Liam glanced quickly at Mary and curled his lip in a sneer. “Ahh, he’s just in it for the crack.” In Irish
“Hush, you!” Mary said. Then, turning to me, “And I’ll thank you to control yourself as well. This is serious business. Liam, I’ll vouch for the man. Give him the package.”
Liam’s hands appeared at last. They held something the size of a biscuit tin. It was wrapped in white paper and tied up with string. He slid it across the bar.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a device,” Liam said. “Properly deployed, it can implode the entire administrative complex at Shannon Starport without harming a single civilian.”
My flesh ran cold.
“So you want me to plant this in the ’port, do yez?” I said. For the first time in weeks, I became aware of the falseness of my accent. Impulsively, I pulled the neuropendant from beneath my shirt, dropped it on the floor, and stepped on it. Whatever I said here, I would say it as myself. “You want me to go in there and fucking
“No, of course not,” Mary said. “We have a soldier in place for that. But he—”
“Or she,” Liam amended.
“—or she isn’t in a position to smuggle this in. Human employees aren’t allowed to bring in so much as a pencil. That’s how little the Outsiders think of us. You, however, can. Just take the device through their machines—it’s rigged to read as a box of cigars—in your carry-on. Once you’re inside, somebody will come up to you and ask if you remembered to bring something for granny. Hand it over.”
“That’s all,” Liam said.
“You’ll be halfway to Jupiter before anything happens.”
They both looked at me steadily. “Forget it,” I said. “I’m not killing any innocent people for you.”
“Not people. Aliens.”
“They’re still innocent.”
“They wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t seized the planet. So they’re not innocent.”
“You’re a nation of fucking werewolves!” I cried. Thinking that would put an end to the conversation.
But Mary wasn’t fazed. “That we are,” she agreed. “Day by day, we present our harmless, domestic selves to the world, until one night the beast comes out to feed. But at least we’re not sheep, bleating complacently in the face of the butcher’s knife. Which are you, my heart’s beloved? A sheep? Or could there be a wolf lurking deep within?”
“He can’t do the job,” Liam said. “He’s as weak as watered milk.”
“Shut it. You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Mary fixed me with those amazing eyes of hers, as green as the living heart of Ireland, and I was helpless before them. “It’s not weakness that makes you hesitate,” she said, “but a foolish and misinformed conscience. I’ve thought about this far longer than you have, my treasure. I’ve thought about it all my life. It’s a holy and noble thing that I’m asking of you.”
“I—”
“Night after night, you’ve sworn you’d do anything for me—not with words, I’ll grant you, but with looks, with murmurs, with your soul. Did you think I could not hear the words you dared not say aloud? Now I’m calling you on all those unspoken promises. Do this one thing—if not for the sake of your planet, then for me.”
All the time we’d been talking, the men sitting at their little tables hadn’t made a noise. Nor had any of them turned to face us. They simply sat hunched in place—not drinking, not smoking, not speaking. Just listening. It came to me then how large they were, and how still. How alert. It came to me then that if I turned Mary down, I’d not leave this room alive.
So, really, I had no choice.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “And God damn you for asking me to.”
Mary went to hug me and I pushed her roughly away. “No! I’m doing this thing for you, and that puts us quits. I never want to see you or think of you again.”
For a long, still moment, Mary studied me calmly. I was lying, for I’d never wanted her so much as I did in that instant. I could see that she knew I was lying, too. If she’d let the least sign of that knowledge show, I believe I would have hit her. But she did not. “Very well,” she said. “So long as you keep your word.”
She turned and left and I knew I would never see her again.
Liam walked me to the door. “Be careful with the package outside in the rain,” he said, handing me an umbrella. “It won’t work if you let it get damp.”
I was standing in Shannon Starport, when Homeworld Security closed in on me. Two burly men in ITSA uniforms appeared to my either side and their alien superior said, “Would you please come with us, sir.” It was not a question.
Oh, Mary, I thought sadly. You have a traitor in your organization. Other than me, I meant. “Can I bring my bag?”
“We’ll see to that, sir.”
I was taken to their interrogation room.
