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  She straightened at that. A spark lit in her eyes. "On Comet Fall I can fix the genes. For the Chain—I just need to meet the right person."

  Jack hesitated, then let his better nature out. “Going with me will violate your parole. How long before Disco will remove the Chain and restore your genes?”

  “Five years . . . I can’t wait that long. I can’t.”

  "Then maybe we'd better hurry, in case your friends decide to take down the gate." He held out a blue uniform jacket with his company logo on it, like the one he was wearing.

  She stood up and reached for the jacket. "Right. Let's go."

  He had, among his staff, three tall blonde women. In the company jacket, Arrow didn't get a second glance as he barely slowed before being waved through.

  They worry more about the people arriving, and what they might bring with them. They don’t care who leaves.

  He turned left, then right, drove two kilometers, out beyond the built up area, and turned into his compound. He only kept a dozen people here. No need for more. All his jobs were across on other worlds. Generally short contracts protecting scientists or farmers from predators. Occasionally from Natives, which could get a bit dicey. Had to use stunners. No matter how many of your buddies they'd killed. Not that that had ever happened to his people . . . yet.

  "We'll leave at midnight, on horseback. Everyone knows that only the Fallen ride horses, they'll never give you a second look."

  The witch paced around the courtyard, glanced over, up and spotted the black rock of Disco headquarters across the empty meadow. She scuttled back to where she couldn't see it. Even her rich tan complexion could pale. "Laugh all you want. When Xen Wolfson showed up all we could do was run. Not that I got very far. It didn't even count as a fight."

  "Come on inside. We'll have dinner and you can tell me about where on Comet Fall we need to go."

  "If one of the Gang opened the Gate, it's probably close to where we need to go. There's a bunch of . . . Farmers. Worthless bums, actually. But they trade with some people from Rip Crossing, and the God of Thieves has brought them some interesting things."

  "Things?"

  "Magic potions." Her voice sharpened. "I recognized them. They were my mother's. The God stole them from whoever had found them after my mother moved to the Island. Now Aunt Susto has them. And in among them will be what I need. And that family might be able to supply the other need I have."

  Grigor came in and set the table quickly, returned with two plates, then disappeared. He knew Jack wouldn't be drinking, nor want his guest tipsy. Arrow sat and poked at the food, finally eating perhaps half of it. Jack polished his off, and a slice of cake when Grigor brought that in. The witch ate the cake slowly. Savoring the tiny bites.

  Note to self: Keep sweets on hand for the witch.

  "I've got some paperwork I might as well clear up while we're waiting. There's a bedroom through there, if you'd like to get some sleep. Or a shower, and clean clothes."

  "Thank you." She walked out, and he heard the lock click behind her.

  Right. Paperwork.

  At midnight Carl had the horses ready. Two nice, easy going mares. Not that he expected Arrow to have trouble riding, coming from that culture. His eyes narrowed as she scrambled awkwardly aboard. Then again, maybe she was a city girl, rode around in carriages and so forth.

  They plodded out to the Plaza, and then across and up the diagonal road to the northwest. "Disco’s got a team of scientists who use this hill for astronomy. Then they take their equipment to other worlds and make comparisons. So Disco put a series of Gates out here for them."

  He turned the chestnut and thumped her sides when she thought about balking. The bay followed without a fuss. "I came out when it was winter here, and followed the tracks. They're getting careless though. Even in summer the ruts are showing through."

  This world was also dark. And nearly as quiet as the witch. She frowned at faint lights down the hill.

  “There aren’t any hotels on Embassy, so people who come here regularly—like news reporters—have started camping all over out here. I’ve always wondered how many have gotten lost, or just decided to not come back.”

  She looked around, but said nothing. Followed him through two more gates. The third one was out onto hard rock. Bright sunshine pouring down from overhead.

  "I lucked out on this one. Spotted some horse manure, kept going this direction and found this gate. Six months later, again in the snow, I followed tracks the other direction, to more Empty Worlds. So I came back to see why there was a second gate, and found civilization. Comet Fall, Kingdom of the West. I started thinking about how to find magicians who weren't working for the established government. And that is when I thought of you." He turned the mare through the gate.

  This gate was on a low ridge covered with small trees and brush. Arrow looked around and smiled for the first time. "Perfect. I know right where I am, and right where I need to go. Come this way."

  On the west side of the ridge, a stone paved road led north to a small town. Arrow turned the other way. They hit another road running to the southeast. Arrow rode up the rutted track and over a low spot in a long high ridge. A huddle of houses down on the fertile ground between the rocky ridges didn't look particularly prosperous. But someone was up on a ladder in an orchard and he could smell baking bread.

  Arrow stopped at the first house, and led the way in without knocking. "This is sort of like what you'd call a pawn shop."

  Junk shop. "Yeah?" Jack scanned the dusty crowded room. Makeshift shelves held everything from cut crystal vases to crude clay pottery. Cheap jewelry, rusty tools. It looked like a loud sneeze would topple everything.

  "Yeah. She used to have a crate full of little bottles. I can't imagine she's moved them anywhere. Ah!" The woman pulled a crate out from under a rickety table. "Just like I remember." She pulled out an ugly clay mug. "Drink this, you'll like the results." She sat down and started reading the faded labels on the glass jars.

  Jack retreated, with the ugly clay jar. It was the size of a small apple, thick walled.

  "So, you want t'hex somebody, eh?"

  He spun around. A woman had snuck in without him hearing a thing. She was pretty, curvaceous. Her eyes were cold and hungry. Arrow leaned out and nodded. "Aunt Susto. You look good."

  "Oh, back t'take your chances with tose, are you? I've got some new ones wit good labels."

  "Got any for magic?" Arrow sounded sarcastic.

  "Oh, now, you don't believe in tat nonsense, do you?" Aunt Susto jiggled, and smiled to see where Jack's eyes went. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Arrow pour the contents of a bottle down her throat.

  Jack spotted more movement. A kid, teenager at any rate.

  Arrow looked him over and smiled. "We're going to be here for a bit. Is there someplace I could put the horses?"

  Susto nodded. "Bari, you take tem on out t't'barn."

  Arrow walked out with him. Jack hesitated.

  "How 'bout a cure f'baldness?"

  His head snapped back around to Susto.

  "Ten you wouldn't have to cut yur hair so short, trying t'hide tat little bare spot."

  She had a couple of goblets and a bottle of wine. Jack eyed the rows of bottles behind her. He walked around the table and took down the baldness cure. He took a swallow of the wine Susto handed him. It hit his stomach and blasted his inhibitions to bits. After he managed to get his hands and mouth off the woman, he added the baldness cure to the cup and swallowed.

  "This is great stuff. Hey! Broad shoulders," he reached for another bottle.

  "How about tis one for a bigger pizzle."

  "It says red hair."

  "I gotta learn t'read one of these days."

  She dragged him into the back bedroom for a romp, then they hit the shelves again, wound up back in bed. More samples. The floor was closer than the bed.

  At some point he realized it was night, and sometime later he wondered where Arrow was. And then he drai
ned the "Hex" bottle and passed out.

  "Wake up."

  Jack opened bleary eyes and blinked at the witch. His head didn't hurt.

  "Drink this, or it will start again."

  It was water, cool fresh water. He drank it all and looked for more.

  "I filled the canteens. We need to go someplace where there are more people. I need another virgin. There were protections on the chain, just Bari wasn't enough to break it."

  He blanched, picturing that boy's body lying in the barn.

  She didn't say anything about sacrificing virgins!

  He found his clothes, averting his eyes from the snoring form in the back bedroom. He eyed the bottle of wine.

  That's got to be the one everyone talks about.

  He corked it and staggered out to the porch, checked the cinch on the chestnut mare, stuck the bottle in the saddle bags and mounted. The mare was prancing and excitable this morning. She neighed, and a deeper neigh answered from beyond a line of trees.

  "Probably some stallion over there."

  Arrow snorted. "The young one in the barn was more useful. Would have been better if I could have done it myself."

  "What?"

  "When a man has sex for the first time, there's a burst of energy. Very good for force breaking things like this Chain spell. If I'd realized there were protections, I'd have bred the mares first, tried to capture that colt's virgin flash. Pity neither mare was virgin. Well, I've got the power genes back, so I can work around the Chain just a tiny bit. And all I need to get totally free are some randy virgin teenage boys. So let's go find them."

  It sounds like she doesn't out-and-out kill them. But you've got to wonder about the life expectancy of men in this culture.

  He glanced back, but Susto's hovel was out of sight. She probably had a graveyard of worn out sex slaves in the back.

  "I work on a planet, guarding a bunch of farmers. Shall we see how many of their sons fit your criteria?"

  "Yes. Let’s do that." She led the way confidently off the path and through the trees to the gate.

  Jack let his horse follow while he pulled out the canteen and took a long swallow. His scalp itched.

  ***

  The Granite Peak contract was an albatross around his neck. Eleven years ago, as Earth slowly rediscovered its marooned colonies, it had found Granite Peak, the world where it had all started.

  Why the hell, fifty-seven years ago when they first found a world already colonized by a dimension traveling civilization, they'd turned it into a war was anyone's guess. They’d taken the Oner’s towns, but the big prize—the One World itself—had escaped them. The Oners had closed their gate in the face of their own fleeing Colonists, rather than risk the Earth’s Army getting through the gate.

  Then the Earth’s gate had been damaged, too.

  So the Earth had rediscovered their lost colony just a few weeks before the Oners also found the world again.

  Restarting the pissing contest was clear evidence of insanity. They'd wrangled the situation down to a stalemate, and there it had sat for over eleven years.

  Jack had been in a financial bind, and had leaped at the opportunity when Earth decided to privatize the protection of their colonists from the brutal natives and genocidal One Worlders.

  The job had proven to be a problem of an entirely different sort.

  It was boring.

  The Oners were more than a thousand miles away. The Nomads were a thin scattering of herders and hunters. The main difficulty had been the imported miners. Natives of several different worlds, mostly men, next best thing to slave laborers, now they were out of work as the mines petered out and the companies resisted government pressure to throw money into a disputed world.

  Back in the early days of the colony, the miners had taken to hunting, but at first the only women around were the whores in town. Mostly Natives from Earth’s Labor Worlds who’d sort of been unofficially imported to keep all the single men happy. So the miners hadn't gone very far away. Over time they'd developed a decent barter economy, eventually trading with the Nomads. Mainly for the Nomads' daughters. Many of them had started farming, moving to unclaimed land at the fringes of the Earth settlements.

  Then the gates back to Earth stopped happening.

  When they’d realized they were marooned, the miners had declared themselves the equals of the marooned Earth farmers, and turned a blind eye to the raids by the scattered Oners, traded with them. Hell, they’d even married them.

  When Earth returned in force, most of the miners’ farms had been confiscated and handed over to new colonists from Earth. The miners were put back to work in the mines, at least the ones who hadn’t run off with the Nomads or the Oners.

  Thus creating what was a guaranteed problem.

  But dealing with drunken belligerent miners was hardly a fascinating job for a couple thousand bored soldiers, mostly male. Which created another guaranteed problem.

  Hiring women for every possible position, firing the worst trouble makers, and persuading Earth to make the world a family posting had eventually settled everything down to, well, routine boredom.

  For eight years. His troops had had children who were talking about going back to Earth for college, f'crsak.

  The farmers already were.

  The poor kids were going to be in for culture shock, but right now, Granite Peak was probably the perfect place to take a woman who wanted virgin boys.

  And now Granite Peak had become a hot potato. The Nomads had somehow gotten to Disco and asked for help. Hopefully the situation would stay under control for long enough for Arrow to regain the abilities they needed.

  So I can . . . What? Rebel? Or when the Oners do something, maybe I can hide my involvement with Arrow and the Oners and be the Big Hero who saves the colony?

  Who the Fuck are you kidding Jack? You are on the brink of treason, aiding and abetting the enemy.

  Why? Because you’re going to lose this reliable, but boring and barely profitable, contract?

  Because you were over-extended last month and desperately in need of a cash infusion? Thought you were going to have to choose between making payroll or paying taxes? So why more risk, now?

  You’ve got the company finances back under control.

  Can you possibly be so bored you’ll take this risk for the possibility of lots of money? You didn’t like it when you could see the company teetering on insolvency. Or do you think the Oners will isolate the whole world and you’ll somehow come out on top?

  He looked around the room. Adequate. If I want grandeur, why not sell the company? Or just build something larger and flashier.

  He pictured himself in something grand.

  And still bored, restless, dissatisfied.

  Power? I could run for office . . . somewhere.

  Oh to hell with that. Let’s go have some fun and risk it all!

  It was late evening when they rode back into Embassy. They turned the horses back over to Carl and climbed into his gyp.

  Jack squinted against his hangover headache and drove back through the gate he’d used . . . a day ago?

  "This is Granite Peak. I'll put you on the roster as some sort of clerk. We patrol to the west, between our farmers and the One World colonists. I have roughly two thousand people here, about two thirds of my total employees. Some of them are married to each other, some to outsiders. Plenty of teenagers and kids around. Three community schools out nearer the farms, and two in town here. Then a big college prep boarding school here."

  "You don't need to make it sound like I'm going to make career out of stalking children. One or two should be enough."

  "Right. Well, this is Camp Granite. Built by the Earth Army when they were kicking the Oners off the world. Or trying to, at any rate. The Oners closed their gate before our Army could get through it.

  “And before all their colonists could get to it. They took to the mountains and raided our settlements—well, their settlements that we'd taken over. Then Disco s
abotaged our powered gate rings and the Earthers here were marooned. The Oners retook their towns and chased us back to our side of the plains.

  “Our gate was repaired, and we found our people here. The Army came and was moving west again, when the Oners reestablished their gate. There were a few encounters, and then everyone settled down to wait each other out. And then, Disco showed up." Jack shrugged. "Suddenly Granite Peak was a side issue instead of the most important battleground in the history of the Multiverse."

  Arrow snickered. "Bet that didn't sit well with some people."

  "Yeah. Well, anyway, the army went away and the colonization company hired us to guard the place." He waved at the base. "We don't need this much space any more, but part of the contract is to keep it in working order. We have a few horses, but mostly use gyps and aircars." He steered them over to the single women's barracks. A woman walked out and saluted while they were dismounting.

  "Colonel Hemmingway?"

  "Sergeant Gallup. This is Arrow Albdaut. Find her a bed, then I'll take her over to HQ and let Captain Farris throw a fit."

  He stayed out with the horses while Arrow took her saddle bags inside. She was back in a moment. "I don't know how well I'll fit in. She called me a native, as if it was an insult."

  "To an Earther it is an insult. Just break that Chain, then you can slowly start showing them your abilities. Act innocent. 'Oh, didn't you know I'm from Comet Fall?' They'll come around."

  She looked dubious, but followed him back to HQ. He took his own saddlebags and turned the mares over to a private to take to the barns. Arrow followed him inside.

  Captain Farris was in charge of everything on the world that didn't involve accounting. He looked world-weary and cynical when Jack introduced Arrow.

  Arrow rattled off the training she’d gotten in prison—not mentioning the prison part—and Ferris put her in accounting and sent her off with his secretary.

  "Sets a bad example, Colonel."

  "For your ears only, Nate. She's from Comet Fall. One of that criminal gang. She was only eighteen when they arrested her, so they let her out early. She has enough training that with practice she may be able to make Corridors and Gates."