"What kind?" the matron asked.

"A Green Beetle," Rasheeda said.

"That's not their best drink," Nyx said. "I recommend the Holiday Beetle. I'm sure you know it."

Rhys sipped his tea. His other hand stayed near one of his pistols.

"Just drop the f.u.c.king bounty, Nyx," Luce said. "The last time you p.i.s.sed the council off, you lost everything, and you have a lot more to lose this time."

Nyx took a pull of her beer. "I don't drop notes."

"It's not a note," Luce said. "You aren't a bel dame. It's a bounty. There's no honor in bounties."

"I know what I am. Does the council have you working actual notes, or are you just here to bully like a couple of border toughs?"

"We're always working on notes," Rasheeda said. She snapped her teeth at Rhys. "I ate a Chenjan just yesterday."

"I hope you choked," Rhys said.

"Keep your mouth locked, black man," Rasheeda said. "My business isn't with dumb bags or baby stealers."

"Try to close it," Rhys said.

Nyx grinned at that. She wanted to see Rhys shoot an organic target. He was a good shot.

"I heard you were f.u.c.king Chenjans," Luce said, "but I didn't believe it."

"You women paying for lunch?" Nyx asked. "Or is that all?" Rhys might have an aversion for hurting living people, but she didn't.

Luce said, "You think the council's joking?"

"No," Nyx said. "I think everything you honey pots could think of to do to me has been done. You stripped me of my bel dame license and sent me to prison. What, you want to set me on fire? Cut off bits and pieces and sell them to collectors? Send me to the front? It's all been done. f.u.c.k off."

"We have other ways to hurt you, Nyx," Luce said quietly.

"No, you don't. My mother and brothers are dead. The only blood sister I have thinks I'm headed straight for h.e.l.l. G.o.d left me in a trench outside Bahreha. You're all the sisters I have, and you're the ones who sent me to prison. Have a nice night."

Luce kicked Rasheeda. "Up," she said.

Rasheeda said, "I haven't gotten my little green drink."

"Get it at the bar," Luce said.

The bel dames stood.

Nyx watched them walk to the bar.

The bar matron arrived with their food. There was soup for Rhys, and a steaming heap of meat for Nyx that made her even more nauseous than the opium smoke. She drew her dagger and stabbed at the hunk.

"Why haven't they killed you yet?" Rhys asked.

"n.o.body likes to kill bel dames," Nyx said. And she was a lot more valuable to them alive. "I've been inoculated against every known contagion, and I can pa.s.s through any filter in the country. I can power down a city with one good burst slapped together with bug juice and scattergun acid." n.o.body killed a bel dame. At worst, you were thrown out. Or permanently imprisoned and coc.o.o.ned.

"So there's someone on that council who wants you alive to use for later."

"Yeah. It's why I went to prison and not back to the front."

"Who is she?"

"I don't know. Some old lady, probably."

"But they don't like the queen. Do you think some of them would kill you anyway?"

"And p.i.s.s off the old ladies? Luce won't. Fatima would arrange an accident. Dahab and Rasheeda might. Others, no. They'd stick to clean notes."

Nyx stared at the hunk of meat on her plate. It had taken four bel dames to bring her down last time. She had been on her own then, without a com tech, a shape shifter, a magician, or any kind of hired gun.

"So what do you think this alien knows that makes the queen and and the bel dames want her so badly?" Rhys asked. the bel dames want her so badly?" Rhys asked.

"What it is isn't as important as what it can do do," Nyx said. "If it could end the war, it could end it in favor of either side. Think of her like a weapon we need to get back." She considered. "I need to go to the coast and talk to my sister. She was pa.s.sing information with New Kinaan at about the time Nikodem was last here. She might know something that'll help." Kine could also tell her a lot more about the aliens-and maybe their real motives-than they'd tell her themselves.

"I can go to the archives," Rhys said.

"Too conspicuous."

"I mean, the archives in the Chenjan district. I won't be conspicuous there."

"Hold off until I get back." Nyx poked at her food.

"What's wrong?" Rhys asked.

Nyx sighed. "I really wanted to get into a fight."

Outside, the heady whine of the burst sirens started up again. The building shook.

"b.l.o.o.d.y f.u.c.king Chenjans," Nyx muttered, but she didn't look at Rhys when she said it.

12.

"You're telling me that one of the mercenaries on this list is the Chenjan under ice in our fridge?" Nyx asked.

"I think so," Khos said. He shuffled his feet.

Nyx had sent him and Anneke out to the Cage to b.u.t.ter up Shajin. Shajin had all the records of which mercenaries were given the queen's note. There was more than one way to dig a hole.

When Nyx got back from Mushtallah, Khos had handed her a list and told her what they'd found out about all twelve people on it. None of the information was worth much, but from the look of the packages Anneke had hauled in from the bakkie, the bad news hadn't stopped them from picking up enough weapons from a local dealer to fight a small war. Anneke had a habit of overspending on gear.

"You think so, or you know so?" Nyx stood in her office packing fist-sized bursts into airtight containers. She had just enough time to repack her gear and head out to Kine's.

"I think I know," Khos said. "The one I wanted was a Chenjan doing black work. I thought this was him. It's not. This is a mercenary. He's got a similar birthmark. I had Juon look up his vitals in the directory of resident Chenjans. The one I wanted was worth about seventy. The one in the fridge is just some petty mercenary."

"The price for black work has gone up," Nyx said, and snorted. "Where did you find him?"

"At a bar in the Chenjan district. Working on some kind of deal. I took him when he came out the back."

"He have anything on him?"

"I didn't have time to check. I was being followed. That's why I dumped the head and stowed him in the trunk."

She hadn't checked the body either, when they dumped it at the keg before driving out to the botched bounty job. "Let's look, then."

There was a trapdoor in the hub-the gear and com room-in the back that led down to the freezer in the bas.e.m.e.nt. They pa.s.sed Taite, who was still working at hacking into Raine's com. Sweat beaded his brow. He was looking a bit shaky, and Nyx figured she'd tell Khos to get the kid some food. When he didn't eat on time, he pa.s.sed out, and the last thing she needed right now was a comatose com tech.

She and Khos went down into the bas.e.m.e.nt, and Nyx unlocked the fridge. The body was pushed up against the wall, alongside the head of a local magistrate whose sister had never paid them for the bounty she'd put on her. That particular bounty hadn't exactly been legal. Nyx wasn't so surprised the sister hadn't come to collect.

Nyx crouched by the body and pulled open the burnous. She checked the obvious pockets and seams first, finding three in notes and another buck in change. She opened up a bug box and found a lethargic locust. She handed that to Khos.

"Make sure Rhys gets that," she said.

Then she checked the waistband, found some garroting wire and some black papers. Looked like at least one of the contracts the mercenary was pursuing was a contract that ran boys out of Nasheen, probably to Tirhan or Heidia. Ras Tieg was under contract to send back draft dodgers. Nasheen's other neighbors weren't.

h.e.l.l of a thing to die for.

She handed the papers to Khos.

"You think he was part of the underground?" Khos asked, and Nyx heard something odd in his voice, something nervous. She wondered how many of his wh.o.r.es knew something about the underground. Most of the women who permitted themselves illegal pregnancies were wh.o.r.es. Pay a hard-up hedge witch and you could get your viability hex turned back on-everybody had it shut off at the breeding compounds when they were kids. It came with the inoculations.

"Looks like it," she said.

Nyx tugged out a purse from the front of the man's dhoti and opened it. Another ten in notes and loose change. They might be able to afford to feed Taite's sister this month after all.

Inside was another bug box. Nyx shook this one before she opened it, and heard a satisfying sloshing sound. He had a recording.

"Tell Rhys to warm that up and translate it."

She wiped over the obvious places on the body where he might have kept organics, hidden doc.u.ments, or internal transmission bulbs, but came up with nothing.

"Burn his clothes, cut him up, and feed him to the bugs," Nyx said. They had a composting bin on the other side of the bas.e.m.e.nt. "The last thing we need is a dead mercenary in our fridge."

Khos went out to get the butchering equipment.

Nyx climbed upstairs.

Taite was still in the hub working at the com. His dark hair was held clipped back with converted bug clips-the jawed ends from a couple of mud beetles. A stack of books sat at his elbow, half of them written in Ras Tiegan, and he kept an idol of one of the Ras Tiegan demiG.o.ds-he called them saints-named Balarus or Baldomus or something unp.r.o.nounceably Ras Tiegan like that. Old Baldo was the demiG.o.d of locksmiths, apparently.

"You hack Raine's system yet?" she asked.

"I need another half day," Taite said. He looked up from his work. "Are you voting this week?"

"What?" she said, letting the door drop. She wiped her hands on her trousers.

"The vote. Queen Zaynab's asking for a public vote about whether or not to draft half-breeds. She's bypa.s.sing the low council and going directly to the people. You remember?"

"Queen does what she wants no matter what we vote. This isn't a democracy."

Nyx walked toward her office. Taite followed her.

"It matters," he said. "If she thinks there's overwhelming disagreement with the policy, she'll back down. Things are hot right now between her, the bel dames, and the high council. The vote might actually sway her this time. Only you and Anneke are eligible, so I thought-"

"Why not have your boyfriend get his sister to do it?" Technically, Taite's boy-boy love affairs were illegal, but Nyx had seen enough boyish affection at the front that she didn't have much of a problem with it.

Taite flushed. "She already is. But I need-"

"Taite," Nyx said, getting back to her desk. She tried to find something to do with her hands. "You get drafted and die and your sister gets a pension. What's the difference if you die on the road with me or at the front?"

"My sister can barely make it on the eight I give her every month. And the baby's not here yet. You know how much a pension is?"

Him and his f.u.c.king pregnant sister. What was that fool woman doing, getting pregnant outside a breeding compound? And what fool man had she been cavorting with? Ras Tiegans had absolutely no control over the fecundity of their citizens. n.o.body-male or female-ever got bugged or permanently severed, and just like the Mhorians, none of them was legally compelled to give birth at a compound that would properly inoculate their children. It was like some kind of human dice game.

They're f.u.c.king refugees, she reminded herself, but some of that old anger stirred, her school-taught aversion for wasted reproduction. There were a lot better things Taite's sister could be doing with her womb. Single births thrown away on a kid who likely wouldn't live past five were a waste. h.e.l.l, Nyx could justify selling her own womb to gene pirates who'd take the zygotes out and build better zygotes for some compound somewhere, but spread her legs with the intent of getting pregnant? What the h.e.l.l for?

"Didn't it go up to seven?" Nyx said. She honestly had no idea what pensions were running these days.

"Four. Four a month for a half-breed woman and her illegal kid. Come on, Nyx. It's two minutes of your day."

"Anneke will vote. Tell her you'll buy her a big gun."

"Think about how much of your team you'd lose. You work with more men than any other hunter."

She packed the last of the bursts, and tied her bag closed. "I've gotta go," she said.

"If they draft half-breed men today, they'll take resident foreigners next," Taite said, and his tone got wheedling. She hated it when he did that. "They'll take Rhys."

"I'll be in Jameela for a few days," she said. "Transit's about a week turnaround. Rhys is in charge of the keg, but you'll need to back him up if there's security trouble. Khos has a transmission for Rhys to sort out. You'll need to help him. And finish hacking into Raine's com."

"You driving all the way to the coast?"

"Yeah. You'll need to take a local caravan if you have to get out." She dug into her pocket and pulled out three of the notes she'd p.a.w.ned off the body. "You get that to your sister. Tell her if we make a bag on this note I'll get her kid inoculated." Nasheen didn't inoculate foreign kids for free.

"You'll vote?"

"Don't push me."