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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 62: Kondor 276
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Slade 271
Not certain where exactly to go, Kondor followed signs with arrows which he guessed were pointing to the merchandise pickup area. He apparently guessed right. They came to a room with a cage-like partition that reminded him of the evidence rooms on television police procedural shows. But the backdrop of even this utilitarian room was decorated in a way to shame a museum. The room door and the cage door were both ajar, and there was a young man sprawled on the floor inside the cage.
Kondor’s medical instincts kicked in. His medical kit was out in the trailer of his motorcycle, but his training predated the kit. He ran over to the man and made some initial checks--breathing, no obvious signs of blood, no sign of neck injury. “Can you hear me?” he asked.
Eyes opened. The man looked around, and abruptly sat up.
Reaching out with the mind link he had used so frequently in the last world, he tapped into the man’s speech center, and so was able to address him in French. “Take it easy. Where does it hurt?”
He rubbed his head. “I think she kicked me. I had just been packing up your vase, and she came in. Foolishly I had left the doors open--no one ever comes down here until after the auction, generally. I asked if I could help her, she said she didn’t think so, and then next thing I knew I was collapsing. Wait, where’s the vase?”
Well, at least Kondor wasn’t going to have to explain to C why he spent so much to get it.
“Zeke, we have to go.”
“Right,” Zeke said, and started rushing back toward the front door.
“Are you going to be alright?” Kondor asked the injured man.
“I think so,” he said.
“Then I’d better get moving.” He ran to try to catch up with Zeke.
The guards at the door had been knocked out, but Kondor didn’t pause to check on them. Zeke was already outside on his revving motorcycle, but for some reason waiting. Kondor raced over to his own, parked alongside him. Zeke briefed him.
“Red convertible sports car, small, ran out the drive as I arrived. It’s that girl you met, I think you said her name was Amanda?”
“Right. Go.”
As Zeke sped away, Kondor disconnected the trailer from his bike. The hitch dropped from hurried fingers, and clunked to the ancient pavement stones of the inner square. It flashed through his head to wonder whether there was anything in it he was going to need, and he paused to grab his guns. Then he leapt on the bike and shot after his partner, who was already out of sight out the gate.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
