chunks of sun baked ferrocrete.

"You see this guy?" the Lieutenant asked, holding up the boots.

"Sure did." The street dweller glanced at Grayson, his face neutral. "See that pipe?" he said, gesturing at the drainpipe above Grayson's mud pool. "Fella came tearing in here maybe a minute ago. Stripped off his boots, plopped 'em down there, and shi

"Damn," the Lieutenant muttered. "He's trying to backtrack on us. You men! At the double! C'mon!"

The troop gathered into ragged ranks and clumped off down the street at a half-run. The one holding. Grayson's boots tossed them aside. When the soldiers were far enough away, he sat up slowly, dusting ineffectually at the mud caked on his tunic. "Thanks."

The man glanced up and down the street, then his dirty face with its scraggly growth of beard broke into a wide, unexpected grin. "Don't mention it. You looked like you were new in town."

"Well, you might say that. Who are you?"

The man gave a sweeping, polished bow. "Renfred Tor, at your service."

"I think it should be the other way around. I'm indebted to you, sir."

"Why were they after you?"

Grayson hesitated. His first inclination urged caution. The stranger seemed friendly enough, but maybe he was just looking for more information about the fugitive before turning him in. Picking his way across the street to retrieve his boots, Grayson turned various possibilities over in his mind. If he was going to have to do any more ru

Suddenly Grayson realized that the man had used two names. He could not possibly be a native of Trellwan! "You're an offworlder," he said, avoiding the other's question.

"You might say that." Tor's eyes shifted down the street "Offworlders don't seem very popular around here."

Grayson nodded and smiled ruefully. "I'm Grayson Carlyle. I was with the Commonwealth garrison Lance at the Castle."

"Pleased to meet you. Uh... you seem to have misplaced your 'Mech Lance."

"They misplaced me. The bandits attacked the Castle and I was left for dead. When I came to, my unit had already pulled out"

"Ah," said Tor.

"How about you? What are you doing here?"

Tor stared at Grayson a long moment, then told him, "I'm the DropShip pilot who brought those bandits here in the first place."

8

Renfred Tor was a native of Atreus, but it had been many long, standard years since he'd seen the capital of Marik's Free World League. At fourteen, he'd shipped out as cargo handler on a Tristar Lines freighter. By the time he was 20, he had worked his way up through sundry crews to deck officer. Then, he and his four brothers bought equal shares in an aging rustbucket freighter that they'd named the Invidiousby the end of an evening of drunken celebration.

The celebration turned out to be premature. A scheme to transport laser rifles and man-portable inferno launchers to an embattled revolutionary front had ended with the revolution crushed, his partners imprisoned or broke, and himself and an unhapppy fifteen-man crew plotting a jump route series into the Lyran Commonwealth. Their flight had ended in the Commonwealth's Periphery, and Tor had been buying, borrowing, or scamming spare parts and new crewmembers to keep the Invidiousgoing ever since. Five years of short-term contracts and one-way cargo hauls had brought him at last to Drovahchein II in the heart of the Erit Cluster.

There, the Invidiousfaced the end of her career. She needed a complete refit before she'd jump out-system again, and her station keeping drive was threatening to fail at any moment. With no money, no contracts, his crew threatening to scatter if they were not soon paid, and no hope of repairing the faltering hauler on his own, Tor was forced to contemplate an early retirement on Drovahchein II. Not that the trading capital of the Erit Cluster was uninteresting, but future opportunities for a freighter jump pilot with a ship were slim, the open billets on outbound ships few.

That was when he'd met Proctor Sinvalie of House Mailai.

Mailai was more the ruler of the Cluster than the distant court of Katrina Steiner on Tharkad. The Cluster was a tiny island of relative prosperity and technology in a rising sea of barbarism. Proctor Sinvalie was one of the principal House traders who oversaw the fragile web of commerce that bound the Eritese systems to the Commonwealth and to systems out in the Periphery, to worlds like Trellwan, and beyond.

Sinvalie had called on Tor shortly after he'd grounded the Invidious'DropShip at Gharisport, on Drovahchein II's minor southern continent. The offer he'd made Tor seemed the answer to all the freighter captain's problems. Gharisport's Mailai Tech crew would give the Invidiousthe refit she needed, Tor's crew would be signed on for a six-standard-month hitch and receive an advance to spend on Gharisport's nightlife, and Captain Tor would get the long-term contract he so desperately needed. All he had to do was shuttle small numbers of passengers back and forth between Oberon VI and a world beyond the Periphery, undistinguished save for its location. That world was Trell I — Trellwan, as its natives had named it.

"I should've known," Tor said as he led Grayson through the twists and odd angles of Sarghad's back alleys and side streets. "I should've known as soon as I found out old Hendrik the Great was involved."

"Known what?" Grayson asked.

"Known I wasn't going to get out with a whole skin. Old Sinvalie, he's a sharp character. He wasn't about to trust one of his precious ships and crews to the tender mercies of Hendrik's little bandit kingdom, so he hires an independent to take the risks — yours truly. They painted House Mailai's crest on the Invidious'DropShips, but it wasn't Mailai taking the risks!”

“What happened?"

"Hold it!" Tor hissed suddenly, pushing Grayson into the shadows as a platoon of Palace Guards trooped past. The two had come to a place where the alley opened onto one of the city's broad thoroughfares. A number of soldiers were about, standing at intersections or along the avenue, and they seemed to be searching the faces of the crowd. Tor motioned Grayson to sit back, then continued his story.

"Nothing much happened — at first. I shuttled in a Commonwealth representative named... uh..."

"Vogel."

"Yeah, Viscount Vogel. I shuttled him from Tharkad to Oberon, and then from Oberon here. I took his assistant from here to Oberon and back a couple of times. I gather they were setting up a deal that was going to turn Trellwan over to Hendrik's keeping, though the whole thing was supposed to be secret"

"Supposed to be," Grayson said, more to himself than Tor.

"Yeah, well, it didn't take long to leak out. The news was all over Sarghad last time I was here. You folks had riots in town?"

Grayson nodded, but kept his eyes on the street. This was all part and parcel of the betrayal that had killed his father. Someone was going to pay.

"So, anyway, there was supposed to be a last meeting, with Oberon's ministers coming to Trellwan for some kind of official treaty signing. But it didn't turn out the way they'd said." Tor kept his voice low, looking around warily as he spoke. More soldiers were passing on the street, trotting with their weapons at high port. There seemed to be a stir somewhere to the north.