The Price of Glory

"Still, every one of the Great Houses has to keep tabs on what's going on in everybody else's backyards, even including backwaters like Helm. You never know when something big is going to pop in an unlikely spot."

"Spies."

"Well, sure, but there are spies . . . and there are spies."

"What do you mean?"

"Everybody uses spies, of course." His mouth tightened, and his eyes regained some of the wintry bleakness she had seen in them the night before. "Like Graff. He must have been planted on us at Galatea. God only knows why he turned on us ... or was turned on us.

"But nearly every world has a resident agent or two from one or another of the Great Houses. They're nothing like an official ambassador, but then, they're not required to perform a regular ambassador's duties. They're just there to make a report once in a while, and maybe to provide help, advice, or maybe communications to someone who might ask for it."

Lori's eyes widened. "House Steiner!"

"Exactly. The Lyran Commonwealth government has got to remember what we did for them on Verthandi. Hey! We beat Kurita and won free a world that had been stolen by the Dracs a few years before . . . then set up things so that House Steiner could regain some lucrative trade rights there. Yes, I think Katrina Steiner's government remembers that and I think they'd be glad to help us."

"Do you know the Steiner . . . ah . . . ambassador?"

"The Steiner spy. I was told, lives at an address on Hogarth Street. It's a local merchant firm that deals in off world trade."

"So, how the hell did you find out about him?"

"One of Janos Marik's aides told me back when I signed the contract that gave us Helm. He gave me the address of a House Davion agent, too." He gri

"I should think not." Lori's voice betrayed her surprise, and her amusement. The so-called civilized peoples often acted in ways that continued to amaze and confound her. There were many things in life for which distant, cold Sigurd had not prepared her. "And Marik's people actually know about this guy?"

Grayson shrugged. "Hey, like I said, he's just a merchant with ties to the Lyran Commonwealth. Nothing flashy . . . and nothing illegal. It's just that his merchant co

"Like a Marik invasion of the Lyran Commonwealth? That could be a dangerous job."

"It has its rough points. Of course, I doubt that Janos Marik's generals would tell this guy about their invasion plans. It's the spies you don'tknow about that can cause you trouble."

She saw his jaw tighten again. "Like Graff," she said.

He nodded. "Like Graff."

"So why you?"

"Eh?"

"Why do you have to go? Any of us could make contact with this guy. Give us the address, and we'll do it.”

“No."

"Ah. Grayson Carlyle against the universe . . . once again?"

"It's not like that, Lori. But it issomething I have to do."

"Is it, Gray?" She stood suddenly, her eyes flashing in the early morning light. "Is it? Or are you tripping over your damned pride again?"

He started to answer, but she had already turned and crawled back inside their tent.

She didn't know whether to feel happy or furious that he did not crawl in after her. When Lori heard his boot-steps moving away from the tent after a time, she felt the loneliness from long ago welling up inside her once again.

14

The skimmer resting in the sun-broken shadows of the woods was an ancient one, scratched, marred, and with only the faintest trace of brown-on-gray patterns to show where coats of paint had once been. The engine access panels that had borne the grey-on-scarlet death's head of the Legion had been removed, leaving the grease-black convolutions of the engine visible through gaping openings on either side of the turbine nacelle. More scratches had been added up forward, where a vibroblade had been used to scrape off the battered little craft's serial numbers. The Magna CC light laser and its pintle mount in the cargo well aft of the driver's seat had been removed, and the mounting rack unbolted from its brace struts and folded onto the deck. The craft had been carefully inspected by four of the Legion's Techs, including Alard King himself, to make certain that there was nothing about the vehicle that would call attention to its real identity.

While the demilitarized skimmer had been undergoing transformation, both Grayson and King had been undergoing a similar transformation.

"There's something, I suppose, for going native," King said. He spread his hands and looked down at himself. "But I feel a little out of place, don't you, Colonel?"

Both men wore workboots, trousers, and simple tunics—little more than coarse-woven bags with holes for arms and heads—belted at their waists.

"Oh, I don't know, Alard." Grayson plucked lightly at the front of his tunic. "If our mission doesn't go well, we may have to retire and dress like this all the time."

The men and women of the Gray Death Legion, like the perso

Grayson's own uniform varied from day to day. In the nearly four years since Trell I, he had outgrown or worn out the few pieces of uniform left over from his days as a MechWarrior Apprentice. Though he had made an effort to acquire a standard Legion uniform on Galatea after the successful conclusion of the Verthandi campaign, there had not been enough money—or time enough—to carry the idea very far. His usual campaign uniform, then, was gray tunic and trousers with the unit patch on his left breast and upper left arm. When Grayson needed to impress someone—such as a prospective employer-he added a gray shoulder-half-cape lined in scarlet and a black beret from a shop on Galatea to transform his plain grays into service full-dress. For daily wear, Grayson favored fatigues of no single traceable ancestry. Still, their brown and green camouflage pattern defined them as military-service issue. For what Grayson had in mind now, he had to look the part of a civilian. Hence, the rough, almost shapeless local garb.

"I don't suppose we can talk you out of this," Lori said. McCall and the rest of the command lance warriors stood with her. A variety of chirrings and chirpings sounded from the woods around them.

"Aye, sair," Davis McCall said, scratching his reddish beard and smiling. "There'd be aye plenty a' th' lads that'll be wantin' tae go doon t' town, Colonel."

"You're volunteering, I suppose?" Grayson said.

McCall's smile widened to an open grin, and he drew himself up taller. "Aye, sair, for one ..."

"Forget it." Grayson said, shifting to a rough impersonation of Davis's broad Scots burr. "Tha' idea is tae go in wi'oot bein' noticed, laddie! An' how you'd manage tae ask questions wi'oot speakin', I di