Orca by Steven Brust Page A

respect, my lord, you tire me.”
    “Tough. You’ve got your orders, my lord lieutenant. Carry them out.”
    “All right, all right. You know how much I love legwork, and I know how much you care about what I love. I’ll wait until his interview is over, then pick him up. Should I bring some backup?”
    “Yeah. Take Timmer; she’s good at tailing, and she hasn’t stirred her butt since she’s been here.”
    “Okay. What should I tell Birdie about the interview?”
    “Play it straight, see what he has to say, and try to keep the bell ringing.”
    “Huh?”
    “Battle of Waterford Landing, Domm. Tenth Cycle, early Dragon Reign. A border skirmish between a couple of Lyorn over rights to—”
    “Oh, now that’s extremely useful, Loftis. Thanks. Why don’t you skip the history, and the obscure references, and just tell me what you want Birdie to do.”
    “I mean Birdie should try to get him talking, and then just keep drawing him out until there isn’t anything left to draw.”
    “And if he won’t be drawn?”
    “Then that’ll tell us something, too.”
    “Okay.”
    “You got to admit this is better than just sitting here day after day pretending. At least it’s doing something.”
    “I suppose. Mind if I put him in front of the queue so I don’t have to wait all night?”
    “Yeah, I mind. Nothing to make him suspicious. You can put him in front of the Teckla if you want.”
    “Okay. Hey, Loftis.”
    “Yeah?”
    “You ever wonder why?”
    “Why what? Why we got the word?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s a laugh. I haven’t been doing anything but wondering why for the last two weeks.”
    “Yeah.”
    They stopped talking. I moved my head forward, replaced the Phoenix Stone around my neck, and didn’t look as someone I didn’t recognize walked out of the door and across the hall. An instant later he came back. I watched him, as did all of the others who were waiting, but he didn’t look at me at all. Assuming that was Domm, my opinion of him went up a bit—it isn’t easy to avoid taking even a quick glance at someone you’re going to be following in a few minutes. I got the uncomfortable feeling that I was dealing with professionals here. I sat there trying to decide if I should skip out now, which would mean I wouldn’t have to worry about losing the tail and would give them something to wonder about, or if I should go ahead and let them interview me, and hope to pick up more information that way. I decided to gamble, because, now that I had a better idea of what was going on, as well as how they were going to handle me, I felt like I could maybe learn a bit. I was glad Domm had demanded the explanation for “keep ringing the bell,” because it would have been a mistake to have asked Loftis myself. Someone else showed up, went into the room I’d just come out of, then emerged and took a seat next to me. We didn’t speak. None of us had so much as made eye contact with any of the others. But as I sat there waiting for about an hour and a half planning what kind of story I was going to tell them, I didn’t get any less nervous.
    When they finally called out “Kaldor,” it took me a moment to realize that was the name I’d given them. I tell you, Kiera, I’m not made for a life of deception. But I shuffled into the office, still taking long strides and swaggering, but shuffling, too, if you can imagine it, where sat a fairly young, competent-looking Lyorn behind yet another desk. I’ve been seeing a great number of desks lately—it makes me miss my own. I don’t know what it is about a desk that gives one a feeling of power—perhaps it is that, when you are facing someone behind a desk, you don’t know what is concealed within it; the contents of a desk can be worse than a nest of yendi. The chair he pointed me to was another of the inevitable plain, wooden chairs—there’s something about those, too, now that I think of it.
    He said, “I am the Baron of Daythiefnest. You are