Blackcollar

by Timothy Zahn

  Almost time. Gree punched in all but the last number, watching his old Army chrono and waiting for the exact second to complete the connection. As he did so, the half-completed order forms on the counter caught his eye, and he smiled.

  He’d best not swell his inventory too much more. He had an idea that the activity around Split would be breaking off very soon.

  CHAPTER 19

  THE TENSION IN THE conference room was thick enough to slice up and make into sandwiches. Gazing around the table, Caine saw nothing but hostility; from Bakshi’s icy expression to his blackcollars’ more open contempt to Jeremiah Dan’s steepled fingers with their white nails. Salli Quinlan and Miles Cameron had the look of lions awaiting their turn in the arena, and even Faye Picciano was unnaturally silent as she worked on Lathe’s burns. And Ral Tremayne, standing behind his chair, was as mad as Caine had ever seen a man get.

  “Soft probe. A look at the prison. Really cute.” Tremayne’s eyes bored into Lathe like twin antiarmor lasers. “What the hell did you expect to accomplish by that half-assed play?”

  “I got in and back out alive,” Lathe answered, wincing as Faye spread salve on his shoulder.

  “Hold still,” she chided. “This stuff’s expensive—we can’t afford to waste it on healthy skin.”

  “Or on stupid grandstanders. Put it away, Faye,” Tremayne ordered. “Save it for Radix people injured in the line of duty. You haven’t answered my question, Lathe.”

  “What are you griping about, Tremayne?” the comsquare said as Faye capped her tube of burn salve and began to bandage the skin already treated. “I don’t need your permission to take action as long as it doesn’t involve your people or equipment.”

  “What about the van you lost?” Cameron growled. “That was our equipment.” He glanced over irritably as Novak passed by along the nearby wall. “Will you two sit down, damn it?”

  Neither Mordecai nor Novak paid any attention, but continued their quiet wanderings. “They aren’t hurting anything,” Lathe told the intelligence chief. “And as for the van—”

  “I’d rather they sat.

  “All right, enough,” Tremayne snapped. “Forget the van. The issue—”

  “No, let’s not forget the van,” Lathe interrupted. His tone was suddenly hard. “We lost it because we were ambushed. And that means we were betrayed—by one of you.”

  “I’ve heard Commando Fuess’s report,” Tremayne said. “There’s no conclusive evidence of that.”

  Lathe glanced at Fuess, and Caine thought he saw the Argentian squirm a bit. “Did Commando Fuess mention they were on to us ten blocks from the Strip? And that they had their roadblocks all set up—complete with heavy mag-lock shackles, which I’m told are not standard patrol car equipment? How much evidence do you want?”

  “Someone could have seen you leave this morning,” Faye suggested.

  “That wouldn’t have given them enough time. Besides, I had people in the garage watching for that.”

  Tremayne slammed his fist on the table. “That does it, damn it.” Abruptly, he sat down and leveled a finger across the table at Lathe. “I’ve had it with taking you on faith and then watching you go off and work behind our backs. You’re going to tell us what you’re up to, and you’re going to tell us now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lathe shook his head.

  “You don’t have a choice.” Tremayne raised his hand.

  And in the side wall across from Caine three small sections of the woodwork suddenly swung inward. From the gloom behind the openings three laser rifles appeared.

  Caine froze, caught completely off-guard—but Novak was already moving. The blackcollar had been standing against the wall directly between two of the eye-level gunports, a meter and a half from either one; but almost before the rifles had steadied he’d taken a long step toward the one at his right and smashed the muzzle straight back into its port with his nunchaku. His back still to the wall, he reversed direction: two quick steps to his left, and his left leg snapped up and back in a hook kick, again jamming the protruding laser back into its owner. His nunchaku was spinning through the air before his foot was back on the floor, catching the last muzzle between the two sticks and slamming it against the edge of the port. The laser spat once, cutting a deep groove in the table. By the time the gunner recovered his aim Novak was there. Grabbing the muzzle, he first shoved and then pulled, and a second later was down on one knee with his prize pointing past the table. Caine glanced behind him, realizing only then that Mordecai had similarly taken out the three gunports on his side of the room.

  In the brittle silence Bakshi’s voice carried clearly: “Drop those guns or I’ll kill you.”

  Caine focused on him. The comsquare hadn’t moved, hadn’t drawn a single weapon; and yet, looking at his expression, Caine had no doubt he could carry out the threat. Suddenly the room felt very cold indeed.

  “Everyone just relax,” Lathe said calmly. “We’re not trying to take over. But I warned you against pulling weapons on us again.” He eyed the walls and jerked his head toward the door. “Out, all of you. Tremayne?”

  Glowering, the Radix leader gave a hand signal. Splitting neatly along lines in the woodwork, a door swung open around each of the gunports. Six men, nursing cut lips and sore shoulders, stepped from the dark alcoves and headed for the door. Lathe motioned, and the Plinry blackcollars returned the captured lasers to their owners.

  “We’ll have no more of this eavesdropping,” Lathe said as the door closed behind the guards.

  “Don’t worry,” Cameron growled. “Those men are completely trustworthy.”

  “No one on Argent is completely trustworthy,” Lathe said, “and before you get your hackles up I simply mean we’re too small a group to take the wrong chance twice. That’s why we didn’t tell anyone about our plans this morning. I’m sorry if you feel offended, but that’s how we have to operate here.”

  “It’s not a matter of wounded pride, Damon,” Faye spoke up. “Whatever you were trying to do in Henslowe, chances are Miles could have made things easier for you if you’d consulted with him beforehand. Were you hoping to find where a particular prisoner was being kept? If so, we could probably have gotten that for you from out here.”

  Lathe shrugged noncommittally. “There’ll be other chances.”

  “Not if I know Apostoleris,” Bakshi said. “He’s bound to move the vets now—and wherever they’re put it’ll cost us a lot of lives to get them out. That’s what your private raid really accomplished.”

  “Perhaps,” Lathe admitted. “If so, I’m sorry. Where would the vets be sent—any ideas?”

  “Cerbe Prison’s their best bet,” Faye said. “It’s an old fortress southeast of here, out in the middle of nowhere. Smallish building, four floors up and six down, surrounded by a walled courtyard big enough to land a Corsair in. The wall’s got a weapons turret at each corner, controlled either from inside or from the main building.”

  “If the quizlers put them there you might as well pack up and leave,” Dael Valentine interjected, his face stormy above his black turtleneck. “In fact, maybe you ought to leave anyway.”

  “Easy, Dael,” Bakshi murmured.”

  “Sorry, Comsquare, but I’m getting sick of this. We give them safety and information by the truckload and get absolutely nothing in return.”

  Bakshi cocked an eyebrow at Lathe. “You care to respond?”

  “Certainly. If you’d open your eyes and imagination you’d see useful fallout from our work all around you.”

  “What fallout?” Valentine snorted.

  “Well, for lack of a more obvious example, we just demolished a gate into the Strip. Someone’s got to rebuild it, and one or two of those someones could build miniature mines into the hinges. You’d then have a one-shot chance later to bring a carload of stolen parts or whatever out of the Strip without having to actually ram the gate.”

  From the looks and murmurs around the table it was clear no one had thought of th
at. Tremayne and Bakshi exchanged glances, and Caine saw the blackcollar nod fractionally.

  “Do you promise to consult with us—or at least me—before any further actions?” Tremayne asked.

  “If it involves Radix personnel, yes,” Lathe said promptly. “Assuming there’s time, of course. Otherwise, I claim the right to act unilaterally.”

  “That’s not good enough,” Valentine shook his head.

  Lathe shrugged. “It’s the best I can offer.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence. “All right,” Tremayne said at last. “I guess I can see your side of it. But—” He leveled a finger at Lathe. “We can play by military rules too. If any Radix member gets killed because you didn’t consult with us you’ll face a summary court-martial. I mean it.”

  “Understood. You’ll let us know right away about any prisoner transfer?”

  Tremayne looked at Cameron. “Yeah, I’ll get some people on that,” the intelligence chief growled.

  “Good. Anything new at the Chryselli front?”

  “The fighting’s still going on,” Salli Quinlan spoke up, somewhat grudgingly. “Argent’s not about to be flooded with returning Ryqril, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I was,” Lathe acknowledged. “Thank you.” He started to stand up.

  “Just a second,” Valentine objected. “Assuming it’s not tied up with this precious mission of yours, I want to know how Caine did his vanishing act from Earth.” He sent Caine a baleful glance. “Fair is fair—you don’t trust us, either.”

  “A government man was kidnapped by our people,” Caine said evenly. “His ID was altered, and somehow the computer records were also changed.”

  “ ‘Somehow’? You’ll have to do better than that.”

  “I don’t know how it was done—”

  “Oh, that’s helpful. Very convenient, too.”

  Caine felt his face getting red. “I’m an agent, not one of the leaders. They don’t tell me everything.”

  “That’s no better an explanation,” Cameron said, getting into the act.

  “Just a minute,” Lathe interrupted. “I think I may know how they did it.” He hesitated, not meeting Caine’s puzzled frown.

  “Well?” Tremayne prompted.

  “Near the end of the war someone apparently broke the old problem of short lifetimes for human clones….”

  With a kind of numb horror Caine listened as Lathe outlined his theory. It was a possibility that had never occurred to him. His parents, the Resistance people who’d trained him—none of them had ever hinted that he was anything special. But it made sense…and the more he considered it, the more sense it made. There was no other way to explain how Rienzi’s medical records had been such a perfect fit for him. No wonder Kratochvil and Marinos had been so casual about the ID records—all the hard work had been done twenty-seven years earlier!

  Lathe finished, and for a moment there was silence. “Well, it’s an interesting theory,” Tremayne said at last. “Unprovable, of course.”

  “I only offered it as a possibility,” Lathe reminded him.

  “Yes. I suppose we’ll have to settle for that.” Tremayne glanced at Valentine, but the blackcollar offered no objection. “All right, then. We’ll let you know about the vets; and you’ll let us know your plans for getting them out.”

  Lathe nodded. “As I said I would.”

  The meeting broke up, and Caine headed straight for the door. He wanted to be alone, to sort all this out in privacy…before he reached the door Novak and Mordecai had fallen into step with him. He ignored them as he strode out into the hall. A clone. A duplicate person—and if one, why not more? He’d assumed the personal tutelage had been a normal part of Resistance agent training. But now he doubted that. Special treatment went with special tools. How many more Allen Caine Specials were there on Earth, being as carefully maneuvered through life as he had been?

  A puppet, that’s what he was. A clone-puppet, his broken strings picked up by Lathe and Radix.

  A clone. I should feel something, he told himself dully. Anger; resentment. He’d been lied to his whole life; a piece of biological merchandise told he was a human being while everyone else chuckled at his naïveté. At the very least, he thought, I should feel shame. But all he had was numbness—numbness and the knowledge he still had a job to do. His conditioning was too good to fall apart over even a revelation like this.

  “Caine?”

  The figure waiting across from the blackcollars’ room stepped forward. Stopping, Caine pulled his mind back from its brooding and forced his eyes to focus.

  It was Lianna Rhodes, the Radix leader from Janus. “What?” he growled.

  “I’d like to talk to you a moment,” she said.

  The last thing in the universe he wanted at the moment was to talk to an Argentian, and he was opening his mouth to say so when Mordecai butted in. “Probably shouldn’t,” he muttered.

  Something deep within Caine flipped polarity. “Sure,” he told Lianna instead. “Come on in.”

  Just this once, the puppet was going to handle his own strings.

  If Mordecai was upset by the decision, he didn’t show it, and Novak similarly made no comment as he unlocked the door and slipped inside for a quick check. Once inside, Caine led Lianna to a pair of chairs near the window. The two blackcollars made no effort to follow them, but took up their usual positions near the door.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked, motioning the girl to one of the chairs as he sank into the other. Over her shoulder he could see Novak and Mordecai and realized that he’d instinctively seated Lianna with her back to them, allowing the lip-reading blackcollars to confirm he wasn’t giving away any secrets and putting her into the worst possible combat position. Even in a rebellious mood, he couldn’t shake his training.

  So much for handling his own strings.

  “Caine—”

  “Allen.”

  “Whatever. Look, we’ve been stuck here for a week now, waiting on thin-shelled eggs for something to happen. My men are getting bored and edgy—a combination I hate. We’ve heard about that crazy raid of yours, and rumors are flying about a massive assault against Henslowe Prison. I need to know whether or not that’s true.”

  “I don’t know, but I doubt it. Certainly, not any time soon.”

  “So what are you planning?”

  Caine shook his head. “Sorry, but the mission’s still confidential.”

  “I’m not asking about your damn mission,” she snapped. “I don’t really care what you and your hotshots are up to. All I want to know is how my men are going to be involved, because I’m not going to throw them blindly into something unless I know their chances of coming out alive.”

  Caine looked at her with sudden insight. The slightly sarcastic manner with which she faced the world—it wasn’t impatience or ego. It was fear. Fear for herself, perhaps; more likely fear for her people. To lead a resistance cell on a world like Argent was a heavy responsibility. “You must care a lot about your men,” he said. “That’s the sign of a good leader.”

  Her lip curled. “Yeah,” she said, almost harshly.

  “I meant that as a compliment,” he told her, frowning.

  “I know.” She dropped her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m…I don’t plan to be a leader much longer. Or a follower, for that matter.”

  Caine blinked. “You’re quitting Radix?”

  She nodded. “Just as soon as someone’s willing to take over Janus sector. Why? Is that so strange?”

  “I thought your father….” He trailed off, not knowing a safe way to end the sentence.

  She raised her eyes again, and he was struck by the bitterness there. “Yes, my father did raise me to be a good Radix member. It’s about all he ever did for me.” She shifted her gaze to the window. “Radix was my father’s whole life. He never gave my mother and me enough of himself. It hurt Mom terribly. I hated him for a long time because of that.” She rubbed a finger across her lips,
almost savagely. “I’m not going to make that mistake. I’m getting out now, before the damn thing takes over my life.”

  “Why are you still here, then?” he asked after a moment.

  A sardonic smile. “I guess that’s something I got from both of them: a sense of duty. I have to stick with it until someone can do my job.” She shook her head. “Look, I didn’t come here to cry on your shoulder. All I want to know is what kind of risks my men will have to face.”

  He’d almost forgotten her original question. Meeting her gaze with his own, he tried to think.

  What could he say? He didn’t have the foggiest idea what Lathe intended to do—and even if he did he couldn’t risk telling Lianna. Not that she was particularly untrustworthy; his instincts felt better about her than many others he’d met in Radix. But instinct wasn’t enough to go on here. For an instant he saw in her his own demand to know more about Dodds’s mysterious mission, and abruptly felt a twinge of sympathetic pain. Her responsibilities were every bit as important to her as Caine’s were to him, and she was even more in the dark than he was.

  And he had to leave her there. “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you anything that’ll help you. All I can do is promise you won’t be put into action without some kind of information.”

  Nodding heavily, her lips pressed tightly together, Lianna stood up. “I expected that answer, but it was worth a try,” she said as Caine got to his feet as well. For a moment she impaled him with her eyes. “Just remember that this can’t stay under your armor forever…and if we’re being set up for a slaughter you’ll have more trouble than you want. Rural Radix cells like mine are pretty tight; we don’t take orders well from outsiders when we don’t know what’s going on. I don’t care if I get the explanation five days or five minutes in advance—but I have to have it sometime. Keep that in mind.”

  Nodding to him, she turned and walked away. He stayed where he was, watching as she exchanged nods with the blackcollars and left. The door thunked solidly behind her, and Mordecai sent a questioning look at Caine. “Well?”