The Assassin's Salvation (Mandrake Company) by Ruby Lionsdrake Page B

and dropped a hand onto the downsider’s shoulder. Sergei looked at Ankari before releasing the man.
    “We’ll handle this,” one of them told Ankari, picking her out as the leader. “We apologize for your inconvenience.”
    Ankari hesitated, then nodded once. Sergei let the man go.
    Ankari watched the downsiders being hauled off, a puzzled expression on her face, as if she would have liked the answers to a few questions too. She frowned down at the briefcase that she hadn’t relinquished, even though two of those men had desperately tried to steal it. “I don’t get it. It’s empty.”
    “Maybe they thought it was still full of specimens,” Jamie said. “That it could help them somehow.”
    “How would they even know about that meeting and our business?” Ankari gazed back down the sidewalk, though the hospital had long since disappeared from view, dwarfed by the skyscrapers and floating houses all around.
    “Unknown.” Sergei was giving Ankari a curious look. “Mandrake didn’t say that you were a mashatui practitioner.”
    Ankari waved a hand in dismissal. “My father taught us all some when we were kids.”
    Jamie felt a twinge of envy at Sergei’s appreciative nod and looked down at the multitool she was still clutching. When it came to skirmishes, she didn’t have a clue how to help. What she had told Sergei about her father was true, but he had never shown his daughters how to fight, having some notion that ladies shouldn’t have to defend themselves, that some man should do it for them, not that a lot of battles had broken out in their quiet community.
    Jamie stuffed the tool back in her pocket, lest she look foolish for holding it as if it were a weapon.
    “It’s good that you’re able to defend yourself, Ankari,” Sergei said, then lifted a hand toward Jamie. “Are you all right? Were you injured?”
    Jamie resisted the urge to dust off her backside—everything in the city was clean, so it wasn’t as if she had gum or dirt sticking to her coveralls now. “I’m fine. They just surprised me.”
    Sergei nodded. At least there wasn’t anything dismissive or disappointed in his eyes, not that Jamie could read.
    “We should return to the ship,” he said.
    “No objections here,” Ankari said and led the way. If the attack had rattled her at all, it didn’t show.
    Jamie sighed, wishing for some of that composure. She wasn’t a shaking mess, but the incident had disturbed her. She wanted to know why those people had attacked her, why anyone would want to attack her. No, she hadn’t been the focus. It had been Ankari. An odd number of people seemed interested in her. Jamie didn’t think this attack had anything to do with her relationship to Captain Mandrake, either.
    “I’m going to call Viktor,” Ankari said when they turned onto the wide promenade where the ships were docked. “See if he’s done with his visit to the planet yet.”
    “Do you think he would have mentioned our business to someone?” Jamie asked.
    Ankari looked sharply at her. “I hadn’t been thinking that at all, actually, but maybe someone who went with him did.”
    “Striker?”
    Ankari snorted. “Striker does have a big mouth, but I don’t think he understands the business—or cares enough to try to understand it—so I doubt he was the one getting the natives excited about the idea of microbiota transplants.”
    Someone had set up carnival games at the far end of the promenade, and two mechanical elephants tramped around, giving kids rides. Vendors hawked smaller versions of the elephants, along with flying parrots, some real and some mechanical. Robots selling ice cream and cotton candy rolled through the area. It all seemed ludicrous compared to the poverty that must exist on the continents below.
    The ramp to the shuttle was down, so the earlier client must have left. Ankari headed straight up to access the comm. Sergei stopped at the bottom, apparently intending to stand guard from outside. Jamie