Chapter One
The door slid open noiselessly, three triangular sections withdrawing into the wall. Burke Conlan stepped through, ducking slightly out of habit. Unfastened at the collar, his cotton shirt hung open at the throat. A thin track of perspiration darkened the cloth between his shoulder blades. Tan trousers and dark gray boots were spattered with a fine dust. With an eye to the woven rug at his feet, he resisted the urge to stamp his soles clean. A voice spoke briskly into the stillness.
"Sen Conlan, please be seated. Someone will be along momentarily."
Sen was an informal address used for those with unknown title or who possessed none. The use of it in his own case irritated Burke. He found a chair and sat down, impatiently running his fingers through the black hair curling along the nape of his neck. Flicking his collar into place, he eased back into the cushions, mouth curving into a grim smile. The scar marking his face from cheekbone to jaw line flared in a brief, angered red. He drummed his fingers together between his knees.
Waiting, Burke Conlan studied the etched patterns in the pale walls, his gray eyes disinterested as he listened, in a wariness of long habit, for any sounds which might indicate approach. Caution was a necessity in his line of work. Those who resorted to the hiring of a Drifter were in some manner or another a desperate lot. Then again, so was a Drifter. Or so the tales went.
The impulse sheathed in a detection-proof shield inside his left boot was a small weapon, easily accessible, and could fire a rapid series of pulses that were quite effective at close range. He shifted in his seat, thumbing his chin as he rotated his head in the direction of a narrow door opening opposite the one in which he'd entered. Calmly he leaned forward to rest his right hand over his left knee.
A female perhaps ten or twelve years his senior--it was hard to tell, even with desert dwellers--leaned out, signaling for him to follow. She had the high cheekbones and slightly slanted eyes of a Talian, the combination red and gold hair peculiar to many of their women. This one bore a lavender family mark in her elaborate coif. Burke stretched his long limbs and stood up, all his movements deliberate and designed to keep the woman's eyes occupied as he palmed the weapon.
He followed her down a barely lighted corridor to another trisected door at the far end, footsteps echoing. The woman's, he noted, hardly made a sound. She stopped him.
"One moment, Sen Conlan," she said. "The Revered Arad Sterne is within. When you hand over your weapon, you may go in."
Burke started. Too late he saw the tiny red light flashing on the thick decorative band surrounding her wrist. Drawing a quick breath through his nostrils, he gave the woman the impulse. She acknowledged his action with a slight nod of her head and a brief smile, almost seductive. He smiled in return.
"I'll get it back, won't I?"
"Of course. You may go in now."
"Thank you."
She nodded again, deactivated the door lock with her fingers in a sequenced pattern on the grid beside the door, then walked away down a side corridor. Burke watched her go, then turned his attention to the sliding panels and the illumination seeping through the widening cracks. He stepped back, waiting. The corridor filled with light, coloring the pale walls with an orange glow. Burke shielded his eyes, cursing under his breath. The light was keeping him from seeing what lay beyond the threshold. Suddenly, as if the source had been shut down, the light vanished.
Burke blinked, dropping his arm. Inside the open door he caught the movement of a lowering screen, recalling him to the time. The light had been that of Arias setting over the western sea beyond the dunes. It was customary for citizens of Talia to observe its descent.
"Good eventide, Burke Conlan. Sit down. Would you care for a drink?"
Burke stood on the carpet, searching casually in the dimming illumination for the man who had spoken. He found him leaning against a large white table, a tall man, nearly as tall as he, but more broadly built, perhaps a strong man once, now tending toward weight more than muscle beneath his robes. He wore his hair pulled high on top of his head as befitted his office, a silver band encircling the crown. The metal winked as he nodded.
"I am the Revered Arad Sterne," the man introduced himself, voice still pleasant, conversational. "Is it too dark in here for you? I'll change the lighting. Better?"
"Yes," Burke responded stiffly. "Thank you."
Already the man was putting him on edge. Finding a chair, he sat, studying the Revered openly. The man was wearing the official robe, but he wore it thrown open, revealing a white onesuit underneath, the fabric stretched taut over a stomach paunched with easy living. His fleshy face hinted at a handsomeness that might have been his half a lifetime ago, but the skin was darkened and creased now by the sun, making him look older than Burke suspected he was. The man's mouth was slack, disdainful, proud, his eyes shrewd and calculating.
Those eyes narrowed as Arad Sterne watched Conlan observing him. "Drink, Conlan?" he asked again with something of a command, a threat, in the repeated offer. It was apparent to Conlan that the man did not care for him, a Drifter. Didn't know him, didn't trust him, but he needed him. That was a dangerous combination.
"No, thanks," said Burke, stretching his long legs and crossing them at the ankle, arms folded loosely across his chest as if they had all the time in the world. "But don't let me stop you."
"I won't."
Sterne thumped a glass on top of the table, proceeding to pour liquid from a narrow, four-sided decanter. Amber fluid splashed over the rim of the glass onto his hand. Taking a steadying breath, he swiped his fingers across his sleeve, then lifted the glass to sip the beverage before turning to Burke with a cold smile.
"Straight to business, Conlan?"
Burke bared his teeth in an expression equally as cold. He did not know the Revered, although he had heard enough about him in the last day and a half to form an opinion. But even had he not, he had always been one for first impressions and instinct, and both were sending out alarms.
"Why not?" he agreed.
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