Page 6 of Alien Burn

“Then he can visit you for a meal. I might happen to be here.”

“You can happen to pay for it.”

“That sounds fair.”

She settled back, some of the tightness leaving her face.

He could remember when she had come to the refineries to collect her husband's final pay. She had worn good shoes then too, stiff new ones for the visit to the Protector. Ruthak had found her a chair before she could ask.

Dhomhes tucked the paper away.

“If the male contacts him again, have him tell me. He isn't to arrange a meeting or go looking for anyone.”

“I've told him.”

“Tell him twice.”

“I've told him six times.”

“Then I stand corrected.”

She finally smiled. He drank the tea before it could get any stronger.

By the time he returned to his rooms, he had two dinner invitations, a message from Ruthak asking when he intended to answer the previous one, and nothing useful on the comm code. He declined the dinners and promised his father a visit once the Galactic Alliance arrival was settled.

The code led to a short-term account, funded through a freight agency that had ceased trading. He sent it to a contact who owed him a favor and asked for the payment source. On a separate display he pulled up the two other reports of strangers buying travel information.

One of the reports asked specifically about the Galactic Alliance vessel. He enlarged it.

Tomorrow Khalzin would invite off-world females to become Kantenan mates. The outraged objections had included a family genealogy marked in red; Khalzin had replied with a correction to the genealogy. Dhomhes wished he had been there for that.

Anonymous buyers asking when the ship would land and how many guards would be nearby were harder to laugh at.

His comm flashed.

The freight broker. Finally.

“Rhysgarrds,” Dhomhes said when the broker's image appeared. “You mentioned the name on the docks.”

The man stopped fidgeting. “I don't work for them.”

“But someone may be buying access to a Kantenan landing site. Tell me what you know.”

It took patience and the reminder of a favor Dhomhes would have preferred to save. In the end he received a story about a warehouse fire on Kerde. A supplier had lost cargo after refusing to renegotiate a debt. The inquiry had blamed a fuel fault.

“Clean job,” the broker said. “Sealed the charges. Flushed what was left. You wouldn't find anything unless you knew what to look for.”

“You saw it?”

“I saw what was left of the building.”

“Who told you how it was done?”

“People talk.”

“Not to me, apparently.”

“I have to go.”