“That will work, but it requires time for the correcting speech to be said, time in which weapons can be used against you.Avoid the damn rods!”
“This might help,” Corth II said as he sauntered up to join them. “The emergency essentials Martha called for, just in case the interference didn’t get turned off. Not exactly needed now—except for the confidence gained in having the right equipment at hand.”
The right equipment in this case was Dalden’s own sword and his intricately carved arm shields. Martha was mumbling about creating spectacles, but Dalden had gone into ignore-Martha mode as he stripped off his shirt and strapped on theTorenosteel arm shields that wrapped about his forearms from elbow to wrist. They were his only protection, but then not much more was needed with a four-foot sword in hand.Droda,it felt good clasping his fingers around that hilt again.
“I owe you,” Dalden told the android.
“Yes, you do, big-time.” Corth II grinned at him. “Just keep that in mind the next time I flirt with your beautiful lifemate.”
That got him a scowl, but Martha wasn’t done, and suggested in reasonable tones, “You could at least make an effort to conceal that ridiculously long instrument of death until you get close enough to Jorran to use it.”
“Martha is too cautious where her owner’s children are concerned,” Corth II pointed out, more as a reminder for Martha, since Dalden already knew it from firsthand experience. “She cannot be faulted for that. It is against her basic programming to allow anything to cause Tedra distress if she can prevent it. But now that the target has been located, there is no reason not to capture him with no holds barred. I’ll keep others from interfering.”
“No more stunning unless absolutely necessary,” Martha warned Corth II.
He just grinned cheekily and replied, “I have the third confiscated rod.”
“Then why didn’t you use it on those broadcast people outside?”
“Because we needed a guaranteed time frame, which the stunning has given us. Rod suggestions could have been countered, the machines fixed that I disabled, the interference turned on again—”
“All right already, I get thefardenpoint. Let’s wrap this up, children.”
Chapter 26
BRITTANY WAS NERVOUS AS ALL HELL,AND BEING AFRAIDthat it was obvious only increased it. She’d worn a pullover sweater today with her jeans, so she could conceal the Altering Rod up her sleeve for easy access. Since City Hall was air-conditioned, she’d figured she’d be okay in the thick winter sweater and had been comfortable—until she came face-to-face with Jorran. She was sweating now.
How did she get herself into this mess? This was no longer just helping a man she’d flipped over locate a wacko foreign thief. That had seemed easy, something anyone could have done, adventurous even. These people were dangerous. She had little doubt that the fat man’s “dispose of” was of the permanent sort. This was a play for power, serious power. With that kind of stake involved, they wouldn’t care who got hurt—or died—in the process.
And where the hell was Dalden? One of the newspeople had told the mayor they were having camera trouble, that someone had pulled the plug on their connection, so it would be a few more minutes before they were ready for his speech. That speech was going to turn this town upside down if Dalden didn’t do something before Sullivan had a chance to speak.
Or if she didn’t.
What would be the chance of her using the rod she had up her sleeve on Jorran before one of his two bruiser bodyguards put her out of commission? She wouldn’t have to say much, just tell him to call this off, well, maybe also mention that he didn’t want to be mayor—or president, maybe even suggest that he should go home.
She was standing close enough to him to do it. He’d moved in front of her, was so close that the few extra inches he had on her was blocking a good portion of the room from her view. But then the rotund fellow named Alrid was standing just as close to her at her back…
God, should she take the chance, or wait and see if Dalden was in the crowd gathering behind the camera-people? She peered over Jorran’s shoulder to get a better view of the room, hoping to spot the big guy, and caught her breath when she did. He was there and marching purposely toward the gathering in front of the mayor’s offices. But half naked and with a sword in his hand? Asword, for crying out loud?
Jorran had seen him, too. Jorran was smiling, not at all confused by what he was seeing the way she was. They knew each other. That was apparent. Perhaps Jorran hadn’t noticed the sword yet.
He turned to tell his men, “A Sha-Ka’ani warrior among us, how interesting. Do not interfere. This is going to be my pleasure.”
“Jorran, if there is one, there will be more.” There was distinct worry in Alrid’s voice, in his expression as well. “We should—”
“Enjoy the diversion,” Jorran cut in. “They are men, subject to the rods just like any other, and will make excellent bodyguards for me after my empire is established. But this one’s family thwarted my plans. This one dies. The rest that we find, we will tame.”
Such confidence went beyond mere bravery, it was certain knowledge of having ahugeadvantage. Brittany couldn’t see what that advantage might be. Jorran lacked the muscle, the height, the brawn to compete with someone of Dalden’s immense stature physically in close combat, which the sword Dalden held seemed to suggest he had in mind to do. How, then, did Jorran think to win without a gun or other long-distance-type weapon that could stop him before he was within arms’ reach? And he had no weapon of that sort…
He had something. It was taken from the pocket of his coat before he shrugged out of it and tossed it at Alrid. A tube of some sort, it looked like, no more than six inches in length, grasped in his right hand. But it wasn’t pointed at Dalden, it was squeezed, which caused an extension to shoot out of it, a little more than three feet of shining metal that was so thin, it could barely be seen if viewed from the side.
“What the hell is that?”
She said it aloud. Alrid heard her and answered, “A razor sword, capable of slicing a man in half with little effort. The Sha-Ka’ani is about to find that out.”
Brittany blanched, and was rendered nearly immobile by the accompanying weakness that spread through her limbs. Jorran had said it. Alrid had just confirmed it. The plan was to kill Dalden, not just stop him or use the rod on him.
It was so utterly bizarre, that scene in the middle of City Hall. A bare-chested giant in tight jeans and knee-high boots with what looked like an old-fashioned transistor radio hooked to his belt, a mammoth sword in hand. And what appeared to be no more than a simple businessman in tailored slacks, silk shirt, and tie, with something hooked to his belt as well, a round disk flat on the side facing him, the size of an orange—and a sword so thin it couldn’t really be called a sword, was more like an exaggerated razor blade.
