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  "Not that I disagree, but you don't even know me," Rose said, laying down his spoon and leaning back in the chair. "Besides, you've gotten this far without me."

  "I know you, Mister Rose. I know you called nearly every 'Mech shop in Solaris looking for a heavy or assault class 'Mech in working condition." Warwick smiled briefly. "I know you didn't find one. I also know there's nobody matching your physical description who has a service record with any of the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere. Of course, that doesn't necessarily tell me that you've never served any of the five House rulers, just that the record is buried deeper than normal. How's that for information?" Warwick's too-sincere smile returned.

  "Not bad, but it still doesn't explain why you want me." Rose didn't like the way the conversation was going, or how much Warwick already knew, or what he knew he did not know, about him.

  "You obviously want a 'Mech, and you're willing to pay for one. With the Clan invasion, prices are high and quality 'Mechs are, shall we say, scarce. Since you went looking for a 'Mech before a stable, I'd have to say you're more interested in the equipment than money or fame." Rose sat in silence. Warwick was good and he must obviously have an efficient network to gather this much information in so short a time.

  "In short, you want a 'Mech, and you're willing to fight to get one. Now, the only question that remains is what do I want in return for helping you?" Rose smiled. Warwick didn't appear to need any encouragement to continue talking and it looked as though the next course would not be served until the conversation was finished.

  "I need someone who can guarantee me victory in the final match. The fact that I can't turn up any information on you prior to your arrival on Solaris leads me to believe you are either very, very good or else, only a Mech-Warrior wannabe. In either case, I can discover the truth in short order. I'm prepared to wager that you fall into the first category.

  "What can I offer in return? No need to ask, I can see the question written on your face. In exchange for your services, I'm prepared to offer you the 'Mech you pilot in the final match, the price of the 'Mech to be determined by an independent appraiser after the match."

  "And the 'Mech?"

  "I'm not prepared to divulge the actual type until we're further along in our negotiations. However, I can tell you it is an assault class machine, one that was refitted in the Federated Commonwealth." Warwick was smug. He had presented Rose with a neat answer to his problem, and the entire offer came gift-wrapped. "What do you say, Mister Rose? You're not likely to receive a better offer."

  "I say no." Rose stood, forcing the chair out in the same motion. Warwick's eyes went wide as if the only possible answer to his proposal could be an unqualified yes. Rose wiped the corner of his mouth for emphasis and threw the linen into his chowder. "I haven't been long on Solaris, Warwick, but I know you. I know men like you. I'm not desperate enough to cast my lot with you, even if you seem to have all the answers. Thanks for the hospitality, but I'll see myself out now."

  "Rose, don't be a fool!"

  "I may be a fool," Rose shot back, "but you're a chopped-off little runt with delusions of grandeur." Warwick was out of his chair in an instant, overturning it onto the hardwood floor. He slammed one hand on the table and pointed the other at Rose, shouting something incoherent at the same time. He was the picture of righteous fury, except that instead of striking the oak table, Warwick hit the edge of his bowl, flipping chowder across the room and burning his hand with still-hot liquid. His roar of fury quickly turned into a yelp of pain. At the sound, the door behind Warwick flew open and two men rushed into the room.

  The doorman, who entered first, went immediately to his master and took the injured hand in a gentle but firm grip. The second man was much smaller, with the body of a wrestler. His small head was perched atop a thick bull neck and broad shoulders. He smoothly stepped over Warwick's chair and prepared to seize Rose.

  "No!" Halted in mid-stride, the wrestler tried to look at Warwick and Rose at the same time. Rose, despite the volume of Warwick's command and the obvious authority in his voice, never took his eyes off his opponent. "Scoggins, show Mister Rose to the gate, then return to this room at once."

  "Rose, I swear you haven't heard the last of this. You want a 'Mech so bad you can taste it, and I could have given it to you on a platter. But not now. Nobody's going to sell to you, Rose—not after what I tell them—nobody."

  Rose started to turn on Warwick, then saw Scoggins reach into his jacket. By the look in the man's eye Rose knew he was outgunned. He was just waiting for Rose to make a move on Warwick, but Rose pulled up short.

  "No man mocks me in my own home, Jeremiah Rose. No man!"

  "I'll see you later then, Warwick. Just be sure to bring a lot of friends." As Rose walked out of the room under Scoggins' watchful eye, he left Warwick thrusting his hand into a pitcher of water, teeth clenched, eyes ablaze.

  8

  Solaris City, Solaris

  3 August 3054

  "Rose, I didn't expect to see you back here." Rose smiled at Dillon and wondered how anyone could keep his sanity constantly surrounded by trivids of assault 'Mechs locked in battle. Rose hadn't noticed it the night before, but Dillon seemed oblivious to the racket. He simply observed the patrons of The Pelican intently while constantly smiling at some private joke.

  "Evening, Dillon. Does that mean you didn't think I'd find Brachall, or that I'd be so grateful I'd leave you alone?" Dillon's smile grew even wider as he began wiping at the bar. It was obviously a nervous reaction. Not that the bar wouldn't benefit from a little care, but Dillon was studying the plastic just a little too hard. Rose had meant the comment as a simple conversation-starter, but it seemed that Dillon had a lot on his mind.

  "Feeling guilty about something?" Dillon looked up and smiled, but still didn't speak. Rose was starting to become annoyed when the bartender moved to the beer rack and pulled out a Conner's Dark.

  "I can't really say I feel guilty, but if I'd known where Brachall was going to send you, I'd have simply played dumb. I've been told I'm very convincing."

  "You know where I've been?" Rose took a long pull from the brown bottle and tried to savor the taste. Evidently dark beer was an acquired taste. Dillon hadn't asked for money yet, so maybe now was the time to acquire it. Even after a second mouthful Dillon hadn't moved from the spot, or given an indication that he was planning to. Rose looked around the bar and wondered if the comatose barman would be missed, but things were still slow at The Pelican. It looked like some Mech-Warrior groupies had arrived early to mark their territory, but the available crew seemed to be coping with the clients very well. Rose continued to drink.

  "Yeah, I know where you've been. Half the Black Hills knows where you've been." Rose raised an eyebrow interrogatively as he set down the empty bottle. Dillon seemed to be caught in some inner struggle. He walked silently back to the beer rack and extracted another Conner's.

  "Did you accept?"

  "Accept what?" Rose sipped his beer. His stomach rumbled in slight protest. A stomach filled with half a bowl of chowder was definitely not the location for mixing in alcohol. He smiled innocently and reached for a bowl of pork skins.

  "His offer. Warwick must have made some kind of offer. I mean you were invited to his house, after all." Rose looked up from the bowl of disappearing pork skins and was genuinely surprised to see that Dillon was upset. Very upset apparently.

  "I take it people don't get invited to the Warwick estate just any evening?" Rose looked around for another snack bowl while taking another sip of his beer. His stomach was still rumbling, but not as seriously as before.

  "No, they don't. Most people get 'invited' to his mansion on the south edge of town. What do you have that he wants?" Dillon's eyes were locked with Rose's. He obviously expected an answer, which made Rose even less than normally inclined to give him one. Dillon had been a source of information, however. Maybe he shouldn't antagonize the man just for fun.

  "Well, I didn't exactly
get invited to his home, at least not initially. I was scheduled to meet him at the stables, but as I was walking out the door I got a call from a Mister Butrix."

  "Yeah, that's Warwick's doorman slash butler slash bodyguard."

  Rose nodded at the information. It was always good to have a name to go with the face. Down the bar he spotted another snack bowl just as his fingers were hitting the last of the pork skins. Two groupies were rummaging through it, spearing the snacks with long fingernails.

  "Got any more?" Rose tipped the empty bowl of pork skins toward Dillon, who nodded and reached under the bar for a plastic sack.

  "I caught a cab at the hotel," Rose told him, "but the driver wouldn't take me to the gate. I got out about half a block away and walked the rest of the way.

  "Warwick's sure got a nice place."

  Dillon, who had almost finished refilling the bowl, nodded appreciatively. "It's nice, all right. The previous owners, now they had class. A duke, or maybe it was a baron. Some sort of Steiner nobility. That fellow sure had the blue blood."

  "But not Warwick."

  "No, Warwick is definitely a commoner made good. No class." Rose liked listening to Dillon more than talking to him. Despite the barman's earlier anger, Dillon seemed more at ease now, chattering almost cheerily, urged on with only occasional comments from Rose.

  "Any idea where he got his money?" Dillon nodded, but was called away from the conversation by a pair of fans. Rose used the time to take a better look around the bar, which was filling up fast. The first of the evening's matches was due to start in less than an hour and most of the good tables were taken. Now that he was better attuned to it, he noticed that both the noise level and the air of excitement had begun to build. Rose had finished his second bottle when Dillon returned.

  "Ready for another?"

  "No. How about some citrus juice?"

  "All we got is apple, but it's not bad." Dillon had to fill two other orders before he got back to Rose with the juice. "As I hear the tale, Warwick was some kind of merchant. He happened to be in the right place at the right time with God-only-knows-what during the first few months of the Clan invasion. He made a killing, folded his tent, and came to the game world, just like every other loser, fool, and shark."

  "You don't say?"

  "Sorry about that. Just a little bitterness spilling out. I am definitely a fool."

  "Which makes me . . . ?"

  "Either a loser or shark."

  Rose considered the analysis and wondered if the barman was really that perceptive. He had indeed come to Solaris as a shark, but things had not gone his way for the last two days.

  "So, what about Warwick's offer?" Dillon pressed.

  Rose studied the other man for a moment, then decided to tell the truth. "I had to turn it down," he said. Dillon let out a long breath that Rose hadn't realized he'd been holding. "You ever meet a guy who you knew at first glance that you were going to hate?" Dillon almost nodded, but it was his eyes that said yes. "That was Warwick. The fact that I made it through half a bowl of what was surely the best chowder I've ever tasted is testimony to the cook and my patience."

  "I'm glad to hear that. You seemed like a good guy when you came in here the other night. I'd have hated to see you working for that man."

  "Well, I need the work, but I could never answer to a man like Warwick." Rose looked up from his juice to see Dillon smiling from ear to ear. The grin was infectious, even without the beers.

  "Cheer up," the young barman told him. "Who knows what's around the corner? Hey, there's someone you'd like to meet and you don't even know it.

  "Jaryl, over here!" Rose had started to half turn around when he felt someone slam into him, driving his ribs into the bar and the air from his lungs.

  "Dillon! How about a pair of shooters?" Rose gasped for breath and tried to look up at Dillon's friend, nearly gasping again when he saw her.

  Jaryl was dressed in black and red leather from head to toe. Her red pants, cut low to flatter rounded hips and a firm stomach, were tucked into the tops of her knee-high black boots. She wore a black leather jacket with a red skull on the arm nearest Rose. He tried to get a look at her face, but a tangle of black hair obscured his view.

  "Jaryl, you know I can't drink on duty, at least not this early in the evening. Besides, you almost incapacitated the man I wanted you to meet."

  Rose was still partially bent over the bar when Jaryl lifted one arm to brush the hair from her face. Perhaps the hair in her eyes obscured the fact that she was too close to Rose to bring her hand up that fast. Her left arm caught him under the chin, slamming his teeth together and catching the tip of his tongue between the incisors. Rose closed his eyes in pain, then started when he opened them again and got a look at the woman who'd just whacked him.

  He guessed her age at probably close to thirty, but no more. She was beautiful, her skin smooth and pale with a hint of laugh lines at the corners of her mouth. She was every cadet's dream, except for a black patch covering her right eye.

  Rose looked into the other eye, which was green, and saw the challenge, fear, joy, and fire in the woman. The outfit, the devil-may-care attitude were all part of what she had become; a beautiful woman whose beauty had been forever ravaged. Rose smiled as warmly as he was physically able, coughing slightly as his lungs reinflated.

  "I can't be altogether sure at this moment, Jaryl, but I believe I will be forever grateful to Dillon for introducing us." He held out his right hand and tried, almost successfully, to suppress a cough. Jaryl eyed the hand warily before taking it in a firm grasp.

  "Who've we got here, Dillon? I don't believe I've ever seen him before."

  "Mister Rose. You've heard of Mister Rose?" Jaryl nodded slightly and fixed Rose with an icy stare; Though she had stopped shaking his hand, she did not let go. Rose could feel her body tense, but didn't understand why. He returned her stare, but with warmth.

  "Mister Rose has decided he doesn't like stablemaster Desmond Warwick and has but recently returned to the company of decent people." Jaryl relaxed slightly and allowed a ghost of her previous smile to return.

  "Jeremiah, to my friends," Rose said.

  "Jaryl here is the fifth pilot with Carstairs Stables. Her team is scheduled to go against Warwick in the upcoming lance final."

  "Dillon, don't be so melodramatic. What he means to say is that I'm almost good enough to be on the team, but unless somebody slips in the shower, I'm in the audience like everybody else."

  Her smile returned. "So, if Dillon won't drink, how about you? Ever had a Pelican Shooter?" Dillon grimaced and turned away from the bar as if afraid to see what was coming next.

  "Pelican Shooter?"

  "Just a harmless little drink," Jaryl said. Rose looked into her one green eye and tried to gauge just how harmless the brew might actually be. "Come on. It's on me. Dillon, set 'em up." Rose was far from convinced, but decided not to argue with Jaryl.

  "Two Pelican Shooters on the way." Rose craned his neck to see, but whatever the barman was concocting was obscured from view. Several patrons turned to Rose and Jaryl. Most looked amused, but Rose thought he could see real concern on the faces of others. Jaryl obviously loved every bit of the attention.

  "Just what are these things?" he demanded jokingly. Jaryl only smiled in reply.

  "Well, if you won't answer that one, perhaps you'll answer another." Her smile indicated that she might, so Rose continued. "Why buy me a drink? And by the way, how do you know who I am?"

  "Well," she said, looking over at Dillon, who was apparently in the final stages of mixing, "I'm buying you a drink because I know who you are and I know who you are because I make it my business to know anybody I might have to kill." Rose's entire body went tense for a moment, but Jaryl was no longer looking at him. Around them, he heard the crowd gasp as Dillon brought two tumblers on a tray held high above his head.

  "Two Pelican Shooters," he declared in a loud voice.

  Around the bar other patrons bega
n to crowd around Rose and Jaryl. Rose was beginning to question the wisdom of accepting "a harmless little drink." As Dillon set the tray on the bar with a flourish, Rose knew he'd been had.

  Before them were two tumblers, each half-filled with a brownish liquid Rose only guessed was alcohol. Celery, or onions, or something equally undesirable floated on top. As the crowd gathered closer, Dillon reached onto the tray and grabbed a sardine with each hand. He waved each fish above his head, prompting the crowd to a cheer.

  "With every Pelican Shooter comes a story," he said, producing a murmur of general approval from the crowd. "The pelican is a survivor, just like the inhabitants of Solaris. One day, a, pelican was gliding over the river, just north of this bar, looking for something to eat."

  People gathered around and began to smile. Obviously, a real pelican had never flown anywhere near Solaris, but like any inside joke, it did not need to be funny for the listeners to share in the camaraderie. "Pollution was bad in those days, the debris and sewage so awful that you could almost walk across the river from bank to bank. But the pelican was determined. They even tell that the river caught fire, but the pelican didn't give up.

  "Suddenly, through the smoke and flame, the pelican spied a fish, but at the same moment another pelican approached, its sights set on the very same fish."

  Dillon dropped one sardine into each drink and placed the tumblers in front of Rose and Jaryl. "The two mighty birds began a race to the fish." Dillon pulled a small lighter from out of an apron pocket and leaned close to Rose. "No fair blowing on your drink first, Mister Rose. To the winner, a meal, but to the loser . . . ?" Dillon flicked the lighter and passed the flame over each drink, which began to burn with the clear flame of an alcohol fire.

  As Dillon backed away Jaryl leaned forward and began fanning the flame with her hand. The crowd meanwhile had begun to chant, setting up a current of air that nearly put out the diminishing flame. Rose jumped forward and began to fan his drink too, but Jaryl's head-start proved the difference. Her flame went out first. As she was raising her glass to drink, Rose had just managed to extinguish the flame in his. As he grabbed for the glass, the crowd roared, urging him on.