The Icarus Twin by Timothy Zahn

Author:Timothy Zahn
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Crime & Mystery, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Action & Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9781982193058
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2023-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

South Joapa was the regional capital of Gremon’s Midland Township, as well as being the largest city in an otherwise rural and small-town part of the planet. The Roastmeat Bar was near the center of town, in an area that Cole’s research laid out as one part government workers, one part government influencers and hoping-to-be influencers, and three parts small-business types cashing in on the presence of groups one and two. Seven o’clock on a Thursday evening was apparently the ideal time to find all three groups running at full bore as the government folks looked for one last chance to indulge themselves before heading out for their three-day weekend, and the influencers and restauranteurs stood eagerly by to provide the necessary indulgements.

I wondered if we might also find some kind of festival going on, as we had on New Kyiv, just to make things louder and more chaotic. But nothing had shown up on Cole’s calendar listings. Either Dent had missed a bet or else there just wasn’t anything interesting happening in the area right now.

Of course, any large mix of people, money, and liquor also attracted thieves, pickpockets, and outright armed robbers. That was the thought uppermost in my mind as I pulled open the Roastmeat’s decorated front door and walked into the dim lighting, buzzing conversation, and alcohol-scented atmosphere. Thieves and robbers; and with my main plasmic in police holding on New Kyiv, my backup weapon with Varsi’s people on Marjolaine, and my backup-backup in Gaheen’s office on Huihuang, all I had were Floyd’s blast ribbon, my flashlight, my info pad, and my phone. Clearly, I needed to invest in a backup-backup-backup.

My phone, especially, I didn’t want to lose, given that it was now very much a one-of-a-kind device. Floyd had kept it locked away with our other equipment until we reached Gremon, but Ixil had worked up a specialized plug-in, delivered by Pax a few hours before our arrival, with some exotic programming that I’d now installed into the phone’s location interface.

Unfortunately, we hadn’t had a chance to test it, which meant we would have to do this without rehearsal. Hopefully, Dent would be willing to cooperate.

Hopefully, he also wouldn’t shoot me on sight.

It was still early evening, but the place was already pretty crowded. Most of the tables seemed to be occupied, though not necessarily to full capacity: a lot of couples were sitting at four-person tables, while several singles had laid claim to two-seaters. Floyd, Cole, and Mottola were among the latter group of table hogs, seated at widely spaced positions that together gave them interlocking views of the room, the three official exits, and the bar with its less official doorways into the back. For a minute I thought Fulbright had missed the party, then spotted him sitting at yet another two-seater beside one of the side doors, being even more unobtrusive than the others.

Which made sense. Floyd and his buddies were senior enforcers, their days in the field presumably far behind them.

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