Galactic Bounty by William C. Dietz Page A

turned, aimed her needle gun and fired. He felt the sting as the dart went into his thigh. A wave of nausea rolled over him. Drugs . . . she'd used drugs. He felt betrayed. He searched for sorrow in her eyes as he sank into dark oblivion, but found none.
    He surfaced briefly at times before again sinking back into unconsciousness. During those moments he gathered distant impressions. First of being carried by rough hands and then of being thrown into some kind of vehicle, followed by a long jolting ride. Later he thought he remembered a snatch of conversation.
    "I say let's waste 'im, I don't fancy cartin' 'im all over town."
    "No, damn it. She said ta put him in parkin' orbit for a while . . . gently like. Ya mark me, lad, she'll put ya ta the local an' I mean smart like . . .."
    Somehow listening was more effort than McCade could bear, and he slipped back into the restful darkness.
    He awoke with a splitting headache. The simple action of turning his head sent a lance of pain through his neck. His left thigh hurt too, where the dart had penetrated muscle and then dissolved. He was lying on a cold stone floor. High on the wall across from him a dim street light cast its feeble glow through a barred window. Other prisoners surrounded him. Some lay on the floor, as he did. Others slept in makeshift beds. In a far corner a man quietly wept. The smell of vomit and urine was overpowering. Water dripped steadily from the ceiling and fell a drop at a time into the puddle beside his head.
    With tremendous effort he tried to sit up. He was rewarded with an explosion of pain forcing him back against the cold damp floor. He lay there a long time, thinking. Obviously Laurie worked for someone besides Naval Intelligence, and had for a long time. The question was who? The Il Ronn? No, that didn't make sense. The Treel disguised as Votava had acted as their agent. So who was left? The pirates, that's who.
    Suddenly the assassins made sense. They'd bothered him from the start. Bridger and Votava—strike that—the Treel hadn't sent them. They'd used mercenaries. No, someone else sent the assassins. Someone who knew the naval base and could help them get in. Someone who could tell them where McCade would be and when. Someone like Laurie. But why? He might never learn Laurie's personal motives, but those of her employers were obvious. The pirates had found out somehow about Bridger's breakthrough.
    He remembered his computer research into Bridger's activities and his conclusion that Bridger had broken the secret of his "Directory." In spite of the computer's assurances that no one else had asked for the same information, obviously they had. Laurie must have done the same research and had reached the same conclusions. At that point either she or her superiors decided that the last thing they wanted was for McCade to catch Bridger and turn him and his secret over to Naval Intelligence. They wanted Bridger and the knowledge locked away in his head just as the Il Ronn obviously did. So, Laurie hired assassins to kill McCade, while her fellow pirates no doubt launched an intensive effort to find Bridger themselves.
    But the assassins failed. So Laurie decided to use him instead of killing him. Let him lead her to Bridger. And that's exactly what he'd done. Suddenly he wanted to get his hands on her, to hurt her, to punish her for his own stupid vulnerability. And yet he knew that given the chance he still wouldn't do any of those things.
    So far things hadn't gone well. McCade smiled grimly to himself in the darkness. But the Treel had added one small scrap of information to his limited hoard. What had he said? Something about Bridger leading the Il Ronn to the "War World." The name was certainly ominous, and bore some rather obvious possibilities.
    Had Bridger's "Directory" somehow given him the location of an entire world? One developed by the Builders and dedicated to war? If so, and if the weapons on such a world were still intact,